As soon as they walked in, one of the boys began to tell them all to be quiet and silence fell as they turned to look at the pair entering. Never a good sign.
"No way." Hyunkyu was saying, his voice much louder than the others, who had reduced their comments to whispers and murmurs as they glanced between their phone and the girls at the door - focus clearly on Jugyeong.
"What's going on?" Miyeon asked, voice ringing out across the room, louder than Hyunkyu's and the whispers.
"It's very different." Someone else was saying. Laughter came from one of the girls, and looking up Miyeon could see a crowd gathering at the door.
Sooa approached them, phone in hand and looking incredibly betrayed. "Jugyeong." She began. "Is this really you?"
Jugyeong's arm slipped away from Miyeon's, both of their gazes directed to the screen of Sooa's phone as she held it up.
Breath caught in Miyeon's throat and her mouth went dry, swallowing harshly to try and remedy it. She had seen the pictures just a few nights before. It was the ones that Semi used to try and show Seojun that Jugyeong was a completely different person.
'The real face of Saebom High's Im Jugyeong' the title read, above a picture of what was clearly Suho and Jugyeong kissing on a staircase somewhere.
Then, a picture of the Im girl on her knees beside a destroyed box. 'She was the dumpling girl before she transferred. You guys will faint when you see this. She's mad ugly. It's all makeup.' The girls read, before Sooa scoffed and pulled away her phone, pushing past Jugyeong and out of the classroom.
"Jugyeong - Jugyeong hey.." Miyeon began, the Im girl frozen in place, eyes filled with terror as the stable life that her new start had brought start to crumble.
Muttering began again, comments about Jugyeong's appearance as the girl in question stood frozen. Miyeon felt so incredibly bad for her, the Im girl stood like a deer in headlights in front of her entire class as they poked fun at how she looked before.
Rushed breathing came from the girl, bottom lip wavering and eyes filing with tears. And then Jugyeong turned away, pushing past the crowd by the door.
"Hwang Miyeon, aren't you shocked?" One of the girls came up to her and took her arm. "She's been lying to us all the whole time - it's all makeup."
Miyeon pulled her arm out of her grasp, the girl gasping at the sudden movement and looked around, shaking her head. "Are you all really that shallow?" She asked, rhetorical question pumping in her ears. "Have you ever thought about maybe why she came to this school looking like a different person? So she could avoid all this bullshit!"
She twisted around to leave the room, eyes setting on a girl sat in a dark navy coat. Miyeon hadn't noticed Soojin sat there before, but now that she did she saw an attempted hidden smug expression on her face.
Shaking her head slightly at the girl, knowing that somewhere along the line Soojin had something to do with it, Miyeon rushed back out of the classroom, following the way that Jugyeong had gone.
Twisting around a corner she saw Jugyeong be pushed down by another boy, Suho approached at the cleared end of the corridor. He kneeled beside her, Miyeon pushing her way to the front of the crowd and watching as Jugyeong hit away Suho's hand and rushing away.
It was as simple as a post on the school's social media boards to bring the security that Jugyeong's makeup abilities had brought. And the two people she trusted the most were left behind to try and help deal with the outcome.
And whilst Suho would most likely focus on trying to rid the school of the graffitied posters Miyeon had run past, the Hwang girl had different plans that probably involved Seojun.
She knew that he would help her in finding out who had posted the pictures and created this mess. She had her bets on Park Semi or Kang Soojin.
And she really hoped it wasn't the latter.
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