1996 | Y.Jw

| 18 |

I immediately threw myself into her arms, getting a tight hug from her. She had been given some pleated skirt, with these black long socks underneath, I think Soomin had called them nylon tights. On top she was wearing a sweatshirt, a lot like the one Jungwon had been given, hers were just light grey, and over it she wore a jacket that looked way too big.

"Sunoo went to go get Riki and Emiko," she quietly excused and pointed in the direction of where Emiko was coming running from. She had been given a pair of pants that looked way too big for her, meanwhile she wore what looked like a black top and this checkered shirt that was way too big as well.

"You're never gonna guess what I had for breakfast," Emiko gushed as she reached us, "Heeseung called them pancakes. They were sooooo good. I'll get him to make them for you as well."

"You know, a lot of people knows what pancakes are... maybe not speak of it so loudly," Jay remarked as he wandered up to us and ruffled Emiko's hair while Heeseung followed behind him, along with Jake and Sunghoon.

"What did you do to the rest?" Heeseung frowned.

"Sunoo went to go get Riki and Emiko," Lin excused and pointed to Sunoo, who was wandering to us along with Riki.

"And I ran away from Jungwon," I excused and turned around to look for Jungwon, who looked to be sulking as he walked up to me and shoved the red backpack into my hands.

"I'll show you to the administration office," Jay decided as he waved for us to come along, "who of you were 18?"

"Just Lin and I," Sunoo spoke up and Jay immediately nodded.

"You'll have to appear as 12th graders. We call them seniors. The rest of us are seniors as well. Soomin, Millie, Jake, Heeseung, Sunghoon and I," Jay clarified and Sunoo immediately nodded, "The rest of you are younger right?"

"17 and 16," Emiko nodded as confirmation.

"The ones of you that are 17 will be 11th graders, you qualify as juniors... and the ones of you that are 16, are 10th graders and sophomore students," Jay explained and the others quickly nodded.

"Why do they have different names?" I frowned in confusion.

"I don't think there's a good reason," Jay shrugged.

"What do you do after grade 12?" Lin frowned as well.

"Most people go to college or start working," Jay remarked and pointed to Jungwon's sweatshirt, "Soomin's older sibling went there," he remarked and everyone else looked at Jungwon's sweatshirt, "read philosophy."

The insides of the building looked a lot like how we had been shown in the educational videos at the lab. Students rushing everywhere, grey lockers lining the hallways, a tiled floor exchanging between grey and black tiles, I suppose the grey tiles once had been white by the look of their uneven coloring.

"The administrations office is in here. They'll give you their schedules and show you to the classrooms... Jake mentioned you about doing your magic when it came to this part," Jay waved it off and we immediately nodded, "alright... I'll be going to class then..."

Hesitantly Jay left us out on the hallway before Sunoo calmly opened the door to the administration office, making a woman look at us with a funny look on her face.

"May I help you?" she questioned.

"We're new students. We're here to pick up our schedules," Sunoo excused and the woman immediately frowned.

"We have no new students registered," she commented.

"Yeah you do," Sunoo nodded and looked towards Jungwon, who just shrugged while the woman looked at the screen in front of her, tapping away at a rectangular square with letters and numbers on it.

"Ah, right... six new students?" she questioned and Sunoo immediately nodded, "William Kim, Liv Zhu, Niki Nishimura, Emmie Hakamoto, Johnny Yang and Jillian Choi?" she questioned and we all nodded at her, "alright... I have three different schedules for you. If you'll all follow me."

The woman quickly picked up three different pieces of paper and wandered past us out on the hallway once again as a loud clock began ringing. Beside me Lin jumped a bit and looked to me with widened eyes.

"Heeseung said it signals when classes start and end," Emi excused quietly to us as we followed the woman down the hallway.

"I see that William and Lily will be in one of our 12th grade classes," the woman spoke up and Lin immediately snapped her head over to her, "your classrooms is located at the far end, so we'll be showing Johnny and Jillian to their classrooms first, alright?"

Jungwon immediately turned to me with a wide smile before happily grabbing onto my sleeve and excitedly tugging on it.

"What?" I chuckled quietly as he began smiling.

"We'll be going to normal school now," he whispered, "we're normal kids."

"So?" I murmured in amusement, not fully understanding his excitement.

"This is what we've dreamed about, Jiyeon... don't you see?" he whispered excitedly, "this is what we wanted."

I only smiled in return and let the woman show us to our classroom. The classroom was much bigger and with much more children in it than I had ever considered possible. Jungwon had held my hand tightly when we had been left at the class - knowing how nervous many people made me. We had been forced to introduce ourselves to the class, where I almost had forgotten the English name I had been given, had Jungwon not been quick enough and nudge my shoulder to make me remember.