FLOWER | Winrina

Chapter 1

They walked out of the parking lot and headed for the school, passing groups of people that they had no interest in talking to. Jimin knew most of them if she was being honest, though. She paid a lot of attention to people at her school.

There were the quiet, but close-knit people like Seulgi and Joy, who had been best friends for years. Then there were girls like Harper and her gal pals, who talked in small groups and giggled about whatever it was they talked about. Then there were the sporty guys, and the sporty girls, and the stuck up girls... Jimin could name a lot of them, but she didn't really care enough to.

"Are you excited for junior year?" Jeno questioned politely, smiling at the black-haired girl. Jimin managed a small smile back.

"I don't know yet. It's going to be just like any other school year, except with the PSAT and the SAT and AP tests..."

"Way to focus on the negative," Jeno teased. "Come on, you know it's not going to be awful."

"Actually, I don't know anything for sure," Jimin countered, smirking. "I guess we'll find out eventually though, right?" Jeno smiled and nodded.

Jimin looked ahead of her as she entered the school, her eyes dragging over groups of people and wondering what it would be like if she were part of a big friend group like she had imagined she would in high school.

It was hard to do, especially after her long summer. "Your locker stayed the same?" Jeno questioned as they turned the same corner that they had turned for two years in a row to get to their lockers.

"Yep," Jimin answered, giving him a sidelong glance, "yours?"

"Yeah," Jeno answered, flashing her a wide smile.

Their lockers were only a few lockers apart, and it had been that way ever since freshman year. Jimin gave her best friend a small smile in return and located her same old locker.

Turning the dial carefully, she unlocked the metal case just as the first bell rang.

Jimin exhaled slowly. School was officially back. "Hey, do you want to meet up during lunch?"

"Yeah, sure," Jimin answered, not really paying attention to what he was saying. She was back to feeling dreary about school starting.

"Cool, text me when you get out of your free period?" Jeno asked, his voice sounding hopeful like it did every time he asked her to hang out. 

"Sure," Jimin answered, giving him a lame half smile before finishing up at her locker - unloading the textbooks for the second half of her day and shoving them into the case - and then closing it.

"See you." She heard him say goodbye to her as she was walking away, and she started toward her new first period.

As she entered the room, her eyes scanned over the people involuntarily.

She caught on some faces she remembered, and some that she didn't particularly care to remember.

The room wasn't by any means quiet. Friends were catching up and chatting endlessly, a two girls in the corner were talking significantly louder than the rest of the class. Jimin eyed them wordlessly, wondering if they were trying to be obnoxious or if they were just loud people.

She recognized them after a second though - Uchinaga Aeri and her best friend Ning Yi Zhuo. They were two of those people who you sometimes just couldn't take your eyes off of, because they were quirky and loud but they couldn't care less what people thought of them.

She sort of admired that.

Jimin and her shy self sat down in the back of the classroom, near Aeri and Ning, but not adjacent.