Rival

"It's our graduating year! It'll all be fun and parties that's what." -Gin

Bom’s POV

                As soon as I got off the bus I broke into a run. I double checked on the bus which classroom I was supposed to go to on the first day. I rushed towards the front door of the school, pulled the doors open and ran inside. There was no one in sight, which was a bad sign. It meant that no one was late except for me. And just my luck, my homeroom was upstairs.

                I took no more than ten seconds running up the stairs, going up two stairs in one step.

                I raced down the hall way, making sure I didn’t make too much noise. I ran down the hall way and finally reached the classroom I was supposed to be in long before.

                I opened the door gently, not wanting to make a sudden, rude entry.

                The teacher was in the midst of talking. She was a short, Asian woman who gave me a glance.

                “Ah…” she said as she grabbed her clipboard and looked through it, “you must be…Bomi right?”

                “Yes…uh, just Bom would be fine,” I panted still out of breath, “sorry I’m late.”

                “Don’t worry about it,” she shook it off gently. She took a pencil and put a checkmark beside my name for today’s attendance, “your friend already told me you were late because of the bus.”

               I looked around in the classroom and found Hyori in the middle. There was an empty desk beside she saved for me. Behind her was Jung-woo and Gin. They both gave me a pleasant grin.

                I quickly walked up to her and sat down.

                “Thanks,” I told her.

                “You’re welcome,” she muttered back. She gave me an exasperated look that I haven’t seen for a while, “you are so late.”

                “Yeah, Bom, so late,” Gin imitated Hyori. Jung-woo simply looked at me and smiled.

                “As I was saying,” the women continued, “you can address me as Mrs. Lin, I will be your homeroom teacher. Now I will be handing out your timetables since everyone’s here.”

                She got a neat pile of papers off of her desk and started handing it out to each student in alphabetical order.

                Jung-woo was one of the first to get his timetable since his last name started with a ‘b,’ for Baek. He looked down and grinned slightly.

                Afterwards was Gin.

                The teacher called him by only his first name. Hyori smirked at this and so did the teacher. There must have been something I missed while I was late. He looked through his timetable quickly and smiled widely, ignoring Hyori and Jung-woo’s teasing grin.

                “Yes! Got every subject I wanted all in the first semester,” he rejoiced and forcefully swapped his timetable with Jung-woo’s, "no socials nor science until second semester."

                “If you got everything you want in semester one you’re going to have a hard time surviving semester two,” Hyori warned.

                “It’s our graduating year,” Gin argued, “how hard can it be? It’ll all be fun and parties that’s what.”

                Hyori opened her mouth to possibly tell Gin that their last high school year wasn’t going to be all ‘fun and parties,’ and that it would be their most important part of their life where they would  have to choose their path of education but she fell silent, perhaps deciding that it was better not to ruin Gin’s good mood.

                Right afterwards was Bom, her last name being ‘h,’ for Hwang. 

                “Jung-woo and I got… English together and Gym together,” Gin asked, “what about you?”

                “Er…Just English I think,” I looked at my timetable before Gin snatched it out of my hands, “I have gym next semester.”

                “No way,” Gin grinned, “me and you have Math together. Looks like I’m not going to have any problem passing math this semester.”

                “I’m not going to give you my answers,” I growled.

                “Sure,” Gin smiled but didn’t seem to believe me.

                I sighed as Hyori ‘Park,’ got called up.

                “We all have English together!” Hyori announced and gave her timetable to Gin.

                “You and Bom have Mandarin together,” Gin pointed out.

                “Sweet,” I smiled and Hyori nodded.

                “Why would you bother learning such a hard language?” Gin sighed, “Bom, you’re going to have a hard time pronouncing all…that. Like ching chang chong.”

                “Don’t worry,” Hyori reassured me, “I’ll help you,” then she gave Gin a dirty look, “Mandarin is not a waste of time! It is one of the most useful languages you can learn!”

                “Psh I didn’t say it was a waste of time,” Gin grinned, “just said it’s hard.”

                “You asked her why she even bothers to learn it,” Hyori clarified, “that basically asking her why she would waste her time by learning that.”

                “Well…you got to admit, I do have a point.”

                “Just because you have a brain the size of pea doesn’t mean others aren’t capable of learning a difficult Asian language. And just because it’s difficult does not make the subject exactly useless,” Hyori stated her point.

                “I’m learning a much useful language,” Gin sat up straight, choosing not to respond to Hyori’s long lecture.

                “What?” I inquired.

                “Japanese,” he answered as if it should be obvious choice for every student, “it’s easy! Just read it out and boom! It’s a subject that guarantees a percentage above ninety percent!”

                Hyori let out an exasperated sigh.

                “What about you?” I addressed Jung-woo, ignoring Gin’s false prediction, and Hyori’s incredulous look.

                “I have French,” he replied, stuffing his timetable into his backpack.

                “Oh,” I shrugged, “interesting.”

                Then the announcement went off telling us to go to our first blocks.

                “Ah,” Gin patted Jung-woo on the shoulder, “we have Gym.”

                Jung-woo nodded and got up, grabbing his gym bag.

                “And you guys?” Jung-woo asked us.

                “Oh…I have band,” Hyori announced, grabbing her instrument case, which I recognized as a flute case.

                “And I have Art,” I said and just got my backpack.

                “Excellent, then we have a fifteen minute break after Math,” Gin smiled, “see you at math, Bom! See you Hyori!”

                And we exited the homeroom, heading to our first classes of the day.