The bright sun rose from the east, making its way, shining brightly onto the front parking lot of our apartment building and through our window. As we continue to follow the bright light into the living room kitchen combo, there is a wooden shelf filled with books and some picture books of me from baby to teen. The first picture book included pictures of me being held by my mom while planting kisses all over my chubby face, visiting my grandparent's house, my cousins playing with me and treating me like I was their only sister; my birthday parties, mom feeding me, having my first bath, and taking my very first step. The second picture book included pictures of me as a kid. I inherited my mother's straight dark-brown hair and dimples. There were pictures of me riding my first bicycle, my first days of school pictures, me hugging my best friends, and having a mother-daughter date at our favorite places. We mostly enjoy spending time together at the public playground, the beach, bike riding, coffee shops, nail salons, sometimes the pool, or a Korean BBQ restaurant.
As you can tell by these photos, my mother and I are close. There are no pictures of my father because he left us when I was a newborn. Mom knew why he had to leave, but she never told me the reason because it always made her sad. She even said that every time she sees me, I am reminded of my father because of my dark eyes.
Now, I am a sixteen-year-old Korean girl, who just got up at seven-thirty in the morning for the first day of my junior year in high school. My name is Kim Ji-An. I was already wearing my high school uniform. I had my hair tied up in a ponytail and wore the flower earrings that my grandmother gave me. I also have pale, but also flawless skin. My best friend, Bahng Christopher Chan, sometimes even said that I looked like a vampire disguised as a human. Mom is still the owner of a Korean restaurant where people go to karaoke, drink, eat, and hang out with friends.
"Ji-An! May you please tell your boyfriend I said 'Hi'," Mom chuckled.
"Eomma! We are just best friends," I whined.
"But he never fails to remember to call you Princess when he shows up," Mom said.
Bahng Chan and I had been best friends since childhood after bonding over sharing our favorite K-pop bands. BigBang, Girls Generation, SNSD, and Shinee. Both of our ultimate K-Pop groups are Shinee. When any of our favorite groups come on the news to announce their upcoming concerts or new albums, Bahng and I would be the first to get them. These days, I have been developing some romantic feelings towards Bahng.
There he was, leaning against my door and looking down at his phone as I opened it, looking more muscular than before. Bahng was the Captain of Hyosan High School's football team. Bahng had blonde hair since he sometimes liked to dye his hair. Honestly, Bahng always looked effortlessly handsome in any hair color and in any outfit too. Blonde, red, black, brown, or even blue. My favorite hair color Bahng is his natural deep brown. His hair was neatly combed, and his skin was silky smooth. Bahng also has this contagious laugh and dimple smile that could easily calm me down whenever I am having a panic attack.
"Good morning, Princess," he greeted.
"We're just best friends!" Mom mockingly shouted from the living room.
Eventually, we got to Hyosan High School just in time before the bell rang. The high school had a frightening total of four hundred – now four hundred and ninety-three – students and fifty-six teachers. All the kids who went there had grown up together – their grandparents had been toddlers together. The school had at least five buildings: the main building, the dining area, another building near the archery building, the archery center itself, and the gym. In front of the main entrance is the football field.
It did not take long for us to find the rest of our friend group, who were already standing in the line of people in the gym for our school schedules: Lee Seokmin (Seventeen's DK), Lee Dong Min (Astro's Cha Eun-woo), Lisa Manoban (BlackPink's Lisa), Kim Min Gyu (Seventeen's Mingyu), and Park Jihyo (Twice's Jihyo). There were four foldable tables and only four staff members handled the schedules and school maps. Beside the foldable tables, were signs telling us to line up by grade.
Seokmin, Dong Min, and Min Gyu are a few of the students from the football teams. Seokmin is our happy virus who is athletic, soft-hearted, noticeably confident, and has a contagious laugh and smile. Dong Min has a chic personality but is also very loyal to the people he cares about and is energetic. Lisa was born in Bangkok, Thailand, and moved to Seoul, South Korea when she was only three. She is the tomboyish-girly girl type of gal who can speak Thailand, Chinese, English, Korean, and Japanese. Lisa is also Captain of the Hyosan High School's cheerleading squad. She is the most popular female student in the school, but Lisa said she always prefers spending time with us since we are the only real friends she has ever made. Everyone else only wanted to become her friend for popularity. Jihyo is the more outgoing, energetic, charming, and one of the best musicians in Hyosan High School's music band. I am just as talented.
"Are you ready for our first year in high school?" I asked.
"I'm excited but also a bit nervous at the same time," Bahng replied.
"Nervous? Why?" I scoffed, knowing that Bahng was ranked as one of the top students in middle school.
"You know, exams, tests, and fitting in with everyone," Bahng said.
"Don't worry, bro, just be yourself and everything will be fine," said Lisa.
"Although, I'm mostly excited about attending as many parties as possible!" Jihyo exclaimed.
It was finally our turn to receive our school schedules and school maps. I was the first one to walk up to a large, middle-aged woman. She was wearing a white blouse with a black coat and a matching black skirt.
"First name and last name, please?" she asked.
"Yang Ji-An," I replied.
"Of course," she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk until she finally found the one, she was looking for. "I have your schedule and map of the school." She went through all my classes, along with my locker number and code, highlighting the best route to each classroom. She smiled and hoped that I had a wonderful sophomore year. I thanked her and smiled back as convincingly as I could.
I left the gym, followed by Bahng Chan, Jihyo, Lisa, Seokmin, Dong Min, and Mingyu. We were a bit disappointed and happy at the same time to see that we had at least one or two classes together.
Once I changed into my indoor shoes, I quickly made my way to my first class, which was English taught by Mr. Lee. I chose to sit at the front of the class, next to Hyosan High School's mischievous, but also joyful twins, Hwang Yeji, and Hwang Hyunjin. They were born on the 1st of April, which makes perfect sense for their mischiefs and love to pull pranks on our school janitor. They also had pale skin and dark eyes.
"Good morning, Ji-An!" Hyunjin exclaimed happily.
"Hello, Hyunjin," I said. "Did you two have a nice summer vacation?"
"Oh, we had an awesome summer vacation!" Yeji replied. "We went on a vacation to Egypt! The tour guides took us to this ancient underground city that they discovered underneath all that sand!"
"They said that the underground city was used to protect themselves during a battle against Greece and the Roman leader!" Hyunjin added, pulling at his phone, and scrolling through the pictures of old buildings and cursed coffins. There were even skeletons of people who died during the battle.
"How long did it take for them to dig all of that up?" I asked.
"Probably months," Yeji replied.
"Or years," Hyunjin replied.
Mr. Lee began his class by introducing himself. He pulled up a slideshow about his family, the type of music he listens to, his favorite sports, and other things. After his slideshow, he assigned us to create an "All About Me" slideshow and that our presentations will begin next Monday in alphabetical order. Then, Mr. Lee walked around the classroom, passing a list of books we will be reading this semester. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and Holes by Louis Sachar. Coincidentally, I have already read all of them at home. I wondered if I could bring a copy of my own.
When the bell rang, Yeji and Hyunjin caught up with me to try to talk with me.
"So, what class do you have next?" Yeji asked.
"Chemistry with Mrs. Park," I replied. "What do you have?"
"We both have Functions with Mr. Baek," Hyunjin replied, rolling his eyes since Math is his least favorite subject.
"Do not worry, Hyunjin! Yeji and I can help you with that," I said.
"Thanks, hopefully, my grades will be better than last year too," said Hyunjin, gloomily.
"Well, I'll see you two at lunch," I exclaimed.
After the two classes, I was able to catch up with all my good friends. There is always one teacher who is strict enough to be firmer with their students than the entire school and likes to give a quiz every day to check if we understood anything. There are also times when we would remind each other not to ask the teacher about our daily quizzes.
Bahng , Jihyo, Lisa, Seokmin, Dong Min, and Mingyu walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. We went to sit at the very end of the table. I was hoping to invite Hyunjin and Yeji to have lunch with us, but they already found a spot with many other students. Students that I have never seen in my life. They are new or something, but not new to the Hwang twins.
None of the new students looked alike. Of the five boys – one of them was tall, beefy had dimples when he smiled, wore the nerdiest glasses but still looked incredibly handsome, and had short black hair. Another one seemed more confident, wore sunglasses, had the brightest smile, the most contagious laugh that could cure any disease, and wore the classiest pieces of clothing. The third one looked shorter than the rest, had bolder features, pouty lips, and the most seductive-looking eyes. The fourth one had large, yet intimidating, almond-shaped eyes, a perfectly straight nose, and a perfectly chiseled jawline that could cut you. The last boy was the boy that caught my attention; he had sparkling doe-eyes, a lot of piercings, his right arm was covered in tattoos, and had a bunny-like smile that made me smile.
The girls were the opposite. The tall one looked statuesque. She had a confident and curvaceous body; her dark-brown hair was mid-length and expressive eyes. She was holding hands with the beefy boy I described earlier. They are already a thing. Another one had blonde hair, a cute button-like nose, a slender figure, and very captivating and expressive eyes as well. The third one also had a perfect slender figure and big and expressive eyes. The last one had a slim and petite figure; she also had long black hair, large expressive eyes, and a very bright, cheerful smile.
I could not help but stare. I know it was rude, it was hard to not notice how similar, yet different they were from each other. The new students were equally pale as Hyunjin and Yeji. All their eyes were equally dark as coal. Darker than mine. They were all inhumanely beautiful, as if they came from a K-Drama movie. It was hard to decide which one was the most beautiful in my eyes.
"Who are they? Are they new?" I asked Lisa.
Lisa, who was looking at them – though she already knew them because she said.
"Oh, those guys were from my summer camp," she whispered. The boy with sparkling doe-eyes looked at Lisa and flickered to mine.
He looked away quickly, more than I could, though, in a flush of embarrassment, I looked down at once. It felt like a wave of electric shock struck us when we made eye contact.
"That Jeon Jungkook," Lisa replied. "I had a crush on him when we first met at camp, but he rudely rejected me when I politely asked him out on a date. The beefy one is Kim Namjoon and the girl holding his hand is Ahn Hye-Jin (MamaMoo's Hwasa), his girlfriend. The boy next to him is Jung Hoseok and the girl next to him, Momo Hirari, is his stepsister. The one in front of Namjoon is Park Jimin, he is like the elegant one. The one next to Jimin is Taehyung. Jimin and Taehyung are like besties. The blonde girl is Park Chae-Young (BlackPink's Rose), and the girl on the right is Sana Minako Tazi." She said this under her breath.
I glanced at the beautiful boy who rejected Lisa, who was now staring directly at me again and gave me a wink. My heart skipped a beat as I quickly looked away, focusing on my food.
"Have they always lived near here?" I asked. "How come I've never seen them before?"
"No, they just moved to a different school," Bahng replied.
"Why what happened at their old school?" I asked.
"They never told us what happened," Dong Min replied.
"Anyways, my parents are renting a club how so I can throw my seventeenth birthday party there!" Seokmin suddenly spoke.
"Really? Are we invited to your birthday party too?" Mingyu asked.
"I'm inviting the entire football team, our coach, the cheerleading squad, and the band club!" Seokmin replied. "Maybe even some of our teachers." he quickly added.
After a few more minutes, before the bell rang, the gang left the table. They were all noticeably elegant – even the big, beefy one. The one named Jungkook did not look at me again and followed his friends to the exit.
"They're all so attractive," I whispered.
"Yeah, but not as attractive as me," said Bahng.
We chuckled at Bahng's confidence.
Bahng, Seokmin, Mingyu, Lisa, Jihyo, and I got to be in the same Science class together. We were really happy about that, but also anxious not to be late on our first day. We walked together, while still gossiping about the new students.
When we got to the classroom, we went to grab the front, black-topped tables. Right after the bell rang, I recognized the Jungkook boy, due to his big sparkling brown eyes. I tried not to make eye contact with him, but he gave me a smug look. I honestly wished I grabbed a not-so-empty, black-topped table because little did, I know, Jungkook thought it would be a good idea to sit right next to me. I turned my head to Lisa and mouthed: "help me."
"Good morning, class," the Science teacher began. "My name is Mr. Kang, and I will be your science teacher for the entire semester!"
Like other teachers, Mr. Kang pulled up the slideshow about himself. I tried my best to focus on Mr. Kang's presentation, but it was hard for me to concentrate when Mr. Vulture kept staring at me.
"Is there a problem with your lab partner, Mr. Jeon or would you want me to change seats?" Mr. Kang suddenly called him out.
Thank goodness because I could feel my heart beating as fast as a race car. I looked down, feeling myself go red, as the entire class started laughing. Except for Lisa, who boldly told everyone to shut up.
I was finally able to concentrate on Mr. Kang's first lecture of the day. The first unit was Chemistry and he taught us the name and function of each Science equipment. I opened my notebook and jotted down notes that were easier for me to remember.
The class seemed a bit longer than others. Was it because the day was finally coming close? Jungkook kept trying to "accidentally" touch my hand, it felt so weird whenever he did! My heart never raced that fast before. I really hope the teacher wasn't watching us. I also hope Lisa isn't mad that Jungkook is holding my hand instead of hers.
At that moment, the bell rang as Mr. Kang asked everyone to pack their books. Jungkook was much taller than me, which made him even more handsome. I quickly grabbed my textbook in my backpack and joined my friends in our next class, which was History.
"I think that Jungkook boy likes you," Lisa whispered.
"I want Jungkook to like you though," I said, feeling guilty.
"Don't worry about me," Lisa said. "Jungkook's rejection allowed me to move on anyways."
"But if I'll break him if he ever breaks you!" Jihyo exclaimed.
"Do you like him too?" Lisa asked.
"I don't know him well," I replied, remembering the fact that I liked Bahng Chan.
The History teacher, Mr. Lee, gave us a brief introduction about himself in a slideshow. He said his family were few of the people who escaped from North Korea. Mr. Lee said that he and his family escaped from a boat. Many students were interested and kept asking what North Korea was like. He said that North Korea was restricted, that not even foreigners were allowed to talk with North Koreans. Foreigners had to shop at a store that was made for them.
The final bell rang at last. I walked with my friends until we had to split up and told each other that we'll meet each other by the front entrance when we're done packing our stuff. As I closed my locker, I was shocked to see that Jungkook boy next to my locker. Out of all the lockers, why did his locker have to be next to mine? Jungkook's smile lit up, which made my heart melt.
"Umm Ji-An, right?" he asked.
"Uhh, yeah," I replied. "You're Jungkook, right? My best friend Lisa said you and your gang went to the same summer camp." I asked.
Little did I know, we ended up having a five-minute conversation introducing ourselves to each other. I don't know why, but I find Jungkook quite interesting. Jungkook told me that his dream was to become a K-Pop idol because he loved to sing and dance. But his dreams changed after he found visual arts more interesting than music and is now studying visual arts instead.
"Jungkookshi!" came a small voice, interrupting us. It was Jimin and Taehyung. "Remember to meet us at the front door after you're done talking to your girlfriend, okay?"
"Oh, we're not dating," Jungkook quickly argued.
"Don't worry, bro!" Taehyung said. "She's very pretty and you should definitely marry her." Taehyung chuckled.
"Stop it, Taehyung, you're going to embarrass me in front of the whole school," Jungkook pouted cutely.
"Anyways, see you! Unless you want to walk your girlfriend home," Jimin exclaimed.
Jungkook playfully rolled his eyes.
"I'm so sorry about them, Ji-An," said Jungkook. "Those are my brothers. They like to tease me a lot. Although, it is safe to say that I tease them the most."
"It's okay, Jungkook," I giggled. "They seem like really cool people to hang out with."
"My whole family are, actually," said Jungkook. "Anyways, I'll have to join my brothers so that they won't have to wait as long."
"See you tomorrow, Jungkook!" I exclaimed.
"See you tomorrow, Ji-An!" He said, happily.
I was in a very good mood. I also did not realize that I was smiling so much until Seokmin asked me. I explained about how I bumped into Jungkook near the lockers and kept talking about how interesting and kind he was while introducing to me.
"That sounds nice, Ji-An. Can we get going now?" Bahng said, angrily. That was wrong, he was never like that. Especially whenever he was around us.
"Did I say something wrong?" I asked Lisa.
"We'll go check on him," said Mingyu.
When I got home, my mom was already home, on the couch while watching television with a bowl of Jjangmyeon (black bean noodles). Mom did not notice me until I spoke up.
"Oh, hey, Ji-An!" Mom greeted me happily. "How was your first day at school?"
"I enjoyed my first day, actually," I replied. "I thought you said that you would be home later tonight."
"That's because there were barely any people at my restaurant, so I decided to dismiss my employees earlier," Mom said. "I also brought home some Jjangmyeon."
"Thanks, Mom," I said.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing, doing my homework, and helping my mother with chores around the house. I went to bed that night and I could not help but think about that Jungkook boy.