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Chapter Text

Hyunjin had never been to public school and was certainly not a people person, but it wasn't stopping her parents from putting her in it. She had begged and pleaded for them to keep home-schooling her. But, it was to no avail, as she was standing on her porch sporting a brand new yellow backpack filled with new supplies for her first day. Her father was taking a photo for her mother's scrapbook as well as her Facebook page. Her parents beamed at their daughter because it was her first day of high school. Hyunjin blankly frowned at them, letting her posture sink.

"Do I have to go?" She questioned in a whiny tone.

Her mother pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head, hoping to soothe her nerves and her temper.

"I'm sorry my little kitten, but with our new jobs we just can't keep homeschooling you."

She pet her hair gently and relaxed the hug, leaving her hands on her shoulders.

"Now go! Make us proud!"

Her mother handed her a bagged lunch she put together, which she just stuffed into her bag probably crushing it a little.
Hyunjin couldn't drive yet, so she was forced to walk to the school campus alone. Her parents of course waved her off and shot each other worried glances when she wasn't looking.

The air was getting colder as the season changed, so she pulled her cardigan tighter around her body and began to hope, wish, and pray that this would go okay. All she wanted was to fade into obscurity and never have to be noticed by anyone, let alone become "the weird kid". She dreaded the thought.

Upon walking into the courtyard she felt her stomach knot, her ears fill with the loud chatter of teenagers and walked into a crowd of an anxiety-inducing amount of people.
But, she treads on. The one thing she refused to do is let her parents down after all they'd done for her. Spent years homeschooling her, feeding her, keeping a roof over her head. The least she could do is go to public school. She took a deep breath and pulled open the front doors to the school.

—

Avoiding as many people as possible she had made it to her first class. She had no idea where to sit and sort've just walked around the aisles aimlessly to find a seat. Hyunjin began to set her bag down at one but a voice suddenly advised her otherwise.

"You don't want to sit there. Some chick's boyfriend always sits there."

And just like that, some teenage boy slipped into the seat and started to neck with the girl in the aisle over. Hyunjin felt her body ache with disgust and moved on to a different seat in the aisle closest to the wall. The same voice told her not to sit there either. And the girl behind her was making a very insistent "nope" sort of gesture.

"He farts a lot."

She sighed again as the boy in front of her gave her a distraught look. Hyunjin tried to sit a seat behind a different person, but that seat got taken up before she even had a chance to set her bag down. As the bell rang and chatter started to clear up, she headed to the front of the classroom to get a better view of the classroom.
Instead, she walked straight into the teacher walking into the room. Spilling hot coffee all over the teacher. This is turning out to be a disaster. Hyunjin felt her cheeks turn pink with embarrassment and scrambled to help her teacher clean up. She also heard stifled laughter from her new classmates and started to fear the worst.

The principal came in after spotting the disaster from the hall, and also it seemed he had something to announce to the class.

"Are you alright?"

He asked the teacher, who assured him she was. He then turned to the students and took the opportunity to introduce the new student. Hyunjin thought, Why this? Anything but this.

"I wanted to let everyone know we have a new student joining us!"

He smiled wide and gestures towards Hyunjin who stood shyly and gave an awkward wave to the classroom. She brushed a piece of her thick black hair behind her ear and internally screamed because of all the attention. The teacher announced welcome, and the class echoed it back. The principal left and Hyunjin made her way to her seat.
Her first class went on without much trouble, except for a snicker or two from the back of the room. But, overall, the first day of class was a blur. A very stressful, surreal blur. It almost felt like a dream. No, a nightmare. She kept getting in trouble for the smallest things like getting up to go to the bathroom without asking, holding her pencil the wrong way, and even just slouching at her desk. The sudden change in rules was a lot, and it would take a lot of getting used to.

Finally, though, she made it to lunch. The cafeteria was very crowded, and it seemed the line was insanely long just for food that barely hits the mark as such. What they gave out weren't even really meals, either. Hyunjin felt happy she had brought her own lunch, but now came the problem of needing to sit somewhere. Wherever she wandered there was always a kid giving her some look even at her best attempts of being friendly. Everyone had their cliques of people they liked and gossiped about those they hated. Public school is radically different than homeschool.
Hyunjin found herself sitting alone in a bathroom stall eating her lunch because no one could find it in their heart to open a seat for the new girl. The only thing that kept her from crying was her mother's note in her lunch.

"Kitten! I hope you're having a good first day <3"

When she got home, she kicked off her shoes and went straight to her room. Her mother knocked softly on the door and asked how her day was, but she didn't even answer. Not a word at the dinner table, and not an "I love you" before going to bed. In the dead silence of midnight, she began to think this wasn't going to work out. And started planning to beg and plead with her parents to homeschool her again.

—

The second day started better than the first, though. That girl from yesterday and the other girl behind her talked to her again.

"Is that your natural hair color?" The one behind her asked, whose hair was a bright pastel pink and she'd styled it by tying her bangs in a small ponytail wrapping around her head. It suited her well.

"Uh..yeah."

Hyunjin answered, opening up her notebook. The girl softly picked up a strand to show to the brown-haired girl in front of her.

"It's gorgeous," The pink-haired one remarked.

"Thank you".

Hyunjin smiled small and went back to her work, which was quickly interrupted again.

"See, I was thinking of going dark like this."

She smiled turning back to the girl in front and dropping the piece. The other girl nodded affirmatively in response. She then decided introducing the pair would probably be a good idea.

"That's ViVi." She's pointed at the pink-haired girl. "She's almost too shy to function. I've managed to crack her shell though."

"It's..nice to meet you."

She and ViVi shared an awkward smile. She felt relieved there was another girl as shy as she is.

A boy walked by and mocked her bob.

"Nice wig, tomboy. What's it made of?"

She barked back at him in a dramatic change of temper.
"Your mom’s chest hair!"

Turning back to Hyunjin with a much calmer attitude, the girl introduced herself.

"I'm Haseul."

"Hi. I'm Hyunjin."

She paused for a moment. Hyunjin needed help finding a class and thought that asking these two strangers she just met would be as good as anything. They probably know the map better than she does.

"Hey, do you guys know where room L12 is?"

She handed the map to ViVi who looked it over in pair with her schedule.

"Health, Tuesday/Thursday, Room L12."

Haseul gave a sort of sly glance to Vivi, who looked confused at first but then nodded to her. Hyunjin didn't think much of it, though.

"I think it's in the back building."

"Oh, yeah, that's in the back building."

"We'll take you there." Haseul gave reassuring smile, and Vivi giggled.

The pair seemed so comfortable around each other. Hyunjin wished she had a friendship like that. A friendship at all.

"Thanks." Hyunjin tried to smile genuinely, but it had a twinge of envy written in it somewhere.

Class started, and the three of them chatted on and off but Hyunjin was trying to focus on paying attention. When the bell had finally rung, Haseul linked her arm through hers and pulled her into the hallways yelling,

"FRESH MEAT COMING THROUGH!"

Clearing a path for them with Vivi not far behind. Hyunjin thought it was so nice of them to be doing this, no one was ever as nice to her as these two were. She might even consider them friends but didn't want to jump to anything if they should decide to leave her. She waved away the thought of them going out for coffee, singing karaoke badly, or anything else together, to avoid it hurting even more.

Eventually, after trekking the entirety of the field around the school, Haseul and Vivi sat in the shade of a giant apple tree just near the fence that separated the properties of the school and neighborhood. Hyunjin was confused because she didn't see a building anywhere and she'd thought they were taking her to the "back building". Hyunjin stood in front of them awkwardly with her backpack still strung over her shoulder.

"Uhm…I don't see a 'back building'?"

"Oh yeah, that was a lie," Haseul said bluntly.

"It burned down in 1987." Vivi stated, unzipping her backpack.

Hyunjin stared at them, they seems not to care that they were skipping class.

"Won't we get in trouble?"

"Of course not, why would we get you into trouble?" She began, "We're your friends." She smiled at her, Vivi nodding along, and her heart fluttered with joy.

She knew skipping class was wrong, but Haseul said they were friends. And she was in no position to pass up friends. So, Hyunjin seated herself on the grass with her new friends, barely worried about what she was missing that first day of Health class.

"Why didn't they just keep homeschooling you?" Vivi asked.

"They want me to 'get socialized'." Hyunjin mocked the way her mother said it when she told her she was being enrolled in public school.

"You'll get socialized, all right. A little slice like you." Haseul teased, which flopped because Hyunjin returned a very confused look.

"...What do you mean?"

"You're a hottie!" Haseul gently hit her shoulder with her fist.

"Huh?"

"Own it!" Vivi perked up, the looked back down at a notebook in her lap. "Hey, how do you spell your name again, Aeong?"

"H-y-u-n-j-i-n, Hyunjin." She didn’t get the nickname. "Why'd you call me that?"

"’Cause you're shy, kinda like a kitten." Haseul winked at her, and her face flushed red with embarrassment. She supposed that was true.

"We're gonna call you Aeong."

Hyunjin seemed to notice the gym class coming out of the school and how just three of the girls were wearing radically different uniforms than the rest of the students. She also felt a pulsing, subtle pain from behind her right eye.

"For the love of all that is holy, would you look at Jeong Jinsols gym clothes." Vivi laughed.

It wasn't the most appropriate thing ever, definitely not school-issued. She was wearing a white tank top and a royal blue pair of shorts that were just above her knee. Her hair was a bleached blonde with a failed crimp running through it. It was just surprising how she hadn't gotten dress-coded yet.

"Of course, the Odd Eyes have the same gym class." Haseul rolled her eyes.

She had no idea what they were talking about. Were those girls important?

"Who are the 'Odd Eyes'?"

"They're teen royalty. It's like if Hiland was 10 Star, they'd be on the cover every week."

"They're only popular because they have heterochromia. The weird thing though, is their eyes are, like, crazy colors."

Explained the pink-haired girl. She gestured to the one she pointed out at first,

"That one there is Jeong Jinsol. Everyone calls her 'Jinsoul'. She is not the brightest crayon in the box." They watched as she tried to catch a ball but it ended up hitting her right in the gut. All of them seethed through their teeth at once because it looked so painful. "Her odd eye is a bright blue."

"Vivi sat next to her in English last year." Haseul noted.

"She asked me how to spell orange." Hyunjin didn’t enjoy giggling at Vivi’s comment, but how could someone her age not know how to spell “orange”?

Haseul pointed at another girl wearing a similar outfit in purple whose hair was a dark copper brown. It was left down and shined almost a red color under the sun.
“That one is Choi Yerim. She’s totally rich because her dad owns, like, the biggest cherry orchard in Korea. Also where she gets her nickname, Choerry, from.”

Choerry was staring at something on her phone when another ball hit her like it did Jinsoul, right in the gut.

“She knows basically everything about everyone, she loves to gossip. Her odd eye is purple.” Vivi added.

The last of the trio was being carried by almost every boy in the class and was wearing a red uniform like the other girls. Some of her silky platinum blonde hair was tied up on her head with a matching bow. Hyunjin admired how put-together she looked just in a gym outfit. Haseul made sure to make it clear that she was satan incarnate.

“That is evil in a human form, Kim Jungeun. Don’t be fooled, because she may seem like your typical selfish, backstabbing bitch. But in reality, she is so much more than that.” Haseul snarled.

Hyunjin was caught completely off guard by Haseul calling her a “bitch”, just because she doesn’t usually hear that word in her everyday left. Slowly it was becoming more and more apparent kids in public school didn’t care about what they said or who it was about.

“She’s the queen bee. The star. The other two are just her little workers. People call her Kim Lip and her odd eye is red.” Vivi continued.

“How do I even begin to explain Kim Lip?” Haseul pondered to herself. “Students look up to her as a god. A glance in your direction is like you’ve been accepted into her social circle, which is more coveted than the cure to cancer.”

Haseul pulled out her phone and showed her an interview of students talking about Kim Lip from last year. She said it was like a survey, interview sort of deal for the school’s newspaper or such.

“Kim Lip is flawless.” Said the first student, who objectively looked like a social reject.
“She has two Fendi purses and a red Lexus.” Which came from the next.
“I hear she was born during an eclipse.” Said a boy sporting a mathletes tee.
“I hear she’s done car commercials for Japan.”
“Her favorite movie is More Than Blue.”
“One time, she met Rosé on a plane.” Began one student, “And she told her she was pretty.” Continued another in the same shot.
“One time, she punched me in the face.” Said the last student, looking a little too happy for what she said. “It was awesome.”

With the video over the trio started walking back towards the school as the bell for lunch was about to ring. But Vivi kept explaining Kim Lip to her as they walked the green grass.

“She always looks amazing, and always wins Midnight Festival Queen.”

“Ugh, who cares?” Haseul asked after the mention of the dance rolling her eyes.

“I do.” Vivi turned and looked at the other like she should’ve known that.
Hyunjin didn’t know what the Midnight Festival was, but it obviously seemed like a big deal. At least Vivi, who took the initiative to explain. She turned back to Hyunjin excitedly.

“Every year, the seniors throw this dance for the underclassmen called the Midnight Festival. And whoever is elected King and Queen automatically becomes head of the Student Activities Committee. I’m not a member of it or anything, I just like buying pretty dresses.’ She turned back to Haseul and squinted teasingly at her. “So, yeah, I care.”

Vivi, who had been scribbling in her notebook all this time finally tore out the page and handed it to Hyunjin.

“Here. This map is gonna be your guide to Hiland High.” In the top left of the page, it was labeled “Hyunjins Map to Hiland High School”. Hyunjin noted how Vivi’s artistic prowess was pretty good. It was so detailed for something so seemingly trivial.

“Where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial because you got everybody there.” Haseul began to list every click in high school you could imagine as they walked past every table on the map. “You got freshman, athletic girls, preps, jocks, nerds, cool Japanese kids, varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, home lunch loners, desperate wannabes, burnouts, high school sweethearts, band kids, the greatest people you’ll ever meet, that’s us, and the worst. Beware of the Odd Eyes.”

Chapter Text

Hyunjin was on her way towards Haseul and Vivi at their table with a lunch tray and was stopped just a few feet away from who she was beginning to call her enemy. A boy in the same year as her stepped just in her way holding a crumpled piece of paper, he seemed like the kind of boy you’d avoid at any cost just based on his haircut.

“Hey. We're doing a lunchtime survey of new students. Can you answer a few questions?”

Hyunjin felt her stomach begin to churn with anxiety. Impromptu surveys are not her social strong suit if she even had one.

Not wanting to seem rude, she answered. “Sure.”

“Is your muffin buttered?” Hyunjin returned a bewildered look instead of a yes or no.

“Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?” He continued after smirking towards a table of other boys.

“I’m sorry?” She blinked, still confused. A new voice chimed in,

“Is he bothering you?” It asked. Upon turning to its direction it came from none other than Kim Lip. Her eye began to hurt again. “Jason, why are you such a skeez?” She asked the boy, flipping some hair behind her shoulder.

“I’m just being friendly.” He looked Hyunjin over again, and she felt extremely uncomfortable.

Kim Lip scoffed, and Choerry told him that he was supposed to text her last night.

“Jason,” She called his attention back to her. “You don’t come to a party at my house with Choerry and then scam on some poor, innocent girl in front of us three days later. She’s not interested.” Kim Lip paused for a moment after lecturing Jason and then looked directly at her.

“Do you want to have sex with him?” She asked bluntly after folding her arms under her chest.

“No, thank you.” She shook her head, trying not to make it too obvious how awkward this all was. Jason frowned visibly at her reply.

“Good! So, it’s settled. You can go shave your back now. Bye, Jason.” She smiled sarcastically.

He mumbled under his breath, “Bitch.”, then shoved the piece of paper he read the questions off back into his pocket and shuffled off back towards the table of boys he came from. Now that all that was over Hyunjin started back onto her original route but was stopped by Kim Lip again.

“Wait. Sit down.” She pointed at the seat in front of her at the table and her smile morphed into something that looked sinister but was probably just curious.

“Seriously, sit down.” This time it sounded more like a command.

Hyunjin had no idea what to do. She shifted her eyes to Haseul and Vivi, who gestured that they didn’t know what she was doing, very obviously waiting for her to come sit down at their table. Hyunjin didn’t have enough time to properly think this through, so she made the very reluctant decision to set her tray down and sit at the Odd Eye table.

“Why don't I know you?” Kim Lip questioned her.

“I’m new. I just enrolled in public school.” Hyunjin explained, pulling a thin plastic bag off her fork.
“What?”

“I used to be homeschooled.”

“Wait, What?”

Hyunjin didn’t know what wasn’t clear. Homeschooled is a pretty self-explanatory phrase. Maybe she just needs to clarify.

“My mom taught me at home…” Kim Lip cut her off.

“No, no. I know what homeschool is I'm not dumb. So, you've never been to a real school before?” Hyunjin shook her head and stabbed a piece of mandarin chicken with her fork and ate it.

“Shut up.” She shrugged, wondering why she’d told her to shut up, and swallowed. Mediocre chicken.

“Shut up!” Kim Lip exclaimed looking at Cheorry and then Jinsoul.

“I didn’t say anything.” She smiled and shook her head nervously.

“Homeschooled.” The blonde leaned back in her seat with her arms folded. “That's really interesting.”

“Thanks?” Hyunjin raised a brow and picked up another piece of chicken. She also noticed how the three of them all had lunch but hadn’t touched them even though they'd been seated since she, Haseul, and Vivi all walked into the cafeteria.

“But you’re, like, really pretty.” She nodded.

“Thank you.” Hyunjin tried to smile.

“So, you agree?”

“What?”

“You think you're really pretty.” Kim Lip raised a brow at her.

“I don’t know…”
The other quickly changed the subject after noticing her bracelet while Hynjin was eating. Leaning forward she slipped two of her fingers under it to admire the beads. The beads were all of a uniform style, clear and speckled with different colors on each bead. A charm near the clasp read “Kitten” with a heart in a cursive font accompanied by a cat head-shaped charm as well.

“Oh my god, I love your bracelet. Where did you get it?”

“My mom made it for me.” Hyunjin smiled, lifting her wrist to her chest, playing with it for a second while admiring it. She looked back up at Kim Lip.

“It's adorable.” Kim Lip leaned back again.

“It’s so ‘fetch.’” Choerry chimed in, leaning forward. Her first addition to the conversation after attentively listening to Kim Lip the whole time.

“What is ‘fetch’?” She turned to Choerry on her left looking pissed off and kind of confused.

“It's, like, slang from England.” She explained enthusiastically.

Jinsoul asked, “So, why do you have an odd eye?”

Hyunjin was confused, but then remembered she had heterochromia. All her life, one of her eyes had been brown and the other a more golden brown. But, unbeknownst to her, her right eye was glowing a golden yellow in the presence of the other Odd Eyes.

“Oh my god, Jinsoul, you can't just ask people why they have an odd eye!” Choerry leaned over and stared at her.

Hyunjin looked at the other girls’ eyes which were now glowing their respective colors too. On the field before, they were colored, but not glowing like they were now.
Kim Lip rolled her eyes.

“Could you give us some privacy for, like, one second?”

Hyunjin nodded and went back to eating. She worried her food had gotten cold now but continued eating anyway. She looked over to Haseul who mouthed “What are you doing??” to her from across the room. She shrugged at her hoping she wasn’t making the pair mad. After that minute or so of silence, Kim Lip whispered one last thing to Choerry and Jinsoul then turned back to her.

“Okay, you should just know that we don't do this a lot,” Kim Lip began. “So this is, like, a really huge deal.”

“We wanna invite you to have lunch with us every day for the rest of the week.” Choerry smiled cheerfully.

Hyunjin began to politely decline because she didn’t want to disappoint her new friends but it seemed Kim Lip had already made up her mind as she cut her off.

“Coolness. So, we’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled.

Jinsoul added, “On Wednesdays, we wear red.” She smiled at Hyunjin, who returned a nervous smile to the trio of girls.

—

“Oh my god! Okay, you have to do it, okay?” Haseul laughed through her sentence. “And then you have to tell us all the horrible things Kim Lip says.”

Hyunjin shrugged, “I don't know… Kim Lip seems sweet.” Haseul’s laughter quickly melted into loathing.

“Kim Lip is not sweet. She’s a pretentious bitch! She ruined my life!” Haseul snarled.

Vivi appeared from behind them in a stall and went to wash her hands. “She's fabulous, but she's evil.”

“Why do you hate her so much?” Hyunjin contested.

“What do you mean?” Haseul folded her arms.

“Kim Lip. You seem to really hate her…”

“Yeah. What's your question?”

“Well, my question is, why?”

“Kim Lip started this rumor that Haseul was-” Vivi began but was immediately cut off.

“Vivi! Can we not?” Haseul almost pleaded with her, who just shook her head in disappointment.
“Now, look, this isn’t about hating her, okay? I just think that it would be, like, a fun little experiment if you were to hang out with them and then tell us everything that they say.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Uh…Hair products.” Haseul hesitated.

“Ariana Grande.” Vivi bounced off what she said, adding to the list.

“Who?” Hyunjin looked at Vivi.

“Look! Would you just do it? Please?” Haseul interrupted.

Hyunjin sighed. She wanted to help her but didn’t want to purposefully ruin Kim Lip’s life somehow. Honestly, she was planning on never sitting with the Odd Eyes ever again and sticking with the people who gave her a chance at friendship. But if she wanted to keep that friendship…maybe she should just do it.

“Okay, fine! Do you have anything red?”

In unison, Haseul and Vivi gave opposite answers.

—

By eighth period, Hyunjin was so happy to be in art class. She's good at all kinds of art, she understood it. Nothing in art class could mess her up. Until the girl in front of her turned around to ask her something.

“Hey, do you have a pencil I could borrow?” She inquired.

Hyunjins words got caught in her throat, she froze, her heart may have even stopped beating. This girl was beautiful, gorgeous, and all other forms of the word. Her voice was deep and melodic. Her smile could light up the world. Hyunjin could hear a rom-com soundtrack playing in her head just at this moment. She's only had one other crush in her entire life. She never knew their name and was much too shy to do anything about it, but she would write secret love letters that she never ended up sending. Evidently, it didn’t work out. But this one hit her like a big yellow school bus.

Snapping back to reality she searched for a pencil to give her. Pulling a very generic one out, she handed it to the girl.
“Thanks.” She smiled and turned back to the front of the classroom.

But Hyunjin couldn't take her eyes off her. She kept imagining stupid movie-like scenarios of them falling in love, kissing in the rain, meeting in cafes. She had to keep waving away her daydreams to focus on her notes all class period. But eventually, her second day was over and she had to go home.
So she gathered her things and followed her newfound crush out of the classroom and began her walk home.

She approached her front door, opened it, toed off her shoes, and started towards her bedroom. Her mother called from the living room,

“Kitten! How was your second day?”

Hyunjin paused in her path and replied. “Fine.”

“Were people nice?” Her father asked.

“No.”

“Well, did you make any friends?”

“Yeah.” She nodded and went to her room.

While trying to focus on her math homework she kept thinking about that girl. Funny how she didn’t even know her name. She was just… “that girl”. She’ll ask Choerry about her at lunch tomorrow because she knows everything and everybody, right?

—

The first couple of hours of her second day were almost completely normal. As Vivi promised, she brought her something red to wear because it was Wednesday. Of course, she chatted on and off with Haseul and Vivi in the classes she had with them, but generally, she was dying to go to lunch so she could ask about the girl in her art class.

Having lunch with the other Odd Eyes was like leaving Earth and entering some kind of Middle Earth. And it felt like there were a lot of rules there while Choerry was explaining them to her. Some of them were even more ridiculous than the public school rules she didn’t have a strong grasp on yet. For example, not being able to wear a tank top two days in a row, or only being allowed to wear your hair in a ponytail once a week. She had hers up today, which checks that box.

“...we only wear jeans or leggings on Fridays. If you break any of these rules, you can’t sit with us at lunch.” Hyunjin was glancing around nervously while trying to listen. For how long she had been explaining, keeping eye contact was getting difficult.

“Well, I mean, not just you. Like, any of us. If I was wearing jeans today, I would be sitting over there with the art freaks.”

Hyunjin glanced over at the “art freak” table where she observed a group of kids making a disgusting sculpture from their food. Hyunjin internally appreciated the creativity but found it really gross at the same time. She cared so little about all these rules, but the second she sat down Choerry started spewing them all at her.

“And we always vote before we ask someone to eat lunch with us because you have to be considerate of the rest of the group. I mean, you wouldn’t buy a skirt without asking your friends first if it looks good on you.” Choerry was so cheerful, it almost seemed like nothing could dampen her mood.

“I wouldn't?”

“Right! And it’s the same with dates. Like you may think you like someone, but you could be wrong.”

Kim Lip was reading the label on something that looked like a protein bar.

“120 calories and 48 calories from fat. What percent it that?”

Hyunjin thought through the numbers for a second. Math was never her favorite subject but she was decently good at it. At least, the everyday kind.

Choerry thought out loud, “Forty-eight into 120?” Kim Lip sighed.

“I’m only eating foods with less than 30% calories from fat.”

“It’s 40%.” Hyunjin said definitely. The pair gave her dumbfounded looks.

“Well…48 over 120 equals X over 100, and then you cross multiply to get the value of X.” Neither of them seemed to blink as she explained.

Kim Lip shook her head, “Whatever. I'm getting cheese fries.”

She dropped the protein bar and stood up from the table. Choerry watched as she walked away but then turned her attention back to Hyunjin.

“So, have you seen anyone you think is cute lately?”

Hyunjin thought she'd never get the chance to tell. Finally.

“There's this girl in my art class…”

“Who is it?” Jinsoul chimed in.

“She's in the same year as me, but I don't know her name.”

“Well, what does she look like? I might know her name.”

“She has really beautiful dark brown hair, pale skin, dark brown eyes, her nose almost doesn't look Korean.”

“Oh! I think I know who you're talking about!” Jinsoul said, even as Choerry was about to tell her.

“Her name is Jeon Heejin,” Jinsoul stated. Hyunjin thought her name was pretty. She could say it to herself in her head all day, and never get tired of hearing it.

“No!” Choerry gasped, and then it registered for Jinsoul whose gasp followed.

“You cannot like Jeon Heejin. That's Kim Lips ex-girlfriend.”

“They went out for a year.” Jinsoul added.

“Yeah, and then she was devastated when she broke up with her last summer.”

“Oh, I thought Lip dumped her for Kim Jiwoo?” Jinsoul admitted, visibly confused.

“Okay, regardless, Exes are just off-limits to friends! I mean, that's just, like, the rules of feminism.”

Hyunjins heart sank at this realization. She watched her rom-com dream shatter in front of her eyes.

“Don't worry though, I won't tell Lip what you said. It'll be our little secret.” Jinsoul nodded along and Choerry smiled, but Hyunjin sat and wallowed in disappointment.

Middle Earth as she started to call it wasn't as appealing as she first thought. She wished she could just drop this whole thing after the week was over. But that would be disappointing Haseul which would hurt even more than being told she couldn't like some girl. Her third day of school and she wanted to call it quits again. She wanted to disappear back home where she was comfortable.

—

Now in eighth period, Hyunjins art teacher was rambling about some artistic renaissance, but Hyunjin found herself gazing longingly at Heejin. Just because she wasn't allowed to like her doesn't mean she couldn't look at her. And she was such a joy to view, to take in, to witness. The way she moved felt so graceful, which contrasted how clumsy Hyunjin could be. The bell for class to end rang, and she absentmindedly gathered her things. All while still keeping an eye on Heejin.
She thought she was also allowed to think about her, and maybe even talk to her? Hyunjin stepped in her direction and began to say something, but some random kid got in her way.

“Hey, you're the homeschool girl right?” The boy asked. Great, a nickname.

“Yeah.” She nodded reluctantly, trying to peek over his shoulders to see if Heejin was still there. She wasn't.

“I’m Ryan Jade, captain of the Hiland art club. I'm basically in charge of finding students to join the art shows we have against other schools, and I think your submissions could really help our scores. I think you should join the club.”

Her art teacher, putting painting supplies away, agreed with him. “You’d be perfect for it.”

“Yeah…sure.” She reluctantly replied.

“Great! Let me give you a flyer.” He pulled a brightly colored, flashy, slightly crumpled piece of paper from his messenger bag and handed it to her. She folded it up and put it in her back pocket.

“Okay. So think it over, because we’d love to have you.” She smiled awkwardly and they parted their ways.

Hyunjins parents always thought she had a talent for painting, but she never saw it that way. Everything she’d ever made never turned out how she thought; using the wrong colors, the sketch starting lousy, and flat out never finishing because she got so discouraged in the piece. She thought over some of the projects she abandoned on her walk out of school and ended up noticing some of the team sports practicing in the field. It looked like the soccer team was there, baseball and the track team. Heejin was apparently on the track team because there she was tying her hair up into a ponytail and stretching out her legs. She looks so alluring there, simply going about her day. Effortlessly gorgeous. Heejin noticed Hyunjin staring so she waved and smiled brightly, while every feature Hyunjin had turned a bright red. She smiled and waved back obvious, but was prepared to make a very fast exit.

To her surprise, Kim Lip had driven up just behind her in her red Porche with Choerry and Jinsoul in tow, of course.

“Get in, loser. We’re going shopping.” Feeling without a choice, Hyunjin pulled her backpack over her shoulder a little tighter and climbed into the back seat with Jinsoul.