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Han Sooyoung doesn't ship people. She collects data; she counts them.
Every little detail she observes at school is noted in her brain, then soon enough, in her little notepad. The concept in itself sounds creepy and weirdly stalkerish to others, but to her, this is simply what her role entails as a columnist for the school newspapers. She's assigned to write about all sorts of things: information about top students, juicy gossip, competition results, new club openings—it's a wide variety. Sure, it's not a job that makes her well-liked among peers, but she doesn't find the need to be liked as thrilling as the art of noticing.
Even if she doesn't post all the data she actually keeps in mind, there's more than enough for people to run with.
For example, she knows that:
- Recently, students Jung Heewon & Lee Hyunsung have started going out. Han Sooyoung notices before they even make it public, from the way Hyunsung flushes like a maniac when Heewon even makes remote eye contact with him. She thinks it's unrequited love at first—but that's debunked when she sees the two walking hand in hand through the empty corridors—only, of course, it technically wasn't empty because Han Sooyoung was hiding behind a door they walked past.
- Freshman student Kim Namwoon fails yet another test. The journalist doesn't even really mean to figure this out—the news comes to her anyway when she walks past Kim Namwoon seeming to forge a signature on a paper with a bolded 49% stamped on the corner.
- And most interesting of all—well, at least to Han Sooyoung—is that the odd relationship between top student Yoo Joonghyuk and infamous student Kim Dokja can no longer be simply labeled with the word 'rivalry' anymore.
At first, it doesn't interest her as much as it bothers her. During this time of day, she usually stays at the back of class and tracks down information like who sits with whom during lunch.
Which students wait for which.
Who looks up when a door opens?
Most times, the answer is consistent.
Yet, Yoo Joonghyuk—of all people—is the first to ever ruin her carefully set data.
He's the top student—someone teachers praise, yet at the same time, students envy. His good looks make him a hot topic with girls during break, although Han Sooyoung isn't sure if the man is even aware of it himself. People use all sorts of words to describe him: cold, arrogant, brooding, intelligent, sexy (yuck), and she's even heard him being explained to others as a "male lead." Whatever that meant, she wasn't willing to travel through the rabbit hole.
Han Sooyoung doesn't really think he's much of a spectacle, initially, that is. Although a bit rude, she even comes up with a term to describe people like him: one-dimensional. Looks interesting, anything but on the inside. Of course, since he's the top student, she must do her own duties diligently and write on the man anyway.
The real change in both Yoo Joonghyuk and her data occurs when a new student arrives.
His name is Kim Dokja, and he's nothing like Han Sooyoung has ever seen.
For starters, he's insanely smart. Like—if she had to compare, Yoo Joonghyuk's level of smart. It shouldn't have come as such a big surprise as it did, but the even bigger surprise to Han Sooyoung is that Kim Dokja is not liked by most people.
Maybe it's because he's quite blunt, she thinks—but then again, so was Yoo Joonghyuk, and yet the man had literal fangirls. It was an odd double standard for whatever they had against the new student. Han Sooyoung also comes to a new conclusion that she's the only one to notice how pretty Kim Dokja is. It's why she half-expects him to be popular in the first place; however, apparently journaling experience can't make up for a blind crowd.
He gets well adjusted to school life with no friends fast—like he's already used to it. Oddly enough, Han Sooyoung even notices a similar schedule in both herself and the pretty new student. Once the bell rings, he finds himself a seat in the back and watches around the classroom with large, observant eyes. The journalist recalls a time before when the two even made eye contact with each other; he gave a small wink and wave before breaking away. A bit full of himself, but within reason, she adds.
From the sidelines, she takes note as Kim Dokja quickly makes it up the rankings for exams, nearly surpassing Yoo Joonghyuk's rate.
Maybe this is when Yoo Joonghyuk takes notice of Kim Dokja's presence, she wonders.
Instead of sitting at his desk when results are released like usual, Yoo Joonghyuk makes it a point to go up with the rest of his classmates—Kim Dokja included—to check the sheet hung up on the board. Han Sooyoung's classmates are in disbelief when they see at number one it isn't the name they've seen at the top for all of their school years—it's Kim Dokja. Han Sooyoung herself doesn't find it that much of a surprise. Someone had to beat Yoo Joonghyuk eventually.
The question of how Yoo Joonghyuk isn't first seems to be spreading in everyone's head like wildfire.
The man in talk simply shrugs and walks back to his seat, with a stoic face throughout. Han Sooyoung tries to discern his emotions—to see if he's surprised by the news at all, but his face is so damn stone-cold it's like reading a brick wall. Maybe he really just doesn't care. It would be more out of character for Yoo Joonghyuk to get mad about it anyways, she realizes.
It's apparent, however, that no one else understands Yoo Joonghyuk's character like she does because her classmates look back and forth hastily in odd hopes of him lashing out.
When have you guys ever seen him get mad over something so trivial?
Han Sooyoung wonders with a slight scoff. It wouldn't be far off to even think that Yoo Joonghyuk expected himself to rank second.
She turns her attention away from the man and tries to spot Kim Dokja instead. Focusing her eyes, she sees him in the middle of the crowd, right in front of the result sheet. There were too many people in front of him; she couldn't see his face. She does hear him yell, however.
"Wah—would you look at that? I'm first!" She can hear the smug smile in his voice.
The surrounding people begin to side-eye him; whether in annoyance or envy, she can see a mix of both.
Some of them start to head back to their seats. Now, Han Sooyoung has a clear sight on the newest top student. He's squinting at the names on the paper, finger trailing down to the people listed underneath him. Or more specifically, second place.
Kim Dokja turns around with a whim, "Hey! Yoo Joonghyuk," he playfully shouts into the air in front of him like he's got not a single clue who Yoo Joonghyuk actually is within all the students. "Better luck next time, okay?"
The chatter in the classroom slips into sharp, almost immediate silence.
Yes—Han Sooyoung said earlier before that reading Yoo Joonghyuk's face was difficult; now, she could almost breathe in his emotions; Yoo Joonghyuk was going to kill Kim Dokja.
***
Fortunately, Kim Dokja is not found dead on the news the next day. In fact, he continues to show up to school with the same confident energy he radiates on any other day. Although, his little call-out to Yoo Joonghyuk does nothing to help his case of having no friends. Han Sooyoung thinks that everyone assumes he's just not right in the head—to which she wouldn't exactly disagree—but the spectacle definitely gave her a few laughs walking home.
Thinking back to the day, everyone expected Yoo Joonghyuk to fully take the situation outside and give Kim Dokja a beatdown—but the man proved them wrong as he simply glared and huffed past the aggravator.
Shutting the door behind him, Yoo Joonghyuk leaves the class. It's at that moment that Kim Dokja claps his hands with a loud exhale.
"That was him? Shit... "
Han Sooyoung facepalms.
She could say she was a bit in agreement... with the crowd when they said Kim Dokja was going to be killed by Yoo Joonghyuk. Well, not to that extreme, but relatively aggressive. Kim Dokja's damn near the most interesting person Han Sooyoung has ever seen; she's glad he didn't.
When the bell rings for lunch break, all of the students quickly leave to their own activities. Han Sooyoung decides to go out to collect more information as well—or at least, that's before she changes her mind and stays—when she sees a certain somebody walking up to Yoo Joonghyuk's desk. The taller man usually sat in his chair during break, sleeping, or walked around with a few of his friends. In this case, clearly the former.
She sits back down softly, bringing a book out of her bag to keep mysterious—and observes what Kim Dokja (god forbid he tries anything like yesterday) is doing.
"Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk," Kim Dokja doesn't keep his voice down, not one bit, at the man who's very obviously trying to get shut-eye. Han Sooyoung cringes.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't respond and instead lifts his head up to face the voice head-on. The glint in his eye almost looks dangerous; Han Sooyoung thinks she should have the police on speed dial—just in case.
"What?" He murmurs out.
"About yesterday," Kim Dokja smiles obnoxiously, "I didn't know you were Yoo Joonghyuk. Haha. No hard feelings, am I right? The spirit of competition just took over me."
The man squints at him in response, as if wondering if the person talking to him was even real. The glint gets a little stronger.
"Okay."
Han Sooyoung wants to curl up in a ball. Instead, she writes down notes in the margins of her book.
Student Kim Dokja tries to atone for yesterday's incident. Yoo Joonghyuk begrudgingly accepts it. (?) Is it even acceptance? To be honest, student Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't even sound that mad at the situation specifically (?)
She looks back up when she hears Kim Dokja speak again.
"Hey, come on—don't be like that." He grabs a nearby chair and places it backwards to Yoo Joonghyuk's desk, leaning in the direction of the man. "Do you sit here by yourself? You have no friends?" The rambling continues.
Han Sooyoung counts three to one in her head for when Kim Dokja's chair is going to get flipped into the ground, but thankfully, it never happens.
Yoo Joonghyuk is silent, before uttering, "I have friends. Now, go to yours, and close the door on way out."
Han Sooyoung wants to respond to his statement before Kim Dokja does, but she holds back. What friends does Kim Dokja have?
"I don't have any." He smiles brightly.
There it is- Han Sooyoung can catch a glimpse of surprise in Yoo Joonghyuk's features, as if he expected the man to be popular- atleast, outside of their class.
"What a bold-face lie."
"What!" Kim Dokja raises both his arms up in accusation. "I'm sorry I'm not actually famous like you, but I speak no lies."
Student Yoo Joonghyuk is surprised that student Kim Dokja has no friends- just as I was.
He continues on a tangent. "Do you even look around you sometimes? When have you ever seen people around me during class- like ever?"
"I don't look at you in class."
Student Yoo Joonghyuk is lying. His eyes look the side for a split second and he subtly picks at the side of his uniform.
Kim Dokja, who doesn't know that, awkwardly chuckles.
"Yeah, well, figured. But anyway, you don't have company, I notice."
"I'm leaving soon." A response comes rapid-fire.
"Wha- hey!" There's a slight thud as Kim Dokja shifts from his chair in protest. "I'm a fun guy! Hah. Fungi." Han Sooyoung doesn't even think of writing that in her book. Waste of space.
Yoo Joonghyuk seems to have blocked out the joke in the first place. "I have to go pick up my sister early. She's not feeling well."
"Oh... A-ha! new information learned: you have a sister."
Ignoring him, Yoo Joonghyuk begins to pack up stuff into his bags. Han Sooyoung has a weird feeling in her gut, it's like herself from the future telling her to pay close attention to every interaction they have from now on.
"Hm.. Could you be lying to get out of this situation? Is there even a sister?" Kim Dokja points his finger infront of the other's face. The secret journalist in the back already knows Yoo Joonghyuk is telling the truth based off his body language; and well, she saw him and his younger sister walking to the park before- but yes, Han Sooyoung is still smart.
"Tch."
Yoo Joonghyuk stands up and tries to close his chair in when Kim Dokja abruptly places his hand over his arm.
Student Yoo Joonghyuk freezes at physical touch. Looks to be a bit flustered.
"Hey Joonghyuk, are you still mad because I got first place in the exams? Look, I don't know ya well, but be honest because I wanna be friends."
Within a split second like, he never froze, Yoo Joonghyuk scoffs and fully tucks the chair in, face peering down on Kim Dokja.
"Getting angry at that would be stupid because I'm ranking first next time, anyway."
There's a moment of silence between the two before Kim Dokja starts to laugh.
"Ha.. This sounds like a challenge?"
"Maybe."
"Are you my rival now, then?"
Yoo Joonghyuk sneers. "If you can keep up."
Han Sooyoung, for the first time, thinks Yoo Joonghyuk is a pretty interesting guy.