what good girls do [1]
title: what good girls do [1]
pairing(s): 2min, minkey
rating: pg
wordcount: ~4300
summary: Taeyeon is the new girl at school. Friendless and alone, she stumbles upon an exclusive club of three girls with a strange hobby.
a/n: Okay. This is an idea that I had ages ago, dropped, and then picked back up recently. It seems like it'll be a chaptered thing, as much as I loathe writing anything but oneshots, lol. I've only done one legit chaptered fic before (different fandom) and it kind of died, but hopefully I'll actually finish this! Because I love high school AUs, lol. I should mention, though, that I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Korean schools, so I fudged some details here and there based on my own high school experience.
First days at new schools were always hard. Lee Taeyeon knew that better than anyone else. But of all the first days she'd had (and she'd had a lot), this one took the cake.
For the fifth time in her life, she was transferring to a new school midyear. She'd long since given up complaining to her parents about this, for she knew she'd get no sympathy from them, but it was really difficult to start school knowing no one when everyone else already knew each other. Social cliques would by then be well established, and Taeyeon alone would be left out. In the past, she'd learned to make do by associating with other outcasts, because nerdy friends were better than no friends. But deep inside, she'd always ached to be one of those girls. The kind that everyone knew and looked up to and wanted to hang out with. The kind that was busy every weekend, shopping and going to amusement parks with her cool, stylish friends. The kind that knew how to talk to boys and seemed to do it effortlessly, laughing and flirting as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe, Taeyeon thought to herself, this will be the year I become popular.
But, as she quickly realized that everything at this new school was conspiring against her, that wish faded away.
First there was the layout of the second floor. Her first class was English, in room 119. How was she supposed to know that it was not in fact between rooms 118 and 120, but actually upstairs between rooms 204 and 206? It made absolutely no sense. And so, by the time she finally made it there, she was five minutes late.
Then, once she was in class, there was her teacher, Jung Yunho. A handsome man with serious eyes and a severe voice, he wasted no time in berating Taeyeon for disregarding school rules. By the time he was done chewing her out, she was nearly in tears.
"I'm sorry," she said in a quiet, choked voice. "I'm so sorry, Jung-sunsaengnim, but it's my first day here and I didn't know how to find the classroom. I'm sorry."
"Hmph," he sniffed. "Well, I suppose since you're new, I'll let it slide. Go sit down."
Taeyeon bowed deeply and hurried to an empty desk at the back of the room.
"Hey," whispered a blond-haired boy, twisting around to face her from his seat directly in front of her. "I think Jung really likes you!"
Taeyeon stared at him.
"Shut up," his seat partner said, whacking the boy on the arm.
"Ow! Minho! It's true!" the boy protested, rubbing his arm. "If anyone else came late, he would give them a detention first and ask questions later."
"Lee Taemin!" barked Jung. "Talking in class again? Detention!"
"See what I mean?" Taemin muttered, shooting Taeyeon a teasing glance. "Consider yourself lucky you're so pretty."
Taeyeon sniffed haughtily and deliberately avoided looking at either Taemin or his seatmate, Minho, for the rest of the period.
Unfortunately for her, she shared another class with the two of them. Right before lunch was PE, in which she was forced to don a baggy pair of sweatpants and join the girls' soccer game. It was incredibly dull, seeing as only three other girls in the class were actually willing to play soccer - the rest of them stood around on the field, huddled in little circles, chatting animatedly about the latest styles or the newest gossip. When Taeyeon approached the three with the soccer ball, they looked both surprised and delighted to see her.
"You're gonna play with us?" asked one of them, flipping her short brown hair. "Awesome!"
"Now we have an even number," commented one of the others.
"Cool," said the third.
"Um," Taeyeon said, "is it always like this?" She gestured to the rest of the field.
"Unfortunately, yeah," the first girl sighed. "I totally wanted to join the boys' game" - she pointed to the lively match underway on the field opposite them - "but these two said no."
"Yeah," the second girl laughed. "I don't want to play soccer that badly."
"I just wanna get some exercise, you know?" the third girl said. "I've been feeling like such a fatty lately."
"Well anyways," the first girl said. "We can start now. Oh, I'm Amber, by the way."
"Lee Taeyeon," Taeyeon said.
The other two introduced themselves as Minyoung and Chaerin. Amber decided that the teams should be herself and Chaerin versus Taeyeon and Minyoung, and with that they began. It wasn't too bad playing with them, Taeyeon decided. The game was made interesting, at least, by the fact that the other girls in the class, peppering the field in stationary clusters, provided something of an obstacle course. Soon Amber's team was winning 3-0, but Taeyeon found herself laughing and having fun all the same.
That is, until she accidentally kicked the ball into the midst of one of the groups of gossiping girls.
"Yah!" came an infuriated shriek. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sorry," Taeyeon said, embarrassed. She trotted over to retrieve the ball, only to find it in the perfectly manicured hands of an angry-looking girl with pigtails.
"You're the new girl?" she said coldly.
"Uh, yes," Taeyeon said timidly. "I'm Lee Taeyeon."
"Hmph," she sniffed. "Well, I'm Kim Gwiboon, and if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your filthy, germ-ridden soccer ball away from my designer knee socks." She brandished one leg at Taeyeon, where, on her expensive white socks, there was a miniscule speck of dirt.
"I'm very sorry," Taeyeon said. "It won't happen again - "
"HEADS UP!"
Taeyeon turned to the sound of the voice, which she thought she recognized as Taemin's, and immediately something cold and hard struck her on the right temple. She was only aware of a few shocked screams and the sensation of falling backwards into the grass before everything faded to black.
When she woke up, she was in the school infirmary, as a quick glance at her sterile, white surroundings told her. By her side was a twenty-something man with a worried look on his face.
"Ah, are you awake now? Let's just have you sit up then, here we go," he said, guiding her upright with a strong, steady hand.
"Um," said Taeyeon blearily. "What time is it? Did I miss lunch?"
"No," he chuckled, "Lunch only started five minutes ago. I just need to check if you have a concussion and then you can go and eat, okay?"
"Okay," Taeyeon said.
"Now do you remember what happened to you?"
"Sure," Taeyeon said, frowning. "I was playing soccer, and then I kicked the ball towards Kim Gwiboon, and then I think the ball from the boys' game hit me in the head."
"Okay," the man said. He proceeded to shine a light into her pupils, examine the bump on her forehead, and send her off with a cheerful diagnosis of, "No concussion! Just promise me you'll be careful, okay?"
"Alright, thanks," Taeyeon said, smiling.
"Any time," the man said. "Ah! I should have introduced myself. I'm Kim Jungmo, school nurse."
"I'm Lee Taeyeon," Taeyeon said, slipping on her shoes.
"Okay! See you around!"
Taeyeon managed to find the crowded cafeteria in under a minute. Spurred on by her growling stomach, she hurried to the throng of people at the food counter and, clutching a bright orange tray in her hands, waited impatiently as the line advanced at a snail's pace. Finally, when her hunger seemed absolutely unbearable, she reached the head of the line - only to be cut off by a sizeable group of upperclassmen girls. Ignoring Taeyeon completely, the nine girls giggled and whispered amongst themselves as they lined up to receive their lunch. Taeyeon glanced at the people in line behind her, and though it seemed that they'd all noticed the new arrivals, they said nothing in protest.
"Excuse me," Taeyeon said, irritated. She'd waited this long to get her food, and she was not about to let these selfish brats delay her meal by even one second. She tapped the shoulder of the girl directly in front of her, whose hair was dyed honey blonde.
"Hm?" The girl turned slowly around, and Taeyeon saw that she was stunningly pretty. Her eyes, framed with dark lashes and tasteful makeup, were wide with surprise.
"You," Taeyeon began, intimidated by this older girl and beginning to lose her anger. "You, um. You cut in line."
The girl gave a melodic, tinkling laugh, as though the idea that anyone would ever question her actions was completely ludicrous. Then she turned back around, ignoring Taeyeon once more.
"Hey," Taeyeon said. "Excuse me!" She tapped again, more forcefully.
The girl spun around, a flash of annoyance in her eyes. "What?"
"You cut. You should go to the back of the line."
She let out another disbelieving laugh. "Are you new?"
"Yes."
"Well then," the girl said, grabbing a water bottle from the food counter, "I guess now's as good a time as any for you to learn that we" - she uncapped the water bottle emphatically - "do not" - she tossed the cap away - "wait in line." And then she poured the entire contents of the water bottle over Taeyeon's front. When it was empty, she flicked the last few droplets at Taeyeon's face.
Stunned, Taeyeon remained frozen as she felt the water seep through uniform and soak her skin. She barely registered the laughs and jeers that were sounding around her. Her brain had yet to process that this was actually happening to her, until she realized that the front of her white shirt was now entirely transparent.
Then the weight of her humiliation came crashing down on her. Her face flushed bright red and, abandoning her empty lunch tray, she fled the cafeteria. As she ran away through the halls, she became vaguely aware of a pair of footsteps following her. Not wanting to be seen by anybody at this school ever again, she quickened her pace. But her pursuer had long legs, and he soon caught up with her.
"Hey," he said, grabbing Taeyeon's arm, "slow down."
"M - Minho?" she exclaimed, halting abruptly.
"That's me," he said with a grin. "Listen, I saw what happened back there - I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine," Taeyeon said, her lower lip quivering as her tear ducts threatened to betray her. "I'm fine, I just - I want to be alone right now."
"Don't let those girls make you feel bad," Minho said earnestly. "They're like that to everyone."
Taeyeon nodded, knowing that if she so much as tried to speak, she'd start bawling.
"Anyways," Minho said, "your shirt's all wet" - Taeyeon blushed fiercely - "so why don't you borrow my jacket for the afternoon?"
"R - really?" she stammered, so shocked that she nearly forgot about her distress.
"Yeah." He shrugged it off of his shoulders and handed it to her with a smile. "You need it more than I do right now. You can give it back tomorrow."
"Thank you so much," Taeyeon said, bowing.
"No problem," he said.
As he walked away, Taeyeon reflected that Minho was probably the only good thing about this school.
...
She couldn't go back to the cafeteria for the remainder of lunch - that was unthinkable. And she couldn't just wander the halls until the bell rang. So she decided to find an empty classroom where she could just sit for a while. She ruled out everything on the first floor, as they were mostly second-year classrooms and she didn't particularly want to be ridiculed by more upperclassmen, and headed up the stairs to the second floor. She was just passing the accursed room 119 when a plain, unmarked door on the other side of the hall caught her attention. She crossed the hall, tried the knob, and found it locked. Undeterred, she pulled a bobby pin from her pocket and slipped it into the keyhole, wiggling it patiently until it gave.
Opening the door, she found herself in what had to be the smallest classroom she'd ever seen. It was barely a quarter of any of the other rooms on the second floor, and contained only one table and three chairs. In the corner there were a few beanbags and a small couch. Occupying the entirety of one wall was a whiteboard covered in lists of names and numbers. At the top of each list was a bold, underlined name: Lee Eunsook, Kim Junghee, Kim Gwiboon.
Taeyeon seated herself in one of the beanbags and dedicated the rest of the lunch period to studying the lists on the whiteboard. She recognized some of the names - Lee Taemin was on the middle list, and Choi Minho was on the right-hand one - but she could make no sense of the numbers accompanying them. Next to each name was a sequence of three numbers separated by slashes, but they couldn't possibly represent dates - the numbers next to Taemin's name read 1/3/4, Minho's were 1/15/16, and then there were others like 2/10/55, 3/10/110, and 4/1/50. Then, at the bottom of each list, were three more numbers: 430/37/14, 168/25/6, 125/44/8. None of it was comprehensible, so Taeyeon tried to figure out if there was some kind of connection between the names. Many of them were unfamiliar to her, but from those she knew, she could discern no pattern. From what she could tell, they were all students from this school, but other than that, there was no order; males and females of every grade were mixed across each list.
After a while the bell rang and Taeyeon hurried off to her fifth period class, leaving the strange room behind and forgetting about it temporarily.
The rest of the day went as well as could be expected. Minho's jacket, which was too big for Taeyeon's slender frame, drew some strange glances, but she didn't mind. She liked the jacket. It was warm and somehow comforting, infused with what Taeyeon had to assume was Minho's scent. It was boyish and musky, and there was an intimacy about the fact that it followed her around all day that made color rise to Taeyeon's cheeks. She figured that she'd probably have to wash it before giving it back to him, and she wondered if it would lose its wonderful, inherently Minho smell. She hoped not.
And then she stopped to think about what she was doing, getting so attached to a mere jacket.
The very last thing she needed right now was a big, pointless crush on Minho - and there was no doubt that it would be pointless, because there was no way that cool, good-looking Minho would ever want to date the new girl, the freak, Taeyeon. In fact, he probably had a girlfriend already. For her own sake, Taeyeon was better off not falling for anybody at this new school, for the simple reason that no one was likely to reciprocate the feeling. She'd already embarrassed herself enough; she wasn't about to give people further reason to make fun of her.
Still, she thought, there was no reason not to at least be friendly towards Minho. Objectively speaking, he was a very nice boy. He'd made sure she was okay when no one else had, he'd lent her his jacket so as to preserve her dignity, and, on top of that, he was really remarkably good looking (objectively speaking, of course). Taeyeon felt her heart flutter a little bit when she thought of that smile he'd flashed her, but she gritted her teeth and fought it down. She would admit that he was, objectively, a very handsome individual, but she would not allow herself to be attracted to him.
And so she set off for the bus stop with a very strong resolve not to like Choi Minho.
But, as she riffled through her schoolbag for her wallet, a more pressing issue came to light: she had no bus money. So she set off for the parking lot and called her mother to ask for a ride.
"Umma? Can you come get me?"
"Aren't you taking the bus?" her mother responded, sounding confused.
"I was going to, but I don't have my wallet. Can you come get me?"
"Honey, I'm in the middle of important work - "
"Umma, unpacking boxes can wait."
"If I don't unpack them, how are you going to find all of your things, hm? How are we going to eat if I don't unpack the rice cooker?"
"Umma. I'm stranded here at school. Please come get me."
"I can't, honey. Your father has the car."
Taeyeon groaned.
"I'll call him," her mother continued, "And I'll have him pick you up when he gets back from his meeting."
"When will that be?" Taeyeon asked.
"Oh, probably sometime before seven."
"Great," Taeyeon sighed. "Alright. Thanks, umma. Bye."
Faced with another four hours at school, Taeyeon decided that she might as well take refuge in the library. First she decided to stop by the cafeteria in hope that there would be food, because she still hadn't eaten lunch. The cafeteria was closed. Then, on her way to the library, she remembered the room with the mysterious whiteboard lists. It would no doubt be empty right now, and it seemed as good a place as any to spend her time. Besides, it was in the same building as the library, which was open until eight, so she could be sure that she wouldn't be locked inside for the night.
She made her way to the room and got her bobby pin out of her pocket, preparing to once more jimmy the lock. But, to her surprise, it was already unlocked, and there were voices issuing from inside. Taeyeon wondered if she should just leave and not try to intrude on whatever was going on inside. But, listening to the muffled voices, she determined that they had to be students, and were probably girls, and so she decided to take her chances. She opened the door.
The first thing she registered was Kim Gwiboon's face. She should have realized that she would be here, seeing as her name headed one of the three lists, but somehow Taeyeon was almost as surprised to see Gwiboon as Gwiboon was to see her - and Gwiboon was plenty surprised. Her mouth agape in a combination of amazement and horror, Gwiboon flailed her arms helplessly at Taeyeon.
"You!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"I - I don't know," Taeyeon stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"This is our room," interrupted one of the room's other two occupants, whom Taeyeon assumed to be Lee Eunsook and Kim Junghee.
"We use it for our club," the other girl said. Taeyeon thought she recognized her as being a senior. She had long, straight hair hanging to the middle of her back, warm brown eyes twinkling from beneath a straight fringe, and some truly spectacular breasts.
"Really?" Taeyeon said. "What club is this?"
"K.I.S.S.," Gwiboon responded promptly.
"What's that?"
"Korean Industry Study Society," the other girl said. Taeyeon thought she, with her distinctively wide eyes and commanding tone, was probably an upperclassman as well.
"It's an exclusive club," Gwiboon added. "So you're not allowed to be here."
"Okay," Taeyeon said slowly. "But I was just curious... what are those lists for?"
The three girls seemed to stiffen at that. They glanced at each other.
"Those?" the girl with the tits said nervously. "Those are just... um, for fun..."
"They're nothing," Gwiboon snapped. "They're none of your business. You can leave now."
"Wait," the other girl said. She was eyeing Taeyeon speculatively. "Maybe she could join us."
"Unni!" Gwiboon said, aghast.
"Junghee, do you really think that's a good idea?" the girl with the tits said gently.
"Well, look at her, Eunsook," the girl called Junghee said, pointing to Taeyeon. "She's adorable!"
Now Eunsook turned to consider Taeyeon, her long hair swaying as she tilted her head quizzically.
"She is very cute," she conceded.
Gwiboon crossed her arms. "But that's exactly why we can't let her join," she argued. "She's too cutesy. Too innocent. She'd be horrible."
"But she adds, like, a new flavor," Junghee said. "None of us are innocent. I mean, Eunsook can be kind of stupid sometimes, but she's, you know." She nodded at the other girl's sizeable chest. "She's Eunsook."
"I don't know what's going on," Taeyeon said faintly.
The three of them swiveled their heads back to her.
"Oh, right," Eunsook said brightly. "We kiss people!"
There was a brief moment of silence as Taeyeon began to think about that, Junghee smirked at the bemused look on Taeyeon's face, Gwiboon shot Eunsook a murderous glare, and Eunsook smiled obliviously through it all.
"You kiss people," Taeyeon said flatly. "So those lists are - "
"People we've kissed," Junghee said proudly. "For this year."
"Eunsook has kissed a lot of people," Taeyeon commented.
"She's a pro," Junghee said fondly.
"I learned from the best," Eunsook replied with a barely perceptible smirk.
"Wait, but so then," Taeyeon said, still looking at the lists, "what are the numbers?"
"Those are Gwiboon's pet invention," Junghee laughed. "Tell her about the point system."
"Well," Gwiboon said, clearly torn between her desire to withhold information from Taeyeon and her desire to show off her system. "Basically, you get points every time you kiss someone. But not everyone you kiss is worth the same amount of points. I thought it made sense to gain more points from kissing a third year, for example, than a first year."
"Yet you've never kissed a third year," Junghee said with a laugh.
"Whatever," Gwiboon snapped. "So anyways, you get one point for kissing a first year, five for a second year, and ten for a third year. You also get double points for your first kiss with someone."
"Okay," Taeyeon said, scanning the board. "I think I get it. So 1/15/16 means first year, fifteen kisses, sixteen points. Wow. You've kissed Choi Minho fifteen times?"
"Yes," Gwiboon said curtly.
Taeyeon was glad she'd sworn not to like Minho. Clearly, if he was spending so much time kissing the glamorous Kim Gwiboon, he'd never want anything to do with Taeyeon. Still, she felt a slight pang of jealousy. Fifteen kisses. He had shared fifteen kisses with Gwiboon, and all he'd shared with Taeyeon was his jacket.
"Well," Taeyeon said, struggling to tear her thoughts from Minho, "then what about the fours? Some people have fours next to their names, but there's no such thing as a fourth year."
"Ah," Junghee said. "Don't you recognize some of the names? Lee Sungmin, Cho Kyuhyun?"
"Cho Kyuhyun," Taeyeon murmured. "He's... he's an assistant teacher, isn't he? He taught my chemistry class today... but then... you kissed him?"
"Yep," Junghee said proudly. "Fifty points for faculty."
"But no double points bonus," added Gwiboon. "Because fifty is already a ridiculous number. Plus, you're not likely to kiss a faculty member more than once."
"Unless you're Eunsook," Junghee said, "because, well. She's Eunsook."
"I've never kissed a teacher more than once," Eunsook protested.
"But you could," Junghee said. "If you wanted to."
"I suppose," Eunsook said thoughtfully.
"So these numbers at the bottom are totals," Taeyeon said. "Eunsook has 430 points, Junghee has 168, Gwiboon has 125."
"Right," Gwiboon said. "But aside from points, we also tally the total number of kisses and the number of people kissed."
"We only do that so Gwiboon can feel like she's winning at something," Junghee said.
"Shut up, that's not true!" Gwiboon said, flushing. "It's for the sake of complete data collection."
"Right," Junghee said, rolling her eyes. "And we're really the Korean Industry Study Society."
Eunsook giggled.
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Taeyeon asked.
"Beats me," Junghee said with a shrug. "We had to come up with some kind of club though, in order to reserve this room."
"I came up with it," Gwiboon said. "It means that we study the economics of Korean industry."
"Yuck," Junghee said, and Gwiboon whacked her on the arm.
"So anyways," Eunsook said, turning to Taeyeon. "Do you want to join us?"
"And... and kiss people?" Taeyeon asked skeptically. "I don't know... I've actually... I've never..."
"You've never kissed anyone?" Junghee said gleefully. "Oh, you have to join! We'll teach you how!"
"It would be fun," Eunsook said encouragingly.
"I don't know," Taeyeon said. She glanced at Gwiboon, who was staring mutely at her. "I don't know if I could do this."
"Oh, don't be like that," Junghee said earnestly. "You could definitely do it. You're really pretty. You just need a little more confidence!"
"And I'll bet Gwiboon would love to give you a makeover," Eunsook added. "What do you say, Gwiboon?"
Gwiboon was quiet for a moment. Then she sighed. "A makeover would be a piece of cake on such a pretty face."
Taeyeon blushed.
"And I think Taeyeon would be a good asset to this club," Gwiboon confessed grudgingly. "It would be fun to have you here."
"Really?" Taeyeon said.
"Really. And when you think about it... you have nothing to lose by joining us." She smiled wryly. "Except for your kiss virginity."
"Gwiboon is right," Eunsook said gently. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
"Well..." Taeyeon hedged.
"We're great people to be friends with, I promise," Junghee said, smiling. "You could do a lot worse."
And that's when it hit her that they were actually offering to be her friends. These three strangers were willing to befriend the new girl, the freak, Taeyeon. Never before, in her long and illustrious career of being a transfer student, had such an opportunity befallen her on her very first day. She stared at the three of them, smiling expectantly at her, and made her decision.
"I'll join."
next
girlee is such a struggle, lol. I'm gonna regret posting this.
pairing(s): 2min, minkey
rating: pg
wordcount: ~4300
summary: Taeyeon is the new girl at school. Friendless and alone, she stumbles upon an exclusive club of three girls with a strange hobby.
a/n: Okay. This is an idea that I had ages ago, dropped, and then picked back up recently. It seems like it'll be a chaptered thing, as much as I loathe writing anything but oneshots, lol. I've only done one legit chaptered fic before (different fandom) and it kind of died, but hopefully I'll actually finish this! Because I love high school AUs, lol. I should mention, though, that I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Korean schools, so I fudged some details here and there based on my own high school experience.
First days at new schools were always hard. Lee Taeyeon knew that better than anyone else. But of all the first days she'd had (and she'd had a lot), this one took the cake.
For the fifth time in her life, she was transferring to a new school midyear. She'd long since given up complaining to her parents about this, for she knew she'd get no sympathy from them, but it was really difficult to start school knowing no one when everyone else already knew each other. Social cliques would by then be well established, and Taeyeon alone would be left out. In the past, she'd learned to make do by associating with other outcasts, because nerdy friends were better than no friends. But deep inside, she'd always ached to be one of those girls. The kind that everyone knew and looked up to and wanted to hang out with. The kind that was busy every weekend, shopping and going to amusement parks with her cool, stylish friends. The kind that knew how to talk to boys and seemed to do it effortlessly, laughing and flirting as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe, Taeyeon thought to herself, this will be the year I become popular.
But, as she quickly realized that everything at this new school was conspiring against her, that wish faded away.
First there was the layout of the second floor. Her first class was English, in room 119. How was she supposed to know that it was not in fact between rooms 118 and 120, but actually upstairs between rooms 204 and 206? It made absolutely no sense. And so, by the time she finally made it there, she was five minutes late.
Then, once she was in class, there was her teacher, Jung Yunho. A handsome man with serious eyes and a severe voice, he wasted no time in berating Taeyeon for disregarding school rules. By the time he was done chewing her out, she was nearly in tears.
"I'm sorry," she said in a quiet, choked voice. "I'm so sorry, Jung-sunsaengnim, but it's my first day here and I didn't know how to find the classroom. I'm sorry."
"Hmph," he sniffed. "Well, I suppose since you're new, I'll let it slide. Go sit down."
Taeyeon bowed deeply and hurried to an empty desk at the back of the room.
"Hey," whispered a blond-haired boy, twisting around to face her from his seat directly in front of her. "I think Jung really likes you!"
Taeyeon stared at him.
"Shut up," his seat partner said, whacking the boy on the arm.
"Ow! Minho! It's true!" the boy protested, rubbing his arm. "If anyone else came late, he would give them a detention first and ask questions later."
"Lee Taemin!" barked Jung. "Talking in class again? Detention!"
"See what I mean?" Taemin muttered, shooting Taeyeon a teasing glance. "Consider yourself lucky you're so pretty."
Taeyeon sniffed haughtily and deliberately avoided looking at either Taemin or his seatmate, Minho, for the rest of the period.
Unfortunately for her, she shared another class with the two of them. Right before lunch was PE, in which she was forced to don a baggy pair of sweatpants and join the girls' soccer game. It was incredibly dull, seeing as only three other girls in the class were actually willing to play soccer - the rest of them stood around on the field, huddled in little circles, chatting animatedly about the latest styles or the newest gossip. When Taeyeon approached the three with the soccer ball, they looked both surprised and delighted to see her.
"You're gonna play with us?" asked one of them, flipping her short brown hair. "Awesome!"
"Now we have an even number," commented one of the others.
"Cool," said the third.
"Um," Taeyeon said, "is it always like this?" She gestured to the rest of the field.
"Unfortunately, yeah," the first girl sighed. "I totally wanted to join the boys' game" - she pointed to the lively match underway on the field opposite them - "but these two said no."
"Yeah," the second girl laughed. "I don't want to play soccer that badly."
"I just wanna get some exercise, you know?" the third girl said. "I've been feeling like such a fatty lately."
"Well anyways," the first girl said. "We can start now. Oh, I'm Amber, by the way."
"Lee Taeyeon," Taeyeon said.
The other two introduced themselves as Minyoung and Chaerin. Amber decided that the teams should be herself and Chaerin versus Taeyeon and Minyoung, and with that they began. It wasn't too bad playing with them, Taeyeon decided. The game was made interesting, at least, by the fact that the other girls in the class, peppering the field in stationary clusters, provided something of an obstacle course. Soon Amber's team was winning 3-0, but Taeyeon found herself laughing and having fun all the same.
That is, until she accidentally kicked the ball into the midst of one of the groups of gossiping girls.
"Yah!" came an infuriated shriek. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sorry," Taeyeon said, embarrassed. She trotted over to retrieve the ball, only to find it in the perfectly manicured hands of an angry-looking girl with pigtails.
"You're the new girl?" she said coldly.
"Uh, yes," Taeyeon said timidly. "I'm Lee Taeyeon."
"Hmph," she sniffed. "Well, I'm Kim Gwiboon, and if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your filthy, germ-ridden soccer ball away from my designer knee socks." She brandished one leg at Taeyeon, where, on her expensive white socks, there was a miniscule speck of dirt.
"I'm very sorry," Taeyeon said. "It won't happen again - "
"HEADS UP!"
Taeyeon turned to the sound of the voice, which she thought she recognized as Taemin's, and immediately something cold and hard struck her on the right temple. She was only aware of a few shocked screams and the sensation of falling backwards into the grass before everything faded to black.
When she woke up, she was in the school infirmary, as a quick glance at her sterile, white surroundings told her. By her side was a twenty-something man with a worried look on his face.
"Ah, are you awake now? Let's just have you sit up then, here we go," he said, guiding her upright with a strong, steady hand.
"Um," said Taeyeon blearily. "What time is it? Did I miss lunch?"
"No," he chuckled, "Lunch only started five minutes ago. I just need to check if you have a concussion and then you can go and eat, okay?"
"Okay," Taeyeon said.
"Now do you remember what happened to you?"
"Sure," Taeyeon said, frowning. "I was playing soccer, and then I kicked the ball towards Kim Gwiboon, and then I think the ball from the boys' game hit me in the head."
"Okay," the man said. He proceeded to shine a light into her pupils, examine the bump on her forehead, and send her off with a cheerful diagnosis of, "No concussion! Just promise me you'll be careful, okay?"
"Alright, thanks," Taeyeon said, smiling.
"Any time," the man said. "Ah! I should have introduced myself. I'm Kim Jungmo, school nurse."
"I'm Lee Taeyeon," Taeyeon said, slipping on her shoes.
"Okay! See you around!"
Taeyeon managed to find the crowded cafeteria in under a minute. Spurred on by her growling stomach, she hurried to the throng of people at the food counter and, clutching a bright orange tray in her hands, waited impatiently as the line advanced at a snail's pace. Finally, when her hunger seemed absolutely unbearable, she reached the head of the line - only to be cut off by a sizeable group of upperclassmen girls. Ignoring Taeyeon completely, the nine girls giggled and whispered amongst themselves as they lined up to receive their lunch. Taeyeon glanced at the people in line behind her, and though it seemed that they'd all noticed the new arrivals, they said nothing in protest.
"Excuse me," Taeyeon said, irritated. She'd waited this long to get her food, and she was not about to let these selfish brats delay her meal by even one second. She tapped the shoulder of the girl directly in front of her, whose hair was dyed honey blonde.
"Hm?" The girl turned slowly around, and Taeyeon saw that she was stunningly pretty. Her eyes, framed with dark lashes and tasteful makeup, were wide with surprise.
"You," Taeyeon began, intimidated by this older girl and beginning to lose her anger. "You, um. You cut in line."
The girl gave a melodic, tinkling laugh, as though the idea that anyone would ever question her actions was completely ludicrous. Then she turned back around, ignoring Taeyeon once more.
"Hey," Taeyeon said. "Excuse me!" She tapped again, more forcefully.
The girl spun around, a flash of annoyance in her eyes. "What?"
"You cut. You should go to the back of the line."
She let out another disbelieving laugh. "Are you new?"
"Yes."
"Well then," the girl said, grabbing a water bottle from the food counter, "I guess now's as good a time as any for you to learn that we" - she uncapped the water bottle emphatically - "do not" - she tossed the cap away - "wait in line." And then she poured the entire contents of the water bottle over Taeyeon's front. When it was empty, she flicked the last few droplets at Taeyeon's face.
Stunned, Taeyeon remained frozen as she felt the water seep through uniform and soak her skin. She barely registered the laughs and jeers that were sounding around her. Her brain had yet to process that this was actually happening to her, until she realized that the front of her white shirt was now entirely transparent.
Then the weight of her humiliation came crashing down on her. Her face flushed bright red and, abandoning her empty lunch tray, she fled the cafeteria. As she ran away through the halls, she became vaguely aware of a pair of footsteps following her. Not wanting to be seen by anybody at this school ever again, she quickened her pace. But her pursuer had long legs, and he soon caught up with her.
"Hey," he said, grabbing Taeyeon's arm, "slow down."
"M - Minho?" she exclaimed, halting abruptly.
"That's me," he said with a grin. "Listen, I saw what happened back there - I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine," Taeyeon said, her lower lip quivering as her tear ducts threatened to betray her. "I'm fine, I just - I want to be alone right now."
"Don't let those girls make you feel bad," Minho said earnestly. "They're like that to everyone."
Taeyeon nodded, knowing that if she so much as tried to speak, she'd start bawling.
"Anyways," Minho said, "your shirt's all wet" - Taeyeon blushed fiercely - "so why don't you borrow my jacket for the afternoon?"
"R - really?" she stammered, so shocked that she nearly forgot about her distress.
"Yeah." He shrugged it off of his shoulders and handed it to her with a smile. "You need it more than I do right now. You can give it back tomorrow."
"Thank you so much," Taeyeon said, bowing.
"No problem," he said.
As he walked away, Taeyeon reflected that Minho was probably the only good thing about this school.
...
She couldn't go back to the cafeteria for the remainder of lunch - that was unthinkable. And she couldn't just wander the halls until the bell rang. So she decided to find an empty classroom where she could just sit for a while. She ruled out everything on the first floor, as they were mostly second-year classrooms and she didn't particularly want to be ridiculed by more upperclassmen, and headed up the stairs to the second floor. She was just passing the accursed room 119 when a plain, unmarked door on the other side of the hall caught her attention. She crossed the hall, tried the knob, and found it locked. Undeterred, she pulled a bobby pin from her pocket and slipped it into the keyhole, wiggling it patiently until it gave.
Opening the door, she found herself in what had to be the smallest classroom she'd ever seen. It was barely a quarter of any of the other rooms on the second floor, and contained only one table and three chairs. In the corner there were a few beanbags and a small couch. Occupying the entirety of one wall was a whiteboard covered in lists of names and numbers. At the top of each list was a bold, underlined name: Lee Eunsook, Kim Junghee, Kim Gwiboon.
Taeyeon seated herself in one of the beanbags and dedicated the rest of the lunch period to studying the lists on the whiteboard. She recognized some of the names - Lee Taemin was on the middle list, and Choi Minho was on the right-hand one - but she could make no sense of the numbers accompanying them. Next to each name was a sequence of three numbers separated by slashes, but they couldn't possibly represent dates - the numbers next to Taemin's name read 1/3/4, Minho's were 1/15/16, and then there were others like 2/10/55, 3/10/110, and 4/1/50. Then, at the bottom of each list, were three more numbers: 430/37/14, 168/25/6, 125/44/8. None of it was comprehensible, so Taeyeon tried to figure out if there was some kind of connection between the names. Many of them were unfamiliar to her, but from those she knew, she could discern no pattern. From what she could tell, they were all students from this school, but other than that, there was no order; males and females of every grade were mixed across each list.
After a while the bell rang and Taeyeon hurried off to her fifth period class, leaving the strange room behind and forgetting about it temporarily.
The rest of the day went as well as could be expected. Minho's jacket, which was too big for Taeyeon's slender frame, drew some strange glances, but she didn't mind. She liked the jacket. It was warm and somehow comforting, infused with what Taeyeon had to assume was Minho's scent. It was boyish and musky, and there was an intimacy about the fact that it followed her around all day that made color rise to Taeyeon's cheeks. She figured that she'd probably have to wash it before giving it back to him, and she wondered if it would lose its wonderful, inherently Minho smell. She hoped not.
And then she stopped to think about what she was doing, getting so attached to a mere jacket.
The very last thing she needed right now was a big, pointless crush on Minho - and there was no doubt that it would be pointless, because there was no way that cool, good-looking Minho would ever want to date the new girl, the freak, Taeyeon. In fact, he probably had a girlfriend already. For her own sake, Taeyeon was better off not falling for anybody at this new school, for the simple reason that no one was likely to reciprocate the feeling. She'd already embarrassed herself enough; she wasn't about to give people further reason to make fun of her.
Still, she thought, there was no reason not to at least be friendly towards Minho. Objectively speaking, he was a very nice boy. He'd made sure she was okay when no one else had, he'd lent her his jacket so as to preserve her dignity, and, on top of that, he was really remarkably good looking (objectively speaking, of course). Taeyeon felt her heart flutter a little bit when she thought of that smile he'd flashed her, but she gritted her teeth and fought it down. She would admit that he was, objectively, a very handsome individual, but she would not allow herself to be attracted to him.
And so she set off for the bus stop with a very strong resolve not to like Choi Minho.
But, as she riffled through her schoolbag for her wallet, a more pressing issue came to light: she had no bus money. So she set off for the parking lot and called her mother to ask for a ride.
"Umma? Can you come get me?"
"Aren't you taking the bus?" her mother responded, sounding confused.
"I was going to, but I don't have my wallet. Can you come get me?"
"Honey, I'm in the middle of important work - "
"Umma, unpacking boxes can wait."
"If I don't unpack them, how are you going to find all of your things, hm? How are we going to eat if I don't unpack the rice cooker?"
"Umma. I'm stranded here at school. Please come get me."
"I can't, honey. Your father has the car."
Taeyeon groaned.
"I'll call him," her mother continued, "And I'll have him pick you up when he gets back from his meeting."
"When will that be?" Taeyeon asked.
"Oh, probably sometime before seven."
"Great," Taeyeon sighed. "Alright. Thanks, umma. Bye."
Faced with another four hours at school, Taeyeon decided that she might as well take refuge in the library. First she decided to stop by the cafeteria in hope that there would be food, because she still hadn't eaten lunch. The cafeteria was closed. Then, on her way to the library, she remembered the room with the mysterious whiteboard lists. It would no doubt be empty right now, and it seemed as good a place as any to spend her time. Besides, it was in the same building as the library, which was open until eight, so she could be sure that she wouldn't be locked inside for the night.
She made her way to the room and got her bobby pin out of her pocket, preparing to once more jimmy the lock. But, to her surprise, it was already unlocked, and there were voices issuing from inside. Taeyeon wondered if she should just leave and not try to intrude on whatever was going on inside. But, listening to the muffled voices, she determined that they had to be students, and were probably girls, and so she decided to take her chances. She opened the door.
The first thing she registered was Kim Gwiboon's face. She should have realized that she would be here, seeing as her name headed one of the three lists, but somehow Taeyeon was almost as surprised to see Gwiboon as Gwiboon was to see her - and Gwiboon was plenty surprised. Her mouth agape in a combination of amazement and horror, Gwiboon flailed her arms helplessly at Taeyeon.
"You!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"I - I don't know," Taeyeon stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"This is our room," interrupted one of the room's other two occupants, whom Taeyeon assumed to be Lee Eunsook and Kim Junghee.
"We use it for our club," the other girl said. Taeyeon thought she recognized her as being a senior. She had long, straight hair hanging to the middle of her back, warm brown eyes twinkling from beneath a straight fringe, and some truly spectacular breasts.
"Really?" Taeyeon said. "What club is this?"
"K.I.S.S.," Gwiboon responded promptly.
"What's that?"
"Korean Industry Study Society," the other girl said. Taeyeon thought she, with her distinctively wide eyes and commanding tone, was probably an upperclassman as well.
"It's an exclusive club," Gwiboon added. "So you're not allowed to be here."
"Okay," Taeyeon said slowly. "But I was just curious... what are those lists for?"
The three girls seemed to stiffen at that. They glanced at each other.
"Those?" the girl with the tits said nervously. "Those are just... um, for fun..."
"They're nothing," Gwiboon snapped. "They're none of your business. You can leave now."
"Wait," the other girl said. She was eyeing Taeyeon speculatively. "Maybe she could join us."
"Unni!" Gwiboon said, aghast.
"Junghee, do you really think that's a good idea?" the girl with the tits said gently.
"Well, look at her, Eunsook," the girl called Junghee said, pointing to Taeyeon. "She's adorable!"
Now Eunsook turned to consider Taeyeon, her long hair swaying as she tilted her head quizzically.
"She is very cute," she conceded.
Gwiboon crossed her arms. "But that's exactly why we can't let her join," she argued. "She's too cutesy. Too innocent. She'd be horrible."
"But she adds, like, a new flavor," Junghee said. "None of us are innocent. I mean, Eunsook can be kind of stupid sometimes, but she's, you know." She nodded at the other girl's sizeable chest. "She's Eunsook."
"I don't know what's going on," Taeyeon said faintly.
The three of them swiveled their heads back to her.
"Oh, right," Eunsook said brightly. "We kiss people!"
There was a brief moment of silence as Taeyeon began to think about that, Junghee smirked at the bemused look on Taeyeon's face, Gwiboon shot Eunsook a murderous glare, and Eunsook smiled obliviously through it all.
"You kiss people," Taeyeon said flatly. "So those lists are - "
"People we've kissed," Junghee said proudly. "For this year."
"Eunsook has kissed a lot of people," Taeyeon commented.
"She's a pro," Junghee said fondly.
"I learned from the best," Eunsook replied with a barely perceptible smirk.
"Wait, but so then," Taeyeon said, still looking at the lists, "what are the numbers?"
"Those are Gwiboon's pet invention," Junghee laughed. "Tell her about the point system."
"Well," Gwiboon said, clearly torn between her desire to withhold information from Taeyeon and her desire to show off her system. "Basically, you get points every time you kiss someone. But not everyone you kiss is worth the same amount of points. I thought it made sense to gain more points from kissing a third year, for example, than a first year."
"Yet you've never kissed a third year," Junghee said with a laugh.
"Whatever," Gwiboon snapped. "So anyways, you get one point for kissing a first year, five for a second year, and ten for a third year. You also get double points for your first kiss with someone."
"Okay," Taeyeon said, scanning the board. "I think I get it. So 1/15/16 means first year, fifteen kisses, sixteen points. Wow. You've kissed Choi Minho fifteen times?"
"Yes," Gwiboon said curtly.
Taeyeon was glad she'd sworn not to like Minho. Clearly, if he was spending so much time kissing the glamorous Kim Gwiboon, he'd never want anything to do with Taeyeon. Still, she felt a slight pang of jealousy. Fifteen kisses. He had shared fifteen kisses with Gwiboon, and all he'd shared with Taeyeon was his jacket.
"Well," Taeyeon said, struggling to tear her thoughts from Minho, "then what about the fours? Some people have fours next to their names, but there's no such thing as a fourth year."
"Ah," Junghee said. "Don't you recognize some of the names? Lee Sungmin, Cho Kyuhyun?"
"Cho Kyuhyun," Taeyeon murmured. "He's... he's an assistant teacher, isn't he? He taught my chemistry class today... but then... you kissed him?"
"Yep," Junghee said proudly. "Fifty points for faculty."
"But no double points bonus," added Gwiboon. "Because fifty is already a ridiculous number. Plus, you're not likely to kiss a faculty member more than once."
"Unless you're Eunsook," Junghee said, "because, well. She's Eunsook."
"I've never kissed a teacher more than once," Eunsook protested.
"But you could," Junghee said. "If you wanted to."
"I suppose," Eunsook said thoughtfully.
"So these numbers at the bottom are totals," Taeyeon said. "Eunsook has 430 points, Junghee has 168, Gwiboon has 125."
"Right," Gwiboon said. "But aside from points, we also tally the total number of kisses and the number of people kissed."
"We only do that so Gwiboon can feel like she's winning at something," Junghee said.
"Shut up, that's not true!" Gwiboon said, flushing. "It's for the sake of complete data collection."
"Right," Junghee said, rolling her eyes. "And we're really the Korean Industry Study Society."
Eunsook giggled.
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Taeyeon asked.
"Beats me," Junghee said with a shrug. "We had to come up with some kind of club though, in order to reserve this room."
"I came up with it," Gwiboon said. "It means that we study the economics of Korean industry."
"Yuck," Junghee said, and Gwiboon whacked her on the arm.
"So anyways," Eunsook said, turning to Taeyeon. "Do you want to join us?"
"And... and kiss people?" Taeyeon asked skeptically. "I don't know... I've actually... I've never..."
"You've never kissed anyone?" Junghee said gleefully. "Oh, you have to join! We'll teach you how!"
"It would be fun," Eunsook said encouragingly.
"I don't know," Taeyeon said. She glanced at Gwiboon, who was staring mutely at her. "I don't know if I could do this."
"Oh, don't be like that," Junghee said earnestly. "You could definitely do it. You're really pretty. You just need a little more confidence!"
"And I'll bet Gwiboon would love to give you a makeover," Eunsook added. "What do you say, Gwiboon?"
Gwiboon was quiet for a moment. Then she sighed. "A makeover would be a piece of cake on such a pretty face."
Taeyeon blushed.
"And I think Taeyeon would be a good asset to this club," Gwiboon confessed grudgingly. "It would be fun to have you here."
"Really?" Taeyeon said.
"Really. And when you think about it... you have nothing to lose by joining us." She smiled wryly. "Except for your kiss virginity."
"Gwiboon is right," Eunsook said gently. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
"Well..." Taeyeon hedged.
"We're great people to be friends with, I promise," Junghee said, smiling. "You could do a lot worse."
And that's when it hit her that they were actually offering to be her friends. These three strangers were willing to befriend the new girl, the freak, Taeyeon. Never before, in her long and illustrious career of being a transfer student, had such an opportunity befallen her on her very first day. She stared at the three of them, smiling expectantly at her, and made her decision.
"I'll join."
next
girlee is such a struggle, lol. I'm gonna regret posting this.