I stood outside Room 2-B for a solid ten seconds.
The door was heavy, solid wood with a small, soundproofed-glass window. I couldn't hear a thing from inside. It was like a bank vault. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, took a deep breath, and pulled the handle.
The door opened with a heavy, oiled whoosh.
The classroom was... not a classroom. It looked more like a university seminar room, with tiered rows of desks facing a teacher at the bottom, who was lecturing in front of a massive smart-board.
And, of course, the second I opened the door, the teacher stopped mid-sentence. Every single student—all thirty of them—turned their heads. It was the auditorium all over again, but smaller, and a thousand times more intimate.
The teacher was a man in his forties with messy, curly hair, a faded band t-shirt on under his blazer, and a look of profound boredom.
"Uh..." I said, my voice squeaking. I held up my schedule like a white flag. "Jwe-song-hamnida... I'm sorry. I'm new. Oleksandr Motu... San. San-ibnida. I was with Ms. Choi."
The teacher, Mr. Kang, sighed. It was a sigh that said he'd seen everything and was impressed by none of it. "Ah, maj-ayo. Ukeuraina!" He tapped his tablet. "San. Right. You're late."
"Yes, seonsaengnim. I had to go to the tailor."
"Right, the uniform. Fine, fine. This is Modern Music History. We're discussing the sociopolitical impact of Seo Taiji. You haven't missed much." He gestured vaguely to the tiers of seats. "Find a spot. Just... sit down. Anywhere."
I nodded, my face on fire, and began the terrible, slow walk up the steps, looking for an empty seat.
The room was a map of the high school universe. In the front rows, I saw her. Ha-neul. She was sitting perfectly, a row of neat, color-coded pens on her desk, her notebook already half-full of immaculate notes. She was the absolute picture of a model student.
Why the hell everyone here is so pretty? I feel insecure!
I made eye contact, hoping for... I don't know, a nod? A "you're-in-the-right-place" smile?
She met my gaze for half a second, her expression blank, and then deliberately turned her head back to the teacher, as if she'd just seen a mildly interesting smudge on the wall. My stomach sank. Okay. So that's how it is.
In the very back, sprawled across the last row, were the rebels. Myung-Dae, the one with the beanie, was leaning so far back in his chair he was almost horizontal, headphones on, eyes closed. The others were in various states of ignoring the lesson—one was sketching on a tablet, another was tapping a silent rhythm on his desk. They didn't even look up. The "Empty Seat" sign around them was glowing neon. Not there.
Jun-seo's seat, next to Ha-neul, was conspicuously empty.
Then I saw one. An empty desk, three-quarters of the way up, in the "neutral" zone. The girl sitting next to it was the only other person in the room not staring at me.
She was staring at her phone. It was a bright, bubblegum-pink Samsung Galaxy S6, encased in a sparkly case. She had long, impossibly shiny black hair, and even from the side, she was stunning. She was tapping away at the screen with long, painted fingernails.
As I got closer, she must have sensed my shadow. She looked up. Her eyes were huge, dark, and lined with a perfect cat-eye. She looked at my "Mountain" tag, at my jeans, at my face, and then... she smiled. It wasn't a polite smile. It was a bright, genuine, interested smile. She patted the empty desk next to her.
A wave of whispers broke out behind me. "...Min-ah-hante?..." (Next to Min-ah?) "...wae?..." (Why?)
I had no other choice. I slid into the desk, dropping my backpack to the floor. It felt like I'd just sat down at the high-stakes table in a casino. "Okay, back to Seo Taiji," Mr. Kang droned from the front. I tried to pull out a notebook, trying to look like a student, but I was so aware of the girl next to me I could barely breathe. She smelled like peaches.
I felt a tap on my arm. I looked over. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at the teacher, pretending to listen. But she had slid her pink phone onto my desk. I looked down at the screen.
It was a picture. A blurry, zoomed-in photo of me, standing in the spotlight in the auditorium, looking like a terrified deer. Under it, on what looked like a school-wide social media board, was a caption: "Kirin's new 'Representative.' He's... cute? (ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ)"
I looked at her, confused. She slowly turned her head, that brilliant, mischievous smile returning. She brought a finger to her lips in a "shh" gesture. She leaned in, her voice a tiny, perfect whisper. "You're famous, San-ssi," she breathed.
She picked her phone back up, and with a tiny, silent wink, went back to tapping.