T H R E E ✧ T H E B O Y W I T H
B L U E H A I R
. . .
I WAKE up to birds chirping and sunlight streaming down onto my face from outside the window. To be honest, the weather feels a bit too cheerful for my mood today, but I suppose that this is no time to mope around; I have to get to school before I'm late.
Groaning, I swing my legs off my bed as I sit up. I yawn and stretch my arms upwards, a routine of mine that I've grown accustomed to.
I walk towards my dresser, whereupon my eyes land on my reflection in the mirror and cause me to gasp. My hair is sticking out in all the wrong places, my clothes from last night wrinkled and battered all over. Makeup is smudged on my face, a consequence of not cleaning it last night, proving that I look just as awful as I feel.
My eyes move towards the digital clock on my bedside table and my eyes widen at the fact that I've only got a little more than thirty minutes to prepare for school and get there on time.
Scrambling towards the bathroom, I hurriedly peel my dirty clothes off and get in the shower. Only cold water comes out of the shower head at first, but I couldn't care less as I stand under the warming water. I shampoo my hair before lathering myself in rich body foam, then proceed in washing the sleepiness and caking makeup off my face all in under ten minutes.
I mentally pat myself in the back as I reach for the towels, wrapping one around my head to allow my hair to dry and another around my body. I look at myself in the mirror of the bathroom—thank heavens I look better already—and hurriedly brush my teeth.
While doing so, I swing the doors of my closet door open and pull my school uniform off the rack. I put them on after my undergarmets, then rush back to the bathroom to spit out the foaming toothpaste that's formed in my mouth. Within minutes, I am already on my bike, pedalling vigorously to school.
✧ ✦ ✧
I ARRIVE with a little less than five minutes left to spare.
I slide in my usual seat. My first class is Biology, a subject in which I manage to excel in even though I don't necessarily like it as much. My lab partner, a Chinese exchange student named Minghao, plops down on his seat just as the bell rings, and Ms. Park, our teacher, enters on cue.
"Hey," Minghao greets, giving me a small smile. "You look tired."
I inwardly groan, a little annoyed of the fact that my morning rush hadn't really helped me in any way.
"Yeah, it's been a long week."
"Hey, don't be sad." He replies, his smile stretching. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm good." I give him a smile of my own. "Thanks, though."
"Anytime."
"Alright, class. Please have a representative from each table come to the front to collect two beakers for today's experiment."
✧ ✦ ✧
SEVERAL HOURS later, I am sitting in my last class, which is English. Here, everyone is required to have an english name, and we are known as nothing but that for this one hour.
Towards the end of class, our english teacher tells us that we will be doing some kind of project on the book Pride and Prejudice and assign our partners.
By luck, I end up getting partnered up with Vernon, the part-Caucasian student whom the girls would do absolutely anything to be with. I'm not glad to have him as a partner so that I can gawk at his handsome face (which, to be fair, looks like a young Leonardo DiCaprio), but rather because I want to learn better English; and where else would I go to aside from him?
"Hey, Soo Jung, right?" He asks, flashing me a toothy smile.
I nod my head yes. "Crystal, technically, but yeah."
"Cool, I'm Vernon."
Chuckling lightly, I say, "I know."
Our little conversation alone attracts the school's mean girls, Seungyeon, Jenny and Hara. The three glares at me from across the room as I talk to the boy, and I can feel their penetrating eyes on me without even having to look at them.
The moment the bell rings, I quickly get up and leave, but I feel someone grab my wrist and forcefully pull me back.
"Who do you think you are, talking to my man?" Seungyeon hisses, eyeing me up and down with her little eyes. "You are a nobody here, you should've gone with your grandparents."
I open my mouth to respond, but someone pulls me back, making me fall into a set of arms. Reluctantly, I look up to see an extremely tall boy, six foot at least, with shaved sides and slicked blue hair. His skin is rather tan, and his eyes are a warm, chocolate-brown—that, in short, he is rather charming.
When I look at Seungyeon and her gang, their mouths are wide open in shock, though I've got a feeling that it's mostly because of how handsome the boy with blue hair actually looks. My question, however, is this: who is this boy?
The boy in question looks Seungyeon dead in the eyes, and I see her visibly gulp at his ice-cold stare. He then unexpectedly gives her a sugar-sweet smile, obviously superficial, and pulls me in closer towards him.
"And who do you think you girls are, picking on an innocent sweetheart like Jungie-ah over here?"
