different

one

lee jisu

i walked past the groups of people who would choose to gather in the school's courtyard, deciding to step into school and spend the rest of the time i had before lessons started there.

i was unimpressed.

everybody liked the same things. everybody seemed to like sports or skateboarding somehow. i found it incredibly mainstream.

the skater boy falls in love with the pretty princess of the school.

sound familiar?

yeah. just every love story ever.

which is exactly why i gave up on love. every guy. every relationship. it just seemed like a copy and paste, every single time. nothing exciting.

but i guess that's this town for you.

the only thing exciting to the people here would be this group of boys. they called themselves seventeen. no, not by age. there were thirteen of them. thirteen of them, three units and being one team. adding all that together, having seventeen as your answer.

but i didn't think much of them either.

i've had three of them in my class, ever since i was practically a little kid. dokyeom, mingyu and the8, otherwise known as minghao.

i've never spoken to them, neither did i intend to. they were just regular students to me. as i've said, i didn't think much of them.

i wasn't like the other girls in this school. i didn't spend my time gawking at the boys, trying to get their attention. because i didn't care.

i spent my time at home, studying.

i wasn't born into a billionaire family. but we were stable. my parents owned a restaurant. or rather, a cafe. i'd work there during the holidays and term breaks. i wasn't paid but i didn't mind. i just wanted to be some type of help for my parents.

as the bell rang, students began to rush into their classrooms. where i had been, this entire time. i was peaceful. until of course, the bell rang.

sometimes i wished that i could control everybody around me, having a remote control to mute them. but the world isn't perfect.

that's okay.

i watched as girls followed behind dokyeom, mingu and minghao. girls wanted to date them. and guys wanted to be them.

i sighed, shaking my head as i felt a migraine coming in soon.

"mingyu-ah. your table's gone for this year because the other classes were in need of a desk because of a new student." the teacher explained. "it's fine. there's a vacant seat right there." he spoke politely.

all was fine. until i realised that the seat he was talking about was the seat beside me.

"annyeong." he greeted, leaning on his table so he's be in my line of vision. "hi." i answered, clearing my throat as i let out a sigh. "you don't seem too happy that i'm sitting here." he says with a chuckle as he takes his textbook out of his bag.

"no. i just don't care." i said, taking mine out as i flipped to the page that the teacher asked for us to turn our textbook to. "how refreshing." he says, giving me a smile. i hum.