Heartstrings || Joshua Hong

Chapter 1

Rina POV:

I ran down the hall panting, checking every classroom's number until I reached the one I was looking for: class 3-17. I glanced at my watch, read "8:02", and thought, Crap, it's my first day here and I'm already late. Well, it wasn't my fault that we'd missed our connecting flight the previous day. My family barely had any time to settle down in our new condo before I dashed out of the house, attempting to be on time for what was technically already the second day of junior year.

I took a deep breath before pushing open the door. Heads swiveled in my direction and I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I self-consciously walked to the front of the classroom. I greeted the teacher, Mr. Roberts, and apologized for being late.

"It's alright, Rina, you've probably been through a lot in the past 48 hours. Why don't you just introduce yourself to the class", he said with a welcoming smile.

"Oh, uh, right, okay." I stammered out. I turned to face the class and began my introduction. "Hi everyone, I'm Rina Song and I just transferred to DMHS this year. Um, I just flew in to LA about a day ago...my family moves around quite a bit because of my parents' jobs. So...yeah, I hope we can get along this year!"

I finished kind of awkwardly but most of the class started clapping and smiling at me. I let out a breath that I didn't know I'd been holding in and started looking around the room for an empty seat. My eyes, however, landed on one Asian boy who clearly hadn't been paying attention the whole time. He wore a light blue shirt unbuttoned at the top and his eyes, which were honestly quite handsome, looked out the window at some random spot in the distance. When he and I made eye contact, he visibly rolled his eyes and yawned, sweeping some of his soft black bangs out of his face. 

Ok, rude? Did he just...?  I thought, but hid my disgust. Unfortunately, the only empty seat was right next to him and he didn't even bother to acknowledge my presence when I sat down. Well, I know who I'm not talking to this semester. I was lucky that homeroom only lasted for 30 minutes, though. When the bell rang, I got up as quickly as I could from my chair so I wouldn't have to deal with him for a second longer.

I stood by the homeroom door, scrutinizing my class schedule which was all crumpled up from sitting at the bottom of my luggage, and tried to figure out where to go when all of a sudden I heard a loud, "Hey, new kid, get out of the way." My head quickly turned, face reddening, until I saw who it was.

"Would it hurt to ask nicely? Also, I have a name you know, it'--"

"Can you just move, Rina, other people need to get to class, too, you know?", he said impatiently. I thought of a million different things I could've said in response, but instead just moved out of the way, not wanting to make enemies on my first day. He smirked and started walking away.

I turned in the opposite direction, hoping to lose him as soon as possible, when I heard him say, "Oh yeah, your math class is down the hallway, first door on your left. You're welcome."

I paused, surprised that he'd bothered to help without me even asking, and quickly said, "Thanks um..."

"Joshua. Joshua Hong. You better remember it", he said, finishing my sentence before finally leaving me alone.

This guy... I thought, well, so much for not talking to him, I guess, and followed his directions to my math class.

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A/N: Oooh, sassy Jisoo.