Chapter Text
Zoey nervously tugged on the collar of her white button-up, the tie feeling tight around her neck. She still wasn’t used to having to wear school uniforms. She longed for her headphones, the familiar weight of them over her ears, the comforting sounds of familiar tunes creating a bubble between her and the noise of the outside world. But alas, earbuds and headphones were against the rules at her new school. Even cell phone use was limited.
Thus was her fate at Namsan Girls’ High School, one of the most prestigious (and stuck-up, in Zoey’s opinion) private high schools in the region. Zoey had wanted to go to an international school, but her mother believed that attending Namsan would be better for her future. It certainly helped that her wealthy new husband had connections to the school and was footing the bill for her tuition.
Zoey fumbled for her class schedule, but her hands shook. Crap, she was going to be late if she couldn’t find her room within the next couple minutes. Other students shot her weird looks as she frantically scanned each classroom number, desperately trying to find her homeroom.
Finally, she made it to her destination. Zoey quickly shuffled through the door and slipped into an empty seat. Zoey was rummaging through her book bag when the sound of a palm slapping her desk startled her.
Zoey looked up and gaped. Staring down at her was an angular-faced girl with bright pink hair, leaning one hand possessively on the desk. She had multiple piercings in each ear and dramatic eye makeup. Her shirt was untucked and her tie hung loosely around her neck, as if she had thrown it on but couldn’t be bothered to fix it. In a sea of students with natural hair wearing perfectly pressed uniforms, she definitely stood out. That hair’s not to code, Zoey fleetingly thought, before the girl spoke.
“You’re sitting at my desk.”
Zoey froze as her neck heated in embarrassment. Was there a seating chart? Did she somehow miss the memo? Zoey’s mouth gaped as her Korean seemed to fail her, brain scrambling to find the right words. Pink Hair raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting her to say something. It was difficult though when the girl was so distractingly…
“Hot.”
A pause.
“Um, what?”
Before Zoey could shrivel up and die of embarrassment, another voice interjected. “Mira, we don’t have assigned seats. She was there first. It’s hers.” Both girls looked up. In the middle front row seat, a girl with shiny black hair styled in a long braid was looking at them, specifically Pink Hair. She had an air of authority and self-assurance, as if she were used to being obeyed.
Pink Hair—Mira, Zoey noted—sneered. “Butt out, princess. It’s none of your business.”
“Anything that disrupts the classroom environment is the class president’s business,” the other girl responded. “It’s important that all students feel comfortable while learning.”
“Yeah, and I feel comfortable here.” Mira stabbed the desk with her pointer finger for emphasis.
As the two girls argued, Zoey could feel the other students begin to take notice of the commotion. Their stares felt like lasers burning into her body. They were hungry for drama. Causing a scene, drawing attention, sticking out in any way at all, was the last thing Zoey wanted.
She couldn’t take it anymore. Zoey squeaked out a weak, “Sorry,” scooped up her things, and scurried to another seat near the back of the class, if only to escape the situation. Hopefully she wasn’t stealing another person’s seat.
Pink Hair watched her retreating form, looking surprised. The girl with the braid looked at Zoey in concern, but after a few moments, she turned back around to face the front of the classroom.
A few moments later, a man burst through the door in a flurry of papers and nervous energy. “Whew! Made it. Hey everyone, sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe how bad traffic was today,” he chuckled. This must be Jeong Bobby, her homeroom teacher, according to Zoey’s now-crumpled schedule. He was a short and slightly overweight man who looked to be in his thirties. Wisps of a mustache decorated the corners of his lips. He had an excitable energy about him that made him look completely out of place within the austere walls of Namsan, in Zoey’s opinion.
“Anywho, guess what, class? We have a new student transferring in today, yayyy! Say hello to Yoo Zoey!” With a wide smile, the teacher gestured to Zoey, who had sunk down in her new seat, an obvious grimace plastered all over her face. Mr. Jeong, completely oblivious, said, “Why don’t you come up and introduce yourself?”
Zoey’s stomach dropped. She glanced around the classroom. Everyone was looking at her expectantly. Everyone except Mira, who was staring off into space, looking bored out of her mind. Among the sea of faces, Zoey’s gaze caught that of the girl from earlier, the one who had defended her. She gave Zoey an encouraging nod and smile.
Zoey gulped. She slinked out of her seat and stood at the front of the classroom.
“H-hi everyone, it’s nice to meet you. M-my name is Zoey,” she stated in shaky Korean. She bowed stiffly and stared at her feet. There were a few snickers, even some scoffs. The words, “The hell? Is she a foreigner or something?” floated to her ears. Zoey’s body burned with shame. She felt smaller and smaller by the second.
“Great introduction, Zoey!” Mr. Jeong said. “I know everyone will look forward to getting to know you this year. You can take your seat now.”
Zoey rushed back to her chair, not looking at anyone. Mr. Jeong’s voice faded into the background as Zoey’s ears filled with static. She didn’t look up from her desk for the rest of the period.
-o-
Zoey stumbled through the halls in a daze, clutching onto her notebooks as if they could ground her. All of her classes had been instructed in Korean, confirming her worst fears. Math was already unintelligible enough in English, let alone a language she wasn’t fully comfortable with. After four morning classes, her class had finally been released for lunch, giving her already-fried brain a much-needed break.
Zoey fully planned on grabbing something small from the cafeteria and then disappearing to a quiet corner somewhere where she could eat and jot down ideas for song lyrics in peace. As she walked toward the cafeteria, a trio of students approached her. One of the girls, who was wearing her hair in a ponytail, slapped the notebooks out of Zoey’s arms as they passed.
“Hey, watch it!” Zoey cried indignantly, automatically using English. The group of girls only snickered. They seemed familiar. Zoey realized they were in her class.
“Wow, so it’s true, she really is a foreigner.”
“She looks Korean but she can hardly speak it, what the hell?”
“Namsan will let anyone in these days, huh?”
Zoey tried to ignore them. She bent down to pick up her books, but one of the girls kicked them out of her reach. They skidded across the floor in every direction.
“Oops,” one of the girls said, covering her mouth in mock horror. “My mistake.” Her friends laughed.
Zoey squeezed her eyes shut. It’s happening again.
“Hey, foreigner, pick up your trash. It’s littering the floor.”
Humiliated, Zoey moved to pick up her scattered notebooks, only for the girls to walk over and kick them out of reach again.
“Dirty foreigner, look at this mess you’re making. Clean it up or we’re telling.”
Zoey bit her lip and willed herself not to cry. Her distress only seemed to encourage the bullies even more.
“Haha, she’s about to cry.”
“She looks so pathetic.”
Ponytail, the apparent ringleader, walked up to Zoey and shoved her. Zoey lost her balance and slammed into the wall. Pain exploded from her shoulder down to her back. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. She wished she could stand up for herself, fight back. She hated how weak she was.
Ponytail looked like she was about to go in for round two when an angry voice boomed out.
“HEY!”
The girls whirled around. Standing in the middle of the hallway, arms crossed in a ‘don’t fuck with me’ stance, was Mira. At the sight of her, Zoey’s bullies faltered. “What the fuck is going on here?” Mira demanded, walking over to Zoey and the bullies.
The girls looked taken aback by Mira’s tone. “Uh, we were just talking to the new student.”
“Really?” Mira asked, skeptical. “To me it looked more like bullying. And if it’s bullying, I’ll have to report it. That wouldn’t look very good on your records now, would it, Ji-Hye?”
Ji-Hye stared at Mira, at a loss for words.
Mira tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Actually, I seem to recall that your dad got laid off last year, right? And now he’s working for my dad’s company…”
Horror dawned on Ji-Hye’s face.
Mira pouted. “It would be so sad if it got back to my dad that his employee’s daughter bullied one of my friends…”
Ji-Hye dropped to her knees. “Wait, please, Mira, don’t! I didn’t know you two were friends, I swear!”
Mira glared at Ji-Hye’s friends, who dropped to their knees as well.
“Mira, please, we’ll never talk to her or touch her again. Promise!”
Mira stared at the three. They cowered under her gaze. Mira huffed. “Fine, I’ll let you guys off the hook this time. But don’t even think about doing something like this again.”
Ji-Hye nodded furiously. “Of course! Whatever you want!”
“Pick up her shit for her and then get the hell out of my sight.”
Ji-Hye and her friends quickly picked up Zoey’s things and handed them back to her, bowing awkwardly. Zoey took her things in complete disbelief. After the girls left, Mira turned to Zoey. She half-expected Mira to do something even worse than Ji-Hye had, when Mira said, in an unexpectedly soft voice, “Hey, you okay?” She offered her hand to help Zoey up. Zoey’s heart thumped.
Was she her guardian angel?
Zoey shook the ridiculous thought out of her head and gratefully took the other girl’s hand. “Why did you help me?” she asked, clutching her notebooks protectively to her stomach.
“Because I’m a nice person who hates to see stuck-up bitches picking on clueless Americans,” Mira answered flatly.
Zoey tilted her head in confusion. “Like you did to me this morning?”
“That’s different,” Mira responded. “That was about seats. And seats are sacred.”
“Um, okay,” Zoey said, accepting the strange answer. “So, uh, are we friends now?”
Mira stared at her. “What on earth makes you think I want to be friends with you?”
“Well, you saved me from those bullies when you didn’t have to.”
“So?”
Zoey shrugged.
Mira turned to leave. She walked a few steps, then stopped when she realized Zoey was following her.
“Do you seriously have nothing better to do than to follow me?” Mira asked.
“I don’t know where the lunch room is,” Zoey answered.
Mira looked at her, then groaned. “Fine. Just come with me then.”
Zoey perked up and trailed after Mira with a skip in her step. She could see Mira rolling her eyes at her, but Zoey didn’t care. She had a good feeling about Mira--despite how scary she looked--and her good feelings were usually never wrong.
-o-
“So, how are you allowed to have that hair?” Zoey asked as she walked side by side with Mira. “Isn’t dyeing your hair against the dress code?”
Mira flicked some hair over her shoulder, smirking slightly. “It is, but my parents are the school’s biggest donors. They’ve got the administration in their pocket. I’m basically untouchable.”
Well, that explained the bullies’ reactions to her threats earlier.
Mira continued, “Yeah, everyone who goes here is a rich bitch. I’m just the richest bitch.”
“Haha, yeah,” Zoey agreed half-heartedly. Not that she would know what that was like, growing up wealthy like that.
“Not to be blunt, but how did you get accepted? Namsan almost never accepts transfers after the semester’s started, and you don’t exactly scream ‘chaebol heir.’”
“My, uh, my new step-dad, he’s on the school board.”
Mira whistled. “That’s some serious nepotism. Maybe you’ll fit in after all.”
Zoey didn’t know if Mira was insulting her or not. “Is everyone who goes here really that rich?”
“Yup, pretty much. At Namsan, there’s a hierarchy. Prestige and family name are everything. Honestly, if you’d said earlier that your dad is on the schoolboard, I bet Ji-Hye would have shit her pants.”
“Step-dad,” Zoey corrected.
“Whatever,” Mira said dismissively. “You should get used to throwing his name around if you wanna survive here. This is one of the most competitive high schools in Korea, and students are cutthroat as fuck. Everyone else is competition, even your friends.”
Zoey had picked up on that vibe the moment she’d stepped through the front doors. The quiet rivalries undergirding every social interaction, even when students were laughing and talking with each other. It seemed exhausting.
“But you don’t seem like that type,” Zoey said.
“Yeah, because I see how bullshit it all is. But it’s not like I’m not part of the system. I’m the number two student in the school. Not a lot of people expect it from someone who looks like me,” Mira said, gesturing up and down at her appearance, “but the good grades help keep my parents off my back.”
Right. Student rankings. They do that here, Zoey thought miserably. “Who’s number one then?” she asked out of curiosity.
Mira’s face darkened. “Ryu Rumi.” She spat out her name like a curse. “The class president and princess of Namsan Girls’ High School.”
Recognition struck Zoey. “The girl with the braid? But she’s so nice!”
“No, she’s evil,” Mira barked. “She’s a lying, manipulative bitch who will screw you over if you’re not careful.”
Zoey recoiled at Mira’s outburst. “Did she do something to you?”
Mira was silent for a few moments. Then, she said, “We’re here. Question time is over.” The pair had arrived at the cafeteria.
Mira and Zoey quickly got their food, but paused when they realized that the dining hall was packed. “All the tables are full. Should we ask to sit with someone?” Zoey asked.
Mira walked over to the nearest table and glared at the people sitting there. “Scram,” she ordered. The students all hurriedly picked up their trays and left. Mira smiled at Zoey in satisfaction. “Got us a spot.”
Mira plopped down and immediately began digging into her curry. Zoey gingerly sat down across from her. “It’s freaky how you’re just able to do that.”
“Perks of having psycho but rich parents,” Mira said with her mouth full. Zoey smiled awkwardly and began eating.
In the center of the dining hall sat Ryu Rumi. She was surrounded by other students, all leaning toward her and vying for the chance to talk to her. She seems to exude a magnetic pull that entranced even Zoey, who was sitting so far away. Rumi giggled at something another girl said, and the girl gazed at her with stars in her eyes.
“Tsk, bunch of sycophants,” Mira scoffed. “Looking at them all worshiping her makes me sick.”
Zoey said nothing, just focused on her food. Rumi didn’t seem like a terrible person, but if Mira hated her so much, then something really bad must’ve happened between the two. And Mira, for how blunt and honest she could be, clearly wasn’t ready to disclose it, especially to someone she’d just met. Maybe she’d find out eventually. She had a feeling that she would be spending a lot of time with Mira.