I blink into the bright morning sunlight as I tighten my grip on my backpack and head off to my first day of school. With each step, my muscles protest. Riding back to the dorms on the back of Sophie’s motorbike put enough stress on them that I feel like I did a full-body workout.
Thankfully, she wasn’t angry about what I said to Jason. I couldn’t look her in the eyes with any sort of confidence without fessing up, but she just laughed it off.
“He probably deserved it,” she said. “Might be good for him, too. He’s not used to people doing anything except fall all over him.”
That makes two of us.
But that was it, all she said. Of course, I might have left out the bit about saying his music was lousy …
I fall into step behind a group of girls I think are Chinese, listen to their chatting and laughing, and watch their colorful backpacks bounce up and down on their backs. Envy blooms inside my chest. Not only do they have people to walk to class with, but they also fit in here, despite being from a different country. What have I got? My memories from Sophie showing me around yesterday and a campus map with words so small I need a microscope to read them.
I pull out my iPod and shove the earbuds into my ears, letting the sounds of the Black Keys sweep over me, a massage for my tense nerves. The jazzy grooves fill me with enough confidence to not break down in the middle of the sidewalk and cry until someone puts me on a plane back to America.
Too bad I couldn’t walk to class with Sophie, but her schedule is totally different than mine. We don’t have a single period together.
My first class is homeroom. I manage to find the classroom and sink into a chair ten minutes early with a sigh of relief. The room looks a lot like those at my old school, though maybe a little smaller, and it slowly fills up with students speaking various languages, representing all parts of the globe. I don’t see any other Americans, but I didn’t have high hopes that I would. Mr. Wang told me my first day that there are no American students this year besides me, since the only other two graduated last year. Figures.
Our teacher arrives last, banging the door against the wall as he enters and shuffling to the podium, his gaze fused with his shoes. He drops his briefcase on the desk with a clatter and finally looks up, his dark eyes moving nervously over each of us.
“Good morning,” he says with a slight British accent. “Welcome to homeroom. My name is Mr. Yun, and these students will be in your class for the rest of the year.”
He then launches into an explanation about the structure of Korean schools and how we’ll be in all the same classes together, and we’ll all be competing to be top of the class. I’m sure Sophie’s getting this exact same spiel in her homeroom and she’s lapping it up, ready to beat out all the other students to be number one.
He also explains that the school’s staff will not take part in any unnecessarily harsh discipline and that bullying will not be tolerated, unlike what we might have expected or heard. I make a mental note to ask Sophie later about how normal Korean schools are, because apparently, they’re more hard-core than American ones. Mr. Yun goes on to explain in-depth classroom policies, blah, blah, blah. I half listen, already thinking forward to my next class, Korean. Maybe it’ll be easier learning another language if I’m immersed in it.
I fight a snort. Nothing’s going to make language acquisition easier. At least, not for me. On a scale of one to ten, I’m a ten to the negative twelfth power in learning languages.
I’m still stressing over my future failure when the bell rings, and the class erupts in chatter. Unlike American schools, where we change rooms for each class, we stay in the same one and our teachers rotate in and out.
I absently flip through my blank notebook, trying to look busy and avoiding any glances from my classmates. Every seat in the room is full except for two, side-by-side in the front row. And the one next to me. We’re grouped in pairs at tables, and everyone else has a seatmate … except for me.
“Hey!” a voice calls, and my head shoots up.
A girl in front of me tilts her head and asks me something in a language I don’t recognize.
I hold her gaze for a few terrifying seconds, heat blistering my face, before I find the courage to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Oh, sorry, sorry.” She bows her head, fighting a smile, but when she turns back around, she and her table partner giggle together, and they both sneak looks over their shoulders at me.
I will my cheeks to stop burning, and relief explodes inside me when our next teacher enters.
“Everyone, take your seats please,” he says in a high-pitched and thickly accented voice, standing behind the podium.
The class quiets down, and I can finally take a deep breath. But a couple seconds later, the door squeaks open again, and everyone’s heads swing around, including mine. A familiar form in black skinny jeans, a red T-shirt, and red sneakers stands in the doorway, and my stomach plummets.
Jason bows his head. “Forgive me, sir,” he says, no trace of embarrassment in either his voice or posture. “I was sick this morning and couldn’t come to homeroom.”
Two girls in the front row put their heads together and whisper behind their hands, and an excited titter rises up from the rest of the class. The eyes of every female in the room—besides yours truly—glue to Jason like he’s their dream incarnate. It triggers my gag reflex.
So he’s famous. Get over it, people. If you talk to him for five minutes, you’ll see how annoying he is.
The teacher dismisses Jason’s apology with a wave.
A girl sneaks her cell phone out of her purse and snaps a shot, but our teacher’s attention zeroes in on her. He frowns.