valedictorian | jeno

1: The New Girl's a Threat

Jeno was never one to care about his seatmates, especially if it were some new kid that came from the city. He's seen that several times in the years that he's unfortunately lived in such a small town that he knows every single person here. He sometimes even believed that he knew everyone's family like the back of his hand.

There's one thing that he has noticed about her, though. Every time he looked over his shoulder when exams were returned, she said that her scores were always the same as his, or sometimes—he shudders—even higher than his own.

"Alright, can someone please come on the board to answer the problems on the board?" On Mr. Chi's board was a problem on probability.

Jeno's hand shoots up, but someone else beside him also raises his hand. His head snaps towards the person beside him. The new girl had her arms just as high as he did. "Ms. Cho."

Like a sting straight to his chest. His head snaps towards Ms. Cho, who was sitting right beside him. She walked up to the board with confidence that Jeno found a little bit annoying, as if she were the best student in this class.

Not on Jeno's watch.

He watched as she wrote the problem on the board. For every number on the board, Jeno was making sure they were right. It only frustrated him even further when he saw that with every number she was putting down, she wasn't making any mistakes. There was nothing to correct, even as she put the chalk down.

"Good job, Ms. Cho." Mr. Chi acknowledges her answers and allows her to sit down.

Show off.

Jeno wasn't the type to curse someone off; he never saw the need for it, except with her. There was no need to try and win over the favor of the academic chair of the school. He honestly tried not to roll his eyes, but the annoyance was building up. Any bad behavior would go straight to his parents, and he would not hear the end of it from them, especially not with Mr. Chi, whom they loved like a son.

Before he knew it, the class was dismissed. Jeno turns away from Cho, who was sitting beside him, and faces a friend of his on the table behind him. Haechan was busy chatting with his seatmate when Jeno turned around. Haechan tried to hide his smile, but it was clear that he wanted to tease Jeno.

"Don't say a word." Jeno glares at him.

"What did I do?" His voice rose at the end of his sentence.

Beside him another familiar face tries to hide a smile. Yangyang tries his best to hide his smile as well, but he's doing it even worse than Haechan.

Haechan and Yangyang as seatmates was the worst decision their homeroom teacher made, the two can't seem to shut up beside Jeno and Cho. If they weren't chatting with each other they were definitely asleep behind the two of them. They weren't as academically interested as Jeno was with his and his odd goals in life, a.k.a., graduating valedictorian.