Between Me and You

One

Jung Yein always thought she had it good in life- she has loving parents, she eats three meals a day, and she has close friends she could trust. She is now on her 2nd year of high school and was walking to school, enjoying the morning breeze when someone drapes an arm around her shoulder.

"Yo!" Kim Mingyu, her neighbor and childhood friend greets her. They have been friends for 10 years when her family moved from Incheon. Mingyu is a tall boy with tanned skin and strong and angular features that have made the female population of their school swoon at some point in their academic life. He is part of their swim team and a self-proclaimed all around cool guy.

"Morning!" She greets back with a big smile and continues walking beside him, pointedly ignoring the stares and whispers from Mingyu's fangirls. Years of friendship with him had taught her to just ignore those who are jealous of her closeness with Mingyu.

"Hey I don't have practice later after class, wanna play Tekken at my place?" Mingyu asks when they reach Yein's classroom.

"Sure! Meet you here after class?"

"Yeah, see you later!" He grins, showing his trademark toothy smile. Yein bids him goodbye and enters her classroom.

Yein places her things under her desk and takes out her English textbook to do some advance reading and only takes her eyes off from her reading when her best friend Ryu Sujeong pokes her. Sujeong has a chubby and round face and a radiant smile that Yein swears could brighten up anyone's day.

"I passed by the faculty lounge today and I heard Ms. Cha saying she'll be switching our seats!" She says furtively, leaning closer to Yein.

Yein closes her book as she scoots over closer to Sujeong. "Really? Is it seat change time already? I like sitting next to you" She frowns.

"Me too." Sujeong sighs. "I hope I heard wrong!"

Turns out Sujeong was right. Everyone groaned as Ms. Cha, their homeroom teacher announced the seat change. Yein and Sujeong exchange sad looks as they listened to their teacher ramble on about the importance of variety.

They all line up to draw small pieces of papers with numbers from a box placed on the teacher's desk each representing their new assigned seats.

Unfolding her strip of paper, Yein lets out a sigh of relief. "Alright, I'm on the last row!" She walks over to Sujeong who's already done drawing. "I got seat number 35! What about you?"

"I got 18." Sujeong heaves a sigh.

"Aw man, I guess I'll see you at lunch then." She sadly waves to her as they went over to their new seats.

Yein settles in on her new seat and straightens up when she hears the creak of the desk next to hers. She takes a sideways glance at her new seatmate and finds that it's Jeon Wonwoo who is known throughout the whole school as a cold and mysterious guy. His especially cold attitude towards females didn't deter their schoolmates from admiring him from afar though.

She also realizes that they both haven't spoken to each other even after more than a year of being classmates. But she was raised by her parents to be polite to everyone so she mentally prepares herself as she turns to Wonwoo.

"Hey there Wonwoo! Looks like we'll be seatmates from now on! Let's get along!" She grins at him and braces herself for whatever reaction she will get from the notoriously quiet and unfriendly guy.

Wonwoo turns to her and meets her gaze with his sharp fox-like eyes behind his round wire-framed glasses. "Yeah, let's do that." He gives her a small smile and quickly goes back to the book he was reading.