Natalia Kim has it all. She's an overachiever with a talent for being good at everything, a pretty face which many envied, and a shopping addiction that was so bad, she actually managed to drain her father's bank account dry one time. Clearly, Natal...
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-ˋˏ ༻ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 ༺ ˎˊ- ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
He was staring at her again.
Natalia clenched her fingers around a stray pencil, fighting off the urge to turn her head and snap at him. As much as she loves basking in the glory of being the center of attention, there's a fine line between 'admiring' someone and just openly staring at them.
For God's sake, he hasn't stopped looking at her since she sat down. He wasn't even trying to hide it, too. Shameless asshole.
It wasn't until the whole class moved outside for their next subject, physical education, did Natalia no longer feel Seojun's penetrating glare digging laser-like holes into the side of her damn head.
Currently, she was in the girl's locker room. Natalia had just finished changing into clothes more suitable for whatever their PE teacher has prepared for them. As far as she heard, they were apparently playing dodgeball today. Nothing too difficult for someone as unathletic as her. Thankfully.
Shoving her neatly folded uniform inside her assigned locker, Natalia slammed the metal door before her shut, and with the elastic wrapped around her wrist, tied her long hair into a high ponytail. She looked around the room, finding that most of the girls were already finished getting ready except for her and three others. They were whispering to each other, arguing about something Natalia couldn't hear at this distance.
"Hey, you're Natalia, right?" One of them suddenly called out, the girl who had complimented her earlier. Her hair was cut in a length Natalia would never dare to reach, and her eyes were big and light, radiating friendliness.
"Yes, and you are?" Natalia decided to be polite. She needed to make friends, after all. The last thing she needs is to become a total loner.
The girl smiled as she shuffled a little closer to Natalia's side with her friends just behind her. "I'm Sua, this is Sujin⎯⎯" She jabbed her finger to where Sujin stands, "and this is Jugyeong." She points to said girl this time.
With just one glance at these three, anyone will know they're the resident It girls of Saebom High. Sujin, same as Sua, was pretty with her long hair and kind smile. Jugyeong, Natalia could tell, was a little more timid and shy than the other two, if the way she kept her gaze down was anything to go by.
Wait.
Jugyeong?
Shocked, Natalia drank in the third girl's familiar features for the first time and nearly slapped herself for being so stupid at how she didn't realize who it was earlier. "Lim Jugyeong?" She exclaimed in surprise, her palm flying up to cup her mouth.
The girl in question flinched back, as if she were struck.
The other two in the room shared a puzzled glance. "You two know each other?"
"We went to the same elementary school," Natalia explained.
"Yeah..." Jugyeong admitted weakly.
Sua's jaw went slack, "Why didn't you tell me you were friends with her?" She jabbed her elbow against Jugyeong's side playfully.
"She probably didn't know, Sua." Sujin was quick to come to her defense.
Natalia nodded her head softly. Now that she thinks about it, Jugyeong does indeed look like a completely different person. Most of her memories of her life before she moved to America were blurry, but she can remember clear as day what her old friend used to look like⎯⎯and this wasn't it.
Time, I guess, can change a lot about a person.
"Well then, this makes my job a lot easier!" Sua giggles in delight, "Natalia, since you already know Jugyeong, how about you eat with us at lunch starting from now on?"
"Or better yet," Sujin pipes in, "let's become friends."
Natalia smiled at them, the first one she didn't have to fake since the day begun.
000
Dodgeball, as she had previously anticipated, wasn't a difficult game to play. Still, after hitting more than four people on the opposing team, Natalia quit and chose to spend her time watching the game instead, leaving her team to fend for themselves since they were doing fine on their own anyway. Fortunately, none of them complained when Natalia abruptly walked out of the court, sweating and looking like absolute trash compared to how she showed up in the morning.
And their teacher was, luckily, 'considerate' enough not to comment on it either.
"You."
Natalia sighed, annoyed by the disturbance and the familiarity of the voice. "What do you want?" Gone was the preppy, polite girl from earlier. In her stead, was the real Natalia Kim: the reincarnate of the infamous Regina George.
"We've met before, right?"
She craned her neck to the side and found Han Seojun staring down at her from where she sits, which is on the green grass. "I don't know, have we?" She decided to humor him. From her peripheral vision, she can see that her other classmates had paused their activites to watch the 'interesting' scene before them unfold.
Seojun scoffed, "You stole my helmet, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't." Yes, she totally did.
A shriek followed by a loud thump filled the sudden silence. When Natalia, along with everyone else, turned to search for the source of the noise, they saw Jugyeong laying flat on her chest on the ground. Seconds later, a guy⎯⎯Suho was his name, if she wasn't mistaken⎯⎯looked at the girl once, and proceeded to step over her. Not offering any assistance or help whatsoever.
Natalia's eyebrows flew up, "Dick move." She remarked. Beside her, she could've sworn Seojun had snickered at her words.
Standing up, Natalia moved to help the poor girl since everybody else seemed to be frozen in shock with the entire ordeal but a vice-like grip on her forearm halted her in her tracks.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Natalia rolled her eyes at his audaciousness. Pulling her arm from his grip with impressive strength, she said to him, "Stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours. Cool? Cool."
And without taking another look back, Natalia resumed her walk toward the helpless Jugyeong, leaving behind one incredulous Han Seojun.
author's note. . . so apparently some of the cast of true beauty tested positive for corona virus and there are rumors circling around that filming of the next episodes will be postposed? hshshs i rlly hope that's not the case. also, comment down below whether you're team suho or seojun. i think my answer is pretty obvious <3
(chapters are not edited and will remain as such until i've finished writing the entire book)
