Yeona woke up to the smell of pancakes. Wondering where it was from, she wandered into the kitchen. Mori was there, just finishing up making pancakes, and washing and putting away the pans. He looked up and saw her. He broke into a smile.

"Yeona! I made pancakes as thank you for training with me!" He smiled brightly at her. She smiled back at him. “Thanks Mori!”

Yeona sat down on the ground as Mori placed a plate of pancakes in front of her. She took a bite and grinned. “It’s really good!” She continued eating. Mori sat next to her and ate his own share of pancakes.

Yeona just happened to look at her phone, and noticed the time: 7:50 am. “Mori! It’s almost time for school! We have ten minutes! Get dressed! We can finish once we get there.” Yeona exclaimed, not believing that she overslept. She tapped her foot in annoyance as she waited for her brother to finish changing into his school uniform in the bathroom. As soon as he came out, Yeona rushed in. She changed into her uniform, combed her hair, and went out. Then a realization hit her.

"I forgot to make lunch!" Yeona slapped her forehead in disgust. "No time, let's go Mori!" The twins grabbed their school books and their containers of pancakes, and went outside.

Yeona and Mori got on their tandem bike, Mori in front, Yeona in back. Then, Mori started pedaling as fast as he could.

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Mori and Yeona arrived at Yeona's school a few minutes later, since hers was closer than Mori's was.

"See you after school, Mori!" Yeona waved as she was running inside. Mori waved back exhaustedly and started biking towards his school.

Yeona ran towards her locker, quickly finishing the pancakes on her way. She grabbed the books she needed for the current class from her bag and stuffed the rest in her locker. Then she spun the lock and ran to her class. Everyone looked at her in surprise. Yeona was never late.

She sat down awkwardly next to Daewi. "Yeona Jin. I'm glad you can finally join us." The teacher's voice was sarcastic.

Yeona looked embarrassed. "S-sorry, Kwan-nim.” The teacher sighed, and then said, “Turn to page 40 in your textbook.” She nodded sheepishly, and opened her book to the correct page. Once the teacher continued class, and everyone’s focus was on the teacher again, Daewi leaned over next to Yeona’s ear and whispered, “What happened?”

Yeona whispered back, “I overslept. Mori didn’t wake me up until later. I guess I was so tired I forgot to set my alarm. Did I miss anything important?”

“The exams for today were postponed to tomorrow.” Daewi replied quietly.

“Yes!” Yeona cheered.

“Yeona Jin, please don’t randomly yell in the middle of class.” Teacher Kwan admonished.

“Y-yes Kwan-nim,” Yeona mumbled, shrinking down in her seat. The other classmates giggled, and she turned red. Daewi patted her on the head with a knowing smile on his face. Yeona sighed. It was going to be a long day.

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Daewi grabbed a lunch from the cafeteria and sat next to Yeona, whose head was leaning against the table. “Why aren’t you eating?” Daewi asked, taking a bite of his food.

“I’m not hungry.” Yeona mumbled, her voice muffled by the table. Then her stomach rumbled loudly. She blushed.

“Not hungry, huh.” Daewi looked at her dubiously. She looked up at him and sighed.

“I didn’t have enough time to make lunch, and I didn’t bring any money.”

Daewi pushed his bowl of rice towards Yeona, and picked up a piece of fish and put it in the bowl, giving her his chopsticks. “Eat,” he said.

“Huh?” she looked confused.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you? So let’s share.” Daewi gestured towards the bowl with a smile. Yeona turned bright red.

“D-daewi….you ate off of those chopsticks.” Yeona stammered. 'T-that’s an indirect kiss, r-right?!' She thought. Once Daewi came to the same conclusion, his face turned an identical shade of red. “I-I’ll go get another pair of chopsticks for y-you.” Daewi went over to the lunch counter and got another pair of chopsticks. He came back and handed her them without a word.

They both took turns taking some food from the bowl until it was finished. Daewi handed Yeona an orange soda while he opened a can of his own and started drinking. They both drank from their soda cans until someone bumped into Daewi and made his drink splatter on his uniform.

“Hey watch it!” the guy who bumped into him said. Daewi looked up at him.

“Sorry.” he said politely. The guy looked at him for a moment in recognition.

“Wait….you’re Daewi Han. The friend of the guy in the hospital.” He laughed and turned to his friends. All of them started talking about them for a moment, then the original guy said, “That Seungtae Woo should’ve died months ago.”

A split second later, two fists met with his face and sent him flying into the wall. He stood up with a shout of anger and him and his friends started fighting Yeona and Daewi.

After a few minutes, Yeona and Daewi were standing among the group of teenagers they knocked down, knuckles dripping with blood, when they were taken to the principal’s office.

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“What do you two have to say for yourselves?” the principal interrogated.

“We’re sorry,” the two teens mumbled, avoiding the principal’s gaze.

The principal huffed and said, “I brought in a witness who was a friend of those you beat up. Come in, Shin.”

The door opened, and a tall guy with green hair entered. Daewi recognized him as one of the friends of the annoying people who insulted Seungtae. Yeona’s eyes widened.

Q?! She thought, staring at him in shock. Q put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to let him handle this.

“Shin, would you please explain to me what you saw.” the principal looked at him. ‘Shin’ sat down with a smirk in between Yeona and Daewi, relaxing into the chair.

“Sooo….Daewi-hyung and Yeona-nuna were just sitting, having lunch, and….” ‘Shin’ mumbled under his breath so only Daewi and Yeona could hear, “Flirting.” Daewi and Yeona both flushed, and Yeona elbowed him. ‘Shin’ bit back a laugh and then continued. “And stuff, then Yama bumped into Daewi-hyung, then Yama made fun of their friend, Seungtae, you know, the one who’s sick in the hospital.” ‘Shin’ looked at the principal expectantly. He nodded back.

“They were provoking them, saying that he should’ve died months ago, then Yeona-nuna and Daewi-hyung punched Yama in the face. And when the others tried to fight them, they beat ‘em up.”

“So Shin, do you think they deserve punishment?” The principal asked.

‘Shin’ crossed his arms and leaned back, looking the principal in the eye. “My opinion? I don’t really think they should be punished because it was Yama and the others’ fault, not theirs. But you’re the boss, sir.”

“I see…” The principal thought for a moment. “Yeona Jin, Daewi Han?”

“Yes?” they looked up.

“Both of you must stay late tomorrow to help Teacher Kwan grade the exams as punishment.” The principal clicked his pen and wrote on a notepad. “That’ll be all, you three. Go wherever you need to be at the moment.”

“Yes sir!” They exclaimed in unison, and walked out the door together. Once they went outside, ‘Shin’, also known as Q, stood in front of the two and handed Daewi a letter, identical to the one recieved by Yeona when he invited her.

“You are invited to the God of Highschool tournament, where if you win it all, your wish shall come true. Your wish, I presume, is to help your friend Seungtae get better?” Daewi nodded as Q took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, blowing some smoke from the end.

“By the way, my name is Judge Q, one of the commissioners of this tournament. Pleasure to meet you, I’ll be going now.” As he turned to leave, Yeona grabbed the back of Q’s jacket.

“Q! Why didn’t you tell me Daewi was going to be in the tournament?!” Yeona’s eyes were wide, looking at him questioningly. Q hesitated for a moment and turned around, taking her hand off of his jacket, Q’s hand on Yeona’s. Daewi felt an emotion that he didn’t recognize, if he didn’t know better, he would say it was jealousy.

“People who are invited to the God of Highschool are not known by the public until the participants themselves are notified. The only ones you’re allowed to know are the ones you help me with, when you give the invitations to.” Q said gently.

“....Oh.” Yeona looked down. “Sorry for stopping you then.” She took her hand out of Q’s grasp, and let her hands fall to her sides, fingertips playing with the edge of her skirt. Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Yeona looked up and saw that it was Daewi, making sure she was okay. She nodded, and then Daewi looked at Q and said, “How do you know her?”

Q looked at Daewi, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and blowing a puff of smoke before answering. “I’m one of her teachers. Me and the others who are part of the God of Highschool all train her in combat. We have done so since she was in elementary school.” Then, to Yeona: “You never told him?”

“There was no reason to. Neither him, or the others.” Yeona mumbled.

Feeling a bit annoyed because of Yeona and Daewi’s closeness, Q gave them a haughty smirk, “No reason to? Or do you not trust them?”

Yeona froze. 'What?'

“I….” She twisted the ring on the pointer finger of her right hand.

Q continued. “You always said, the only person you can trust is yourself, your secrets couldn’t be shared with anyone. I bet you secretly hate them all, Mori, Daewi, Seungtae-” Yeona cut him off before Q could finish.

“The only one I hate at the moment is you, for even assuming I hate them.” Yeona shrugged Daewi’s hand off her shoulder and ran off, fighting an overwhelming sense of sadness.

“Yeona!” Daewi tried to go after her, but Q grabbed his arm. “It’s best to leave her alone right now.”

Daewi looked coldly at Q. “You don’t deserve to decide what’s best for her. You lost that right when you were the one who made her sad.” In surprise, Q let go of Daewi’s arm, and Daewi ran to go look for Yeona.

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“I thought I’d find you here.” Daewi walked towards Yeona with a smile, then sat next to her, leaning against the tree, their shoulders touching. Yeona was at first sitting while hugging her knees to her chest, and her head on her knees, but when Daewi approached and his shoulder touched hers, she relaxed, putting her hands on the ground and her legs in front of her, her back against the tree.

Daewi put his hand on top of Yeona’s, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, which made him blush.

“Could you tell me what’s wrong?” Daewi asked, his face turning back to its normal color when he remembered his worry.

“Well.....” Yeona hesitated.

“You don’t have to tell me.” Daewi said. “But we’ve been best friends for a long time, and I want you to trust me.”

“Okay. I do trust you.” Yeona thought for a moment, and then continued. “I didn’t tell anyone about whom I was training with because I didn’t want Mori to be jealous, I didn’t want anyone to say I thought I was better than them, and if anyone wanted to be trained by them too, I didn’t want to have to say no.”

“....” Daewi was silent for so long, Yeona was worried that he was mad at her, so she took her head off of his shoulder and looked at him. “Daewi? Are you mad?” She wasn’t expecting Daewi to take his hand off of hers and wrap her in a hug.

Yeona couldn’t even think straight, she felt so hot and she was red. “H-huh? D-daewi, what a-are you d-doing?”

“You’re a really good person, Yeona. I couldn’t ever be mad at you.” Daewi said in her ear. “I can’t imagine having to do all that, all alone.”

Yeona’s eyes widened, and she then hugged Daewi back. “Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.”

They both sat there, hugging for a minute, and then they both pulled away reluctantly.

“Well....we have a few more classes, then we can go see Seungtae.” Daewi scratched the back of his head, looking away, bright red.

“Y-yeah.” Yeona nodded, also bright red. They both then walked into their classes.

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Rrrrring! As the last bell rang, so did Yeona’s phone as she was walking to her locker with Daewi.

“Hello? Yes, sure. Don’t apologize, I’m willing to do that for you. Anyway, see you in a minute. Bye.” She then hung up. Daewi looked at her questioningly.

“Who was it?”

“Oh, it was my work manager. Someone quit at the last minute and they need someone to cover their shift.” Yeona turned off her phone and put it in her bag.

“What about Seungtae?”

“I’ll come right after work.” Yeona promised. “Don’t tell him I’m coming though. I’ll see you at the hospital.”

Daewi nodded, and they both went in separate directions when they got out the door.

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“Thank you so much, Yeona, for coming today.” Yeona’s manager, named Kim Lee said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“It’s no problem.” Yeona smiled. “Well, I want to buy something before I go.”

Kim handed Yeona her payment for the shift and said, “Go ahead.”

Yeona paid for a box of microwavable popcorn, and rented a movie called Avengers. She waved to Kim, and ran out the door.

Meanwhile, with Daewi and Seungtae....

“Who’s this person you keep saying will come?” Seungtae asked Daewi.

“I told you it’s a secret.” Daewi laughed as Seungtae put him in a headlock.

“Hey, hey, hey, no secrets from the invalid,” Seungtae joked, then he started coughing hard, letting go of Daewi when he did so.

“Seungtae?!” Daewi shouted, putting a hand to the ill teen’s back. “Are you okay?”

“I-I’m fine.” Seungtae said, waving him away. “Let’s go back to my room.”

They went downstairs to his room, and when Seungtae sat on his bed, he said, “How’s your job been?”

Avoiding his best friend’s gaze, Daewi replied, “It’s been going well. I think I have enough money for a motorcycle soon.”

“Liar.”

“Huh?”

Seungtae grabbed his collar and pulled Daewi close to him so their noses were almost touching.

“Don’t lie to me, I know my older sis can’t pay my hospital bills on her own.” He glared at Daewi.

“Fine, you caught me.” Daewi put his hands up in a show of surrender. He thought to himself, 'He’d be really mad if he knew that Yeona helped pay as well. He cares for her as much as I do.'

Seungtae sighed in disgust, and pushed Daewi away. He looked away and mumbled, “I can’t have you wasting your money on me when I’m going to die anyway.”

“.....” They both sat in silence, until there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.” Seungtae called. The door slowly opened.

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When Seungtae told her to come in, nervously, Yeona opened the door with a hesitant smile.

“Hey,” She said softly, holding up a bag with the movie and the popcorn in it. Seungtae’s mouth dropped open.

He whispered to Daewi out of the corner of his mouth. “Was Yeona the one you said would come?” Daewi gave him a small nod.

Yeona and Seungtae stared at each other, the memory of their fight resurfacing.