She walked into class feeling tired, but filled with excitement. Tonight was the night her other life would begin again. Regardless of whatever happens henceforth nothing could affect her good mood today. Not even another day of endless classes and torture.
She sat down into her seat at the back of the class and began staring out the window.
BEEP BEEP. Her phone vibrated. She checked to see that she just got a tweet from Lunar City's official account about her upcoming summer tour.
'Congrats to our very own sweetheart @YingxueBunny for her soldout summer concert tour! Cheers to the biggest tour yet!ヽ( ★ω★)ノ' - @LunarOfficial.
Yingfei smiled to herself. She wasn't supposed to tweet during school but a few times won't matter. So she replied.
'Thank you for all the support @LunarOfficial! Can't wait to give back to all my Snowflakes! See you there (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤' - @YingxueBunny.
Send.
"Feifei!" A girl with long auburn hair and dark blue, almost black eyes, came running towards her, her curly ends bobbing with each step. She stopped at her seat right in front of Yingfei.
"Hey, Aiyan," Yingfei smiled and put away her phone.
"I saw you on tv last night-"
"Shhh!" Yingfei hurriedly shushed her, her finger to her lips. "Not too loud!"
"Oh yeah. Sorry," Aiyan apologized sheepishly. She continued in a whisper. "But you were amazing during the interview! That outfit I made just made you look all the more stunning! Kyaaaa! Erk… sorry again. I just can't wait for the start of the tour tonight! I can't wait till it's no longer a secret. You've gotten so far. Every ticket is sold out already! You don't need people talking you down and bullying you all the time."
"We've been through this already. I need a normal life too, you know. No paparazzi, no fans," Yingfei shrugged.
BEEP BEEP. Aiyan looked to check her notifications. Seeing it, she raised her eyebrow at her best friend. "Yet you reply Lunar City's tweet so readily."
"That's for Yingxue. We're in high school now, haha," she laughed. "Too much of a hassle to keep up my image anyway."
"But your outfit is just dreadful," Aiyan whined.
Yingfei wore faded baggy pants with runners and striped stockings, a loose purple t-shirt with long sleeves twice her size and extremely thick black rimmed powerless glasses that covered almost more than half her face. She also had on black contact lenses to cover up her actual eye color while her jet black hair was tied in a messy bun. She looked like a nerdy hipster.
"You look like a nerdy hipster!" Aiyan almost yelled.
"What's wrong with nerds 𝘰𝘳 hipsters?" Yingfei raised a brow.
"Nothing but-"
RIIINNNGGGG! The homeroom bell rang and everyone scrambled to their seats. Ms. Khlöe walked in and carefully eyed everyone. After a round of morning greetings and attendance, they started homeroom.
"We have a new exchange student today, class. He came here all the way from Solar City in the South." Everyone got excited hoping for a handsome boy or a pretty girl. Being on the hotter side of the country, the South was known for their tan male and female beauties alike. But the person that walked in wasn't up to anyone's expectations.
A boy casually walked in. His stature was tall and definitely slightly tan but no one could actually see just in what shape his body was in from the clothes he wore. He wore a striped white and dark green sweater shirt too big for his body, light brown slacks that were incredibly loose and glasses so thick, you could barely distinguish the color of his eyes. His dark brown hair was glued down and combed with what looked like a huge amount of hair gel. When he spoke, his voice was so soft, you could barely hear him.
"I am Li Xiaolang. Pleased to meet you." Xiaolang bowed and went silent.
"Nothing else to say? Hobbies maybe?" Ms. Khlöe eyed him expectantly. Seeing that Xiaolang remained quiet, she shook her head. "Well, next time I'm hoping you would 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘶𝘱 Mr. Li. Show your presence in this class. There is an empty seat beside Yingfei at the back. Yingfei, raise your hand." Yingfei raised her hand accordingly while Ms. Khlöe looked at her in displeasure. "There you have it. Go sit then."
Xiaolang walked to the back as ordered while the other students began to snicker and poke at him. He even heard someone say, "The perfect nerd couple."
"Quiet!" Ms. Khlöe yelled. "Now I know it's almost summer vacation and pretty late in the year, but be nice."
At the back, Yingfei smiled at him and shook his hand.
"I'm Fen Yingfei. This here is Ling Aiyan." She pointed to Aiyan whom smiled back. "Don't mind everyone else. They have nothing better to do than make fun of others."
"Ok," and that was the only word they ever managed to get out of him.
.....
As the lunch bell rang, students scurried out of the classroom to the cafeteria to buy lunch. However, Yingfei as usual already made lunch for both Aiyan and herself. Xiaolang on the other hand took out some bread and a thermos with hot chocolate from his bag. He ate in silence as he watched the surrounding activities. His eyes then caught sight of a picture from a magazine a girl was holding up.
"Kyaaaaa! THE Li Tian is in Lunar City now!" Screamed the girl with the magazine to her friend. "I wonder how long he's gonna be here! I hear it's gonna be a while."
"I sooooo wanna meet him! I hear his body is drop dead GORGEOUS. But he never poses shirtless. I wanna see.." her friend started to drool.
Xiaolang decided to ignore them. Obsessive fangirls were, most of the time, just annoying. He noticed Yingfei and Aiyan whispering and caught a few words.
"Are you meeting that Li Tian guy anytime soon?" Aiyan asked.
"Yeah. They want Yingxue to do a video with him. As usual, wherever Yingxue needs to go, I'm there," Yingfei stated.
Xiaolang tried to hide his surprise. Yingxue was one of Huaxia Nation's most prominent and outstanding singers. Was this Yingfei girl working for her? But she's still in school. A relative maybe? Curiosity hit him but ultimately it wasn't his place to pry. A job is a job.
Soon, Yingfei glimpsed at what Xiaolang was eating.
"Is that all you're eating?" she asked.
"What?" the question taking him by surprise.
"I said, is that all your eating?" she repeated.
"Yeah."
"Here, you should eat some of mine. Guys need to eat more than just pieces of bread." She picked up a sausage with her chopsticks and placed it in front of his mouth.
"Uh…" Xiaolang said dumbfounded.
"Eat." She simply stated. Not knowing what to do, he let her put the sausage in his mouth and began to chew.
"Good boy." Yingfei smiled, flashing her perfectly white teeth. Xiaolang blushed just a slight tinge.
"Don't mind Yingfei." Aiyan assured him. "She has a problem with boys not eating enough, coming from a home full of only boys and all."
"Its like they don't eat at all! Good thing they have me to cook for them or they'd be starving!" Yingfei complained. "They just don't want to hire a chef as long as I'm available at home. I'm going to start getting busier soon.. Well, anyways," she continued as she saw Xiaolang staring. He looked extremely lost. "There's always leftover food for an extra bento. It must be tough on you transferring from so far away. Why don't I make lunch for you too tomorrow?"
Xiaolang stared at her in confusion.
"That settles it then. You're having lunch with us for the rest of the year!" Yingfei smiled. Xiaolang said nothing. He didn't think he was going to stay 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 long but she didn't need to know that. Let her do whatever she wants.
.....
Class ended pretty quickly. While everyone was packing their things, three guys came up to Xiaolang.
"Look, a guy geek came up to help geek girl become the perfect geek couple." He pushed Xiaolang to the floor, his stuff scattering around him.
"Stop it, Shen!" Yingfei pushed him and went to help Xiaolang up. "Are you alright?"
Aiyan had swiftly gone to call the teacher.
"Guess your geeky girlfriend came to the rescue. You work pretty fast dontcha. Bwuahahahahah!" Shen pushed Yingfei roughly aside.
"Ah!" caught by surprise, she immediately fell over, injuring her wrist in the process.
"Oh, I'm sorry. You should watch where you stand, bitch." Shen spat as the rest of his gang laughed.
Xiaolang looked up at Shen with his deadliest glare. The bastard had just pushed Yingfei as if she was nothing.
"What is it punk?! You want some of this?!" Shen yelled after seeing the slightly visible glare behind Xiaolang's glasses. He waved his fist in the air trying to act tough. But before anything more could happen, his friend suddenly whispered into his ear with a worried look.
"Consider this your lucky day, Geek Freak." Shen and his gang walked out of the class just as the teacher was arriving.
"What happened?" the teacher demanded after seeing Xiaolang and Yingfei on the floor. Aiyan carried a worried look on her face but her eyes showed she understood what was going on.
Xiaolang was about to say something when Yingfei pulled his arm. "It was an accident," Yingfei stated. "I fell and Shen made fun of me. Xiaolang got mad but was pushed to the ground. That's all." Yingfei's hands were at her back; hiding the slight pain it was giving her.
"Hmmm.. If that's all, then I see no reason for me to be here." She looked in distaste at Xiaolang and Yingfei as they got up. Xiaolang began picking up his stuff while Yingfei tried to help him. "Hurry up and leave then. You have no more business dawdling around here." Ms. Khlöe walked out keeping her nose up high and her high heels clicking on the floor.
Aiyan rushed up to help the two pick up Xiaolang's stuff.
"It's fine," Xiaolang said then pointed to Yingfei's her hand. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." Yingfei smiled. "It'll heal in time."
"Yingfei! What do you mean?" Aiyan asked devastatingly. "Did you injure your wrist? Are you gonna be okay tonight?"
"It's fine. It doesn't hurt much anyway. We can just make some changes." Yingfei eyed Aiyan, telling her to drop the subject. Xiaolang just listened as he finished packing his stuff.
"It's late. Why don't we leave? You don't have any club activities do you, Li?" Aiyan asked.
Xiaolang shook his head.
"Then lets go to the front gate together," Yingfei said quickly. "That's as far as we can take you since a car is picking me and Aiyan up. Speaking of which.." she eyed her watch, "We should get going."
Yingfei pulled Xiaolang with her good hand, and walked to the gate with Aiyan in tail.
"Yingfei, at least get your hand checked," Aiyan called out.
"I will when we get there. Though Qilong would be furious. Hahah," Yingfei laughed. She let go of Xiaolang and continued to the gate, Aiyan and Xiaolang flanking her sides.
Just then, she saw two cars parked at the side. One was a taxi Mercedes that looked too good to be a taxi, and behind it was a green Volkswagen. Aiyan got into the taxi and waited for Yingfei to come in.
"See you tomorrow, Xiaolang!" She said to Xiaolang. Just when she was about to go in, Xiaolang took her left hand, the one in pain and checked it. Seeing that it didn't look too bad, he pat it gently.
"Thank you Yingfei. I will surely repay you in time." Xiaolang said loud enough for her to hear. Yingfei was stunned for a second. His voice sounded different, deeper and more elegant.
"Ah. No it's fine, really," she smiled back politely.
When he finally let go, he went back to his quiet self again. Leaving Yingfei with nothing to do, she climbed into the car with Aiyan and subsequently waved to Xiaolang as their driver drove of.
In the distance, she managed to catch a glimpse of Xiaolang climbing into the Volkswagen.
.....