In Seoul, every morning when I wake up I look out of the window and just gaze. Everything comes to life. The sky glows and the clouds look like little bits of cotton fluff someone has thrown around. Our apartment is on the 27'th floor, and sometimes I imagine if I reached out, I could catch a bit of cloud and put it in my pocket. Lights come on and spread before me, people start crowding up in the streets, walking, running, laughing, talking, drinking coffee. I lean my head up against my window frame and wait for my mother to call me, announcing that it's time to get ready to go to school. My stomach feels fluttery, and I feel scared and excited and happy all at the same time. I am going to be a freshmen at Gyeongsin Private School, starting today. My brother Dong, will be a Junior.
I go ahead and pull on my uniform, cringing at myself in the mirror. It's only just barely 7 o'clock in the morning, and I already can't wait until school is over so I can change into normal clothes. The only comfort for me is knowing that everyone will be dressed similarly.

"Hyo-Sonn! Dong! Get ready and come downstairs!" I hear my mothers voice float towards our bedrooms.
I grab my satchel, open my door, and close it softly behind me. I enter our small, but comfortable clean kitchen and sit down. My mother slides breakfast towards me, giving me a nod and a soft sweet smile. Traditional Korean breakfast is seaweed soup with turnip and often fish, served with rice and kimchi, but I have no appetite and push it around, nibbling occasionally.
"That Dong, if he thinks he can sleep in today, he has got another think coming." My mother pushes up out of her chair and recedes down the tiny hallway, rapping on Taeyang's door.
"Dong! Dong! You better be getting ready in there, your breakfast will get cold and you'll be late if you do not hurry up, and I will not have that!"
Taeyang sticks his head out of the door.
"Mother, please, my name is Taeyang."
"Taeyang! pffuit! When you were born, I do not recall naming you Taeyang. Now get ready Dong!"
He closes the door, and I know he's probably in his room sighing and angrily pulling on his uniform.
He comes out several minutes later and sits down next to me, wolfing down his breakfast with enough appetite for the both of us. I turn around, feeling sick. I'm not so sure about this school thing anymore.

Taeyang and I get on the Subway, and hold onto a metal rail on the ceiling. He stands close to me.
"Are you nervous, little Hyo-Sonn?" He asks.
"Just a little." I lie.
"Don't be, it's not so bad. My first day there went great. I met lots of cool people, and the teachers weren't so rough. I think you will be ok."
"It's easy for you to say that, Taeyang, you're... well... you're Taeyang!" He laughed and punched my arm lightly.
"You make it sound like I'm famous or something!" He laughed.
"You practically are. All the girls drool over you, and the boys look up to you. Who am I to compare?"
"Don't compare yourself to anyone, little Hyo-Sonn. Just be 'll be fine, I promise. And if anyone messes with you, you come and find me." He gave my arm a gentle squeeze and we road the rest of the way in silence.

We approached what looked to me like a giant magnificent, four story building that was so white it almost hurt my eyes to look at it.
"Here it is, I'll walk you to the front door, but then I'm going to go and find Chung-Ae. Oh there she is, Chung-Ae! Chung-Ae! Come here!"
A tall pretty girl with shoulder length hair and bangs that laid just above her eyes bounced over. She eyed me suspiciously and then turned her attention to Taeyang.
"Oh, Taeyaaaang," She squeeled. "Have you found someone else already?" She smiled and pouted out her lips jokingly.
"Chung-Ae, this is my sister, Hyo-Sonn. Will you walk her around and show her the ropes? For me." He asked.
"Anything for you, Taeyang." She fluttered her eyes and grabbed my arm, "Come one, Hyo-Sonn, we haven't got that much time, let me see your list of classes." She held out her hand and I passed her a small yellow slip of paper that had all of my classes printed neatly. She scanned them quickly. "Ok, I'll show you your last class and we'll move up the list, by the time we reach your first class, you'll be right on time!" She steered me into the building.

I walked out of the building after my last class, and sat down on a small garden bench, putting away loose pieces of paper and pencils I had been carrying around into my satchel. I sat there and watched for Taeyang, who was going to ride the subway with me back home until I'd gotten used to everything. While I was sitting, a girl approached and sat down next to me.
"Hi, I'm Mi-Ok, I think we have English together." She was a pretty little thing, her hair was long like mine, but it was unruly and curly, and her teeth stuck out slightly. "Do you like it here?" She sat, waiting for my answer, tapping her front teeth with her index finger, I thought she was quite charming.
"I suppose so, I was nervous this morning, but mostly everyone has been nice, and the teachers weren't so bad. Oh, by the way I'm Hyo-Sonn."
"I agree, I felt rather stupid when I looked at myself in this uniform this morning." She laughed.
"Me too!" I joined her laughter.

Just then, Taeyang walked up, laughing with a friend, a couple of girls trailing behind them giggling.
Mi-Ok, didn't even look at them, she just slung her satchel over her shoulder and stood up.
"See you tomorrow, Hyo-Sonn," And she was gone. I quite like this girl, I thought to myself.
I stood up and looked at Taeyang. I looked over at his friend, who was looking at me interestedly.
"Hyo-Sonn, this is Kwon Ji, but everyone just calls him G-Dragon. This is my sister, G-Dragon."
"Hey," He said, he smiled slightly, "I gotta go, Taeyang, I'll catch you later." He walked off, and some girls pointed and blushed, giggling with their friends. He was immensly attractive. He had dark dark hair that was tied up in a messy little bun on the top of his head, and even in his school uniform he looked like a star.
We started walking to the Subway station.
"So, how was it? How was your first day?"
"It was fine. I realize I shouldn't have been so nervous this morning, everyone was pretty nice, and the teachers weren't so bad, like you said."
"See, I told you. I do like this school, but I'm ready for our days off, I think I'll ask mom and dad if G-Dragon can come over to hang out for a little bit, for our next day off. He's a pretty cool kid, I met him at the end of last year, it was cool to see him again."
We arrived at the station and stepped onto the Subway.
"That's nice." I said. For some reason, I blushed a little thinking about G-Dragon, and I turned my head away from Taeyang. We didn't talk the rest of the way home.

The next morning when Taeyang and I arrived at school Mi-Ok was sitting on the bench where we had met the day before. She looked up and spotted me, she smiled and waved me over.
"Bye little Hyo-Sonn, I'll see you after school." Taeyang smiled and trotted off.

I approached the bench and sat down.
"Hey Hyo-Sonn, how was your night?"
"It was ok, I guess. How was yours?"
"It was wonderful, my mother and father took me to the Korean BBQ house to celebrate my first day at school. We used scissors to cut the meat and laid it on lettuce, we got little portions of kimchi and garlic to dress it with, it was wonderful!" She smiled, "Do you ever go out to resteraunts to eat?" She looked over at me, she taptaptapped on her front teeth.
"Sometimes, not that often though, last night we just had sticky rice and chicken." She cocked her head, still tapping those front teeth.
"You will have to come to my house one night, and go out and eat with us, I bet you would like it."
"I would like that very much, do you have any brothers or sisters?" I asked.
"No, just me. I'm guessing that was your brother who just left, do you have any other siblings?"
"No, just Taeyang, his real name is Dong, but everyone calls him Taeyang."
"Why?"
"I'm not sure, sense his first day at middle school, he's insisted that everyone call him Taeyang. My mother hates it, she says: Tayeng! Pooey! I do not remember naming you Taeyang. It makes him so frusturated."
We laughed and talked off and on, until it was time to go to our first classes.

I attended my morning classes and then went to the cafeteria to get a bowl of beef soup, Mi-Ok, walked up to stand with me.
"Ugh, I can't wait to get to English, it's the easiest for me, I just got out of math, I hate it so. When we are in English, sit next to me, perhaps we can pass notes." I smiled and nodded.
We got closer to the front to order our food, and behind us a voice said.
"Be careful passing notes, last year, this silly girl Mee-Yon got caught passing notes, and the teacher read it in front of the whole class. Turns out they had been talking about how ugly that particular teacher was, and how much they hated his class. If it wasn't so funny, I would have felt terribly sorry for Mee-Yon and the Teacher."
We turned around, G-Dragon was smirking slightly.
I laughed a little "Hopefully we will have better things to talk about then how ugly Teachers are and how much we hate our classes." I said, Mi-Ok nodding at my side. We got up to the front line and I requested beef soup, Mi-Ok requested meat dumplings, and my heart fluttered ridiculously when G-Dragon requested beef soup as well. We got our meals, and walked away.
"Later, girls." G-Dragon smiled and headed to he table where Taeyang was seated at, along with a few other handsome boys and giggling blushing girls.
"He's nice," Said Mi-Ok absently, "Want to go sit on the bench and eat outside?"
"Yes, that sounds wonderful."

After all of our classes, (I'm happy to say Mi-Ok and I did not get caught passing notes) I headed outside to sit on the bench. Mi-Ok came out of the front doors, and headed to where I was.
"I've got to run Hyo-Sonn, but I am going to ask my parents if you can come over our next day off, I'm sure they will say yes. Ask your parents if you can visit. Here's my number if they would like to speak to my parents. Bye! See you tomorrow Hyo-Sonn!"
"Bye, Mi-Ok."

I put her number in my satchel and pulled out a notebook to start on some homework while I waited on Taeyang. No sooner had I placed my pen to the paper, I felt someone slide in next to me.
"Hey, have you seen your brother anywhere?" G-Dragon asked.
"No I have not, I'm waiting for him here."
"I haven't seen him sense lunch, I bet he's sneaked off with Chung-Ae. I'll wait with you here if that's ok."
"Of course it's ok."
He smiled and looked at me, I felt my heart start beating, thumpthumpthump against my ribs. I felt a slow blush come creeping up my cheeks. I lowered my head and started to work on my homework, so he wouldn't see my burning face.
"Ah, there he is, and what do you know! I was right, he is with Chung-Ae!" He nudged me and stood up, stretching a bit. I stood up too.
"G-Dragon, my man! You still coming over on our day off?"
"I plan on it, I wanted to give you this though," He passed Taeyang a slip of paper, and said goodbye to everyone.
On the way home, I realized that I would be at Mi-Ok's house when G-Dragon was over. I felt sad, and then angry at myself. What did I care? It didn't matter, I didn't like G-Dragon. I would force myself to believe that every day.
But going to bed that night, he was all I could think about.