———・——— ☆ ———・———

        The corridors were empty. Kim Seungmin hurried his way past the many classrooms before he ran up the set of stairs, skipping steps in order to reach the second floor faster. He was fifteen minutes late to his Physics class, and the teacher obviously wasn't going to be happy about it, especially since they had a test to take that morning. One which Seungmin had either missed entirely or was awfully late to.

        Finally reaching the classroom, he stopped at the door, bringing a hand to his chest, panting as he tried to even his breathing. He knocked at the door, and hearing the teacher's short 'come in' from inside, he opened it.

        "Seungmin," the older man began before Seungmin can even open his mouth to try to speak. Exhaling hard, the teacher leaned on his desk. "Why are you late again? It's the second time this week. You're missing out on a lot of things that I won't go over again, you know."

        Trapping his bottom lip between his teeth, Seungmin looked down, bowing before apologizing. "I'm sorry. My bike broke on the way here, I had to continue by walking. I'll make sure it won't happen again, I promise."

        Still looking at Seungmin with disappointment, the teacher sighed. "Go sit down. There's still five minutes left for you to take the test." Grabbing a sheet of paper from a small stack on his desk, the teacher passed it to him. "I won't be giving you any extra time."

        Taking the paper, Seungmin's eyes began scanning through the questions on it as he made his way to his desk. He sat down, wasting no time before taking his pencil and beginning to answer the questions one by one.

        The five minutes were quickly over, and although he hadn't had the time to answer all the questions, Seungmin had circled random options on the multiple-choice ones, leaving it to his luck to decide on his final grade.

        The teacher collected all the test sheets, and once Seungmin handed his paper, he turned around, finally acknowledging his friend's fixed gaze on him. "Lix, you've been staring at me since I came in, what is it?"

        Lee Felix quickly shrugged, opening his mouth to speak before another voice spoke first.

        "Didn't you just fix your bike, like, two days ago, though? It broke again?" Seungmin turned around, looking at his other friend, Hwang Hyunjin, who was giving him the same puzzled look as Felix.

        "I fixed it myself, so I guess I did something wrong, I don't know."

        Sitting back in his chair, Hyunjin clicked his tongue. "You should just get a new bike. This one's getting old, you've gotten it fixed so much in the past two months alone, won't it just be better to get it replaced?" he questioned, and Seungmin raised an eyebrow, scoffing slightly before turning back around to face the board.

        "My savings aren't enough for a new one. Besides, it's fine. Walking isn't too bad, I just have to leave earlier, and I can take the bus, too, so yeah."

        Humming as a short response, Felix looked away from his friend, watching as the teacher finished collecting the test papers and went back to the front of the class. And after a call for everyone's attention again, the class continued.

        The bell rang another twenty-five minutes later, and after quickly putting all their things into their bags again, the students cleared out the classroom, leaving only a few staying inside.

        Seungmin and Hyunjin walked out first, Felix following them out as he scrolled through his phone, reading messages from the multiple group chats he was a part of.

        "When's the first group study session?" Hyunjin asked, his eyes catching a glimpse of the group chat open on his friend's phone screen.

        "Four o'clock, at the library."

        Furrowing his brows, Seungmin looked at the two. "What study group session?"

        Felix looked up, switching his device off before stuffing it into his pocket. "Hyunjin and I joined a study group yesterday. I texted you about it asking if you wanted to join too, but you never read the text."

        "Oh— I haven't really checked my phone since yesterday afternoon. How come you decided to join? Don't you two study together anyway?"

        Hyunjin huffed, running his hand through his dark hair. "Lix wanted to join, so, of course, I had to as well. Han Jisung is part of that study group and he invited Felix, and yeah. I'm just really doubting it. This all just seems like some secret plan to sabotage our already slowly-getting-sabotaged grades."

        Felix smiled, struggling to suppress a laugh. "You're being so dramatic, Jisung isn't that bad. You just hate him for some reason."

        Hyunjin snickered, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss the matter before turning back to Seungmin who seemed to have gotten lost in thought. "So, are you going to join? Please say yes, I won't be able to survive there without you."

        Seungmin let out a small laugh before sighing. "I- I'm not sure. I have to get home and then ready for my shift at the convenience store, so—"

        "Take the day off for once, Minnie, please," Felix spoke, his lips forming a pout. "You can't ever catch a break, honestly. This might not be a break, but come on, it's a great way to meet new people! We can exchange information, explain stuff to each other, answer exercises and do our homework together, it'll be so fun!"

        Hyunjin nodded. "Yeah, and it's okay if you come join us today, I don't think anyone would mind. If you enjoy it we can make it permanent, but if you don't— well, that's fine too. I just think we all need some change for this new year."

        Looking down again, Seungmin sighed. "I'm... I'm not—" The bell rang, abruptly cutting him off in the middle of his sentence. He looked up, seeing all the students around them going back to their classes. Sucking his teeth, he tilted his head, scratching the back of it. "I'll think about it. I'll let you two know later. For now, let's just get back to class."

・——— ☆ ———・

        The hours seemed to pass by quickly, but even with all the time, Seungmin didn't mention the after-school study group at all. The second period ended, and then the third, and lunch break happened, but Seungmin brought no mention to it at all. Of course, until Felix and Hyunjin asked about it again later before the bell hand rang for the last period and he finally replied.

        "I am too busy." That was Seungmin's reply, and his decision was made. There was simply not enough time for him to take an hour away from work to study with mostly people he didn't know. And so, to him the decision was simple. He couldn't and wouldn't join. And so, Hyunjin and Felix headed to the library while Seungmin headed back home to get ready for his ongoing part-time jobs.

        Or so they thought.

        "Is the change in free energy less, more, or equal to zero for a spontaneous process?" Han Jisung asked, looking up from his notebook at the five other students sitting at the table with them.

        "The number's got to be negative for a spontaneous process, so the answer's less than zero," Felix answered, lifting his head slightly and looking at Jisung who quickly circled the answer on his homework sheet.

        However, he quickly huffed, entangling his finger through his hair before letting his head fall onto the books in front of him. "I didn't have time to copy the notes off the board when the teacher explained this, so I won't be able to answer any of these questions..." His voice trailed as he looked up again. "Who's willing to let me borrow their notes for an hour?"

        Hyunjin looked up from his homework sheet, looking at Jisung with a raised eyebrow before sliding his notebook across the table towards him. "Maybe you should take notes next time instead of scribbling in your notebook then?"

        Jisung's eyes widened. "Wow, ouch. I was not scribbling in my notebook, Hyunjin, I was trying to solve the stupid questions he was writing on the board."

        "Oh god, they're going to start again," Minji, who was sitting beside Felix spoke, shaking her head with a tired sigh.

        But Hyunjin just pursed his lips before looking back down at his homework sheet. "All the notes are in there. Copy them and give me the notebook back."

        Jisung hummed, he too looking down as he took the notebook in his hands before flipping it to the right page. He began to write, but not too long after he was interrupted again. He looked up at the girl who had just arrived and his eyebrows shot up. "You're late!" he exclaimed, and she just sat down, a small smile on her lips.

        "I got held back by something, but I'm here now." She took her things out of her bag before scanning the faces of the people sitting around the table, and noticing the small addition to their group her eyes widened. "Hi! You're Felix and... Hyunjin, right?" she questioned, looking at the two one after the other.

        Hyunjin nodded, smiling back at her as Felix did so too. "And you're Hyeseong?"

        She gave a quick nod. "Moon Hyeseong, yeah. But—" pausing for a moment, Hyeseong tilted her head in confusion. "Wasn't there three of you? There was someone else, right?"

        Exchanging glances with Hyunjin before looking back at Hyeseong, Felix nodded. "Yeah. But, he decided that he would rather not join. He's quite busy and all, so—"

        Before he could finish his sentence, however, he paused, his gaze freezing at a single spot in the area; the room's entrance. Following his friend's gaze, Hyunjin's puzzled look quickly turned into surprise as he saw just who was making his way to them.

        "You decided to come!" Hyunjin exclaimed, getting out of his seat just as Seungmin stopped at their table. "God, it was getting so hard with everyone here against me, I—"

        "Oh, please, shut up, no one's against you, you're so dramatic," Jisung said, looking up from his notes, and Hyunjin scoffed.

        "You saying that just proves my point, idiot."

        "I just got here, stop, oh my god," Seungmin said in between a small laugh. He pulled a chair from one of the empty tables around them, taking a seat before greeting the other students he didn't know and introducing himself.

        "My name's not on the list, and it wasn't going to be on it anyway, but—" pausing as he gave Hyunjin a quick glance, Seungmin smiled. "I want to try, so, yeah. I figured it would be fun studying this way."

        Placing a stack of textbooks onto the desk, Hyeseong laughed. "Are you into chaotic fun?" she asked, and Seungmin raised an eyebrow.

        "I am friends with chaos itself, so it counts, doesn't it?"

        Hyeseong grinned. "This is definitely the right place then."

———・——— ☆ ———・———

[A/N]
Honestly, I can't consider this my best writing but yk :')
Also I have no idea how the finished book is gonna look like but it's probably going to be cliche/cringe in a lot of parts so just a warning for that from now ksjsjs
Some of the writing might seem messy or there might be grammatical errors but that's just coz I haven't proofread yet and currently I'm wayyyyy too exhausted to try to make my brain work enough for editing coz school is fucking exhausting but yeah- I'll fix the errors later and if you notice any please lmk!!
Anyways, I hope you liked the first chap!! Thanks for reading <33