In the morning, our teacher let the whole class sit and get to know each other, so there was no actual lesson. I felt pretty relaxed, though a bit bored.
Then, the boy who had been moved to sit next to Liana asked if the two of us at my table—and Liana too—wanted to hear his story. Since we were all just sitting around with nothing to do, we sort of nodded along and agreed.
Oh, I forgot to introduce them. The boy I was paying attention to—the one sitting next to me—was named Daniel. I only learned his name after he went up to the podium to introduce himself. As for the guy sitting with Liana, his name was Taeil. I figured that out because people kept calling him that. From what I could tell, Taeil wasn't very well liked by the others. I didn't have much of an impression of him either, apart from thinking he seemed pretty sloppy and rude. I didn't feel any goodwill toward him at all.
Taeil started telling his story, but after listening for a bit, I found it… so ridiculous. It didn't sound real at all, more like something he just made up. After that, I stopped paying attention and shot a glance at Liana, signaling with my eyes: "This story is such nonsense. I don't believe a word of it."
She gave me a look back that showed she felt the same.
Then I glanced over at Daniel to see if he had any kind of reaction to Taeil's story. All I saw was him playing along, like he already knew what was going on but didn't care anymore—maybe he was just used to it by now. When Taeil finally finished, none of us said a word. We all just turned away, clearly not interested in keeping the conversation going. Taeil seemed a bit embarrassed when he saw us turn away so quickly—his face went stiff. After a while, when he noticed we were just talking to each other and not even glancing at him, he gave up and went off to chat with the boys at another table.
Once he left, I moved over to Liana's desk so we could talk more easily. At that point, we weren't very close yet—we had only started talking because we didn't know anyone else.
After settling in, I glanced around the classroom to see if anything else caught my eye. I noticed that most of the girls had gathered at one table and were chatting together. Every now and then, one of them would sneak a glance at us. The look came and went quickly, but of course I noticed. From the way they looked at us, I could feel the judgment in their eyes—they didn't even try to hide it. That's probably why I didn't have much of a good impression of them during those first few months.
After the first period ended, the teacher spoke up for the second period:
"Now we'll assign class positions."
The class immediately started buzzing—everyone was probably curious about who would be chosen as class monitor.
"Liana will be the class monitor. I believe she'll do well since she was class monitor all five years in primary school and has a great academic record. From today, she'll lead the class."
As soon as she finished speaking, the class broke into chatter, especially loud at the girls' table. Then the teacher began assigning other roles. When she got to our table and was deciding on a group leader, Liana quickly spoke up:
"Miss, maybe you could let Aleina be our group leader. She was one in primary school too."
When I heard that, I didn't even have time to protest before the teacher said:
"Alright, Aleina will be the leader of group three."
And just like that, she moved on, looking toward group four to pick the next "lucky winner."
When I heard that, I felt like a deflated balloon. In secondary school, all I'd wanted was to be a normal, carefree student. But thanks to Liana, it felt like I'd just been thrown into a grave. I was so mad I glared at her like my eyes were burning holes through her. I really wanted to reach down and give her a slap. But since everyone at the table had their eyes on me, I had to swallow my anger and keep a calm, neutral expression—I had to protect my image since I was new here.
Liana saw my murderous look and knew I was furious, but she just smiled innocently, like she hadn't done anything wrong.
Once all the class positions were decided, the teacher listed out the responsibilities for each role. Then she handed out four notebooks, one for each group, to record evaluations of group members. The rules were already written inside, so she told us to read them ourselves, then left us alone while she scrolled on her phone.
After two more periods, the bell rang—time for us to rush to the canteen for lunch.