XOXO (An XOXO Novel)

As expected, everyone turns when I enter the classroom five minutes after the bell rings. The teacher looks at a loss for words, probably unable to comprehend how a student would be late on the first day of school.

“She’s a transfer student,” Jaewoo says, entering the class behind me. “She was lost.” I look at him, surprised that he’s come inside with me.

“And you found her,” the teacher says warmly. “We wouldn’t expect anything less from our class president.”

Jaewoo approaches the podium, passing by me. Reaching into his school bag, he pulls out a folder and hands it to the teacher. “These are the papers you asked me to pick up from the office.”

He bows, and instead of walking back out the door, heads down the aisle of seats, taking one in the back row, farthest to the right.

It’s the seat directly behind mine.

Which means he’s in my class. He doesn’t look at me, resting his chin on his hand as he looks out the window. Even from the front of the classroom, I can see the smirk on his face.

“Jenny,” the teacher says, “why don’t you introduce yourself to the class?”

Oh my God, forced public speaking is the absolute worst.

I take a deep breath. “My name is Jenny Go,” I begin. “I’m seventeen years old . . .” A few of the students in the front row frown, and I remember that in Korea, you’re considered one year old the day you’re born, and depending on your birthday, could be one to two years older than your American age. I’m not quick enough to figure out my Korean age so I say the year I was born instead. Everyone nods in understanding. “I’m originally from Los Angeles, California. And I’m a cellist.”

Finished, I look at the teacher, who seems to be waiting for something. I bow.

“Perfect!” The teacher says, “Baksu!” She claps her hands and the rest of the students half-heartedly join her. “You can take your seat now.”

Well, I guess after that introduction everyone now knows that I’m an international transfer student, and they’ll be more forgiving of any cultural faux pas on my part.

Or not. I remember that girl who’d lied about the uniform violation. She was sitting in the front row during my introduction, and the whole time she and her seatmate had been looking me up and down and rolling their eyes.

As I take my seat, I glance at Jaewoo, but he’s still looking out the window.

In front of him, Sori mimics his pose exactly, not acknowledging me as I pull the seat out beside her.

The rest of homeroom is spent going over class expectations for the year and assigning chores. Apparently the students take turns cleaning the classroom. The teacher also mentions the senior showcase, which happens in June. Each program head will share further details when we meet with our respective departments after lunch. I make a point to ask mine the steps to audition for a cello solo.

A little after an hour, the bell rings, signaling the end of Period 1. Most of the students remain seated; the next class is apparently advanced Korean, a literature class. Me and a few other students pack up our things to move rooms.

“Jaewoo-yah.” Sori shifts her legs so that they’re facing the window.

They do know each other, and not just know each other. If she’s using his name in that familiar way, then they’re close.

He glances up from where he was reading his schedule. “Min Sori.”

“Why didn’t you text me back?” Why is she on his list of approved numbers?

“Sorry, I left my phone at the studio,” Jaewoo says. “What’s up?”

“I congratulated you on your performance last night.” I glance in her direction, but her face is turned away. It’s subtle, but there’s a hitched quality to her voice. “On Music Net.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“You’ll find your phone, won’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t ignore my texts,” she says softly.

I quickly finish my packing and practically flee from my seat. Nathaniel catches my arm as I’m walking out the door.

I almost forgot about him, which is wild. How could anyone forget about Nathaniel?

“What’s your next class?” he asks.

“I have study hall, but I guess English.” Since Korean literature is too advanced for me and English language is too easy, LACHSA is letting me do an online version of their English literature course.

“And after that?” He shakes his head. “You know what, why don’t you text me your schedule.” He hands me his phone.

I stare at it, still a little dazed from what I just witnessed. Also the settings on his phone are all in Korean.

“Oh, sorry, here.” He opens up the new contact info page. “Just type in your number. I’ll fill in the rest.”

Afterward, he takes it back and types in English “Jenny Go” all on one line.

As I leave the classroom, I catch sight of Liar Girl and her friends—a boy and girl—glaring at me. Honestly, at this point, I couldn’t care less.

I spend a few minutes of my study hall reading the syllabus my English teacher sends over, and the rest of it wondering if Jaewoo was the one who sent Sori the postcard. If so, then why did he hang out with me in LA? And what about earlier in the hall, when he asked to be secret friends? How would Sori feel about that? How do I feel about that?

Not great.

The last period before lunch is PE and I quickly rush back to the dorm to change before meeting my class on the field.

“Jenny!” Angela greets me, looking adorable in pigtails and a pink hoodie over her uniform sweats. It’s freezing outside and most of the students are running in place or doing jumping jacks to warm themselves up. “I’m so glad we have this class together!”

“Me too,” I say, especially when I catch sight of Liar Girl and her friends. And Sori, though she stands apart, which seems to be her general state of being.

“Who’s that?” Angela asks, following my gaze. “She’s so pretty.”

“Min Sori,” one of our classmates answers, a girl with purple-tinted hair. “She’s a trainee at Joah Entertainment.”

So that’s how she knows Jaewoo. Also maybe why she’s an approved contact in his phone.

“I envy her,” Angela sighs.

“Oh, yeah?” The girl smirks. “Wait until you hear who her mother is.” The girl pauses dramatically.

I don’t give her the satisfaction of asking.

Angela—on the other hand—is not petty, like me. “Who?”

“Seo Min Hee, the CEO of Joah Entertainment.”

Angela gasps. “Her life is so blessed. Though I’m sure she would have gotten into Joah even without that connection.”

I aspire to be as sweet as Angela when I grow up. The girl, however, doesn’t seem to share my feelings and heads over to join her friends.

Today we’re running the Korean equivalent of “the mile,” which is four laps around the track. I’m fine with the first lap, huffing and puffing after the second, breathing heavily after the third, and then almost dead by the fourth, collapsing on the lawn with the students who’d finished ahead of me. Angela’s still running, so after a short break, I walk over to the water fountain at the edge of the field to wash up.

Liar Girl is already there with her friend. In order to avoid them, I go to the other side of the fountain, splashing cold water onto my face from the spigot that shoots the water into a shallow basin. Lifting my head, our eyes meet. This close, I can read the nametag on her uniform: Kim Jina.

While holding my gaze, she nudges her friend and says something in Korean.

I frown, not quite understanding. Yet with how loud she spoke, I was clearly meant to hear.

Her friend glances over at me, and then says something back, and then it clicks.

They’re purposefully speaking in slang, so that I won’t understand.

At my confused expression, they start to laugh. They then exchange a few more words and these I can recognize because curse words are some of the first words you learn in any language.

I walk away with my face dripping water, the girls’ laughter trailing behind me.

I feel an odd sort of disconnect with my mind. My whole body is shaking, hot with frustration and fury. And all I want to do is lash out, but what would I even say? I’m not fluent enough to curse someone out in Korean, which is what I want to do. And they wouldn’t understand me if I did it in English. They’d just laugh more, and I’d feel like an even bigger loser.

And it sucks because usually I’m pretty good at defending myself when the rare occasion presents itself for a good put-down. My mom, an immigrant with an accent, knew the power of language, which to her was like a weapon to use against people who claimed she didn’t belong. That’s why she became a lawyer.

And now the weapon of language is being used against me, but in a different country.

“I’m soooo gross,” Angela says, walking toward me, her pigtails drooping, “and now we have to go to lunch.” She frowns when she catches sight of my face. “Are you okay?”

I nod, refusing to let Jina and her friend ruin my day. “I’m fine. I am starving though.”

“Me too,” Angela says. “Let’s head over before the lines get too long.”

The cafeteria is located next to the student center, across from the dorms. Even though we arrive five minutes before lunch officially starts, there’s already a line forming outside the cafeteria window. A menu on the monitor above the station shows the different meal set options to choose from: bulgogi patty set, grilled mackerel set, and braised tofu set, all of which come with banchan and whatever the soup of the day is. Today’s soup is sigeumchi-guk, spinach boiled in an oyster soup base.

As students order and retrieve their trays, the long tables in the cafeteria begin to fill. People also arrive from the student center, where a walkway connects to the cafeteria, bringing with them food purchased at the snack bar and convenience store.

At one point Angela stops an Indian girl who’s passing by and introduces her as Anushya, her roommate. She’s British Indian and from Bristol. We chat a bit in English about moving to Seoul—she’s been here for two years—and then a boy from a table nearby calls her away. Though SAA isn’t an international school, I was surprised to find out from the website that there’s a good amount of international students, maybe one-fifth of the student body.

After we retrieve our trays—I choose the bulgogi patty set, Angela the mackerel set—we search for Gi Taek among the chaos of students.

“I see him!” Angela says, holding her tray with one hand and pointing across the cafeteria to where Gi Taek sits alone at one of the long tables, watching a video on his phone. We hurry over and join him.

He pauses the video, which a quick glance shows to be one on choreography. “How’s your first day of school?” he asks. “I see you both came from PE.” Unlike Angela and I in our sweats, he’s still wearing his uniform from the assembly.

“Great!” Angela says, taking the seat across from him. “I had homeroom with you and then math.” She makes a face.

“Study hall for me,” I say sitting to his right. “I’m taking classes through my school in the States.”

“Well, I had English and Korean back-to-back,” Gi Taek says. “My brain is fried.”

I pick up a piece of acorn jelly with my chopsticks, plopping it into my mouth. “So, what happens after lunch?” I know how it works at LACHSA, but I’m curious if it’s different here.

“We switch from academics to the arts,” Gi Taek says. “You’re a cellist, so you’ll go to orchestra. I’m a dance major, so I’ll head over to the performing arts studio, and you . . .” He points at Angela. “You go to the studio at Neptune, right?”

She nods, though she seems preoccupied, a frown on her face.

“Trainees who already have contracts with management labels get their arts credits from their companies,” he explains to me.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Angela blurts out, and I notice that Gi Taek doesn’t have lunch.

He shrugs. “I’m on a diet.”

“But you shouldn’t skip meals . . .” Angela says.

“Mind if I join you?” Nathaniel pulls out the chair across from me, dropping his tray on the table.

I’d think the wide-eyed expressions on Gi Taek’s and Angela’s faces comical if I probably didn’t have a similar one on my face.

It’s not his appearance that surprises me so much as to why he seems to keep seeking me out. A glimpse around at the other tables shows a few students taking notice. Does he just not care about his reputation, like Jaewoo does? Maybe having already had a scandal, he doesn’t have much to lose.

When I turn my attention back to the table, I notice Gi Taek and Angela seem to be trying to communicate something to me with their minds.

“Nathaniel,” I say, “do you know Angela and Gi Taek?”

“Yeah.” He points at Gi Taek with his spoon. “Dancer, right?”

“Yes.” Gi Taek nods vigorously. Nathaniel then turns to Angela and lifts his hand. “I don’t know you, though. My name’s Nathaniel. Nice to meet you.” She takes the tip of his fingers between both her hands. After she drops them, he laughs, shakes his head, and returns to his food, which he eats with gusto.

Gi Taek looks between Nathaniel and me. “How do you two know each other?”

When Nathaniel doesn’t look like he’s going to answer—his mouth full of food—I explain, “We met at the uniform store when I went to go pick up mine.”

Angela sits forward in her seat. “Did you know who he was?”

“Not then.”

“But now you do,” she prompts.

“I mean, sure. I watched your music video,” I inform him.

“Oh yeah?” Nathaniel says. “What’d you think?” Now it’s my turn to get the spoon pointed at me. “Couldn’t take your eyes off me, could you?”

Angela giggles.

“Yeah . . .” I say, though it’s not Nathaniel’s part in the music video that replays in my head. That’s replayed in my head since the first time I saw it.

There’s a stir at the entrance of the cafeteria.

I look up to see Jaewoo walk into the cafeteria . . . with Sori.

I’ve never seen a more striking pair. They look like they stepped out of a catalogue.

“Is it weird if I take a picture?” Angela asks. “Like as a souvenir for myself. I’ve never seen such great visuals.”

“I wouldn’t,” Gi Taek says, answering her seriously. “What if that picture got out somehow? It could create a scandal. I mean, do you remember—” He cuts off abruptly, looking stricken.

Nathaniel glances up from his tray. I stare at Gi Taek, whose face has gone completely white.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Gi Taek says. “It’s nothing.”

Nathaniel puts down his spoon and sits back in his chair, an amused expression on his face.

I have a distinct impression that I’m missing something here.

“I guess you wouldn’t know,” Nathaniel sighs. “Min Sori and I dated for six months before her mother found out and forced us to break up.”

“Oh my God,” I say.

He shrugs. “Messed up, right?”

Nathaniel is the writer of the postcard. Relief washes over me, quickly followed by guilt. Several times today, I caught Sori looking over. I thought something was off about her expression and yet I was more jealous than sympathetic.

Even now, she can’t keep her eyes off our table; the look on her face can only be described as miserable.

The postcard didn’t even sound like Jaewoo, now that I know who wrote it. Remembering the words in English at the end of the postcard, I fill in his name at the end.

Chin up, Songbird.

You will always have my heart.

XOXO

Nathaniel