"진부한 방법."

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A U T H O R ' S P. O. V

"Holy shit, your cafeteria has two floors?"

The first thing that greeted the thai girl when she entered the glass doors of the cafeteria was the gigantic room's sleek and modern style. She observed the walls that were painted white and were standing tall, the polished marbled floor, countless tables spread across the room where some were occupied while the others were not. But one of the things that snatched her attention was the ceiling-to-floor length glass windows that offered the students the view outside of the academy's yard.

Chaeyoung and Taehyung both chuckled at Lalisa's shocked state.

Another reason why Lalisa was utterly impressed was because, just above the stations where the students pick up their food, there was a huge amount of space and approximately six extra tables placed on top of it, it had clear glass railings so the people sitting at the top can hear or see the events happening underneath, and at the same time, the students eating at the first floor are also very much aware of what was happening at the top.

"It's Kyeongsoo High, my friend," Taehyung mused, "What did you expect?"

"Like I said, I've been homeschooled for quite some time now," Lalisa retorted. "Anyways, can we get our food now? I'm hungry."

The clock displayed 12 o'clock, which means it was currently lunch time, so Chaeyoung and Taehyung both dragged Lalisa outside to eat after escaping the excruciatingly painful one hour math class from the same classroom as they mostly have the same classes. Normally, the two wouldn't choose the school's cafeteria as the destination to eat in, but because they had a new friend who happened to be a new student, they decided it would be the best to inform Lalisa everything she has to know to get out of the academy alive as the people in their topic will be present there.

"Of course, let's go."

After getting their own desired meals, Chaeyoung grabbed her tray and lead them to one of the farthest table to the left, which means they were at close proximity to the stations and the window.

The three were quiet and were ignoring the noises traveling throughout the cafeteria and just enjoyed their meals when Lalisa suddenly voiced out her thoughts.

"I want to sit there." Lalisa referred to the tables on the second floor.

The two shared a knowing look, but upon seeing Lalisa's confusion, Chaeyoung swallowed her food first before disagreeing with the girl.

"No can do, because albeit having six tables there, nobody ever dares to go sit there because some of it are already occupied."

Lalisa raised a brow and stared at the elevated floor. "I see no one though."

"It will be taken after a few minutes, when they arrive." Taehyung said. "The popular students of this academy are already regulars there, so any sane person inside this school would just pick among the dozens of tables littered here in the first floor."

Lalisa had to snort at the familiar situation. "How cliché."

"I know right?" Chaeyoung chuckled in agreement.

"We don't usually eat here, but today we made an exception because of you." Taehyung looked at Lalisa, while the latter just stared at him, confused.

"Me? Why me?"

"Well, looking at you, you have the potential to be popular here basing from your looks, but you chose to hide and be with us," Chaeyoung then pointed towards herself and Taehyung, "So technically that means, you're stuck with us at the bottom of the school's food chain."

"Now, in order to survive you need to avoid involving yourself with the bigger preys." Chaeyoung continued.

"Let me guess, I need to distance myself from the jocks and the cheerleaders?" Lalisa grinned. To her that would be considered as impossible, granting the fact that she has a cousin who was a jock and a friend who was also a cheerleader who happened to be her cousin's girlfriend, but no one has to know.

"Yeah, but don't get me wrong, to be fair there are some decent people from the jocks and the cheerleaders," Chaeyoung paused, "But I wasn't necessarily talking about them, the group that you have to completely avoid is a different set of people."

"They call themselves, The Royals." Taehyung finished for her.

"The Royals?" Lalisa feigned confusion by tilting her head to one side.

"Probably one of the most influential people here in KH, daughters and sons of the the most respected and successful people here in Korea." Taehyung shrugged as he took a bite from his dumplings.

As he finished his sentence, the doors of the cafeteria opened, revealing a group of guys and girls. Upon their entrance, some of the students visibly tensed.

Meanwhile, Lalisa just stared at her cousin who has his arms around his girlfriend while walking. Bambam discreetly scanned the whole place before his eyes landed on Lalisa, the former secretly nodded which Bambam returned before following his friends up the stairs towards the cafeteria's second floor.

The thai girl's jaw fell.

He gets to sit there?

Clearly, Lalisa now knew how much she underestimated her cousin's status inside the campus, turns out the joke was on her. She can already hear her cousin's mocks later in their household because in the middle of going up, Bambam looked back at Lalisa and gave her a subtle smirk.

She scoffed, "Psh, whatever."

"His name is Bambam."

Lalisa's head snapped towards Chaeyoung. "Huh?"

"One of the actual decent people in their clique, he already has a girlfriend though, and he's quite loyal to her." Chaeyoung said. She noticed that Lalisa was staring at the said male for a notable amount of time already.

"Are you implying that I'm interested in him?" Lalisa cackled like a madwoman much to Chaeyoung and Taehyung's confusion. "No, never."

When her laughter subsided, Lalisa observed that her friends had a rather weirded out expression on their faces so she cleared her throat and uttered an excuse. "It's just that he looks like he's thai."

Chae and Tae seemed to have bought it judging by the way they removed the confused expression from their faces.

"Yeah, he is thai actually."

Lalisa pretended to be clueless and formed an 'O' using her lips. "No wonder."

"Anyways since they're still not here, we'll tell you all about them." Chaeyoung pointed at the two separate groups sitting at two separate tables on the second floor.

"Those," Chaeyoung pointed at the first group consisting of eight boys and four girls. "Are the—"

"Dickheads." Taehyung shrugged which received a glare from the girl. "What? It's true."

"Anyways, those are the members of the basketball team and the cheer leading squad, but not to mention their families are quite known too."

"That's their captain, Kim Junmyeon." Chaeyoung referred to the guy who just stood up and went to take their orders.

"Those guys just play ball and they already think they own the school or something, they might be good-looking but what's the point of a beautiful face when you have an ugly personality?" Chaeyoung grimaced. "Although, there are some who are tolerable, there are also some who are downright—"

"Assholes."

"Taehyung, shut up."

"Okay, sheesh."

"Back to what I was saying, those girls they're with," Chaeyoung directed her gaze towards the girls talking to each other, "Three of them are a part of the cheer leading squad, again, another group of narcissists who think they're some superior here or something."

Chaeyoung and Taehyung chorused in rolling their eyes. You see, these two are absolute angels but they started to dislike Junmyeon's group when they use their popularity to make fun of the students with limited abilities, money, and connections, it just didn't sit well with them. Though, neither of them has the intention to involve themselves in their dramas because they just want to carry out their life in school and graduate.

"Now, the people occupying the other table are like the nicer versions," Chaeyoung said and Lalisa figured that it was probably Bambam and Mina's friends.

"I actually admire Bambam's group," Taehyung confessed. "Their group from what we've all seen is very versatile, in their group there are jocks, cheerleaders, council officers, dance troop members and more."

"They basically broke the norms and just decided to stick with their friends even though they come from different clubs."

Lalisa raised a brow, she took a closer look at her cousin's group and acknowledged seven boys and nine girls. She figured those guys may be the 'brothers' Bambam always talks about, and those girls must be Mina's friends.

"If you bump into known names here in the campus, you might as well pray to God that it would turn out to be Bambam's clique, because that way you'll be spared." Chaeyoung said.

"I got you." Lalisa paused and pondered. "But I'm curious about the other group you mentioned earlier."

"Ah, the royals," Chaeyoung grabbed a tissue and wiped the excess pasta on her lips. "If I'm correct, they'll barge into this cafeteria in a few minutes, but in the meantime we might as well inform you about them now."

"Let's start off with the Kim siblings," Chaeyoung put her now undivided attention on Lalisa.

"Kim Seokjin and Kim Jennie, the sole heirs to J & S Designs, the Korean company that is currently battling big names in terms of clothing. Gotta say though, the only comment I have left about them is; don't mess with Jennie and don't insult Seokjin, especially if the topic tackles his face."

"Oh, and Tae has a crush on Jennie." Chaeyoung smirked while Lalisa gave Taehyung a bewildered expression.

"Y–Yah!" The blushing male raised his fork and pointed it at Chaeyoung.

"Chill, Tae, we're the only ones who knows anyways, well now including Lali I guess."

Taehyung sighed, "She'll never notice a nerd like me anyways, what's the point?" He pouted which earned a chuckle from the girls.

"Don't worry, Taehyung, we view you as a handsome nerd, no kidding." Lalisa pat his head, eliciting a groan from the latter.

"Moving on, there's another visual duo, Kim Namjoon and Kim Jisoo, they're siblings too but they aren't related to Jennie and Seokjin," Chaeyoung said. "You have heard of KJN Empire right? Their parents are the CEOs."

Lalisa formed an 'O' using her lips and nodded as if she was urging Chaeyoung to continue talking.

"Next, Jung Hoseok and Min Yoongi, they're cousins, and as of now even though they are still both studying, from time to time they help produce music for BigHit Entertainment."

Lalisa's eyes widened. "Really?" In Thailand, her Jieun-unnie introduced her to the world of K-pop and she couldn't stop listening to it since then. So hearing that this school apparently has two students who produces for an agency sent her to the moon.

"Yeah, everyone here knows that unfortunately, their parents died in an accident when they were still young and so Bang Sihyuk adopted them both because they were good friends with their family." Chaeyoung said. "And it was clearly a great decision considering the two's contribution and did I mention they rap well too?"

Lalisa still hasn't recovered from the shock yet when Chaeyoung continued.

"Hmm, so far we already tackled six out of eight, and so next there's. . ." Chaeyoung's expression suddenly darkened. ". . .Park Jimin."

The secret heiress furrowed her brows as she couldn't help but sense the revolt in her friend's voice.

"What's wrong with him?" Lalisa asked.

Seeing disgust still painted all over Chaeyoung's face, the laughing Taehyung took over and explained everything to the confused Lalisa.

"Park Jimin can already be considered as a young millionaire as he is the only son of Park Minjun, the CEO of Ace Tech."

"Ace Tech? As in Ace Technology?" Lalisa asked to which Taehyung nodded. Of course she recognized the company right away, Ace Tech is one of the most well-known multinational conglomerate headquartered in Seoul. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, but most of them are centered and focused on technology.

"But why is Chae spitting his name out like it's the most disgusting name to ever grace the earth?"

"Well, because there was this one time where she bump into him causing all of her things to drop to the ground, but instead of helping her, he laughed at her and called her fat—"

"Even though I was not fat that time, only a little chubby but not to the extent it can be considered as fat." Chaeyoung grumbled.

"—Then the students who witnessed it all joined in laughing with him."

"That's horrible!" Lalisa exclaimed.

"Yeah, it was," Taehyung sighed.

"You joined in the laughter for a brief moment." Chaeyoung glared at the male.

"Keyword; brief, and come on, that was a long time ago, besides I still helped you in escaping from the scene." Taehyung retorted.

"Whatever." Chaeyoung rolled her eyes. Lalisa just chuckled in amusement while seeing them bicker in front of her.

"Anyways, so now it's seven out of eight, who's the last one?" Lalisa asked.

"Jeon Jungkook."

Lalisa stopped eating and tensed upon hearing his name, her grip on her chopsticks tightened but it went by unnoticed by the two because they continued to tell her about the last member of the infamous group.

"The only son of the Jeon family, thus the sole heir to Jeon Corporation, practically Kyeongsoo High's golden boy and is a very well know playboy slash jerk—but his fangirls would say otherwise—known for his looks and brains."

"Still a jerk."

"We know, Tae."

The two was still oblivious of Lalisa's frozen state as they continue to rant about the same guy.

"Speaking of Jeon, I don't know why but my mind wanders back to that Pranpriya girl, you know her right?" Chaeyoung sighed while her two friends nodded. "I pity her to be honest."

The girl of their current topic tried compose herself but her question still came out stiff and rigid. "Why?"

"You don't know?" Lalisa shook her head so Chaeyoung glanced around before leaning towards her. "There was a rumor that the Jeons were the ones behind her and her parent's disappearance."

Snap.

Their eyes all trailed towards the broken chopsticks on Lalisa's hands.

"You okay, Lis?" Chaeyoung looked at the younger girl with worry.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Lalisa plastered a fake smile on her face.

"You sure? Doesn't seem like it." It was Taehyung's worried voice this time.

"I promise, it's nothing." She insisted.

Though the two were still skeptical, they just shrugged it off because they're not forcing Lalisa to share things this early anyways, they were still at the beginning of their friendship.

"It's just a rumor though, and please don't get the wrong idea about us, we know all of these stuff only because the students here won't shut up about them." Chaeyoung smiled sheepishly.

"Don't worry guys, you're probably the kindest people I've met here so far, and I'm really thankful you approached me first." Unlike the former one, Lalisa now shot them a genuine smile, to which the two replied with bright ones.

She knows that these two means well.

"But, speaking of the devils."

The whole cafeteria silenced upon the entrance of eight people, all of the student's eyes followed their figures as they make their way to the second floor.

Their aura was just too powerful that some of the students shrunk back into their seats.

But out of the eight of them, Lalisa only stared—or glared—at one person.

She recognized that smirk.

Jeon Jungkook.

°•°•°•°

"How cliché."

°•°•°•°

Introducing:

Got7, Twice, EXO, and (F)X, as the minor characters.

More minor characters will be introduced as the story progresses.

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Disclaimer: The first time I've heard of KPOP was when I was 7-8 years old because I had older friends who were stans but I've only started stanning groups back in 2016, so do pardon me if I get some things wrong about the groups who debuted before that era. That is also why I'm hesitating if I should include Sulli or not because you guys know what happened and I don't want to offend anyone cause I believe (f)x is a great group even though I'm not really a stan to begin with, so comment down your opinions so I can change it if ever.

Also do note that this is a fanfiction, I do not own some of the characters here but I have the power to create everything else because again, this is a fanfiction. Just pretend that some of them has the same age just for the sake of this fic. Oh and if you don't like some of the ships, then it's the best to get out if this book now instead of spreading hate in the comments.

Also, I have nothing against the idols who will play as the antagonists here, I watch and listen to EXO content here and there but I'm not that much of a stan but we all know that they're all great people irl, this is just for the fic. (Also for the umpteenth time congrats again to Jongdae, I'm hoping that he and his future family would be safe and happy despite the presence of haters).

Lastly, I changed the format and font of my POVs because the app I use is in my phone, but it's currently broken and I can't get it repaired because of the virus so I would most likely be using my laptop or old phone in writing new chapters.

Anyways, this is unedited as usual and was written at night/early in the morning so excuse the errors :)

Continue to stay safe guys!

Luv y'all.

Author-nim outtt