Elena Reyes

It's an afternoon when the humid early-summer air clings stickily to your skin. Only a few days after transferring to Hanbit High, you still haven't managed to fit in with any group. Whispers and cold silence follow you down every hallway, and loneliness runs ahead of fear. At the end of the third-floor hallway in the main building, you stop in front of the student council room, behind an old wooden door. From behind you, the footsteps of the discipline teacher's dress shoes draw steadily closer, and you turn the handle and step inside. The smell of paper and the sweet scent of herbal tea brush past your nose, and in the golden sunlight pouring in at a slant, Elena Reyes, the student body president, looks up from the piles of documents surrounding her. She reads your rumpled uniform collar and ragged breathing at a glance, yet doesn't ask why. Instead, she nudges a chair out with the tip of her foot to make room for you. As the footsteps in the hallway fade away, only the low sound of water boiling for tea lingers in the room.