Chapter Text
The Fashion Department
Park Hyeongseok, the new transfer student of J-High. He was the prime target for lookism, short, fat and quite the pushover. Added to that, there was a viral video on Pacebook of him being beat up by Lee Jinsung the boxer.
Even worse, he was sat next to him in class. Just a couple days into Seoul and Hyeongseok was already contemplating moving to Antarctica and erasing any and all of his past.
“Park Hyeongseok, so that’s your name, hmm?” Jinsung snarled.
“Um, yes! What is it?”
“Just to let you know, I’m still pissed at yesterday. I hope you learned your lesson or else I’ll have to punch some more sense into you.”
“O-of course! I”ll never bother you two again!”
A moment of silence, followed by Jinsung raising his fist.
“Just kidding—I’m still fucking pissed!”
Jinsung tried swinging his fist at Hyeongseok, and he tightened his eyes in fear. But the impact never came.
“What the hell, you blond bastard?”
Hyeongseok opened his eyes meekly. And there he saw; a boy with bleach blond hair that covered his eyes, fingers decked out in Chrome Hearts, but emanating an otherwise calm and quiet aura. That boy was grabbing onto Jinsung’s wrist, preventing him from hitting Hyeongseok.
“Jeez Jae, why did you of all people decide to interfere today? Why don’t you go back to your desk and shut up like you always did?”
But Jaeyeol wouldn’t budge. A part of Hyeongseok felt grateful that someone interfered with his bullying for once in his entire life. Another felt guilty, for roping someone innocent into his mess.
Jinsung finally wriggled his wrist out of Jaeyeol’s grasp and delivered a straight jab towards Hyeongseok. The smaller boy stumbled onto his back, as his glasses fell from his nose and broke into two. Ashamed of his weakness, he sunk his head to the floor.
Luckily, Jinsung left when he heard Minji looking for him. “Count yourself lucky," he said.
Jaeyeol looked at the mess that was Hyeongseok. He quietly offered his hand out to the fallen boy, and gave a look of concern. Hyeongseok smiled weakly at him. “Thanks for that. If it weren’t for you, things would’ve probably escalated,” He tried saying it optimistically, “Your name is Jaeyeol, right?”
Jaeyeol—he didn’t know how, but having his name come out of the new transfer student’s mouth, it felt so surreal. For the first time, his name was said with so much thankfulness. No harmful intent or disgust behind it. For the first time, he liked his name.
“Hyeongseok, need help, just call.”
Hyeongseok—the way Jaeyeol said his name. Just his name. Not “Pikachu” or “Fatass loser” or any variation of that, just Hyeongseok. To say he would be forever indebted to Jaeyeol would be an understatement, because just this one act alone, Hyeongseok saw new hope in Seoul. Maybe he didn’t need to erase his past and move to Antarctica afterall, minus his broken glasses though. Still, this was certainly miles better than his old school. Plus, Taesung had always broken his glasses for fun. It’s something that a little bit of tape wouldn’t fix.
Surprisingly on the next day of school, Hyeongseok found a new pair of glasses, with all his accurate prescriptions and everything, on his desk. This was all courtesy from our beloved Jaeyeol of course.
Burn Knuckles
“His name is Hyeongseok right?”
“Yes, he recently transferred here and it seems Jinsung of the fashion department has already got to him. Have you seen the video on Pacebook?”
“…I don’t know how to use Pacebook”
“Um, anyway, it seems that Hyeongseok is in the same department as Jinsung, so he might need our protection. However, we should take a while longer to see if he’s in real danger because it seems he made friends with Jae—WAIT VASCO WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?”
“I need to punish the bad guy, Jinsung”
“Vasco, wait—ugh.”
The cafeteria was filled with students, filled with hunger and exhaustion after being in class for so long. Vasco observed the crowd, and as usual, bullying amongst the “losers of J-High” were happening. He marched towards Lee Hyundo and Jin Hobin, and quickly rescued Jiho and Deonhwa before making his way towards Hyeongseok, where he saw a small scuffle with Jinsung and Jaeyeol.
“It’s Vasco from Burn Knuckles!”
“What’s he doing over here?”
“Has he seen the video of the fatty getting beat up by Jinsung on Pacebook?”
“Is there gonna be another fight?”
The students kept murmuring amongst themselves. Vasco approached Jinsung and used his grip of death on his shoulders.
“I heard you weren’t nice to Hyeongseok. Apologise to him.”
Jinsung was visibly gritting his teeth, Vasco was just too strong for him.
“Jinsung! I told you not to get into fights anymore!” Minji scolded Jinsung.
“The fatty was looking at you yesterday! I at least need to be a man and protect you!”
Vasco interrupted, “You beat him up in school too. I need to teach you a lesson.”
Jinsung was now in a pickle.
A huge pickle.