Chapter Text
“when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
"I should have expected that kind of ignorance from a prick like you."
Jongin heard the brusque words from somewhere behind him - just seconds before a reddish blur sailed past him. It landed, with a resounding thud several feet away from his desk. The projectile had been - he squinted to read the upside down title - an Advanced Calculus textbook. He sighed. It had to be that boy again. The feisty one with the large, intense eyes and the anger management issues. Jongin had been in Stratford High for three weeks now, and he'd already seen him throw two textbooks and humiliate three students with cleverly sarcastic and incisive words. It was true that all three boys had been jerks who deserved the scolding but still ... It seemed like so much effort. He suspected the boy threw things because that would get him into less trouble than throwing punches. As far as Jongin could see, the boy was also the only kid in his year who had the energy and conviction to argue with teachers. All that conflict looked really draining. What was it like to burn with a flame so bright all the time? It had to be exhausting, and yet Do Kyungsoo continued to burn. But Jongin made it a habit to stay far far away from fire so he would continue to keep his distance from the human bonfire that was Do Kyungsoo.
"What was it this time?" To Jongin's left, a slightly bored female voice asked. Jongin shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly. He more or less knew what or who (it had to be that rich asshole who always sat at the back of the class with his bunch of hangers-on) had sparked off Kyungsoo's latest fit of temper, but that would require him to talk and interact and that was the last thing he wanted. He'd tried to make it clear from the beginning that he was here to study, not to socialize; but some of the kids in his class were amazingly impervious and kept talking to him despite his frosty demeanor.
"Is he going to pick that book up though? I mean it's not cheap." Amber seemed to be thinking aloud as she twirled her pen deftly with her fingers. He grudgingly admired her cool and devil may care attitude. Amber was an intriguing mix of cool and calm and unique, and Jongin's lack of communicativeness didn't deter her from talking to him; but she never asked him anything personal so he didn't really mind. She always sat next to him in English class, a flash of unrestrained color with her short, spiky brown hair and pink streaks, her multihued bangles and friendship bands. She often wore layered tees with funky leggings and ripped jeans but she never wore skirts - or at least not that Jongin had noticed. And Jongin never said much to people, but there wasn't much he didn't notice. At first, he'd wondered if she was into girls but then he'd seen her and Henry Lau making out behind the bleachers in his second week here. That had pretty much put an end to his speculation about her batting for the other side.
"He always does." Jongin said quietly. And sure enough, the boy strode past in a bristling ball of righteous anger. Barely losing momentum, Kyungsoo bent down to pick up the tome in a single swift movement before walking back to his seat right in front of Jongin. Jongin absolutely did not notice Kyungsoo's slim shoulders and his pale slender neck, or the five moles that dotted the milky skin just inches away from him. Jongin saw nothing but the words on the page before him.
"Jongin! Amber and me are gonna catch a movie tonight. You're coming with us, ok?" Long fingers poked his shoulder insistently from behind.
"No." Jongin didn't look up from the novel in his hands and Amber chuckled. This dance had been going on for two weeks and Jongin always ended up going, much to his chagrin.
"It's 90s movie night. They're showing Hackers, come on, it's a classic! Hack the planet!" Chanyeol's baritone voice sounded loud in Jongin's ears.
"No."
"We'll pick you up at 8.30, ok?" Jongin could hear the grin in Chanyeol's voice - but he knew it wasn't a smug grin because that was not an expression the ever upbeat Park Chanyeol seemed to have in his repertoire. Tall, gangly and boisterous as an overgrown puppy, that was Chanyeol. Jongin had never met anyone as relentlessly goodnatured and unmalicious, and he would normally have been repelled by such open friendliness, but for some reason he found himself going out with Chanyeol and Amber again and again.
"No."
"Amber it's your turn to drive right? We can be at his place by 8.30? I don't want to miss the starting of the film when he's on the plane and they have that Zero Cool flashback - awesome. 8.30, Jongin, don't be late."
"No."
"Dude, which part of he does not want to fucking go did you not get?" Amber slid her thumb across her forehead in amusement.
"Of course he wants to go! It's HACKERSSSS." Chanyeol explained enthusiastically. Jongin sighed, resigned to his fate. He supposed he could do worse this evening than rewatch Hackers.
Then there was a sudden drop in noise levels as students found their seats and conversations tailed off.
"Morning, everyone." Deeply intelligent eyes watched them from behind black hipster frames, and the thin, blond-haired man smiled as the students responded with shouted, unruly greetings. Mr Chester Bennington was the most popular English teacher in Stratford High and Jongin had to admit he admired his creative energy and boundless charisma (Jongin swore he could've been a rock singer in his past life). He also had a way of making texts come alive as he actively involved the students in the process of interpreting poetry and prose.
"So, we've been reading and talking about Catcher in the Rye for a week now, and I think it's time I assigned you guys some real work."
"NOOOOOO!" There were groans from all around the room.
"I'm afraid it's YES." Mr. Bennington laughed. "This assignment is going to involve pair work. I've identified three main themes evident in the novel - alienation, the pain of growing up and artificiality. Your task is to work with your partner to find three incidences in the novel which deal with the theme you've been assigned, and discuss how J.D. Salinger explores the theme. You'll have to support your discussion with examples of scenes, supported by quotes from the text."
"Mr B, NOOOOOO!"
"I'm going to read out the pairs and themes now. Work out the logistics with your respective partners and submit a 1000 word collaborative essay two weeks from today." Mr Bennington ignored all the vocal groans and protests and began reading out the names and themes. Jongin listened with only half an ear as he drew a square onto a blank page of his notebook, and started doodling intricate, repetitive patterns within the perimeters he'd just sketched in. His pencil moved tirelessly across the smooth white paper as he worked on his zentangle, and he only stopped doodling when he heard Mr. Bennington read out his name.
"Kim Jongin and Do Kyungsoo. Theme: Alienation."
In shock, Jongin muttered soundlessly, "What the fuck?" just as the boy in front of him turned around and asked in hushed tones, "You're Kim Jongin, right?" Then, as Kyungsoo's piercing eyes made out what Jongin had just mouthed, he retorted, "What the fuck yourself."
It was going to be a long week, Jongin sighed.
-----
Harsh rays of azure white fluorescent light shone down, hurting Sehun's eyes. He had a fairly good idea why he was sitting in his Math teacher's cubicle and he knew he wasn't going to enjoy the next few minutes. Mr. Shinoda's lips were moving but Sehun was trying to ignore the distasteful words leaving his mouth, "You're failing Pre-Calculus. I'm going to give you 2 weeks to improve and if I see no progress, I'm speaking to your parents. I strongly suggest you get a tutor. Today if possible. Call Luhan, he's agreed to help you for a fee." His stoic looking Math teacher tore a page off his lined notepad and handed it to Sehun. The details had obviously been written beforehand. Just a single name: Luhan, written in neat printed script, followed by 7 digits.
Sehun was overcome by mild waves of panic at Mr. Shinoda's threat to speak to his parents because he was already practically under house arrest as it was. For the past six months, his parents hadn't let his hyung and him go out for anything non school related because of the sins of his older cousins. It didn't matter how much he protested that he was nothing like his cousins, his parents were stone-faced sentinels who refused to release him. They were convinced that if he and his elder brother had a social life, they would either (a) get some girl pregnant (like that was ever going to happen when he was gay? Not that he was going to enlighten his parents given their current state of mind) or (b) flunk out of school. It was simply ridiculous. It made no difference to his hyung who had no social life anyway (Sehun didn't even know if he was straight or gay because he'd never talked about liking anyone - male or female. He didn't think his hyung even had a sex drive to be honest) but to Sehun who was good looking and popular in school, being permanently grounded was like a life sentence with no chance of parole. UGH. For what must have been the 6732nd time, Sehun cursed cousin Eunhyuk for getting his girlfriend knocked up last July (they'd been 17 for fuck's sake, what'd they been thinking?), and he cursed cousins Donghae and Siwon for dropping out of school last August and October respectively. It was (no) thanks to them he had no social life beyond the gates of Stratford High. He hoped his fuck-up cousins all broke out in hives and got a really bad case of head lice. At least once a week. Every week. For the next 15 years. Preferably more.
"I'll work harder, Mr. Shinoda, I give you my word. I'm sure I can do it on my own. I can't afford a tutor."
"Speak to your parents if you need the tutoring money, or I can talk to them for you. But with your current level of proficiency, you're not going to make it on your own. I'd help you myself but I just can't find the time right now. Luhan is a senior, and my top student. Call him." Mr. Shinoda said very firmly. He was a pretty intense guy who occasionally said stuff that was so funny you wanted to pee in your pants. But mostly, Mr. Mike Shinoda was an intimidating dude and Sehun knew he wasn't talking his way out of this. Sehun could turn on his special brand of irresistible charm and make most people do things for him, or even give him stuff, but Mr. Shinoda didn't have a gullible bone in his body. He could probably make the unknown Luhan do cartwheels for him though, he thought as he exited the staff cubicle, staring at the folded piece of paper in his hand. Cartwheels and backflips, Sehun smiled confidently as he keyed in the phone number.
"Hi, this is Luhan, right? I got your phone number from Mr. Shinoda? About tutoring for Pre-Calculus? Can we meet?"
"No." Luhan's voice was serious and bordering on unfriendly. It threw Sehun off balance - he was used to people being taken in by him so what the hell was this?
"Excuse me?"
"No, I can't meet. If that's all, I'm on the way to work." Luhan stated matter-of-factly just before he ended the call.
"Did he just ... diss me?" Dazed and more than just a little confused, he stood in the centre of corridor as students streamed past, making their way around the tall, broad-shouldered boy with the blond hair and black roots and elfishly handsome face. Frowning in disbelief, he called Luhan again.
"Did you hang up by mistake?"
"No, I actually just hung up." Sehun heard him give a sigh of ... was that annoyance? Annoyance?!
"Mr. Shinoda said I had to find a tutor by today and that you agreed to tutor me."
"I'm only doing it because I owe him so I wouldn't call it agreeing exactly."
"So I'm a charity case?" Sehun's knuckles were stretched white as he gripped his phone tightly.
"I never said that. Look, I really am on the way to work. I'll be at Alma Public Library at 3.45 tomorrow afternoon. Show up, or not. It's all the same to me."
"How much are you charging ...? What the fuck? He did not just hang up on me again!"
Sehun wasn't sure if he was furious with the other boy, but it gave him an unreasonably large amount of satisfaction crushing the piece of paper with Luhan's details on it and flinging the crumpled mess into the bin. If he could've deleted the name and number from his phone, he would've done it. But unfortunately, he was still failing Pre-Calculus. So he gathered up all the fury he felt for the rude asshole, stuffed it into a box and buried it in his subconscious. No matter how obnoxious this Luhan was, he still needed his help so he would deal. And by the time this whole tutoring ordeal was done, Sehun would have him wrapped around his finger, whoever he was. Cartwheels and backflips. He would turn the tables and be the one who hung up on Luhan.
As he walked out of the school building and into the autumnal sunlight, he briefly considered asking his hyung to help him with Math but the older boy was so volatile and impatient and sharp-tongued. Nope, he wasn't that desperate to pass Pre-Calculus that he'd ask his hyung to tutor him. Either way Sehun looked at it, he was screwed and Luhan seemed like the lesser of two evils. It was just his luck that all Math geniuses were apparently complete assholes. He was only half paying attention as he climbed up the steps of the school bus. Jongdae had offered to drive him home earlier but Sehun had declined the offer, thinking he'd have to meet up with his new Math tutor. If he'd known Luhan was going to blow him off, he'd have said yes. He'd never even set eyes on the senior and he already despised him with a vengeance.
Spotting an empty seat in the fourth row, Sehun slid as elegantly as he could onto the tacky looking, burgundy colored vinyl. His left shoulder impacted against his neighbor's shoulder and he automatically uttered a "sorry" as he looked at the boy's face. He was fair, but his complexion had a healthy pinkish tinge to it which differentiated it from Sehun's own alabaster skin tone. The black plastic eyeglass frames and generic casual clothing the boy wore did little to detract from his quiet attractiveness. His dark brown hair was just a shade too long and looked like it hadn't been combed or brushed in the recent past, and Sehun found himself trying to force down an inexplicable urge to take a brush to the boy's hair and tame it. Grave, dark brown irises gave Sehun a cursory glance before looking away, and it piqued Sehun no end that the boy hadn't shown him any interest at all. Maybe he was straight? That had to be it. That had better be it. This was turning out to be the worst day for his ego, he frowned.
His eyes kept straining to see the stranger on his left and he didn't want to be caught staring, so Sehun pulled out his phone. Twitter would provide the ultimate distraction, and if that didn't work there was always Angry Birds. As his screen lit up he saw a white word bubble, and beside it: 1 unread message. He clicked on it and to his surprise, it was from Luhan: Bring your Pre-Calc text, workbook & relevant handouts. If you show up.
Frowning (for the second time that day because of that asshole), Sehun typed a terse reply: I am not a complete moron. See you at 3.45 tomorrow.
There was a muted beep to his left, followed by a rustling of fabric. Sehun couldn't stop himself from peeking as the boy switched on his screen. His screensaver had a blindingly red background and a crest on the forefront which said Manchester United. The name didn't mean anything to Sehun but that was no surprise since it sounded like some kind of sports team and Sehun did not do sports. He squinted again and made out the words 1 unread message from Charity Case. Charity Case?! He could just manage to see the words in the text message as the boy opened it. Sehun read as far as "I am not a complete moron" before blurting out, "You saved my number as Charity Case? What the fuck?"
"I didn't know your name." The boy answered nonchalantly, his face devoid of all expression.
"Student! You could have saved my number as Student!"
The boy shrugged. "Do you want me to change it to Student now? Or do you want to just tell me your name?"
Inwardly, Sehun cursed Mr. Shinoda and the boy in front of him - condemning them to fifteen years of continuous hives and head lice outbreaks.