Chapter Text
Song Mingi wakes to an unfamiliar, off-white ceiling. He rolls out of bed, squawking when he encounters cold hardwood instead of his old room’s carpet - just another thing he’ll have to get used to.
He hauls himself up and slouches his way into the kitchen, deft fingers setting a pot of coffee on to brew.
“EOMMA!” Mingi calls some 5 minutes later, struggling to jam his feet into their respective shoes. His mother bursts out of her room brandishing a tube of lipstick in one hand and a briefcase in the other. She’s tall and spindly, with short black hair that never seems to lay completely flat. She’s the most beautiful woman Mingi knows.
“Oh, darling, what time is it?” She rushes around the kitchen, searching.
“I already made it,” Mingi points to the reusable mug he set out prior to her arrival and answering her unspoken question. “And you’ve got 10 minutes to get to work, 5 if there’s traffic. Actually, there’s always traffic here, so,”
His mom plants a smacking kiss on his forehead before she flies out the door. Mingi whined spectacularly at the bright red mark it left on his forehead, fleeing to the bathroom to scrub it off.
The cat-shaped digital clock sitting on the counter ticks loudly, and belatedly Mingi thinks, fuck. He checks himself out in the mirror self-consciously, running a hand through steely blue hair and making sure his sweater isn’t wrinkled before rushing out the door the same as his mom. He accidentally knocks shoulders with someone who he vaguely registers as being blonde in the lobby in his haste.
“Sorry, i’m really sorry!” he shouts over his shoulder. Mingi runs through the lobby and finally makes it out. He hops onto his bike as soon as he leaves the building, pedalling away. It’s only just starting to get light out, and Mingi can hear birds twittering away - he’s grateful for them. He hates dark and creepy places, and there’s nothing more unsettling than Seoul before the city has awaken. The birds remind him of home, and suddenly the streets seem a little brighter.
He’s a street from his destination a while later when the loud engine of a car rushing by nearly startles him off of his bike. He veers sharply to the left, and a different car, some expensive black beast with tinted windows, slams on its breaks to avoid making a Mingi-pancake on 6th Avenue.
The driver rolled down their window. An older man with deep frown lines and an unfortunate hairstyle poked his head out of the car.
“Don’t you look where you’re going? I could have killed you!” the man spit, and Mingi bowed several times. The man’s hair - if you could call it that? - moved when he talked. Not just regular movement, but like it was barely attached to his head. Mingi squinted at it.
“Ah, i’m really sorry…”
“Even more, you could’ve scratched the car! Do you know how much this car costs? Do you have the money to pay damages if you had messed it up? This is my employer’s…” the man rambled on more, but Mingi wasn’t listening. He watched, fascinated, as what had to be a toupee flapped on the man’s scalp. Finally, the man seemed to reach the end of his rant, and Mingi snapped out of it, forcibly dragging his eyes away from the man’s lopsided hair.
“I’ll definitely take better hair- I mean, care, next time, ahjussi!” Mingi blurted, bowing once more. As he turned to resume biking to school, he caught the gaze of the old man’s passenger.
Sitting quietly in the front was a boy his age. He had dark hair swept to the side, and sharp eyes that Mingi jolted when he realized were trained on him. Their eye contact lasted at most for a few seconds, but it felt like a minute. Tall, dark and handsome broke eye contact first and Mingi fumbled for his handlebars.
Mingi got to school without any further incidents. In front of him was a towering architectural marvel of glass and steel, students with bright hair and immaculate outfits stepping out of equally-fancy vehicles en route to it.
Seoul Arts and Entertainment Preparatory Academy.
Mingi took a deep breath, holding it in puffed-out cheeks and then slowly exhaling. It was gonna be a difficult adjustment, going from his local highschool back in his rural hometown to Seoul’s self-proclaimed birthplace of stars. And he’d never say it out loud, but Mingi was thoroughly intimidated already. He felt out of place - he couldn’t imagine being welcomed by these picture-perfect teenagers clad in Gucci and Chanel, noses high and credit card bills higher. Especially when he was only even there because he was lucky enough to snag the one full-ride scholarship SAEPA offered every ten years in honor of the institution’s 30th anniversary by the skin of his teeth.
It was hard not to feel the pangs of imposter syndrome. Mingi lived and breathed dance and rap - ever since he was a kid, he’d done every talent show, posted hundreds of covers to youtube, agonized over routines and lyrics for so many hours. And his friends and his mom supported him, god, they supported him so much - swore up and down Mingi’d be the next big thing, that he was already as good as it got. But Mingi wasn’t satisfied. Maybe he was greedy, but he knew he could do better - be better, if only he could get to a place where he could learn and hone his craft.
So when a kindly older man in a bowtie took him aside that fateful summer day after Mingi had performed at his local open-mic cafe and pressed a flier for SAEPA’s scholarship competition into his hand, it felt a little like fate.
Even more groundbreakingly, he won. After so many long nights studying his academics and perfecting his audition piece, Song Mingi won the only SAEPA scholarship offered in ten years. Mingi felt like flying - until he had to present the flier to his mom. She had stared at it for so long. Mingi bit a hole in his cheek, heart thundering from his seat across the table from her. He’d never wanted anything more in his life. However, even though the scholarship covered tuition, the school was all the way in Seoul. They’d have to uproot and move if Mingi accepted the offer. And apartments in the city were expensive - his mom would have to get another job if the money from her writing gigs wasn’t enough. But most of all, they’d be leaving their house - the house they bought with Dad.
Finally, his mom stood up, pushing her chair back with a screech. She came around to his side of the table and Mingi braced for her refusal.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered, and threw her skinny arms around his frame.
And that was it. The Song family moved to Seoul, and today, Mingi stood, looking up at the reason why.
Shaking his thoughts away, Mingi lets himself be carried by the current of people into the building, and fishes out the schedule he was sent in the mail.
“Homeroom with Ms. Kim,” Mingi read, looking up and around the hall. Everything looked the goddamn same. “Homeroom with Ms. Kim…”
He wandered for a bit, alternating between checking his watch nervously and scanning the halls. Right when he was about to resign himself to his fate of being late on his first day, a hand gently but firmly gripped his shoulder and wheeled him around.
Mingi stared at the person with bug eyes. A tall boy - taller than even Mingi, which felt kinda weird because, well, Mingi was usually the tallest person in a room - with mischievous eyes smiled down at him. He had tousled, wavy chocolate brown hair that peeked out from underneath a bucket hat. Mingi wasn’t sure if dress-code allowed that. Mingi wasn’t sure if rich kids had to follow dress-code.
“Uh,” he said. The tall boy just kept looking at him.
“Do you need anything?” Mingi tried.
“No, but you look like you do,” the boy said finally, grinning at him. Mingi squinted at him, unsure if that was supposed to be some sort of jab and if this dude was really holding his shoulder hostage just to take shots at him at 7:30 in the morning.
“Let me see your schedule, I can point you in the right direction,” he elaborated. Mingi made a noise of understanding and handed over his schedule gratefully.
“Hmmm,” the boy hummed. He clapped Mingi on the shoulder suddenly. “You’re right around this corner here, she has a big sign with MS. KIM on it, you can’t miss it.”
“Oh, thank you,” Mingi sighed in relief. “This school is huge, y’know, there’s like a million hallways, much bigger than- well.” he stopped himself, because wow, way to look like a total fucking bumpkin, Mingi,, and settled for just smiling awkwardly. The tall boy raised an eyebrow, a funny little smile on his face. “What’s your name again?” Mingi changed the subject.
“Y-” The sound of the bell rung through the hall, made worse by the fact that the two boys were standing directly next to a speaker in the hall. Mingi completely missed what the brunette said but blinked and nodded anyway.
“I’m Song Mingi, thank you for your help!” Mingi waved and backed up a bit, ready to get his ass to homeroom.
The brunette waved jauntily, before turning around and jogging around the corner. A pair of cleats tied to his backpack bounced with every step.
Mingi ducked into the the classroom loudly proclaimed MS. KIM and beelined for a seat in the back. Before he made it all the way, the teacher, a short, petite woman with a book in her hands beckoned to him loudly.
“Song Mingi, come to the front of the classroom,” she called. Mingi hunched his shoulders- caught. He went back up to the front, where the tiny, intimidating lady was appraising him.
“You’re the scholarship student?” she said, not unkindly - but the rest of the class, having quieted considerably, must have been able to hear it. Mingi’s face burned.
“Yes, I am.” He fidgeted.
“Then perhaps the rest of you lazy bums can learn something from our new student!” she dropped her book on her desk loudly. “It’ll be nice to teach a student who actually values learning!” her voice boomed. She’s terrifying, Mingi thought with no small degree of panic.
His fellow students broke out in good-natured complaints in response. Mingi broke out in sweat.
“I’ll be your homeroom teacher for the rest of your time at SAEPA. I’ve had these ingrates,” she gestured to the room at large, “for the last 3 years, so we know each other quite well, but don’t worry! You’ll catch up in no time. How about you start by introducing yourself? Who you are, what you’re studying, and what you like to do in your free time.”
Mingi nodded obediently, because what other choice was there? He turned to face the class.
“My name is Song Mingi,” he began. “And i’m going to be studying Rap Performance and Composition as well as Performance Dance.” his eyes flickered over the students before him, before catching on a particular one sitting in the back row. There, leaning back uninterestedly in his seat and staring with an almost unnoticeable crease between his eyebrows, sat the very same boy in the car that almost hit him that morning. Something about his gaze made Mingi inexplicably nervous.
“A-and, I, uh,” he stammered, suddenly wanting nothing more than to sit down already. He wracked his brain for something to say. “-like watching dramas.” he blurted.
“Oh, a sensitive man,” a green-haired boy crowed from the second row. The class tittered. Mingi raised his eyes to the ceiling in prayer to whatever sympathetic god.
“Thank you, Mingi-ah. You can take a seat right by San over there.” Ms. Kim clapped her hands and directed Mingi to the seat adjacent to the boy who cracked the joke. Perfect.
He took his seat, getting out a pencil even though he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be doing anything on the first day. The joker, San, leaned over to whisper at him.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“...do you have an extra pencil?”
Mingi stared at him for a moment before wordlessly handing his over.
“Thanks.”
Mingi turned back to listen to the teacher.
“Hey.”
“...do you need an eraser, too?”
“Nah. But you should join anime club. Do you watch anime? You look like you do. But probably just super entry-level ones. You like Bleach, don’t you.”
Mingi turned to look at San incredulously. “I do not!”
“You don’t watch anime or you don’t like Bleach?”
“I don’t not like Bleach,” Mingi hedges.
“So you’ll join anime club?”
“Wh-”
“Sweet. We meet afterschool on Fridays in the third practice room on the basement level. Also, call me hyung!” San winked and got out his phone, tapping something out noisily.
“I can’t believe you were ridiculing my taste when you have a Sword Art Online lockscreen.”
“I appreciate the work’s artistic vision.” San said breezily.
A head of dark hair to San’s right lifted and turned from it’s position slumped over the desk. “Sannie-hyung.”
“Yes, my darling Jongho?”
“Please stop being a weeb so loudly. I think Ms. Kim is going to snap.”
Mingi glanced up to see Ms. Kim carrying on about the syllabus with a strained edge to her smile. He cringed internally. San wisely didn’t comment further.
Mingi listened halfheartedly to the classroom rules and regulations Ms. Kim was explaining, head in the clouds. He wondered if he’d be able to find his next class easily, and if not, if that tall boy from earlier would help him, which led him to wondering why the hell everyone at this school is so pretty, which led him to sneaking peaks at his seatmates to confirm his suspicion - god, San had dimples, the asshole, and Jongho was woefully doe-eyed, and - Mingi made a startled sound that perhaps most closely resembled the honk of a goose when San caught him staring and licked his lips salaciously.
Ms. Kim stared him down.
“I’m glad you’re getting familiar with your classmates! Now, would you do me a favor and pass out these papers?” she called.
Mingi nodded sorrowfully.
When he got to passing papers to the back row, he paused in front of the cold-looking boy’s desk and gave a small wave.
“Hey, from this morning!” Mingi smiled a little - after all, it wasn’t this guy’s fault his driver was an asshole. And the fact that they had met before was a conversation starter! Mingi was killing it at this making friends thing.
Mingi’s smile fell after it became clear the guy was just going to keep staring at him.
“Or...not, I guess,” Mingi blinked.
“Can I have my paper?” The boy finally said, tonelessly. The two students flanking his desk on either side snorted, obviously having been listening in.
Mingi handed it to him with a frown and went back to his seat. So much for being friendly.
“Seonghwa’s a real dickmunch,” San offered once Mingi had settled back down. “Don’t mind him, friend-o.”
“Ignore tweedle dumb and tweedle dumbass back there, too,” came Jongho’s muffled support.
Mingi quirked a smile at the two boys and their bizarre method of comfort.
“I’ll come to your stupid anime club.”
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In his next class, Rap Performance and Composition, Song Mingi fell in love.
It hit him like a bus, all at once. The teacher - a former rapper himself! - had sorted everyone into groups of three and had them freestyle with each other as an icebreaker. Mingi felt confident enough in his skills that he wasn’t at all shy when it was his turn - after all, these kids might’ve had better instruction, but Mingi had practice and experience under his belt.
But any feeling of having an advantage evaporated when, after the icebreaker, the teacher invited a young man with dirty blonde hair to the small stage at the back of the class to show off his freestyling.
Mingi was infatuated with the boy’s style. It was only off the top of his head, but the boy - Hongjoong? the teacher mentioned - had such impeccable delivery and his tone was so versatile - Mingi hadn’t even realized he was leaning forward in his seat until he knocked his waterbottle off his desk and onto the ground with a clang.
Hongjoong stopped rapping and glanced at Mingi, as did every other pair of eyes in the room. Mingi smiled sheepishly, mouthing accident and scrambling to pick up his bottle. Mentally, he cursed himself for cutting the boy short.
“Alright,” the teacher clapped his hands and directed Hongjoong back to his seat. “Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to the real stuff.” The anticipation in the room was real. “...the history and origins of hip hop and rap!”
The class audibly sighed, clearly having been expecting something interactive instead of a history lesson.
“In essence, who can tell me what hip-hop is - the purpose of it?”
The room was quiet. Mingi saw the teacher’s eyes go to Hongjoong, but quickly passed him over, probably having decided that he’d picked on him enough for a day. Mingi, unfortunately, made eye contact with the man.
“Transfer student?” he suggested.
“Well,” Mingi cleared his throat. “Everyone knows that it, y’know, started in America. And it was a vital expression of culture in the black community, and hip-hop, rap in particular, was a way for this group to kind of, speak out and express themselves creatively. It’s not just all swag and acting cool, which I think we mistake it for a lot, it’s also political, and personal, and, well, that’s why it’s resonated so much across the world, I guess.”
The instructor beamed at him, and Mingi felt a rush of relief. The man carried on teaching and Mingi sunk back in his chair, idly doodling in his notebook in between notes. I have really horrible handwriting, Mingi thought with dismay, squinting at his own lettering.
Soon enough class was over, and Mingi shot up out of his seat - nearly knocking his waterbottle over again but haha, fuck you bottle caught it before it had the chance to fall. He rushed to catch the blonde boy, Hongjoong, before he left the classroom.
“Hey!” Mingi called. Hongjoong turned around with a questioning look from where he was packing his bag up.
“Uh,” Mingi said, intelligently. He had wanted to compliment the guy on his rapping earlier and apologize for interrupting and maybe ask to be friends but nothing was coming to mind.
“I really liked your answer earlier,” Hongjoong beat him to the punch. “It was really thoughtful!”
“Really? I mean- I really liked your freestyling today, you did so well, I was starstruck!”
“Ahh, I thought I stuttered a ton, I hate going up in front of the class-”
“You were amazing,” Mingi beamed. “I’m so sorry for interrupting, uh-”
“No!” Hongjoong reached up to ruffle Mingi’s silvery blue locks. Mingi blinked down at him, surprised at both the familiar move and how easily the shorter boy stretched to reach him. “I’m glad you liked it. Let’s talk later, okay?”
And with a charming smile, Hongjoong was off. Mingi wondered what ‘later’ meant - was that an invitation to sit with him at lunch? Giddy, Mingi went on his next class.
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As soon as Mingi walked into his Performance Dance class, he spotted the brunette who helped him find his way to homeroom that morning. Just as he raised his arm to wave, a petite boy with lavender hair latched onto it.
“Mingi-hyung!” he chirped, interlacing their fingers. Mingi stared at their joined hands in puzzlement.
“I’m sorry,” he began awkwardly. “I must’ve forgotten your name..?”
“Nah, you never got it in the first place,” he grinned. “I’m Wooyoung, and Jongho threatened to crack my head like an apple if I didn’t take care of you in this class.” Wooyoung sighed. “He’s so romantic.”
“Why would I need taking care of? Everyone’s been pretty nice so far today,” Mingi questioned, moving with Wooyoung to sit in a corner of the practice room as other students filed in.
“I’m sure they seemed that way,” Wooyoung hummed. “But bitches is sharks. Speaking of sharks, why were you about to wave to wonderboy Yunho over there earlier?” he jerked his chin in the direction of the tall boy in the bucket hat, who was standing in the middle of a swarm of students. Mingi made a mental note of his name.
“He was nice to me,” Mingi said in Yunho’s defense.
“Seemed nice,” Wooyoung reiterated, and fell silent as the instructor began to speak.
“I know none of you brought clothes to dress down in, so we won’t be doing much today, but starting tomorrow, I expect everyone to bring clothes they can dance in. Appropriate clothes you can dance in.” The instructor gave Wooyoung a stink eye.
“You show up in bootyshorts one time, and they have it out for you for the rest of the year, oh my god.” Wooyoung grumbled, and Mingi tried to suppress a giggle.
The rest of the class is spent going through basic steps and routines, hardly anything to break a sweat over. Mingi feels like he’s floating the entire time - he loves dance, loves how his insecurities melt away, how satisfying it is to hit every beat. He doesn’t feel awkward, like his limbs are too long or his shoulders too broad, he feels strong, and powerful - liquid. Dancing has always been an escape for Mingi, a space where all that matters is the music and how he’s moving to it.
The last five minutes of class are free time, so Mingi and Wooyoung lay on the hardwood floor of the practice room opposite directions, a bit tired from the exercise.
“What if….fried chicken,” Wooyoung says wistfully.
“Maybe there’ll be bulgogi,” Mingi whispers.
“I think I’d actually kill someone to get milk tea added to our lunch menu.”
“But then you’d go to jail, where there’s no milk tea. I’d have to drink all the milk tea we’d get myself so you could live vicariously through me.”
“Bold of you to assume i’d get caught,” Wooyoung says, with unexpected seriousness.
Mingi shifts onto his elbows so he can squint at Wooyoung. The lavender haired boy holds his gaze.
“Gotta do what you gotta do.” he says solemnly. The bell rings.
“O-kayyyyy,” Mingi stretches. Lunchtime.
“C’mon! We have to find Sannie-hyung and Jongho before all the good tables get snatched!” Wooyoung squawks, grabbing Mingi by the hand and taking off out of the classroom.
“I dunno,” Mingi pretends to ponder, walking deliberately slow despite the insistent yanking on his arm. “Wouldn’t it be kind of unwise to eat lunch with a potential murderer? I’m feeling kind of unsafe…”
“Song Mingi I swear to god-”
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“Fuck fuck fuck FUCK fuckity fuuuck!” Mingi yelped, dashing out of the SAEPA courtyard and making a beeline for the bike rack. The bike besides his looked oddly familiar, but Mingi couldn’t place it. Shaking it off, he struggled to unlock his bicycle, hands slipping in the rainwater coursing over his fingers.
Despite how nice of a day it had been, the sky spontaneously decided to open up and drench Mingi as soon as class got out. He eyed with no small degree of envy all the rich kids sliding into their pretty cars that probably had heated seats.
He got his bike unlocked and hopped on, but before he could even adjust his feet on the peddles a pair of large hands reached into his line of vision, securing an open yellow umbrella to his bike’s basket. Mingi had to duck so his head wouldn’t bump the top of it.
“Trying to catch a cold on the first day, scholarship student?” the voice, oddly warm despite its words, belonged to the boy Mingi had met earlier - Yunho.
Mingi peered up from underneath the shell of the umbrella, confirming his suspicions. It was Yunho, bucket hat and all. Mingi tried to remember if he’d told Yunho he was the scholarship student or if word just travelled that damn fast around the school.
“Don’t you need this?” Mingi questioned, ignoring the jab. He was kind of clueless as to why Yunho was going out of his way to help him.
“Nah. I don’t get out of this place till after soccer practice, and it’ll have cleared up by then,” Yunho grinned crookedly. “Stay dry, Princess Mingi!”
Mingi gaped at his retreating back. His cleats swung from their place tied to his backpack. As if Yunho could sense Mingi’s stare, Yunho waved without turning around.
“Thanks!” Mingi called, jingling the bell on his bike a few times for good measure. A few straggler students who hadn’t left the campus yet stared blatantly at him, and Mingi flushed in embarrassment.
About halfway home, Mingi noticed that there were little cartoon brown bears printed in a pattern across the yellow umbrella.
Cute, he thought, turning into his apartment lot.
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Mingi set the noodles on to boil and retreated to his room. His mom wouldn’t be home until late - but that was okay. Mingi was good at fending for himself, and with him cooking, he could set food aside for her to warm up when she got home, so she wouldn’t have to make food after a long day at the office.
It was the least he could do, considering she was only working so much to support him and his dream. Not for the first time Mingi felt a gnawing guilt as he flopped onto his bed, staring up at his plain ceiling. His room at home, his real home, had glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to it from when he was a kid. He missed it.
Back in their sleepy hometown, his mom was a writer, working on novels and occasionally publishing op-ed pieces for the local newspaper. It didn’t make a lot of money, but it was enough, and she was happy. Now, she worked in a marketing office, and came home sluggish each night from, quote, a long day dealing with dumbasses.
Mingi’s dad left when he was nine years old. Mingi was up early one Friday morning watching cartoons before school in his footie pajamas when his father came down the stairs with his suitcase along with the briefcase he usually took with him to work. The man explained that he had some extra things he had to take with him to the office and Mingi accepted it completely. Alarm bells still weren’t ringing when his father crouched down to his height and made Mingi solemnly promise to always take care of his mother. His dad told Mingi to be the man of the house while he was gone - and Mingi assumed he meant just till he was back from work. Dad said to never make his mom stressed and to be a good kid and to work hard in school, and Mingi rolled his eyes at the lecture and agreed. His father crossed the threshold of the house with a wave and a smile, and Mingi locked the door after him.
That was the last time Mingi spoke to his father. His mother was distraught for a long time - her phonecalls didn’t go through, no one around town had seen the man - it was like Mingi’s father had vanished without a trace.
Mingi shook his head to banish the upsetting thoughts, and did what he usually did when he had too much on his mind - he got out an envelope and some letter paper, and begin to write.
Hey, penpal.
This’ll be coming to you from a new address….
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By the time Mingi was done writing to his nameless, faceless friend, the noodles were done, and Mingi served himself a portion before tupperwaring the rest.
He’d been writing to his penpal since...actually, since not too long after his dad disappeared. His mom had suggested it, to help him ‘heal’ or whatever, and he signed up for it through an online forum.
He knew a lot about his pen pal. Knew his favorite color, his favorite cereal - knew when he had his gay crisis and when he failed his first math exam. He knew pretty much everything except the boy’s name. They had never tried to arrange a meet-up or tried to figure out who the other was - and in a way Mingi was grateful. Throughout it all, the one constant in his life was his penpal. When he had first moved to Seoul to attend SAEPA, his hometown friends made a token effort to keep contact with him. But eventually they stopped answering Mingi’s calls, checked up less and less often, stopped texting back. It made Mingi sad, to lose them to distance, but the fact that his penpal would keep writing to him through it all comforted him.
Mingi alternated between decorating the envelope that contained his most recent letter with hearts and animal stickers and eating his food. Mingi got up once he finished his two tasks and stretched, looking up at the blank ceiling - and got an idea.
Mingi clambered out onto his apartment’s small balcony, eyes eagerly drinking in the clear night. It was nothing like home, but it made him happy nonetheless.
Slowly Mingi became aware of a soft hiphop beat drifting up from below, and nosily poked his head over the balcony. He almost choked in surprise when he recognized none other than Hongjoong, leaning against the fire escape ladder and listening to a small dial radio with his eyes closed.
Somehow, like he was alerted to Mingi’s presence, Hongjoong’s eyes snapped open.
“Hey,” he called. He lazily flashed a peace sign.
Mingi gaped.
Hongjoong pushed himself up from his sitting position, and, without further ado, grabbed his radio and began climbing the fire escape. Mingi could only watch, dumbfounded.
Finally, Hongjoong was sitting on Mingi’s balcony with him, eyes crinkled up in a grin.
“Told you i’d see you later. I was gonna bike home with you afterschool, too, but you jetted.”
“I- how do you live here?”
“Well, see, rent is something you pay in order to-”
“No- I know,” Mingi flushed, fumbling for words. “But why do you live here.”
“Ohhhhh,” Hongjoong hummed. “You thought I was a rich kid.”
“I mean-”
“No, it’s okay...I just thought you knew me better than that is all….It’s fine…”
“I’ve spoken to you once!”
“Just say you hate me, Mingi-ah. It’s alright.”
“Hyung!”
Hongjoong laughed loudly. “No, it’s a reasonable question. I’m pretty sure not a single other SAEPA kid’s parents make less than six figures.” Mingi hummed in agreement.
“But i’m a teacher’s kid, so I get my tuition covered,” Hongjoong finished.
“Ah, that’s so cool,” Mingi marveled.
“Not really, it just means that all the teachers who don’t like Ms. Kim bully the fuck outta me,” Hongjoong grumbled. “You see the shit Mr. Jeong pulled today in rap? Totally put me on the spot.”
Mingi winced in sympathy, but secretly appreciated Mr. Jeong’s meddling - he was glad to have heard Hongjoong rap. But..
“Wait, Ms. Kim?!”
“Yeah?”
“....that’s my homeroom teacher.”
“Cool, i’ll tell her to grade you especially harshly,” Hongjoong teased, and Mingi blanched.
“Please no. She’s already scary.”
“She is.”
They were quiet for a few moments, before Hongjoong finally spoke.
“Why’d you come out here, anyway?”
Mingi hummed, eyes drifting back up to the sky.
“Wanted to see the stars. You can see them so much better from my old house - there’s so much light pollution in Seoul you can barely make them out.” he replied. “It’s kind of sad…”
Hongjoong didn’t respond, so Mingi tried to amend his previous statement to lighten the mood.
“It’s not a big deal or anything. They're only stars, so, who cares really,” Mingi tried, laughing a little.
“I think it’s cool you care,” Hongjoong said finally. “I wish you could see them here, too. Fuck light pollution.”
Mingi broke into a smile, surprised. Hongjoong returned his grin.
“Thanks.”
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That night, Mingi dreamed of angry eyes, soccer cleats, and stars.