Chapter Text
"57 days Mr. Jung. You've been absent for 57 days." The school councilor read from the open folder on his desk, "How do you suppose your going to make up two months of school work?"
Jaehyun honestly isn't sure what to say. It isn't exactly his fault per se, his mom was the one that wanted to take him on a spontaneous vacation in the middle of his first semester. She always did this, impulsively making decisions without considering the consequences. Although it's not say he didn't enjoy their two month trip lost in Europe, but maybe next time he would prefer she makes plans during the summer when he's on break rather than when he's supposed to be getting an education.
"I- I don't know sir..."
The counselor, Mr. Kang sighed, removing his reading glasses from his nose before typing something quickly on his laptop and the sound of the printer starts behind him. "With your grades it's starting to look like you will be repeating the year."
Jaehyun blanches at the mention of repeating a grade. He'd been working so hard to catch up but with no prevail.
"But don't worry Mr. Jung I won't let that happen, I'v added you to the CM Class C roster. You will begin classes with them tomorrow." Kang creepily smiles while handing him a copy of his new schedule before gesturing for Jaehyun to exit the room, giving the student no room to argue.
Jaehyun slings his backpack over his shoulder and all but runs out of the councilors office, ignoring the strange look from the secretary outside and charging straight into Doyoung. The boy was waiting for him so they could walk to practice together.
"Woah, Jae what happened? Are you going to stay on the team?"
"Yeah I get to stay on." Jaehyun sighs, holding his gaze to the floor as he walks toward the locker room. Doyoung follows along beside him.
"Thats great!" He pauses looking his friend up and down, "Mr Kang didn't-- do anything weird did he?"
Jaehyun feels his face heat up, glaring at Doyoung, "Of course not! Jesus!"
"Well you know the rumors."
"He moved me into class 3-C" Jaehyun mummers, face still burning, this time from shame.
Doyoung stops and stares trying to figure out if he's joking or not, "Haha? This is a joke right?"
"No! Why the fuck would I joke about that."
"But you're not stupid," Doyoung muses, bringing a hand to his chin, "are you?"
"Fuck off," he groans, bumping his shoulder into Doyoung's
Of course as soon as they enter the locker rooms Doyoung lets everybody know that Jaehyun was removed from his regular classes. The whole practice consists of his teammates talking down on him as if he was too slow to understand. Jaehyun rolls his eyes, vowing never to tell that dickhead Doyoung anything ever again.
Content mastery was just another name for special ed. It was the place they sent students who needed extra help, students who couldn't get along with classmates, or in Jaehyun's case; missed too much school.
Once you were moved into those classes it was over for you. You would probably never have a decent social life ever again. You were segregated from classmates you might have once worked with. CM students were on a different schedule from the rest to avoid any problems. Jaehyun saw them from time to time, they would travel from classroom to classroom before the bell dismissed the regular and honor classes, they were a loud group, sometimes running down the halls, loud shrieks and laughter echoing off the empty white walls of the school hallway.
Jaehyun was in the 3rd class -C- luckily. It was meant for students who weren't too far from joining regular classes again. The teachers weren't as strict with them as they were with class A and B he knew that much. Even with that being said the rest of the school still avoided them like the plague. He'd seen class C during lunch, they usually ate locked away in their classroom but every once in awhile on a nice day they all ate outside. Whenever he saw them he always felt kinda bad for them, especially Yuta, someone he once had classes with. He remembers Yuta being pretty normal, he never said anything too weird or alarming, Yutas problem was probably that he was always sleeping, even after teachers reprimanded him over and over but nothing ever changed, until one day he was gone.
No one in class mentioned him again, like he was never there in the first place. The thought that he too would be forgotten made something akin to anxiety rise from his stomach into his chest.
Doyoung had texted him the next morning asking if he wanted to be escorted to his new class, to which he promptly declined. That asshole just wanted to get his final jabs in before throwing him into the lions den.
"Alright everyone, settle down so I can introduce the new student." Mrs. Lee spoke louder than seemed necessary, Jaehyun already felt the throb of a headache.
Jaehyun stands at the front of the room near the teachers desk attempting to smile.
"This is Jaehyun Jung, he will be with us for the rest of the school year, I expect all of you to make him feel welcomed."
"Welcome Jaehyun," Mark and Lucas (who he recognizes as the two who stole the biology teacher Mrs. Song's hamster, it was big news for about a week) say at the same time.
Jaehyun nods at them awkwardly.
"Jaehyun you may take a seat beside Taeyong," she nods towards the only empty desk beside a pink haired boy wearing a-- dog collar. On the other side of him is a boy leaning over to whisper in Taeyong's ear before quickly moving over to his own seat.
The breath is knocked out if him as he gets closer, his seat mate is beautiful. He can barely see his face through his overgrown bangs, but he can see enough to know there's a perfect face underneath. What was this angel doing here? Shouldn't he be in heaven or something?
"Hi, I guess we are sitting together from now on.." Jaehyun says as he drops his backpack to the floor and takes his seat.
The boy ignores him, only glancing over for half a second.
Okay then.
"Mrs. Lee, may I read a poem for the new student?" Mark asks. She just nods and gestures for him to stand, Mark loves the attention as he struts up to the front of the room with a crumpled up paper in his hands.
"Jaehyun, this is for you new friend," Mark professes as he presses his hand to his heart.
"Welcome new student,
Look at you go,
Your doing so well,
Good job my new bro."
When Jaehyun looks around the room to see if anyone else bought that fake deep bullshit, he catches sight of Lucas dabbing the corner of his eyes with the dirty tissue he was blowing his nose in not five minutes ago, disgusted, he turns his eyes back to Mark standing in front of the class.
That was lovely Mark thank you for sharing," Mrs. Lee claps softly.
Everyone claps along with her.
"Everyone follow me on soundcloud," he turns to write '@LilMark' onto the whiteboard, before bowing and returning to his seat and giving Lucas a high-five.
"Now that that's out of the way, let's get started on the lesson."
Everyone including Jaehyun groans loudly.
Jaehyun is surprised to find the work he does in his new class is just as difficult as it was in his regular classes. Mrs. Lee is an amazing teacher though, she helps everyone and makes sure every student understands before moving on to something else.
His stomach is growling by the time lunch comes around. His desk neighbors Taeyong and Ten leave together to buy lunch. Luckily Jaehyun brought his lunch for once it was basic: an apple and a sandwhich, but it will do for today.
"So Normie, why'd you get moved in with us, huh?" Lucas shouts while dragging his screeching chair over to Jaehyun's desk, dropping his lunchbox in front of him. Mark sits beside him in Taeyong's empty chair.
"I- Uh-" Jaehyun starts, "I missed 60 days of school."
Mark whistles at that, nudging Jaehyun in the side with his elbow, "Damn, we got another bad boy in our midst."
"Another?"
"Yeah, you know Ten right? He sits next to you..." Jaehyun nods, "He basically missed the whole first semester."
He hums, he's not sure if it's appropriate to ask why his cute deskmate is here, so he refrains for now.
"What about you guys?"
"I have cool guy syndrome," Mark grins as he shoots finger guns at Jaehyun, "aka ADHD."
Well that makes a lot of sense.
"I'm foreign, I don't even speak english," Lucas states in english.
Jaehyun looks around the half empty room, he sees Yuta in the corner sleepily letting someone Jaehyun has never seen before feed him pudding. Jaehyun contemplates going over to talk to him, but he's not sure if Yuta would even remember him, they only talked a few times because of a group project in history.
"Um- hey, are you guys close to Yuta," he whispers.
Mark nods his head, "Yeah, when he's awake he's pretty chill," he says as he snatches an oreo from Lucas' lunch.
"What about the guy next to him?"
"That's Winwin, he doesn't talk," Lucas says way too loudly, "But there's a rumor that he had his tongue cut off by the Chinese mafia."
Jaehyun rolls his eyes, "What kind of rumor is that?"
Lucas shrugs as if he wasn't the one to make it up.
After lunch everybody returned to the classroom from where ever they went. Mrs. Lee tells everybody to get in their groups from last time, and of course Jaehyun is confused. He wasn't here 'last time' so he just sits in his chair awkwardly watching everybody go to their respective groups.
"Jaehyun, you can join Ten and Taeyong's group," Mrs. Lee says, smiling at the lost boy.
Jaehyun scoots his chair over to where Ten and Taeyong have moved in the back of the classroom.
Ten rolls his eyes when he takes his seat.
"Thanks a lot Mrs. Lee," he mumbles, dramatically laying his arms out across the table.
Jaehyun furrows his brows, trying to figure out how he could've pissed Ten off in the 3 hours he's known him. Maybe it was him taking the seat between Taeyong and him? If he was mad about that why would he even leave that seat open in the first place?
He sighs, ignoring the daggers in Ten's eyes.
"So, what are we doing?"
Taeyong looks up and opens his mouth then closes it before looking down again.
"It's a for biology, we have to make a collage," Ten answers.
Jaehyun watches Taeyong as he glares down at the biology book. He'd never seen him around school before, he's almost thankful he got moved to this class, because now he gets to see and sit by this beautiful boy everyday. His pretty pink hair suits him so well, it's almost like he invented the color pink. The dog collar is kind of weird, but it's probably just some weird trend.
He notices how Taeyong's hand trembles as he slowly fills out the paper the teacher passed out.
He's slapped back into reality when Ten snaps a finger in front of his face.
"Did your mom not teach you any manners? Quit staring at him."
Taeyongs ears are red, he still hasn't spoke a word, let alone look at Jaehyun. First Ten now Taeyong? Everyone here seems to hate him, even though he didn't do anything.
"I-It's okay Ten," Taeyong says softly.
Jaehyun's heart skips a beat.
His voice is beautiful just like his face. He must just be shy, It makes Jaehyun want to get closer to him, help him become comfortable enough to talk to him.
Ten and Jaehyun do all the writing and Taeyong picks out pictures and decorates the poster board. By the end of the hour they're finished, and Jaehyun can honestly say he's proud. Taeyong's art skills are amazing, he hand drew a cute little frog life cycle diagram in the middle, and colored in the bubble letters Ten added.
Mrs. Lee gasps when they go to turn it in, Taeyong blushes when she compliments his designs. She gives them all a perfect score and Jaehyun internally pats himself on the back.
Lucas and Marks poster is of course, a train wreck. They got blue glitter everywhere, on the poster, the floor, and themselves. Mrs. Lee rolls her eyes as she sends them off to ask the janitor if they can borrow a vacuum.
Yuta and Winwin's poster is very plain. They clearly did bare minimum to finish quickly so Yuta can sleep more. They didn't even decorate it, just used a black sharpie to write a paragraph about how flies lay their eggs on corpses. It doesn't really help Lucas' theory about Winwin being connected to the mafia, so Jaehyun notes to stay on his good side.
The rest of the day is boring. Math, History, and Study hall.
When they're finally dismissed from school, he slowly packs up his belongings, unlike Lucas and Mark who dart out the classroom at the speed of light.
Mrs. Lee stops him on his way out, "Be patient with Taeyong, he's not good with strangers."
Jaehyun nods. He figured it was something like that, he will wait for that beautiful boy for the rest of his life if he has to. He can't believe he's experienced love at first sight, he just hopes that Taeyong thinks he's hot too.
"So," Doyoung starts, elbowing him in the side, "How was your first day in the psych-ward?"
Jaehyun sighs, should he admit it wasn't that bad? That he fell in love? Knowing Doyoung he would definitely bully him for the rest of his life for it.
"It was alright. Everyone hates me, but whatever."
Doyoung breaks out laughing, as if it was really that funny (it's not).
"How is Yuta?"
"Sleepy as always, we didn't actually talk though."
Doyoung hums, they're in the parking lot and the sun is beating down on them as they approach Jaehyun's beat up old Honda. Doyoung bullies him all the time for how crappy his car looks, though he as no room to talk since he doesn't even have a car. There's no practice today so they decide to go eat with Jungwoo, another member of the volleyball team. By the time he returns home he's exhausted. So much had happened in on day, hopefully tomorrow will be a lot calmer.