Chapter Text
soobin enters the cafeteria, his extremely high stature allowing him to immediately see what food they are serving. not that it is anything impressive ever. tasteless scrambled eggs and undercooked bacon are his best bet at this hour. even though his tuition cost thousands of dollars per semester. fuck his stupid baka life
the treelike man heads over to one of the many empty tables in the corner. “thank god it’s not high school anymore,” he sighs out of relief. before, he ate lunch in the library to avoid the crowd and noise, since every student ate pretty much at the same time. now, most people were probably sleeping at this time. who takes college classes at fuckass 8 AM? soobin. soobin does.
the cutie pie puts his backpack on the chair, therefore reserving the table. it’s an unspoken college rule. another unspoken college rule is that if you leave your backpack unattended, it will most definitely get stolen. but he doesn’t know that, bless his heart.
he heads to the little pastry section in the cafeteria. like always, there’s a few stale blueberry muffins in a sad little bowl. one of them looks like it’s already been taken a bite of. he takes a relatively normal looking one and puts it on a plate, then heads to the coffee section. he wishes he could get an iced americano, but they obviously don’t have the funds for that. they’re too busy building… whatever they’re building right now. probably another unnecessary parking lot next to the 6 other parking lots.
“what the fuck,” he mutters as he looks down at his backpack, or where it should’ve been. it’s not there anymore, obviously. someone took it. never leave your things unattended near broke college students. “great,” he crashes on the chair and slumps down on it. “just what i needed before my dumbass class.”
he knew he needed to get an 8AM class to finish quickly and avoid as many people as possible. he liked keeping to himself. but students have enrollment priority based on seniority, and he was a freshman. he had to get whatever bullshit class even moderately piqued his interest, crossed off a box on his degree, and fit his schedule. that’s how he ended up with the dumbest class in the universe. an urban legends class.
he shoves the muffin into his mouth and swallows it in one bite, looking distantly out the window. it’s september, so of course it’s raining. he has a fucking urban legends class soon, so of course it’s raining. someone stole his backpack. so of course. it’s raining. he has the most rotten luck in the world.
“yooo what’s up,” a boy around his age slouches on the chair in front of him. he’s pretty. too pretty. soobin narrows his eyes suspiciously.
“what do you want. wait, scratch that. who are you?” soobin checks his watch. “but make it quick. i have a class in twenty minutes.”
“i’m… a student here. like you. i was sitting at that table over there,” the stranger points at a table on the other side of the cafeteria, “and saw someone take your bag. i didn’t know it was yours, though.” he sighs and closes his eyes dramatically. “if i knew he was a thief, i would’ve chased after him. probably could’ve caught up with him in seconds,” he smirks.
“um… alright…” soobin checks his watch again. he should get going in five minutes. “what did the thief look like?”
the very pretty stranger stops checking himself out in a handheld mirror and turns his attention back to soobin. “oh. i don’t remember…” he flashes a shy smile, then looks away. “he looked like a normal guy, i guess. just a guy. he was pretty, i guess.” he looks soobin up and down. “say, how tall are you? you seem even taller than me, it’s crazy.”
“you’re not that tall, though…” soobin mutters, then checks his watch for the last time. “i have class in ten minutes. this conversation has been…” he wants to say helpful, but his mom told him not to lie. he wants to say it was nice meeting the other, but that would be another lie. he didn’t really meet him. and it wasn’t a very nice experience, either.
“bye,” soobin shuffles his feet and leaves the cafeteria. “weirdo,” he mutters.
he speedwalks to class. it’s in a different building, and pretty far away. lucky for him, his legs are as long as the golden gate bridge, so he can get anywhere quickly enough. also, no one really cares if you’re late to lectures with hundreds of students.
“huh.” soobin whispers out loud and checks his schedule again. his class is in an auditorium, with the maximum capacity being 500 students. why would so many people take this stupidass filler class at 8 in the fuckass morning? he slows down, deep in thought.
“yoooooooooooo, big guy,” he hears a whiny voice behind him. it’s the same pretty guy from the cafeteria, of course. he’s holding an umbrella and is visibly annoyed, as if the few drops of rain are completely ruining his entire day. “you don’t have an umbrella. your hair will be ruined.”
“i’m just trying to get to class, man. i don’t want any trouble.” soobin spews out the few words he remembered from his mandatory self defense class in high school. the guy didn’t seem like much of a threat, but you can never know.
“why do you dress like that?” the pretty boy picks up his pace, trying to keep up with soobin’s freakishly fast walking. “you have a great body, really. you’re tall and stuff. such a waste of a perfect build.”
soobin looks down at his outfit. a pair of sneakers, joggers, and a sweater. “what do you mean? the fit is fire.”
the stranger scoffs, but doesn’t say anything more. now it’s all quiet and awkward.
“are we going to the same building?” the pretty boy tries to engage in some more small talk.
“probably. there’s only like three main buildings anyway.”
“yeah…” the stranger starts fidgeting with his umbrella, clearly unnerved by the conversation ending so suddenly again. “uh… what class are you going to?”
soobin grimaces. “ugh. something about urban legends. it was the only thing available…” he trails off.
“no shit! me too. small world.”
soobin holds his tongue. he wants to say it’s actually not a small world. the world is actually pretty big, if you think about it. there’s seven continents, hundreds of countries, millions of different cultures… the world isn’t small, he’s just unlucky enough to run into the same annoying boy over and over again. he just picks up his pace, almost jogging now.
“dude- hold on…” the other’s voice slowly fades out of the background, unable to keep up with his bigass steps. now, soobin has finally achieved inner peace. even though he’s getting rained on and late to his first class of his first semester of college, it’s quiet again.
he enters the building and walks over to his class. it’s thankfully close to the entrance, so he’ll only be a few minutes late. he opens the door and his breathing stops for a second. almost every single chair is filled.
“what. the. fuck.” he mumbles, looking over everyone in the room. how can this be real? why would hundreds of people take a fucking urban legends class? a class about local boogeymen taught by someone who probably wanted to become an author but became a professor as a “plan B” which quickly became their only plan, therefore becoming trapped in their own mediocrity? why are so many people awake at 8 AM?
he feels something poke in his back, then a groan. “dude, weak. move.” he looks behind him and sees the pretty boy again. “i almost fell because of you. i could’ve gotten a concussion, or died, or messed up my hair…”
soobin sighs and looks for an empty seat. almost every single one is taken, though. again, what the fuck? he cranes his neck to look over the entire room and finally spots an empty spot. in the front. his heart sinks when he realizes there’s another empty chair right next to it. jesus christ
“oh, i guess we’ll sit next to each other, huh?” the same small whiny voice comes from behind him. “that’s chill, i guess.”
soobin traces his fingers on his headphones. “just 75 minutes. then i’ll be free…” he reassures himself, thinking of all the kara songs he’s going to listen to after class. it soothes him enough to walk down to the front of the classroom and take one of the empty chairs. it almost soothes him enough not to make his eye twitch when the annoying pretty boy sits next to him.
“do you have a pen?” he whispers to soobin, then points to the attendance sheet he got from the guy sitting next to him. soobin furrows his brows, wondering what kind of professor takes attendance for a 500 person class. at 8 AM. he absent mindedly hands the other boy the pen he thankfully keeps in his pockets all the time. he remembers his backpack was stolen. he’ll have to buy a new one. and new notebooks, pens, and a water bottle… fuck his stupid baka life.
“sick.” the cutie writes down his name, then hands the attendance sheet to soobin. he frowns again, looking at the previous names written. choi beomgyu, choi yeonjun… two chois? and now, him. choi soobin. weird coincidence.
“so, your name is soobin?” the stranger mutters as he very clearly snoops at the attendance sheet. “choi? i’m yeonjun.” he stretches out a hand that soobin reluctantly takes. “yeonjun choi. ha ha. funny, isn’t it?”
“not really.”
yeonjun’s cute smile falls and turns instead into an even cuter pout. he mumbles some insults under his breath and turns his attention to the lecture.
the professor is old. really old. he’s slowly reading all of his powerpoint slides word for word, not adding any additional details or even changing his cadence. still, the bright eyed boy next to soobin is eagerly taking notes, his mouth hanging open as if trying to taste the lecture.
“and there’s uhhh… i guess a woman who was hanged around here… i don’t know. she was a witch or something. or accused to be one…” the sound of the professor’s voice fades in and out of soobin’s attention. he’s staring at the few grainy pictures that decorated the slideshow. an illustration of a cartoon witch, then a screencap of the hanged woman from the conjuring. that hardly seems appropriate.
as soobin stares at the whiteboard with blurry eyes, fighting desperately to stay awake, he hears pretty yeonjun yelp quietly in pain next to him. he looks to where the sound came from, and yeonjun meets his eyes as he’s caressing his shoulder.
“oh… hey, soobin. by the way, can we switch seats? i can’t see very well from here.”
“huh?” soobin thinks for a second. why would switching seats change his view in any way? it’s just 3 feet to the left. it’s not like he’d be closer to the whiteboard or whatever. still, he’s too tired to argue. or rationalize. “yeah, sure.” he gets up, towering over everyone else and blocking their view in the process.
they switch seats, and soobin is sandwiched between two pretty boys now. he glances over at the boy to his right who was already here when they entered, his long brown hair framing his pretty features perfectly. soobin clenches his fists, his sympathetic system activating at the immense beauty the other was emanating. how is he so pretty? it’s not fair.
“wait, i don’t like it here either.” yeonjun glances over at soobin. “beomgyu, can we switch?”
“whatever,” the pretty boy on soobin’s right gets up and switches seats with yeonjun. they’re sooo interrupting the lecture rn it’s not even funny. good thing the professor is a literal dinosaur who doesn’t care about anything.
“what was that all about?” soobin questions yeonjun, who is somehow even more perplexing than when they first met half an hour ago. “you know that guy?” he whispers, nodding his head towards beomgyu, whom he’d never seen before.
yeonjun shrugs. “i don’t know him, but i saw his name on the attendance sheet. like yours. i just wanted to try out the seats.”
“you wanted to switch seats for no reason… so you just talked to a stranger? and addressed him by his name when he probably doesn't even know yours?” soobin shakes his head, mortified. “are you insane?”
yeonjun nods, then locks in. his eyes furrow, almost closing, as he starts paying more attention to the lecture than ever. he almost looks like a tiger stalking its prey. what could possibly be so interesting?
“uh… and a very popular urban legend…” the professor’s voice fades back in. “is bloody mary. it’s a classic one, and prevalent throughout most cultures. though the name and appearance may be different, the ritual is always the same. at least one person must go to the mirror and chant its name, either three or five times, then turn off the lights. it’s usually suggested to partake in this activity with friends. this is a popular sleepover activity in…” he squints, since the slide ran out of text. “yeah. next urban legend.”
“ooh, candyman!!” an incredibly handsome boy in the same row as soobin raises his hand enthusiastically, his voice booming. “like candyman. the movie. 1992.”
“uhh…..” the professor blinks, his script having been thrown off. he wasn’t expecting anyone to actually participate in the class. “yeah. anyway, another urban legend is the black eyed children. they usually appear in suburban neighborhoods on people’s porches, begging for help. however, if you let them in-”
soobin’s eyelids feel heavier than ever. who cares about fuckass black eyed children? all he wants is some rest. it’s already been an exhausting day, and he hasn’t even been awake for three hours.
“bro wake upppppp,” soobin blinks as a pretty yet annoying face becomes more and more clear, snapping his fingers into his ears. “you fell asleep in the urban legends class. weakkkkkk…” yeonjun slings his backpack over his right shoulder. “you should head over to your next class now, probably.”
soobin looks around. there’s… no one. what the fuck? where did everyone go?
“what the fuck? where did everyone go?” soobin asks.
“probably to their next class, how should i know? i know i’m pretty and handsome and smart but i’m not a genius you know… i don’t actually know everything, even though it seems like i do, and i get that you think-”
soobin thinks about banging his head against the walls. the thought soothes him. it’s almost as if he can’t hear yeonjun’s yapping anymore. almost.
“oh, by the way,” yeonjun snaps his fingers in front of soobin’s face. “i found your backpack. here it is. haha.”
soobin frowns. “wait, huh? where did you find it? did you see who took it?”
“ANYWAY! my next class is math, but you seem like a history or english major, so i doubt we’ll see each other anytime soon. if you take any business classes, i guarantee you’ll run into me at least once, though.” he winks at soobin and turns around. “see ya,” he walks out, slightly tripping on the carpet, then tries walking it off. he then accidentally takes the emergency exit door, making the alarm ring and probably making everyone think someone was trying to break into their $3 ass college.
“heol. cute.” soobin finds himself saying before even thinking it. where did that come from? he’s clearly not thinking straight. he decides to call it a day and go back to his dorm and catch some zzz’s. he can’t go to class in this state. this exhausted, irrational state.