Chapter Text
“This isn't right”, Heeju thought to himself as he was looking in the mirror. Tomorrow was the day school started again, and he felt dreadful about it. To him, school meant anxiety, constant judgement, stress related to studies and homework, and most of all, fear.
Fear of being judged for what he wore, for how he wore it, for smiling too much, for not smiling enough, for what he listened to, for how he behaved. Heeju was tired of being judged, but it never stopped. And it all originated from one person.
Kim. Dohun. Kim Dohun was the name of the guy that started it all. Before middle school, Heeju never really had any problems. He was just another kid, running around, smiling wide and playing in the dirt without a care in the world. But then teenage years came, and his entire life changed. Suddenly, he was more feminine than society wanted him to be. People judged him for his mannerisms that they found cringe, for his clothes that they deemed "not masculine enough". Then, he realized he was attracted to the same gender. At first, he tried to hide it, but someone (that person being Kim Dohun) eventually took a picture of him looking at an edit of a male k-pop idol on his phone and sent it to the class groupchat. Rumors spread like wildfire, so it was now no secret to everyone in the school that Kim Heeju was gay. Kim Dohun made his entire life hell from that point onwards. He would push Heeju against the walls or strongly shove him aside whenever he had the chance to, throw his backpack down the stairs several times, steal some of the school furnitures Heeju owned, and spread several dating rumors about him. And it did not stop there. When Heeju got back home, his phone would get flooded with homophobic threats and insults from the class groupchat or from random guys that were friends with Dohun. Every second of his life, he was constantly attacked for who he was.
So now, Kim Heeju feels insecure about everything that he is and wears. He rethinks every of his actions. Was I too much? Was I too feminine? Is this shirt even good? He never stopped overthinking. And it emotionally drained him, it truly did. But he really suffered from all those years of endless bullying, so he did everything in his power to make it stop, constantly thinking that if he erases himself a bit more with each passing day, the problem will fix.
Heeju sighed in frustration as he took the shirt off. He looked at the ceiling of his bedroom for a few minutes, still wondering what he should wear tomorrow morning. He decided to wear a simple white shirt with a white oversized hoodie and a pair of light blue baggy jeans. Very simple, he thought to himself, but this way nothing would happen to him, right?
As he carefully put the outfit on a chair next to his bed, he went to bed, struggling to fall asleep, looking at the ceiling.
"Will all of this ever change, or is it just the way things are meant to be?"