Chapter Text
By the time you’ve reached your second week at Eunjang, you’ve immediately learned something: you’re missing out on a bunch of important information everyone around you knows.
You sat leaned back in your chair, foot tapping the floor in an uneven rhythm as you attempted to look focused on the lesson. The teacher keeps talking at a slow, boring pace, his words blending together until you’ve lost all ability to focus on him. It’s even him that’s the problem, it’s everything else going on in the class around you.
A mid two rows over is muttering about something you can barely make out, mentioning a name you don’t really recognise, just for him to get elbowed by the kid sitting beside him, the sound loud enough for you to glance before before they go quiet, one rubbing his arm, the other shaking his head in disapproval like he’s just said something wrong.
You angle your head to get a better view of the two, but not enough to make it obvious you’re being nosey and staring. The first guy tries to speak again, trying to continue where he left off, this time leaning in closer and whispering like that’ll make a difference. He doesn’t even get to finish his words before the other cuts him off with a glare and a rushed, “Are you stupid?” before glancing behind him, a hint of worry on his face.
Curiosity gets the best of you as you follow his gaze, eyes landing on the blonde boy sitting beside you. He’s clearly asleep, his head down and posture closed off. You don’t know his name, but throughout your time spent at school, you’ve seen the way people act around him. They act as if he's something lesser than them, but not fully showing it as he’s quite the intimidating person.
It’s not even the first time you’ve watched a conversation like this happen, in fact, you’ve seen it happen at least once or twice a day. Does every student here just live in fear or something?
The same thing happened in the hall yesterday. Two boys were talking about a fight that had happened a few days ago, just to get cut off mid-sentence by a third who quickly shushed them, glancing around the hall to see if anyone was there before changing the topic to something else.
You shift in your seat, straightening up a little as your gaze drifts across the room, no longer trying to hide the fact you’re not paying attention to the teacher anymore, and he’s far too focused on the whiteboard to notice.
“Dude, I’m telling you, if I wanted to, I really could–”
You don’t even need to look back to know who’s speaking.
Phillip Kim’s voice is loud and obnoxious as he speaks, but no one around him really has the guts to call it out or tell him to shut up, even the teacher. When you finally look over, he’s half turned in his seat, talking at one of his lackeys sitting behind him, acting as if the world revolves around him.
“They just don’t get it,” He continued, arms crossed as he grins. “It’s not even a hard thing to do.”
One of his lackeys laughs and nods, acting like whatever he’s talking about makes sense.
You watch for a second, then look away before he could catch you staring, your eyes darting back to the notebook in front of you, pen resuming to mindlessly doodle on your notebook to appear occupied.
To your left, there’s a guy with bright, messy orange hair who’s got his body turned around in his seat, talking to a scrawny kid with big glasses, not even attempting to keep his voice down as he gestures his hands like he’s telling a crazy story. He stifles a laugh every now and then, sharp teeth peeking through, lowering his voice after he spots a girl glaring at him.
On your opposite side, the blonde boy still hasn’t moved. His head is still down, expression unreadable from where you’re sitting, but you’re sure he probably has a scowl on his face.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
The bell finally rings and the entire class shifts to move at once, chairs scraping back as people get up, conversations starting before the teacher could actually finish what he was saying as he rolls his eyes and mutters something. You wait for everyone to stop crowding the class, taking your sweet time with putting things away and getting up, stretching and yawning as you do.
You step into the aisle, adjusting the bookbag on your shoulder as someone carelessly pushes by, knocking into your arm and throwing you slightly off balance as you weren’t prepared.
“Watch it–”
You can’t even finish your sentence before you’re bumping into someone else, your shoulder hitting something solid.
You look up to see who you had bumped into this time, grimacing once you had realised who it was: The blonde boy.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” You quickly say, avoiding direct eye contact.
His expression was flat and unreadable, eyes half-lidded. There’s a pause as he just glares at you for a bit, before adjusting his backpack and stepping around you without saying anything. He was honestly even more intimidating now that you were seeing him in front of you like that.
You follow his movements, watching him walk away with a brow raised when you hear a voice behind you.
“Oh, you sit in between us, right?”
You glance back just to see that ginger boy again, still sitting down at his desk as he glances at you and then at the blonde boy.
His hair looks a lot worse now that he’s in front of you, the way he styled it making it look as if his head was a bright orange paintbrush. Why does everyone in this school just have crazy weird hair?
“Unfortunately.” You sigh, unable to hold back your words.
He lets out a laugh, straightening up as he gets up from his desk and steps into place beside you like the two of you were good friends.
“I knew it,” He grins, as if it wasn’t obvious, before jerking his head at the door. “You’re really quiet, didn’t know you could actually talk.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No!” He says immediately, then pauses for a second, “Actually, yeah, kind of. Makes it awkward.”
You stare at him for a second, brows furrowing. You guess he sort of had a point, but god was he straight forward.
He’s already starting to walk towards the door, not even caring to look back to check if you’re following behind. “It’s just, you sit right there and you haven’t said anything. Feels a bit weird.”
You follow him anyway, adjusting the grip on your bag as the hallways fill up.
“Didn’t realise I had a participation requirement.”
“You know now,” He shoots back, glancing over at you with a grin. “I’m Rowan.”
You look at him, then toward the front where the blonde had disappeared into the crowd, then back at your shoes.
“Good for you.”
“You’re funny, I like you.”