12:30 (INST) - BEAST

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BJ8KxJS7iE

After the whole Valentine ’s Day fiasco, the four witches had left Mingyu alone. By humiliating Sooyoung in front of all the girls who idolized her had seemed to left a permanent mark of anger in that girls body, making her shoot daggers his way every time she saw him. It didn’t really bother him since he had no interest towards her, her group of friends or any of the girls in his school for that matter. S.Coupe, Vernon and Hoshi was all he needed to keep him less lonely for the duration of his stay on Earth.

Also with what Hari had brought to his table on Valentine’s day was enough to keep him happy. He had really thought that that day was lame until Hari had surprised him with the unexpected gift. He had assumed that it was to be given to Wongeun or Kai, but when she said it was for him, his heart grew twice in size upon hearing it. Although she hadn’t made it herself, the thought of her attempting to give thanks to whatever he had done for her so far made his heart sear with joy. It’s not every day a girl like Hari would do something for someone like Mingyu, considering that he was still basically a stranger in her life.

As the days of February began to dwindle away, the early warnings of Spring was seeping it’s way slowly into the city. Hari had kept herself busy with school work since she had a ton of midterms coming her way, while Mingyu continued on keeping a tight eye around all that surrounded him. Somehow in the weeks, his attention seemed to have gone off track when he noticed that Hoshi was not attending school as much as he should have been. Even Vernon and S.Coupe were upset by his lack of presence in school; a worry that they had needn’t need to feel in a while was slowly creeping back to them.

During lunch, the three of them met up at their usual table hoping that Hoshi would make his arrival and tell them that they had been paranoid. However, when thirty minutes of lunch had passed on by and the boy still hadn’t shown up, S.Coupe slammed his fist against the table in frustration. Where the heck could he be? Even his cellphone had been disconnected, which made no sense. Vernon continuously tried to ring him up, only to receive the same old automatic voice greeting.

Mingyu’s eyes flickered between his two friends in concern. He had only the slightest idea of what was happening to Hoshi, though his assumptions could not be proved true until Vernon and S.Coupe said a thing about the situation. With his lips sealed, he watched his two friends give into their anxieties.

“Where the hell could this kid be?” growled Vernon, swiping end to the call for a final time when Hoshi had not picked up.

S.Coupe rubbed the back of his neck in agitation, thinking back to the last few weeks and wondering if he had missed any signs of Hoshi acting strange. “If he doesn’t come to school at this point he’s going to end up failing the whole year. We have already skipped school one too many times already, I can’t let him stay back by himself, at least not at this god forsaken school.”

Mingyu made a face. Staying at this school was already a drag, he couldn’t imagine staying back an extra year to redo the same courses. “Why don’t we go look for him?”

Vernon scoffed, shaking his head all the while. “Hell nah, I am not taking one step close to his house. The people in there aren’t parents, they’re ing monsters.”

S.Coupe shot his best friend a hard look, unhappy to have heard what just came out his mouth. “Don’t go talking about people’s parents like that when they are not around, it’s a bad habit to start.”

“Yeah right, I am sure you know more than anyone just how much Hoshi would have agreed with me if he were here right now.”

“Now is not the time to put any blame on anyone. Maybe we should head to the office, check out if they have any information about Hoshi’s whereabouts. For all we know, we might just be paranoid and Hoshi could be at home sick,” suggested S.Coupe.

It seemed as though whatever was going on, S.Coupe had wanted to keep the secret of what Hoshi was hiding between him and Vernon only. Just as Mingyu was about to get up with them, S.Coupe stopped him, speaking gently, “Sorry Mingyu, I hope you understand. I don’t mean to leave you out on this because I’m sure you are just as worried as we are, but certain things require certain approval. Until Hoshi tells you about things himself…” He trailed off at the end of his sentence, leaving a question mark to burn inside Mingyu’s brain in wonder. Without finishing his sentence, S.Coupe picked up his tray with Vernon by his side.

Vernon gave Mingyu a quick salute, a tight smile on his face, “We’ll catch you later.”

Nodding in understanding, Mingyu saluted them back. “Let me know if you guys need help or anything.” It surprisingly hurt him to not be included in the know, but since the three of them had been friends since way back, Mingyu had no choice but to step down and let the two of them do things on their own.

S.Coupe gave him a curt nod, then spun on his heels with Vernon right beside him.

With a sigh, Mingyu glanced down at his fries. He was suddenly not very hungry anymore. With just a few minutes left before the end of lunch, Mingyu decided to toss his lunch in the trash and head out the school doors.

---

With his mind clouded with thoughts of where Hoshi was, Mingyu hadn’t noticed that he had stumbled himself right inside an alleyway. Normally, he took this route whenever they were heading over to Vernon’s house, but today it was just him, so the path that was mostly filled with loud chatter and boisterous laughter seemed more daunting and dark than usual. If it had not been for his hawk like ears, MIngyu would not have noticed footsteps following closely behind him.

At first, he had thought he had just been paranoid, thinking that it was just a random person walking behind him. But the quicker he walked, the faster they walked. It was not one pair of feet, but a couple of others trailing behind him. As he swerved to the left, so did they. A normal person would have started running by now, fleeing for their life for they were surely about to get ambushed. However, Mingyu was not a normal person. He was Kim Mingyu, the Prince of Planet Diamond with royal blood pumping through his veins. No mere mortal will make him ever falter.

Instead of running away, Mingyu halted in his steps and turned around. With arms crossed and a smirk on his face, Mingyu waited for the shadows to make themselves known. Ever since stepping onto Earth grounds, he hadn’t done a thing that made him the Kim Mingyu back on Planet Diamond. Being good, going to school, no pranks, no battles, nothing—that wasn’t him. With all the pent up annoyance that he had been holding inside of him, it can finally be released now.

The shadows finally emerged from the corner, revealing the faces of recognizable people he had seen every day in school. His eyes flickered to the familiar uniforms that they sported, and then back towards the cold faces that were staring at him with so much anger that he had wondered what he did wrong to them. Amused, Mingyu his head with a big smile, “Can I do something for you? You guys lost?”

The leader, who had blazing red hair that was spiked up, came forward with a toothpick that he had been chewing on clenched between his teeth. Mingyu had remembered that this was the group of boys that his friends had pranked on his first day at Pledis. There was an ongoing beef between the group, with no actual reason for their war except that they just plain old hated each other.

Hongbin, the name of the leader, scoffs at Mingyu’s question. “This kid is pretty brave, eh. He talks like he’s been going to Pledis since day one of Freshman year.”

“Does he even know who we are? Seeing as that he doesn’t even blink an eye, he probably has no idea what trouble he’s in,” smirked his friend on the left, who went by the name of Namhyun. Mingyu knew Namhyun because they both shared the same classes together, though during class time, the other boy had never so much as spoke a single word to anyone. Seeing him talk now was just a big laugh to Mingyu. To find bravery only when you are surrounded by friends makes you the biggest kind of coward, it almost made Mingyu crack up. Almost.

His friend, according to the name tag named Jinhyuk, throws back his head as he laughed. “He’s probably grown some balls since having hang with those retards back at school.”

“You guys speak as if you are living in a third character world. I’m literally right here; if you have to say, say it to my face instead of trying to act big and arrogant,” quipped Mingyu. It had always been one of his biggest pet peeve for people to try to inflict fear onto people by trying to act bigger than what they were through words.

Hongbin throws his toothpick on the ground, his eyes narrowing into slits as he scrutinized the blue haired freak in front of him. After hearing all the news about this new kid who had replaced his title as Pledis Prince, Hongbin was both furious for having lose his title but curious to see what was so great about Kim Mingyu. Now that the new kid was finally by himself, Hongbin could finally settle things once and for all. It had been bad enough that Kim Mingyu had stolen his title, but the fact that he had taken Sooyoung’s affection away from him too was another ordeal that he wasn’t willing to step down from.

“Listen kid, if you had joined our crew instead of choosing to be with those freaks maybe I wouldn’t have hated you so much. But you did, and boy, time cannot be pulled backwards though I bet you wished it did now, right? I see you, I know you are scared. Who wouldn’t be? Your alone, while there’s three of us,” smiled Hongbin defiantly.

Mingyu raised one eyebrow, where was this guy getting his information from? “Why would I be scared of you three?”

“Because we can beat the living out of you,” snarled Jinhyuk.

“For what reason should you need to beat me up for, though?” wondered Mingyu.

“If it wasn’t obvious enough, retard,” said Namhyun. “You not only took everyone’s attention away from us, but you broke Sooyoung’s ing heart. What kind of would dare to break Sooyoung’s heart? Do you know many guys would have taken your position if they could? It was one thing to take our title, but to do something as dumb as that really pissed us off.”

Mingyu had never imagined him to be in this position. It was both ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. Seeing the livid expressions on their faces seemed to prove true of their words; that they were actually pissed off that he broke her heart. Mingyu started chuckle, darkly, “You are kidding me right? Am I dealing with a bunch of soft hearted idiots right now? You are honestly upset that I took your title? Well honestly, I don’t even give a hoot about the damn title.