“Jiminnie!”

Jimin looked up from his sandcastle to see his friend scurrying towards him. The boy crashed into him with force, knocking them both over and squashing Jimin’s perfectly made sandcastle. “Taetae!” He squawked, pushing the boy off him quickly.

The boy just grinned, a large and box shaped smile that lit up all his features. He climbed off him and sat besides him instead. “There’s a new kid coming today!” He exclaimed, grinning even wider.

“How do you know?”

“I heard it from Miss Lee. He moved here from Daegu.” Taehyung began fumbling around in the sand, picking it up and letting it filter between his fingers. “I’m from Daegu.”

“Will he be in our class?” Jimin asked. For some reason he felt excited, a new classmate meant a new friend.

“I think so.”

Jimin smiled. But with 5 minutes left until breakfast club and then half an hour before classes started, Jimin quickly forgot about it. “Doofus, help me rebuild my sandcastle that you ruined.”

He suddenly remembered once class started.

“Where is the new kid?” He whispered to Taehyung, who shrugged, looking equally as confused. “You totally lied.”

“I didn’t!”

“Did!”

“Sh!” The teacher glared at them as she placed her finger on her lips. “Today we’re going to do something different.”

“Not geography?” Namjoon asked from the front of class.

“Not geography.” The teacher frowned as everyone cheered. “Today we’re going to learn how to introduce ourselves in sign language.”

“Why?” A few students asked, a mutual look of confusion on everyone’s faces.

“Well, we have a new student today,” Taehyung glared at Jimin, who blushed slightly. “And he uses sign language because he’s deaf. When he comes in this afternoon, I hope we can all tell him our names and ask him for his name,” Miss Lee explained.

And so, all  morning they learnt the fingerspelling alphabet, and how to sign “hello, my name is” and their names. Jimin took pride in taking it all in so fast.

“Psst. What’s T?” Taehyung asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Jimin smiled and did the sign, and Taehyung copied him.

“Jimin-ah. What’s S?” Jimin turned around in his seat to see Hoseok frowning at him.

“It’s like this,” Jimin did the sign quickly, and Hoseok grinned and copied him.

“Miss Lee, what’s J?” Seokjin asked, and Jimin quickly took the chance to answer for her.

“J is this.”

In the end, Jimin got a gold star for doing so well, and he felt more and more excited to meet their new signing classmate.

“Are you ready to meet him?” Miss Lee asked, and the class cheered loudly. “Okay. I’ll go and bring him now. We can introduce ourselves and then go to lunch, okay?” The class cheered again as she walked to the door. “Keep practising while I’m gone.”

When she’d left, the whole class fell into an excited chatter.

“So what will be like? Will he be nice?” Jimin asked, excitement thumping in his heart.

“I don’t know. I hope so,” Taehyung answered, smiling. “And I told you I wasn’t lying!”

Jimin huffed, crossing his arms, “but there was nobody new there when we came into class!”

“You should just believe me, I’m your best friend!”

“Who said that!”

“You did, actually, at my birthday party last week,” Taehyung huffed, and Jimin considered himself defeated because, yes he did .

Before they could bicker any further, the classroom door opened, and the room fell silent.

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