“September 5, 20XX, $150 for 2 grams of heroin, purity of China-white...”

A boy about 15 years old sat on the side of the street, in the impoverished part of Seoul, where drug dealers ran rampant and es could be found standing on the sidewalk. He mumbled nonsense to himself quietly, as a police siren wailed faintly in the background. The dark circles under his eyes, gaunt face, and oily hair demonstrated his life on streets, and how long he had been there.

“Father will kill me...”

Images of his father, drunk and abusive flashed through his mind, bringing painful memories with them. He laughed, starting out quiet until it turned into a maniac laugh. He stopped after a full minute, breathing heavily. His expression turned from crazed to cold anger in an instant.

“I’m already dead.”

The boy slowly drew a hypodermic needle from his jacket pocket, his hand shaking. Then he took a little cotton swab and rubbing alcohol from his old, ripped backpack and cleaned the needle tip. He still had common sense, even if he had lost most of his sanity. Rolling up the sleeve, the boy pressed the cold metal against the inside of his arm, breaking the surface of the skin as he pressed down on the syringe.

He sighed in relief as he felt the cool liquid diffuse into his bloodstream, his body going limp, and his breathing slowed. He could feel his brain start to fall into a euphoric trance, as colours and images danced in his head. Sequences of numbers that didn’t make sense wrapped themselves around one-eyed, six-legged hairy creatures as they swayed to an eerie tune only they could hear.

Suddenly, the boy felt a strange crawling sensation underneath his skin, and he scratched them absently, still focused on watching the aliens do flips and tricks. However, the itching persisted, growing stronger, forcing him to look down at his arm. He screamed as little black bugs the size of dimes started to crawl out from underneath his skin. The boy tried grabbing the insects, but they got scuttled away far too quickly.

Somewhere in the back of his head a small voice told him that the bugs weren’t real, and that he was just hallucination. It was the heroin’s fault. Of course, he was in no condition to process this information, as all he could think about was getting rid of the bugs.

He tore at his skin, biting, clawing, anything that would make the disgusting feeling disappear. But because it was all his imagination, he was in fact, tearing at his own flesh. A deep, bloody gash had opened on his arm, red liquid oozing from the wound and onto the ground. He didn’t even know he was ripping his own arm apart, much less feel any pain.

“Hey, stop! You’re hurting yourself!”

A boy around the same age ran up to him, kneeling down with a worried expression. He couldn’t quite see the newcomer’s face, since he had his back to a light. The light was blinding him, and a loud, urgent alarm sound was ringing in his head..

Joonmyun slapped his bedside table, sliding his hand around until he found his phone. Blinking the sleep away from his eyes, he turned the alarm off and closed his eyes again. Haven’t had that dream in a long time... he thought to himself as he started to fall asleep again.

The phone beeped, as well as vibrating annoyingly. Joonmyun groaned, opening his eyes again. It was a text from Kyungsoo, reading “Let’s go to school together!” A second later, it beeped again, with another text saying, “I’m outside your door.”

Joonmyun sighed and sat up in bed, pulling on a pair of sweats over his boxers. He didn’t bother putting on a shirt over his wife beater, mostly because there weren’t any shirts lying around in his immediate vicinity. He quickly brushed his teeth and washed his face before going to his door. As expected, Kyungsoo was standing in the middle of the quiet hallway, already in his uniform and a textbook in the crook of his elbow. “Good morning!”

“No.” Joonmyun closed the door and was about to walk away when he heard loud slamming on the door. Slightly irritated he opened the door again, and of course, Kyungsoo was still standing there with a big grin on his face.

 “I’m not going to school.” Joonmyun glared at Kyungsoo, who was completely unfazed.

“Well I’m making you go.”

Joonmyun’s eye twitched in annoyance, but he could only sigh. When Kyungsoo put his mind to something, there wasn’t much anyone could do to change it. Also, this very situation happens at least once a week, where Kyungsoo would show up in the morning to haul Joonmyun’s lazy to school. Now, Joonmyun sets his alarm in the morning just in case Kyungsoo decides to show up.

“Give me 10 minutes,” he grumbled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So I spent most of yesterday studying for a test that Mr. Kim decided to cance-----” Baekhyun froze, staring down the hallway packed with students. Chen, who was walking beside him frowned in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Baekhyun turned and began quickly walking in the other direction. “Kris is coming. I can feel it.” He’s been trying to avoid Kris every day now, not only because his pick up lines were extremely cheesy, but also because he didn’t have the heart to say no to him, since he was trying very hard.

Chen immediately got the memo and raced after Baekhyun, but it was too late. Kris and Tao rounded the corner, the taller boy’s face lighting up. “BAEKHYUN!” He yelled down the hallway so loudly all the students turned their heads. Kris jogged down the hall to meet the pair, Tao following behind in quick strides. The sea of students parted before the prince.

“Hey!” Kris greeted Chen happily, and turned his gaze to a very panicked Baekhyun. He inspected the redhead, rubbing his chin. “Are you from China, cause I’m China get ya!” He flashed a smile of pearly whites that would make anyone, even a guy, swoon. Baekhyun laughed feebly, while Tao rolled his eyes.

Chen smiled and laughed, even though Baekhyun knew it was just a show. If Baekhyun wasn’t his best friend, he would have thought that Chen actually found Kris’s line to be funny. “I should write that one down,” Chen said. “I bet I would get all the girls.”

“I know right? Its a really good line.” Kris slapped Chen’s shoulder good-naturedly. “I’m glad someone finds me funny, unlike this guy over here.” He jerked his shoulder at Tao, who was busy staring at something on his phone. He looked bored as usual, ignoring Kris’s comment.

Baekhyun nudged Chen slightly, shooting him a pleading look. Chen pulled out his phone and pretended to look surprised. “Oh would you look at the time,” he said. “Baekhyun and I have to go to class now, it was nice talking to you.”

Kris frowned. “But there’s still 15 minutes until class starts.”

“Mr. Lee said he wanted us to go to class early,” Chen shrugged convincingly. “He said he needs us to help set up for a separation lab, you know with all the reactants and products possible, there’s gotta be someone to help him make sure he doesn’t accidentally drops aluminum foil 6.0M hydrochloric acid. That guy is crazy.” Chen waved with a grin. “Well see you later.”

Baekhyun and Chen quickly turned and booked it down the hallway, turning the corner before Kris could fully make sense of what Chen had said. Baekhyun looked at his friend incredulously. “Does that really cause an explosion?”

Chen smirked. “The aluminum replaces the hydrogen in the a single replacement equation, causing the hydrogen to stand alone as a product. We all know hydrogen goes boom.”

They entered the class, as and luckily; there weren’t any traces of exploded chemicals. However, to their surprise, they saw Joonmyun sitting in the usually empty seat next to Kyungsoo. Chen and Baekhyun exchanged glances as they sat down next to Kyungsoo.

“Good morning!” Kyungsoo greeted his fellow lab bench members as they took their seats. “Did you guys finish the homework?”

Usually this would have been just any usual conversation starter between any friends in the same class, leading to complaining of difficult questions, or how long the assignment took. Today was a special case, since a mostly MIA student decided to grace them with his presence. Chen cut right to the chase, and asked about Joonmyun, ignoring Kyungsoo’s question. “So, you decided to actually come to school for once.”

He didn’t say this in an insulting manner, nor did he mean any harm. He was merely concerned for the innocent Kyungsoo whom he had known for 3 years, and did not want Joonmyun, who had a history of bad experiences, to hurt his friend. There was a slight menacing undertone went with this question. Baekhyun noticed, but Kyungsoo was not sure, his trusting nature clouding his senses. Chen was a master of disguise after all.

Joonmyun turned to Chen with a bored look. “What of it. I’m still registered as a student here.” There was more communicated through the expression of each student rather than their words, something that Kyungsoo didn’t catch and Baekhyun didn’t understand.

Chen smiled, laughing. His snarky attitude made Chen like him but want to punch him at the same time. “Good to have you back, soldier.” He returned to Kyungsoo’s earlier question, explaining that he did in fact, finish all the homework, but it was really tedious.

What just happened... Baekhyun reminded himself to ask Chen about it later.