Jongin isn’t really into this whole “extra-curricular activities” thing.

              He technically shouldn’t even be here right now. At the University of Toronto, Scarborough campus. But he was, because

              a) he was a Ryerson reject and

              b) that was entirely his fault for being a lazy and putting together a half-assed portfolio during application season.

              He should’ve known better, what with all of the crowing everyone on the face of planet had done about how the journalism program at Ryerson was top-notch. But in high school he had possessed this magical superpower where he could put a half-assed effort into almost anything he did and still get decent results out of it.

              Clearly that only lasted as long as high school had.

              So the idea of joining any clubs or organizations here at UTSC didn’t really appeal to him. Even in high school, though, he didn’t do extra-curriculars. He liked sports and gym class but never once considered joining the school teams. Dropped in on the clubs his friends attended once in a while but never committed full time and called it his own. Used to take dance classes, but it sort of fell through. Signing up for the school newspaper might’ve been a good idea, but upon receiving the first round of e-mails from the editors it was clear that he was being given a set of very boring headlines to cover in a very short amount of time. Taking initiative when it came to this kind of thing wasn’t exactly his forte, so any activities that weren’t school-related were on the down-low.

               Jongin isn’t really into this whole “extra-curricular activities” thing. Especially not here, at UTSC, the place where he wasn’t supposed to be.

               Which is why how he ended up walking in for his first official meeting with the Freedom Funkers Association was completely lost on him.

—∞—               

                “Hey, you.”

                Jongin turns around to stare at the voice, because he wasn’t sure if he was the one being addressed and who the hell calls someone like that?

                A person is leaning out of the doorframe to the room on his right. Tall Asian kid, maybe Chinese. Medium-length black hair, sharp eyes that were so darkly rimmed that Jongin wondered if he was wearing eyeliner, and an astute mouth.

                “You’re in my media studies class,” the kid says to Jongin. “With Professor Petit.”

                “Um, okay,” Jongin responds, because it’s a fairly large class and he hasn’t really gotten a hold of familiar faces yet.

                “You were the one who pwned the senior leaders last week before class started.”

                Why there had been senior leaders in a first-year media studies course to begin with Jongin didn’t know, but when he’d walked into lecture last week a bunch of people had crowded at the front and were playing music from the computer at the podium, which was amplified over the sound system with the music video playing on the projector. There were some seniors there, ones with obvious backgrounds in dancing, who were lobbying back and forth to the beat of “Teach Me How to Dougie.” One of the other first-years had remembered Jongin from the foam party at frosh week and had promptly shoved him into the centre of it, and after that Jongin was certain he would be forever remembered as “that kid who pwned the senior leaders during media studies.” Kind of like the way he was being addressed now.

                “Yeah, that was me,” Jongin replied lamely, wondering where the kid was going with this.

                “My name’s Zitao. Just Tao works. I’m one of the head coordinators for Freedom Funkers.”

                “Should I know what that is?”

                “Well, yes and no. Basically we’re this organization that spreads music and dance across campus whenever we get the opportunity. You know, for uniting the campus community and all that junk. Anyways, we could always use a dancer around here. I mean, there’s a million other dancers to choose from, but we don’t have any first years yet, and we also sure as hell don’t have anyone as good as you.”

                Jongin blinks, because he finds it extremely surprising that a kid he’d met only two minutes ago was trying to recruit him for an organization that he still wasn’t sure as to what exactly it was. “You want me in your group?”

                “Yep.” Tao popped the ‘P’ loudly. “The majority of the group had been fourth-years, so since they’ve graduated our numbers are staggeringly low. We’ve lost a lot of hands, and jobs need to be re-assigned. People need to be promoted, and more people recruited. It’s not too bad a workload, either. Honestly, we’re like the club that finds excuses to turn the campus into a dance-off arena.”

                Then how is this an organization, Jongin wondered.

                “What do you say, first year?  Sound interesting?”

                Jongin paused. He was planning on updating his resume and going job-hunting soon, and right now it was a little bit too empty for his taste. Nothing looks better on a resume than the word “organization.” He figured he could just bull from there, if this really turns out to be a kick-back excuse of a club.

                He doesn’t really think much of this organization so far. Doesn’t imagine that he would get to know some of the craziest bastards he’s ever met and ever will meet in his life, doesn’t imagine he would come to call every last one of them his friends, and most certainly doesn’t believe that one of these said crazy bastards (although he would soon learn that he was probably the least crazy of the bunch) would have the force of gravity to flip Jongin’s entire world and everything he’d come to understand about it upside down.

                Because, really, who would?

                “Sure, why not,” Jongin sighs.

                Tao smiles. “Cool. First official meeting’s this Thursday on the second floor of the Academic Resource Centre. Oh, and try bringing some other first years if you can. Particularly ones with some kind of musical background.”

                Jongin doesn’t really know any first years. Well, at least well enough to drag them to some weird music organization. His old high school had been fifteen minutes away from his house on the west side, and everyone else he’d graduated with had done the smart thing and applied to the universities in the downtown area. So it wasn’t like Jongin had many options.

                But his answer all the same is, “I’ll try.”

                “Cool. See you then.”

                Jongin nods, and Tao slips back into the study room and closes the door behind him.

                Jongin starts walking down the hall towards his next class again. He vaguely wonders if he’ll be late enough that he won’t be able to grab a seat in lecture. He wonders a little more than vaguely if joining this weird club would be worthwhile. He wonders if he’ll be coming back for seconds.

                And then, when he knocks on the door of room on the second floor of the Academic Resource Centre later that week and it opens up to him for the first time, Jongin takes one look inside and wonders just what kind of crazy he’s gotten himself into now.

A/N

The rest of this fic is going to be nothing like this chapter was I'm warning you all now

Which is why you should keep reading

I'M FUNNY I SWEAR