“Quiet down, class. We have a new student.  Go ahead and introduce yourself.”

He introduced himself to a scratch on the tiles beneath his sneakers, his fingernails scraping ridges into each other behind his back. “I’m… Cha HakYeon nice to meet you…”

“What’d he say?” The first loud voice made him flinch.

“He said Cha HakYeon, ya buffoon.” The second voice didn’t reassure him.

“Class, please be quiet. HakYeon-sshi, say it one more time, and try not to talk to your shoelaces, okay?”

His heart was hammering wildly against his ribs, and he severely hoped he could get away with feigning a sickness and going back home. He lifted his chin and gazed at the crowd of peers in front of him, his fingers behind his back wringing more frantically. The sea of eyes staring him down almost made him choke.

“My name is Cha HakYeon,” he repeated, a bit more confidently.

“You’re really dark!” a snarky girl piped up. “Are you from Jeollado?”

“G-Gyeongsangdo, actually…”

Another brat. “Why are you moving here in the middle of the school year?”

And another. “Yah, maybe he’s from Jeju. Or maybe he’s from another country. Are you?”

“Class! Class!” The teacher repeatedly clapped her hands until the clamor died down. “He hasn’t even finished talking, and you’re already interrupting him!”

“A-ah, no,” HakYeon stammered. “That’s all. Can I sit down now?”

“Sure. Go ahead and take the empty seat in the second row.”

At least HakYeon was light on his feet, so he never had issues with tripping over flat ground. He made his way to the vacant desk without incident and collapsed into the chair. A few students continued to gape at him until the teacher clapped again to avert their attentions to the lesson on the whiteboard.

HakYeon collapsed to the floor as soon as his shoes were off. His mother clucked at him.

“How was school?” she called.

“Tiring,” he replied flatly.

An elder sister scoffed from the living room where she had four textbooks open and fanned out before her. “Tiring, he says. Elementary-school dongsaeng, let me tell you something about being tired.”

He merely moaned and rolled onto his side. A bit concerned, their mother glanced up from the book she was reading to see if her young son was generally alright.

“Are you hungry, HakYeon? Did you eat the lunch I made for you?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Do you have homework already? Are you keeping up with the subjects?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Are you making friends?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“What are their names?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“My mom said dark-skinned people are people who are loved by the sun. They don’t burn up like the rest of us during the summer; they’re just warm. Is that true?”

HakYeon spun his pencil on the desktop. “Ummm… I usually try to stay out of the sun during the summer, though.”

“Of course he would!”

“But don’t you go to the beach?”

“I’ve been there a few times.”

“So?”

“… um… I got really dark…”

“But you didn’t get burned, did you?”

“Well, no, but that’s because I used sunscreen.”

“Duh. That’s obvious.”

“Shut up, SeungJae!”

The lively chatter of elementary-school kids was quite raucous. A ring of students – mostly male – had gathered around HakYeon to interrogate the new stranger. One had moved his homework to HakYeon’s desk while the rest chatted.

“You said you’re from Gyeongsangdo?”

“Yeah, Changwon.”

“Ooh, my uncle lives there!”

“Do you play sports?”

He reached out to add a character to the homework on his desk. “Ah, not really…”

The owner of the paper stared at what HakYeon had written. “Eh? It’s 께?”

“Yeah,” HakYeon replied without hesitation. “Because he – ” he poked at the sentence with the eraser of his pencil, “ – is the subject. So 께.”

The kid grumbled and began to scan the rest of his paper for any more mistakes. Another kid chortled. “Meanwhile, all TaekWoon knows is sports. All brawn and no brains.”

Thanks to that one intervention, though, HakYeon was suddenly an unofficial tutor-of-sorts for that kid. ‘Kid’ was probably the wrong word to use, HakYeon thought as TaekWoon took his now-usual spot, straddling the chair in front of HakYeon’s desk backwards and flopping his schoolwork onto the desk between them.  Math was the greatest struggle for the tall, hulk of a nine-year old.

“Wait, how’d you get that answer? Where did that come from?”

“It’s in the formula. This one.”

“Rrgghhhh this is stupid.”

“Repeating fourth grade will be stupid, too, if you don’t get this right.”

HakYeon instantly flinched as TaekWoon’s head snapped up. “You punk. I oughta…”

“Come on,” HakYeon quickly interrupted. “I’ll write the formula here so you’ll remember it.”

TaekWoon stared as HakYeon scribbled the nonsense into the corner of the paper. “Do you do anything?”

“Eh?” HakYeon stopped and looked up, freezing at the cold stare TaekWoon emitted.

“Besides homework. What do you even wanna do when you grow up?”

“Er… Errr…”

HakYeon shrunk in his seat, fighting inwardly on whether to really this intimidating rhinoceros his dream or to keep it to himself like he usually does. TaekWoon just quietly stared as HakYeon continued to squirm.

“You wanna be a singer?”

“Y-yeah…”

HakYeon was fitting in well in school, three months later. He had numerous friends, TaekWoon always managing to stick himself to HakYeon’s side with TaekWoon’s sidekicks following right after. Even when his tall friend was absent for days or so due to soccer tournaments, he had no problem getting along with the others in his class. Lunch breaks were sometimes stolen away to random spots around the school, a vacant area in the bustling hallway when the autumn weather grew too chilly to sprawl on the grass. That day, they had one corner of the classroom to themselves. A different group was clammed together on the opposite side of the room, stuffing bits of food in their mouths as they frantically studied.

“That’s cool!” TaekWoon exclaimed.

“Eh? It is?” This was not the reaction HakYeon was expecting from the athlete.

TaekWoon bounced up from his chair. “Yeah! I mean, I like singing, too, but I like soccer better, but if I couldn’t do soccer, I’d definitely wanna be a singer. Are you gonna audition?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m that good…”

“If you don’t think you’re that good, then why would you wanna be a singer?”

HakYeon’s heart shuddered. “I mean, it’s just a dream. Stuff like that doesn’t usually come true for a lot of people, you know…?”

“That’s stupid,” TaekWoon declared, haughty scowl pulling the corners of his mouth down. “You should do it, anyway. ‘Cuz what if you never even try and end up in some job that’s boring, but in some alternate universe, you’re actually world famous? Wouldn’t that make you mad?”

“Yeah, but… If I don’t even have a chance, then what’s the point in trying? I’ll have wasted so much time that I could’ve spent otherwise.”

“How are you keeping up in school, HakYeon?”

“I’m fine, Dad. The lessons are easy,” HakYeon said confidently. “It’s stuff we already did back home.”

“Good.”

“Have you made a lot of friends, HakYeonnie?”

“Yeah, nuna! We’re doing science projects soon, and TaekWoon – oh, he’s my friend – he said he’s gonna do something incredible!”

“That’s nice, baby. What are you doing for the project?”

HakYeon stopped short, his chopsticks frozen over his food, as he realized his mistake. The class was given two choices: do a science project or a performance of some kind. Of course his new best friend would “bully” him into choosing what he really wanted to do, and of course HakYeon would choose the performance over anything. However, he hadn’t thought ahead to when he would have to tell his family.

“Ummm I haven’t decided yet,” HakYeon swiftly fibbed, shoving a spoonful of rice into his mouth.

After a while, they had finished dinner and were washing up to go to bed. HakYeon was thoroughly enjoying himself as he brushed his teeth while his elder sister played with his hair, bunching them into tiny dragon tails that sprouted up in various places on his scalp.

“Our cutie HakYeonnie~” she sang. “Our cutie little liar~”

HakYeon choked on the toothpaste foam. “W-what are you talking about?!”

Another tail had formed. “The science project. That’s not true, is it? You’re such a bad liar.”

“I’m not lying! We’re really doing science projects!”

“Your class may be. But you’re not.” She tugged on opposite tails for further emphasis. “Right?”

“Ow! Nuna!”

“Come on~ Tell your nuna~”

“No! I’m not telling! ‘Cuz then you’ll tell hyung, and hyung will tell Dad, and Dad will get mad, and I hate that! So I’m not telling!”

“HakYeon! Phone call for you!”

HakYeon feebly rolled over under his blankets. His mother crossed the room, phone in one hand but the other reaching out to push back his bangs to feel his forehead. When she was satisfied, she passed the phone to her son. He rolled a bit more until he was able to sandwich the phone between his ear and his pillow.

“Hullo?”

“YAH CHA HAKYEON!” TaekWoon’s voice was already too loud to start with. Why did he feel the need to shout over the phone? “Where were you?! Why weren’t you in school today?!”

“I’m sick, TaekWoon-ah.” That should’ve been obvious.

“Eh? Seriously? But the performance test is next week.”

“Yeah, but – ” HakYeon tried to glance over the mound of blankets piled on top of him, scanning his room to see if his mother was lingering nearby. “ – I’ve been working on it nonstop for the last few weeks, and I haven’t slept much. And it’s cold out. So I caught a cold.”

“Good job.” His friend sighed dramatically. “Well, you missed too much today. You’ll never make it all up.”

“Eh?! Why?! What did we do?”

“Well, first of all, it’s snowing. So we played outside for a while. And second of all, it’s my birthday. So we ate a lot – ”

“EHHH?!” HakYeon bolted upright. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday!”

“But our birthdays are written on the calendar at the very front of the classroom. It’s kinda hard to miss. But like I said, you’ll never be able to make it up.”

He’d only been living in Seoul for less than half a year. HakYeon had only started adjusting to his new city life. Every so often, he was still homesick for his life in Changwon. But he suddenly felt like crying. He was sick and miserable, his nose was starting to run since he was sitting up again, his fever made his head swim, and he missed his best friend’s birthday.

“Hello? HakYeon-hyung?”

HakYeon swiped at his eyes even though his friend couldn’t see him. “Well, I’ll just have to get you a present that’ll far surpass any present anyone ever got you. It’ll be so awesome you’ll forget your birthday is already past.”

His miserable state continued through the next week.

He still wasn’t well enough to go back to class after a few days, so his homeroom teacher felt the need to call the Cha household, expressing her concern for his health. And of course she mentioned the performance project that would occur soon. Oh, that’s the first his parents heard of it? Of course, he’s been working very diligently on it, and the teacher hopes he gets well soon because she’s looking forward to his performance.

His father was looking forward to his son’s explanation on why he had lied to them for so long. But a grade is a grade, so he may as well do it properly and get it done right.

He returned back to school the day before the test. His reappearance produced mixed feelings.

“HakYeon-ah, you’re back!”

“Oppa, are you okay? We heard you were really sick.”

“HakYeon was skipping class.”

“It was supposed to snow today!”

“Since HakYeon-oppa is so dark, he made the school too warm, so he scared away the snow.”

“HakYeon-hyung stopped the snow!”

He was outright miserable. He didn’t want to be bothered one bit. The only saving grace was those who weren’t performing would present their science projects to the class, and HakYeon was looking forward to seeing what TaekWoon had in store.

“Wow, wow! TaekWoon-ah, that’s awesome!”

“How did you do that?”

“His project is snowing!”

“Did you steal the snow?!”

HakYeon tried to get closer to see this magical project for himself. TaekWoon spotted his friend and exclaimed. “Watch out, HakYeon! You’ll make my project melt!”

“Ah! Yeah…”

“Yah! Wait up! HakYeon-hyung!”

HakYeon hoped he could mask his snuffling and attribute it to the weather as he slowed his pace, allowing TaekWoon to catch up with him. It was odd since TaekWoon never had a reason to walk this far alongside HakYeon; their houses were in opposite directions from the school.

TaekWoon huffed when he finally caught up. Wasn’t he supposed to be a soccer player? Why was he out of breath? “Hey.”

HakYeon sniffed again. The tip of his nose was cold. “Hey.”

TaekWoon stared at his friend. “So, uh… You’re not sick anymore?”

“Ah, no. I’m fine. I’ll be able to do the test tomorrow, at least.”

“That’s cool! I can’t wait to see it! Are your parents gonna come see?”

HakYeon tripped on nothing. “No. My dad works, and… no.”

They continued walking, TaekWoon keeping his stare as HakYeon shuffled along. The cold was spreading to HakYeon’s cheeks.

“So… did you see my project?”

“Er… No, I didn’t really get to see it.”

TaekWoon jerked. HakYeon looked over to see why, but the tall friend was walking normally. He had burrowed his chin into his scarf, though, and was pointedly looking in a different direction. When TaekWoon spoke again, it was in an odd, surly voice unlike his usual light tone. “Yeah, that’s right.”

The two fell silent again, HakYeon dragging his feet along the sidewalk.

“Here!”

Suddenly, TaekWoon’s hand was shoved in HakYeon’s face. The shorter male stumbled as he came to an abrupt halt, spotting a small bottle in TaekWoon’s hand.

“What is that?” HakYeon asked.

“It’s… my banana milk. I didn’t drink it during lunch, so you can have it.”

He continued to stare. “I’ve never had it before.”

“It’s good. You can have it, though.”

TaekWoon yanked up one of HakYeon’s hands and shoved the bottle into it. Baffled, HakYeon stared at it for a bit, looking back and forth between his friend and the milk in his hand. At first, he wasn’t quite sure what the big toucan was waiting for, but then he realized TaekWoon wouldn’t move until he drank it. He sighed as he pulled back the top and took a swig.

“Why didn’t you drink it, though?”

“I just forgot about it.”

HakYeon smacked his lips. “Oh. Ooh. But this is good.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Yeah!” HakYeon downed the rest of it. “Wah. That was good!”

Finally, TaekWoon’s parrot lips pulled up. He smacked HakYeon on the shoulder. “Well, I gotta go home. It’s cold. You can’t catch a cold again, either. ‘Bye.”

“You’re what?”

HakYeon was staring at the hem of his pant leg stretched out before him. Every so often, feet would high-step or skip over them, but he didn’t bother retracting them. That cost too much energy that he didn’t have.

“My family is moving back to Changwon after this school year is up.”

The two were situated in the hallway during lunch break again. TaekWoon had taken to bringing two bottles of banana milk each day; one for himself, one for anyone else who wanted it.

“Why?”

“My dad’s job is just being fickle. They said they had a position for him up here in Seoul, but then they never got anyone to replace him back in Changwon, and he’s pretty much an extra body up here, so…”

TaekWoon fell silent. HakYeon could feel his friend’s blunt reaction reverberating in the air around him. For some reason, TaekWoon had started keeping his hot-headed responses to himself. But HakYeon just knew.

“Yeah, it was a waste of time. But my family just goes where the money flows.”

“It wasn’t anything to do with me or school. I mean, I have two sisters and a brother, and they had their own mess with school. But my brother’s in college, and he takes care of himself.”

“Yeah, there’s still e-mail and phones.”

The two lulled into silence – or rather, HakYeon stopped answering unspoken questions. Finally, TaekWoon spoke up for himself again.

“Were you… still planning on auditioning?”

HakYeon hesitated for a beat. “I… I want to. I will. When the time comes, I will.”

“New trainees? Really?”

HakYeon wiped the sweat from his eyes as he pushed himself to his feet. He’d already been practicing nonstop for hours, but the thought of new friends and trainees pulsed energy through his body. He trotted to the small group that had just entered the room, led by one of the higher-ups of the company.

“Here are some of our current trainees,” the rep droned. “Here we have – ”

“JUNG TAEKWOON?!”

Everyone in the room visibly jumped at HakYeon’s sudden squawk of surprise, but HakYeon was too fixated on the tallest of the new group who had just entered. The giant stared back at HakYeon, unblinking and silent.

“You’re Jung TaekWoon, right?!” HakYeon rambled. “We went to elementary school for a year! Right?!”

“… ah. HakYeon.”

The rep looked between the two. “Oh, you’re old friends, then?”

“So how come you’re here? I thought you’d be in the national team, soccer, something something. Right?”

“Mm…”

HakYeon watched patiently as TaekWoon stared off into space, watching the world pass them by as they strolled through the city.

“After middle school… I couldn’t,” TaekWoon replied.

“Why?”

They passed a coffee shop.

“Ahh, I see… That’s too bad. But your injury is okay now, right?”

TaekWoon nodded, steadily watching a cat perched on a ledge high above them.

“Ah! And since you can’t do soccer, you decided to be a singer!”

TaekWoon bopped HakYeon on the head, but the shorter male laughed it off.

“Wah… It’s been, what… nine years? Ten years? Ah, are you still bad at math?”

“And that,” HakYeon announced with a wide swing of his chopsticks, “is the story of how our life-long friendship began!”

“Lies,” came the chorus of dull dongsaeng voices.

“What?! You asked me for a story, so I gave you one!” the leader screeched.

“We wanted a cool story,” SangHyuk complained. “That one was so full of lies. None of it was true.”

“How dare you?!” HakYeon chopped the side of SangHyuk’s neck, causing the magnae to twist and laugh. “How dare you write off Mother’s heartfelt story?!”

“Hyung, it was so boring and untruthful that WonShik-hyung fell asleep,” HongBin said flatly, pointing out the dozing lump next to the dinner table.

“You brats! TaekWoon-ah!” HakYeon reached out to the gangly male who had spread himself over the small couch, ears plugged with headphones and eyes occupied with a phone screen. “The kids aren’t listening to me!”

The magnae pushed himself up on his elbows. “TaekWoonie-hyung! Was any of that story true?”

“It was all a lie,” TaekWoon simply replied without missing a beat.

The magnae duo cheered, high-fiving each other as JaeHwan laughed along. HakYeon was left to pout, poking at his food. The rest of the group – minus sleeping WonShik – ignored the fussy leader and got up to clear the dishes from the table.

“Yah, hyung,” SangHyuk piped up again. “You were so busy talking, your food got cold.”

“I’ll just eat this coagulated soup and suffer since you children wouldn’t listen to my story,” HakYeon muttered, pout still heavily apparent on his face.

“You’re so weird, hyung.”

“HongBin-ah! Let’s do the dishes!”

The dorm quietly bustled as JaeHwan and HongBin situated themselves in the kitchen. SangHyuk made a few feeble attempts at getting WonShik to get up and sleep in the bedroom before he easily surrendered and trotted off to wash his face. HakYeon was about to morosely dig in to his congealed food when the bowl before him was snatched up. His cry of protest was cut short when he realized TaekWoon was bringing the bowl over to the microwave to pop it in for a few seconds, eyes still glued to the phone in his hands.

It would have warmed HakYeon’s heart if TaekWoon hadn’t decided to devour half of the contents of the bowl, ignoring the food-starved cries of his life-long friend.

---

A/N: Lol what genre of weird ending was that.

Oneshot done! And it's 2:30AM, so please disregard any weirdness. I tried reading it over, but I'm sleepy, and I work in a few hours, and it was my birthday yesterday, so festivities >3< Gimme birthday wishes~

It's so choppy and weird. I'm sorry. I hope you enjoy;;;;; OTL