Beauty keeps us from seeing who the real monsters are…

This was how Junhong found out about the bullies. One Wednesday, after dawdling outside IT class, making his way to Gym, a group of rowdy boys approached him. Well, technically they didn’t approach him, more like, walked into him. By the untucked hems of their uniforms and their ed shirts, Junhong could guess what kind of students they were.

This was about a month into high school. He’d seen them before. They were one of those students who liked to shamelessly stare at him and Junhee. There were many types of staring students, Junhong realised. The ones who would blush and turn away, the ones who would pretend they weren’t looking at him once caught, and then there were the ones who didn’t care when they were caught. These guys were the latter.

Junhong would like to point out that this was not his first encounter with these boys. The first one went somewhat like this:

“Hey, kid,” a dry voice rang out as Junhong’s locker slammed itself shut. This was on his second day. Junhong started, turning to face whoever had almost just closed his locker on his hand.

Standing before him was a slightly tan boy, shorter than him, a challenge in his eyes and a taunting smile on his lips. His hair was mussed up in that bad boy style kind of way Junhong had seen on quite a few students. But this boy, he somehow sensed, was the epitome of the stereotype. On either side of him, he was ranked by two other boys. Both were pale, but one rather tall; tall enough to challenge Junhong, but his eyes were droopy as though he hadn’t slept in a while. On his other side, stood a very good-looking bloke, with doe eyes but mischief laced behind them.

The other fellow freshmen were staring at Junhong as the three made quite a ruckus with the locker slamming.

Distractedly, Junhong knew he was probably running late because it was morning break and he was supposed to meet Junhee by her locker.

“Can I help you?” he asked, as politely as he could, although his impatiently tapping foot said otherwise.

The guy before him quirked his eyebrow, sensing his agitation. “In a hurry?”

“Yes, actually, I am,” Junhong answered flatly.

The clean-faced guy on the left snickered.

“Off to see Loony?” the tall one on the right asked, earning himself the elbow to the stomach by the guy in the middle.

“Forget what he said,” said the middle guy, his face morphing from a smirk into a half-smile. “I’m Jongin. We’re sophomores, and you’re…”

Junhong eyed them suspiciously, becoming wary of their agendas. They didn’t look like the kind of friendly people who anybody would like to hang around with.

“A freshman,” he decided to say, “and I’ve got to go–”

“Word of advice,” the one on the left cut him off, stepping forward, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You should stay clear from Loony.”

Junhong frowned. “Who?”

“She’s not someone you should be hanging with, you know,” said Jongin, tilting his head to the side. “It can… well, ruin things for you here.”

What the hell were they talking about? Junhong grimaced, stepping away.

“Look. Uh, sophomores, with all due respect, I need to go.” Junhong slid his own hands in his pockets, ambling backwards, nodding to them. “You guys clearly got the wrong person.”

So.

Junhong hated his locker, and despite Junhee’s protest throughout the first few weeks, he pretty much migrated to hers without consent. Firstly, by shoving his own textbooks into it, and then his skateboard, then his notebooks, and later, everything else. Junhee stopped glaring at him after a while, and decided to accept this as one of the things in life. And, honestly, Junhong couldn’t be anymore pleased. He liked that Junhee never questioned him why, he liked that she always just accepted the things he did and, well, because she had always liked him anyway… despite all the annoying things she had to put up with throughout the years.

“Hanging in there?” Baekhyun snickered now, a month later, as he shouldered Junhong while walking passed. They had gym too.

Junhong rolled his eyes and continued walking with his set of gym clothes and towels in his PE bag. It was times like these that he hated being alone. It was too easy for people to gang up on him, but it wasn’t like he’d rather have somebody suffer through it with him. Besides, these guys were the least of his problem.

That was until Jongin tripped him. Junhong landed on his right knee, a jarring pain seared up his leg.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” he growled, wincing as he tried to stand up.

Chanyeol snorted and Jongin extended his hand before Junhong.

“Whoa, sorry. That was seriously an accident,” said Jongin but even without looking, Junhong could feel the smirk on the older’s face. “Look, let me give you a hand.”

Frustrated, Junhong slapped Jongin’s hand away and stood up on his own despite the jeering pain in his knee.

“Feisty,” snickered Jongin, retracting his fingers.

“You guys need a new hobby or something,” spat Junhong. “Doing something useful. Stop wasting space.”

Baekhyun whistled, stepping up to him, his footsteps click-clacking down the empty hallway.

“One against three,” commented the sophomore, “very brave.”

Junhong snorted, shouldering them out of his way and continued walking (and wincing) to the locker room.

The freshman spat back over his shoulder, “Three against one. Very brave.”

When Junhong reached the changing room, he was met with more stares. He ignored them, and focused on changing instead. One by one, the dark locker room cleared as the students made their way to the gym. Junhong sunk down on one of the benches and sighed into his palms tiredly. He hated high school.

“You okay?” a dull voice startled him.

Junhong looked up to find the freshman kid who he’d met on the first day standing by the sink, staring at him. Oh Sehun, was it? He was friends with those jerks, weren’t he?

“If you could keep your friends on a leash, that’d be perfect,” he snorted, getting up and wincing as the pain shot down his leg. For a second, Sehun actually looked concerned, or per