Jongin

What I once refused to be is everything they long together. I'd rather be alone. - Phoenix, "Entertainment" 

It was all painfully monotonous. 

Another half of the day had slipped away in an instant, and before I knew it, I was sitting there, listening to my dear friends exchange in moronic conversation, while picking at my lunch. I say “dear friends” through gritted teeth, since lately, they seem like anything but that. I don’t know when it happened, but we drifted apart incredibly. We were once guys bound together through a neighborhood block, good friends that seemed to do everything together and enjoy it, but as soon as we entered high school, our interests split. While the rest of them matured through the typical substance-abuse-lust-driven experience, I never got into it. I would partake to please them, but it never changed the fact that I hated how empty it all seemed. Or maybe it was some part of maturation that I still hadn’t gone through, and I was really the only immature one of them all. I would find out eventually. 

“Jongin!” I was nudged out of my internal monologue by Kyungsoo, the friend that I had hope in the most. I turned over to see what he wanted, and followed his gaze to a girl smiling at us sheepishly from across the cafeteria. I turned back to him, letting him know that I had no idea what he wanted me to do. His shoulders dropped, and he muttered something along the lines of “hopeless”. 

“What?” I asked, annoyed that I would be pushed into another date I didn’t want to be on by my lovely classmates. 

“Are you kidding me? What? Soojung is shooting you serious bedroom eyes and you’re not even responsive!” He pushed my shoulder roughly. 

“Why should I care?” I replied, as disinterested as I possibly could so he would know to drop the subject. 

“You’re unbelievable.” He dropped his hand from my shoulder, using it to call attention to the rest of the boys at our table, who all stopped their conversations to listen. “Get this, guys. Precious Jongin here wants to know why he should care that Soojung over there, easily the finest girl in our grade, is practically begging for his attention.” I glared at Kyunsoo, while everyone else glared at me. They all chorused in phrases of disbelief, ranging from “seriously?” to calling me different vulgar names. I merely shrugged, hoping that my ambivalence would be enough to get the subject away from everyone else’s mind. 

This, unfortunately, was not the case, since Baekhyun was lovely enough to signal Soojung to come over to the table enthusiastically. Her friends shrieked with delight, as she giggled and stood up, sauntering over to us. I just stared at Baekhyun in disbelief. How the hell was I so tolerant with these s. 

“Good luck, baby boy.” Baekhyun shot me a grin, retreating with the rest of the guys, who all pat me on the shoulders, wishing me good luck. I looked around the room, looking for some type of escape; anything that could lead me away from the undesirable situation that was about to unfold. The only things in sight were tables upon tables of my classmates, and a small booth towards the end where the ambitious student council were trying to get people to sign up for their open positions. Everyone ignored them, but it seemed like the perfect excuse at this point in time. It was my senior year, I had to get involved sometime, and later was better than never. But of course, life was just not generous enough to let me get away. Soojung sat in front of me, beaming. I smiled back, politely and awkwardly. I heard snickering coming from a couple tables away. s, I thought, watching my so called friends laugh at me from tables away, noting my fake demeanor. 

“Hi Soojung.” I finally said, after the silence got to be a little too much. She merely smiled back. “So, did you need anything?” I asked, trying to get the conversation going. 

“Not really, I just wanted to get acquainted!” She answered sweetly. It was hard not to smile at a voice and gesture that was dripping with honey like all of hers were. But at the same time, while others relished in the sweet surface, it all felt inauthentic and rehearsed to me. 

“Well, I was actually about to go sign up for the student council.” I said, with fake remorse. Instead of taking it as a reason to leave me alone, she took it as a conversation starter. 

“Are you interested in the school?” She said, phrasing it not just like a regular question, but definitely one filled with disbelief. 

“Am I not supposed to be?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows together at her. This made her uncomfortable, I noticed, because a pink shade started staining her cheeks. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she assured me quickly, being afraid that she had offended me, although it hadn’t, “it’s just, I never pegged you or the rest of the guys as the type.” That, however, did.

“The type?” I questioned, the look of confusion changing to one of annoyance. “The type to what, care about my school environment?” As my voice got darker, so did her face. The pink was gone, and it had transformed into red. 

“I guess not, I just thought you were all too busy socializing that you-“ I scoffed, noting that this girl obviously didn’t know when to keep quiet. My scoff stopped her mid sentence, letting her embarrassment bite her tongue. 

“We’re all too busy getting wasted to notice what’s going on, right?” I finished her sentence for her with a smirk. She opened and closed it repeatedly, obviously not finding the right words to say to me. The life went back into her eyes when the bell rang. She got up to leave quickly, without saying goodbye. 

“You ed up again, didn’t you.” Baekhyun stated, rather than asked, as he walked up to me. I shrugged, throwing away my barely eaten lunch. 

Truth be told, I really didn’t give a about my school, but it was the assumption that I didn’t that made me mad. Maybe I just didn’t like the truth being shoved in my face, or maybe I was just tired of being associated with my hormone driven friends. Either way, my personality had successfully warded off another cute girl. But much like every other time it happened, I didn’t care much. If she was going to sing every sentence in a voice that wasn’t hers and speak without thinking, she wouldn’t be worth my time. 

“So what are we doing tonight?” Chanyeol called from behind, as we walked to class in a cluster. It always annoyed me, the fact that we had to walk everywhere in a pack. We might as well hold hands and tie our legs together, while we’re at it. But of course, everyone else wanted to maintain some sort of image. I didn’t get the appeal, but if I learned anything over the last few years, it was not to question it. 

“Nothing.” I answered before anyone else could. 

“Killjoy.” Baekhyun replied, rolling his eyes. 

“Or being honest.” I said, waking slightly ahead of them to make it look like we were less of a mob, and more like we were walking individually. 

“So you’re ditching us, yet again?” Sehun asked while catching up to me, turning us back into a cluster. 

“Sorry, I have to babysit my kid brother.” I feigned disappointment. They knew better. 

“C’mon! He’s, like, our age. Why do you have to babysit?” Chanyeol whined, obviously irritated that my brother was ruining any plans we would have had. 

“He’s, like, 12. And he can’t so much as turn on the stove, so I kind of have to be there to make sure he doesn’t die.” Truth be told, my younger brother was much more skilled in the art of not dying than I was. When we were alone, he’s the one that would make the meals, and I was the one that would successfully ruin boiling water. 

“So, you babysitting means your parents being out.” I nodded at Joonmyeon’s obvious addition. “Which means we can bring over some drinks and some girls, right?” He said with a smirk. Everyone else looked over at me, expecting me to agree. I shut them down right away. 

“There is no way in hell I am letting any of you anywhere near my younger brother. You’ve done enough corrupting one of us.” 

“Kangin!” I screamed in a sing-song voice when I entered my house. The school week was over, and that was more than enough of a reason to celebrate. He wasn’t in the living room, so I charged upstairs as quietly as possible, ready to attack him at a moment’s notice. I kicked open his door, my hands in position to punch him, but he wasn’t there either. I walked over to my room, thinking that he stayed at school or something. I opened my room door, and sure enough, he closed my laptop alarmingly quickly. I closed my eyes, giving him privacy, because he was at the age where people could start experimenting with the internet, if you catch my drift. 

“Are you decent?” I called out, my eyes still closed and my arms extended, feeling around the space to get to my bed. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He answered. I opened my eyes and found him standing up, his arms crossed. 

“I don’t know, I just figured you closed that laptop too quickly for you to be doing anything good.” His face twisted in confusion for a few seconds, before he finally understood my comment, causing his face to change into disgust. 

“Gross! No!” He exclaimed defensively. 

“You say that now.” I shrugged. He was caught off guard, and I took this as the perfect opportunity to pull him into a headlock, rubbing my fist across his head as he commanded me to let him go. “Then why were you using my laptop, you little freak.” 

“I was talking to some friends, and my computer is too old and slow!” He managed to scream in between his struggles. 

“Friends?” I loosened my grip enough for him to get away. Kangin was a smart kid, no doubt, but some people thought he was too smart for him own good. Kids were never understanding when met with someone different, which he had to learn the hard way. For a long time, he didn’t have anyone to talk to, and obviously being his brother, hearing that he had friends made me excited. 

“Yeah, friends.” He said, fixing his hair back into place. “I joined this website that connects you to people with similar interests as you, and I already have tons of friends.” My face dropped slightly. Of course, they had to be online friends. He looked so genuinely excited, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t the same thing. “They’re probably wondering why I disconnected so suddenly.” He scurried off to his room. I sighed, feeling pity and envy all at the same time. 

I walked over to my laptop. Upon opening it, you could see that the conversation was still going. I admittedly read some of it, causing me to chuckle. 

“What a geek.” I grinned before moving to log out of his profile. Logging out directed me to the site’s homepage. I was about to exit, when the headline of the website caught my eye. 

Make the friends you want to make.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t immediately appealed. Today was just a reiteration that my so called friends really . How long had I been craving a conversation on the topics that I wanted to discuss? How long had I hoped for anyone interesting to come forward to me? It seemed to work for Kangin. I mean, what did I have to lose? It’s not like I would outright tell anyone that I had joined a social network for lonely people. 

I let my cursor hover over the “sign up” button for another second, before I clicked on it. The site itself was pretty simple: create an anonymous profile, be set up to chat with people randomly, and if you liked them, you’d add them as a friend. The goal was for connections to evolve from there. I was skeptical, but hopeful all the same. The information I had to fill in was just as simple, asking for gender and age to be able to connect you with people more quickly. The next section stumped me, though. 

Interests. 

What the hell was I interested in? For so long I had just gone along with what everyone did, I didn’t know what I actually enjoyed doing. I looked around both the room and my mind, looking for anything. I liked movies, I guess? I enjoyed eating, sleeping, and not much else. So I filled my lame interest profile with three things: movies, food, and sleep. I bet that would attract the profound company I was looking for. 

The next area stumped me even more. The dreaded username. Of course, using my given or surname was out of the question. My friends were the kind of s who would bring people’s hopes up on this site for fun. If they ever found anyone who bore a resemblance to me in any way, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. I looked around my room, looking for anything that would serve as a good name. 

Dance trophies. DancingBoyKai? No. BalletBro? I cringed at my own horrible suggestions. Dance was out of the question. I looked around the movie posters that filled my walls, and settled on a particular film: Rebel Without A Cause. It spoke to me. Was I a rebel without a cause? I could hardly consider myself that, but I did relate to the feelings of isolation and inner turmoil. I could use that. I smirked at myself. 

JamesDean21. 

It was a good enough name. I hit enter and created my profile, which resulted in me becoming automatically connected to someone who shared the same three interests as me. 

“Oh boy.” I murmured to myself, letting the sarcasm ooze for no one to hear. The username I was connected to, however, made me smile like a fool. 

WoodxNatalie

I let my fingers take the keys, smoothly typing out an introduction to my partner who just got a hell of a lot more interesting. I hit send, letting the message be displayed on the screen. 

I’d call this fate, wouldn’t you?