Warning: homophobic language 

        New school, new semester, new people, new faces, new difficulties. Jongin stands before his full-body size mirror, inspecting himself for any wrong thing that looked even slightly off on him. First impressions were always important, and Jongin thinks of it as a very helpful tip to making himself look presentable every time he goes out. People make first impressions almost every single second, even if you’re not going to meet most of them again. His mother taught him that way back when he still thought he didn’t need sleep as badly as he does now. He was a very active child, was born like so. Never thought of sleep as a necessity and did whatever he wanted to all the time. Jongin regrets it now.

He lets out a sigh, tightening his bag strap on his shoulder as he slip his feet into his shoes. He looks back at his pet dog, Romeo, wagging his tail goodbye, and Jongin chuckles a little under his breath. He waves his dog goodbye and began his walk toward the bus stop. The Sun was out, it was bright, hot, and Jongin felt a little bothered by it but he sits at the bus stop without a word of complaint. Next to him, a pair of friends were talking animatedly to each other, and Jongin distractedly wonders if he’s going to make any good friends in school today. He realises he’s been thinking like he was still in High School, but he’s not. He’s in University, all grown up and matured. Or that’s what he would like to think.

As soon as he’s reached campus grounds, he sees a bunch of people already swarming to get to their department’s booth. He walks around the vast area, finding it quite easy to look around with his height. There were a few tall guys, maybe some slightly taller than him, but he still beats most of them. He squints a few times to see whether or not he was actually heading towards the booth for Linguistics, and if he wasn’t, he turned around. Jongin stops in his tracks for a second, and this time he really stopped, and he really reads the signs on the booths.

Right next to Law, he sees a small group of people queueing, or crowding, around the booth. He makes his way towards the booth, seeing as it was the only one he hasn’t gone to so far. At least that’s what he thinks. He stands before the small crowd, just idly waiting for them to disperse. He senses a few other people waiting alongside him and after a minute or so, he hears the people talking;

“That’s the prettiest girl in the whole campus.”

“You think so?”

“She looks like an actor. What is she doing in Linguistics? She should be in a movie.”

“What about this guy?”

“Oh, , he’s hot.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a man in such a way.”

Jongin exhales exasperatedly through his nose before he clears his throat loud enough for the group of people to hear him. They turn around, and they were completely silenced as Jongin bows with a charming smile dancing on his lips.

“I’m Kim Jongin. I’m here for my timetable, my student record, my uni’ pass and other stuff.” Jongin practically beams at them.

“O-Of course! Welcome to Seoul University!” The girl beckons him over.

Jongin walks closer towards the table, his bag hanging off of one of his shoulder bouncing on the side of his waist. Jongin smiles and nods along as the girl points and explains to him his timetable, and the form for his student record. She hands him a card, along with a lanyard clipped onto a cardholder, the words Seoul University embroidered onto it rather prettily. She then hands him a hoodie, sponsored by none other than Seoul University. The design wasn’t bad at all and Jongin found it rather pleasing to the eye. He smiles in satisfaction as he examines the piece of clothing in his hands right there and then.

“You don’t have to worry so much. I’m sure a guy like you could even pull off a trash bag.” Jongin whips around to that comment, and it took him by a lot of surprise that the group of people from before were staring at him so intensely. Jongin’s smile faltered, his expression showing slight confusion. “You have an attractive face, a good body too. You’re the perfect campus heartthrob.”

Jongin finally laughs softly. “No way. I’m not that good-looking.”

“Have you seen yourself in the mirror?”

Yes, I stared at myself for a good half an hour right before heading out to school. Jongin clears his throat, shakes his head while he laughs, denying their compliments. He really doesn’t think he's all that good-looking. He stared at himself not because he was obsessed with the way he looks, but because he was so worried about what people would think of him at first glance. He’s come off as obnoxious, pretentious, and arrogant to a lot of people and he doesn’t want anyone else to think the same.

Jongin moves out of the way to let others have their turn in receiving their official papers of enrollment. After a little while of talking with the group of people, he finds that they were the seniors of the department, and they were there to welcome the new students. Jongin finally bows, excusing himself when one of them points to Jongin where the other new kids of the department were gathered at. He takes light steps towards the other kids, his face loosening up to get ready to smile bright. In his head, he’s rehearsed his introduction about a thousand times in the past 5 minutes.

He hangs his lanyard around his neck, a photo of him along with his student ID obvious and just right there. Jongin sees them about a few metres away, the colour of their lanyard obvious to indicating they were from Linguistics too. Once Jongin was close enough, they stopped chatting with each other and they simultaneously turned to Jongin. He bows, smiles and he says his name to them. They chorus back different greetings to him. The girls were apparently more cheerful with the way they said hello, and the boys were a little hesitant, like they were either scared or annoyed. Jongin looks at them one by one in quick seconds, before he smiles again.

“Is this all of us?” He asks.

“Nope,” a voice from behind him startles him till great extents.

Jongin’s smile drops for a second, his expression replaced with something of a mixture of confusion, wonder and just nostalgia. He’s heard of that voice somewhere, and though it’s always nice to see a familiar face amongst a sea of strangers, he’s not sure whether to feel so good about it seeing as how his body’s screaming “something’s wrong!”

Jongin turns, sees the guy, and he wants to kill himself right there and then as, in his shock, he mumbles the guy’s name, “Oh Sehun.”

“Oh?” Sehun seems genuinely surprised. “How do you know my name? You read my ID that fast?”

Sehun’s eyes dart down to where his lanyard hangs, swinging a little at every movement Jongin makes. Jongin tries to grab his ID and hide his name but Sehun was faster than that. He freezes and a flash of recognition could be seen in his orbs. Jongin curses himself over and over again.

“Kim Jongin? The Kim Jongin?” Sehun scoffs, or that's what Jongin thinks he hears. 

Jongin’s mood has totally dropped. He looks at the rest of the group and flashes a small smile before he looks back at Sehun almost with a pleading look in his eyes. Sehun laughs at that. The audacity.

“He used to be my classmate in Middle school and High school.” Sehun bows to the others, introducing himself before getting back to Jongin, saying, “he was... a friend."

“Why do you sound disappointed?" One of them asks. “He is so good-looking! How can your reaction be so dull?"

“Him? Good-looking..." Sehun gives Jongin a whole onceover, and the latter's quite uncomfortable with that. Sehun lets a small laugh out and drapes an arm around Jongin’s shoulder, tugging Jongin towards him as a friendly gesture. “Yeah.”

Jongin laughs along, although a little awkwardly, and he desperately shrugs away from Sehun’s touch. He laughs when the others give him weird looks. “I need to use the bathroom.” And they nodded, understanding him as they send him off to the toilet with very helpful directions too.

Jongin runs off almost immediately, his hands clenched into fists as he does. Once he’s in one of the more secluded toilets, judging by how it’s located near the side of the building, Jongin sighs. He leans onto the edge of the sink, his hands holding him up. Jongin hangs his head down, his facade gone for now. He wants to disappear. Why must Sehun be there? Out of all the people from his past who he absolutely doesn’t want to see… why must Sehun be the one? And why in Linguistics? He could’ve guessed that Sehun would be the type of person to take something more basic like Medical Science, or Law, maybe even Business. Why? He has so many questions, very little answers, and he sobs in both the trauma and the exhaustion. He’s worked so hard to be able to pay off the rent for his new house. Just because he wanted to get away from his hometown. Why must Sehun be there?

         The next time Jongin joins the group, the Director of the school, Mr. Na, was standing and beaming with pride on stage as he talks about upholding the school name and how he was proud to see that this year was filled with a lot of talented and academically advanced students. Jongin nods his head. He must admit that there were a fair number of students for every department. He slumps in his seat when it didn’t seem like Mr. Na was going to stop talking anytime soon. From his left, Jongin hears someone calling his name. He looks.

“It’s Jongin, right?” The guy, Jongin remembers him as Chanyeol, has a bright and charming smile, accompanied with a set of white teeth.

“Yeah!” Jongin smiles back, just as wide. “And you’re Chanyeol.”

“That’s right.” Chanyeol claps his left shoulder. “The others were talking about going for a round of drinks tonight to break the ice. You coming?”

Going out. Drinks. Jongin wasn’t always fond of being out if it wasn’t needed. He’d rather stay at home and spend quality time with Romeo. Heck, he’d rather watch some sappy straight on TV than go out with a bunch of outgoers who may or may not be good people. He knows he should at least spend time with them a little more to tell whether or not they were good people, but he’s just so easily exhausted by socialising. He’s smiled enough today, he’s put enough of a front for the people. Jongin almost frowns, as a habit, but as Chanyeol watches him zone out for a minute, he finally nods. Chanyeol seems really pumped, but he doesn’t do anything about it, just nods enthusiastically.

“Oh, and Sehun would be there too. If you were worrying about anything being too awkward.” Chanyeol gives him a lipped smile and Jongin nods back, awkwardly though.

Sehun. Jongin almost forgot about him. He looks down at his fingers, seeing how they can’t stop shaking. He ignores them, looks up at the Director when he thanks them for listening and finally gets off the stage. The next person to come up was an actress who was an alumna of the school. People were cheering, and Jongin saw how everyone’s just throwing their anxiety and worries to the side for a little while. He claps along with them for the actress, and he decides to do the same. Forget Sehun. Forget not wanting to go out. He’s in a really prestigious school. He’s surrounded by lots of new people who he could just totally start all over again with. He’s seeing an actress in real life, right before his eyes. Yeah, forget Sehun.

Except… how could he? He moved out of that neighbourhood when he found out Sehun was planning to just attend the local university. And now he’s suddenly here? He didn’t know what the literal, genuine, was going on, but he wanted to. He moved so far to just avoid everyone there, and out of all of them, Sehun was the one he’s going to meet every other day? Jongin wants to drag Sehun by the ear and bring him somewhere quiet, and then he wants to beat the out of the guy. But he can’t. Because he’s just a little intimidated by the other guy. How could he not? While he’s really agile and has good reflex, Sehun’s taller and stronger than him. Anyone could tell who’d win in a battle of strength.

Sehun hadn’t always been his favourite person. That was a lie. Back when little Kim Jongin was, well, little, he had a big fat crush on Oh Sehun. Yes, little Kim Jongin isn’t as straight as everyone assumes. You see, Jongin hadn’t always been so smiley and slightly fake with friends. At 15, until the end of his High School career, Jongin was known around the school to be That Arrogant ™. Everyone kind of liked him because of his good looks but a group of kids just didn’t like the way he walked, the way he talked, the way he just breathed. So they became bull