tw: a lot of profanities (or at least much more compared to previous chapters), mention of , slobby writing and bad setting. 

Mingyu had always known Wonwoo was going to be different. Not cool different, but rather abnormal different, in which he didn't quite seem like the type who would fit in the social ladder or even care much about hierarchy.

But to his surprise, Wonwoo melded into the mold society made quite professionally, like just another wad of wax stuck onto a candle. He had friends, despite his prioritisation with education over slacking around, and was blessed with a face that allured the women.

After everything, Mingyu pondered, after every single effort made to climb up to wherever Wonwoo was on the social pyramid, it was astounding to think why his best friend would do something like this just to shatter it. If it was him, he thought, he'd never go to these measures, no matter which man or woman he was in love with if it meant they threatened his status. You could call him shallow, but some people (most, in fact) simply treasured security and stability. 

Security meant both physically and mentally; if you stayed above the lower zones of the social ladder that spelled out 'ill-fated' in red letters you avoided many things, like getting slammed into the lockers and potentially breaking your back. You wouldn't get dragged across the halls by your hair, or get shoved down the staircase, or get your bones broken after having your legs beaten repetitively with a baseball bat.

Mentally meant you don't get your table spray-painted on with a bunch of cuss words and insults like perhaps S-L-U-T or H-A-N-G Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F, or having your textbooks ripped apart by either glitter nails or bulging muscles.

It meant not having to hang your head low as you try hard not to attract attention - any kind, really. It meant knowing you didn't have to go get insurance for the 'accidental' loss of a limb or an eye or a suicidal attempt.

It meant you could chew and bite as widely as you could without having the side of your lip stab at you like prickly salt, reminding you again how worthless your existence was that you had to endure several weeks of a bruised cheek.

It meant you didn't have to accept that inevitable (only for the worthless) challenge of seeing how you can survive school with its many kings and queens and still end up with a scholarship or even a ticket to college.

If you make it out alive, with no university appalled to take you, then you pass, barely, or what we call a pyrrhic victory. At least you had a future, they'd say, so enjoy it while the rest of us ruin the others' lives.

If you don't make it, with every school disposing of your application despite your academic results, then you fail, utterly, or what we call the plummet into depression, a disease you'd likely never recover from. 

Stability meant mainly your mental wellbeing; that you feel happy, even if it was insincere, and you don't need your mother threatening to take you to the mental ward.

It meant you knew you were in that circle that treated the pretty and the ugly differently, safe and sound from the dangers outside your privileges.

It meant you didn't come home, slumping down to the floor as if you just needed a black hole to come and completely erase yourself, like you weren't already non-existential.

It meant you didn't look at good food and refuse it, because no one would be there to share it, or encourage you to eat, and you sat on a table alone, surrounded by the blasted din you hoped would go to hell.

It meant it wasn't hard to breathe in a room of children who have lived the same number of years, but act as if they've already conquered the throne, sitting like they held power to completely destroy you by making you take that one step off on the roof. 

And Mingyu knew, he knew what Wonwoo tried to tell him, that things could be better.

But he played it out in his head and all he could see was reality being a , like when last time the waves acted against the town and converged to become a huge wall towering over them, washing out everything they'd built. It wasn't hard for a king to kill a peasant, no matter how innocent the peasant could plea. 

Of course, not all the world's a callow fly; people know to leave others alone, to do what they want and feel free to do it wherever and whenever. Mingyu's most affrighted of them, however, because they'll eventually be the people simply protecting themselves. Which isn't a terrible thing, sure, for you prioritise yourself at all cost, but sometimes sitting around weighs the same crime as being the one executing the murder.

He closed his eyes and that's the first thing he sees, all up in his face, the shape of a human head with facial features - expressionless as can be, almost like mannequins or vintage dolls.

The best part (or the worst) was always the eyes - how they looked to you like i'm sorry, man, there's just nothing I can do. They don't move an inch, they don't expect themselves to, but to stare at you like you were the daily meal, fed to royalty.

Being victimised is an archer's bullseye; your demise (or your shot) will be celebrated, an act for many to laugh along or ignore.

It was all he saw, for hours straight, the blank eyes of dead fish reiterating how sorry they were, how they expressed their innermost condolences, how they would help you, but they can't. He abhorred he was one of them: why didn't he do it, the other day?

If it was Wonwoo, he thought more than thrice, he probably wouldn't have helped as well.

And that's what he's scared of.

It was midnight, in nature silence, at twelve something. 

Mingyu's fingers were wrapped around the bottle like a spider wrapped its legs on its prey, and as per normal he gurgled the alcohol every time he took a swig. Like every other occasion, he sat on the bylines, not participative, watching the two hyungs talk about the useless events in their lives, like when Seungcheol bumped into the pink-haired punk (as they called him) and stuttered while apologising, or Soonyoung in an endless chase for a girl who only liked muscular, tattooed gang leaders.

He recalled he said something then, amidst their steady flow of conversation (joined readily by burps and slurs) to confront them about his dilemmas. 

"I don't know what I'm doing." Mingyu said, interrupting in a loud, obstinate voice clearly just to ensure they heard him. 
"What's new?" Seungcheol rebutted, grinning wider as Mingyu's frown deepened. 
Soonyoung continued to chew rhythmically off the donut Mingyu bought for them earlier. "Oh, nice. Should we clap? Do you want us to clap? We'll slow-clap, like when something amazing happens and we're all stunned."

Sarcasm was always obvious for Soonyoung, like acne on a porcelain face. 

Mingyu ignored their comments in plain dismissal and took another swig. "I just... I don't want to lose anything, y'know?"
Both hyungs replied at the same time:
Seungcheol snorted. "So? Just drink it off. You'll wake up and know nothing could be worse than that headache."
Soonyoung smiled bemusedly, raising his eyebrows. "Are you actually asking us for advice?"

He glared at both, held up the bottle in his hands and looked at Seungcheol first, then Soonyoung. "I am, hyung, that's why I'm here. Unfortunately, I'm not a lightweight, like the two of you. 
And yes, I was, but now you've proven yourselves useless again."
"Ouch." Seungcheol pretended to grimace. Seriously, though, why were kids at Mingyu's age so ing tense? 

"You're so stiff, Minwoo, you need to relax a little. It's like you've got something constantly shoved up your ." Soonyoung noted innocently, before epiphany came rushing upon them and Mingyu felt like catapulting the two into oblivion.

Their faces were red from laughter, mocking laughter, almost as if they suddenly understood what Mingyu was so conflicted about. Mingyu glowered at Soonyoung, who still choked from slow recovery of doubling over, and gave them a look that said don't you dare. 
Seungcheol smiled smugly, one that made his fingers curl with the urge to slap him. "You hooked up with Wonwoo, didn't-"
"Yes, yes, but that's not what-"
"So you're takin' it up the-"
"No, for pete's sake, stop asking weird questions."
"So Wonwoo is taking it up the-"
"No, god damnit, we haven't even had yet. Stop asking."
"Then why would you be so screwed over? Is it because he's a tease?"

"Oh god, he won't let the one and only Kim Mingyu have ? Is he part of the celibacy club?"
"Yeah, I thought you were the goddess or something." 
"What? When? I only ever heard he was a jerk who dumped girls by the incinerator." 
"Wait, so when you said you didn't want to lose anything you meant you want to have but he won't let you and you don't want to lose him? Was that it?"

Mingyu groaned. "Stop, will you just stop? No one's a goddess, or part of the celibacy club, or a jerk who dumps girls by the incinerator." 

The two shrugged. "So what is it?"
Mingyu sighed. The three of them were a pitiful sight, no matter from what perspective you viewed them. He didn't exactly have amazing friends at school, but Seungcheol and Soonyoung were great listeners, when they were sober. Anything he said now was going to turn into a colossal joke for them to flip over and over until their insides hurt. What, little Minwoo's in love?

He could already picture the reactions to his worst dilemmas - a bunch of kissy faces and the two of them holding hands, pretending to be he and Wonwoo. He tossed the bottle to a side and flicked his wrist. "It's Saturday, right? Let's go somewhere that's actually for drinking. It'll help even more if someone spiked my drink."

"What, you want to go to one of those shabby parties? It's better here, there's Soonyoung and I." 
"Which is enough," Soonyoung added, winking.
Mingyu rolled his eyes and pulled the both of them up on their feet. "Get up and act like hyungs, for once. Just bring me anywhere."

"God, you're so pushy," Seungcheol groaned, staggering a little.

Mingyu eyed the bag of groceries he'd shopped for before they met (as always, like a tiresome chore) and in it he found two bottles of water, soon to go to waste for the very sake of waking them up a little. "Here," he tossed the bottles to the hyungs, and they did exactly as he ordered them to.

Seungcheol wasn't entirely sober yet, but he definitely was more than those two hours of blabbering his romantic woes and listening to Mingyu's whining. The water he and Soonyoung obediently splashed over themselves under Mingyu's command did a lot to help, and more than he would care to admit. He pressed the doorbell hard, and three times more, like he knew there was no way one measly ding was gonna get anyone's attention in that house.

It was noisy, or a level further than chaos in a room full of reporters questioning politicians who had no idea how to save the country, let alone themselves. Seungcheol hated many things about a party, anywhere in the world. Like the music with the shrill static and the high-pitched voices, or the heat just emanating from a massive swamp of colliding human bodies, like solid particles clumped together in a traffic jam.

He despised it; it was society at its worst, uncontrolled and lusting. He hated how there were these glaring disco lights like in an eighties club that shone on you brighter than the torch he brought to meetings, and PDA that was slobby and , just a ton of bodily fluids swirling in mouths or private parts. He hated that Mingyu wanted to come, or he would never have, because the last time he did he woke up to a lost girlfriend for some and the alcohol. 

It wouldn't be long before a drunk would try to kiss Mingyu in a manner that made him want to vomit, so he swore he'd be the one keeping his eye on the kid at all times, if not for Soo