Long weekend ends, returning Wonwoo’s life back into its regular pace. Wonwoo slowly but surely falls back to his daily routine, which includes resumed school at its finest.

Wonwoo’s got different class from all of his close friends during first period, means he’s alone for the time being, not like he really minds. With much respect and love for the company of his friends, he can’t help but sometimes feels that he loves the company of himself most. He enjoys his peaceful time alone, when his world winds down from his friends’ energetic antics he can never get used to.

After greeting a couple of casual friends he passed by, Wonwoo finally reaches his seat. His prime seat- by the window two seats from the back, is forever the best spot for him. No matter how many people criticize him for making his eyes suffer even more. Wonwoo sits himself down and processes to drop his bag. Usually Wonwoo kills time before bell by reading a random book he packed from home, but today he doesn’t bring one, switching to his other favorite past time, observing.

Wonwoo likes to watch the world from behind his round glasses. He likes seeing people interact; each scene reveals in front of his eyes, each story unveils truth without him in the frame. He likes observing people’s gestures, people’s expressions, and he will make a story for each and every one of them, analyzing their backstory, and most times making up hypothesis of them for his own amusement. He compares his hobby as watching television through glasses, but it’s even better as everything unfolds live.

He watches more students pour in. One student that usually looks prim and proper, with neatly curled hair and ironed skirt shows up a little bit late, her curls absent. Wonwoo wonders why, and upon further inspection he finds out that she’s trying out a simpler hairstyle- a sleek natural look where her hair is just flat-ironed naturally, giving an impression she doesn’t try even if she does. Most people would deduce her as running late, but Wonwoo is  critical observer.

Just when Wonwoo thought his blissful life wouldn’t get any better, a loud thud slams violently on his table.

Wonwoo tears his empty stare at the girl with a click of his tongue. What kind of student is this rude seriously? He understands if he wants to call Wonwoo for something, just why get violent? He can just do it nicely, takes less time and energy, and definitely not disrupting Wonwoo’s peace.

Irritated Wonwoo looks up to the person hovering above him with dark eyes, and is met with the one and only, Kim Mingyu.

For a moment all Mingyu does is stare at Wonwoo’s eyes. At that day, it took everything under the dim lightning, and heavy clouds of alcohol to make out Wonwoo’s face, yet still it looked blurry, and it didn’t help Mingyu at all as he still didn’t have any sort of recollection of who Wonwoo is even when he is sure he had seen Wonwoo at school before- like an unnamed figurant walking behind the main character, there, seen before, but nugu. If not for the school hoodie from their trip last year as freshman that clung to Wonwoo’s thin frame, Mingyu wouldn’t dare to call Wonwoo his schoolmate.

Today, under the rays of bright sunshine storming into the room, and a light head with no trace of alcohol in his system, Mingyu immediately gets why he had trouble.

Wonwoo didn’t wear glasses. Three days ago- even under the heavy influence of alcohol- Mingyu swore he would’ve remembered someone so good looking, even if he didn’t know him personally he would seriously try to get his name into his brain. The boy he met that night was close to Adonis, with sharp eyebrows that looked almost too real to be natural Mingyu feared they were shaped with equally sharp eyes that reflect the night sky, illuminated with stars that came down and graced his eyes with twinkles. Even under the poor lighting of a lone street lamp outside the alley, Mingyu could make out how high his nose bridge went, creating a sharp profile along with the elegant angle of his v-shaped jaw.

But most importantly Mingyu liked his lips the most: the lower thicker than the upper in the pretty shade of vermillion Mingyu could proudly say they were the reddest pair of lips he had seen on a boy’s face. Mingyu would accuse the boy of wearing some sort of tinted lip balm if not for his evident chapped lips. Well, it’s not like Mingyu minds, if anything his lips looked good contrasting with his snow-white porcelain complexion.

Wonwoo of three days ago looked distant, like a magical, majestic creature high above the sky. Ethereal, untouchable, yet vulnerable, a being out of mortals’ league Mingyu didn’t dare to touch, afraid his hands could taint him.

Yet today, Wonwoo looked, plain. With his round glasses sitting on his nose, they hide everything Wonwoo’s face could offer, thus making Wonwoo’s face close to Mingyu’s grasps, making him immediately recognize-able as Jeon Wonwoo of Class 2-1, Resident Almost-Unheard-of Bookworm, The Only Top 10 Kid That is Part of Soonyoung’s Gang. Now this Wonwoo is the Wonwoo Mingyu’s familiar with. He has known his face since middle school after all. How could he forget his face yesterday just for the absence of glasses? Because he had seen Wonwoo without those, and that was during the first year of middle school, if Mingyu recalled right.

Oh, yeah stupid Mingyu. All those years ago, puberty hadn’t hit Wonwoo like a ing fire truck.

“What do you want?” Wonwoo opens his mouth, and this just confirms the both of them, the boy of three days ago and Wonwoo is indeed the same person. Before their meeting in Changwon, Mingyu had never heard Wonwoo’s voice, and he is still not used to its deepness.

Mingyu blinks. For a split second, he forgets why he storms into a classroom not of his own, all alone, none of his ‘popular friends’ in sight. Mingyu set his eyes cold, as he glared down Wonwoo’s eyes intently. As what Mingyu had expected of his glare, capable of shaking even the biggest, baddest school bullies, Wonwoo shy-ed away almost immediately. But nothing sort of ducking down like what he did yesterday, Wonwoo just side-glanced.

“What were you doing yesterday?” Mingyu snarls, but sounds more like a venomous hiss Mingyu never intended it to be. He just wanted to come as scary and feared.

“I should be asking you that. Changwon is my hometown after all.”

Mingyu runs a frustrated hand on his hair. He originally thought Wonwoo- by his face and his description of a studious bookworm- as a docile, lamb type that would cower away in fear, but boy he was wrong. But as Mingyu thought of it more thoroughly, Wonwoo is never part of his Percentage of Kids I Have Bullied, and with Wonwoo inside Soonyoung- Han Public School’s taekwondo captain, total chatterbox, the social butterfly’s circle of friends along with his own established solid ring, that already speaks for itself. He shouldn’t have underestimated Wonwoo by thinking of him so lowly.

Well besides, back to the topic. What is the purpose of him coming here? Take a deep breath, and now he remembers, it’s because he said yesterday it was okay to tell everybody else, but he was a drunk mess back then, and his sober self is still rational enough not to do that. He doesn’t want to deal with all the expelling thingy.

But, Wonwoo for sure said he wouldn’t open his secret to anyone else, and the fact he hadn’t received any warning letters is enough to tell Wonwoo is a man of his words. Mingyu convinces himself it’s just for reassurance, so that he can make sure Wonwoo, a somewhat stranger but not so much to his life, won’t chicken out (but in all honesty, it’s just Mingyu being curious. Mingyu being interested in a specimen called Wonwoo that reacted to his shoes out of everything wrong that day).

“Well, even if it’s your hometown, what were you doing at two AM?”

“I should be asking you the same. You’re three hours away from Seoul at two AM.”

Okay, Wonwoo got him good there. Mingyu’s usually good with comebacks and somehow being with Wonwoo is suffocating his pride. He just can’t get why he is so flustered with Wonwoo, maybe his dead-fish eyes that scream nothing of his personal input. Wonwoo’s gazes lack personality, and it scares Mingyu how high he sets his walls so that his real self is not just for anyone to see.

If only Wonwoo is that type, Mingyu would’ve threatened him immediately, dragging his collar up high so that his shoes leave the ground. But Mingyu knows he can’t do that. Behind that soft looking eyes of Wonwoo, lies something unshakable, something that will not cower away at Mingyu’s threats. The seemingly fragile looking male in front of him is actually much more than he looks.

For a second, Mingyu feels challenged, almost fear, maybe? Something that he hasn’t felt in a while, heck Mingyu hasn’t actually felt as in how human beings are supposed to. It feels oddly good. He knows Wonwoo is superior at the moment, and there’s no way Mingyu can win this unnamed game. Wonwoo really is full of surprises. Mingyu could only clench his fist as he desperately thinks of a response.

Sensing Mingyu’s struggles, Wonwoo waves a hand in dismissal, “Chill, I won’t pry.”

Mingyu just can’t believe his ears.

Wonwoo is very very interesting.

Without any words, Mingyu drags the chair in front of Wonwoo’s desk hastily and sits his there. Rational Mingyu would’ve just walked away at the moment, because who the hell is Wonwoo? They barely talk, and it’s just their second meeting. But again Wonwoo is just that interesting Mingyu decides to play along. Wonwoo is warped, with many layers, and Mingyu has a sudden urge that wants to be the exclusive being to understand each one of it.

“Are you sure this is not for some sort of blackmail material?”

“No, geez. If you think so, you can just go away.”

“ no, that’s not what I mean. I mean, are you really, really serious? You’ve got the golden opportunity to plummet me-“

Mingyu’s words are stopped with a slender, long, extremely pale index finger two inches in front of his lips, which belongs to Wonwoo.

“Your circumstances or how other people view you should not change how I treat you. I’m against smoking, but I’m more against breaking promises.”

It has been a while since a simple sentence shook Mingyu’s heart in an intangible, surreal, abstract way. There is no judgment in Wonwoo’s tone, just pure understanding that is very inviting. Wonwoo is one hell of a person, where every of his reaction differs greatly to what he expected people to. Most of his acquaintances know that he’s quite the druggie. Some of his popular friends god-fy him for doing the rebellious act, praising him as ‘brave’, ‘real man’ and sort of stuff he kind of likes at first, but bored out later. A few even follows him into the act, with no motives except just to follow him, Mingyu suspects to get recognition.

To be honest he doesn’t care. He makes friends with lots of calculation, from their connections, their abilities, their positions, and a little bit of their personality. Following him into the haze of drugged world doesn’t mean they automatically qualify as Mingyu’s friends. (He tries not to look so obvious, but deep down he knows he’s despised by many friend-at-front-enemy-from-back friends for this fact.)

Some had a negative reaction, their gaze immediately changed to one of disgust towards Mingyu after knowing the fact. A few of this part remained in contact with him, but there’s a different undertone in their relationship. An even fewer people of this part end contact with him immediately. Again, Mingyu can’t care less. Most of this side belongs to the conservative ones and also means they are the friend-at-front-enemy-from-back friends.

Wonwoo, so far is the only one with the most interesting reaction. Mingyu doesn’t know Wonwoo enough to deduce that the honesty he displays is truthful or not.

But something in Wonwoo is like a forceful magnetic field pulling Mingyu to no point of turning away. There’s a feeling Mingyu can’t shake off, the feeling of doing something right, even better than when he stands on the altar pressing his sweaty palms together behind the pastor.

Even better, Wonwoo smiles at him reassuringly. All his cold features from three days ago melt away, replaced by a look of pure innocence and warmth. Wonwoo has his lips up in a small knot of smile that despite being small, can light up the whole room with its brilliance. His nose is scrunched a bit, and his eyes seem to twinkle with more stars than before- visible even behind the rims of his glasses.

“Want some mint?” Wonwoo shoves a tin box of peppermint candies towards Mingyu in minimum movements, “your breath stinks horribly, better cover that up.”

Mingyu takes the mint from Wonwoo’s hand as he decides, he likes Wonwoo’s smile. Heck, he would blame it for causing him diabetes.

Still, if possible he wants to put it in a box, pocket it and forever immortalize it for his eyes to remember another eternity.

a/n: wow this is rushed but again thanks for reading :)