The day has been particularly blue. Light storm drenches the city of Seoul this afternoon, coating the busy metropolitan streets with umbrellas in different sizes and colors for people to shield under. Petrichor gladly wafts through air, travelling through the space between windows, lacing through absent-minded conversations, through clamorous chatterings shared over wooden desks, and straight into Mingyu’s respiratory organs.

Mingyu takes in the smell as he watches drizzles of rain etch themselves to the cold surface of the window, creating a dotted show of water droplets trickling down, meshing into iridescent blobs of reflected sunlight.

As if in trance, Mingyu watches. Watches how each droplet collides with another, hand in hand building up different patterns.

Mingyu wants to touch them, bend them into whatever shape he has in mind. He wants to feel the consistency of water. How will it feel under his touch? Is water actually a substance as flow-y as it looks? He wants to grasp water, to find some kind of concrete understanding in something so abstract. Maybe if he is able to do that, he’ll also find happiness.

“ing Kim Mingyu. Did you listen to anything?”

A loud nasal voice interrupts Mingyu’s trance, revealing Heejun with his propped comfortably on MIngyu’s desk. Heejun is his basketball teammate with unruly hair that goes uncut no matter how many times teachers nag him to do so. He sports a bright pink cap worn backward on his head and multicolored wristbands on his wrists- fashion items that describe Heejun perfectly, loud and obnoxious.

He may be a try-hard most of the time, heck even in Mingyu’s opinion he is a try-hard in every aspect of his life, but he’s still tolerable. The only reason Mingyu reached out for him first, is because he’s got a real nice place. Mingyu and a couple of other friends often crash over Heejun’s place to raid his extensive collection of video games, all while munching his housemaid’s delicious homemade garlic bread after a round of basketball game in Heejun’s court.

Setting aside his huge crib, Heejun is also ing smart if he puts his brain to work. Heejun is one of the rare people that can cope with Mingyu’s advanced physics brain and therefore he is quite a cool guy to hang out with. Mingyu finds more of his quirky, smart side with each passing time. Sometimes he fawns over Mingyu a little bit too over the top, wow-ing over Mingyu’s cigarettes each time Mingyu opens one in the comfort of his outdoor garden- every single time. But so far, Heejun’s okay. Mingyu makes friends with crazy calculations, and he’s brutally honest about it. When he feels some are parasites bringing inconvenience to his life, he’ll get rid of them immediately. The fact that Mingyu still keeps Heejun around means his beneficial qualities still hold more value than his boastings.

But today, Mingyu is just not in the mood for any bull. Not because it’s coming from Heejun’s mouth, but just any form of bull.

“Heejun, I’m not in the mood.”

Mingyu mutters a quick rejection which sends Heejun deflating almost animatedly before resuming his talk with the others. Mingyu feels a little sorry, but really he is not in the mood. It has been like this for a few days, Mingyu would sit together with his group of friends, his body there but his mind somewhere else.

Mingyu swore he used to be expressive, bursting with emotions but somewhere within the end of middle school, he kind of just went stale. Mingyu at the moment feels like a gigantic 185 cms lump of apathy with no flavor at all. He has lost his purpose, his days passing by just like that. All he feels is nothing but boredom. School routine bores him, his friends bore him, his parents bore him. So that out of boredom he wrecks havoc, making mess in every way possible, drowning in every kind of narcotic available. Mingyu is honest to say that he hasn’t felt like how human beings supposed to in the longest time.

But then Wonwoo came along, and in that small moment of encounter, Mingyu felt alive.

But after that Wonwoo also passed by as quick as he came along.

And at that moment Mingyu lost the breath of life their encounter had given. It’s not like Mingyu doesn’t want to meet Wonwoo again. Mingyu is just too prideful to admit that he likes Wonwoo’s presence that two weeks have passed and Mingyu didn’t reach out at all.

A little of Mingyu’s Painfully Rational but ing Prideful persona refuses to reach out for Wonwoo, because he is not within his perimeter. Jeon Wonwoo is not a friend-worthy material. He doesn’t have what it takes to become Kim Mingyu’s friend, not even within his radar.

But the little heart of his, that is full of impulse and whim speaks differently. “Hey, Wonwoo’s so interesting, why don’t you give him a shot? Who knows maybe he can offer you happiness that you’ve been looking all these years?”

Mingyu’s given no time to further pry into his web of thoughts as a loud thud resounds through the classroom, this time coming from a book spine hit forcefully on wood.

“Silence class!” Mr. Park, their Biology teacher with a button nose and round tummy slams his oh so thick textbook numerous times on the desk, an attempt to calm the students down. Despite being fun-sized, the students silence almost immediately. No one wants to wake up the ferocious giant sleeping within him, not even Mingyu. One time Mingyu did test the water by pulling a small prank of writing the answer on the upper left corner of the whiteboard, where Mingyu was sure the teacher couldn’t reach and boy he got rekted. Mr. Park asked Mingyu to write the same thing in every corner of the whiteboard, which some were either behind the class’s cupboard or too far beyond Mingyu’s head he needed to climb up a chair to do it.

After the class recites their greetings, Mr. Park sets down his stuffs, leaving a single sheet of paper in his hand which Mingyu recognizes as the sheet that contains all their names.

“Today I’m going to give you a very important assignment. This assignment will be one of your biggest projects as sophomores. Remember the topic that we went through last week? The project will be about that. Later today, I will email the details.”

Cue for students’ groan, mostly in womanly higher pitch as this means the project will be messy. Last week Mingyu’s class had studied about anatomy which calls for dissecting.

Hearing the groans resonating through the classroom, Mr. Park continues, “Calm down students. The good thing is, I’m going to put you in pairs.”

One of the things that Mingyu noted in the span of his time being Mr. Park’s student is that he tends to reveal the good stuff first and the bad news later. Mingyu knows that this assignment, despite being already bad, is not on the bad side yet.

“Anyway, I want to tell you that Ms. Kang that teaches biology next class is on maternity leave, meaning I’m also in charge of Class 2-1 for the time being.” He pauses and continues, “To spice things up, I’m going to pair everyone from this class with someone else from class 2-1.”

This time, the groans are even louder than before. Some are even start standing up shouting their disagreement. If Mingyu is more lifted, he would be in that group, but good thing today he’s just not up for anything.

“For God’s sake. It’s not like they’re going to eat you or anything.” Mr. Park crosses his arms in front of his chest as more and more students pour in front of his desk.

“Sir! Is it okay to change partners?” One of the students raises his hands, asking the hot question some have voiced.

Mr. Park glances sideways in a thinking motion before nodding towards the boy, “Yes, it’s okay. With both parties’ concern, you can always switch partners. Just make sure in each group has one from 2-2 and one from 2-1.”

Mr. Park then ushers the groaning teens into their seats and proceed to read the students’ designated pairs.

“…Kim Mingyu, Xu Minghao, and then…”

The three foreign syllables of Xu, Ming, Hao enter and exit Mingyu’s ears effortlessly. He knows Xu Minghao doesn’t sound Korean, and that’s the only thing he knows about the name. He has never heard of this Xu guy, let alone seen his face. Mingyu is okay with working with strangers, as long as they are beneficial. So this Chinese guy better be some dissecting genius.

Mingyu is still trying to pronounce Xu in his head without it sounding funny when Heejun’s unnecessarily loud “!” invades his hearings.

“Shut the trap drama queen.” Mingyu hits the back of Heejun’s head that is sitting in front of him with minimum force, but still too forceful to be called joking. Mingyu doesn’t intend it to come that hard, but he just can’t help it.

“How can I not shut the trap, Kim Mingyu? I don’t even know who I’m paired with.” Heejun dramatically rips his snapback from his head. “I mean, who the is Jeon Wonwoo?”

Mingyu rolls his eyes. At least the name is still Korean. But quickly ogles his eyes a little when he realizes he recognizes the name those three syllables create.

“Jeon Wonwoo?” Mingyu hopes he doesn’t perk like an overexcited dog.

“You know him, Mingyu?”

“Kinda.”

Heejun gives him a look. For The Mingyu to actually bother knowing Jeon Wonwoo, something’s suspicious. At the sight of Heejun’s raised eyebrow, Rational Mingyu is one egotistical that this is one of the reasons why Rational Mingyu stops Mingyu from getting to know Wonwoo. Mingyu flicks his tongue in distaste, “went to the same middle school.”

Heejun’s expression relaxes immediately and Mingyu doesn’t know why he lets go a relieved exhale.

“I hope he’s cool.” Heejun pouts a little.

Mingyu wants to vouch for the fact, Yes, Wonwoo is cool. But it would just be plain weird as if he is some sort of an overprotective PTA mother. He wants to input that he is cool but then is struck down with the fact dude I have just literally spoken twice with him.

Suddenly the image of him and Wonwoo working in a lab together looks entertaining. He likes the thought of having to meet Wonwoo. Wonwoo’s cool, got really nice teeth and a very refreshing smile. Mingyu’s all green light to explore more of Wonwoo.

His rational side is screaming big NO to the thought, but it. It’s about time Mingyu accepts that he wants to get to know the intriguingly interesting Wonwoo with his deep voice, tousled raven hair, and most of all, a mind of elusively vast wonders.

Mingyu’s rational side may be loud, beating and thrumming vigorously in his brain, but Mingyu swears almost every decision he made in his life ended up made out of impulse, by the little heart of his with voice close to whispers.

Just like this one, he just does what he has to.

“Hey Heejun, wanna exchange?”

a/n: thank you for 88 subbies <33 thank you for the upvotes too <33 they mean so much <333 i guess starting from this point I won't update as frequently hahaha. I still have troubles in defining each character so in the future there may be some edits here and there :33 wow talk about incompetency. Anywaysss thank you so much for reading <33