Youngjae has been pretending that the names don't hurt, and that he is fine... but under the surface cracks are beginning to show, and with the addition of other life stresses to cope with, he begins sinking...
A massive thank you to Astrumhuhh @ Phantasia Land for the beautiful posters (they will alternate)
This is an entry for the P R E C I O U S| Writing Contest following the prompt of How terrible it is to love something, or someone, that death can touch.
Prologue
Youngjae, was five when the teasing started. He was bigger than most, puppy fat, his mother called it, promising that he would lose it as he got older. Youngjae would eat his packed lunch alone, on a table all by himself while the other kids laughed and . Sometimes they'd steal his food, saying it was good for him to avoid eating. Youngjae hated those days, he would run into the bathrooms at school, lock himself in a cubicle and cry until lunch was over. Youngjae would then wipe his eyes, pick up his head and walk back to class like nothing had happened. Youngjae was top of the class and chose often to read a book rather than to find himself company with any of the other kids. Not that they allowed him to play with them. 'No fatties allowed' he'd been told too many times to bother trying to play any more.
It got worse when they had sports, even 5 year olds need to run around. Youngjae wasn't unfit, but changing with the others was difficult for him. The other kids would make fun of his slightly bigger tummy. At first Youngjae used to try and fight back, but they had a point, he did have a bigger tummy than they did, but it was puppy fat. He knew it would go as he got older and it meant he was going to be tall. Right? Well that's what his mom had always told him. Youngjae didn't over-eat, at all, his mother was very careful with how she fed him. He hardly ate sweets and other treats and had a diet of generally healthy foods, so there wasn't really a way that Youngjae's weight could have been inflicted. Some boys are just born naturally bigger.
"He's a lovely boy" The teachers would tell Youngjae's parents on parent's evening "but he doesn't really have many friends." Youngjae's parents would always nod and agree and then go home and try to encourage Youngjae to make friends. Youngjae wouldn't, he couldn't talk to the others without being called fat. He didn't want to tell his parents that he spent most lunch times crying in the toilets, or that he lied about being sick to avoid sports.
Youngjae got older, and when he was 15 the family moved to a new city. Youngjae was happy, maybe this fresh start could help him. Maybe he could make friends. On the first day Youngjae walked into the class and sat down after being introduced, the boy sitting next to him smiled and introduced himself. "Jung Daehyun", they shook hands and began talking after the lesson, and soon enough they became friends. Youngjae felt an explosion of happiness run through him as his friendship with Daehyun was established, his first real friend. Daehyun never mentioned Youngjae's weight, most likely because Daehyun didn't care. Daehyun wasn't popular, but he wasn't unpopular so Youngjae found that through Daehyun he made four other friends, two in the class above, Youngguk and Himchan and two in the class below, Jongup and Zelo.
Youngjae felt comfortable with his new friends, his weight was no longer an issue, but in the back of his mind all he could think of were the comments from before, from when he was younger. The comments he'd never talked about to anyone. Youngjae would face the wall when he changed for sports to prevent anyone from seeing his stomach. When he stopped over at Daehyun's or one of the others houses he would change in the bathroom and never with the rest of them. At first the others wondered why he did it, but after a while it just became normal for Youngjae to change separately.
Currently, At the age of 17 he still attends school with Daehyun, Jongup and Zelo. Himchan and Yongguk have left school, Himchan went to university and Youngguk settled down with his girlfriend to sell the rest of his life away to being a teen parent. Youngjae still avoids mentioning his weight or his old friends with the others and is still very shy with new people. A new kid joined school and began dominating the social standing of the school quickly rising to being top dog. After unbalancing the social standing of the school, everyone is holding their breath to see what he will do next. Youngjae included.
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