Chapter 1

                                                                                                                                                                                              6:00 am: Mass

“Let us end our morning mass with a last prayer. Please hold on to your neighbor’s hand as we close our eyes and thank the Lord for everything he has given us and thank him for everything he will give us. Almighty and provident Father, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this wonderful thing that has happened to me. It knows it is the result of your goodness toward me, and I pray that I may accept it as I should. In a world filled with many sufferings and sad occasions I am fortunate to be blessed in this way. I offer you my sincere gratitude and promise to remain united with you in good times and in bad. Amen. And now for our morning announcement…”

Yongguk followed his parent’s example as he let go of the man’s hand next to him and slowly sat back down on the wooden benches that sat in a perfectly neat row striping the small chapel that the Bang Family normally attend. Yongguk sighed loudly, loud enough for his mother to hear him and loud enough to get his father’s attention direct at him for a few second before both looked away from their son and to Father Chong. He started to chew his lips as he started to tune out Father Chong’s morning babble, his eyes quickly skimming around the familiar surrounding as he tried to locate his best friend, Himchan, who promise to be here.

Himchan doesn’t usually come to the early morning masses, especially on weekdays, but when he does come it was due to Yongguk consent begging and consent text message on how a ty friend he is for leaving Yongguk, his best friend and wingman, die of boredom alone in a dark ty chapel that he dislike more than anything. So the fact that Himchan agree to come is due to Yongguk doing just that and to be honest, Yongguk didn’t even give a , at least he knew the moment Father Chong dismissed him, he would have someone there to walk beside him as go to school. Anything was better than he getting driven to school after going to church with his parent…anything.

After a while around the small chapel for the fourth time, he shifted his attention back to the front lazily, trying to understand what Father Chong was saying, but after a while of zoning him out, trying to understand what he was trying to say was close to impossible. He blinked once and then twice slowly before letting his eyes drop to his new black sneakers, he started to fidget a bit, it went unnoticed by his mother but didn’t by the man who he held hand with, next to him. He was bored and slightly peeved.

Where was Himchan! The only reason he was ing grinning when he arrive here was because he knew Himchan would be here, but he isn’t! What was the point in ing grinning now? Like what the ?

Maybe he overslept. Doubt it.

He was always on time for everything.

Maybe she forgot? Even if he did, it wasn’t like taking a peek at his phone won’t remind him.

“Are you looking for someone, Yongguk?” teased Yongnam, Yongguk’s older brother of two years, as he chuckled at Yongguk’s pink blush scatter around his cheeks. “Is it a lady friend?”

“Please, I wish” Yongguk responded quickly, making Yongnam nod his head unconvinced with a sly smirk on his face, letting his eyes float back to the front of the chapel. “I am single, you know that, man?” Yongnam moved his eyes back to his little brother before shrugging then moved back closer to his mother, giving Yongguk more space to himself. “When are you going back to college?” he questioned his older brother. This question has been repeated for over a hundred times, every time Yongnam decided to visit his family and the answer was always the same.

“I don’t know. I leave when I want to. I stay as long as I want to.” Yongguk rolled his eyes at the answer. That was expected. And what was the worst part was two days after the questioned is asked, he always left. Yongnam became predictable. “If a lady friend isn’t what you looking for, are you looking for your gay lover?” Yongnam chuckled; watch Yongguk’s pink face turn a shade of white. “Are you gay now, brother? I don’t think Umma and Appa would be happy to hear this.”

“ you!” Yongguk spit out venomously. “I am nothing like those gay fags!” Yongnam laughed loudly, catchy the attention of his parents and people around them, giving him nasty looks. Yongguk looked down away from everyone’s eyes in hopes, they believe he wasn’t part of the conversation, but once you hear “gay fags” and boasting laughter, it’s a reaction to turn to the only teenagers in the chapel. Father Chong was silent, eyeing the two teenagers, counting backwards, assuring that they would be no more interruption before continuing. “We are so going to get it.” Yongnam nodded before ruffling Yongguk’s black hair.

“We probably will.” Yongnam slowly closed his eyes as he hummed, ignoring the rest of the world, as Yongguk swallow deeply as thought over the lame joke, his brother said. That joke was so lame, why even say it? He wasn’t gay. To be honest, he kind of finds all gay guys disgusting. He doesn’t really vocally say it, unless asked, but he thought it was wrong and very weird. He always heard his parents talk about how disgusting it was and he can’t really say they were the one who set this view on it because at those times, he was cool with it.

In his mind his motto was: “If they don’t flirt with me or do anything to me, I have no problem. It’s their life…”

But a year after going into High School, gays started to appear in schools, it got so bad, and they weren’t a minority anymore. That’s when his view changed. That’s when he became very disgusted with it. The sight of seeing two guys exchange spit in such a tough manner, made him gag. Watching them hold hand in such a cute way, made him nervous. And watch them talk about gay , made him want to vomit. To be honest, he has vomit over the idea of being gay, numerous time before, Himchan was there to rub his back and help him out by cursing out the gays. So when his brother made that lame joke about being gay, it made him very angry as well as very sick.

After a while of Father Chong’s talk, the mass finally ended, but both teen failed to notice. Both teen failed to notice, when their parents stood up to say their good bye prayer, both failed to notice when Father Chong dismissed everyone until a strong hand tugged Yongguk orange varsity jacket to get his attention, which he did. Yongguk tilted his head back, letting his head rest on the wooden bench, looking up to only spot his best friend, Himchan with a brown Dunkin Donut tray holding two ice coffee. Himchan had a huge smile on his face the moment; he spotted his best friend’s eyes sparkle with happiness.

“I got ice coffee” Himchan stated as he watched Yongguk hop over the chapel’s wooden bench, than sighed, rolling his eyes as his friend’s stupidity. Couldn’t he be like Yongnam? It wasn’t so hard to walk around the damn bench to him. “Hello Yongnam, I didn’t know you were back in town. Yongguk didn’t inform me, I would’ve gotten you something…”

“Hey, it’s not a problem. I am going to ditch my mother and father soon; I think I am going to eat some real breakfast, yeah?” Yongnam answered in a questioning manner, making Yongguk roll his eyes and snatch his drink out of the tray. Yongguk than eyed the brown bag that Himchan had tucked under his arms. His donut is probably in there. Himchan nodded slowly, looking up at Yongnam with a slight blush on his face, which caused a raise eyebrow from the oldest of three but no one said anything. “So Yongguk, was it Himchan the one you were looking for in church?”

Pulling away his lips away from the straw and eyes away from the brown bag under Himchan arms, he narrowed his eyes. “Yeah actually...” Himchan chuckled, pulling out Yongguk’s jelly donut as they approach Mrs. Bang and Mr. Bang who were talking to each other in a hush tone, Mrs. Bang face painted in a new shade of pink, that to wandering eyes made them coo in cuteness. “Where were you? I thought you were going to be in mass?”

“I was going to be, but my mom needed some help. So I decided to go help her. I bought this as my apology gift. Am I forgiven?” Himchan questioned as Yongguk snatched the donut and grin at his best friend, which meant, he was forgiven. There was never a doubt in his mind through. He watched Yongguk eat his donut happily, then he slowly turn to smile up at his best friend’s parent with a huge grin. The best fakest one that he could come up with, than bowed down at his parent, counting back from 5, taking even size breath before tilting his head. “Good morning, Mrs. Bang and Mr. Bang.” His tone was sugary sweet, making Mrs. Bang gush over Himchan and started chatting up the boy as she pulled her youngest son over and fix his sloppy black hair.

Here the truth: Himchan hated Yongguk parents. They were overbearing. They were overprotective. They were overly religious. They were too practical people, dreams doesn’t exist, only reality. And they were homophobic.

Yongguk was homophobic too, but he couldn’t come around in hating the boy, he couldn’t bring to call the boy “judgmental ”. At first, Himchan thought it was a crush. But after a while of being Yongguk’s right hand man, he found out, that wasn’t the case. He found Yongguk attractive, but looks could only take you so far. So here he was in life: wondering why he can’t come around to dislike Yongguk, wondering why he tolerated the gay bashing abuse from the Bang family, and wondering when it was the right time to come out to Yongguk.

Yeah! Himchan Kim was gay! He damn well knew it.

“Himchan, let’s go. I am tired of listening to this bull,” Yongguk mumbled to Himchan, who snapped back to reality quickly, noticing that Mrs. Bang moved on to Yongnam. Yongnam nodding at his mother every few second, when did she stop talking to him? Have she notice the dislike? Have she notice the lack of interested? Was he rude? Yongguk tugged Himchan baggy sweater and without a good bye to his family, he started to head to school with Himchan trailing right behind him, occasionally Yongguk sipped on his coffee which created some noise but truthfully, the walk was very silent. “You okay, man? You seem pretty off today.”

“Me? I am fine. Just didn’t sleep properly,” Himchan lied easily, catching up to his friend, who was nodding slowly at Himchan answer before taking another sip of his drink. “Yongguk, I have a small question.” Yongguk turn to him before letting his nose twitch and nod his head, telling Himchan to go right ahead with the question. “What would you do…?” Himchan paused as he started to nibble his lips and quickly wrap his lips around the straw of his drink, in hopes Yongguk won’t rush him like he always did. Yongguk raised his eyebrow. Weirdo. The question that rang through his head was: What would you do if I ever told you, you don’t know everything about me…you think you do, but you don’t. But when he pulled his lips away from the straw and open his mouth to spit out the question, he instead spit out, “What would you do if you don’t graduate?”

“Excuse me?” Yongguk questioned with shock. Okay! He admits, he doesn’t get the best grade, but he passes his class. Okay! He admits, he doesn’t do much community services, but he did a few hours, it’s not like he didn’t try. And Okay! He admits, he didn’t join any club or team, but he had reasons for that! Clubs weren’t his thing and he sports was just lame, he was good at soccer but it’s not like they need him. So it wasn’t his fault, he looked kind of boring and bleak in college’s eyes and maybe high school’s eyes. But he was going to graduate, right?

“Well, you are barely passing.” Yongguk hummed. “You always barely pass. You are lazy. You don’t even join a club or team. Plus, last week, you got into a fight with Mr. Lee because you refuse to take a math test. How can you refuse to take a math test? You are the student!”

“Because he is ing stupid, we already took the test the day before! Why do we need to take another? that ! Fail me if he wants, I am not going to be his ing monkey! Not to mention that , doesn’t even teach properly, I don’t even know what the lesson was even about!” Himchan nodded, listening to his friend, patting his back with his free hand. Yongguk huffed before taking a sip of his cold drink and growl under his breath. “Motherer gave me detention too!”

“Which you ditched,” Himchan reminded him.

“I’ll gladly do it again. If I ever return to his class” Yongguk vowed as he trashed his drink, when they pass by the school gate trash can. Before Yongguk stepped on the campus ground, Yongguk quickly step aside to lean against a wall that guide the gate in place and pulled out a cigarette and held it to Himchan. “Light me?” He pouted making Himchan roll his eyes and pulled out his lighter, which he never used, but kept it in case Yongguk needed to release some stress. Once the cigarette was light, Yongguk placed it in his lips and release the smoke from the corner of his mouth.

“You are going to fail and not graduate, if you keep ditching!” Himchan reminded once more, watch Yongguk release smoke from his mouth. He didn’t like Yongguk, he knows this, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly , watching Yongguk look so cool and hot like he does now. Yongguk groan, letting his head fall back against the stone wall behind him, looking up at the blue eyes above him. “Sometimes, you need to stop being so stubborn.” Yongguk closed his eyes; he felted his left hand tremble out of frustration. “Maybe it’s time you meet the school counselor. She should tell you, what you’re standing when it comes to graduating and when it comes to college. She’ll help you. She is really nice…she helps me out…”

But not with college and school related things…more…about that Himchan was gay.

“We have a school counselor? When did this happen? When did she get hired? Why wasn’t I aware of this?” Yongguk asked quickly, his left hand quickly grabbing the stick in his finger, giving his left hand something to do; hopefully it would stop the shaking. Himchan broke into a laughing fit, “We always had one! For our whole high school experiences! She was hired way before we came here, dumb ! You weren’t aware of this because you don’t listen to that doesn’t involve you!” Yongguk gasped before breaking into laugh. After a while of standing in front of gate, Himchan eyed every student that walked into the entrances, trying to place a name with the face.

Niel Ahn: Big Lips…Straight…

Yoon Bora: Pretty…Sleeping with C.A.P.

C.A.P: Niel’s personal bully…Sleeping with Bora…

Jessica Jung: Spoiled rich …Sleeping with anyone…with money.

Zico Woo: Complete …he sleeps with anything…Zelo’s personal bully.

“Do you honestly think I will be able to graduate, Channie?” Himchan snap his attention back to his best friend the moment he heard his pet name being said, he eyes warmed up as he eyed his worried friend before nodding his head in encouragement. “I don’t think I will.”

“Stop being so worried, Gukkie! You will graduate and you will be in a great college and you will be happy. You just got to stop being so hard headed and get the help you need!” Himchan encourage with a smile. Yongguk huffed before dropping his stick on the ground before smashing it with his feet. “Just promise me you will visit Mrs. Lee?”

“I promise.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                   7:00 am: Campus.

Please review.  Please tell me what you think and I apologize for my ty grammar but I still hope you enjoy it; this was my first fanfiction and I really enjoying writing it. Due to my lack of anything around here, best believe I will be updating quickly. Maybe later on today or in few days. Please review.