word count: 2384

The musky scent that roamed around the halls made Kyungsoo sick to his stomach.

It was the first day of school after the Christmas break and Kyungsoo had just transferred here, the rain was dreadful and it hadn’t stopped ever since last night. He begged his mom to take him to school that morning, resulting in him being a little too early, but to his surprise, so were the other students. The scent that lingered in the hallways was a mix of dirt, wet asphalt and sweat. It was disgusting.

Kyungsoo followed the directions to the principal’s office, knocking on the door before letting himself in. The lady behind the counter smiled at him “Ah, You must be the new student. I’ve got your schedule right here.” She rummaged around for a little while and Kyungsoo watched her with a small smile as she pouted her lips. To him, she seemed like an interesting person. Her sleeves were pushed up until right above her wrists and he could spot the presence of a sleeve tattoo.

He glanced up at her face, Thick black kohl surrounding his eyes and bright red lipstick on her lips. She seemed like the type of person to have fun weekends, but he still wondered why she was working as the secretary of the principal.

He snapped out of his daze when the woman suddenly bolted up right again “AHA! Got it.” She said, handing him the paper. “Thank you.” He said, bowing politely. “You’re very welcome, welcome to our school, Mr. Do; I hope that you will have a good time here.” She said before returning to her work once again.

Kyungsoo took a glance at his first class of that day and noticed that he was far from the rooms where he was supposed to be so he started to walk in order to find the right class.

He glanced at the locker keys that he had received earlier and decided that it would be better if he waited until the first lunch break to drop his books off.

He realizes that he had crossed this hallway 3 times when he finally finds his classroom, he sighs and wants to bang his head against a wall for being so stupid, but he refrains from doing so. Instead, he knocks on the door and the teacher lets him in. “Ah, You must be the new student!” His teacher said. He nodded and bowed to her. “Sorry for being late, I couldn’t find the right classroom.” He mumbled the last part of the sentence.

“It’s okay, just make sure that it doesn’t happen anymore, and please introduce yourself to the class.” Kyungsoo nods and turns to face his new classmates. “My name is Do Kyungsoo, Please take good care of me!” He bows and the teacher claps in her hands once. “Good, my name is Mrs. Kim, I’m your homeroom teacher for the duration of the year. I hope that you will have a good time at our school. You may take place next to Baekhyun.”  

Kyungsoo nods and scans the classroom, spotting the only empty seat next to an auburn haired boy who as smiling brightly towards him, so he smiles back and makes his way over to his seat mate.

As soon as he sits himself down, Baekhyun turns to him and extends is hand. “Byun Baekhyun, Nice to meet you.” The boy, Baekhyun, Says. “Do Kyungsoo, Nice to meet you to.” He answers.

The bell rings across the hallway, signaling the end of the first lesson of the day. Kyungsoo sighs and packs his things, noticing that Baekhyun is waiting for him when he stands up straight. “Can I see your schedule? Maybe we have more classes together.” Baekhyun extends his hand and Kyungsoo nods, placing the piece of paper into his hand to let Baekhyun examine it. “Great! We have almost all of our classes together, come on, I’ll show you around while we get to our next class.” Baekhyun lives up to his words and literally drags Kyungsoo with him, showing him where the cafeteria, the gym, the music rooms and their usual classrooms are.

When they arrive at their second class, just in time for the bell, Baekhyun drags Kyungsoo with him to sit next to him, only resulting in having Kyungsoo to introduce himself in front of the class again, Which he would be doing all day because, you know, New guy.

Their second class together is math and their teacher explains the material before ordering them to make a couple assignments, adding that everything that they don’t finish will be homework.

As soon as the teacher turns his back to them, Baekhyun turns to face him. “So Kyungsoo, Why did you transfer to this school?” He asks. “Ah, my mom got a job offer and it required us to move here, so I had to transfer and this school offered me a spot as soon as the news got out.” Kyungsoo answers honestly. “Smart kid then, weren’t you worried about transferring?” Baekhyun plays with the pen in his hand and scribbles a couple of doodles into Kyungsoo’s fresh note book. “I was, Still am, I’m glad that you don’t mind dragging me along all day.” Kyungsoo scratches the back of his neck and laughs nervously. “I don’t mind, you seem like a nice guy. And don’t worry about making friends, I will introduce you to my guys when it’s lunch time, if you’d like of course.” Baekhyun looks up at him after he doodled some kind of symbol into his note book and stares at him with hopeful eyes. “I’d love to.” Kyungsoo answers.

Kyungsoo finishes all the work that was assigned in his math class before the bell rings, with the occasional poke of a pen into his side from Baekhyun because he wants to copy the younger’s answers, Kyungsoo lets him because he doesn’t care and because he thinks that he owes Baekhyun at least that.

When the bell rings, Baekhyun grabs his stuff and almost drags Kyungsoo out of the class room and towards the cafeteria. “Wait! Can we search for my locker first? I really want to drop my books off so that my bag isn’t so heavy.” Baekhyun turns to him and nods, asking him the number of his locker. “Oh! That’s right over there!” Baekhyun points towards the end of the hallway and Kyungsoo follows him over there, opening his locker when he arrives there. He throws some books into it, placing his jacket in there as well and closes his locker, only to be met with Baekhyun with his lips on another male’s. Well that was unexpected.

Baekhyun breaks away from the kiss and punches the taller male on his chest. “Idiot! Don’t sneak up on me like that, next time, I will kick you in the balls.” Baekhyun scolds but the other just laughs. “Euh.” Kyungsoo clears his throat and both males turn to him. “Ah sorry, Kyungsoo, this is Chanyeol, my idiotic boyfriend, Chanyeol this is Kyungsoo he transferred here today, be nice to him.” Baekhyun warns the other. “Hi, Nice to meet you.” Kyungsoo notices that Chanyeol has a bright and toothy smile and he stares a few second before smiling and accepting the hand that Chanyeol had offered him. “Nice to meet you to.”

The two males lead Kyungsoo into the cafeteria and towards their table where six other people are seated, laughing with each other. Baekhyun clears his throat and everyone turns to stare at them “Who’s that?” One of them asks. “This, Jongdae, is Kyungsoo, he transferred here today and he’s going to be my new best friend if you don’t behave.  “Hi.” Kyungsoo raises his hand in a greeting and everyone greets him back. “Kyungsoo, meet Kris, the tall one, taller than Chanyeol here. Next to him is Joonmyeon, He’s class president and smart so if you ever need tutoring he’s your man. Then there’s Luhan and Minseok, they are captain and co-captain of our school’s soccer team. The annoying one is Jongdae, Next to him, the quiet one is Yixing and Next to him is Tao. And you’ve already met Chanyeol.” He motions for Kyungsoo to sit down next to him and he smiles. “Nice to meet you all.” He says. “There’s also Jongin and Sehun, but they have a block of P.E before lunch on Monday so they arrive a little later then all of us.”

“With you in our pack, we make an even number!” Jongdae exclaims when realization hits him. “Is that a good thing?” Kyungsoo answers, raising his brows and Jongdae nods. “Of course!” They make Kyungsoo feel at home in a fast pace. “There you are! What was taking you so long?” Luhan gets up and runs up to a slightly taller boy with blonde hair, kissing him full on the lips. “We had to stay back to run laps, you know how Jongin gets when we play basketball.” The boy answers. “I swear that he was asking for it Oh Sehun, The guy deserved a shove in the back.” The other, dark skinned boy, answered, probably Jongin. “Yeah, But there was no need to get into a fight with Minho, He can whoop your at any time of the day and being friends with Lee Taemin won’t save you.” Sehun’s eyes land on him and Kyungsoo blinks a few times. “Who’s that?” He asks and Luhan turns to him as well. “Oh! Sorry, Jongin, Sehun, This is Kyungsoo, He transferred here today and you guys will have to be nice or Baekhyun will skin you alive.” Luhan’s sentence didn’t really get along with the smile on his face.

Sehun moves over to him and smiles, extending his hand. “Sehun, Nice to meet you, Kyungsoo.” He has a firm handshake. Jongin comes up to him next and offers his hand for a hand shake. “Nice to meet you Kyungsoo.” He says and Kyungsoo finds a liking in the way that Jongin says his name. Their eyes cross paths and a small spark ignites, they both don’t notice it.”Nice to meet you to.” He answers.

He learns that Sehun is a bit quiet and that he usually only speaks when someone asks him something or when he tells Jongin something. Jongin doesn’t talk much either and just stares at his food most of the time, passing the occasional hello to the people passing their table, he’s quit the popular guy.

The guys at the table ask him about his last school and about his previous friends and why he transferred here, Kyungsoo only answers the questions about his previous school and the reason of transferring until Luhan keeps pushing on the friends subject, claiming that they are way cooler than anyone. “You’re probably right, since I didn’t have any friends on my last school.” Kyungsoo lets the words slip past his lips and he places a hand over his lips as soon as he does. “Sorry, That wasn’t supposed to-“ “Hey, It’s okay, We’re not going to judge you, whatever happened at your last school is in the past and you have new friends now.” Baekhyun tells him as he places a hand on his shoulder.

Kyungsoo nods and they continue the conversation until the bell rings, signaling their next class. “Come on, we’re going to History.” Baekhyun says and Kyungsoo follows him. As soon as they are out of sight, Baekhyun slings an arm around his shoulder and smiles warmly at him. “Want to talk about it?” He says in a low voice. Kyungsoo sighs and opens his mouth, spilling everything out to a complete stranger. “At my last school, my friends abandoned me after they found out that I had an interest in boys, So when they did the bullies started coming and My mom transferred me here because of that, The new job was the final push to get me out of that hell hole.”

He sits next to Baekhyun in history class and Baekhyun tells him that it’s okay to like boys, about how he came out and how Chanyeol accepted him the first second, how the two of them fell in love with each other and how the kids at their school are very accepting in these types of things. Baekhyun has an odd way of cheering him up and he grows to trust him in mere seconds.

His first day runs smoothly for the further duration of it and when Kyungsoo walks out of the front doors and towards home, he feels like a different person. Lighter and happier.

He greets his mom and she smiles when she sees him smiling at her. “How was your first day sweet heart?” She asks him, kissing his cheek. “It was great, I made a lot of new friends and they accept me for who I am!” He tells her and she nods. “That is great Kyungsoo, Now run along and do your homework, I will start supper soon.”

Kyungsoo moves up the stairs and into his new room, it’s still a little empty, walls bare and cold, picture frames empty and boxes still scattered across the floor. He drops his bag and opens his closet, digging into a box until he finds a stack of empty notebooks. He grabs one of his colorful markers and Writes the names of his new friends on the covers of the books, starting to describe each personality of his friends and their small trades.

He keeps at it for hours, continuing after supper into the late hours until his mom shoes him off to bed. He had written in almost all of the notebooks but he got stuck at Jongin’s. So he just wrote the word; ‘mysterious.’ Into it, leaving it for another day.

Kyungsoo keeps a notebook for each of his friends. When he’s older, he wants to remember the moments with them and how they used to be. He did it with his old friends and sometimes he cries over all the stories that contained the memories of him and his old friends. But he sees this as a new start and he can’t wait for morning to come.

He feels as if he has finally found his place somewhere. 

~

Welcome to the first Chapter of notebook. 

Hope you enjoyed and I will see you guys soon! 

FIGHTING

-xoxo-

Hold you close