“Oh my god, are you serious?” Jinki groaned inwardly as he glanced around the room. This was only the second class of the semester but he needed to leave, and now.

 

Jinki had been a film major for two years now. He had learned the hard way that if during an in-class film screening two characters started to get handsy that he needed to remove himself unless he wanted annoying flashbacks for the next couple of months.

 

He stood up as quietly as possible and grabbed his jacket. One never knew how long these scenes would go on for, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

 

Jinki had known he was repulsed for years now, but it was a lot easier to censor what he watched when he wasn’t out in public. When he’d been exposed to R rated movies for the first time during his first Film Analysis course he has been too embarrassed to leave the room whenever stuff like this happened cause he was afraid someone would notice.

 

At home his siblings would whenever he said he didn’t want to watch certain movies that had been tagged for their ‘ual content,’ and he was scared that it would be even worse now he was around people his age.

 

However, after he’d silently started to cry during class after having seen something he knew he would never be able to erase from his mind he realized that he didn’t care about his pride and he needed to take care of himself.

 

Jinki walked quickly down the hallway and out a door to sit on a ledge next to the building. It was bright outside in contrast to the darkened classroom he had left. As his eyes adjusted he breathed a sigh of relief, reassuring himself. “Good job. You are so strong.”

 

As he checked his phone he heard someone else leave the building and sit down next to him. He glanced up automatically at the sound and looked into the startled face of his classmate Taemin.

 

“Oh, hey.” Taemin said, visibly uncomfortable. “Aren’t you in the class we’re supposed to be in right now?”

 

“Yea…” Jinki didn’t know what to say to him. This could be really embarrassing.

 

“Why are you out here? Do you smoke?”

 

Jinki considered lying for a moment, insinuating that he had come outside to satisfy his nonexistent craving for tobacco, but he was so sick of being self conscious about this part of him.

 

“I-uh, I can’t stand scenes so I just sort of left for a bit until things- uh- calmed down in there.” He jabbed his thumb back at the building and tried to act unaffected.

 

“Oh my god, I thought I as the only one.” Taemin sounded disbelieving and almost excited.

 

Jinki couldn’t believe it either.

 

“Wait, are you serious?”

 

Taemin ran a hand through his hair as his face broke into a smile.

 

“Yea, it’s so damn annoying though.”

 

Jinki nodded. “And why does every movie for adults have gratuitous in it? I’m so tempted to just ditch class right now. There’d better not be another surprise ending like in the movie we saw last week.”

 

Taemin winced as he shifted on the ledge. “Ewww, that scene? Like what the hell, they didn’t have to actually show it.”

 

His voice got quiet at the end as they both remembered the traumatic memory.

 

“Do you want to hang out some time?” Jinki was interested in spending more time with someone else that was like him, and Taemin seemed cool. “We could watch some anime or something?”

 

Taemin smiled, sharing Jinki’s feelings.

 

“Yea, definitely. I’ll give you my number after class. We should probably go back in though, it’s probably over.”

 

They stood up and went back into class together, relieved that the movie had switched to a beach scene.

 

Jinki couldn’t help but feel a little better. Maybe things would get better now they knew they could spend time together when something like this happened again. And based on his experience so far it wouldn't be too long until it did.