"Ah..."

Hongbin squinted out of the bulletproof window of his caravan, hardly able to see past the harsh rays the sun threw down early in the morning. With curiosity, he watched as a Ford Anglia with chipped red paint rolled cautiously down the street and ground to a halt outside his door. Through the windows of the ancient automobile he could see the faint outline of a person wearing what looked like a snapback, though his study of the figure was interrupted as the unmistakable stench of oil drifted through the open door. W-what is this-?! Eyes watering and nose shrivelling, he staggered out of the door and made towards the chunk of tin.

As he reached for the door, it popped open and swung towards him so violently that, after the initial shock, he wondered how for much longer it would remain attached to the car.

“Ah, sorry about that”, a voice called moments after.

Hongbin ducked his head and noticed a familiar face inside the car, propping his elbow on the steering wheel and discreetly lip syncing the words to the Lady Gaga song he had blaring out of the speakers.

“Hakyeon I-…when you said a taxi would..be along to pick me up in the morning I didn’t…what is this-?” Hongbin stuttered in disbelief.

Hakyeon’s eyes widened with feigned shock. “I don’t understand, is th-“. But Hongbin never found out what he was about to ask for he had already clambered into the back seat and was hastily fastening his seatbelt.

“There’s a seat in the front”, Hakyeon pointed out.

“Yes, I know.” Hongbin replied bluntly, receiving a -familiar- disgusted expression from the driver of the rust machine.

Luckily the drive was along a fairly flat route, for Hongbin knew the car would never make it up a hill in one piece. Although that reassured him, he couldn’t help but feel anxious about the speeds at which Hakyeon was forcing the car to go at. Even from the back seat Hongbin could hear the engine screaming as gears were continuously changed. This was not helped by the fact they were approaching a motorway and Hakyeon decided the best idea would be to crush the acceleration pedal between his foot and the threadbare carpet that lined the floor of his ‘car’. The speed at which they were now travelling was uncharted territory for Hongbin and he wondered whether it would be him or the engine that would throw something up first. But Hakyeon retained his cheery expression, not appearing to hear the string of horns beeping at him from other cars, even those going in the opposite direction.

Somehow, they made it to the school car park without losing any car parts or breakfast parts along the way. As they stuttered to a halt, Hongbin almost yanked the door handle off in his attempt to escape, but didn’t make it very far as he rolled out of the car onto the pavement, just glad to be on stable ground once again. Hakyeon appeared behind him, confused, but knew his student would follow hot on his heels if he walked away. With a princess-like air he stepped onto the kerb, swayed slightly as his heel missed the step, but regained his composure expertly. It took Hongbin a few more seconds to peel his face away from the floor and stand up, wobbling a little as he caught up with Hakyeon.

“Wow this place is huuuuge”, Hongbin said incredulously, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ shape as he extended the last word.

Instead of wasting his time replying to Hongbin, Hakyeon used the valuable seconds to apply his strawberry lip balm while a rather tall student hurried to open the door for him. Lifting his chin, Hakyeon looked down his nose at the student who now wore a wide grin and looked over his shoulder to see if his friends were watching. Needless to say they weren’t.

With little more than a simple nod, Hakyeon entered the building while Hongbin bowed to the student several times, feeling the need to exaggerate his gratefulness on his first day. The student looked unimpressed for a second before he scuttled off into the early morning shadows. Hongbin chose to ignore him for the time being, focusing solely on his main objective of training to be a dance teacher alongside Hakyeon.

The inside of the building appeared even larger than the outside. The ceiling seemed to reach higher than Hakyeon’s self-esteem and the main hall was even larger than his ego. Soon they were walking along the endless corridors and Hongbin took it upon himself to remember the way, should he be without Hakyeon for some reason.

They passed several more corners before coming to an abrupt halt outside a small wooden door which Hongbin made a mental note not to touch unless he wanted to scratch off his delicate fingerprints on the rough grainy surface. Although it seemed like someone must have already experienced this as the words “Staff Room” had been carved messily into the wood, similar to the way students scratch the word “p3nis” onto their desks with their fingernail in class. But he chose not to point this out to Hakyeon and followed closely behind as he was led into the staff room.

The staff room was underwhelming to say the least. The walls were an off shade of beige and, from the stench of the room, Hongbin was almost certain it was to camouflage the coffee stains on the walls. A grey piece of material hung from the curtain rail, swinging back and forth with each gust of wind. It was only upon second glance that Hongbin noticed it was a wet hoodie, presumably put there to dry after a coffee related accident? Beneath his feet the unevenly spaced floorboards groaned and he could’ve sworn he felt something brush past his bare ankle. Despite all of this his eyes were only drawn to one thing which was sat in the middle of the room. Someone was sat cross-legged on a stool in a tracksuit with a beanie perched on his head, which was defying all laws of physics by not moving an inch when the person lifted his head slowly to meet Hongbin’s gaze. He could have become lost in such a deep gaze if it weren’t for the horrendous stench that kept his feet firmly rooted in reality.

Hakyeon cleared his throat loudly, “This is the staff room, our pride and joy.” Hongbin couldn’t tell whether he purposefully emphasized the last three words or he was just hearing things.

 “This is the grub hub”, he continued, gesturing to the lime scale ridden sink with a cool box placed beside it on the drying rack.

The beanie guy rose from his stool and proceeded to fill a ceramic mug with the little water that trickled out of the tap. A soft grunt came from his direction as he was growing impatient with the water flow. This was followed by some unrepeatable muttering which was heard by everyone in the ‘hub’.

A guy in an embarrassing sweater slipped through the door behind Hongbin and immediately began to scold the beanie guy.

“Mr Kim-!” he almost shrieked. Hongbin silently named him ‘the embarrassing guy’. “Do you know where we are?”

“The scrub hub?”

“IS THA-“, the embarrassing guy began to retort but stopped himself short as he realised all eyes were on him, including those of a newcomer. He cleared his throat. “Welcome to the scr-HUB”, he quickly corrected himself, throwing a glare at the newly named ‘Mr Kim’ who just shrugged and went back to watching the water dribble into his mug.

Hongbin bowed gracefully to the embarrassing guy who introduced himself.

“I’m Mr Lee. Although you probably already know that from my countless best-selling novels”, he chuckled to himself. Hongbin’s expression was nothing short of blank. Hakyeon snorted quietly .

“I’m sorry did you say something?” Mr Lee inquired.

Hakyeon pursed his lips.

“I think he was explaining to our newbie that you write gay p0rn”, Mr Kim called cheerily across the room before narrowly dodging an elastic band that Mr Lee had attempted to damage his vision with.

“On another note”, Mr Lee brushed off Mr Kim’s comments. “Our classes start soon”, he said as he exaggeratedly tapped his watch. After swiping a pocket dictionary off of the small coffee table that lay in the middle of the room, Mr Lee strolled out of the room, tapping Hongbin’s buttcheek affectionately with 400 pages of words on the way.

Hongbin felt violated and it must have been evident in his expression as Mr Kim smirked as he took a sip from his mug of water.

“Is it that time already?” a small voice mumbled. Hongbin barely had time to take in the person's small features before he slithered out of the ‘hub’ and scurried away down the hallway.

“Oh…” Hakyeon sighed. “Maybe we should go too..”

Hongbin nodded as they backed out of the room and started to retrace their steps along the corridors. Hakyeon smiled.

“You met everyone who dwells in the hub then.”

Hongbin’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape which quickly turned to a smirk as he looked up at Hakyeon.

“…Is it true that Mr Lee writes gay p0rn?”

“Ah…”