The tall boy in the cold air around him anxiously before breathing it out slowly in an attempt to calm his racing heartbeat that was pounding in his ears. Before his very eyes, sitting not five seats away was the one human being in the entire world he never wanted to see again, and she just so happened to be in his first class of the semester. ‘Oh god, what the hell did I do to deserve this?!’ Of all places too… Jiho felt an icy stream of horror trickle down his spine as her fake giggle grated on his ears as she sat with her friends as they all waited for the professor. 

‘… Before she sees me-’ An idea popped into his mind that could potentially save him a lot of grief, but he had to act quickly. Before she inevitably noticed him, Jiho cast around and found a perfect candidate: shorter than him, round glasses with thin black frames, and looked fairly chill just standing in the corner, scrolling through his phone with a look of unconcerned boredom on his face. 

Ignoring the nagging sense of ‘this is crazy weird and will end badly’, Jiho walked over to the boy and tapped his shoulder, dragging his lower lip through his teeth nervously as the other looked up at him, eyebrows raised, boredom turning to perplexed curiosity. 

The look the boy gave Jiho was what struck him as odd; a calculating stare that seemed to unravel all of Jiho’s secrets but stayed completely innocent and calm. Unsettling to say the least.

Jiho shook off the weird sensation and cleared his throat, “Um, s-sorry to bother you, but can you pretend to be my best friend? That girl over there is my ex and I seriously don’t want to talk or interact with her. Can you help me?”

The boy adjusted his glasses and stared up at Jiho— their height difference required him to do so unless he wanted to stare at the taller boy’s neck— with a look of quizzical amusement as he thought about Jiho’s request. How else would one react to a stranger requesting you to become his friend on a whim? 

‘He is interesting though,’ thought the smaller boy, ‘Maybe this could be fun.…’. Jiho rocked back and forth on his heels nervously, feeling time tick away as the other stalled. ‘Come onnn…. come on! I don’t have time-’

“Well-” the other boy began and took his glasses off to clean them on his shirt before placing them back to their original position, perched upon his nose, “Seeing as I don’t really have any friends yet to begin with, I suppose I’ll take you up on your… Peculiar inquiry.” He smirked in amusement as he tilted his head to the side a bit, as if to get a better look at Jiho’s face as it calmed gradually. 

The taller boy sighed gratefully. “Thank you so much, I’ll avoid making this any more weird than it already is,” Jiho replied, smiling awkwardly as he pointed to a couple chairs nearest the door, coincidentally in the same row as his ex-girlfriend, “Wanna take a seat? I think the professor’s going to come in soon.”

The boy nodded slowly and took the seat on the inside of the row, Jiho sitting on the outside nearest the door. The smaller boy opened his mouth to ask Jiho something but was cut off by the gust of cold air that rushed into the room as the door was yanked open by the professor. He adjusted his glasses again and raised an eyebrow as he leaned over to mutter to Jiho “Does our professor look somewhat… Off to you?” 

Jiho nodded his head slowly and watched the lanky middle aged man stumble to the front of the classroom with some difficulty, shaking his arms and rubbing them vigorously before addressing the class in a bored tone. “Hello, I’m your English teacher for this quarter and you can call me Professor Shin. My full name, not that it matters much to you students, is Shin Yooncheol. I am really cold right now so pardon my weird way of walking— I can barely feel my legs right now because I fell asleep on the bus ride here and it wasn’t very warm… You all can put two and two together. Anyway I guess this is the time where we talk about the syllabus and all that stuff…”

Jiho tilted his head to the side to whisper back, “Well I guess that answers your question—oh, man-”  As if he just realized something, Jiho groaned and rubbed the back of his neck, “-that’s embarrassing.” 

Hojoon looked over at him curiously, “What?” Jiho grinned and reached his hand out over the table awkwardly, “I never introduced myself. I’m Shin Jiho, in case you.. ever wanted to know my name,” he explained with a laugh.

The other smiled and took his hand, noting how warm it was in contrast to his own, “My name is Jeon Hojoon and yeah— this situation isn’t normal, but you’re far from creepy, trust me. Plus why wouldn’t I want to know my friend’s name?”

Jiho nodded thoughtfully and turned to look at the professor as he rambled on about useless first day things. “Yeah, it is a bit unconventional isn’t it… And good point, now I feel dumb. You know, I’m sort of surprised you didn’t mock me or freak out when I asked you to basically help me not look like a loser in front of what is doubtlessly the most y girl on this planet.” 

Hojoon smirked, glancing past Jiho to look at the girl in question to get a good look at her. She was leaning her chin on her hand, looking at the teacher with a bored look of mock interest. One of her friends whispered something to her and giggled, but the girl sat there, completely ignoring her as if the professor droning on about the rules in case of any extreme weather was far more interesting. ‘Wow… She’s even a to her friends…’ Hojoon sniffed in disdain, nudging Jiho, “No wonder you left her,” he gestured to his ex and her friend.

Jiho nodded and pulled out a piece of paper, pretending to take notes as he snorted, “You don’t even know the half of it. She would do that a lot: pretend to listen to your joke then ignore you completely, as if you were some drunk grandpa hitting on her or some like that. Ugh-” he shivered at the memory in disgust, not catching the glare the professor gave him before rambling on, “- I don’t even want to think about her anymore. That was the whole point of, this,” he gestured to both of them sitting at the table awkwardly. 

Hojoon grinned mischievously, “I get it. I’m your tool to help prevent your pride from tanking into the deep end—whatever. Just remember, you started this,” he muttered in a sing-song tone of voice as he gestured to the two of them.

Jiho glanced back at Hojoon’s smug expression and rolled his eyes, knowing full well that he was right and had no snide comeback to counter him with. After all, from the little that Hojoon has said, Jiho could tell instinctively that he was quite the intellectual—if the Harry Potter -esque glasses hadn’t already triggered a nerd alert in his mind. 

‘I just hope this wasn’t a massive mistake on my part.’ 

He glanced down at his mock note taking paper and decided to actually do something with and and started to draw little doodles all over the paper. The scene of a dark flower set on a hill with curls and delicate twists coming out from it soon blossomed all over the page. He even added in a few poetic line or two to finish it all off, such as “Pain grows strength, so let your strength stem from your pain”. Hojoon glanced over at Jiho’s self-made work of art and suppressed a snort of laughter. 

“What the hell is that?” Hojoon scoffed, bumping shoulders with Jiho as he nodded at his drawing.

“Pure boredom displayed for your own eye out on paper that was masterfully made and has countless deep meanings to it, duh” Jiho deadpanned, hardly able to resist laughing at his own horrible joke, Hojoon choking back a giggle as well.

“Oh really? And what, Jiho, is one of those supposed deep meanings? That you like to draw girly crap like that and can still come up with a good excuse for it?”

Hojoon struggled to keep his face expressionless as Jiho’s priceless reaction left him speechless. “Rude. What’s wrong with drawing flowers?! At least I can and I don’t need your for it anyway,” Jiho seethed, furrowing his eyebrows together with a defensive look on his face, partially because of Hojoon’s words and partially to cover up the funny feeling he felt when Hojoon called him by his first name. It felt odd, almost out of place and slightly uncomfortable.

Hojoon bit down on his tongue to keep himself from grinning like an idiot as he so badly wanted to do. ‘This kid is so weird and childish…’  

The professor finally stopped rambling and dismissed the class a few minuted early, allowing Jiho and Hojoon to exit first and walk down the cold outdoor path to another building. The university was set up as multiple separate facilities that housed classrooms at different levels, but had covered walkways connecting them throughout the campus, proving for a cold walk during the colder seasons. 

Jiho shivered and clutched his bag closer to his side. “Sheesh it’s cold. Why the hell do they not have like, I don’t know, closed-in hallways or something? It’d be so much warmer,” he whined. 

“Because, it’d be a waste of money,” Hojoon reasoned, despite shivering himself in the frigid weather, “-plus that’s just how the campus was made, so deal with it. Anyway, my next class is in another building so see ya around Jiho.” With that, Hojoon began to head towards a different building, only half turning around to wave at Jiho before turning back to speed walk to his next class. 

Jiho had waved back, but felt an odd stab of sadness poke his heartstrings as he did. Was this guilt he was feeling? Probably, since he sort of yanked Hojoon out of his own perfectly fine and isolated world and asked him to be his friend. Well, that wasn’t all true. ‘I asked for him to be my pretend friend, which now that I remember that I feel like . What a five year old type of thing to say… “Hey wanna pretend to be my friend? I’ll give you some fishy crackers if you do to help me avoid that crazy girl who totally has cooties”… Grow up Jiho.’

The tall student gnawed on the inside of his cheek as he waited for his next class in a library nearby. He stared out the window and watched the clouds slowly drift by in the sky. This month of September seemed extra dreary for some reason. The weather had been anything but warm and was constantly over-cast with clouds sliding by lazily in the sky. 

Jiho was starting to wonder if the sun had taken a permanent vacation to the Philippines or something. The students at the university, ironically named Blue Skies University as it was far from blue skies currently, seemed to reflect the earth’s dreary mood.

Everyone seemed to walk slowly and quietly to their respective classes, hardly even acknowledging each other’s presence. In fact, even as Jiho had been walking with Hojoon for the little time they did, they had seemed unbearably loud in comparison with everyone else. 

The only time people were boisterous and chatty were in classrooms, ‘Which makes less sense to me because I prefer to talk outside of classrooms since being inside them gives you that whole “education-education-education learn-learn-learn” vibe…’ 

Jiho practically jumped out of his skin when his phone buzzed in his pocket as one of his alarms triggered. It was when he yanked it out and stared at it for a good five seconds that he realized he had two minutes until his next class started and sprinted out of the library as fast as he could. He hardly made it in time as he heard the teacher begin the “first day of this class” speech as he took the last available seat in the back of the lab. 

‘Oh Chemistry… How I don’t want to take you. I would much rather be at my Psych class but no, you have to come between me and something actually interesting to someone who likes learning about people, not chemicals.’ 

Jiho glanced over lazily around him, amused to find that the people sitting nearest him seemed to be as bored with the class as he was, especially the kid sitting next to him with a mess of  long, dark hair that was twirling a pencil between his fingers with effortless ease. Jiho leaned over and opened his backpack slowly, ping it painfully slow to minimize the noise it made before he pulled out his textbook, staring blankly at the cover. 

He flipped through the pages of the book in an attempt to cure his boredom, staring at the weird pictures and graphs that littered the pages, their only purpose so far was to further confuse and bore Jiho. He sighed and played his head onto the desk as he was planning on falling asleep but was rudely interrupted by someone elbowing him in the side. 

Jiho sat up and glared at the same pencil-wielding kid who seemed to be signaling him to do something, but of course Jiho was too pissed and bored to care. Only until the teacher cleared in front of Jiho did he realize the amount of he was now in. 

“Excuse me, but if you’re going to fall asleep in my class, at least turn to the right page, will you? Now, since you seem to be fascinated by the purpose of this class, do stand and tell everyone your name. That way I know which student I should keep a close eye on,” the teacher delivered slowly and intentionally in a massively sarcastic tone, denoting how little her tolerance was for Jiho’s apparently bad behavior. 

The tall student slowly got to his feet and put on an apologetic face. “My apologies Miss…?”

His teacher sighed in exasperation, “Miss Yoon.” 

“Ah,” Jiho nodded respectfully, “My apologies Miss Yoon. My name is Shin Jiho.” 

“Good to know. Now, Shin Jiho, take a seat and try to at least pretend you care about this class,” she commented dryly as she walked up to the front of the classroom. Jiho sat down slowly, inwardly groaning in annoyance because ‘Damn it all now I already have a teacher that doesn’t like me.’  

A muffled giggle coming from next to him made him swing his gaze over and glare at the same kid that elbowed him earlier. “What’s your deal kid?” he hissed lowly, not wanting to get the teacher’s attention again. The kid just kept giggling and hugging his sides as if what just happened to Jiho was the epitome of hilarity. 

Jiho snorted in annoyance and decided upon ignoring the kid and leaned his chin on his arms crossed in front of him, staring forward at the teacher rambling on about chemicals and—

“Oh my god WHAT?!” Jiho snapped as the boy pulled his arm back from poking him, a mischievous grin playing across his features as he glanced around furtively before beckoning for Jiho to lean closer to him. “I just can’t believe you got on her bad side already.”

Jiho narrowed his eyes suspiciously, sizing up this weird kid sitting next to him. “What do you mean? You make it sound like some sort of achievement,” he retorted. The other kid giggled again, his cat-like eyes glittering with amusement, “It is sorta. I mean, I’ve only seen her twice before this class, and she doesn't seem like the kind of person who gets ticked off so easily. Is that a talent of your? Pissing people off?” 

“No, but it certainly seems to be yours” Jiho growled through clenched teeth. The other kid flashed a victorious grin as he slid out his phone and held it down low next to his leg, looking up every now and then as he texted something before putting it back into his pocket. Jiho looked at him curiously, “The hell you doing kid?” 

“I made a bet with my friend that I could make at least one friend today before him.”

“Make a friend? Who’s your friend?” Jiho snorted, adding in a much quieter tone, “More like who the hell would want to be your friend?” 

“You. Duh . Kim Sanggyun by the way.” he replied, patting Jiho’s shoulder as the other looked thoroughly confused. “I never agreed to be your friend, nor do I really want to be your friend,” Jiho spluttered, annoyance levels slowly rising as the other kid— or Sanggyun— pretended nothing was wrong. 

“I’m assuming your older than me, judging by your looks and style,” this was met with a glare from Jiho,’is this punk saying my style ?’ , but Sanggyun didn’t care and continued, “-buuuuut I don’t care so I’m just gonna call you Jiho. Cool? Cool.” 

“Kid, did you not hear me when I said I’m no-”

“First of all, I’m not ‘kid’. I told you my name and since we’re friends you have to call me by my name, ok? And second, I saved your from a beating by warning you ‘bout the teacher, so you should at least feel grateful you weren’t in bigger trouble, tch, . Well, bye Jiho, see ya tomorrow~” 

With his jaw practically on the floor, Jiho watched the insolent Sanggyun waltz out of the class along with the other students flooding out the door as apparently, class had ended. Struggling to keep his together and his anger in check, Jiho shoved his book back into his backpack and stormed out of the classroom, thoroughly confused by what the hell just happened. 

‘Note to self: I hate Chemistry.’ 

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A/N: That’s the first chapter done! :D

Super short, I know. But this fic just got started, so look forward to longer updates in the future ;) (hopefully, if I’m not too lazy).

Also, I’m not quite sure how frequent my updates will be since I have a lot going on in my life :0  SO yeah~

Be sure to comment down below! I love hearing what y’all are thinking about this storm fic