pen & paper | NCT Doyoung

9

fast forward to 4 years. doyoung is now a senior in his second degree. he's classmates with taeyong, they both shared the same interest in becoming journalists.

doyoung stayed focused on his studies. this was his passion. he wanted to deliver news, and he wanted to do it right.

it was now their final year and their final project with one of their subjects. doyoung teamed up with taeyong and a new part of their friend group, johnny.

doyoung pov

"the unsung heroes of modern society." the teacher wrote on the board.

our task was to find an "unsung hero of modern society" and make an article about said person. the chosen article will be published in seoul's number 1 newspaper which is a huge deal for us. not only that, it'll also be featured in the newspapers' website. in order for us to make an outstanding article we really have to research this person.

"i'm only going to approve whoever you choose for your article, after that you're all on your own. i don't care how you do it as long as it's good and credible which is why you're given the whole sem to do this." the teacher explained.

after she was done explaining we proceeded with the lesson until the bell rang.

"you guys have any ideas on who we could make our article on?" taeyong asked me and johnny.

"if it's an unsung hero then i guess they wouldn't be famous online." johnny said.

"let's set a meeting for tomorrow then so we could focus on this." i suggested and they both nodded.

the next day

it's a saturday but all three of us don't mind doing school stuff, we don't have anything better to do after all. we met at the seoul public library. i suggested we look at the authors that wrote about the wrongs of society. i was inspired by one of the topics in our international studies class. we were tackling asia's national hereos. one of them, a Filipino hero, Jose Rizal, he authored a few novels that exposed the government. he was a well sung hero,but i was hoping we could find an unsung one.

we spent about three hours scanning through books to no avail. we went to every section in the library except for one.

"last hope." johnny pointed at the comics/graphic novels section.

"you do it." taeyong said.

"meh,what the heck." i stood up with johnny and we headed to that section.

it was full of archie comics and mangas. as expected.

i saw johnny pull out a comic book. interesting cover. the colors were vibrant,contrary to the subject it was tackling.

the silenced

the title was strong. johnny and i read the comic book together. it featured stories of the oppressed poor. like how some of them were forced to vote for a politician or else they would be shot. it was brave and bold. the author called out specific people without saying their names. it was well researched,written, and illustrated. we reached the end saying it was all based on actual people. it had her contact info at the end of the page.

george

that was his pen name.

"yah i think this is it!" johnny said and i nodded.

we ran to taeyong who was about to sleep in his seat.

"yah!" i shook his shoulder.

"we found it!" johnny was holding up the book then taeyong took it.

after reading he had a surprised expression on his face. "yah this is it!"

"i'll email him then." johnny said. we helped him construct what he should email.

"sent." johnny said then we proceeded to fix our stuff. after a few moments we heard a *ting* from johnny's laptop. we all looked at each other then hovered over johnny's screen.

"cool. tell me when your team is free let's have a meeting." george replied.

"well that was fast." taeyong said.

i feel relieved knowing that finding someone wasn't a big problem for us. it's like the universe led us to find him.