ꜱᴀꜰᴇ

•18

"Thank you for dropping me off so late last night."
Mingyu shrugged. "It's not like I got any sleep, anyway."
"Why not?"
"Too busy thinking about you."
Blushing, I grabbed his hand as we walked into the classroom. We sat in the same seats, waiting for the teacher to show up.
As I studied his face, I noticed that Mingyu did have darker under eyes than usual.
"Make sure to get some sleep tonight," I told him, "okay?"
He nodded. "Okay."
Shifting to face the front of the classroom, I tapped my fingers on the desk.

At lunch, my friends sat with us. Since everyone was practically dating now, they had to sit together. Except for Chan, Seokmin, and Soonyoung weren't at the table at all.
"Why are we missing three people?" I asked.
Joshua took a sip of his water. "Chan and Seokmin are just Chan and Seokmin. They eat lunch with each other sometimes, outside at the benches." Then he shrugged. "But Soonyoung? I haven't seen him."
"I have," Seungcheol pitched in. "He's in my second period. I haven't seen him since then, though."
Everyone mostly shrugged the thought away, until a red-headed boy came bouncing over with another boy next to him.
"Hi, everyone," Soonyoung beamed as he sat down next to me. The other boy sat down, also.
He was short, with platinum blonde hair and pale skin. He was wearing all black: a mask, skinny jeans ripped at the knees, and a black hoodie, the hood pulled over his head. He looked like the exact opposite of someone that Soonyoung would hang out with.
"This is Jihoon." Soonyoung smiled as he wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders.
'Jihoon' gently pulled the mask down from his face.
"Hi," he greeted. "Care to introduce yourselves?"
I smiled. Was this Soonyoung's boyfriend or something?
Seungkwan reached his hand over. "I'm Seungkwan," he announced.
Jihoon took Seungkwan's hand and gave it a firm shake. It was completely different from the Seungkwan I know.
"Are you Soonyoung's boyfriend?" Joshua asked. "Or...?"
Soonyoung blushed. "No," he answered. He dropped his arm from around the other's shoulders. "We've just... We've been talking for a while, I thought I'd like for my friends to meet him. Chan and Seokmin have already met him."
"You've been talking?" Joshua echoed.
"Yes."
Seungkwan raised an eyebrow. "Talking? Or talking talking?"
The redhead blushed deeper. "Does it matter?"
Before anything could escalate to hitting and thumping, Seungcheol cleared his throat.
"Why are you so short?" he asked.
Jihoon snorted. "Why are you such a douchebag?"
I scoffed at the response, already deciding that Jihoon and I were gonna get along.
Seungcheol poked his tongue into his cheek, sizing Jihoon up. "You think you're tough?"
"No, I just think I'm a good person."
"Who even are you?"
Jeonghan tensed. "Babe-"
"Didn't you hear my name?" Jihoon scoffed. "Or were you too busy on Grindr?"
The taller boy raised an eyebrow. "Can't you see that I'm in a relationship-"
"With two boys?" Jihoon mentioned. "Sugar daddy?"
Seungcheol stood up, charging over to Jihoon. "Leave them the fuck out of this-"
"Coups, sit down!"
"Tell him to leave them out of it! It's none of his business if they're mine anyway!"
He took a few more steps toward the boy, already wanting to hit him.
"Don't say another word about them, or I swear on your life, I'll fucking-"
Mingyu stood up, pushing the angry boy away from Jihoon. Seungcheol was visibly seething, arguing with Mingyu. The taller boy was trying to calm him down, tell him it wasn't worth the fight.
"Are you saying telling me they aren't worth fighting for?!"
I tugged on Soonyoung's shirt, getting him to turn towards me.
"I think you should get him out of here," I said. "Maybe bring him back tomorrow. Explain to him the personalities of everyone at this table."
Soonyoung smiled gently and took Jihoon's hand. Within seconds, they were gone, already arguing about Seungcheol's attitude.
Eventually, Mingyu sat back down next to me. Seungcheol also sat down, jaw clenched and a vein exposed near his temple.
"How did you do that?" I whispered to Mingyu.
He just shrugged. "I'm used to it."
"This happens often?"
Mingyu nodded, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Coups is one to fight," he told me. "I've had to stop a lot of them."
"What starts them?"
He chuckled. "A lot of them are about Jeonghan," he explained. "Some of them are just because of his attitude."
I nodded, leaning into his hold. "He needs to work on that a little bit."
"He's a good guy, kind of."
"He has to realize that he's not gonna get through life with that kind of attitude," I mentioned.
Mingyu shrugged, poking at his food. I furrowed my eyebrows, leaning away from him.
"Is something bothering you?" I asked.
He shrugged again, keeping his focus down. "I just really hate being at school," he explained. "Can't do anything."
I nodded. "And we've both already missed a lot of school days." Running a hand through my hair, I looked over at him. "Just drop out."
"I can't drop out," he scoffed. "I just... School is taking a lot of time away from things that we could be doing."
"We?"
He nodded. "Yeah." He stopped poking at his food, then looked over at me. "I want to take you places."
I smiled. "Really? Like where?"
"I don't know," he mumbled, blushing slightly. "Just on dates and stuff."
Out of nowhere, my chest started to tighten as I realized that Seungcheol was occasionally glancing at us. It made me feel like I was in the way of their friendship. Like he wanted to tell Mingyu something but I was in the way.
Standing up from the lunch table, I grabbed his hand. "Let's go sit outside."
At first, he looked questionable, but walked with me to the benches nonetheless.
We sat on a purple bench that was out in the sun, and there weren't many people around us. It was kind of relieving to get out of the crowded cafeteria.
"Why are we out here?" Mingyu asked me.
I turned to him, watching his eyes turn from a golden color back to dark brown as he shielded his eyes from the sun. "My anxiety was starting to rise in there." Keeping my gaze on his eyes, I pursed my lips. "Have I interfered with your friendship with the others?"
Mingyu cocked his head to the side, his eyes sparkling. "Not at all," he assured. "Why would you think that?"
I shrugged. "I appeared out of nowhere and now you're always with me instead of them."
The boy shook his head, taking my hands in his. "It was my choice to hang out with you, baby," he assured. "I saw you and I just... fell in love. I knew I wanted to have you. I knew I wanted to be with you. I knew I wanted you to be with me, and no one else. I saw us together." He smiled. "I love you, Jeon Wonwoo. You aren't interfering with anything. Never will be. If they think you are, then they can fuck off." I giggled at what he said, tears pricking at my eyes. "I love being with you, okay? Never, ever let Seungcheol get to you. Or any of the others, for that matter. They don't get to decide anything about my life. Especially the part that contains you."
A single tear fell from my eyes, and before I could, Mingyu brought his hand up to my face and wiped the tear away with the pad of his thumb.
"I've never felt this way about anyone," I explained to him. "I'm scared of love. That's why I made you make all those promises. Because committing to people is hard for me after the things I've been through-"
"Things you've been through?" Mingyu raised an eyebrow. "People other than your dad have hurt you?"
I shrugged, looking down at our hands. "I- Um, when I was in tenth grade, I had a boyfriend that was in eleventh grade. We were going great." I shivered. "He wanted sex (which I denied) and pictures and... videos. He took advantage of me. I was a prize on a shelf to him. Every time I would see him in the hallway, I would go up to him and talk to him. But he'd be around his friends, so he'd act like I was nobody to him. He didn't want them to see a soft side if he even had one. He eventually left me out of nowhere, after I stopped sending him pictures and doing things with him. Because he got too close to raping me one time. It made me realize that he was toxic. That's another reason as to why I was so hesitant on doing anything like that with you, I... I didn't know if you were like him. I can never be so sure." I sniffled, squeezing his hand. "And now I feel like a brat for not trusting you."
Mingyu pinched my chin, making me turn my head to look at him. "You aren't an actual brat, Wonwoo," he said. "You're a great person, okay? The love of my life and someone I can't imagine being without. Don't be scared to live life because of him. Don't let him hold you back, baby. Life has to be more than fear."
"You're a charmer," I teased.
He smiled and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me toward him. I put my arms around his neck and sighed contently.
"What was his name?" Mingyu questioned. "If you don't mind me asking."
"Junhui," I mumbled. It even hurt to say his name. It hurt to think about him in the first place, nonetheless talk about him and my past.
Mingyu nodded. "Tell me if he ever contacts you or anything, okay?" The boy shifted a bit, pulling out of the hug. "I don't really want him talking to you."
I nodded back. "That reminds me," I mentioned. "Why didn't you want me walking to school alone? Why do you want me to take my test today?"
"You get stares," Mingyu mumbled. "Good stares, not bad. Bad in my opinion. But you know: Stares that want. Greedy stares." His jaw clenched. "I don't like it. Someone might just steal you up on your way to school."
I chuckled. "I guess I'm cuter than I thought."
He nodded. "Definitely."