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(cw: talks about past trauma).
You woke up with the sun hitting your face early in the morning, you'd realize that it was about seven in the morning, looking at your clock and stretching up from your bed.
You placed your feet down on the cold floor and put on your slippers, hearing small commotions in the kitchen and living room, you look up, your sleepy gaze cast themselves upon Bruce who was trying to tie his tie, Billy who keeps missing a button on his dress shirt, and Finney and Robin arguing about their clothes, and finally Vance who was watching the whole house burn with a giant smile on his face.
You sighed, option to go for Billy first, you swatted the blonde's hand away, Billy jumped. "Oh, Good morning, Y/N!" He cheerily greets as you try to mumble out a happy morning as well. You fiddle with the buttons of just shirt, finally getting them all worked out in the end.
"There, now go get whatever else you need to get ready." You shooed Billy away who left yelling a thank you. You then moved towards Bruce who groaned out loud before throwing away his tie, thankfully you had caught it.
"Come on, don't tell me the Bruce Yamada's getting worked up over a silly tie?" You tease as you wrapped the tie around, Bruce looked at you with a pout.
"Vance knew how to tie a tie and he still didn't tell me." He grumbles, looking at the mirror into Vance's relaxed posture on the couch watching Finney and Robin fight.
"Well you know how he is, he's a big grump and loves to be a lone wolf or whatever the saying is." You finished the tie, pulling it at a comfortable tightness for Bruce.
"Thanks, N/N!" He stops, "I can call you N/N, right?" He asks pointing at you. You laugh and nod, saying yes. Bruce smiles like a little kid and runs of to who knows where.
"No, that's my blazer, you didn't want to wear yours, why suddenly now?" Finney pulled his blazer away from Robin's hands as the brunette tried to grab at the sleeves.
"Because I want to, now hand me the blazer, you said you didn't even like it anyway." Robin bit back.
Vance just sat at the couch and watched the two best friends fight with absolute glee. He had a big stupid grin on his face and he watched as of his favourite tv show was on.
"Vance, stop watching them and go piss off!" You had to use the mom voice your mother had taught you, at first you didn't think it was that scary but seeing the reaction of Vance jumped and Finney and Robin stop fighting was enough to think, 'maybe I should my mom voice more often..'
Vance put his hands up in a surrendering manner and walked out of the room slowly, "pissing off now, sorry." He mumbled, trying to get off your bad side.
"Finney. Robin." You said their names in a menacing tone and you could hear one of them gulp and both of them straighten their posture.
"You guys slept late didn't you.." you crossed your arms and pointed at them. "I tried to sleep early but this dingbat made me stay awake!" Finney pointed at Robin who let out a gasp of offence.
"Liar! It's the other way around, Y/N!" Robin and Finney started pointing at each other rudely. "THE POINT IS, you guys both slept late and now Robin can't find his blazer," you pull out an extra blazer from the extra closet in the living room. "And Finney can't get ready." You shove the extra blazer in Robin's hands.
"Go, ready, now!" You point to their rooms, basically sending them there. You sighed and did the quickest shower of your life before getting ready for school.
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"Hurry up dimwits, we're gonna be late for the bus!" You pulled Bruce and Billy with you as you ran to the bus stop. A green bus comes into view and you give them all their transportation cards. "Watch me, okay? This is how you get on the bus any time in Korea." You look at the guys who looked at you with full listening.
The bus stops in front of you, making you smile at the driver and pull out your transportation card before scanning it at the terminal. You walk further into the bus but waiting for the rest of the guys to continue scanning their cards.
The boys then follow you to a non-crowded area and sat down with you. You looked out the window to see where you are. Suddenly, you jumped in your seat, remembering something. "Oh! I forgot!-" you rummage through your school bag, pulling out a small disc-like device.
"What is that?" Vance looked over your shoulder, seeing the small device light up. "It's a phone, Ms. Won bought it for me," You show them the cute screen you had, clearly you had messed with it before they have touched their phones.
"she bought you guys some but I'm guessing you guys didn't see it." You shrug your shoulders. You put your passcode, 0617. You had looked through the bus routes, seeing where to stop.
"Okay, we gotta stop here,"you show the guys pointing with your pinky finger. "Then we have to walk," you pressed the red button by the window near you before getting ready to get off. You didn't need to look behind you to know they're all probably following you like little ducklings.
You yell your thanks to the bus driver before getting off, all of them got off on time thankfully before you walked to the school. "Y/N, where'd you learn to use the bus, or like live here in general, you're basically a natural." Billy asks, looking at you.
Suddenly all of the guys' gazes were on you. You shrug, "my mom and dad taught me, they brought me here when I was seven," you look down, stepping inside the sidewalk bricks and preventing the lines. "I lived here for a few years, then I moved back to my home country." You explained, turning to a school path, more and more students started to walk around you.
You and the boys decided to be quiet, walking with the crowd until a girl came up to you from behind, "Annyeong, eonni!" A girl came up to you, clasping her bag, you bow slightly, greeting her back.
"옆에 귀여운 남자는 누구야? (Who is the cute guy next to you?)" the girl points to Bruce, who seemed to be focused on getting to school. You giggled, swatting her hand as she laughed with you. "그는 내 친구야 (he's my friend.)" you explain.
"Ah.... 그는 귀엽다, 소개? (he's cute, introduce me?)" the girl wriggled her eyebrows jokingly, you shake your head, grinning. "Talk to him yourself!" You exclaim, pulling your tongue out.
The girl laughed and waved goodbye, catching her main group of friends at the entrance of the school, you waved goodbye as well, turning to the boys. "Who was that?" Robin glanced at the girl, before returning his gaze to you.
"Ah, she's a friend, why, you think she's cute?" You nudged Robin, who shook his head frantically, "no! I like someone else, I mean she's pretty but, you know?" Robin rambled as he tried to over-explain himself.
You burst out laughing as Finney joined you, the other three guys watched you guys with confused expressions.
"We're just joking, Bin." You punched the boy's arm gently, Robin felt his cheeks heat up, he kind of freaked out.
I mean, obviously he would, he hasn't talked to someone he likes so naturally before, he internally groaned as he admitted that he actually had a crush on you! He needed to pull his shit together. On the other hand, you called him a nickname, you just, ugh, if Robin could, he'd hit himself in the head with a bat.
The girl and her group of friends were calling you and ushering you into your classroom. "Ah, well, I'm heading off, see you in your class during independent study?" You ask, looking back at them as you get dragged away. The group nodded before walking to their seperate class.
Bruce and Billy chatted as some girls approached them, Vance and Robin where waiting outside and chatting on the edge of an opened school window.
"Hi.." the girl mumbled, being nudged by her friend. "Would you like...to go, eat around here?" The girl tried to speak, coming out in somewhat broken English. Bruce internally sighed, he should've expected people would still ask him out, he contemplated whether on wearing something to cover his face.
He'd only stop covering his face if Y/N thought he was handsome, then maybe, maybe he wouldn't hide his face— "dude!" Billy nudged him, his head tilting towards the girl who looked concerned at his quietness. "uh, 미안해요 (sorry) I can't, I'm not allowed, yet." Bruce spoke slowly, so that the girl would understand better.
Bruce Yamada might be a lady magnet, but he wasn't an asshole! At least he tries not to be. "When, you are okay, then?" The girl made thumbs up, hoping for a yes. Bruce bit the inside of his cheek, before internally groaning out of defeat and nodding. The two girls cheered, high-fiving each other, before the other girl who seemed to encourage Bruce's future "date" looked at Billy, with a shy smile.
"You come, too. Okay? Us two and them!" The girl pointed at her friend and Bruce, then at herself and Billy. Billy froze and hesitantly nodded. The girls giggled and waved goodbye.
"Karma." Bruce spoke one word as the girls walked away. Billy elbowed him in the stomach. "Bruce!" Finney called, "we gotta go to the field, baseball stuff remember?" Finney was almost at the end of the hall, to the stairs to go down to the ground floor and then to the field.
"Oh yeah, shit." Bruce jogged up to Finney and waved goodbye to the other three guys. They waved back. the bell suddenly rang, Robin got off from the window and closed it when Vance also stopped leaning.
"We heard that whole conversation with the girls by the way." Vance and Robin snickered at Billy who turned red, "I was literally just told to go, I wasn't asked." Billy pushed the two who didn't even budge. "Too bad, guess you've got a date now." Robin said date slowly as Billy covered his ears out of embarrassment.
"I get it, man!" Billy groaned.
"Hey! I'm here— jeez! What happened in here, you guys look like you've been beat up like hell." The tired boys looked up from their notebooks and desks to see you, looking concerned at them.
They wouldn't lie, the sun's rays and your worried face kind of made you look like an Angel, but they wouldn't admit it, not even on their death bed.
"We're learning mannerly phrases and all that, why do we need to use such specific stuff.." Vance groaned into his notebook, that surprisingly, had neat notes. He even wrote little notes on how to pronounce them and when to use them!
"Here, let me help." You closed the door, walking up to their grouped desks and pulling an empty chair up to their table. You pulled their notebooks together, some of them had messy handwriting, some had extremely neat notes.
"Here, you guys keep getting this wrong, it's supposed to be written like this, not this," you erase their mistake, showing them how to write the word they were all colllectively struggling on. "this means something else." You explain.
"I don't get it, maybe this was a bad idea, Korean seems so hard to understand," Finney sighed, close to pulling out his hair. "Hey, Vance understands it though!" You point to Vance who took offence.
"First off, are you calling me dumb?"
He pointed at you with a scowl, "Second, you literally just implied that Korean is a dumb language because I understand it." He leaned back against his chair and scoffed as he looked at you.
You laugh, "well forgive me your highness, I didn't mean to call you dumb." You play along with Vance's antics. "I don't act like a brat! Stop that!" He swatted you as you bowed to him like he was a king.
You squeal and shielded yourself from his slaps. The boys just watched you with a smile as you and Vance play-fought. "Okay, okay, let's actually help you here," you pulled Finney's notebook to you, "what are you struggling with?" You tilt your head.
"I can't remember what is what," he crosses his arms, basically dropping his pen. "Okay how about this," you stand up from your seat and grabbed his notebook before walking to his side and squatting.
"Some words in English are kind of the same in Korean, it's just written differently," you wrote ' 호털 ' on his notebook, "this is pronounced ho-tol, but it's similar to the word, Hotel. Surprise surprise this means hotel." Finney listened to you, glancing at your face as his eyes visibly softened.
He hadn't noticed how gentle-spoken you were, giving him such an understanding smile. How long has it been since he hadn't gotten a pitying smile or gaze from random kids on the street. He was more than just someone who escaped a kidnapping.
Robin, being best friends with Finney seemed like he always knew what the boy was thinking. He patted the guy's back silently, as if to say, 'I get it.' You had continued writing some other words for Finney to translate.
Finney looked up, seeing the guys gaze at him, Bruce looked at him with a sad smile, knowing what he was thinking of. Billy just nodded, knowing as well, Vance just glanced at him, his gaze a little softened before he coughed and looked away.
Finney looked back down at you, seeing you finish. "Try these. You're doing great okay, I'm proud of you, you're already doing so much." You encouraged him with a smile. You watched as Finney's eyes softened at you. "Thank you, I never realized how much I wanted to hear those words." Finney blinked away his tears looking down at his papers.
You smile, knowing how he felt to an extent. You could remember the days where you and your mom had gotten lost for a while, you could remember when your mother had forced you to perfect your work for a while.
Could you even blame your mother? You knew she was hurting, she still is. Your father's death was not something you could've expected, it was during a vacation, he had suddenly collapsed on the floor and that was the last time you saw your father smile.
You don't think you could ever be mad at your mom, your mom was hurting as much as you, and you couldn't understand at the time.
You shook your head, before looking up at the boys who seemed to stare at you.
"Sorry, let's continue?" You point to the notebooks. "Nah, I think we should take a break, it's almost the end of the day, we should just, relax, you know?" Billy shrugged his shoulder, looking at you and the group as you all collectively agreed.
You pulled your bag, revealing the bag from the convenience store trip and pouring out the snacks. "Might as well, no?" You tilt your head, before grabbing a Pepero box. The boys laughed before digging in the snacks as well.
You guys managed to just watch the day go by from out the windows, speaking about nothing and everything at the same time.
You didn't notice the soft and gentle gazes the boys looked at you, a small smile on their face, you seemed to catch their attention so quickly, they knew this transfer year wasn't going to be bad, they just knew.
END OF CHAPTER 6