Minghao entered his phone number into Wonwoo's contact list after class had ended and Wonwoo felt a sense of pride as he realised that he had just got the number of someone who wasn't his mum for the very first time. Minghao took a quick selca for the contact picture, smiling cutely and throwing a finger heart. He passed the phone back to Wonwoo. "Here," he said, "please feel free to message me."
"Okay," Wonwoo replied. He noticed that Minghao had saved his contact with three flower emojis. This kid seemed cute, innocent. Well high school sure as hell would change that around, Wonwoo thought.
Standing up and slinging his bag onto his back, Wonwoo tuned to Minghao. "I have to be somewhere at lunch. You can come if you want," he said, pushing his chair back into the desk.
"If I will be no trouble," Mingho replied, "I do not have anyone else to sit next to."
"I don't really know the people though. We can talk to eachother if it gets awkward," Wonwoo suggested, earning an approving nod from the Chinese boy.
"That's fine. What are their names?"
"I only really know one. The others are in a group, and I don't really talk to them."
"Is the one you know your friend?"
Wonwoo thought about that for a second before deciding, "sort of."
The two boys continued to walk in an awkward silence up the steps to the cafeteria, having to stop so Minghao could tie his lace.
"So why are you in Korea?" Wonwoo asked. He wasn't too good with conversation, and although Minghao was friendly he was really goddamn quiet and Wonwoo didn't cope well with awkward silences, although he was mostly the cause of them.
"It doesn't really matter," Minghao replied, "my dad got a job here, and I just signed up to the foreign exchange programme to make friends. I wanted a fresh start."
"You seem friendly," Wonwoo added.
"Thank you," Minghao beamed at Wonwoo, before looking at the floor, "some people did not like me."
"It's the same for me," Wonwoo said with a shrug, "people can be dicks. I just ignore them."
"Okay," Minghao replied and the conversation drew to another awkward pause.
Shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Kim Mingyu's light brown hair and bright white smile could be seen from the other side of the cafeteria, and as soon as they caught Wonwoo's eye, Wonwoo's entire existence fell into panic mode. SHIT.
"Are you okay?" Minghao asked. Wonwoo realised he had drawn to a halt in the middle of the cafeteria.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
"Is that the table?" Minghao asked, following Wonwoo's gaze to the table by the water cooler and pointing at it.
"Yeah."
Minghao smiled reassuringly. "Let's go, then," he urged, giving Wonwoo's shoulder a light tap.
With a nod, Wonwoo continued forward. His body froze as Mingyu turned his head around, catching Wonwoo's eye and smiling.
"Hey, Wonwoo, come sit down," Mingyu called, his sharp-toothed grin making sparks shiver down Wonwoo's spine.
Wonwoo acknowledged Mingyu with a look and a nod, moving forward towards the table, his palms growing sweaty as he stepped closer to Mingyu.
"Come on, I saved you a seat next to me," Mingyu said, making eye contact with Wonwoo, who looked away instantly and inwardly screeched.
"Thanks," Wonwoo mumbled, pulling out the chair and sitting next to the taller boy, with Minghao talking the seat next to Wonwoo. Murmurs of talk began between his friends.
"Who's your friend?" Mingyu asked, nodding towards Minghao.
"Oh, hello," Minghao introduced, a shy smile crossing his face, "my name is Xu Minghao. I'm a transfer student."
"You're from China?" came a voice amongst Mingyu's table of friends as a brown haired boy spoke up.
"Yes, I come from Anshan, in Liaoning," Minghao answered.
"Really? I'm from Shenzhen!" The boy's face lit up in excitement. "I'm Junhui. Or just Jun. This is so cool, I've never met anyone else from China here before."
"Wow, me neither." A wide smile broke over Minghao's face and he said something in another language, presumably Mandarin. Junhui's grin broadened and he replied in the same dialect. Minghao turned to look at Wonwoo. "I am really sorry to leave, but is it okay if I talk with Junhui for a while?"
A sinking feeling developed deep in Wonwoo's gut, but the words, "Sure, that's fine," escaped his lips anyway and he had to watch his backup plan for friendship leave the table and smile at somebody else. Maybe Jeon Wonwoo wasn't such a lucky charm anymore.
It wasn't long before conversation broke out aain between Mingyu and his friends, and Wonwoo pulled his phone and headphones from his pocket.
"Oh, I'm so stupid, I forgot to introduce you," Mingyu announced, giving his forehead a mock slap, "guys, this is Wonwoo. He's gonna sit here for today."
A chorus of awkward hi's came from the mouths of Mingyu's friends, and a couple retorted that they knew very well who Wonwoo was.
It wasn't like Wonwoo didn't know them either, though. Choi Seungcheol, the school jock and who seemed the apparent leader of their squad, sat opposite Wonwoo, giving him looks every now and then, almost as if he was questioning why Wonwoo was even sitting with them and not in his little emo corner like usual. Hansol gave Wonwoo a smile from the seat next to Seungcheol, while Seungkwan raised an eyebrow in his general direction, greeting Wonwoo in his ever-sassy style. Seungkwan only really sat with the more popular kids becsuse Hansol was one of the more popular kids and Seungkwan and Hansol were joined at the hip. Not to mention the excessive amount of gossip Seungkwan somehow managed to hear and then somehow managed to let everyone in his sight know all about it, and who wouldn't want to hear that? Lee Jihoon, one of the school's shortest kids, yet one of the most feared, sat next to Jisoo, the transfer student from America who had managed to convert half the girls in the school to Christianity with his good looks and smooth voice. Wonwoo felt very small and very out of place.
"Why are you sitting here?" Jihoon asked.
Wonwoo shrugged. He didn't really know why, himself. Mingyu gave Jihoon a look, and answered for Wonwoo. "I asked him to sit here. I talked to him in chemistry class today. He's a decent guy."
Jihoon seemed satisfied and resumed his conversation with Soonyoung. "So, Wonwoo, how was English?" Mingyu asked, brown, eyes smiling with his mouth.
Wonwoo didn't question how Mingyu knew he had English class before lunch, but answered anyway. "Okay," he replied, "I mean, it was English. So it was pretty shit."
Mingyu chuckled. "Fair enough. You had to listen to Seungkwan's low quality English, so that was probably the shit part."
Seungkwan snorted in disgust from across the table with a mumble of "fuck you, I'm the best quality", while Hansol almost collapsed into his school pasta with laughter.
A small smile spread over Wonwoo's face as he listened to Mingyu laugh. "He takes art, too," came the voice of Jeonghan, who had just sat down between Jisoo and Seungcheol, giving flirtatious glances to both.
"Are you any good?" Mingyu asked. "I heard that alternative people like you are pretty creative." He finger quoted the word 'alternative'.
"Not really. I like it, though," Wonwoo replied.
Mingyu grinned. "I'm sure you are. Right, Jeonghan?" Jeonghan shrugged at Mingyu in response, shooting Seungcheol a small wink before standing up.
"I just came up to see how you all were. I have coursework to do, so I'll see you all around." Jeonghan tugged slightly on Seungcheol's t shirt sleeve, and he stood up in suit, following Jeonghan out of the room. Jisoo shot the pair a dirty glance behind their backs, before taking a fairly aggressive bite of his ham sandwich.
"He's jealous," Mingyu whispered to Wonwoo, out of Jisoo's earshot. His breath felt warm and sweet and it made the hairs on Wonwoo's neck stand up. Mingyu flashed Wonwoo a smile. "So, what do I need to know about you? You keep to yourself, don't you, so nobody really knows much."
What was he supposed to say to that? He'd already established that he was going to humiliate himself with literally any response he gave Mingyu. "I like music," he replied. That was a safe answer, right?
"Really? Do you play an instrument?"
"No."
"Jisoos plays guitar," Mingyu said, nodding his head towards Jisoo.
"'Jisoos'? Again with the Jisoos joke?" Jisoo scolded, but his friendly eyes and the smile he gave afterwards indicated a joke. Wonwoo allowed himself a small smile.
"Hey, Junhui and that new kid seem to be getting along," Mingyu said, pointing a finger over to the other side of the cafeteria, where the two Chinese boys stood laughing.
"Yeah," Wonwoo replied. He didn't want to admit it but he felt vulnerable as fuck. A small nudge to his side made him look up to see Mingyu looking at him.
"You okay?" Mingyu asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling a little.
"Fine," Wonwoo replied, nodding his head and looking away.
"You know, half of them are on a study leave thing tomorrow. If it's kinda awkward you can come sit with me tomorrow. It's just me and these two," Mingyu suggested, gesturing towards Seungkwan and Vernon, "but they probably won't sit here."
"Sure," Wonwoo replied, fighting a mental battle trying not to die at the fact that Mingyu actually wanted to sit with him again, with just the two of them. Mingyu even simply paying enough attention to Wonwoo to notice he had been feeling uncomfortable was honestly one of the best and most unlikely things to happen to him. "I should go," he finally managed to say, "I have homework to catch up on."
"Okay, well see you then," Mingyu responded as the shorter boy stood up and slung his bag over a shoulder. He waved slightly as the rest of the table repeated a small chorus of goodbyes.
Wonwoo walked as normally as he could out of the table's eyesight before running into the bathroom and slamming a stall door shut behind him. He buried his face in his hands as a grin of actual happiness spread over his features.
"He wants to hang out with me tomorrow."