The events of the morning had left Soobin slightly shaken up. As soon as the lunch bell rang, Soobin got up, "I'll just go to the washroom real quick," he said to Yeonjun and dashed off, without even waiting for a reply. Yeonjun watched Soobin leave and took out his phone, he'd just have to wait till Soobin got back.
As Yeonjun patiently sat on his desk, playing games on his phone, he felt a small poke on his right shoulder, looking up, he saw one of his classmates.
"Hi, I'm Beomgyu," the classmate said.
"Hello, I'm Yeonjun," Yeonjun replied, flashing a small smile.
"You want to come get lunch together?"
"Oh, I'm actually waiting for a friend, he went to the washroom."
Slightly taken aback, Beomgyu slowly replied, "Uhh, I guess your friend could come along too."
Suddenly a voice from across the class called out, "Yo Boemgyu, we're going to go get lunch or what?"
Beomgyu and Yeonjun looked towards where the voice came from. The boy who had just called Beomgyu and the boy with him walked up to Yeonjun's desk.
"Hey, you're new, right? Pleased to meet you, I'm Kai, Beomgyu's friend," the boy said.
"And I'm Taehyun," the boy beside him said.
"Hello, guys. I'm Yeonjun. Nice to meet you," Yeonjun greeted.
"So are we going to go get lunch yet or what?" Kai asked Beomgyu.
"Oh, Yeonjun's waiting for a friend"
"A friend?" Kai looked at Yeonjun.
"Why are you bugging the poor boy if he already has a friend, I thought you wanted to invite him to our lunch table because he was alone," Kai said, looking genuinely confused.
"Oh c'mon, I want to be Yeonjun's friend too," Beomgyu pouted.
"That's slightly rude of you, Kai" Taehyun pointed out.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Yeonjun. I really didn't mean it in a bad way or anything," Kai justified, looking slightly appalled.
Seeing that Kai didn't really mean to offend him any way, Yeonjun quickly replied, "Oh no, it's fine, I get what you mean."
"So, where is this friend of yours, you know we won't judge you if you're actually alone, you know. No one really has friends on their first day at a new school, anyway." Taehyun said.
"Oh no, he'll be here soon. He's just gone to the washroom"
"Oh okay," the other boys said as they sat down and waited for Soobin, along with Yeonjun.
Meanwhile, Soobin was in the washroom trying to calm himself down as two things filled his mind with anxiety,
one: was he about to get bullied in this new school again?
and two: was he about to catch feelings for Yeonjun?
Soobin looked at himself in the mirror, "it's going to be alright, Yeonjun said he'd look out for me so it should be fine, right? And as for catching feelings for Yeonjun, it's a dumb idea, I'm just merely touched because I haven't had someone pay so much attention to me in a while now. I do like Yeonjun, but it is the 'like' that is between friends, nothing more. I accept that I'm gay, but I know Yeonjun isn't who I'm gay for." Thinking about Yeonjun waiting for him, Soobin quickly thought that he had convinced himself as much as he could and hurriedly walked back to the classroom.
As Soobin was just about to enter the classroom, he saw Yeonjun surrounded by a few other boys, they seem to be casually talking and Yeonjun seemed to be having fun as he smiled at something one of the other boys said.
Suddenly, Soobin felt a weird wave of uneasiness.
"Would be alright for me to suddenly barge in into the class and interrupt their conversation?"
"Are they his other friends?"
"I wonder if Yeonjun will mind if I became friends with his friends too..."
"Am I supposed to go in right now?"
"I did say that I'd be back but did he even hear me?"
As all these thoughts clouded Soobin's mind, he was frozen stiff right outside the door but right then, Yeonjun seemed to have taken notice of him. As the other boys talked between themselves, Yeonjun looked at Soobin through the glass of the door and smiled at him.
Startled by Yeonjun's smile, Soobin snapped out of his weird trance and stepped into the classroom with a soft, small smile of his own.