Meridian ◈ Seungjin

3 ◈ To Kill a King

Hyunjin set down next to his friends at one of the rows of the extended crescent moon tables of the classroom. It looked more like a lecture hall. It felt more like a lecture hall. Between the raised seats, the clean whiteboard that acted more as a mirror half of the time, and the physical distance the teacher kept from their students at any one given time, it all felt grander than it actually was. There was a certain hauteur being falsified in the stillness of the room, one that could be peeled away with bitten nails should one ever care to dismantle the outer layers of the "academy". Advanced courses and focused disciplines aside, there was nothing prestigious about this brutal place of scholars.

At the front of the room, their teacher began to lecture. The instructor scribbled on the whiteboard with the intoxicating stench of the multicolored markers, number being placed next to letters and words coming from him to elaborate on the various topics; Syllabus, needed supplies, the material that should be covered over the course of the next school year, though Hyunjin found himself unable to pay attention to the teacher from the moment he sat at his desired seat. Instead, he was distracted by Minho leaning over the protracted desk, him gawking past Chan to pin Hyunjin down with a curious suspicion and a murmur, "Why are you here?"

"Am I not allowed to take an advanced math course?" Hyunjin hissed back to the older.

From between their muttered battle of spitting growls barely loud enough for anyone to hear, Chan interrupted by waving a hand in the middle of their eye contact. Hyunjin's gaze snapped to him as the older friend complained, "I wouldn't recommend taking this one. Change your schedule while you can."

"Then, why are you here?"

"I need credit. The credit for my maths course last year didn't show up on my transcript," Chan told briefly as his fingers began to tap at the top of the desk, an impatience to his motions that became trenchant of an irritation rooting itself in the upperclassmen's veins. Why that irritation existed was yet to be known, but it became discernable the longer the three let a wordless silence stretch on. Slowly, and ever so quietly underneath a guise of serious air, Minho suffocated snickers behind a palm in order to not interrupt or let the teasing noises be known by anyone other than his friends in the immediate range. Chan sent him a glare, "Stop laughing at me."

Hyunjin's eyes shot from Minho to Chan, a constant flicker back and forth between them and to the teacher at the front of the room beginning to catch on to their muttering laying beneath the lectur. He let his torso fall closer to the desk, an attempt to provide a better angle to stare at the displeasure tainting the face of the vampire next to him with the hidden jeers. Quickly, he noted the fact Chan and Jeongin always both had a short fuse when it came to accusations. One of the few things they shared in common. As he watched the displeasure grow increasingly prominent as it began to spread from his hands to the desk and to the stagnant air bubbling around the older, Hyunjin quirked an eyebrow and questioned, "Why? What happened?"

"I may or may not have set the teacher's garbage bin on fire last year, and he kicked me out of the class and I couldn't get the credit for completing the semester," Chan's arms came to cross over his chest. Beside him the snickering became louder as it grew into chuckles. Ones that would hardly go unnoticed if he continued to output them at the rate and volume they were currently spiking at, and almost as if to prove this point, Hyunjin caught the teacher's gaze shooting in their direction. It went unnoticed by the other two, Chan more focused on his friend as he pleased, "Really, stop laughing, it's not that funny."

"It's a little funny," The sniveling Minho defended himself.

Chan stared at him for a few beats. He unfurled an arm from the tight lock over his ribs, brushed his mechanical pencil off his notebook, and rolled said empty notebook pages it into a tight cylinder until it became as tough and unbreakable as a rock. When their friend didn't stop his snickers, he connected the firm bludgeoning weapon of the notebook to Minho's forehead with a solid thwack. The victim, arguably not though with the provocation that came from him, let out a heavy gasp as he held the spot it connected to. The legs of his chair screamed against the floor of the classroom as he reached for Chan.