Meridian ◈ Seungjin

18 ◈ Antebellum

"I swear, I am going to slam my forehead into my pencil and snap this continent in half with the sheer force of my headbutt."

"Minho," Chan called him with furrowed eyebrows, "You good?"

The mentioned looked up from the sheet of paper torn with the frictions force of his eraser eliminating another attempt the same problem for the hundreth time since they started, eyes coated in a frustrated gloss as he narrowed a glare at the older next to him. Numbers were scattered throughout the worksheet without reason; Littered between inked equations, scribbled on the backside pressed firmly onto the desk so no living mortal may ever see his struggle again, annotated in the indented sides void of text commanding him to slave over the paper for a few minutes longer less he wanted to toss away his future like a wad of plastic into a garbage bin. The pencil he rested a top his fingers left the equations, the gray graphite instead digging into the few spots left bare of the nonsensical squiggles to drill excessive lines of anger into the untouched alabaster. His lips pursed. Firmly, he stated, "No."

"Uh," Chan searched for the proper word. On the other side of the older, Hyunjin spotted the unsure survey checking over their friend. A clear, unadulterated distress scrunched the skin on Chan's features into mountain ranges worthy of climbing, the edges of his lips twitching as he tried to string together a sensible response to the single word, his shoulders relaxing back into the cheaply made desk chair as he continued to scan his surroundings for a good response. Minho remained unspeaking. Although his eyes strained on the older, beggings for assistance tidal waving through the twitches in his hands, he only sealed his mouth tighter shut. Chan shifted away from him, gaze shooting to the teacher strutting rounds in the math classroom to ensure the students were doing their work, then to Hyunjin who offered the same indifferent stare. The older went back to his own paper, mumbling, "Okay then?"

"You'll have to excuse him, he's an idiot," Hyunjin muttered under his breath, keeping the comment more to himself than to the confused vampire sitting by him. Though he was probably heard regardless of the attempt. He set his mechanical pencil down gently on the desk, immediately flipping the completed stack of pages over to the nearest blank side before folding his elbows on the surface. Neither of them needed to know his progress. If they didn't ask, they didn't need to know, if no one asks, no one needs to know, not about math, not about anything else in this pathetic world. A shutter jolted through his limbs, I don't want to get roped into helping either.

"You're telling me? I'm surprised it took you this long to figure out," Chan chuckled. He slid his own pencil to be unbalanced in his grip, coming to entertain himself with tapping a steady rhythm with the metal reader guard on the desk top protected by his worksheet. Still attempting to keep his voice low to avoid a lecture by their teacher, he taunted, "What has it been? Two years? Even after the baby carrots?"

"I'm starting to understand," Hyunjin mumbled. He glanced across the older to Minho, trying to catch a glimpse of how his work was progressing, if it was being solved at all. He quickly realized Minho had given up entirely. He instead focused on the wonderful endeavours of the artistic world as the graphite of his pencil sketched a morning dewdrop-ridden field of flowers and imposingly tall reeds, a grinning sun with thick sunglasses to hide it's true intentions spawning the crescent dimples curved at the ends, puffy clouds shaped as throbbing hearts deeply in love drawn into the whitened sky full of untapped potential, fluttering butterflies drifting above the grass as oblivious to the threatening world waiting for them to land on the tulip petals. And in the midst of his impressive drawing, was a poorly drawn stick figure with a wobbly smile. A name was written above the stick person. "Atlas".

Hyunjin suffocated a snort, his mind entertaining, Poor Atlas, he looks like a twig.

"I'm not an idiot. I'm just not good at math," Minho corrected them. He caught Hyunjin's gaze, a light dust of pink barely peeping at the top of his ears as his hand slammed down to cover his drawing. Funny enough, the single thing he covered beneath the tight airlock of his palm was the heart clouds he proudly sketched. "Atlas" wasn't smashed under the weight as well. He then turned his focus to the older of the two, a grimace overtaking his face to hide the slight sulk in his tone, "And don't mention the baby carrots, that was a tragedy and no one's fault."