Hidden Treasure || ATEEZ AU

Flowerless

Wooyoung and Yeosang had first encountered each other at daycare. Wooyoung was loud and took a random liking to quiet Yeosang, enough to just follow him around aimlessly that one fateful day. Yeosang didn't really mind, he had his own little toddler agenda to keep him distracted, but of course, he acted out when the other tried to take one of his crayons and draw on the same page as him. He made such a scandal that their parents had to sit down and talk when picking them up. And that's the story of how their mothers' met.

Wooyoung's infatuation with Yeosang probably didn't last more than a day, but their mothers had clicked so they were forced into lots of playdates together as an excuse for them to hang out. They just became childhood constants for each other.

As they grew up Yeosang's parents couldn't really afford the same education as Wooyoung past the first years of elementary school and soon they weren't really seeing each other on a daily basis anymore. During one of their last years attending class together, they were pushed by the school to participate in a workshop for something neither of them remembered at the community center.

His family's financial situation wasn't going well and they were struggling to live by, but the community center offered a variety of courses for either free or obscenely cheap costs by volunteers that wanted to give back to where they came from and that really struck his mother. Wooyoung's mother followed suit.

The courses there always varied in time and theme. Sometimes it was a cool practical skill that they mastered in a few weeks, sometimes it was a semester of weekends to do an introduction to a foreign language or a few months to learn something more technical. Yeosang didn't mind filling his time with it. He understood why his mom was so forceful about it. She wanted him to come out better. She was doing her best. He didn't have anything more interesting to do anyway.

Yeosang as a kid was kind of dull. He never really picked up an interest in anything besides drawing. When he was with Wooyoung he just followed his lead. With his family, there was always this pressure to study. But at the same time, there wasn't really any pressure on him because he was already doing it without the need for any push. It wasn't a burden or a joy, it was indifferent to him. A means to an end to something that he didn't really understand or needed to understand for the next ten years when he'd have to think about a career and such. He merely existed and he needed to do something so he just filled his mind with it.

When he got too stressed he would draw and paint and that would be enough to rest.

Wooyoung was the contrary. He didn't like the courses, he didn't see the point and he couldn't care less. He was a kid so that wasn't unexpected. He made a ruckus and loudly joked around with Yeosang during all their classes. Nonetheless, he got great grades and so it made it hard for people to tell him off.

Yeosang and Wooyoung were close by nature. They didn't need to go through a phase of opening up even as they no longer spent as much time together and they never really had secrets growing up. They were constant in each other's lives. Not really the exact feeling of family, but not really the feeling of a simple friend. Up until they were 13 that relationship continued flawlessly.

As time went on Wooyoung would sign up for fewer courses. His attitude towards it only got worse to the point where he would just come and sit across Yeosang's desk, turned away from the teacher. It became clear he was doing that just to spend time with the other boy. His grades barely passable, just enough to secure the spot.

So they got separated pretty early in their school life, but the two friends had already bonded too deep, coming to each other's houses after school and hanging out daily regardless of not being bound to the same places as before. That is until Wooyoung got into that fancy boarding school. It wasn't so often that they could see each other anymore.