ROOM OF MIRRORS° h.sj

009

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SAEBOM HIGH
LUNCH
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✧──────✦ the lunchroom was filled with boisterous laughter and conversation, completely unaware of the conversation going on between suho and seojun. so once the tray hit the ground and scattered, they all turned towards the noise and watched as seojun walked down the row with his hands in his pockets.

he pulled out the empty chair next to jugyeong and sat down. sumin, who sat in front of the previously empty seat, was completely confused about the situation. was it because of the helmet?

jugyeong seemed to take the question right out of her head, "is this because of the helmet?"

"no." sumin really wished he would stop talking. "i came to eat with you." he tilted his head toward her lunch as if giving her the go ahead, completely ignoring her blatant staring as he looked at jugyeong with stars in his eyes.

the table watched as suho stomped down the hall and grabbed seojun's collar to pull him up. seojun smirked and seemed to enjoy the anger radiating off of him. sumin snapped her hair tie against her wrist a few times from nerves.

"are you serious?" seojun questioned as he threw the first punch. suho stood up and hesitantly raised his fist, as if questioning his last bit of morals. due to suho's hesitance, the teacher strolled in and pulled them along to his office.

"han seojun, what's the matter with you? you said you wanted to be an idol, did you quit and become a gangster instead? how dare you start a fistfight like that."

their classmate, hyunkyu, had no sense of reading the room, "you're right, sir. i was totally shocked, myself. i almost threw up when i saw it."

"get lost," the teacher said and hyunkyu quickly obeyed and walked away.

the disciplinary director turned his attention back to the two boys, "what if this causes a school violence committee meeting? do you want to get expelled?"

"i started the fight, sir." suho looked him in the eye.

"my goodness, why are you defending him?" the teacher asked while seojun rolled his eyes. sumin stood behind the door listening in and waiting for seojun to come out. "you took a leave of absence for your mother's illness, and this is what you do?"

sumin wondered if seojun was ever going to tell her about his mother. although she wasn't speaking of her family situation, she still had a close relationship with his mother. sumin looked up to her as a mother figure. also, it was a total low blow for the disciplinary director to speak like that, and probably illegal because he spoke of his private matters in public.

"your mother must be extremely upset because of how you behave. i can already guess why your mother got sick." he scolded while he pushed seojun's shoulder with his stick.

sumin had her head peeking through the door. the disciplinary teacher looked over at her and back at the two boys. seojun avoided her direction as the principal pranced into the room.

"suho already agreed to forgive him. so let's wrap this up, there's no need for a committee meeting. don't you think so?"

the teacher softened up as the principal patted suho's shoulders, "you have a math competition soon! go back to class and study."

suho bowed to them and left the office while the principal yelled at seojun. the latter soon left the room and sumin jogged to catch up with him.

she knew it was stupid to ask when the answer was so obvious, "are you okay?" no response. sumin could only follow him up to the roof where he sat on the row of desks and laid down.

maybe she could try a different approach, "how's your mom?" that wasn't what she meant to say. she had a hundred questions and that one just fell out of her mouth before she could stop it, but no going back now.

"she's better now," seojun said with an arm covering his eyes. he hated that she had found out like that, he'd rather tell her himself. "i just took some time off to work to pay off her hospital bills."

sumin nodded along as he spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. she even contemplated telling him her problems too, but she bit her tongue and stayed silent.

"is your fist okay?" sumin decided it wasn't her place to ask about the reason why the fight took place. seojun lifted his hand to stare at it, and then showed her. she grabbed it and checked the growing bruise on his knuckles. sumin dug around through her pockets and pulled out a cream to help with the swelling.

"when'd you have the time to get that?"

truthfully, she thought something would happen today after what they'd seen over the weekend. "just had it laying around," she replied with a small smile. while sumin carefully tended to his knuckles, seojun had to fight off the growing blush on his ears.

"aren't you going to ask why?"

sumin replied with another question, "why what?"

"why i punched him."

"i'm curious, but i'm not going to force you to tell me." she blew on his knuckles to let the ointment soak in. "everyone has stuff they want to keep a secret."

"do you have any secrets?" the question nearly caught her off guard.

"why do you want to know?" she knew exactly what the one secret she couldn't share with him was. the one secret that would ruin the friendship she worked so hard for years in order to build. sumin thought of the consequences of confessing to him, there was not one singular good outcome.

"because we're friends." and there it was. he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"don't worry about it," she dropped his hand and stood up to stretch. "let's go visit your mom sometime."

seojun sat up as sumin left the rooftop. he hated that he could never understand what was going through her head. he pulled his hand close to his face and stared at the bandaid he hadn't realized she put on. she could've at least given him a cool one, but alas a pink bandaid with cartoon characters and hearts sat securely on his knuckles.

he slowly walked off the roof a few minutes later with a pink bandaid stuck to his hand because it would just hurt way too much if he pulled it off.