↱GREAT ESCAPE↲ ⇾seongjoong/yeonbin⇽

8

it was tough being the new kid.

wooyoung arrived unexpectedly halfway through their second year, when classes resumed after spring break.

everyone already had a set group of friends from the year and semester prior.

jongho could relate, if only he knew.

they only had one class together - algebra, which jongho spent more than half the time spacing out.

no one tried to make room for him.

wooyoung had no intention to befriend anyone either.

wooyoung was quiet, one might add too quiet.

he sat at the back corner of the class looking out the window as if he wasn't typing away at the tablet he hid behind a thick biology textbook.

teachers constantly called for him, assumed he wasn't listening, except wooyoung correctly answered any and all of the questions thrown his way, elaborately.

every. single. one. teachers learned to leave him alone.

he never raised his hand.

as high school drama would, however, rumors started circulating about wooyoung's familial background just a few days after his arrival - why he transferred so late, why he never spoke unless spoken to.

not that anyone had the decency - or courage - to speak to him to begin with, if only to clear up any of the bullshittery thrown his way.

simple - yet highly unlikely - stories.

they were the kinds punctuated by multiple question marks. no one could trace its original source no matter how hard anyone looked into it.

they sounded so far-fetched it was astounding how stupid half the student population was for ever believing any of it.

the recurring theme was his (ironic) affiliation with multiple chinese triads, specifically leading syndicates such as sun yee on and 14k.

thus, being involved in transnational organized crime (like extortion and shit, san explained impeccably upon relaying the story a few years later).

they were opposing guilds.

apparently, his family also killed the emperor.

or wooyoung did.

( "the head of state, you mean?"

"no, dude. the emperor."

"right." )

the gossipmongers, evident history class failures, neglected to learn that puyi, the last emperor of china, had died in 1967, and that they were a republic now.

the primary irony here, was that wooyoung was not from china. let alone chinese.

how these rumors even started? well, no one is too sure.