aversion | bbangnyu

4

"Welcome back to your favorite calculus class!" The teacher beamed as he joined her students in the dull classroom, "I do believe we have a few new faces in here...if we haven't met yet I'm Mrs Lee."

There was a tense silence in the classroom as all of them just wanted to go home. "I know sixth hour math can be hard because all you can think about is being done for the day, but I hope you all will still try as hard as you can," she said sweetly, taking a chance to make eye contact with Younghoon. "Now, don't get too comfortable...I have a seating chart!" She exclaimed excitedly as she showed the seating arrangement in the board, "these will be your seats for the rest of the semester. I hope you get to meet somebody you don't already know."

With a sigh, Younghoon parted from his group of friends and wandered up to the board. After a while of searching, he finally found his name and felt his heart sink. He was seated in the back right next to Choi Chanhee.

He slowly walked over to his seat and hesitantly sat down next to Chanhee. The boy didn't seem to pay any attention to Younghoon as he flipped through a notebook.

"Don't let him get too close..." one of Younghoon's friends whispered as he walked by causing the other boys the laugh.

Younghoon forced a smile onto his lips, not knowing why all the teasing was necessary. He didn't want to be a jerk to the poor boy, but he cared far too much about his reputation.

The girl sitting in front of Chanhee turned around and said, "they're the ones who fight over balls," in a language Younghoon couldn't quite understand. It sounded like English, but he had no knowledge of the language.

Whatever it was, the two sure thought it was funny. Chanhee broke into a fit of giggles, covering his mouth as he laughed. The girl glanced over at Younghoon who was very obviously staring at the two and grumbled, "Do you need something?"

"Yerim—don't mind him," Chanhee said as he pointed to the board so she would pay attention to the lecture.

✨✨✨

The class was given time to work at the end of the hour but of course nobody was actually working. All the boys had huddled up at their desks and Yeri was telling Chanhee about her adventures in America.

"I met this boy at a coffee shop and he taught me how to say all sorts of mean things in English," she spoke happily as she leaned on her friend's desk.

"Did you ever see him after that?" Chanhee asked.

She quickly shook her head, "I didn't think he was cute enough to ask if we could meet up again."

Glancing over at the boy next to him, Chanhee saw Younghoon focused on his worksheet. His eyebrows were knit together tightly as he struggled to come up a formula for the second problem.

Chanhee looked at the work on his own paper before mumbling, "You have to divide then take the square root."

Younghoon looked up at the boy and just stared at him for some time. "I...I can do it myself," he said before looking away.

"He's so arrogant..." Yeri whispered harshly to Chanhee, loud enough so the boy could hear.

"Just mind your own business Yerim—ah, he can struggle if he wants to."

✨✨✨

"I need to switch my seat," Younghoon said bluntly as he walked up to the teacher's desk after class.

Mrs Lee looked up from her computer and raised an eyebrow, "I hope you have a good reason or that's not happening."

"I just can't sit by him...all my friends they...they—"

"Mr Kim, I understand teenage boys are, excuse my language complete assholes, but that's no reason to switch seats. I put you next to Chanhee because he gets the highest scores on everything. Not to mention he's an incredibly sweet boy who wouldn't mind helping you," the woman said thoughtfully as she looked up at the boy.

A groan fell from his lips, "Please, Mrs Lee, just think about changing my seat." 

"No, I won't think about it," the woman responded flatly, "I've taught more years than you've been alive, I know what's right for my students. If this is an issue just because Chanhee is gay...then you need to think of what you can do to make it work...not what I can do."

Frowning at her cryptic words, Younghoon crossed his arms, "But the other guys—if they see me talking to Chanhee I'll be the laughing stock of the team."

"Do you think talking to somebody with a different sexuality should make you a laughing stock?"

Younghoon opened his mouth to answer but the woman held her hand in the air. "I don't want your answer now. I want your answer after you've taken time to get to know Chanhee for who he truly is." 

✨✨✨

"What the hell is Younghoon's problem?" Yeri hissed as she punched the air, "He acts like you kill puppies in your free time."

Laughing at her antics, Chanhee shrugged, "I'm not worried about what he thinks. He's just another privileged boy who's never had to worry about anything."

"Oh! I want to knock some sense into him..." the girl continued before climbing into Chanhee's car.

"Yeri, they could use you as the basketball for their games, calm down."

"You're just jealous that I'm so good at confronting people," the girl muttered as she crossed her arms over her chest. 

Chanhee scoffed, "you wish! Nobody is jealous of a girl like you."

"I'm going to knock some sense into you when we get to your house."

"My mom told me we need to stop wrestling before one of us gets hurt..." Chanhee said quietly, secretly thankful that he had an excuse not to get his ass kicked again. 

———

Chanhee and Yeri is my dream friendship

Thanks for reading