Amalgamation

Chapter 4

Jimin was slumped over his desk in biology, bored out of his mind and already wishing for the class to be over even though the bell hadn't even rung yet. He felt himself dozing off as he stared at the clock above the door until he noticed Eunji stepping into the room. He immediately sat up straight, wiping at the corner of his mouth to make sure he wasn't drooling and smoothing his hair down to look presentable for when she took her seat next to him.

"What, spot a cute girl?" Eunji teased him as she sat down. "Or guy? Don't want to assume."

"Girl!" Jimin blurted out, laughing nervously at Eunji's taken aback expression. "Yeah, uh, I like girls. Completely straight here."

Eunji nodded slowly. "Okay, thanks for sharing." She opened her textbook to review the introduction to chapter 11 as the bell rang.

Mr. Han made his way to the front of the room. "I hope everyone remembered their pond and stream samples, because today is when we begin our lengthy project of creating and preserving a microcosm!"

^^^

Mrs. Bae exited her PowerPoint presentation and moved back to the center of the room. "Now to discuss our spring project. There will be many small assignments that put together will make up 50% of your final grade in this class." Whispers erupted through the room as she continued. "These assignments will arrange from analyzing pieces to composing your own original pieces. And all of these assignments will be done in pairs," the whispering took on an excited tone, "which I have already picked out." The students groaned as she began to call out the assigned partners, except for Yoongi who always found it ridiculous when people were upset over not getting to work with their friends. Like, why would teachers knowingly let students work with people that they would probably never finish their work with? "...Yoongi and Eunji..."

Yoongi glanced over at the girl only to see her already smiling at him. "What did I tell you, seat buddy?" He couldn't help but smile back, a new feeling he couldn't identify starting to bubble up in the pit of his stomach.

^^^

Taehyung took his time at his locker at the end of the school day, not in any rush to meet up with his dad for the ride home. He soon regretted his decision when the hallway cleared out and he realized that Joshua and Seungcheol were just a few lockers down from his. He quickly shoved his history textbook into his backpack and closed his locker, turning to leave only to be stopped by the two people he had been avoiding.

"Where are you off to?" Joshua asked, and Taehyung stayed quiet, avoiding looking at him. "You going to rub elbows with that freak, or go crying to your daddy?"

"Neither~" Taehyung finally responded. "Because the only 'freak' I know is you, and I have no reason to cry because you don't scare me."

Joshua stepped forward, causing Taehyung to step back and into the lockers. "You sure about that?" Joshua asked condescendingly, and Taehyung once again chose not to respond. "Watch your back~" He shoved Taehyung's shoulder, making him hit the lockers again before walking off with Seungcheol behind him.

Once they were gone, Taehyung let out the breath he had been holding. He stepped away from the lockers, rubbing his sore shoulder as he made his way to Namjoon's classroom.

^^^

Jungkook led Yugyeom into the restaurant, walking up to his dad as he finished taking someone's order. "Hey, Dad, this is Yugyeom. My partner for that project I told you about."

Seokjin immediately smiled at the teenager. "Hi, Yugyeom, it's very nice to meet you. I'm Seokjin~"

Yugyeom returned the smile as Jungkook spoke again. "We're going upstairs to my room to start working."

"Okay!" Seokjin called after them as they headed towards the staircase in the back. "If you get hungry, just come find me and I'll whip you up some snacks!"

After arriving at Jungkook's now shared bedroom, the two teenagers got comfortable on his bed and began pulling out the necessary supplies to begin work on their project. "Where do you want to start?" Jungkook asked.

"We can just start with chapter one, talking about the things we noticed and taking notes of important elements, and work our way from there." Yugyeom commented, and Jungkook agreed.

Jungkook opened his book up to be able to use specific details and dialogue in his notetaking. "Well, first of all, the way the hatchery is described, it's more like they're trying to create machines or robots than actual human beings. Taking away any chance of individuality by preconditioning the embryos to fit into specific molds all in the sake of a unified society. It's definitely a dig at our own society's views of conformity."

They discussed that topic some more until Yugyeom brough up another detail. "There's a lot of allusions to religion. Like the 'a.f.' meaning after Ford is a reference to how we use 'b.c.' and 'a.d.' to refer to life before and after Jesus was born. And the preconditioning you mentioned can fall into that too, because there are some religions that believe people are predestined to go to Hell or Heaven and that there's nothing they can do to change their fate."

"So, it's either intentionally mocking religion as a whole, or representing it in a satirical way to highlight the negative sides of religion." Jungkook jotted down that thought in his notebook.

"Either way, that's obviously one reason people have wanted this book banned." Yugyeom smirked, flipping through a couple of pages.

They worked on it through the afternoon, only pausing when a knock was heard on the door. They looked up to see Namjoon peeking his head in. "Your dad sent me in to see if Yugyeom was staying for dinner." He then turned to his other student and smiled at him. "Hi, Yugyeom, I trust you guys are working hard."

"Yes, sir~" Yugyeom agreed, but it was obvious he was slightly confused by Namjoon's presence. "And I actually need to head home soon, so I don't think I can stay for dinner."

"Okay, I'll let him know. Have fun~"

Once Namjoon was gone, Yugyeom turned back to Jungkook, and the teenager braced himself for the teasing he was used to. "Are you related to Mr. Kim?"

"Kind of?" Jungkook responded hesitantly. "He's my dad's boyfriend, and he and his sons just moved in a couple of weeks ago. If that's weird for you, we can start working at your house. Or I can-"

"Why would it be weird?" Jungkook looked up at Yugyeom in slight shock. "Plenty of people are related to or have close relations to teachers. If I was going to be weird about working with someone like that, then I would be very limited in who I could work with." Yugyeom picked his highlighter up and turned back to the book.

Jungkook continued to watch him for a couple of seconds until a smile spread across his face, at which point he picked up his own book and turned to the next page.