The Choi Brothers

🍵Chapter 3🍵

The seniors were sprawled around a battered cafeteria table, its surface cluttered with trays, crumpled napkins, open notebooks, and half-finished drinks sweating onto the plastic.

Their voices rose and fell over one another, competing with the metallic clatter of utensils, the scrape of chairs, and the constant buzz of student life pulsing through the hall.

Someone leaned back, laughing too loudly.

Someone else complained about an their holidays.

Another tapped their fingers against the table, impatient, waiting for a chance to jump back into the conversation.

One of them was in the middle of talking, mouth open, hands moving as he emphasized a point, when a voice drifting past cut cleanly through the noise.

“Today I’m meeting him,” the voice said, slow and smug, soaked in disdain. “I can’t wait to bang him on the desk.”

The words did not dissolve into the background like everything else. They snagged. They lingered.

The senior froze mid-sentence, his hand suspended in the air as if time had stalled around him alone. The easy grin on his face vanished, replaced by something rigid and cold. His eyes shifted toward the source without him even realizing it, jaw tightening so hard it looked like it might crack.

A second voice chimed in, louder, obnoxious, fueled by performative bravado. “Oh, broooo, that’s so freaking coooool! I bet that fag Choi missed you, Dongsik!”

The slur landed like a blunt object on the table.

Conversation died instantly.

The laughter evaporated. Cups went untouched. Forks paused halfway to mouths. The air around them thickened, sharp and heavy, pressing down on their shoulders. One of the seniors pushed his chair back slowly, the legs screeching against the linoleum in a sound that made nearby students glance over. His jaw was clenched, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes dark with something dangerously restrained.

“I’ll be back,” he said quietly, the words forced out between his teeth.

No one stopped him. No one needed to ask why.

As he walked away, fists clenched at his sides, the remaining five sat in tense silence for a beat. They exchanged glances that carried anger, worry, and a shared understanding that settled between them without a single word spoken.

“That was not okay,” one of them muttered, voice low.

Another nodded, already standing. “Not even close.”

Chairs scraped back almost in unison, the sound rough and deliberate. Trays were left behind, food forgotten. They rose together, shoulders squared, expressions set with quiet resolve, and followed after him, moving with purpose as the cafeteria noise swallowed them again, unaware that something had just shifted and none of them were willing to let it pass.

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“Taehyun-ah!”

The call rang out bright and sing-song, cutting through the corridor chatter. Both boys turned instantly, their steps slowing as they searched for the source. A girl hurried toward them, arms wrapped tightly around a precarious stack of files and notebooks that looked one wrong move away from toppling over.

“Hey, Lia,” the red-haired boy greeted easily, lifting a hand in a lazy wave, his grin already in place.

“Hi, Soobin oppa,” Lia said next, her voice softening instinctively as her eyes landed on the taller boy beside him.