new friends

CHANGE

Some things don't ever change.

Like how looks would always determine your standing and validity. It was vain, unfair and stupid, but isn't the world exactly these three things?

When you look good, you were pardoned for so many unreasonable things, and when you fuck up, people back you up for no apparent fucking reason.

Only my best friend Renjun and his friend Yangyang (also my classmate in high school) ended up in the same college as me, which wasn't all that surprising actually. Hanyang University was rarely even thought of as an option for everyone in my overachieving school, but well anyway.

Popularity and admiration followed the two out of the high school gates, and while I wouldn't say I'm seeing the overdramatised appeal, I wouldn't say my lenses were green with envy when I looked at them.

In fact, it was actually kind of scary how popular they were in college and how the people around them were suddenly either hyped up or dragged down for simply being around them.

That shit made me want to avoid them like a plague, but too bad it seems neither of them got the memo.

Especially not Yangyang, who I could almost swear was only friends with me because on Renjun. Eitherways, doing small things for me (which he usually saw as insignificant) seemed to have stayed with him even after we went on our own education paths and once again, some people with too much free time on their hands speculate stupid things.

"Do you really not have a single coin on you?" I complained, frowning at a San who looked comically offended.

The Choi boy threw his hands up in the air, "Yes, I really don't! Why would I lie?"

"To save the few cents, perhaps," Seonghwa mused, already knowing San all too well. "A very you thing to do, no?"

San wagged a finger at him, "Well yes but also no. I'm not so petty as to leave my best friend stranded and pacing in front of a vending machine with not enough coins to get so much as a diet coke!"

Yeosang, who'd been on his phone refreshing his Instagram feed for the nth time, let out a sigh of great exasperation at the Choi boy's indignant remark. "Will someone please shut this shameful, sleazy and smelly simpleton up? My decent day is being ruined just hearing his voice so much."

He had contributed a good fraction to the drink pending in the machine and was currently coinless, so I wasn't barking up on his end. Nor Seonghwa's actually, since the Park boy only carries debit cards around for convenience sake.

San turned to Yeosang and, with that single look, both parties broke into an insult-off. Seonghwa, ever the peacemaker, immediately sprung into nervous 'come on, guys' in his best attempt to stop the bickering pair from strangling each other.

"Gosh, I can't believe this," I muttered amidst the chaos, banging a fist on the machine helplessly. "I just want a cold drink, for fuck's sake."

Someone in the distance screamed, and for a good second, all I could think was 'yeah, same', then I realised exactly what I heard.

Someone had screamed. It wasn't the bone-chilling scream, or the fearful type of scream, it was the fangirling type of scream.

Internally I prepared to watch either Yeosang, San or Seonghwa be asked out by yet another random student, but what I did not expect, was to see a sea of college kids swarming to the same corridor my friends and I were chilling at all of the sudden.

And their attention weren't on my three friends, but something at a distance- No, wait it was someone.

Someone who these people clearly knew the schedule of very well, seeing how everyone was prepared up to the minute to catch the smallest of glance at.