ambrosia [NCT DREAM]

1. I Literally Fucking Blow Up

"Wow, it's really coming down, isn't it?" Jaemin pondered in Korean, tapping his mechanical pencil absentmindedly on the desk in front of him. Some kid shushed him, shooting him a dirty look. Jaemin huffed and slid down in his chair, eyes darting from the cheesy motivational posters on the walls to the back of his classmate's heads.

The rain was violent. He'd seen the forecast for today and a huge cold front was coming in, taking a violent storm with it. He liked the rain usually, but the constant thunder really bothered him. It was hard enough to focus as is, but with thunder right above his head every twenty seconds...

"Mister Na, focus." His teacher chided, glaring at him over his glasses. Jaemin huffed again and tried to pay attention to the math problems -really, he tried. But he simply couldn't focus on one thing because the numbers got jumbled and he'd forgotten how to do problem number eight and some kid was humming quietly to remember the order of operations. His phone buzzed in his backpack, which distracted him even more. Not to mention, the rain was really coming down.

"Sorry." Jaemin muttered, looking at his paper and picking up his pen before dropping it just as quick and instead messing with some split ends of his own dark hair. He sucked in a big breath and blew a raspberry on accident when he exhaled. How he did that on accident, he doesn't really know.

"This is your final exam, Na." The teacher grumbled, getting up from his seat now. "Take it seriously, this is a pass or fail."

There was a crack of thunder in the sky as the rain pattered on the roof, loud enough to hear inside the classroom. Jaemin nodded, but tapped his pen on his lips and realized that his legs were really cramped in his seat, so he turned completely to the side, then threw one over the other, then nearly sat upside down.

His phone buzzed again, this time with urgency. It wasn't a text from his mom, it was an emergency alert instead. Everyone else's phones followed suit.

"Sir? School should... uh, canceled? Cancel? There is tornado..." Jaemin frowned, forgetting the English word for "warning". He pulled out his phone to show the teacher the tornado warning alerts he'd gotten. The other students began to whisper, hushed and scared.

"Mister Na, put your phone away. If you can't be quiet, I'll void your results." The teacher stopped him coldly. The class snickered a little and Jaemin's ears hearted up, turning pink.

"Jaemin's clearly off his meds, fucking idiot can't sit still." Some kid giggled. It was a girl behind him with red-blonde hair and an annoying nasally voice. He hadn't bothered to learn her name.

Jaemin gripped his pen as the giggles and laughs of his classmates rang through the room and into his burning ears. He scowled, staring at his paper in frustration.

Why couldn't he focus? Why wasn't anyone taking the storm seriously? Why wasn't anyone taking him seriously?

"Figures. Doesn't know English, doesn't know math..." The girl had snickered to her friends, just in earshot of Jaemin. He grit his teeth and gripped his pen so tightly that the clicker on its side broke.

"Shut up!" Jaemin yelled thunderously, as the lights started to flicker on and off. The other kids looked at Jaemin with bewilderment as he seemed not to notice. Even the girl who'd been making fun of him had cowered down into her seat, slinking down lower as air became tense and electric.

"Mister Na!" His teacher hollered. "Would you please just sit dow-"

There was a flash of white light and a collective scream, high pitched and shrill. The ground shook from underneath Jaemin and just as soon as the light had come, it was gone.

The lights had gone out in the entire school. The only light was dim, provided by the little bit of clarity that the dark, stormy sky gave. The ground shook with resonance where Jaemin stood, and the walls gently shook with him, as if there'd been some freakish earthquake. Jaemin's breath was ragged as if he'd been running, but he doesn't know why. He hadn't moved, despite the rest of his class now unconscious, thrown backwards into the walls and desks.

He stood in complete darkness, hushed and pained groans around him. The teacher laid on his back, thrown against the large desk. His head was bleeding badly and all Jaemin could do was stare. He stared and stood with shaky legs, not knowing what to do, where to start, and whether or not any of this was real.

And then the classroom door opened.