INSOMNOS

1: He is Something

Friday, December 20th 2017, 2:43PM

Jeno Lee was in his English Literature class with Renjun Huang and Donghyuck Lee. It was the last class of the day before winter break and he craved liberty from early onset senioritis. To make things even more blissful, they had a substitute teacher completely lost inside her rom-com book. Jeno looked around and noticed that hardly anyone was doing the assigned work written on the board. It wasn't even due until they came back, so this last hour of school was the perfect time for Jeno to brainstorm his rockstar dream. At least he wasn't the only one who wanted to slack off, but he definitely didn't want to waste time by sleeping like a handful of students were doing. Jeno rarely slept at all. It had been a little less than two years since he developed a sleeping problem, it would be almost a full two years on December 30th. He wasn't going to sleep until after that day passed, which was an annual mission at this point.

Nothing good happens when I'm asleep.

"Okay look at this one..."

Jeno jabbed his pencil at a page in his "dream" notebook where he stored his most personal writing in. Throughout the day, he scribbled distorted and jagged names in it, haphazardly crossing over all the lining and spacing. He was trying to come up with cool stage names for himself and his friends. The three boys did everything together, especially if it involved metal music. They didn't help Jeno with the project hands-on, but at least they volunteered to be in the band, as soon as he finished brainstorming. Whenever that was.

Renjun and Donghyuck leaned over Jeno's desk to read the name that the tip of his pencil stabbed into. There were four capitalized letters in barbed streaks reminiscent of an amateur deathcore band logo. Jeno had been writing in that style since he was in middle school. It was practically his own handwriting at one point until his teachers refused to grade his work because of its illegibility.

Teachers were concerned and almost fearful when Jeno was going through that 'edgy' phase in his life. Then the bad boy image stuck until his last year of high school. He often repeated in his head that it wouldn't matter what they thought of him after he graduated, but he knew he would always despise everyone for thinking he was an aggressive delinquent. They never cared to get to know him and why he was so passionate in music. No one cared except for his three...except for his two best friends.

"Mors?" Renjun pushed his glasses into his face and squinted at Jeno's scratchy handwriting. "What the hell does that mean?"

Jeno sighed, laying his pencil down gently. He expected Renjun to follow along quickly, considering he was one of the smartest boys in their high school.

"Mors. The God of Death." Jeno answered. They did a project on the minor deities together in middle school. "The Roman form of Thanatos, don't you remember?"

"Clearly not as much as you do, which is a first." Renjun scoffed, clapping back naturally.

The two had been best friends since preschool and used to be inseparable, but Renjun was the only one in the trio who cared about graduating at the top and that caused turbulence in their friendship after middle school. What truly kept it going was their tradition of going to the local metal shows in town every week, as well as covering songs together in Donghyuck's basement. When they were freshmen, Renjun purchased his own guitar using his allowance, but he kept it at Hyuck's house so his parents wouldn't know about it. Renjun loved the rebellious teen life more than the religious nerd life his family forced him to have, but he could never admit that out loud without the risk of being called a devil worshipper, as the traditional Asian parents would blindly assume. His parents heavily disapproved of his friendship with Jeno too, but pretty much every parent did and Jeno never understood why. He was always polite to older people, but they often read his rough punk appearance as a threat at first glance.