☾⋆⁺₊🎧✩°｡
Everything changed when the summer ended.
No amount of cuddles from Yeosang or smiles from Wooyoung could have prepared Hongjoong for that first day of school.
It was already hard enough being a new kid, every pair of eyes following you with second made assumptions, blink of the eye opinions, but to be Hongjoong on that first day was like being the only fish in a tank full of sharks.
He wasn't just being looked at.
He was being assessed, questioned, judged the moment he walked in with Wooyoung at his side.
Hongjoong thought he'd experienced dread before, but walking down those hallways for the first time with the constant pressure of a strangers glare was something straight out of a nightmare.
To say Hongjoong was careful would be an understatement.
Of course he was careful.
His cluelessness was what got him fucked last time wasn't it?
His inability to hide who he was, keep his feelings buried, but there were just some things he had no control over.
Like how full his lips were, or how thin his waist was, his features more feminine than masculine, more different than normal- and his voice was something he despised in the times when he'd be forced to speak aloud in class, his tone like glass and fairy dust compared to the other boy's his age.
The rumors were set in stone by the end of the first week.
Slurs were thrown his way by the second, and Hongjoong found himself wondering how Seonghwa and Yeosang managed to make it look so easy.
It helped that they were popular, he supposed.
It wasn't as obvious because they played basketball and had muscles and walked down the hall confidently whereas Hongjoong cowered and ran away to find Wooyoung whenever he could.
It was miserable, and yet Hongjoong knew it was nothing compared to what he'd left behind, and so he kept quiet.
He didn't complain when his parents asked him how school was going over dinner, and spent every spare moment he could with Wooyoung.
It was during the first high school basketball game of that fall that Hongjoong heard a grumble of words brush by his ear.
They weren't whispered this time, but instead thrown with purpose, with malice.
They were delivered with the intention of hurting, which is why Hongjoong was shocked when they weren't even directed at him, but at Wooyoung.
"Look's like you finally found yourself another fag to prance around with, Jung." The boy sneered on his way up the bleachers, arm thrown around the shoulders of a blonde girl half his height. "I'll be sure to let all the girl's know you're too busy taking it up the ass to pay them any mind, yeah?"
For the longest time, Hongjoong just sat there.
Confused, dazed, trying to piece everything together fast enough to comfort Wooyoung who obviously bristled at the insult, but he couldn't.
YOU ARE READING
↱MARIGOLD↲ ⇾woojoong⇽
Fanfiction-this story is set in the 90's- they were unbearable, impossible, more disastrous together than they were apart- but for them it all felt so simple, as though they were following a destiny. one could not be without the other, and they had never bee...
