CAUTION: Love Ahead! | HAOBIN |

Eighteen

Hanbin's eyes followed him as he made his way to a seat, quite close to their desk, before seating himself with a loud thud. His deskmate, a pretty boy called Jackson, merely spared him a glance before ignoring his existence and continuing to focus on revising yesterday's topics.

This reaction caused Jae-Yun to scoff, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. But he decided not to make a big deal out of it and turned his attention to the teacher who started teaching.

Hanbin, whose hands were still tightly intertwined with Zhang Hao's shaking hands, looked over to his submissive form before sighing with difficulty. "Hyung, lift your head," he softly said, but did not receive a response from the male.

"Look at me, Hyung—your Hanbin." Zhang Hao slowly lifted his head to meet Hanbin's fond eyes, finding himself staring deeply. A look of fear crossed his face.

Hanbin squeezed Zhang Hao's hand like he had been doing the past few times and held a comforting smile as he nodded gently at the older male.

And without saying it, Zhang Hao understood what Hanbin meant—the same thing he had said before entering the class earlier that morning.

'You have me; all you have to do is hold on.'

For the rest of the class, Zhang Hao avoided the indefinite glances and stares he received from the new student, assured of having someone so reliable by his side.

Of course, this ignorance was not doing good to someone else who clenched his teeth hard, feeling his jaw tighten and his eyes burn up with rage and hunger.

"Ignoring me?" he chuckled, with a hint of mockery. "I'll make sure you never get the audacity to do that again." He said it darkly.

"I heard he isn't much of a harm," Matthew said lowly to Jiwoong who faced him with a wise look on his face.

"Based on the crimes he's supposed to have committed, I would say he is pretty dangerous." he said, "He might just be pretending or something - with people like him, you never know." 

Ricky nodded to this, "Exactly what I said. Gyuvin's been busier than ever these past few hours because of the new kid. Can't believe he couldn't clean after himself and had to keep Gyuvin on his heels for that."

"And what exactly has he been doing?" Hanbin asked, aware of the seriousness of the situation.

"You guys didn't hear? He threatened some teacher and spoke bad about her, enough to have her give him detention. He hated that and spoke bad to her -heard he cursed at her or something," Ricky narrated with wide eyes for a dramatic effect.

"Surely the teacher didn't let that go?" Matthew mumbled to which Ricky nodded.

"It was pretty bad since the teacher was new and uninformed. She didn't know his influence so when she took the matter of Jae-Yun to the Principal, his father got to know about it. The next thing you know is that he's marching into the school with dozens of bodyguards, looking pissed and all, and demanding that the poor teacher be fired." 

The silence that followed after was loud at their table. Zhang Hao timidly managed to ask, "and what about the teacher?"

"She pretty much had no choice. His father threatened her. She basically had to choose between fight or flight and she chose flight. Gyuvin's been back and forth because of trying to calm down this issue before it becomes big enough to make it to the headlines of the national newspaper. Wouldn't want the most prestigious school to end up with a bad star." Ricky rolled his eyes, annoyed that his friend was suffering for some rich, spoiled brat.

The screech of the chair was heard as Hanbin quickly stood up, hurriedly gathering everything he had taken with him while coming to meet the group. "I'm heading over to the Principal's room." he said firmly.

"It's not Gyuvin's job to be doing all the managing. Zhang Hao hyung, go to the French class with Matthew and Matthew, keep an eye out for him, will you?" Matthew nodded to which Hanbin felt grateful.

Hanbin looked over to Zhang Hao for confirmation, wondering if he was fine with it and to his surprise, Zhang Hao nodded while smiling. He had grown quite close to Matthew after feeling attracted to the cheerful, outgoing and carefree personality of the younger. It was how he wanted to feel - not a care in the world. 

But unfortunately, not everyone is fortunate enough to avoid bearing burdens they were supposed to, right?

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Quite short, I know, but hear me out. I had very limited time on my hands today with the last day of school and all, and tomorrow too. 

So I promise to come up with a longer update the day after tomorrow or a day after that.

Promise.

😊