amidst a nightmare, towards the shining stars | yeonbin

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A/N: thank you for checking out this fic!! so nervous to publish this, it's my first piece of writing in a while.. dedicating this to my lovely tomato friend CQ <3

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Soobin hates the rain.

The rain encapsulated him in this underlying feeling of loneliness.

It's always raining lately, downpour after downpour. Heavy rain pounded against the glass of the windows as he sat down in the back of the coffee shop, waiting for his friends. Soobin glanced at his phone. "Are they even coming? Wouldn't blame them in this rain," he muttered to himself and sipped his iced caramel macchiato.

He looked around the coffee shop. It was his regular place, being close to the university and all. It was nearly empty due to the constant downpours, nobody wanted to be outside. He spotted an elderly couple drinking hot coffee and watching the TV near the window. They looked so at peace, Soobin was almost jealous.

"Oh, to be carefree like that," he murmured and left a passing glance at the TV, reporting some nonsense about the constant rain and the increase in the flu or something.

The door chime rings as an utterly soaked student walks in through the door, with another one shaking a wet umbrella in tow. Soobin greeted them annoyedly, "What took you so long? I've been waiting here by myself for ages." The soaked student, Yeonjun, scoffed at him, "Well, you shouldn't have ran here in the first place. You knew Taehyun and I still had another class after you finished."

Taehyun gave Soobin an apologetic look and went to order Yeonjun and his coffees. "Where's Beomgyu? Isn't this his barista shift?" Yeonjun asked as he looked around, with no Beomgyu to be seen. Soobin simply sighed, "I assumed Taehyun would be bringing him. If he isn't here by now, I doubt he's coming. He despises this weather more than I do, he probably went straight back to the apartment and ditched work."

Taehyun returned with the drinks, plopping down tiredly into the chair and gulped his coffee. Yeonjun sipped his iced americano and looked up at Soobin. "We should head to the apartment soon too, we haven't finished moving everything-" Soobin cut him off before he could finish talking about the things they haven't moved yet. "More like you haven't moved your giant closet of clothes yet, I got some work to finish, you can move your clothes yourself, hyung."

Taehyun frowned while looking at his phone, and asked, "Hey, have you guys looked at news or social media lately?" Yeonjun stood up instead of replying to him. "Damn, the rain really does make Soobin grumpy. He's grumpier than Beomgyu today! Fine then, I'll head back to our apartment to unpack the rest of my stuff."

He sent a glance at Taehyun, who was still scrolling his phone distractedly, unaware of the current situation. "You coming? Nevermind, I don't think he's even mentally present," Yeonjun grumbled and yanked Taehyun up, causing him to yelp. "I'm here I'm present! I was just looking at something... We can go now, I don't want to keep gyu waiting either," he bid farewell to Soobin as he and Yeonjun left to run through the rain.

"Why didn't they take the umbrella?" Soobin wondered to himself as he absent-mindedly flipped through the pages of his psychology textbook. He'd come here to study, but sincerely doubted that any studying was going to get done when he was this distracted.

Taking small sips out of his coffee, he tried to concentrate on his homework, but to no avail. An hour later, Soobin shut his textbook and shoved it back into his backpack, getting up to leave. As he was putting the book into his bag, a sharp pain in his head caused him to drop the textbook. It hit the ground with a loud thud, falling against the side of the worn wooden chair. "Why am I so damn clumsy?" Soobin muttered and rubbed his head, waiting for the pain to go away.

He looked up at the window as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed across the stormy skies of Seoul.

Soobin was sitting by himself, again.

He was always sitting by himself.

Thunder clapped and heavy rained pounded against the school cafeteria windows. It was midterm exams, and those who weren't taken exams currently were supposed to wait in the cafeteria. Soobin flipped through his textbook tiredly, knowing he wasn't planning to review but just wanting to look busy.

His vision blurred as he stared at the words in front of him, causing him to sigh in frustration and push his glasses up.

He just so desperately wanted to take a nap, he barely slept last night. However, this wasn't exactly a good place to take a nap.

He really didn't want to be here right now.

His headphones blasted loud music, a hopeless attempt at silencing what was happening around him.

He watched in helpless agony as the girl sitting by herself at the table next to him was suddenly surrounded by a group of guys you should never mess with on your life. She looked terrified, quietly begging them to leave. One of them cackled loudly and pushed her a little.

Soobin flinched as they laughed and prodded at her, his hands clenched into fists but soon unclenched, knowing he was utterly powerless to do anything. He looked up from his textbook finally, eyeing the group of girls sitting at a nearby table watching the whole thing occur. Not one of them moved a muscle, some of them even laughing at the disgusting scene. A certain somebody Soobin used to know was sitting at that table. Not moving a muscle.

Not that he cared, he knew she would do nothing. Not that he didn't want to help, of course. He would never wish for that horrible experience on another person.. however, unfortunately for him..

One of those boys suddenly jerked his head upward, eyeing the direction Soobin was sitting in. He panicked, wanting to run away as fast as possible but.. his eyes stayed glued to his textbook and his feet turned to stone, unable to move. The boy came over to him, forcing him to look upward.

That was Soobin's first mistake.
His first mistake in a plethora he would make.

The boy's rough hand pushed Soobin's head to look him in the eyes, giving him a sadistic smile showing his pearly whites.

Thunder clapped outside the cafe window once more, shaking Soobin out of his unpleasant reverie of his school days. He sighed and shook his head, "Rainy days.. are never pleasant ones," slowly picking up his dropped textbook and placing it back into his bag.

He waved goodbye to the barista, a friend of Beomgyu's, and pushed the door open. As soon as he left the cafe, he was hit with the heavy pitter-patter of rain on his umbrella. Soobin pulled out his phone as he walked, absentmindedly glancing through his messages, until he found something intriguing.

He opened the groupchat, consisting of him, Shin Ryujin, and Hwang Yeji, some classmates that he, despite being an introvert, had befriended. They were constantly spamming the group chat with gossip that Soobin had no interest in, but this was interesting.

Ryujin: Did you hear about what happened to Yuna?
Yeji: Why are we discussing her again? She acted like we were sisters and then left without a single word. I think she blocked my number.
Ryujin: Why wouldn't we talk about it, it's only been a few weeks since she left
Yeji: Well, what about her?
Ryujin: I think she got a really high paying job.
Yeji: That's.. Vague
Ryujin: OKAY WELL THAT'S ALL I GOT OKAY, DO YOU THINK ITS EASY TO FIND THIS INFO
Soobin: Yuna? Isn't she that girl who was best friends with Lia?
Yeji and Ryujin are typing..

Soobin closed the group chat as he approached his apartment complex, tucking away the information about Yuna to ask somebody else later, someone who was usually in the know about all the drama around campus.

The boys were really lucky to get apartments in this location and with this price, how glamorous was it that they got to live in a Seoul high-rise apartment as college students? Soobin entered the building with a small wave and said hello to the security guard and pressed the up button on the shiny elevator.

As he waited for the elevator, he saw a tall figure approaching from the stairs exit. The tall blonde man pushed past him without any greetings, rushing out the door. Soobin huffed a little, "Isn't it common decency to greet your new neighbor? Pretty sure he lives in the apartment next to mine."

Before he could think about the incident any longer, the elevator door opened and he walked in. Soobin unlocked the door to he and Yeonjun's shared apartment, poking his head in to see if he was home. "Hyung? You here?" he called out. Yeonjun gave a muffled reply, "In the closet! I'm organizing the clothes you refused to help me with," with earned him an eye roll from Soobin.