beneath your dust-piled crown | yeongyu

;chapter 7

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

38.8°C

Beomgyu squinted at the digital numbers glowing back at him from the thermometer. Great, just great. The lack of sleep, those hours spent shivering on the rooftop, and all the stress churning through him — it had knocked his body down hard.

With heavy limbs, he shuffled through his small medicine stash, sorting through half-empty blister packs and scattered tablets. His heart sank when he realized there was nothing left for fever relief. "Damn it," he groaned, feeling the onset of another wave of chills. Reluctantly, he grabbed his phone and opened up his chat with Soobin.

[ Beomgyu ]
can you drop off some fever meds at my place?
feeling like absolute crap

Message sent, he collapsed back onto his bed, the covers pulled up to his chin, shivering despite the warmth of his tiny dorm room. As he drifted in and out of a restless sleep, haunted by fever-induced half-dreams, memories he wished he could bury forever surfaced.

Why now? His thoughts churned with annoyance. Of all the shitty timing.

Back in his junior year of high school, Beomgyu loved with an open heart, his feelings unguarded and free of the scars that connection brings. He had fallen hard for a girl, one of the most popular girls at school to be exact. Beomgyu wasn't subtle, his friends often teased him about how obvious he was, how he'd light up like a Christmas tree whenever she walked into the room.

He didn't mind that it seemed unimaginable for her ever to notice him, a boy who loved too easily and too openly. But she did, eventually. Whether it was despite his transparency, or maybe because of it, they got closer, and started spending every day together. When she suggested they date, his heart soared. She was a girl with a smile that could light up the darkest days — until it didn't.

It was a setup, a cruel joke not only among her friends, but the entire school. He found out when he overheard her laughing about it, boasting about how she'd played the perfect prank on the love-struck fool that was Beomgyu.

It wasn't just her — the betrayal extended to his former best friend too. The one he had once defended from the popular crowd's bullying, taking hits for him and losing sleep to do their homework, only to be backstabbed so casually when Beomgyu became their new 'favorite'.

Beomgyu's last two years of high school became a gauntlet of humiliation and abuse, his past with the school's it-girl only adding more fuel to the fire. The mockery and physical torment from classmates — including his so-called friend, who had joined in to save himself — were relentless, every day a living hell. It was as if he wasn't a person to them, just an object of ridicule, his vulnerability twisted into more reasons to target him.

It broke him, not only the constant bullying, but also the realization that by naively opening his heart and letting someone in, he had allowed it to happen. What would've become of him, if Soobin hadn't been there to patiently piece him back together?

A knock sounded at the door, more forceful than he'd expected, which finally snapped Beomgyu out of his nightmares. After dragging himself out of bed again, he slowly opened his door.

"Thanks, Soob, I—" Beomgyu's greeting halted abruptly, the words caught in his throat. It wasn't Soobin standing there — it was Yeonjun, holding a small pharmacy bag in his hand.

"Hey," Yeonjun began, a playful glint in his eyes as he stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. "Happy to see... Oh wow," he cut himself off, his expression shifting to genuine concern as he took in Beomgyu's state. "You look awful."