splinters 一 weak hero.

0-2

our high school was a rather rowdy one, known more for its delinquents than academic or sporting or extracurricular achievements. if there was an award for most citizens terrorised per week, then... yes, we'd probably win that.

home to the district's overarching gang, it was fairly notorious and so had made quite a name for itself. there was a hierarchy that the students had put into place, too, and it all worked very simply: there were slaves, commoners, noblemen, and a king.

currently, in my particular class, class 1-5 (1 because i was in my first year of high school, 5 for the class), sangchul's gang resided at the top, with sangchul as king. the name given to the unfortunate people who had been terrorised into acting as shuttles were called slaves - they were to be at the noblemen's beck and call whether it be to run errands or to act as a human punching bag. the commoners played no part at all, but even the slightest nudges could send them into a gang's path if they weren't careful.

for the most part, girls here were either untargeted because they'd affiliated themselves in some way with a delinquent group, or they had enough money so that the guys would rather use them for a different sort of entertainment besides shuttling. that wasn't to say there weren't any victims, females-wise.

and this was how things worked. it would never change. even disciplining and detentions could only do so much. here, if the situation worsened to such levels, even the teachers could be threatened, as yoongi had so finely demonstrated already, but i had little sympathy for the teachers as they all turned a blind eye to what happened outside their lessons.

by the time i returned to class, a crowd had piled around our classroom door. reaching onto my tiptoes, i could see through the corridor window that a fight had broken out. it was with one of sangchul's guys (whose name i hadn't bothered to commit to memory) and seo myunghwan, whose face was the epitome of the textbook nerd. contrary to his appearance, however, he always landed amongst the bottom lot of the class scores in assessments. wherever my name was on the chart, his was often nearby. other than that, he was mainly irrelevant, seemed permanently terrified of drawing any sort of attention, and a pretty nice guy. another tidbit of information: these were the sort of people who were often targeted.

there were only five or so minutes before class started again, and myunghwan was still on the floor, arms up in a feeble guard as the hulking mass of a guy rained blows onto him. unfortunately, moonsik seemed to have left just before this, which may have been the reason it had happened in the first place. the guy's hits never paused for a heartbeat, and myunghwan's defence was beginning to falter. his glasses were dislodged, lying at a crooked angle on his forehead. i could see him struggling to breathe, and a small trickle of red down his chin indicated a split lip.

taehyung had managed to enter the classroom before me. he had frozen by the entrance, but as i looked closer, my heart leapt into my stomach as i realised he was smiling. he watched the scene with plain delight, jaws on full display.

my stomach churned suddenly. never in a million years would i have expected this reaction. everyone else was watching with fear or indifference riddled across their faces - and there was taehyung, captivated by the sight of blood and fists.

his eyes lifted suddenly, as if he'd felt the weight of my gaze upon him. my lips opened to mouth something, but he simply smiled and looked away, walking towards sangchul without sparing me a glance. he said something to the former with a chuckle, and sangchul - the fucker - smiled, too.

my thoughts spiralled. i'd accepted the offer to become friends - what would that have entailed? were the rest of his companions like that? i hoped not, but then again, i could never be too sure, having just witnessed the somewhat-friendliness of taehyung morph openly into a sadistic pleasure.