MVV | YG [✔]

03. Beomgyu/Yeonjun

Beomgyu

Cheongdam bred experts of aloofness—artists of fake smiles and professional pretenders.

I liked to think of them as apathy masks, flat features, and lifeless eyes they wore against their skin to make it past each minute of the day. It wasn't until the skies darkened, and the fog was thick enough to hide the truth, that those masks slipped away, revealing the monster that lay beneath.

The switch was seamless—a non-negotiable midday vs midnight psyche change that even the teachers went through.

It was almost crucial for surviving this place and all the reasons you were sent here. The split was painless—a smooth, even cut down your middle the second those gates latched shut behind you.

I'd always been more midday than midnight, worried that the fog would piece me into something that looked a little too much like my father.

Since Felix's death, I felt my fear wrestle against my anger, and I wondered what midnight would look like etched throughout my fine features.

"Beomgyu!"

I froze.

Cruelty laced the sound of his voice, echoing off the brick walls and syncopating with my exhales as they left my chest in stilted breaths.

The bodies that swarmed me stopped with the initial boom but quickly restarted, moving through the foyer with a purpose I couldn't seem to find.

"Beomgyu."

His voice was at my back now, close enough that I could nearly feel his sticky breath coat the sides of my neck. It slipped down the ridges of my spine in a way that made my muscles quake. The bruises across my torso throbbed, and I wrapped my arms around them, pressing my thumbs into the most tender spots. The dull ache of pain was a reminder not to piss him off, and I took a breath to steady myself before pivoting to face him.

His hand shot out, and I felt the blunt heads of the rings he wore dig into my scalp when he tangled his fingers in the hood of my sweatshirt and yanked it off my head with a force that had my neck snapping backward.

Tears sprung to the corners of my eyes, but like all the other times he'd hurt me, I made not a single sound.

I didn't even flinch.

"Wearing that hood will not hide you from your peers, Beomgyu. It only feeds into the rumors."

I said nothing.

He nudged my chin with his swollen knuckle and forced me to look at him. The wrinkles in the corners of his eyes tightened when he looked me over, studying me as though I didn't inherit most of his features.

We had the same muted gray eyes that kept us looking more villain than hero. I wore my dark hair long in the front, using the curled ends as a privacy curtain. He kept his really close to his scalp, effectively cutting away any distractions and daring people to look him in the eye.

There were no other versions of Choi Haesoo.

He was all midnight. All the time.

"Lee Felix's parents have decided not to renew their funding this year."

I blinked.

Was he... shocked?

Their son's blood was still smeared across our campus.

"I suppose I was naive to believe when investigators ruled his death as accidental, they'd be more inclined to support the home they'd chosen for their son."

A home they'd chosen haphazardly.

The same home that had killed him.

Every day I wondered if they regretted giving him away, and whether they mourned his death or celebrated it.