Spellbound (vkook)

Chapter One

1.

His teacher, Mr. Yong, seemed to lecture for an eternity. It was something about algebra, he was sure, but he couldn't care less. Taehyung stared out the window and held his head in his hand while his eyes drooped. Thunder shook the building and the rain tapped softly against the window. It reminded him of home and he wondered if his dog was happy at home, trying to bite the rain droplets as they fell. The thought made him smile against his hand. 

He was perfectly fine with thinking about nonsense like that, however, his eyes were drawn back to the board where his teacher had called his name. He looked lazily at his teacher before diverting his eyes again from the board. Mr. Yong's lips were moving, but he couldn't focus on what he was saying. Everything was always more muddled when there was rain involved. 

"Taehyung?" a softer voice asked. He jumped in his seat and looked around for the source of the voice, but found no one. The seat next to him was vacant, in fact, the entire row was empty. He must've imagined it, he thought. 

"Kim Taehyung," The teacher's stern voice called out to him. Mr. Yong grabbed a ruler off of his desk and smacked it against it, gathering Taehyung's attention finally. Taehyung sighed and sat up straight in his seat, uncomfortable in his cold metal chair. 

This wasn't how he was expecting the school and his classmates to be like. It felt as though he were unwelcome, in his head at least. When he first arrived at the school, everyone was just fine, but perhaps that might've been, because of the new school year; the new people to meet. He hadn't been able to attend his classes prior because of problems with his schedule. It was weird, because it seemed as if it was only him with problems. He also had a problem with his movers because apparently this school was too exclusive for the moving truck, so he had to pack what ever he could into his car and make as many trips as he needed to bring his things back to the dorm. He hoped the dorming office could at least get the room number right. He didn't need any more headaches. 

When they finally gave him the right schedule, his first class was math so he was in a piss-poor mood, understandably. On the way to the class, he walked alone. The halls were packed, and yet he felt as though everyone looked at him. It was an irrational thought since, when he looked behind himself, they were all engaged in their own conversations. He was probably tired, he had thought. 

"Can you explain to the class how to do this problem?" Mr. Yong questioned, shaking Taehyung out of his thoughts, but only for a moment. His eyebrows furrowed. He disliked this teacher a lot more than he probably should've. He heard multiple rumors about this teacher and none were in good taste. Maybe this was why he was so quick to give in to the rain that pattered so rhythmically against the window. Most of the rumors he learned were from his friend Jimin, but he couldn't think about them right now, he needed to focus. 

Taehyung sighed at the long equation on the board and cringed at the chalk squeaking as Mr. Yong wrote. The teacher disliked him. He was sure of it. He knew that even with Mr. Yong's back to him, he was supposed to give some sort of answer.

"Um...", he looked over the problem and stood, "The X should be 7?" Taehyung answered but his tone made his statement come out questioningly. He hadn't been paying attention, so he was unsure of himself. He wasn't ever really good at math. 

"The X should be 7? Taehyung, are you asking or answering?" Mr. Yong teased, crossing his excessively hairy arms.

"7, sir." Taehyung stated, sitting down slowly. There was a tense silence for a moment before the teacher spoke again. 

"Good Job, Taehyung. Everyone learn from him." Taehyung accepted the praise and went back to his thinking. He could swear he could feel the other students' gazes on him, but when he really looked they all faced forward. What was wrong with him today?