The Physics teacher is having verbal diarrhoea. He mentions that the stuff he is saying is very important but Taeyong just can’t concentrate on it. Instead, he stares blankly at the whiteboard wondering why Jung Jaehyun is called “Robin Hood”. Now, he knows from first-hand experience that Jaehyun is the self-righteous type who would stand up for the weak but why does Ten call him the “order” as if he is some sort of force that needs to be feared? He sneaks a glance at Jaehyun and notices him smiling widely. His dimple is so deep it looks like someone has drawn on his cheek. Right now, he doesn’t exactly look like someone who makes others cower in fear.
Why am I thinking about him? Taeyong thinks to himself. He is not worth thinking about. I need to focus on the lesson.
He erases all questions about Jaehyun from his thoughts and listens to the Physics teacher.
“Okay, so who can tell me about the Coulomb’s Law?” the teacher asks. Everyone is silent. Seeing that no one else knows or doesn’t care enough to answer, Taeyong slowly raises his hand. Jaehyun raises his hand just a second later. The teacher points at Jaehyun.
“Coulomb’s Law states that the electrostatic force of attraction between two point charges is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance of separation,” Jaehyun answers. Taeyong isn’t quite sure if he imagined it but he thinks Jaehyun just smirked in his direction.
Robin Hood is quite competitive too, huh? Taeyong wonders if Jaehyun did it on purpose to ridicule him.
“Very good, Jaehyun,” the teacher says and continues to ramble about electric fields.
When the lesson finishes, everyone exits the classroom before the teacher. It seems to Taeyong that he isn’t going to make any friends in this class either.
Minutes before the end of his last lesson of the day, a teacher comes to fetch Taeyong from the class. He has been called to the administration’s office to do some paperwork to process his transfer to the school. By the time he completes the form, it has been half an hour since school ended. The corridors and stairs are dark on his way out. At the middle of the staircase near the exit, he finds three boys that he has never seen before. He walks down, avoiding their unnerving gaze.
One of them calls him out. “Oi, Fish!”
Taeyong cannot believe that he is on the receiving end of harrassment this time round. The tables have certainly turned after his prolonged absence from Yongsan. When he keeps walking away despite the name-calling, a bottle hits his head. He turns around and picks up the bottle. A sudden urge to establish that people cannot expect to mess with him and get away with it rises in him. He hurls the bottle so forcefully; it hits all three of them.
“Are you picking a fight with us?” the biggest from the bunch bellows.
“I am not. You are.”
As the boys come charging at him down the stairs, Taeyong’s inflated ego makes the foolish decision to face them one against three instead of running away. He gets punched three times before he can even land a blow once. He kicks one of them in the crotch to make it two against one. The biggest one punches him in the face. He hears a crack and prays for it to be his jaws, not his nose.
“It’s him!” the one who took the hit in the crotch shouts, now lying on the ground, writhing in pain.
All of a sudden, everyone stops. The remaining two prop up the injured one and quickly take the exit.
“Run away! You bunch of cowards!” Taeyong yells for them to hear, his heart welling with pride from winning the battle. He hears a snicker from behind him.
He looks around and finds Jaehyun standing at the top of the staircase.
“Wait…. Did they run away because you…“ Taeyong can’t even bear to finish the sentence. The mere thought of him being saved because of Jaehyun makes him burn with indignation. He thinks he could have easily handled the three of them himself.
Jaehyun laughs. “Maybe,” he says as he walks towards Taeyong.
“Well, thank you for helping me, even though I really didn’t need it,” Taeyong says reluctantly.
“Yeah, right. I wasn’t helping you.” Jaehyun starts rummaging his bag. “It’s just that I don’t want these hooligans to turn this school into a battlefield and three against one is just unfair.” He takes out a tissue paper and wipes Taeyong’s nose. It becomes bloodstained.
“I can do it myself” he says and snatches the tissue. He feels a sharp pain in his finger as he held the tissue. There is a small cut there but it hurts like hell.
“I don’t have band-aids with me but I do have some at home. You can come over” Jaehyun says.
Come over? Into the enemy’s den? “No, thanks” he plainly refuses. Somehow, his brain has already classified Jaehyun as an enemy.
“Oh, come on. I live really close by. My place is just outside the school gate” Jaehyun drags him.
Taeyong doesn’t know what is going on.
