Just Before The Dawn [DaeJae]

Nineteen

At ten in the next morning, all of them stood in the entrance hall of the natural history museum. Youngjae was with Daehyun and Junhong, listening to their conversation. He was tired, had barely slept last night, probably because he had also slept the afternoon before, but now he felt the consequences. 

The teachers were handing out worksheets and Junhong groaned. "Why do we always have to work when having a trip?"

Ms Park laughed. "Don't forget it still is a school trip, Mr Choi. It's not that much to do, I'm sure you'll be done quickly."

"Can we work as a group?" Daehyun asked.

"Yes, I would appreciate that" she leaned towards them and spoke quieter now. "But you should hurry, Mr Kim is planning on making groups out of his class and he wants to use the old room distribution for it."

Daehyun nodded. "Okay, we'll go then. Thank you."

The three of them left towards the first room, where they found the stone age section.

"Has anyone brought a pen? Junhong asked, reading the first question.

"I have" Youngjae said, while Daehyun still searched his pockets.

"Oh, perfect." The older grinned. "By the way, why does Mr Kim dislike you so much? What have you done to him?"

Youngjae ran a hand through his black hair. "I don't know... it's always been like this..."

"I really don't understand. You're such a nice person, I don't see any reason for treating you like he does. If I was a teacher, I'd rather see that idiot Jumin as the problem." He chuckled. "Maybe Mr Kim is his father, that would explain a lot."

Youngjae smiled, indeed lightly amused by Daehyun's words.

"Speaking of the devil..." mumbled Junhong, when Jumin and Sangjun came in, followed by more groups of students.

Daehyun cleared his throat. "Let's start with the worksheet so we can leave quickly."

Everything went well for the next two hours, the three boys walked through the museum, answering the questions on the worksheet, always trying to befaster than the rest so Jumin and his friends had no opportunity to approach them.

Then, they reached the last section of the museum. It was a large, dark room, the top­ic here was obviously the space and universe. There was a big model of the sun in the middle of the room, around it models of the planets. The walls, floor and ceiling were a really dark blue with stars painted on it and moving, shimmering galaxies, projected onto the wall.

"Wow" Daehyun said, "That's what I call impressing."

Youngjae nodded without even fully realizing it. He liked this room, it made him feel like he had left earth, it was like the feeling he got when he took a walk at night, just way more intense. It calmed him, the night sky always did.

He was still looking at all the beautiful sparkling galaxies, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Daehyun said with a low voice, "I'd love to fly to space one day to see all this in reality, but since I'll never have the opportunity to do that, I'll probably just get a big telescope and look up there every day."

"You could become an astronaut" Youngjae said quietly.

The blonde smiled, laying his arm around the younger's shoulders. "That's of course a possibility, but I actually have something else in mind. I'd love to be a kindergarten teacher, I take care of my little nephew twins pretty often and it's amazing. What do you want to do after graduating?"

"Um... I never really thought about it."

"Well, what do you like doing? I remember you told me you liked to draw, maybe you could do an artistic job."

"I told you I'm not good."

"Well, I still don't believe you." Daehyun grinned. "Let me see something when we're back at the hotel, okay?"

Hesitantly, Youngjae nodded. "Okay."

As there was the chattering of the other students to be heard from the entrance of the room, Daehyun gave the younger a pat on the back. "We should go, I want to eat something and I saw a snack machine in the main hall."

They went to said hall, where Junhong was already waiting for them. "I'll be right back" Youngjae said and left for the bathroom. 

While he was in the stall, he heard someone come in. He didn't really care, until he opened the door and found himself facing Jumin.

"Hey faggot" the latter grinned. "Did you really think you could escape me with sticking to those two? Well, you were wrong. Museums are fucking boring, so I need some entertainment now." He pushed the boy who stumbled backwards, hitting the sink. "You know that nobody cares what I do to you, right? Not even Daehyun. He's just letting you be with them because he's too nice to tell you to fuck off, but the truth is he finds you as disgusting as everyone else does." He pushed him again. "No even Ms Park cares, she just helped you because it's her job. I don't understand how she could even touch you without washing her hands afterwards, you're so disgusting." He now had the boy cornered, raising his hand, ready to punch him, when the door opened and Daehyun came in and pulled Jumin away from his victim.

"Get off of him, what the hell is your problem that you won't leave him alone?" he shouted, before taking Youngjae by the hand and leaving, dragging the younger with him.

"What happened?" Junhong asked when they reached him, Daehyun was obviously angry.

"Can't you guess? Asshole thought he had to prove once again how much of an idiot he is."

Junhong groaned in annoyance. "God, he really must have a huge problem with himself. Youngjae, don't take Jumin seriously, he just wants to make himself feel better."

Youngjae nodded, but he wasn't really listening. He knew Jumin was right, at least partly. Youngjae was not wanted, not even by his family, nobody really cared about him. Yes, Daehyun hat protected him again but if Youngjae just disappeared, Daehyun would not miss him either, that he was sure about. Youngjae was just a bother to those two and to everyone else, he had always known that, ever since his parents had shown him how much more they loved his brother.