Exception || Changlix

1.4

Going to math class, all I can think about is my encounter with Minho. It's not surprising that he didn't show up, but that image of him bloodied and teary-eyed is scarring.

How the hell did that even happen?

"Hey, Felix." says a voice standing next to me.

"Huh?" I look up to see a familiar face. "Oh, hey, Jeongin."

"You were looking a little down. I wanted to ask if anything's wrong."

I think to myself, Absolutely.

"Not at all." I say instead. "I'm actually doing pretty good." But he's not.

"Okay, that's all I needed to hear." Jeongin smiles at me. "Come to think of it, where's-"

"Everybody sit, please?" the teacher calls out to the class. Jeongin makes a hesitant face and walks up to the front of the classroom where his seat is.

The entire way through class, I find myself glancing back at the vacant seat next to me. The time period progresses painfully slow leading into my last class of the day.

I walk through the halls with my head held low, as if someone looking into my eyes would find out what I saw. While going to history class, I notice a pair of desaturated blue converse.

"Hey, what's got you looking so down?" Chan asks me.

"Nothing, I'm just observing my surroundings, as you like to say." I assure him.

Chan tilts his head back slightly and scrunches one eye. "Did you notice anything?"

"Uh, what?"

"Did you find anything interesting in the floor? Oh, here, move out of the way." Chan pulls me to the side, away from the moving crowd. "Well?"

"I saw the little patterns in the tiles. They looked cool, I guess." I say, discretely glancing at the tiles to find something in what I really wasn't looking at earlier.

"You're lying." Chan says, gently placing a hand on my arm.

"What do you mean, no I'm not." I defend. "I find the floor triangles and other floor shapes to be intriguing."

"Yeah, alright," my friends rolls his eyes. "so you're not going to tell me what's wrong, are you?"

I double check our surroundings to make sure no one will overhear. "Look, I can't explain to you what I, myself don't know anything about. I wish I could, but I don't know if h- if it's a good idea."

Chan nods understandingly. "Okay, I get it. If you ever need someone to talk to though, or literally anything else, you can always refer back to me." He points two thumbs at himself and does a weird dance while walking away.

Sometimes I wonder why he's the "parent" of our friend group. These random things always answer my questions, though.

As I head over to the social studies classroom, the weights holding down my shoulders feel slightly lifted. I walk into the room with a smile on my face and sit down in my seat to wait for Jisung.

The class starts eventually, but my friend isn't here yet. I shrug it off, although I'm still slightly worried in the back of my head. History goes by, Jisung nowhere to be seen.

When I go to pack up my items, though, I overhear something stomach-turning.

"Did you hear about that one junior guy?" says a girl.

"What about him?" asks another.

A male voice jumps into the conversation. "The one who's on the soccer team. Rumor says that he's a disgusting person."

"Disgusting? What for?" the second girls questions.

"Apparently that nasty boy is a fag." says the first girl. I stop what I'm doing immediately.

No.

Please, no.

Please don't let this be about-

She then finishes the sentence that I was so hopeful she wouldn't, "The kid's name is Minho, by the way. Try to keep away from people like him.

"Their kind is sickening."