Chapter Text
「 january 18 | thursday | 11:03am 」
Ari has never been one to believe in ghosts, but he’s pretty fucking sure he just saw a poltergeist.
He’s in the student council room, having swung by during lunch to chip away at some unfinished paperwork, and he was expecting to be alone. You know, considering all the council members are out having lunch, and the only person who has keys to the room is Ari, and that, by all logic, no one else should be in here.
But he’d stepped into the room, popped open a cabinet, collected the papers, and watched in complete and utter horror as the whiteboard on the unit at the front of the room, usually reserved for storage and usually still, fucking moved.
So he’s either gone crazy, or there’s someone hiding behind the whiteboard unit. Out of the two options, he thinks the former is more plausible.
The whiteboards slide—that’s one of their functions—but usually, that sliding is prompted by someone. Newton’s first law and all. So why, oh why, did the whiteboard, a good few feet away from Ari himself, just slide?
Granted, it was only an inch or two, but no wind could have moved it like that, plus the windows are closed because of the cold winter air, plus even if there was any wind, none of the windows are pointed to the whiteboard, and oh God, Ari is going crazy.
Gripping the collection of papers in one hand, totally not shaking in the slightest, Ari feels himself swallow a dry gulp. He doesn’t take his eyes off the whiteboard as he strides closer, the leather of his Oxfords squeaking with the movement.
Resilience, he tells himself. Dignity. Don’t scream.
With confidence that could fool an entire assembly hall, Ari reaches up with a broad hand, slides the whiteboard open, and—
There’s.
There’s a person.
In the whiteboard.
Whiteboard.
There’s a person in the—
Ari’s mind barely has enough time to register the reality, much less the identity of the person, sirens going off in his brain because There Is A Person In The Whiteboard, and his mouth moves before anything else does; before anything can stop it; it decides to say:
“...You’re not allowed to be in here.”
Oh, way to go, Ari, tell the fucking poltergeist that it’s not allowed to hang out behind your whiteboard, go ahead and ruin a ghost’s afterlife peace, why don’t you—
A snort from the person in the whiteboard breaks Ari’s train of reprimanding thoughts, and fortunately brings him back to the world of reality.
The reality being that there is a person, sitting in the small space behind the whiteboard, munching on a sandwich, laughing at him. “Wow! Really?” the person says, contempt and sarcasm evident in their voice. “And here I thought I was being a perfectly respectable student.”
When they roll their eyes, Ari takes the moment to appraise them and finally have his brain work.
The messy thrown-together uniform, shirt unbuttoned at the top, tie absent, and engulfed by a sweater three sizes too big for him; the head of curls that hang over his eyes and hug his neck in an unruly wolf-cut; the overwhelming amount of piercings that glint from beneath black locks; the black headphones wrapped around his neck like a scarf; and the most characteristic of all—that glare. Dark brown, almost an inky black in the shadows of the small space, but glowing with embers of what Ari can only determine as distaste.
Fitting entirely too well in the storage space behind the whiteboard, with his lunch in-hand, is the notorious Hyojin Carys.
Ari’s heard of him. He’d have to be living under a rock to not know who he is. He knows very well of his reputation—a delinquent, in one word. A fighter; a rogue; a gangster; an all-around troublesome guy who could probably knock you out flat on your ass if you so much as look him in the eye.
The rumours about him stretch far and wide: from the apparent insane number of people he’s sent to the ER, to his suspicious ties to the underground world… The remaining constant between all the stories, the moral of the story, is that Hyojin Carys is a man that you should avoid on all accounts—lest you find yourself in a world of trouble.
He’s had a total of one interaction with the guy (two, now, if you can count this as an interaction): the start of senior year, right after Hyojin had transferred in from Korea. It wasn’t much of a first impression, but it definitely hadn’t been a good one.
The first time Ari saw Hyojin, he was covered in bruises and scars and in such a mess that, even with only a few feet between them, Ari couldn’t tell which splatters of red were from him, and which were from the two guys on the ground.
Ari remembers the first time he saw those eyes—cold anger embedded in near-black pupils beneath long lashes. He remembers the lightning bolt he’d felt shoot through his spine when they made eye contact.
He remembers knowing, right then and there, that this boy spelt “trouble”.
Hyojin had been hauled off campus grounds shortly after that, before Ari could linger with the shared gaze. Part of him is thankful for it.
Now that he thinks about it… Neither of these moments could be counted as an interaction, probably. But with Hyojin Carys, an interaction would probably mean a fight.
And Ari doesn’t even have the coordination for Just Dance with his ma.
“Are you just gonna stare at me all day, or what.”
Ari blinks down at the man still sitting behind his whiteboard, who wears the world’s most unamused expression on his face, and realises that this is a real situation he’s in. Hyojin Carys, lawbreaking miscreant extraordinaire, is lounging about in the storage space of the student council’s whiteboard unit, eating his lunch.
If any god out there is listening, any god at all, Ari sends them a quick giant fucking question mark, before opening the board more and backing up a step or two away.
The man in the whiteboard makes no move besides a tilt of his head and a raise of one brow.
“Got somethin’ to say, prez? ” He says the nickname like he’s spitting out a clot of blood; like it’s both an inconvenience and a thing of amusement for him.
The student president stones himself, lifting his chin ever so slightly. He does have a reputation to uphold… and he hopes Hyojin Carys can’t sense his fear. “Non-council members aren’t allowed in this room without permission and reason,” he states, matter-of-factly.
Eyes the colour of dried ink of old parchment, Ari decides, run up and down Ari’s build—evaluating him, almost. Analyzing him, maybe. Then a scoff escapes Hyojin’s sneering lips, and Ari just barely hears him mumble, “one fight and they think you’re the fucking mafia.”
Ari decides not to dwell on it, if he even heard it right. He clears his throat and straightens his posture, ignoring the stiffness of his blazer collar against his nape as he fires off a curious question. “Can I… ask how you got in?”
He’d unlocked the door when he came in, and there was no sign of breakage. Plus, Ari has a track record of never leaving the place unlocked. So how...
Another scoff sounds from Hyojin’s throat, and Ari is starting to think the man despises him.
“How do you think I got in?” he asks, vocal cords drenched in sarcasm, and, yeah, Hyojin Carys almost definitely hates him. “C’mon, prez, ” he taunts with a gleaming tooth too similar to a fang, “you’ve the highest marks of the school, right? Use that big brain of yours.”
It’s demeaning, the way he speaks, but Ari didn’t expect anything less. In fact, it’s almost tamer than what Ari had expected—which was a lot less an exchange of words, and much more an exchange of blows.
But, still, he obeys. His eyes run a quick scan over the room, over entries and exits, and—there: the window opening up to the lacrosse field. Its pane is slightly ajar.
“The—”
“The window!” Hyojin exclaims, fake excitement bubbling through his words with a venomous laugh. “Aren’t you just a genius and a half.”
Suddenly, Ari feels very, very tired.
He stalks off back to the front desk of the room, opposite Hyojin, and lets the stack of papers fall onto wood.
“You need to leave,” he says, making an adamant point of not making eye contact—for his sake, or for Hyojin’s, he doesn’t know.
There’s a short silence that follows, though Ari guarantees it’s not because Hyojin has listened and left, and it piques his curiosity enough to glance over. Briefly enough to not stare; briefly enough to see Hyojin glaring at him.
“Tell you what, prez.”
Ah, there’s that tone, Ari thinks. The voice of an unamused delinquent who’s just revving up the engines to beat someone up. Ari just hopes Hyojin won’t aim for the face.
He looks over, biting the inside of his cheeks, and is met with…
Not entirely what he was expecting.
Instead of a face smiling with cold intimidation, Ari furrows his brow when he sees the complete lack of energy in Hyojin’s face. That tone that he thought he’d heard—the tone he thought meant his head was going to end up in a toilet bowl after all this—it was…
“How ‘bout,” Hyojin starts, leaning his head against the open whiteboard, “I stay here, you shut up, and your precious uniform doesn’t end up covered in blood.”
The words are accompanied by bored eyes—nothing ablaze with the rage that Ari remembers seeing, all those months ago. Nothing matching all those stories Ari has heard in the hallways. If anything, Hyojin Carys just looks… tired.
“We clear?”
Ari’s not the type of person to be on either end of a threat, but he knows enough about society to know an empty threat when he hears one. But still, he feels compelled to humour the man.
Motivated by empathy, rather than fear, Ari nods.
“Crystal.”
「 january 18 | thursday | 11:20am 」
Quite frankly, in all of his high school career, Ari has never had a lunch break quite this awkward.
It may very well beat that one time in sophomore year when Lucio and Amir had fought and Ari was forced to sit between them, painfully aware of the miscommunication between the two. (Thankfully that tension had only lasted until the end of that day, when Ari got fed up and told both of them to work things out, and the next day, they were back to being themselves.)
He finds himself at a crossroads, now. In the council room, torn between doing his work, and observing Hyojin Carys.
Not that you ever would, but if you’d told him this morning that he’d be spending his lunch hour looking at local criminal Hyojin Carys, noticing how small and tired and overall unwilling to live up to his threats he is… he’d throw a fake laugh at you and move on.
Being in the same room as Hyojin? And not being halfway on the way to death? It seemed unlikely.
But it’s been a good few minutes, and besides their initial conversation, Hyojin hasn’t glared at Ari or anything—hasn’t even spared him a glance, let alone a passing insult.
He’s just… sitting there.
Eating his lunch.
Ari can’t help but feel that something about all of this is fundamentally… off.
In the minutes of silence, Ari’s wandering eyes have told him enough, and at the same time, not enough.
He’s noticed that Hyojin has no bruises, no scars—nothing visible, at least. Nothing to indicate that consistent fighting nature of his. How is this man the same as the rumours of fighting rings and underground clubs? How is this the man that the school is scared to even whisper about? This man, who looks like he could use twenty hours of sleep, rather than twenty opponents to fight. This man…
“I can feel you staring, you know.”
Ari blinks.
Hyojin is looking at him, a singular brow raised. He’s sipping on a box of strawberry milk, legs hanging off the edge of the whiteboard storage unit, and he seems… normal.
“Sorry,” Ari mumbles, eyes averting back to the papers on the desk in front of him.
He hears Hyojin sigh. “If you’ve got something to say, then say it,” he grumbles. Ari is noticing more and more now that the things he says—they’re not threats. At least, they’re not supposed to be. “If not, just get back to loggin’ finance, or whatever the fuck you do.”
“Signing papers, actually, to…” He clears his throat when he looks up and sees Hyojin raising the brow higher. Perhaps he’s gotten comfy all by himself, and Hyojin hates him all the same.
Not one to enjoy the silence, Ari speaks up again a few seconds later, after scribbling his signature on the bottom of some request on the theme of the next fundraiser.
“Ties are a mandatory part of the uniform,” he comments. “Private school, after all.”
He’s not expecting a reaction. And if there was one, he’d have bet some money on it being Hyojin telling him to ‘fuck off and die’.
But instead, he looks up to see Hyojin staring at his hands in earnest, fiddling with the box. He almost seems meek, all hunched and body halfway inside the whiteboard unit.
“Lost it,” he says, so quietly that Ari has to put down his pen and ensure all of his attention is on the man across the room. “In the fight.”
Ari doesn’t have to question which ‘fight’ he’s referring to. Because, as far as he now knows, there’s only ever been…
One.
“You can get another one,” Ari offers with a smile that’s more often on his face than not. “At the admin office.”
Hyojin blinks at him. For a split second, his eyes gaze down at the smile Ari wears. “Y’have to pay for a new one.”
“Not if you have a note from the student president.”
At Hyojin’s furrowed brows, Ari smiles wider.
“I can write one up. Just show it to the admins, and they should provide you with a new tie, free of charge.”
There’s a pause as the offer hangs in the air between them, something glazing over in Hyojin’s eyes.
If Ari didn’t know any better, he’d think he just broke down one of the many walls hiding Hyojin Carys from the world.
“...Thanks.”
It’s as quiet as Hyojin’s presence is. But it makes Ari’s grin beam in the cold council room. It most certainly wasn’t the response he thought he would get, but there’s no chance in the world that he’s complaining.
From within the whiteboard, despite the lack of space, Hyojin still manages to reach back and play with the hair covering his neck. The first word that Ari thinks of is ‘bashful’—and he would say that, if he wasn’t still unsure about Hyojin’s murderous tendencies.
“My pleasure,” he says, pulling out a notepad from a shelf and writing out a request—two school-issued ties, just in case, for one Hyojin Carys. When he’s done, he pushes the paper across the desk, leaving it there.
Hyojin watches him from across the room, face neutral but eyes significantly less disgusted. “Y’know,” he starts with his voice still low, almost like he doesn’t use it often, “you’re not as bad as I thought you’d be.”
The compliment (if he can call it one) catches Ari off-guard. And he smiles. A genuine smile, leaning forward on the desk in the hopes that Hyojin can take it as amiability. “I could say the same about you.”
「 january 19 | friday | 11:11am 」
“Sorry,” Ari says, an apologetic smile painting his features. “I’m flattered, truly, but I’m not really interested in dating.”
The student beside him, standing just a few inches away from the table, nods their head and mutters a few last words before leaving with drooping shoulders, scuttling off into the rest of the students bumbling about the cafeteria.
When he turns back to his friends, Ari lets out a sigh.
From across the table, lounging on the leather booth, Lucio looks him up and down with a crooked grin, resting his chin on his hand. “Man. I’ll never see the appeal.”
The president rolls his eyes. He knows damn well what Lucio means. “The appeal of what,” he says, humouring his friend.
“ You, ” he answers. “I mean, I get you’re the textbook definition of a high school heartthrob, but—”
“Well, it definitely sounds like you get the appeal!” Amir juts in, laughing as they shove Lucio’s shoulder with his own and steals a string of licorice from Lucio’s lunch.
Ari lets himself smirk. “ Heartthrob, huh? Is that what you think of me, Luce?”
“Oh, shut up, you overgrown pool noodle,” he spits, stealing his half-eaten licorice piece back from Amir and throwing it into his own mouth. “You’re so annoying. And ugly. And undateable.”
Amir shrugs. “I think Ari is very dateable. In my humble opinion.”
“Oh, yeah? Go on and date him then.”
At Lucio’s pouting and sulking, Amir chortles and shoves his shoulder again. “Only you, boo, only you.”
“Don’t call me that,” Lucio groans, though his ears turn red.
“Would you rather snookums? Poo-bear? Gumdrop?”
“Is there an option for ‘none of the above’?”
As Amir and Lucio continue on their years-long game of will-they-won’t-they, Ari is left chuckling as something in the crowd catches his eye—or rather, the crowd does.
At the entrance of the cafeteria, all the way over by the northern hallway, the gathering of students parts in a modern mimicry of Moses and the Red Sea. It’s like something out of a movie.
But while it might be a nice thing to do for someone—hell, it’s happened for Ari a few times and he definitely appreciates it—when he sees the faces of the students, it’s anything but positive. They’re covered in detest, and fear, and hatred.
It’s not a pathway of respect; it’s a pathway of avoidance. And when Ari spots just who they’re parting for, it makes unfortunate sense.
In the middle of the crowd, in his three-sizes-too-big sweater, messy hair, black headphones, and cold gaze... is Hyojin.
He’s got his school bag, just barely hanging onto his left shoulder, his headphones are on, engulfed by his locks, and his face is blank and bored. And he’s still not wearing a tie.
The harsh reality slaps Ari in the face. He wonders how he didn’t notice it before.
Because no one dares to look him in the eye, Hyojin can’t look anyone in the eye either. Because no one approaches him, he doesn’t approach them. Because they treat him like an outcast…
As Hyojin glances around the cafeteria from behind his bangs, Ari realises with a start why he was even in the council room yesterday.
He chose to be alone before he could be forced into it.
It takes a second for Ari to realise that Hyojin is looking straight at him, eyes locked from across the cafeteria filled with students too scared to block his vision. Ari nods, hoping on a thin thread that Hyojin will understand.
‘Go.’
Hyojin lowers his head a little—maybe a nod—before he pivots on his feet and stalks out of the cafeteria.
And to Ari, seeing Hyojin’s back opens his eyes. Strong, and solid, and confident. Beneath the oversized layers, it’s the back of someone he could learn to respect.
“-ri. Ari!”
“Huh?” He blinks, head snapping back to his friends. “Pardon?”
Amir cocks their head to the side. “I asked if you were okay. You zoned out.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry about it,” he laughs, quickly moving to pack up his container of fried rice. “Just remembered I’ve still got some forms to fill out, so I’m gonna go.”
“I could come with,” Amir offers. “I am vice, after all.”
“He’ll be fine,” Lucio answers for Ari, throwing the brunette a grin. “Go on.”
Ari pats his friend’s shoulder in thanks as he leaves, striding out of the cafeteria and exchanging quick pleasantries with the people who greet him along the way.
Much to his pleasure, when he unlocks and opens the door to the council room, Hyojin is already inside, sitting in the conversation pit in the middle of the room. Relief sags his shoulders when Hyojin glances over his shoulder and pulls his headphones down to his neck.
“At least you’re not in the whiteboard this time,” Ari laughs, closing the door behind him and placing his lunch onto the desk.
Hyojin hums. “Couch seemed comfier. Your window security is shit, by the way,” he says, pointing to the same window he’d climbed through from yesterday.
Leaning against the desk, crossing his arms and glancing over at the open window, Ari chuckles. “Well, it’s not like we anticipated people breaking in through them.”
There’s the mutual understanding of not mentioning the cafeteria, and Ari decides to bring up a different topic. He’s not sure why he’s so adamant about being friendly with Hyojin, but, well… Nothing bad can come out of friendship, right?
“You’re not wearing a tie,” he comments. “Did the note not work?”
Hyojin shakes his head, his black bangs following the movement. “Nah, it worked. It’s just…” He reaches into his bag, on the couch next to him, and pulls out the black school tie.
He fiddles with the satin, running the long material between his fingers.
Through a mumble, barely even a whisper, he says, “I just…”
He trails off, but Ari understands the gist of it.
He doesn’t know how to tie one.
Ari’s not going to question it, nor is he going to judge. Instead, he clears his throat, uncrosses his arms and says, “Get up and come here.”
A moment of hesitation, before Hyojin turns his head with furrowed brows and stares up at the school president. “Huh?”
“Come here,” Ari repeats. “Take your sweater and headphones off. Please.”
Hyojin stares at him weirdly, hands defensively covering his chest.
Ari rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to do anything weird with you, idiot. It’s not like I’m telling you to strip.”
“I mean… you kind of… are.”
Ari sighs. “Come here so I can teach you,” he says, nodding to the tie winding around Hyojin’s hands. “I’m just going to tie it for you this one time, alright?”
Though it takes a minute or two, Hyojin finally gets up, shucks off his headphones and sweater, and makes his way to the desk.
With Hyojin standing right in front of him, Ari can actually notice their height difference now. He’s significantly taller than Hyojin—though that’s how he is with a large majority of the student body—and somewhat broader, with the lack of Hyojin’s sweater.
For someone who supposedly lives a life of fighting, he’s not as bulky as Ari thought he’d be.
“First and foremost,” he says, “button your shirt all the way up.”
Hyojin rolls his eyes at it, but obeys anyway. While he does that, Ari takes him by the shoulders and turns him around. He stands up, noticing even more so their height difference, and takes the tie that’s hanging on Hyojin’s arm.
“Learn by observation,” Ari tells him as he loops his arms over Hyojin’s shoulders, almost hugging him from behind.
There’s no response, but Ari takes that as a green light to continue.
Some part of Ari is sure that Hyojin’s isn’t one to appreciate the ol’ mansplaining, so he stays quiet while he ties Hyojin’s tie on him. He goes through the motions deliberately and delicately, a much slower version of something he’s used to doing every morning.
He ignores the sirens going off in the back of his mind—the part that still believes in those rumours of hospitals and loan sharks—and chooses to believe that Hyojin is actually paying attention to all this, and not…
Well, plotting to murder him.
When he finishes the knot, happy with the perfection of it, he pivots Hyojin back around. He leans on the desk behind him again, tapping a finger against his jaw as he examines his work and choosing to ignore the look of loathing on Hyojin’s face.
His face, of which the majority of is still covered by his long curls. Ari can barely see those murderous eyes.
“One last thing,” he says aloud as a warning. And then he adds, “Please don’t hit me.”
He tries his best to be slow and gentle, but there’s no mistaking the way Hyojin’s jaw tenses when Ari reaches toward his face. Ari simply offers him a smile, praying Hyojin doesn’t uppercut him right then and there, and continues reaching for the bangs hanging over his eyes.
Brushing the black waves up and away, Ari finally sees Hyojin’s face in clear view. And, dammit, he’s definitely not into Hyojin—or anyone—like that, but he can sure appreciate it when a man is handsome.
And Hyojin…
Hyojin may be more than that.
Perfectly shaped brows, despite the frowning; perfectly shaped lips, despite the scowling; perfect nose bridge; perfect eyes; perfect jaw; perfect…
Ari clears his throat, moving his hand away and tucking it in as he crosses his arms. “You clean up well,” he says, not unkindly.
Hyojin just snorts and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure,” he replies, very much unkindly.
“No, I mean it.”
The words escape him before he can help it, but that just means they’re all the more genuine. He’s a tad bit afraid of the response, but Hyojin doesn’t move to punch nor kick him.
Instead, Hyojin lets out a bark of laughter, and pushes forward a step—moving into Ari’s space; his leg between Ari’s, resting on the desk; his nose almost touching Ari’s.
Ari has always been an observant man.
He doesn’t miss the way Hyojin’s eyes flick down to his lips, for just a split second.
Ari has also always been somewhat weak.
And so, he finds himself doing the same. And to his surprise—(pleasure? Fear? Disgust? Delight?)—Hyojin is smirking.
“Do you now?” Hyojin queries, though the way it rumbles out of his mouth sounds similar to a sneer. “What? You calling me pretty?”
Ari fears he may have broken too many walls with this guy. Before he can even stutter a reply out, Hyojin is already moving away from him and laughing. Ari lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.
The bell for third period rings just as Hyojin collects his bag from the conversation pit.
What timing.
Hyojin hops over to the door, hair already falling down and covering his eyes again. With a hand on the door handle, Hyojin glances over his shoulder and Ari catches sight of a smirk.
“I’d tread carefully if I were you, prez,” Hyojin tells him.
He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to mean.
But something about the way Hyojin’s grin glints in the same way his jewellery does in the sunlight… it tells Ari not to question things.
“I didn’t know you knew how to use a door,” he mumbles—one of the more safe comments he has, out of the bank in his mind.
Hyojin laughs at that.
Ari feels it prickling the hair on his neck.
“Thanks for the tie and shit.” Ari swears he sees a wink beneath those bangs. “It's been a pleasure meeting you, prez. Truly.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
Left alone in the council room, there is a prick that dances along his spine—a small voice in the back of his mind that tells him he’s just started something he might come to deeply, deeply regret.
[to be continued…]