“Are you insane?” Kaya hissed as soon as she had dragged Youngbin out of the classroom into the library for their free period, a sentence that had probably been burning on her tongue since the moment red haired Youngbin had stepped into biology class.

It was the hair thing, certainly. Kaya hadn't been the only person who's eyes had almost fallen out upon seeing the new change on Youngbin's head. In fact, his mother had pretty much freaked out, at least as much as she could.

She'd gasped when Youngbin had come home this Saturday, exclaimed “This will ruin your hair forever!” Youngbin however swiftly assured her that it would likely only stay like this for about two weeks. He hadn't lied about that, there was a possibility that it'd wash out after two weeks, just as there was a possibility that she'd have to deal with this hair colour for another two months.

That day, she'd just kind of given up, too tired to complain, and even the next day, after Youngbin simply explained that he liked it, and he was old enough to decide what to do with his appearance, his mother had just accepted the fact. She knew that there wasn't much to do anymore, nothing to change, not after the whole coming out argument.

And that was right, there was nothing to change. The dye was already on his head. Actually, Youngbin liked his new hair colour quite a bit. He looked pretty good with it, or at least as good as a Youngbin Lee could ever look. He'd feared that it may be too much- It wasn't. It was just right.

And now, he'd decided that he'd meet Kaya's shock with just as much calm as he'd done with his mother.

“I quite like it,” he said, and smiled. The smile was particularly important.

“I mean, yeah, it's looking good, but- I mean, that might as well be the first step into taking drugs?”

“Excuse you?” Youngbin raised his brow, his smile grew into a confused one.

“Mean bad boy boyfriend tells you to dye your hair, next you get a tattoo, then you rob a bank together, then he invites you to do crack cocaine. A natural transition.”

“You're insane.”

“Might be, but-” Kaya looked around in the empty library as though there was anyone that could hear them right now. “I can smell you getting into trouble.”

“You're not giving Alex the chance he deserves, Kaya. He's no criminal. He skips school sometimes and got into one fight years ago, but he doesn’t do coke as far as I can tell and doesn’t rob banks and doesn't do anything that's highly illegal.” Except for driving without a licence, but he did know how to drive without one, so it was fine. Youngbin pulled his text book out of his bag, after all, this period was supposed to be his time to do homework.

“I don't know why I'm supposed to give him a chance when he-”

“Because, no matter what you believe about him, it's probably not true. He's very good at making people misjudge him. And you seem to forget that I've been very happy with him.” If Youngbin really thought this would shut Kaya up, he was very much wrong.

“Happy. Okay. So what good things have happened since you've been dating him?” Kaya sounded like his mother. But worse. “You got outed in front of the whole school and now everyone has even more reasons to bully you. You had to out yourself to your parents and now your mom is being really weird about you. You've been feeling a lot worse it looks like, judging by your nightmares. Now you have red hair, which is cute, but also very very visible, especially to people you might not want to be visible to. Oh, and you're back on Instagram! Where people still post about you, and now they call you the F word on top of that!”

“Fuck or Fag?”

“Bin? That isn't the point? Hey, did you just swear, actually? What is going on?”

“Personally,” Youngbin said, and his voice was very calm, because that really annoyed Kaya usually, “I've not even seen any mean posts about myself. Because I highly curate my internet experience.”

“Remember when you got glued to that desk weeks ago? Yeah, there's a video of that, and it's been making the rounds.”

Youngbin wasn't sure why Kaya thought telling him this would make him feel any better. Perhaps she wanted him to go back into his shell a little. For safety, he knew that, but he'd found other ways of being safe now.

“As long as Alex is there, nobody will do anything to me. It's fine, I'll be okay.”

“Okay.” Kaya let out a sigh as she fell back in her chair. “Got it. And if Alex isn't there? If he looks away? If you break up?”

Youngbin was tempted to simply claim that they'd never break up, but that was a lie. The breakup was a part of the plan. It was going to happen, sooner or later. Then again, wasn't all of this a lie? How much more damage would another one do right now?

"Then I'll find a way to deal with it by myself," he decided on saying, and added: "Or with you, ideally."

Now Kaya froze in her tracks, her expression changed to a pondering one.

"And how would I know how to deal with this?"

Maybe if she tried to learn a little from Alex, if she actually took the time and let him speak and act and be, then maybe she could learn a little bit from him, become a little bit like him, in her own way. Youngbin couldn't say this, of course. He also couldn't bring up how similar he had found the two to be.

Kaya Rivers and Alex Hill could've been such a damn dream duo. They could've kicked ass together, if it wasn't for Kaya hating the fact that Alex did actually kick ass. Youngbin had a suspicion that maybe, she felt a little jealous. So did Youngbin, actually, but Kaya moreso. Alex, really, was everything Kaya had tried to be since they were little. But unlike him, she was too afraid to break the neat little box everyone had put her into.

Kaya had been with Youngbin since they were eight. Back then, Youngbin was still relatively unbroken, and Kaya was a shy little girl, a grey little mouse who barely dared to speak up. The two of them were loners, certainly, and that drew them towards each other. If one has no one to play with, they turn to the one who also isn't playing with anyone.

That's how things started. And then they changed. At least Kaya did. Youngbin was no longer a gifted kid but a stuck up smartass, no passionate genius but a cringey teenager, and fitting in had become harder with every day. He was the weird one, and soon Kaya was the weird one's only friend. For quite some time, Kaya watched things happen, and fall apart. It wasn't like she could do much. She was a kid, and she was scared.

But she also watched Youngbin fall into trap after trap, and she knew that he couldn't speak, so one day she started to do it instead. It wasn't like she said much- if she did, she'd simply become a second target to shoot at. But she was better at taking it than Youngbin. She was so, so much better at not caring about herself, and caring a lot about Youngbin.

There'd been days where he'd cried, and so had she, just out of pain for her friend. They could do to her whatever they wanted, but if they dared to hurt him, she'd fall apart along with him.

Maybe because she had such a thick skin, she was able to fall into her colourful self, to become more odd, openly so. It didn't matter if Kaya's every move was torn apart, because it really truly did not matter to her. On the other side, Youngbin had started to become invisible to even himself, he'd lost his self, he'd forgotten what made him.

Youngbin's life revolved around trying to not be a victim, and Kaya's revolved around not letting him become the victim. And that's where she'd become like this. Scared and paranoid and wary, for Youngbin. That's when she'd started to set restrictions to him and herself, started to hatch plans of how to blend in as much as possible, how to live life as safely and sheltered as possible.

She'd stuck both of them into a cage, that was, to her, the only way to be okay, to be safe and happy, or at least to not be miserable. It wasn't like it worked, Youngbin was still miserable, but really there was nothing more she could do.

She couldn't stand up. She couldn't get loud. She couldn't spit and scratch and bite and claw, she could only take Youngbin and carry him out of danger. She could do defence, but rarely offence.

And Youngbin had never felt as though she'd somehow leave him hanging like this. He knew that this was the only way for her, and for him. And he knew that, no matter how much she'd deny it, she was scared. She may have had a thick skin, but even that could be pierced eventually.

And if one day she truly snapped, if she stood in front of Youngbin and screamed and yelled with all her power and all her love, she'd be at her most vulnerable, because, and Youngbin knew this best, love had always been the one thing they turned against him, and they'd do the same for her. Loving, and being loud about that love, was a death sentence.

So she stayed in her box, made sure to keep it safe, but stayed hidden in it.

Alex never did.

He was loud and angry and he loved, painfully so. Instead of keeping Youngbin in a cage safe from danger, he had taken his hand and ran into the fire with him. He'd given him things that Kaya was too scared to give him. He'd kept him safe by tearing the eyes out of whoever dared to look at Youngbin, whereas Kaya had simply turned Youngbin away from the gazes.

She wanted to do that as well. Youngbin knew that she did. Maybe that's why she had started leaving a snarky comment here and there, because she'd seen Alex do it, and, as much as she hated the fact, seen Youngbin thrive because of it.

She'd missed out on so much, made Youngbin miss out, because she was too scared that it'd cause pain. And it wasn't just her, Youngbin was at fault as well, Youngbin had never tried to find joy outside of the familiar, never tried to attempt the dangerous, never tried to break his cycle of living, or pretending to do so.

Kaya wanted everything to be perfect, for pain to never come close to him, and Youngbin wanted to simply exist, to get by, to make it through each day one at a time. Alex wanted to run. Alex did not care about pain, or so it seemed, Alex cared about what he wanted, and he worked for it.

And now Kaya saw what she could've been.

Though, that sounded like it was too late. Like she'd walked a path along with Youngbin that she could never return from. That wasn't it. Youngbin himself had already turned around before. Maybe it was time for Youngbin to drag her along for once.

"You know," Youngbin eventually said after a silence that had either gone on for maybe three seconds, or three hours, "How about you tag along with me and Alex today during lunch break?"

"And why would I want to do that?" Her voice had a hint of tiredness within it.

"Because you're my best friend, and he's my-" Other best friend. "Boyfriend, and I think you two should at least get to know each other. At the very least, you should spend a single break together."

"Do you want me to tear him apart when he looks at me funny?"

Yes, a little bit, because then Kaya would at least show her claws once.

"You know, I think he likes you a lot. But you always look at him like- like you're gonna do just that, tear him apart."

"And he would like me why, exactly?" Kaya very clearly hated the idea, and Youngbin had to admit that there was probably a little more than just that jealousy that kept her from ever even talking to him.

Yes, it was also the fact that she thought every bad thing that happens to Youngbin is somehow his fault. It may be that he was the catalyst for various bad things, but he was also the one to turn those bad things into fine or even pretty good things.

"You're just likeable, I think."

"Well. Personally, I'd like to be here at the library for lunch to do some more homework, so-" By that, she meant copy Youngbin's homework.

"Oh, that's fine. We don't have any plans, we can just all come here, all three of us, okay?"

Kaya's face was still one of suspicion, but eventually, she softened up the smallest bit.

"If he pisses me off, I'll get up and leave."

"Deal. He'll pick us up from class, then, and we'll go here." Now Youngbin grinned, and Kaya didn't grin back, rather she rolled her eyes, then nodded as she accepted her fate.

Kaya’s face had turned to stone throughout their entire following lesson, a kind of expression marbled into her that she’d usually only put on before exams, presentations or any other situations she was forced to partake in. Youngbin almost felt bad for her. Almost.

Because, honestly, he was feeling worse for Alex, who’d promised to have an eye on her on the day they’d met, but hadn’t even gotten the chance to just talk to her.

And most of all, he was feeling bad for himself. Because his two best friends, two people who’d brought so much joy into his life, were just refusing to actually interact with each other. At least one of two people refused to. And, Youngbin had to admit it, he really just wanted a fun little friend group, a couple of people that would never leave each other's side. But that wasn’t easy when no group could form.

Now, however, there was no way for Kaya to run. She was forced to finally let Alex talk to her. To finally look past the mask, to finally listen to him, and talk to him, and realise what a great guy he was. And then, if Youngbin was lucky, they'd become best friends forever, and they could form a beautiful group of three. Like the Heathers. But without the death, hopefully.

Though, death had long been written into Kaya's eyes, and now that the lesson had concluded, nothing was holding her back from putting on her most terrifying murder gaze. One that Youngbin chose to ignore for now. Packing up his stuff, he decided to simply not look at Kaya until they'd run into Alex, just in case she'd decide to cancel their plan once their eyes met. So, with a smile, one as in love as he could muster, he almost skipped out of the classroom, near instantly bumping into Alex.

"Alex, would you mind if-" Now Youngbin actually looked back to check if Kaya really was following him- She had taken her time with packing up her stuff, actually, and with an agonising slowness she put paper and folders into her backpack. "Would you mind coming to the library with us today?"

"With us?" Alex repeated. "As in, Kaya?"

"I just want her to give you a chance," Youngbin said, his voice lowered. "You know, so she figures out that you're not like- Well, like you pretend you are."

Alex pressed his lips together, glanced over to Kaya.

"I like being like I pretend I am, though."

"You're not really, Alex." Youngbin furrowed his brows, then looked back towards Kaya as well. She'd swung her backpack over her shoulder, and finally set herself in motion. Her face still spoke volumes about how she was feeling about this whole deal, and so did Alex'- though he seemed more concerned rather than annoyed.

"Hi," he greeted nonetheless. No response, just an exhale, and Kaya walked right past Alex, instead gently nudging Youngbin to make him follow her. She walked straight towards the library, and right behind her, the fake couple followed.

"I need help with home ec," she said, in a tone quite uncommon. She spoke quickly, almost devoid of emotion. Whenever she asked for "help" it usually meant, let me copy your stuff. Which Youngbin gladly let her do. He was never a fan of homework himself, only did it because he had nothing else to do in his free time. Copying it, in his opinion, was perfectly fine.

"From Thursday or Tuesday?"

"Both?"

"Both."

"And once we're done-" Now she dared to take one swift look back at Youngbin, adamant not to look at Alex as well. "We do have a biology presentation together. So we should probably work on that as much as we can?"

"Right." Youngbin sighed. He'd done a presentation in biology barely two weeks ago. His teacher loved projects like this, though. Always claimed it was "more creative" or "easier" than writing tests or essays or papers. Not to Youngbin, though.

"I asked if we could get more time because you weren't at school on Friday but he said that you can work on it from home as well, so we might-"

"Mister Carter?" Alex now interrupted Kaya, and Youngbin was ready for a fight to break out any second. Kaya stopped in her tracks, then cleared her throat in a strangely passive aggressive way- maybe less passive, actually.

"Yeah. Anyways, we might run into some problems with time. My French exam is coming up, so I'll miss at least one bio lesson. I don’t know how much you can do on your own in one period.”

More than her, Youngbin thought.

“It’s okay, I can do the research and you do the powerpoint. As always. We can do this.” She can do this. If Youngbin could, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe now simply wasn’t the best time to give more presentations and assignments and projects.

Alex looked as though he wanted to say something as well, but eventually decided to keep his mouth shut, following Kaya’s long and fast steps towards the library.

Before the group of three entered, Alex stopped, peeked through the large library entrance towards the help desk usually occupied by a middle aged woman with comically big hair. She hadn’t been at school for a couple of weeks now, and Youngbin actually hadn’t taken the time to wonder what had happened to her just yet. Instead, she was replaced by a pretty young man, probably in his mid twenties, someone that looked like the epitome of a light academia search on Pinterest. Alex spotted that young man as well, and his posture relaxed.

Kaya had a table in the very back of the library that was basically hers. She’d sat there earlier today, with Youngbin, and she was heading for it once more. That was her table. Maybe because it was far away from the entrance and hidden from the view of anyone who might bother them, or maybe because of its close proximity to the art and music history section. The reason didn’t matter though. It was her table and had been for years.

Today, it seemed like it wasn’t.

Just before turning the corner, Kaya stopped, and turned to Youngbin with a frown. Youngbin glanced past her, and through the shelves and books, he saw a group of students sitting at their table.

“Taken,” Kaya concluded.

“Can we sit down somewhere else, then?” Alex dared to ask, and was instantly met with an offended “No!”

“That’s our table, we always sit there,” Kaya hissed as though Alex had just asked her to sacrifice her first born.

“So just ask if they could move?”

“No!” Kaya said again, and then her face twisted in a way that looked a lot like Alex’ whenever something had hurt his pride, so she turned, and sighed, and added: “Fine. I’ll try.”

She straightened her back, now she was the smallest bit taller than Alex, partly thanks to her platform boots, and also because Alex was slouching slightly at basically any point in time.

“Sorry?” Kaya stepped around the corner, and Youngbin followed closely behind her. A group of students, a couple of years younger than him, had occupied the table and didn’t necessarily look like they were studying, instead having spread bags of sweets and chips all over the table. “We usually sit here.”

The kids looked up to Kaya, and then looked at eachother, and then looked at Youngbin.

“And?”

“And that’s why I’m asking if we could sit here instead.”

“There’s other tables.” That was true. Youngbin was ready to turn around and leave them be, but Kaya had a different plan.

“That’s right, there’s other tables you could sit at. Also, eating isn’t allowed here.”

One of the kids shoved a hand full of chips into their mouth with a loud crunch that made Youngbin want to explode, another one cackled.

“What the fuck, chill. Why are you pissing your pants?”

“I was really just asking.” Kaya’s tone indicated that she was nearing the end of her patience. “No need to-“

“Just piss off, you clown.” One of the children threw a chip at Kaya, but hit Youngbin instead. Of course, this seemed to be the funniest thing that had ever happened, and they began absolutely hollering at the bad throw.

Kaya took a deep breath, and everything within her was holding back. She was going to turn around, dragging Youngbin with her, but had seemingly forgotten that Alex had been waiting behind the shelves the entire time.

With heavy steps, he finally squeezed himself past Youngbin and Kaya, and crossed his arms. His voice sounded lower when he spoke, meaner.

“You heard her, get the fuck up.” Some of the laughter shut off instantly as though someone had unplugged them, some only got louder.

“What’s Hill doing here?” The one who’d thrown the chip had put a smug smile onto his face. Not the most honest one, certainly one he had been training for to look cool in front of his friends. “I didn’t know you could read.”

Now Alex looked butthurt. Less in the ‘Youngbin made a silly joke about me’ way, and more in a- well, Youngbin couldn’t really pin it down, but it was more annoyed, maybe mad, and embarrassingly hot.

“Get your fucking asses up and out of here before I personally kick you out.” No attempt to move was made, though some of the faces looking at him had turned a bit paler.

And then Alex did something that Youngbin had believed to be just a rumour, an idea of Alex that Kaya had made up- or at least he was about to do it. He took a step towards one of the students, towering over him, then another one, and soon the student fell silent. So did his friends.

Youngbin was so sure Alex was about to punch that kid. The way made himself taller, the way he looked down towards the boy that had just laughed about him seconds ago, the way his eyes had darkened. He didn’t, of course, because Alex didn’t actually punch people, he just pretended like he did. And he looked like it.

“Get up. And clean your shit up while you’re at it.”

“Or else,” the little shit that didn’t seem to have enough of provoking Alex just yet asked.

“I don’t need to tell you that.” Now he moved his fingers, his knuckles cracked, and if Youngbin hadn’t known Alex so well, hadn’t known how soft and gentle he actually was, hadn’t been aware that all of this was just an act, maybe he would’ve been intimidated. Now, though, he just thought it was a little silly.

Half of the group had already gotten up, gathered their things, and now the rest, especially the boy Alex had been standing in front of, finally moved as well. Funny to think that these kids believed one guy could really take all of them out like in some kind of action movie where the hero takes on whole armies with his fists alone. But it worked. The big bad wolf had scared the lambs away, though not without a curse and mumbled insult.

The table was free once more.

Alex turned to Youngbin and Kaya, smiled as brightly as he could, as softly, a smile Youngbin couldn’t get enough of. He then gestured towards the empty table and sat down, leaning back, crossing his arms like he had just taken over a throne by killing the king himself.

And Youngbin- he just shrugged, and joined him, unpacking his stuff. He couldn’t help but smile. What a silly thing for Alex to do. And how silly to be scared of that, too. He really didn’t even play this bad boy persona all that well. At least in Youngbin’s eyes, he didn’t, eyes that had seen him be so different.

Kaya’s eyes hadn’t seen that yet, though. She still stood there, stared at him, stared at Youngbin, then back to Alex again.

“What the fuck,” she eventually let out.

“What?”

“Did you just threaten these people?”

“Well, I didn’t really threaten anything, did I?” His voice was still notably lower, incredibly self assured, relaxed yet confident. Youngbin had forgotten that he’d spoken in that voice to Youngbin as well, weeks ago when they first met.

“Oh, yeah, because indicating that you’re about to beat someone’s ass if they don’t listen to you isn’t a threat.” Kaya’s voice also had that edge to it. Another similarity between the two. They both could just sound so very different whenever they wanted to assert dominance or something.

“Come on, it’s not like I’d actually hurt anyone.”

“Oh, no, because if there’s one thing to know about Alexander Hill, it’s that he’s not prone to violence at all.”

Now Alex’ face dropped. Less in that intimidating way, and rather- hurt, really. His expression changed to one that was so very vulnerable, the sharpness of his features made space for something softer, sadder. But not for long. Quickly, his eyes had narrowed again, and rolling them back, he just said:

“You can just say ‘thank you’, you know. Seriously, did you wanna sit here or no?”

Kaya sighed, or maybe grunted, and hesitantly sat down, though she made a point to sit as far away from Alex as possible.

“You didn’t need to make such a huge deal out of it, though. We could’ve just walked away, We could’ve been the bigger person.”

“Oh, come on, fuck the bigger person.” Alex rolled his eyes again. “If someone treats me like shit, why do I have to endure that? I have the right to tell them to fuck off, then.”

Now Kaya fell silent, maybe because she was going to consider Alex' words, or maybe to end the conversation. Perhaps she just had enough. Lifting her backpack up onto her lap, she pulled out her pens and lined paper, busily searching for an empty page.

Youngbin threw a glance to Alex, who had lowered his gaze to the table, crossed his arms, seemed almost a bit lost in thought, and Youngbin couldn’t help but feel like this had been an absolutely terrible idea. Maybe they weren’t all that similar. Maybe they were going to tear eachother apart.

With a sigh, Youngbin grabbed his tablet and opened whatever page Kaya had been wanting to copy from him. Silently, she pulled it closer to herself, and began writing, the pink pompom attached to her pen waving around as she copied his notes.

So now, they were talking about absolutely nothing. Great. Though, this probably was much better than arguing, sitting here in silence. Youngbin watched Kaya take more notes, handle the iPad as though it was her own, then watched Alex sit there, completely still.

Like a statue almost, just as beautiful and just as melancholic, Alex had turned into stone on the chair that had been occupied by someone else just a couple of minutes ago.

He hadn’t even done anything. He hadn’t hurt anyone, hadn’t threatened anyone, had just stood there and looked intimidating. He’d just been what he always pretended to be, and that was enough to get his way. And apparently that had already been too much for Kaya. Or maybe, anything would’ve been too much for Kaya, perhaps that was the problem. Maybe there’d been no right way for Alex to act.

Whatever. He looked hurt now. And Youngbin hated that. He threw one quick glance at Kaya as though to make sure she was still caught up in writing, then he moved a little closer to Alex, and when he looked up, attempted to give him a sorry smile.

He would’ve loved to maybe take his hand. To touch him, his arm, or hand, or just a single finger, gently, just once. Youngbin had started doing this, maybe to calm himself, though he would’ve loved to tell himself that it was to calm Alex.

Something about the heat of his skin, its roughness, had become so very comforting. What a strange thing.

Kaya wasn’t like this. Kaya’s skin was particularly smooth and soft and weirdly cold all the time. It wasn’t her skin that gave Youngbin comfort, it was the feeling of her hugs, the heaviness of her body when it leaned on Youngbin to embrace him. It was her presence. The warmth of her soul, maybe, as odd as it sounded. The comfort Kaya gave was vibes, perhaps.

And Alex, his comfort, or any kind of feeling he gave Youngbin, was so much more physical. And sometimes it made him sick. Thoughts and feelings and words tangled into sentences that he himself didn’t really understand, that he couldn’t quite see a purpose in, so he decided to put an end to those, to no longer think about comfort.

He wasn’t being embraced by Kaya, nor was he touching Alex’ skin, so no use in thinking about how he’d feel if he was.

“Boo, that homework sucks.” Kaya now shoved her notepad away from her, letting her head fall back. “How do you write five pages of this shit? I shortened it to like, one and a half.”

“Not like I have much more to do.” Youngbin attempted to pull back his tablet, but Kaya stopped him.

“Wait, I need more.” She tapped around on it, opened a file from last week. “Also don’t act all jobless, you apparently have enough time to get your hair dyed.”

Youngbin hummed, hesitated. True. In fact, he’d been only writing five pages of homework instead of eight ever since he started spending more time with Alex. He had plenty of time. He just used it for sulking a lot, lately.

“It’s not like I spend every waking hour with Alex, though.” He kind of had, this weekend. But that was a weird one, where being asleep and awake had kind of started to mix in strange ways.

“You should, maybe,” Alex now added, and Youngbin was glad to hear his voice again, to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep, or died.

“Oh, sure. Hang out more with him until your homework is reduced to half a page.” Kaya was very clearly holding her tongue right now.

“God, come on, it’s not like- I don’t know, I claw his responsibilities out of his hands and get him to do crack with me all day instead.”

Now Youngbin was caught directly in the crossfire between Alex and Kaya, and the stares they’d been throwing at each other pierced Youngbin who was forced to sit in the middle.

“Honestly, I wouldn't put it past you! Thought you’re too cool for school anyways, so you might as well drag your poor little boyfriend into it too.”

“I’m not dragging anyone into anything? Don’t act like I’m corrupting anyone here. You sound like his mother.”

“Guess sometimes I gotta do that.” Kaya lowered her head again, pretended to focus on the notes in front of her. She wasn’t focusing, not on last week's home ec homework at least. Then, quieter, she added: “Since she isn’t doing her job.”

Alex froze, and Youngbin didn’t, because he had heard that a couple of times before. He knew Kaya didn’t mean it, at least not as much as it sounded, and maybe she also kind of was right at times. But Alex froze.

“Okay,” he then said, with the voice of someone so tired and exhausted and kind of angry. “Kaya, seriously, you’re not his damn mother. You’re not responsible for him. He’s no toddler that’s gonna stick a fork into a power outlet if you stop watching him for three minutes. You don’t need to tell him what to do and what not to do and-”

Alex talked like Youngbin wasn’t right next to him, and he couldn’t tell if he was actually upset or acting as the protective boyfriend. Either way, Youngbin didn’t quite know how to feel about it. Because he was right, just a little bit.

“And why are you trying to insert yourself into this friendship now? Seriously, big red fucking flag. This is none of your business, you don’t even know me, I don’t even know if you know Youngbin at all.”

Oh, yeah, this was going to shit, absolutely.

“I’m not inserting myself into anything, I just think you’re-”

“Then stop thinking about me. You worry an awful lot about others when maybe you should just look at yourself and think about what’s wrong with you.”

“Oh my god, Kaya, I just-”

“Let me work in peace.”

Alex opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again, and fell back in his chair, arms crossed, lips pressed together. That was pretty much it, then. About Kaya and Alex and maybe becoming friends, or learning from each other, or anything wishful like that.

Kaya went back to scribbling onto her notebook, with such a force that each pen stroke was audible, the paper underneath it threatening to tear apart from the friction. Those might’ve been the most angry, violent home ec notes Youngbin had ever seen.

Kaya was in fact angry now, and so was Alex. Youngbin wasn’t actually. He probably should’ve been, and taken a side, after all, his two only friends had just gotten into an argument about him. But really, it just felt like two dogs barking at each other, and Youngbin had let go of both leashes. He wasn’t exactly sure why had taken both of them out together when they’d been snarling at each other through muzzles the entire time.

The three had sat in silence, only Kaya’s furious scribbles to be heard, and after an agonising while, she was finally done, and shoved the iPad back to its owner. She sighed, shook her hand, stretched it, then let the notebook disappear in her backpack again.

“So. Bio presentation.”

“I really don’t feel like working on that, to be honest,” Youngbin admitted, and Kaya rolled her eyes.

“Me neither but we have to do something, I guess.”

“Usually you’d say ‘me neither, let’s do it another time’, I prefer that.”

“Usually you’d say ‘I’m not in the mood but we need to push through anyways’. What’s up with that.”

“How about we just don’t push through and just half ass it another time.”

Now Kaya’s eyes widened, she leaned closer to Youngbin, then stared over to Alex, who’d just been scrolling on his phone for a while.

“You would never say such a thing, Youngbin.”

“You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been thinking such things now, Kaya. When do we have to present anyways? We still have time, yeah? And maybe we can just try to ask Mister Carter for more time.” Truth be told, Youngbin had absolutely no energy to work on anything at all. Maybe he had gotten lazy. Or maybe it was the lack of sunlight that was sucking out all dedication that had been left within him.

“As if he’d give us more time, come on. He never does. Especially if you don’t have a real excuse.” And she was right, Mister Carter wasn’t the one to give you more time. Though he made a very caring impression, and sometimes Youngbin wondered if he just hadn’t been honest enough with him, maybe there were some magic words that would make the biology teacher give in.

“We have a real excuse.”

“And that’d be what exactly?”

“How about we’re honest? It’s been exhausting. I’ve not been feeling well. There are plenty of exams we have to study for. I’m sure he’d get it.”

“That’s a cute assumption.” Alex had looked up from his phone as he listened in to their conversation, as if the mention of Mister Carter activated something within him every time. Kaya flinched when he spoke up, and yet visibly held back on shutting him up again. “I don’t think he sees that as a proper excuse.”

“Hate to agree with him.” She pronounced that as though Alex’ name would’ve been too dirty in her mouth. “You’ll have to lie and say your dad exploded, and maybe he’ll give us an extra day.”

“Both of you always act like that poor man is the devil on earth.” Youngbin tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. Really, he was quite friendly. Mister Carter made plenty of jokes, seemed to be much more on one level with the students. He was easy to talk to, and whenever Youngbin expressed concerns about his grades, he’d always suggest that he simply do some extra credit work to make sure he wasn’t falling behind.

Sometimes, of course, doing extra work wasn’t exactly what Youngbin wanted, or rather, needed. He wasn’t quite sure how extra work was going to help Youngbin, whose main problem was falling behind because he was getting overwhelmed, but sure, as long as his grades were fine, he’d just listen to the teacher.

“Not the devil, but-”

“No,” Alex interrupted Kaya, “Devil is alright. Absolute asshole.”

“Kind of an asshole, yeah.” There was defeat in Kaya’s voice, as though it pained her to agree with Alex.

“Both of you have a habit of hating people without telling me why.”

Alex and Kaya both fell silent for a couple of seconds, both as though they were sorting their thoughts, ready to launch a full essay on why exactly they made such a fuss about a teacher that really was just some guy.

“I think he’s just horribly slimy.” Kaya was the quickest. “He’s the epitome of ‘how do you do, fellow kids?’, you know.”

“Exactly what I’ve been saying,” Alex added, and for the first time ever, the two had the same opinion.

“I hate how he pretends to be one of us, you know. Like that man’s in his 30s. I’m eighteen. We are not the same, stop pretending like we are the same.”

“I don’t think he’s pretending to be like us, though? I think he just wants to connect to his students. Sure, it’s a little cringe, but-”

“If he was trying to connect,” Alex cut Youngbin off, “then maybe he should try to actually listen to his students' concerns instead of telling them to just ‘work more’ when they tell him about their struggles.”

“Exactly!” Kaya’s eyes lit up like embers.

“If he cares so much about good vibes in his stupid fucking class, then maybe he should stop pushing his students! How about that!”

“Honestly,” Youngbin cleared his throat, “he’s always been very kind to me. And Kaya, I’ve never seen him be unfair to you, he’s quite polite most of the time.”

Kaya and Alex fell silent, both staring at Youngbin, then looking at each other for a second, and it looked like they were reading each other's thoughts. Honestly, they probably actually could do that.

“That man has not been treating you well, Youngbin. I assumed you were aware of that.” Kaya had lowered her voice, blinking bewildered. “Remember when you had to bring your actual diagnosis to school because he didn’t believe you had autism.”

“You had to what?”

“It’s not like he didn’t believe me, actually. He just said he wanted to see it for- I don’t know, legal reasons or something.” He had to bring it with him that one time, yes. When he had to give that terribly practised speech about how he may not perform as well as other students, the kind of speech he had to give every teacher, to which most of them reacted understandingly, at least at first.

“Bin, there’s no way you see anything wrong with him.” Kaya’s eyes had narrowed into golden slits staring right at him, her mouth pressed into a line. “He talks to you like you’re a child.”

“Come on, that’s no reason to hate him.” Though she was kind of right, he did talk in a very… Well, Youngbin had always assumed that Mister Carter was just very polite, and particularly soft spoken when it came to Youngbin. Not that he’d seen a big problem with that though. Sure, it was odd, but nothing that Youngbin paid much mind to.

“That really is a reason to hate him, though,” Alex said. “I don’t think he’s treating you with respect.”

“Come on, you don’t even have any lessons with him, you don’t-”

“I used to, actually. Chemistry for like three years. Or two and a half, maybe. It’s not like I showed up that much last year.”

Right, right. Youngbin remembered, vaguely, of Mister Carter talking to Alex. But Youngbin had just kind of assumed that he was on every teacher's bad side. Not that this was anything special.

“You know, when I started skipping school to work? He was always like, ‘Oh, you can come to me with your problems, we will work something out!’” Truly, Youngbin had heard that sentence plenty of times coming from Mister Carter. Maybe that was why Youngbin had tried to be more open to him about his struggles. “And I was dumb enough to actually talk to him. Yeah, guess what. We didn’t work out shit. He just told me to get my shit together, basically.”

Alex scoffed, accidentally kicked the table when trying to cross his legs. Youngbin, of course, felt sorry. He’d felt sorry for Alex ever since he figured out that his reason for skipping school was- more personal. Less of a “fuck you” to school in general, more a setting of priorities, deciding that making money to move was more important than sitting at class all day.

“What did you tell him?” Youngbin couldn’t help but ask.

“Kind of everything. As much as I could. I don’t know, we don’t have a lot of money, shit’s rough, family troubles, I’m not- wasn’t doing so well. I don’t know, man.” Alex turned his head away, and though Youngbin couldn’t see his expression, his shoulders tensed up. “Like, yeah, sorry, just can’t focus on homework when my fucking life’s falling apart.” His tone of voice had shifted, a desperate attempt to sound less serious, more joking. It didn’t work. Youngbin knew Alex too well.

“And he said what?” Youngbin felt bad for asking, he really did. But whenever this happened, whenever Alex decided to open himself just the smallest bit, Youngbin felt as though he had to use that opportunity.

“Like verbatim? ‘I understand that, but you have the chance to turn your life around by focusing on school.’ Like some fucking ghost, I can hear that shit repeat in my head sometimes. And then something along the lines of, I don’t know. Life’s tough but you have to pull through. Life’s unfair. Work harder. You won’t make it anywhere with that attitude. Focus on fucking high school chemistry class because I’m sure as fuck gonna need that one day. Like, yeah. Fuck you too.”

Youngbin fell silent, and so did Alex, and so did Kaya. They sat there, and went quiet, and thought, at least Youngbin did, attempted to. Nothing really came out of it, just pity, and a bit of confusion, and a weird feeling Youngbin couldn’t really categorise, he just knew that it was caused by Alex letting him in. Like he’d done more often recently. Perhaps it was gratitude.

“See,” Kaya then said to break the silence, and her tone was so much less harsh. “Man’s not giving a shit. As long as your priority is his class, he’s happy, but if you dare to care about something else a bit more, then-”

“Then he just beheads you. So I just didn’t show up at all anymore. Out of spite.”

Kaya looked as though she wanted to say something about that, add a snarky little comment, just to realise that she’d be no better than Mister Carter. Instead, she bit her lip, then hummed. Maybe she understood. Youngbin was hoping she did.

“Well, look at you,” he said, and tried to not think about Mister Carter further. “You agree on something, at least.” Kaya only rolled her eyes, though a smile had snuck onto Alex’ face.

“Yeah. That’ll be the only thing, I’m pretty sure.”

“That’s a win. Didn’t think I’d come out of here alive, to be honest.” Alex leaned back, stretched his arms with a satisfied smile on his lips, and for a second, it looked as though Kaya was also grinning, just a bit.

Chapter 18 - the enemy of my enemy

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