assigned seats || seungjin

Chapter 7

~after school~

Felix starts to walk home. His hands cling to the straps of his backpack and he is looking down at his shoes, dingy white sneakers. He wonders about his conversation with Jisung and Seungmin today. "Was I too harsh," he asks himself. He lets out a sigh and picks his head up. He looks up to the trees blowing in the cool fall air as they shed yellow and brown leaves.

To his surprise, there is a tap on his shoulder, and he turns around to see its Seungmin.

"Hey, can I walk with you?" Seungmin asks.

"O-oh, yeah. Of course!" Felix replies.

"I didn't know if you wanted to be alone or not. You seemed pretty upset earlier."

"Oh, no. I actually wanted to apologize. I didn't mean to come off like that."

"No,no, it's okay, Felix. Actually, I understand. Did I ever mention why I had to switch schools?"

"Uh, um, no I don't think so."

"Well, I liked my old school, a lot. But, there were kids there that didn't like how smart I am, how well liked I am, so they started rumors. Terrible rumors. The bullying and harassment got so bad that the principal had to get involved. But the bullying was too widespread to punish everyone, so they recommended that I try a new school."

Felix looks up at Seungmin and wonders how could people be so mean to such a great person. It makes him reflect on his own situation. He frowns and says, "it's not much different here. It wasn't so bad that I had to switch schools, but now anyone will barely talk to me. The only person who would approach me was Jisung. And thats only because he was new and didn't know what I had done."

"If you don't mind me ask-" Seungmin started.

"It's silly. The story would probably bore you to death." Felix interrupted. "Well, this is me," he said as they come to a stop in front of his house.

"See you tomorrow?" asks Seungmin.

"Yeah," Felix replies, "I'll see you tomorrow." He heads towards the house and Seungmin starts to walk on. Seungmin stops and turns back around before Felix gets to his house. "Hey, Felix," he shouts. Felix turns around to see Seungmin calling to him. "Wanna go camping this weekend?" Seungmin says with a smile. Felix smiles back and gives Seungmin a yes, before turning back and entering his house.

~at Jisung house~

Jisung lays on his bed watching ASMR videos on YouTube. He gets a notification from his email. Opening it, he sees that it is an audio file from spearb0326@gmail.com.

Jisung opens the email and reads, "Hey, J.ONE! Me and CB97 have been working on this track. We'd love for you to hop on it."

Jisung closes his phone and sinks into his mattress as he looks up at the ceiling of his room. He lets out a sigh. "How long can I keep this up?" he thinks. "The truth always comes out at some point. One day, everyone, even Minho, will know that I...am J.ONE."