"Hi, I'm Nathan," Wonho said, bowing slightly before the class before biting his lip and looking over at his teacher. He wasn't sure why he was in a classroom, especially not when he was a professional fitness trainer and was supposed to be working the eight to four shift in the weight room (strength training on Mondays, endurance on Wednesdays, and some aerobics and cardio on Thursdays). But his job sent him to different classes all the time to become more knowledgeable about different exercise techniques and muscle groups, so he figured it was one of their new programs that they'd signed him up for.
Only he hadn't been prepared for such a small class of young kids that didn't look like they'd ever picked up a weight in their lives. Well, some of them looked fit enough, but one kid especially was so thin that Wonho worried about his stamina. It looked like a gust of wind could blow him over, to borrow the cliche, only there were no windows in the classroom. Odd.
"Please have a seat beside Changkyun," the instructor said, and Wonho nodded, scanning the room and going over to the empty seat next to the boy with his hand raised.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Nathan," Wonho introduced himself with a confident smile. "What gym are you from?"
Changkyun blinked. "Gym?" He shivered slightly. "I hate gyms."
Wonho blinked, astounded. "Wha- why?"
"Because, everybody's sweating, you know? Only inside the sweat are these little things called Zumeels, they're so small you'd need a microscope to see them, and they travel through one person's sweat onto the machines and then onto the next person through their sweat and they work their way into your bloodstream and once they're inside-"
"Changkyun, please be quiet," the teacher said.
Changkyun fell silent as Wonho shifted uneasily in his seat. He made eye contact with the skeletal boy across the room.
The boy turned his head the other way.
Wonho frowned.
"Maybe you can introduce me to everyone at lunch?" Wonho whispered to the boy beside him. He may have been strange, sure, but Wonho could use a bit of camaraderie since it appeared that he had been the last one to join the class.
Changkyun opened his mouth before nodding. "Sorry, I forget that you- sure, sure."
Wonho blinked before looking back at the instructor, squinting at the board. He wasn't sure why his supervisor had sent him to attend a program on mathematics, but he was paid for all of his training, so he had nothing better to do than sit in a desk and make money.
***
Hyungwon turned his head away from Wonh- from Nathan. He sensed the inquisitive but confident nature of the boy across the room, but he didn't want to get involved with him again. Not with Jay, not with Nathan, not with Wonho or Shin Hoseok or whoever he really was.
But now that Hyungwon's mind was on him, he couldn't remember him ever returning to their room last night. He'd been too distracted by the somewhat traumatizing and invasive evaluation to notice it, but he'd only heard one other set of breathing last night. Kihyun's.
Odd, Hyungwon thought, but he didn't dare to cast another glance at the boy who called himself Nathan.
He'd seen how Jay had looked at him, and even if Nathan was a different person, even if Nathan wasn't about to cast the same stones that Jay had, Jay and Nathan shared the same eyes, the same voice, and Hyungwon couldn't get it out of his head.
He'd known the moment, the exact moment, when Wonho had stopped believing him to be normal. But there hadn't been anything to fight, and no one to fight it anyway. Hyungwon didn't see the point. He was a troubled boy in a mental institution plagued by violent dreams that had prompted him to hurt himself. You couldn't add it all up and not come up with crazy.
But as much as Hyungwon fought it, he'd missed Wonho's quiet kindness when most of their class seemed so sharp and bitter.
"Want to copy my notes later?" came a whisper from his right, and Hyungwon looked over at Minhyuk in surprise. Minhyuk was grinning like they were wearing friendship bracelets that were invisible to Hyungwon's eyes.
Funny, I thought he hated me. He's given me the impression over the past few days of just that. So why is he all bubbly again? "Does any of it really matter anyway?" Hyungwon asked back softly. The teacher yelled at him enough. He didn't want to get in more trouble.
Minhyuk snorted, throwing Hyungwon a half-shrug. "I like feeling smart. It makes me feel less crazy. Like I'm in control of something. Does that make sense?"
Hyungwon thought about it for a moment before nodding. It did, in a way. "Okay. Thanks, Minhyuk."
Minhyuk grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. "No problem, deskmate of mine."
From across the room, Wonho watched them conspiring together and frowned.
***
"I'm Chankgyun, this is Shownu, that's Kihyun, that's Minhyuk, that's Hyungwon, and he's Jooheon," Changkyun announced in one fell swoop as soon as they'd all pushed their desks together. "And this is Jay, everyone."
Wonho frowned but quickly forced his lips into a smile, a polite one that firmly insisted I'm afraid you're mistaken. "My name is actually Nathan, not Jay."
"Shit, sorry," Changkyun mumbled.
Wonho tried to hold his smile up. He didn't really understand what was going on, but he was being paid, so...He made eye contact with a boy to the left, the only one who seemed to be paying attention to him.
"I'm Shownu," the boy said. "Nathan, right?"
Wonho nodded, feeling somewhat relieved to have found someone with better social awareness. "Yeah, I'm Nathan. I'm a trainer over at 24/7 Fitness, although I only work there Monday/Wednesday/Thursday, so..." He let out a light chuckle, and Shownu smiled politely.
"That's nice," Shownu said, and Wonho got the feeling that he wasn't a trainer, that none of them were, because when you brought up your gym in front of other trainers, they all started clamoring about who had the newest and best equipment and what they could all bench and what their mile time was and all that.
"Yeah," Wonho said hollowly. Everything felt off. And the one guy on the opposite side of the room was intentionally avoiding eye contact, this time by scribbling down something in his notebook while the guy next to him laughed and verbally abused the taller boy's handwriting.
"Welcome to M-wing," one of the guys to his right said. J-something. "Enjoy your stay," he said with a snicker before taking a sip of water.
"It'll be annoying later if you're asking a bunch of questions, so I'll just let you know that you're rooming with me and Hyungwon," the shortest one on the left said.
"Oh," Wonho said. He hadn't been prepared for an overnight program. "Well, I don't think I have any extra clothing packed or anything-"
"There's a spare uniform on your bed in our room and extra underwear and socks and everything for the week," Kihyun said, chewing in quick bites.
A whole week here? For what? "All right," Wonho said with less certainly, feeling his confidence waver.
It looked like it was going to be a long seven days.
