"I'm telling you, I have as much a right to stand on this desk as they do to shove me in this bloody excuse of a classroom and watch me with their cameras and tell me when I can eat and sleep and piss!"
Hyungwon was watching Jooheon, who was standing on his desk and screaming at the camera in the corner of the room. Their teacher had left the classroom as soon as Jooheon had started yelling, and they'd all heard the automatic lock of the door behind him, sealing them all in.
"Come down here and face me, faceless bastards!" he yelled, shaking a fist.
"Jooheon," Shownu, his roommate, tried as he moved toward Jooheon slowly, reaching out a hand to help Jooheon down. "Jooheon, try to-"
"Don't tell me to calm down!" Jooheon yelled, smacking Shownu's hand away. "Everyone's always telling me to frickin calm down! Well, I don't want to! How's that?"
"Jooheon, this isn't proving anything," Shownu continued to reason. He was used to Jooheon's outbreaks, and he knew that if he didn't talk him down soon, Jooheon would become violent and lash out, most likely breaking classroom fixtures or turning on his fellow classmates. "All that's going to end up happening is that we get moved to S-wing or T-wing or whatever's the next one to fill up. We won't get to eat breakfast in the cafeteria. They might turn the lights off earlier. All that's going to happen is that we're all going to get punished, and the people you're yelling at aren't going to be affected at all."
"That's the problem, isn't it?" Jooheon replied angrily. "That a bunch of assholes behind their screens think they have any sort of right to try and fix us when they don't bloody understand what makes you and me tick. They don't know how it feels, Shownu." Jooheon flexed his hand, staring down at it. "There's all this anger inside. In my blood, in my bones. And telling me to calm down doesn't fix the frickin problem. It doesn't make it go away. It just makes it build up and build up and I'm just drowning in all this anger that I'm just never supposed to use, that I'm just supposed to ignore?" He laughed maniacally. "Try ignoring your dead brother, Shownu! Then tell me to ignore what's in my blood and in my bones!"
Shownu's facial muscles clenched, and everyone watching knew that Jooheon had crossed a line. "Fine," Shownu said, his voice quiet, flat. "Do what you want. I won't stop you."
He walked to the back of the classroom and sat down against the wall.
"You can't stop me," Jooheon snapped. "None of you can. Bunch of weaklings. Kihyun's a midget and this other kid is a bloody skeleton-"
Hyungwon flinched but didn't bother replying.
"-and he's a jabberhead-"
Changkyun's lips tightened.
"-and Minhyuk's like a flipping light switch, on again, off again, and the only kid who's got any meat on his bones at all thinks he doesn't even frickin belong here," Jooheon snarled, and Wonho watched with a furrowed eyebrow. "Little boy wants to go home to his mommy," Jooheon mocked, and Wonho frowned.
Hyungwon stood up, pushing back his chair softly. He didn't like confrontation. He wasn't built for it. But Shownu was out of the picture, and Wonho still wasn't really up to speed, and everyone else was just content to sit around and watch like it was the newest episode of some TV drama. Jooheon Yelling At The World, Episode 34.
"Jooheon-" Hyungwon began, moving closer to the other boy, whose eyes followed him, narrowed into slits. He didn't know what he was supposed to say. He didn't have a big speech prepared or answers to any of Jooheon's questions. He just wanted Jooheon to stop yelling and get off the desk.
But whatever he'd been about to do never happened. Instead, his body absorbed the shock of a blow, and he crumpled to the ground.
"Bloody skeleton," Jooheon muttered, rubbing his fist, his knuckles tearing slightly from the bone-on-bone contact.
