nerves [ wowkwan ]

一

chapter one !
or
'a rough morning'

Byeongkwan tapped his fingers impatiently on the hard lunch table.

"Anything you'd care to tell us, Kwan?" a calm voice asked.

Byeongkwan was your average high school dork, to say the least. He wasn't exactly top of the class, yet somehow wasn't failing. His friend group was average, consisting of him and his three friends; Junhee, Yuchan, and Donghun.

The questioning voice belonged to Junhee, at this moment.
"Dude, you alright? You've been acting weird as hell like, all day."

Byeongkwan only stared in reply. See, that was one thing that stood out about the boy— his self-claimed ability to be the most awkward person alive.

In all honesty, he was about as awkward as any given person, yet his reaction to his own mess-ups was what set him apart. And in this situation, he certainly had messed up, according to his own standards.

"Kwan, are you fuckin dead? I've never seen you look worse," his friend Donghun cut in, making the comment as he sat down at the friends' lunch table and opening his lunchbox.

Byeongkwan snapped out of his thoughts, trying to ignore the all too present memory of what had occurred.

"Yeah! I'm fine, just had a rough morning," Byeongkwan spoke half-truthfully. The other three at the table quickly picked up on the implication.

"Did you do something stupid again?" Chan joked. Byeongkwan sent a death glare in return, letting his friends know that was, indeed, the case.

"Come onnn, couldn't have been that bad. Unless..." Junhee trailed off, making a show of pretending to think hard about the possibilities.

"Ah!" he came to a sudden idea. "Did you bump into that new cute transfer girl, making her drop her books?" he joked, Byeongkwan only rolling his eyes in return.

"Oh, I know!" Donghun cut in. "You accidentally walked into the women's restroom?"

"What the fu... you guys are insane, I just didn't get enough sleep okay?" Byeongkwan lied, secretly wishing that one of their guesses had been correct.

"Mhm. Sure... I'll make sure to go apologize to that transfer hottie for your mistake later—" Donghun's jest was interrupted by a sharp slap to the shoulder from Byeongkwan.

"Stop! I didn't fall on her. Plus, she isn't that hot, you guys are just desperate," Kwan retaliated. The three friends muttered a chorus of "ouch" and "rude" in response.

"Fine then, what girl here do you think is the hottest then? Since you're so picky," Chan interrogated, not noticing how Byeongkwan cringed for a split second upon hearing the question.

Byeongkwan, upon entering highschool, had soon figured out a major fact about himself and dating.
The conclusion? He happened to not be interested in dating... a girl, that is.

For obvious reasons, Byeongkwan had kept completely quiet during the chaotic time of realizing he liked boys. His family and school weren't exactly the most tolerant, and he was honestly afraid to find out how his best friends felt about the subject.

Byeongkwan glanced around the cafeteria, his eyes landing on a short haired girl standing in the lunch line, chatting with another student.

"Her," he said, monotone, pointing in her direction.
The heads of the other three all swiveled towards the indicated girl.

"The tomboy one? Alright, I respect it, she's kinda cute," Donghun absentmindedly nodded as he spoke, the others murmuring in agreement.

"Hah, there's that quiet kid. He's a transfer too, you think he knows that one girl?" Junhee spoke up, his gaze directed to a different location across the cafeteria.

Byeongkwan felt himself freeze. If they were talking about who he thought they were...

He turned cautiously to look in the same direction as Junhee had. Sure enough, there stood the infamous Kim Sehyoon; breaker of hearts, cause of our beloved Byeongkwan's misery.

Sehyoon turned at that moment, causing Byeongkwan to flinch as he caught the other boy's gaze from across the cafeteria. Not knowing what to do, he held the eye contact in fear.

Sehyoon smirked.

Byeongkwan hurriedly whipped around, facing back towards his friends and as far away from Sehyoon as possible. Although the other three seemed oblivious to what had just happened, it couldn't stop the sudden memory of what had happened earlier that day.

Byeongkwan didn't know why it bothered him so much.