"You called for me, teacher?"

She nodded, handing him a stack of stapled papers.

"Yes, Namgun. Your first class is going to be literature, isn't it? Could you give these papers to the teacher? I don't have time for this - I'm completely overwhelmed, but thank God there's you," the woman hinted.

Namgun pressed his lips together grudgingly. He didn't want to have to deal with paperwork at all.

"All right," he replied, squinting his eyes.

"Thank you, Namgun.

He left the office and walked down the empty corridor, waving his papers carelessly.

"Why am I always the delivery man? I'm not the headman, why the fuck do I have to carry the goddamn papers anyway? Who the fuck needs them?"

Almost to the office he wanted, he heard footsteps approaching behind him. Horror shot up his spine.

He knew very well who their owner was.

"Hey, Namguni~ Do you want to hang out for a while?"

His legs were stuck to the floor and refused to move. The hand clenched tightly on the papers.

Namguni. Namguni. Namguni. Namguni. Namguni. Namguni. Namguni.

Again and again and again and again.

A drop of cold sweat ran down his forehead.

The corridors of the school narrowed, limiting his view.

Wide windows, like honeycombs with dangerous black bees lodged in them, surrounded him on all sides.

Blood rushed over his upper lip, and it twitched impulsively.

He felt like a fish on dry land, squeezed by a broad, wiry hand and a sharp-sharpened knife held to his gills.

"Namguni~"

The cold voice sounded so close, as if a worm had entered his head and lodged itself there, humming softly.

Ruthless fingers lay on his neck and drew him forcefully to him. Cold lips pressed against his ear.

"Why the silence, eh?"

Glancing sideways at the boy beside him, Namgun, feeling a slight choking sensation, squeaked a soft "I'm sorry". The fingers immediately disappeared from his neck.

"I forgive you," the blond guy nodded with a smile. He pulled away and leaned lazily sideways against the wall, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose, informal pants. A beaming smile spread across his handsome, young face. "What have you got there?"

He nodded at the crumpled papers in Namgun's hand.

The boy stood still as if he had lost his voice altogether.

"What is it?" asked Gum Dae Han more insistently.

Namgun swallowed and tried to answer:

"I-it's..."

"Don't moo."

He shuddered as fingers dug into his shoulder with horrible pain, squeezing the bone.

"That's for the l-literature teacher," he squeezed out, feeling the tears coming.

"Oh well," Dae Han nodded languidly and disinterestedly. "Well, it doesn't really fuck with me. What about the money, Namguni?"

Hovering over the trembling boy like a rock, the guy stretched his lips in a questioning smirk.

Namgun was stunned.

He hadn't brought any money with him today.

"I...um...I don't have any money," he squeezed out fearfully and closed his eyes, waiting for another punch in the face.

It was impossible to read in Dae Han's face what he was thinking. Every movement, every slight kind smile of his was a trap.

He would set snares and lure and then greedily pounce, chewing out every last bit of it.

"Hmm."

Namgun, not waiting for the heavy slap, opened one eye.

Dae Han took his hands out of his pockets and sniffed his nose.

"I see."

The next moment, Namgun was grabbed by the neck and thrown inside like a rag doll, opening the door of the first classroom he saw. His nose hit the floor and he groaned as blood spurted onto his hand. With a loud slam, the classroom door closed.

Namgun, eyes wide open, froze.

"Pin him against the wall."

His hands picked him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him mercilessly against the wall, near where the bookcases were. He elbowed himself on the corner of one of them and howled in pain. Blood stains showed through his white shirt.

Dae Han approached his face sharply.

"Shake out his bag," he boredly tossed his buddy. He picked up the dusty black backpack from the floor, unzipped it, and flipped it open. The books rattled out of it.

"He really doesn't have any money," sniggered another guy, who scattered books across the floor with his slipper toe and stepped on them, leaving muddy marks on the covers.

"Interesting," Dae Han said thoughtfully.

He threw a glance at the guy standing in front of him and at the floor. When he noticed something, he smirked an intrigued grin.

Namgun, feeling his stomach twist deep inside him, pressed his sweat-wet back against the wall. Dae Han pulled away and, bending over, picked up a...sharpener from the floor?

It was filled with shavings from the pencils Namgun had forgotten to throw away before school today. Dae Han wiggled the sharpener playfully in the air, glancing glimpses at the guy standing across from him.

"Why is it full?"

"I...I forgot to put it away."

"Forgotten," Dae Han repeated dryly after him. He gently brushed away the blond strands that had fallen on his forehead, and sighed. "And I thought you were a clean-cut boy, Namguni.

Sensing a suspicious note in the other man's voice, Namgun hurriedly replied.

"I...I'm clean! I can clean up."

Dae Han looked at him and nodded affirmatively.

"You're right. We should throw this in the trash can."

He pressed it confidently against the boy's chest and held up his hand and put the sharpener in it.

"Throw it away, be an obedient boy, Namguni."

Namgun gulped loudly. He slowly broke away from the wall, rushing to the trash can in the corner of the classroom, but his powerful hands immediately pinned him back down. He gasped from the impact on his back, and his eyes narrowed in bewilderment.

"I told you to throw them in the trash."

Namgun squeezed the sharpener and babbled incomprehensibly:

"I..."

"Open your mouth, Namguni."

His heart sank into his chest in fear.

Dae Han pressed against him with his body and whispered in his ear:

"And throw it away."

Several of the guys were standing behind him, relaxed with their hands in their pockets.

The looks on their faces said it all.

"Wha...?"

"I'll help you," the guy smacked his lips cheerfully. He lifted his black eyes, where a shadow had fallen on them, and smiled briefly. "I'm a good sunbae, after all."

Grabbing the sharpener and pressing his finger, Dae Han opened it.

There was a quiet click in the classroom.

***

The last minutes of recess were always exciting. Some were trying to finish their notes, some were not preparing for anything, opening their food boxes instead. Others were either on their phones or gossiping loudly.

When the teacher entered the classroom, the talking stopped and everyone, as if on cue, fell silent. A man with a short, unkempt haircut adjusted his thin-rimmed glasses and cleared his throat:

"Put the phones away and let the lesson begin."

Several of the boys groaned grudgingly.

"It's still a few minutes before class starts, after all!"

"If we start early, we'll finish early," the teacher muttered.

"Who cares, we've got three more classes ahead of us anyway."

There was a commotion. He slapped the table with the edge of his hand and furrowed his brow.

"Shut up. I said we're starting the lesson, so we're starting it," he cut off sternly.

Dae Han shook his leg boredly, leaning back in his chair. The girl sitting at the next desk threw a confused look at him and turned away when her friend bent over and tugged at her sweatshirt, shaking her chin disapprovingly.

"Okay, today we..."

Noiselessly the door opened. Several of the boys cast quick glances and froze. The teacher, noticing the suspicious silence, turned toward the door. His eyes, peering through his glasses, twinkled strangely.

"That's right! I completely forgot. Guys, this is your new classmate, he..."

Dae Han, hearing this, shifted his cool gaze to where everyone was staring.

In the doorway, leaning wearily on the corner of the door, stood a tall figure.

Taking his hand out of his pocket, the boy raised it and knocked lightly, as if asking permission to enter.

"His name is El Jensen," the teacher hastily introduced the newcomer, pushing his glasses down to the bridge of his nose. "From this day forward, he will be in your class. Love and welcome, as they say. Come in."

Gum Dae Han huffed, feeling the tension in the air.

El Jensen's eyes, lingering like molasses of thick honey, and a strange condescending smirk were directed at only one person.

Dae Han.

"Come in," the teacher repeated in a sterner voice.

Jensen was wearing his typical school uniform-white skin-tight shirt, dark blue pants, and a large blue jacket resting carelessly on his shoulders.

He was tall, though. Very tall. Six-foot-nine?

His hair, which was tousled by the weather, was pulled up into a high ponytail. On his nose were round silver-rimmed glasses, giving him a special charm. The image of the bad boy, closely merged with the image of a model boy had a unique effect.

Jensen walked leisurely into the classroom, not taking his eyes off Dae Han.

A fixed gaze, alluring, like the smell of a bright sweet spreading in the mouth...

Suddenly his face changed. Smiling brightly in a childish way, Jensen greeted his classmates with a bow and uttered:

"Take care of me!"

Several of the girls in the front rows blushed at his loud, high-pitched voice. They whispered, smiling attractively at each other. The teacher interrupted them:

"There's a free seat over there. Sit down, El Jensen, we're about to start class."

Nodding, the boy moved along the classroom.

Dae Han watched him intently and warily, like a dog ready to defend its last piece of meat. As the newcomer walked past him, he suddenly felt two icy fingers penetrate behind his scruff and shove something in there. Twitching, Gum Dae Han stared angrily at the guy and wanted to yell, but the teacher, tiredly watching the one-sided altercation, only shiked sharply, shutting his mouth. Clenching his teeth, he shook a small crumpled paper out of his collar.

Reaching for it, Dae Han saw a pair of bare skinny ankles behind him at the desk. Picking up the note, he returned to his previous position, pulling a haughty mask over his face, and opened it. On the piece of paper was written in sloppy black pencil:

"Do you like it harder or softer?"

Turning his head so sharply that even his neck crunched, he saw Jensen quietly taking apart the bag. Placing the pencil case on the table, he noticed the unkind look and leaned back in his chair and winked slyly.

Enraged, Dae Han jumped up from his seat, but a twisted astronomy magazine landed on his head immediately. The teacher, grinning unkindly, pulled the bully by the ear, whispering something angrily to him.

The class laughed. Jensen, watching this, took a pen out of his pencil case.

He stared into the back of the boy's head from the front with gloomy eyes, and slowly ran his tongue down the inside of his cheek.

The front of the work definitely craved his attention...