[_starcandy Challenge] Misfits
Title: Misfits
Rating: PG
Genre: high school AU, humor-ish, random *shrugs*
Prompt: #1: Blood
Word Count: 706
Summary: The start of a beautiful friendship. Or something.
I've always had a problem with blood. Just one of those things, y'know? Not much else gets to me, no other major phobias to speak of or traumatizing events in my childhood. If anything, my childhood was traumatizing in its absolute complacent normalcy. Is that a thing? It totally should be. Normal should never be complacent. It should be a try-hard wannabe, like that family in the Harry Potter books. Desperate and thus abnormal in the normality. I dunno. Something like that.
Anyway, yes, blood. It's an issue. Paper-cut deep enough to bleed? Room starts spinning like a merry-go-round powered by a jet engine. Anything more serious than that and I become intimately acquainted with the floor. No clue why, either. I've never had any serious injuries myself, just the typical childhood scrapes and bruises. Just one of those things, like I said.
I've taken my fair share of teasing and/or downright ass-hattery for it. Surprise, right? Yeah, I know, exactly. Because boys should be automatically immune to someone's life essence slowly oozing out of them. That's how it works; external genitalia grants you the superpower to choose your fears. And you chose to be afraid of a little bit of blood, pussy. So, y'know, just suck it up and deal. Or whatever.
But that's not really the point here. It just kind of roundabout leads to my point. Somewhere. We'll get there; just stick with me. So, this bullying, it dealt my self-confidence quite a blow. Or, in other words, I turned into one of those loner emo kids. Not the real emo kids, the ones who have something legit to be upset over. No, one of those emo kids whose only real problem is that they have no real problems. Yeah, one of those. See, the thing is, I could have sucked it up. I could have dealt with it. I am otherwise a fairly scrappy person, and the bullying wasn't even that bad. I hesitate even to call it bullying. But I was sensitive, dammit, and I didn't like them making fun of me for one of my few deep-seated insecurities. So I chose instead to gracefully swan dive into a self-pity pool. The water's lovely, if a bit salty.
So there I was in my final year of high school, seated in my lonely little classroom corner during lunch, nibbling at my crust-less ham sandwich. My principal walked in, followed by a tall kid with hunched shoulders and dark curly hair falling into his eyes. He was introduced as Shim Changmin, a recent transfer who had skipped up a grade so we were all older than him and should thus take care of him properly.
The kid murmured a tiny, "Nice to meet you," before bowing quickly and scampering for the only empty seat in the classroom. Right next to me. He sat, strung-up tense, on the edge of the seat and didn't relax until all the eyes in the classroom had turned away from him. Finally, he slumped down a bit and proceeded to stare at the scuffed table top.
"Hi," I greeted him, ignoring his obvious aversion to attention. He turned slightly, looking up but only at my nose rather than my eyes. "I'm Jaejoong, and I pass out at the sight of blood. Any blood. I'm miserable and pathetic and that's why that seat right there was open. So how are you today?"
He blinked a couple times, still at my nose, before mumbling, "'m fine," and turning back to the desk.
I took another bite of my sandwich, crunching through the onion-flavored chips stacked inside and staring at him the whole time I chewed. "Not much for social interaction, are you, Changminnie?" I asked. After swallowing. Wannabe-emo or not, I was raised with manners, thank you.
He shrugged but actually did manage to reply, just barely above a whisper. "Anxiety. That's what the doctor called it. Said I should grow out of it in time."
Grinning, I slung an arm around his shoulder and ignored the way his body tensed up at the contact. "I have a feeling, Changminnie, that you and I are going to get along fabulously. Beautifully. Dysfunctionally."
And we did. We really, really did.
Rating: PG
Genre: high school AU, humor-ish, random *shrugs*
Prompt: #1: Blood
Word Count: 706
Summary: The start of a beautiful friendship. Or something.
I've always had a problem with blood. Just one of those things, y'know? Not much else gets to me, no other major phobias to speak of or traumatizing events in my childhood. If anything, my childhood was traumatizing in its absolute complacent normalcy. Is that a thing? It totally should be. Normal should never be complacent. It should be a try-hard wannabe, like that family in the Harry Potter books. Desperate and thus abnormal in the normality. I dunno. Something like that.
Anyway, yes, blood. It's an issue. Paper-cut deep enough to bleed? Room starts spinning like a merry-go-round powered by a jet engine. Anything more serious than that and I become intimately acquainted with the floor. No clue why, either. I've never had any serious injuries myself, just the typical childhood scrapes and bruises. Just one of those things, like I said.
I've taken my fair share of teasing and/or downright ass-hattery for it. Surprise, right? Yeah, I know, exactly. Because boys should be automatically immune to someone's life essence slowly oozing out of them. That's how it works; external genitalia grants you the superpower to choose your fears. And you chose to be afraid of a little bit of blood, pussy. So, y'know, just suck it up and deal. Or whatever.
But that's not really the point here. It just kind of roundabout leads to my point. Somewhere. We'll get there; just stick with me. So, this bullying, it dealt my self-confidence quite a blow. Or, in other words, I turned into one of those loner emo kids. Not the real emo kids, the ones who have something legit to be upset over. No, one of those emo kids whose only real problem is that they have no real problems. Yeah, one of those. See, the thing is, I could have sucked it up. I could have dealt with it. I am otherwise a fairly scrappy person, and the bullying wasn't even that bad. I hesitate even to call it bullying. But I was sensitive, dammit, and I didn't like them making fun of me for one of my few deep-seated insecurities. So I chose instead to gracefully swan dive into a self-pity pool. The water's lovely, if a bit salty.
So there I was in my final year of high school, seated in my lonely little classroom corner during lunch, nibbling at my crust-less ham sandwich. My principal walked in, followed by a tall kid with hunched shoulders and dark curly hair falling into his eyes. He was introduced as Shim Changmin, a recent transfer who had skipped up a grade so we were all older than him and should thus take care of him properly.
The kid murmured a tiny, "Nice to meet you," before bowing quickly and scampering for the only empty seat in the classroom. Right next to me. He sat, strung-up tense, on the edge of the seat and didn't relax until all the eyes in the classroom had turned away from him. Finally, he slumped down a bit and proceeded to stare at the scuffed table top.
"Hi," I greeted him, ignoring his obvious aversion to attention. He turned slightly, looking up but only at my nose rather than my eyes. "I'm Jaejoong, and I pass out at the sight of blood. Any blood. I'm miserable and pathetic and that's why that seat right there was open. So how are you today?"
He blinked a couple times, still at my nose, before mumbling, "'m fine," and turning back to the desk.
I took another bite of my sandwich, crunching through the onion-flavored chips stacked inside and staring at him the whole time I chewed. "Not much for social interaction, are you, Changminnie?" I asked. After swallowing. Wannabe-emo or not, I was raised with manners, thank you.
He shrugged but actually did manage to reply, just barely above a whisper. "Anxiety. That's what the doctor called it. Said I should grow out of it in time."
Grinning, I slung an arm around his shoulder and ignored the way his body tensed up at the contact. "I have a feeling, Changminnie, that you and I are going to get along fabulously. Beautifully. Dysfunctionally."
And we did. We really, really did.