"first day at your new school! who's ready?"
hongjoong hoped his words would bring excitement in the quiet car, but he knew deep down that it would have no affect. since the kids' old school only went up to fifth grade, and not any higher, hongjoong knew he wasn't going to bring the others to a new school while leaving jongho at the original school (since now, because of his age, he was one grade below the others). so they all moved to a different school, and the kids were not thrilled at all. they didn't even have baekhyun.
"dad, can i just not go? i don't wanna go here..." "yeah. we're in different classes and we don't even have baekhyun." "yeosang said he's scared that they'll make fun of him again!" the kids all asked.
"no, i'm really sorry, boys, but you couldn't go to your school anymore. you're all—besides jongho—in middle school, and that other school didn't go all the way up to middle school." "but now we have to wear uniforms, and everything's gonna be harder." yunho said.
hongjoong sighed as he pulled into the school. "it'll be fine, you're big kids now. you've done this before, you can do it again. i'll be right here when it's over."
he then stopped in the drop-off line and waited as the six of them grabbed their stuff and got out of the car.
"have a great day, boys. i love you." "bye."
yeosang sat in the back of the classroom, kicking his feet back and forth and staring at the words on the book in front of him.
you see, hongjoong had emailed the school about yeosang's disability. all he thought was that they would just place him with teachers who knew sign language, or in a class with yunho, since yunho also learnt sign language (the others were still practicing).
but instead, they put yeosang in their in-school special education classes, since that school wanted to offer more places for special needs children.
so that left yeosang alone in a class, all by himself.
so, back to the present, he was reading the words on the page as an in-class assignment, which he was told to answer questions about and return the next day for homework. the first day there was already homework.
he pulled out a notecard, out of boredom, and started doodling little things.
he made a little landscape and thought about a character to put in the tiny world he made. something suddenly popped in his mind, and he eagerly drew it.
mingi gripped his backpack, anxiously waiting for the bell to ring so that he could finally go to lunch and leave the room. obviously, since no one recognized him, a few whispers were exchanged throughout the class, but not much. not enough to make mingi super upset.
the child was seated at an empty desk, alone and away from all the friend groups gathered up in different parts of the classroom. they had free time before lunch started, so they were all chatting together.
mingi could feel one of the friend groups eyeing him down, for an unknown reason. it made him scared.
finally, the bell rang, and everyone ran out the door as fast as possible. mingi waited for the crowding in the doorway to die down before getting up and shuffling out of the tiny classroom.
once out of the main buildings and into the cafeteria, mingi started to quickly look for his brothers.
it took him a bit of effort, but eventually, he heard san's loud, high pitched laugh, and immediately looked in that direction to finally see some of them sitting at a table. not all of them though, since all of the different grades and such were separated in different sections and are at different times. this meant that jongho and yeosang couldn't sit with them and sat alone.
well, jongho sat alone. he didn't really mind, he kind of wanted to be left alone anyways.
but yeosang didn't sit alone.
"hi! what's your name?" a boy said happily as he swiftly threw his lunchbox on yeosang's table and plopped down in front of him.
'yeosang.' yeosang signed, but the older kid didn't understand.
once he could see the kid was confused, yeosang quickly pulled out a notebook and a pen, clicking open the pen and beginning to write on a piece of paper.
'hi, i'm yeosang. i cant talk.' it read.
"oh, well that's okay! you can just write whatever you want to say. my name is beomseok! nice to meet you, wanna be friends?" he asked eagerly, made yeosang a bit surprised and shaky with writing on the paper.
'sure i guess, what grade are you in? i'm in seventh.'
"oh, i'm in eighth, so i'm a grade ahead of you! cool! if you don't mind me asking, why are you sitting alone? i can kind of tell that you're new."
'since i can't talk i'm in a different class than all of my brothers but i have five brothers, four in the same grade as me and one in and one in sixth grade.' "cool! i have two sisters, they're both older than me. anyways, i wanna get to know you! what do you like to do for fun?" beomseok smiled widely as he asked the question.
his smile was contagious, and yeosang couldn't help but slightly smile and blush a little bit. he was always shy.
'i like drones and drawing.' "hey, i like drawing too!" beomseok smiled, then laughed, making yeosang let out a little chuckle, which made the older pause.
yeosang's smile dropped. beomseok looked shocked, the younger was really confused.
"oh, sorry—it's just that, um.. you... your..." beom paused and scratched behind his ear, making it obvious he was getting shy and embarrassed. he could tell he was making yeosang more and more curious about what he was trying to finally spit out.
"i-it's just you... your laugh... it's cute."
sorry this was a tiny bit shorter than most chapters i just kind of really wanted to end the chapter with that ;) can y'all tell that my ideas are finally up and running?
