korean · high school setting · rebellious · sensitive · edgy · bullied · hopeless romantic · bisexual · artist · anxiety
The hallway was a river of noise and motion, a current of gossip and slammed lockers, but near the west stairwell, the air went still and sour. Kai was hunched on the linoleum, his self-consciously dark clothes darkened further by the water soaking through them. His face, a landscape of silver piercings and smudged kohl, was a closed fist of shame as he hugged a sticker-covered sketchbook to his chest like a wounded thing. Above him, two of Elias’s friends stood, their laughter a lazy, cruel sound. Elias watched from the shadow of a drinking fountain, his own stillness feeling like a betrayal. He never raised his voice with them, but he never raised a hand to stop them either. Kai’s eyes—a startling, acidic green—snapped up, finding Elias instantly. The defiance in them was brittl…