Stranger??

 

The first thing he noticed was the enormous entrance to his new school. Of course his parents had found another fancy school for him, but he didn’t mind as they came with their own perks. He got off his cycle and wheeled it the rest of the way. Entering the gate he found where all the other cycles were parked and locked his in one of the empty slots.

 

He spotted another guy from the periphery of his vision locking his cycle a few slots away from him. He looked up to get a better view but was startled, nearly falling on his , to see the guy standing right next to him staring blatantly.

 

The guy was tall compared to Jimin, not that Jimin was short because he stood a 5’8 feet, yet the other guy was at least 2 inches taller but with a much slimmer frame. The most striking feature were his eyes, they were big for his small face, a hazelnut flecked with green, gold and a slight hint of blue, they had a mischievous glint that spoke in loud words ‘TROUBLEMAKER’ yet not in the bad way.

 

“Are you new?” it sounded more like a statement than a question.

 

Jimin gave a small nod before turning to walk away he didn’t want trouble, not on his first day. He looked at his watch and saw that he still had ten minutes to find his class. He quickly made a bee line for the office collecting his schedule and to get directions to get to his class as he didn’t want to ask the people around, very well aware of the fact that he most probably would wind up in the girls washroom or somewhere worse.

 

As he walked towards his class he noticed a figure following him. Turning his head slightly he looked though the corner of his eyes, though he had already guessed who it was, it confirmed his suspicions. The guy from earlier was following him.

 

Jimin stopped abruptly and turned to look at the guy. He knew that he should have kept walking yet he didn’t like the idea of being stalked by a complete stranger on the very first day.

 

What he saw next made him stop his thoughts mid track. The boy following him had flaming red hair something he was pretty sure was not the case when he had first seen him, and the colour was so offensive that no way he had missed it the first time.

 

Jimin turned to face forward blinking his eyes a couple of times, tilting his head slightly doubting if he was seeing things again or in this situation not seeing things. He took a couple of steps realising the sound of the steps following him had halted and resumed with his. This was starting to annoy him, determined to give the ‘stalker boy’ a piece of his mind Jimin turned again and this time the boy was a sporting a mint green hair.

 

Okay. You are definitely seeing things now.

 

 Jimin couldn’t help but think that if he had really died in his dream or was it not dream now considering this was a dream and that was reality. “God it’s so confusing” Jimin muttered under his breath.

 

He had turned five times on his way to the class and every time the boy sported a different colour of hair ranging from yellow, blue, purple and even a candy floss pink. After the fourth time he was definitely sure he was a dead dreaming man walking.

 

The last pink got the better of his curiosity but as he turned to question he saw ‘stalker boy’ rushing past him with hazel hair and slight streaks of green. To his surprise hair-colour-changer had just entered the class which was his supposed first class of the day.

 

Wow! Park Jimin you couldn’t even last a day without weirdness haunting you.

 

As Jimin entered the class he wished with all his heart for it to not turn into one of those classic cliché novel narratives where the protagonist enters the class to avoid the creep only to find that there is only one seat available and that is none other than the one next to the creep. He wasn’t that lucky, apparently his life loved to play a novel joke at him, the only seat empty in the class was near Mr. Stalker.

 

Bad luck, Strike one.

 

God be damned. Jimin suddenly wanted to believe in god just to have someone to curse at. Working his way towards the only empty seat his eyes flitted towards Mr. Stalker, he internally cursed at himself when their eyes met the boy’s expression emanating a silent amusement at Jimin’s discomfort.

 

Strike two.

 

Once a bad day begins it’s like a roller coaster with no brakes.

Of course he had to trip on his way.

 

Strike three.

 

He accidentally stepped on one of his shoe laces and felt a jerk as he lost control of his balance but before he could make a perfect fool of himself by smacking his head by connecting it to the classroom floor an arm had quickly laced around his waist breaking his fall at the nick of time. He felt his body being jerked upright and a hand under his arms steadying him on his feet.

 

“Thank you, thank you so much.” Jimin mumbled but as soon as he looked up to the owner of the pair of arms around him he pulled back so fast that he nearly tumbled backwards steadied only by the pair of arms supporting him. Mr. Stalker was half in and half out of his seat his arms firmly wrapped around the smaller boy.

 

Of course it had to be stalker boy. As if the day couldn’t get even more humiliating.

Strike four. That was more strikes than ever in the shortest span of time in his life.

 Was he supposed to have so many strikes in just five minutes?

 

Jimin wanted to merge with the floors now, blood rising to his cheeks in mortification.

 

Mr. Stalker had a megawatt boxy grin plastered on his face arms still wrapped around him his eyes piercing through Jimin. Jimin looked at the smile and froze. The grin on the boy had something infectious about it. He could feel a spread of warmth and happiness as his own lips twitched into a smile and he felt himself calming down without understanding why. He felt completely at ease as he gazed at the other boy’s eyes. They seemed to be shifting colour from hazel to gold to sea green.

 

“Ahem. Are you okay?”

 

Jimin still dazed by the kaleidoscopic patterns of colours didn’t register the question thrown at him. He was too immersed trying to guess what colour would come next when he was distracted by five fingers waving in front of his eyes. This broke him out of his reverie.

 

Jimin quickly averted his eyes realising what he was doing and mumbling another thanks sat on his seat. He looked around the classroom to see if anyone had noticed and audibly sighed in relief when he saw that his embarrassing encounter had gone unnoticed.

 

“Are you okay?” the question repeated.

 

Jimin looked up to see Mr. Stalker watching him and for the second time he was mesmerised by those eyes. Jimin quickly turned away avoiding another session of gazing and answered without looking at the boy sitting next to him.

 

“Yup. Sorry, I am a little clumsy and thank you for saving my face from turning into flat face pancake.”

Jimin tried to look anywhere but his eyes.

 

“Hey! It’s no biggie. By the way, I am Kim Taehyung but you can call me Tae. I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s just something my friends call me. ” Taehyung said his voice deeper and smoother than Jimin had imagined.

 

Taehyung so that was what Mr. Stalker’s name was. Wait Taehyung wasn’t stalking him he was just walking to his own class.

 

Jimin face-palmed himself mentally for having thought that Taehyung was a stalker, old habits die hard, except he couldn’t deny that fact that there was something definitely weird about the boy.

 

“Hi Tae! I am Park Jimin. I guess I don’t have to tell you that I am new and this is my first day here.”Jimin answered smiling looking at Taehyung’s face this time but making sure not to look directly at his eyes not that the boy’s face was any less distracting just lesser of the two evils. Taehyung had one of those faces that spoke ethereal beauty, delicate set of lips, big eyes, silky bangs falling over his forehead and a sharp chiselled V shaped jaw.

 

“If you don’t mind me asking why did you miss the first month of class?” Taehyung asked

 

“Umm...I recently shifted here. The whole moving process was in a rush so I didn’t have time to look for new schools. I only started looking after moving into my new house. Well, more like I was busy with stuff.” Jimin answered, his excuse sounding lame even to himself.

 

The real reason was he had persistently declined all the exorbitantly high priced schools that his parents had presented to him. After a month of refusals he had agreed on one of the schools which even though was fancy enough did not scream ‘hole in your pockets.’ Not that he was worried about money as that never was the problem but he was wary of the kind of people that money dragged in.

 

Jimin had seen what those ridiculously immoderate schools were about. It had nothing more than snotty kids bragging about their father’s bank balances and students with more power than teachers. If anything the teachers lived in fear of their students sending the tenor of education straight out of the window.

 

Just then the teacher walked in and the class fell in silence. The lecture dragged on uneventfully as the teacher droned on something about gravity and planetary motions.

 

 Jimin tried his best to stay attentive throughout the lecture but for some reason he was hyper aware of the boy sitting next to him. He stole occasional glances at Taehyung still unable to understand the rush of emotions he had felt when the boy had looked into his eyes. There was a sensation of tranquillity washing over his body and the warmth of security. The weirdest thing about it was that it was momentary, as soon as he had broken eye contact all those emotions had flushed out replaced by the same jittery nervousness that he had been feeling since morning.

 

After what seemed like forever the class ended. Jimin stretched his arms to shake the stiffness from sitting for so long.

 

“Park Jimin?” a voice suddenly called out.

 

Jimin looked up to see the teacher scanning the classroom trying to spot him. He groaned in irritation, as he was well aware of what was coming next. When the teacher had first entered and had directly started with his lecture he thought he had evaded the inevitable. Apparently he hadn’t.

 

Jimin walked towards the front of the class a mantra in repeat.

Don’t trip. Don’t trip. Don’t trip

 

Gratefully he reached the front of the class without turning into a circus show. The introduction didn’t go without a hitch. He fumbled and stammered but made it to the end with least possible embarrassment. He carefully dodged all the information that could give away his identity.

 

He got a few snickers and some really weird stares from bunch of girls eying him like a candy to be devoured.

 

After the embarrassing introduction ended Jimin returned to his seat to collect his belongings as fast as possible. He could clearly see that those girls were not going to stop at just ogling at him. He knew what came next as the bunch of sirens made their way towards him as soon as the teacher had stepped out of the class.

 

He wasn’t comfortable with people hitting on him especially girls, not that he minded but it never felt right. He knew that he was more into guys than girls, feeling absolutely comfortable with his uality but people around him specifically people who knew him tended to make him angry with their negative reactions when they became aware of it. His own parents were sceptical of it when he had finally told them about it and had asked him if he was absolutely sure but to his relief they had come to accept it and completely supported him.

 

He hated fights and anything that was even remotely violent when it came to real life and anger was the last thing he liked. He usually had a calm personality but once angry his rage knew no bounds and being violent against a bunch of stupid teenage girls was the last thing on his to-do list.