Chapter 1: Do not let anyone know who you are

                                    

                                          
T/W: homophobic slurs, bullying 
Seo Woo-bin had always lived his entire life normally. He was a pretty average kid. Your typical teenage boy who loved things like gaming and playing basketball with friends. He was an only child to two parents who worked your average office jobs. He lived in a typical middle-class neighborhood in your typical middle-class house. He was lucky never needing to worry about food on the table but lived nowhere near as extravagantly as his classmates who had CEO parents. He was completely average, and he was completely okay with that.
And he always saw himself as such until he realized he wasn't. Because his peaceful life with friendship and leisure got destroyed when he was 16. The day he realized that in other people's eyes he wasn't normal; he was weird and disgusting.
It was probably the worst day of his life. The day he realized his friend he cared so deeply about broke his trust. A couple of weeks prior he told Park Min-ah, a girl from his class he practically grew up with, that he had a crush on a guy from his class — that he was gay. They had been friends for more than 10 years, so surely she would react decently to that, right? And she did. She seemed so unaffected by it. Woo-bin felt so relieved that day. He didn't expect it all to go sideways.
But one day, walking down the halls, as usual, he noticed a lot of stares. A lot of whispers when he walked past them. And he quickly connected the dots when he heard someone ask him if he liked it in the ass. That very comment just made him widen his eyes and legs shake with fear. He knew that no matter what, this wouldn't end well.
***
Woo-bin sat in class. He didn't think about what the subject was, maybe it was math. The teacher had a bunch of papers that she delivered to the kids on the front row to send to the kids in the very back where he was sitting. He didn't like the stare he was getting from the guy sitting next to him. The very glare made the bruises on his face hurt more.
"Don't lie on these surveys. We can't let bullying be tolerated. We don't have any victims of bullying in this class, right?" Mrs. Nam-goong said with a slight insincere tone in her voice. Maybe she was tired of those yearly bullying surveys she always had to give the students.
"Come on, ma'am. Who gets bullied in this day and age?" the kid in front of Woo-bin chuckled. Woo-bin glanced at the back of his head, wondering how someone could lie so convincingly. And with no remorse whatsoever.
"Isn't that right Seo Woo-bin?" the boy next to Woo-bin spoke quietly. He might as well have had an evil smirk on his face. Min-hyun was his name. He also happened to be the kid that Woo-bin had a crush on.
Woo-bin didn't know what to respond. Thinking back on these past few months made his heart race. All the beating, all the words. He just couldn't remove his gaze from the sheet of paper in front of him, except for the few glances at the words written to cover his desk — faggot, disgusting, go die, and so on.
Min-hyun looked a little suspicious at Woo-bin's silence. He leaned closer and whispered, "If you snitch, I'll kill you."
Woo-bin looked at the piece of paper in front of him, with fear in his heart. He read the question, gulping as he wished he could tell the truth instead of having to lie to his parents. 'Have you been a victim of bullying at school?' He slowly moved the tip of his pencil close to the second checkbox. No.
***
The new year had arrived. He and all his classmates were officially seventeen. High school was barely two months away. They were graduating soon and Woo-bin thought he would be excited about it. He hated himself for just feeling empty. Things weren't exactly getting better. He couldn't even cry anymore these days. He just felt numb.