Making an Exception 1/41
Title: Making an Exception 1/?
Pairing: Jongkey, side!2min
Rating: PG15-R
Genre: high school!au, angst, romance
Warnings: language, sexual situations, homophobia
Disclaimer: I don't own SHINee.
Summary: Filthy. Disgusting. Unnatural. Wrong. Jonghyun had always been taught that homosexuality was nothing less than revolting. He never questioned the fact, though he never saw what exactly was so bad about it... But after he meets the subtly-rebellious and always-honest boy who prefers to be called "Key", he finds himself wondering... If it was wrong, then why did it always make him so happy? And if it was so unnatural, then why can't he make it stop?
Jonghyun didn't exactly consider himself a knight in shining armor. Hell, he didn't even think he was too incredibly brave, to be honest. His chivalry was on point, sure, but that was because his parents had drilled into his brain exactly how to treat a girl… which was another story completely.
All things considered, the eighteen-year-old really didn't know why he even reacted when he heard a group of guys talking from behind him.
He sat up from where he'd been resting on his crossed arms and shook his long brown bangs out of his eyes, his assigned sheet of math equations long forgotten in his worn-out school bag… He told himself that he'd just do it at home. With peaked interest, he turned his head to the side and rested his chin in his hand so that he could hear the three rather tough-looking guys behind him, all known for being the typical high school bully crew.
"-We're going to get him after school today in the courtyard. It's going to be so good." Their leader, marked with dangerously spiked black hair, said with a sadistic grin.
"It so is. That kid deserves to get hit. Have you seen the way he walks around here like it's normal to be that way or something?" One of the other two, the chubby one of the group, said, clenching his meaty fist on the desk.
Jonghyun's brows furrowed and his lips twitched into a frown.
"He doesn't walk, he prances. It's disgusting." Another with clearly damaged bleach-blond hair chimed in with a grimace.
The brunette twisted his body to face the intimidating bunch. "Who are you talking about?" He finally asked.
"Kim Kibum, the First Year," The leader supplied coolly.
"Who?" Jonghyun asked, the name unfamiliar.
"That gay kid that hangs out in the courtyard at lunch," The blond sidekick supplied.
The description didn't ring any bells in Jonghyun's head. "Never heard of him," He said with a shrug.
"You'd know him if you saw him. He always wears some weird colored shirt underneath his uniform just to show his faggot 'fashionista' side." The leader said, disdain lacing his voice.
Jonghyun winced at the crude insult, much too used to hearing the same terms at home from his father's lips. "Is that even allowed?" He asked, flexing his fingers on his desk to keep them from balling into a fist.
"Being a faggot? It shouldn't be." The fattest one said.
The crew guffawed and gave him a high-five each.
"No, wearing a different shirt." Jonghyun refrained from sighing heavily. Having grown up around such homophobia, he knew that he should at least be used to it by now… But for reasons that he couldn't place, hearing the ignorant slurs always got a rise out of him, his usually-subdued angry side flaring up.
"The hell if I know. I've never done it." The leader looked to his crew to back him up.
They all nodded enthusiastically, most likely not even knowing what they were agreeing with.
"He looks kind of like a cat," The blond said with near-excitement in his tone, "His eyes and his mouth and everything…" He cleared his throat when he noticed the other two looking at him with accusing eyes and Jonghyun looking on interestedly, "It's really weird." He added hastily.
The rest of the group seemed to relax slightly.
Jonghyun had his mouth poised to respond when he was interrupted by the teacher calling his name.
He turned back to the front of the room with a questioning, almost guilty, gaze. His round eyes quickly scanned the board for anything he might have missed while talking to the three at the back of the class.
"You've finished your worksheet, haven't you?" She called over the rest of the class's buzzing chatter.
"Yes," Jonghyun lied smoothly, not missing a beat.
The woman nodded. "Take these papers to the front office for me, please,"
Jonghyun stood up without complaint, though he wondered why in the world she couldn't have called on someone else that wasn't at the very back of the classroom and clearly in the middle of a conversation. Maybe she knew that he wasn't actually finished with his work.
She gave him a shrewd stare as she handed over the small stack of plain papers.
Yeah, she knew.
Jonghyun gave a sheepish half-smile as he took them and crossed to the door.
The teen found himself sighing as he stepped through the doorway and into the empty halls of his school. There was a digital clock just outside the door that told him that there was still seventeen minutes until lunch period, and that was enough to draw out his sigh for a good five seconds longer.
If he was lucky, he could kill at least ten minutes just walking to the front office. In theory, his teacher wouldn't suspect a thing because in all fairness his legs weren't the longest in the world, and the classroom was halfway across the school anyway. If things worked out his way, there would be a long line at the receptionist's desk, or he could lie to his teacher and say as much. And then he would sit back down at his desk conveniently in the back of the class and sneak his earbud into his right ear, laying his head on his arms and covering himself with his messenger bag on the tabletop. After the ten minutes walking, the final seven would average out to two or less songs, and he would be out to lunch in no time.
Not that he planned to go to the cafeteria, by any means.
No. His packed lunch would suffice in the music room, sandwich thoughtlessly chewed as he rested his guitar in his lap and his right hand would rotate between a pencil to scribble in his notebook and a little plastic pick-the bright green one was his favorite-to test out the new notes and chords.
The thought of the half-hour of relaxation time was exciting Jonghyun so much that he had to consciously slow his steps back down. The short stack of papers was clutched in one hand, his fingers playing at the edges of them and threatening to either wrinkle them or give him a paper cut, but it was a risk he was willing to take… Well, not that he was trying to be so daring. He just didn't really care about the consequences.
He rounded a corner to another naturally-lit hallway and advanced on a staircase, taking each linoleum-covered step with ease and laziness, free hand's first two fingers walking along the railing in time with his feet. His lips pursed into what he could only imagine was a silly-looking expression, his head lolling to each side with his movements for the sake of amusing himself.
It worked, like it always did. By the time he was at the foot of the stairs, his face broke out into a grin and he held back laughter. His round eyes squinted into little crescents, his shoulders shaking slightly with silent laughter. He looked up from the neutral-tiled-with an "aesthetically pleasing" pattern with alternating speckled white, gray, and navy squares-and flicked his bangs out of his face. Reaching his hand up, he took the extra care (and time) to look up with his eyes into his hairline the best he could as he gingerly fixed the individual pieces of straight chocolate-brown hair until they fell over his eyebrow in the side-swept style that he favored. Just for good measure, he walked a bit further until he stood in front of the school's trophy case and vainly focused on his reflection in the glass just to make sure he didn't mess his hair up further.
After deciding everything was in order, the teen slowly (and with little actual interest) raked his eyes over the school's various trophies and rolled his eyes with a smirk when he saw that a good majority of the recent sports trophies were engraved with the name "Choi Minho", his best friend.
He looked back up at the clock and saw that he'd already successfully wasted five minutes. With a new spring in his step, Jonghyun continued his route to the school's front office.
After another full sixty seconds of dragging footsteps, he found himself in front of the office's door. The front entrance of the school was a bit further to his left, the foyer made completely of glass and allowing the afternoon's light to shine in a way that was more ostentatious than it was… inspiring, or whatever the designers claimed they were going for.
He swung the door open, and saw that much to his dismay, there was no line at all to the receptionist's desk.
Holding back his sigh, Jonghyun took a few confident strides forward and nodded his head respectfully. "Hello,"
"May I help you?" The middle-aged woman asked cordially, her reading glasses sliding down her nose.
"I'm Kim Jonghyun… Mrs. Jung from room C221 asked me to bring these papers to the front office." He handed them over, only feeling the smallest bit of humility when he saw that the edges were indeed wrinkled from his incessant fiddling.
"Oh, thank you very much," She took them with a small smile.
He returned the smile with his own full grin and bowed once again before he turned to leave.
Once out of the office, he realized that his hands were empty and he had nothing to entertain himself with. He searched the pockets of his uniform pants, but he hadn't even a single guitar pick or coin to possibly flick into the air or roll down the hall. His lips formed a pout of their own accord and he stuffed his turned-out pockets back into his pants, allowing his hands to stay there.
When he looked back up, there was another student walking his way.
Jonghyun nodded genially, inconspicuously giving the other boy a once-over.
He looked like any ordinary student, with brown hair similar to Jonghyun's, pale skin, and somewhat feminine features. He seemed to be younger than Jonghyun, actually, though he was a bit taller. His uniform was all in order, white shirt crisp, tie tight in his collar, blazer buttoned in the middle, accentuating a thin waist…
What caught Jonghyun's eye was a strip of lime green fabric showing underneath the hem of the blazer. His brows furrowed slightly, wondering why someone would wear a green undershirt of all things with their uniform, when most just wore a plain white one, if any at all.
"Is he in a bad mood today?" The other student spoke up, looking at Jonghyun with a slightly-cocky smirk that rivaled his own on a good day.
He cocked his head to the side confusedly. "Who?" He asked, stopping a normal distance from the younger student.
"Principal Shin," The boy clarified, stopping as well. From closer up, Jonghyun could see that his brown eyes sparkled with a certain casual recklessness that Jonghyun found himself slightly smiling at.
"Oh, I wasn't coming from the principal. Sorry," The older said, scratching the back of his neck with a sudden shyness that he didn't fully understand.
The other boy shrugged with a careless air, continuing down the hall.
Jonghyun turned around to get a final look at him, and as his eyes travelled down to the strip of lime green fabric, gears in his mind clicked and his heart gave a small leap. Weird colored shirt, catlike eyes and mouth…
"You're Kim Kibum, aren't you?" He called.
The boy spun to face him and began to walk backwards. "Yeah. Who are you?"
"Kim Jonghyun," He introduced himself hastily, giving a small jerk of a bow that was more habit than anything. "Listen, don't go to the courtyard after school today."
Kim Kibum's eyebrows knitted together. "What? Why?"
"I heard some people talking in my class just now… It won't be safe for you. Just… avoid it, okay Kibum-ssi?" He was oddly desperate for Kim Kibum to listen to him, the urge to save him from the guys who were going to "get him" strong and baseless.
He still looked at him strangely, with confusion. "O…kay? Thank you for the warning,"
Jonghyun nodded in response, his chest filling with warmth at the feeling of doing something good to help someone else.
He watched as Key crossed one foot over the other and pivoted back around to walk normally without changing the cadence of his steps, like he was dancing while simply walking.
Jonghyun knew that if he tried something like that, he would end up falling flat on his face. With a smile, he changed direction to his classroom destination and began to walk once more.
"Jonghyun-ssi," Kibum's voice called, making Jonghyun twist his head to see the other boy doing the same.
"Call me Key." He said with a smirk.
Jonghyun's breath caught in his throat for just a half second, a short enough moment for him to ignore it completely. He nodded once and gave his own best smirk with an accompanying chuckle.
Key finally made it to the office's door.
"Good luck," Jonghyun yelled toward him good-naturedly.
Even from further away, Jonghyun could hear the younger boy scoff and saw him roll his eyes, his hand on the door handle.
Jonghyun rounded the corner with a smile on his face that only grew when he saw that there were only three minutes left of class.
He didn't even spare the group of three behind him a glance as he made his way back into his classroom and picked up his worn, gray messenger bag, timing his entrance perfectly with only about thirty seconds until the bell.
With a satisfied smile, he heard them eagerly plotting the final details of their so-called rendezvous, which Jonghyun knew would only end in disappointment for them.
Those three would never have the pleasure of meeting the rebellious boy in the green tank-top who preferred to be called "Key".
A/N - yay first chapter!! :)
you know, I imagined that I would have more to say in this a/n, seeing as how it is the first chapter and everything... but I'm pretty much just like "sooo... yeah. first chapter." XD
I love hs!au. Well, I love au in general... except for like.. vampire!au. I don't like vampires. Overrated. Stereotypical. says the one writing a high school story... OTL
Uhmmm I hope you liked it! Keep a lookout for future chapters!! (this story is long as fuck... at least it's planned out to be that way. OTL)
Oh! And I made the banner for this.. Isn't it preeetttyyy? XP Photoshop is like magic. And the meticulous hours spent on it better be worth it, goddammit... Not to mention that the graphic ended up HUGE... OTL
Thank you for reading, and please comment some feedback!! :)
Kat
mikssi
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