Chapter 25- No One Speaks Up For The Freak

"Wrong color? Jin, what do you mean?"

"…"

"Jin, you're scaring me, what's wrong?"

Seong said again when he didn't get a response from Jin-woo, and panic could be heard in his voice.

"I'm fine Seong."

Jin-woo finally responded. He was looking down at the pill in his hand with profound confusion. He was sure he hadn't accidentally picked up another pill bottle.

Maybe some of the pills were gray and he hadn't realized it before?

Jin-woo came up with this theory, but he somewhat doubted this. His mother had helped create this pill in November and he had slowly transitioned to them during the last days of middle school before he went on winter break. It's been over three months; he would have noticed if any of the pills were gray instead of white.

'If the pill is wrong, then did this get mixed in with my pills?'

Jin-woo recalled this bottle was the one he found in the living room. Nothing was certain, but one thing was sure, regardless of his conclusions he couldn't take this pill.

This caused an uneasy feeling to settle in Jin-woo's heart as he realized he would go without his medication today.

Jin-woo sighed. He had missed days taking his medication in the past, but nothing significant happened so he could afford to miss it just today.

Jin-woo looked at the weird gray pill in thought then slipped it between his underwear and P.E. shorts' waistband. He then left the stall with his drawstring bag and Seong was there waiting for him, a worried expression on his face.

Smiling, Jin-woo said.

"Really, I'm fine Seong."

"You're never fine when you say you're fine, I know you Jin."

"I don't know where to put my uniform now."

Jin-woo said looking down at the drawstring bag in his hand.

Seong knew he was changing the topic, but he could only grumble under his breath before he then suggested.

"Just leave it here, it's not common that someone goes through a random bag left in the bathroom."

Jin-woo thought for a moment and then nodded in agreement. He went to the last stall and hung the drawstrings on the door inside before pulling the door close to make it look like someone might still be inside.

"Let's go, we're probably late."

Jin-woo said as he hurried to leave the bathroom. Seong nodded and followed behind him, however, Jin-woo suddenly asked.

"Why didn't you just enter the stall? It's not like the door could have stopped you."

"I tried but I couldn't."

As Jin-woo pushed the bathroom door open he thought internally.

'I guess there would be some logic to my hallucinations or else I would be able to tell them apart from reality.'

….

…

..

"YOU'RE LATE!!"

Teacher Park with his arms folded immediately screamed at Jin-woo as he came running into the gymnasium.

Jin-woo was expecting this reaction so his expression was calm as he came up and apologized. However, the students who had already done their warmups and were now forming teams to start the mini-tournament were all shocked and stopped what they were doing to look over.

"Bastard, he's doing this on purpose."

Seong said while glaring at Teacher Park.

"Start your warmup, and since you're late you'll do twenty laps around the gymnasium."

The students who were all looking over were slightly taken aback. The gymnasium was by no means small as it could hold all of ISH's High Schoolers and then some. They were also only required to run five laps around it but Jin-woo had to do twenty.

It was at this point that some started to realize Teacher Park had it out for Jin-woo for some reason.

Jin-woo, however, simply nodded his head and turned to get started.

"Wait!"

Teacher Park suddenly yelled and stepped forward to grab Jin-woo's wrist.

Jin-woo initially paused at the shout but quickly took a step back when he saw Teacher Park grabbing towards him. After dodging Teacher Park's grasp, Jin-woo's face turned even more expressionless as he asked coldly.

"Teacher Park, is there something I can help you with?"

Having failed to grab Jin-woo, Teacher Park's face twisted into something far removed from what was considered a normal human expression. Eyes flaring, he growled.

"Didn't I say those watches aren't allowed? Hand it over or else you'll have to do laps for the entire session!"

Jin-woo remained silent as he stared at Teacher Park. He couldn't help but wonder who he hated more— the father who was nothing more than a worthless adult, or the son who derived pleasure from tormenting him.

Without a word, Jin-woo turned and started his run.

Teacher Park looked on coldly as Jin-woo ran off without a word. However, if one looked closely, one might notice the slight curvature at the corner of his lips.

Looking away from Jin-woo, Teacher Park turned to the silent students to say with a slight smile.

"Okay, get into your teams, remember boys and girls separate. We need to hurry if you want to play a few games. The tournament will be a knockout tournament, so we'll have one round with the first to six points wins. Come on, get ready."

Due to Teacher Park's gentle urging, the students somewhat forgot his earlier treatment of Jin-woo. However, there were a few people who glanced at Jin-woo.

Ye-jun was one of those people. He fixed his glasses and looked at Jin-woo running with a detached expression.

"Teacher Park is so unfair; how could he do that?"

"Yeah, I know right? Why couldn't he just let us play in one big tournament? I wanted to partner with Ye-jun."

"*Tsk*… Class President is really popular, huh?"

One of the three youths Ye-jun chose to be on his team said from his seat on the ground. The other two youths in the team expressed similar sentiments.

Ye-jun remained calm as if he didn't hear anything. However, if someone had closely looked at him a few seconds ago, they would have seen that he did have a slight frown between his brows when he initially heard the girls' words. That was because he thought that someone was actually speaking up for Jin-woo.

'How could that be? He's just a freak that no one wants to be friends with.'

Ye-jun glanced at Jin-woo one more time before he turned to focus on the tournament.

However, he suddenly heard someone say.

"Teacher Park, you're not really going to make Jin-woo run for the entire session, right?"

Ye-jun couldn't help but freeze. He quickly turned his head to the voice, and he saw that it was the foreign youth who had spoken up. If he recalled correctly, his name was Micah.

"That's right, since Jin-woo has an illness surely Teacher Park wouldn't want to jeopardize the safety of a student?"

Yoon-min's voice came right after Micah's, and Ye-jun couldn't help but frown when he saw this scene.