❦ ♪

CHAPTER FOUR : attitude

"you can't just assume she's bipolar!"

❦ ♪

— "FUTURE DROPOUTS" group pov.
— 3rd person.

the group of nine were all at ricky's house for a sleepover. it was the friday of that week which means they have three days of freedom. it's been a while since they've all been together, so they decided to have a two-day sleepover.

this was all of their first time in ricky's house, since he lived in a rich neighbourhood and everybody was extremely excited to be in here.

"god, someone save me." hanbin whines, throwing his phone across the room. "i accidentally liked her post from 7 months ago."

gunwook laughs, picking up the boy's phone. "mirae?" he asks, hanbin nodding in response. "do you like her or something?"

hanbin shakes his head. "no but i was stalking her account to find something and i made a huge fucking mistake." he sighs, dropping his head on hao's shoulder.

gunwook checks the photo on the boy's phone and snickers at the photo he liked. "really? you liked the one where she's playing the piano?"

hanbin takes the phone back in embarrassment. "i didn't mean to."

"what were you trying to find?" yujin asks, eating some snacks with gyuvin on the sofa opposite them. "i've never seen you so stressed."

"hao said she played a violin piece that my parents like and i'm trying to find a video of her playing it." hanbin says, swiping through her phone.

hao laughs, turning hanbin's phone off. "looks like it's not there, shame. better get off her account before you like a post from a year ago."

hanbin exhales. "i really wanted to find it." he sulks. i'm going to her house again after this sleepover, i might ask her to play it for me and my parents. he thinks to himself, a small smile on his face.

"it's just a famous violin piece, you can find better people play it everywhere on youtube." hao shrugs. "she was also mean to you yesterday, don't forget."

"what? you jealous or something?" jiwoong asks, noticing hao's weird behaviour whenever hanbin talks about mei.

"i'm not jealous, i just dislike everything about her." he grumbles. "she's just annoying."

"you nonstop talk about how much you hate her, it's like fan behaviour." yujin giggles. "you really are a hater."

hao laughs. "not my fault i'm going to be paired with her for a year when she's someone who argues with me all the time."

"how many have you had already? like five?" gyuvin says, counting using his fingers.

"it's always over who's better at something or something completely stupid." hanbin complains.

the day after their violin session, the two had started to argue in the middle of a lecture. the first time is when hao made fun of mei's writing mistake in korean, making her reply with "i'm literally korean." and he replied with "i'm the only foreign top student in a korean university and i'm better than you." and it went on and on until the end of their lecture.

second time that day was in their last lecture because he knocked her while writing notes. mei, as a perfectionist got really mad and if it wasn't for the lecture ending, they would've been caught by their professor.

there was another one from yesterday, which caused mei to skip the next lecture again. she was pissed at hao.

"i'm deadass sat next to them, they're so annoying." hanbin groans, adding onto his complaint.

"she literally starts it all the time." hao defends himself, hitting hanbin's arm.

"it's still annoying bro. that one time she wasn't listening to the study thing and you two started arguing." matthew sighs, mentioning their weird argument in the lounge room.

"speaking of that day, hanbin why the hell did you go with mirae to buy water? you looked so needy to go with her." gyuvin says, making yujin gasp.

"oh so there's more to you two huh?" yujin laughs. "please spill why that happened."

hanbin frowns. "what do you mean? we legit just got water.." he kind of tells the truth.

"after she was being rude to hao?" jiwoong tuts.

"what? she's actually really nice." hanbin says, not realising what he just said.

hao scoffs. "do you even talk to her?"

"yeah." hanbin says straight away. but he then recognises he basically exposed himself. "wait, no. i haven't talked to her, she won't talk to me." he quickly corrects himself.

he had remembered how mei told him not to tell anyone about their family being close and her talking to him and being nice to him.

hao raises an eyebrow, "why would she want to talk to any of us?"

"she doesn't. she only talks to renjun and hanbin." gunwook says, walking in with ricky and taerae. "anyways, ricky has something to say."

ricky then fully walks in with taerae. "zhanghao i have something to ask you." ricky says, making hao sit up and nod.

"what's wrong?" he asks in confusion.

"you didn't tell us you played always for mei on the violin earlier this week.." ricky snickers, sitting next to gyuvin.

"WHAT?!" almost everyone had said at the same time, all of them turning to him. "you played ALWAYS for MIRAE?" matthew says, bewildered.

hao shrugs. "yeah, so what?" he doesn't realise how that looks to the other guys.

"hao.." taerae sighs. "you don't understand."

"it's a romantic song... why would you choose always out of every piece you know."  jiwoong asks, finding this a bit weird.

"well at least he wasn't singing, she won't know it was a romantic solo song he has." gyuvin says, attempting to justify hao.

hao then realises how it sounds and he waves his hand in denial. "no it wasn't like that oh my god." he says in panic. "she was showing off her basic ass classical music piece so i pulled something that is special to me out." he explains.

yujin sends him a skeptical look. "but like, you had to choose always?"

"i wanted to show off." hao says, his head falling onto hanbin's shoulder. "you guys make it look weird. i just played the violin."

"i was so confused when renjun told me. you literally dislike her i don't know why you'd play always for her." ricky laughs, reminding the group about hao's disliking for the new girl.

she's been in their university for 4 days now, and she had seemed to cause a lot of problems already. hao dislikes things disturbing and distracting him, and mei was doing exactly that.

"i can't even. i don't want to be her partner anymore. she's so annoying." he rolls his eyes and exhales.

"she's all we talk about now." gunwook laughs. "it's mostly just because hao dislikes her."

"well he's probably still pissed from yesterday at the lunch break." hanbin says.

"that was wild. it made hao so angry." jiwoong snickers, remembering yesterday's events.

"he was defending me but i didn't know it would turn into that.." hanbin sighs.

"don't even." hao sighs in frustration. "i genuinely can't be paired with her anymore." it's been four days since they met and the stress of mei had already gotten to him.

who can blame him though, having to stay with someone you have to see as a rival everyday? horrible.

"please tell me the drama. what happened at lunch that day?" yujin asks.

"a lot." taerae laughs. "let me explain."

❦ ♪

— mei pov.
- 3rd person.

it had been four days since mei had joined the all boys' school and she had hated it all already. thankfully, her university was only open 5 days a week and she had to attend 3-4 days every week.

the first three days were fine, since she was (kind of) getting along with zhanghao's friend group and she was getting used to the expensive school. the reality was that they weren't exactly getting along and she was just not talking to them at all anymore.  

luck was still not on her side though. because yesterday, she had been in four arguments with hao and two students. you see, mei HATES it when people talk bad about her, especially when they don't know her personally.

i think we established that after her first day with youngjae, though.

and that is what had happened in the middle of her lunch break; two of youngjae's friends had intentionally talked about her behind her in the line for food.

mei knows people don't like her and she's fine with that, but silly things like this really get her riled up. she despises people like this a lot and her first instinct is to be a big bitch about it.

renjun wasn't there to stop her, since she told him to sit at the table already. so her temper had ran a little too short and she shouted at them in front of everyone. there was no staff in the cafeteria too, making it better for her to get away with.

they said such things as calling her a 'spoiled brat' , 'egotistical bitch' and 'pretty privileged'. which, mei doesn't believe she is (though she may be a little bit).

FLASHBACK — yesterday

"keep my fucking name out of your mouth!" she shouts. the whole room went silent, some in worry, but the others mostly in a 'i want to watch this go down' kind of way.

"you couldn't even get into another university, with all of that money and looks i thought you tried to sleep with our headmaster to get in." minion one (we'll call him that), laughs in her face.

"excuse me?" she scoffs in disbelief. "YOU thought I would do such a thing? i didn't even want to come here in the first place."

minion two. "you're here to test other universities, huh?" he laughs. "seems like you're here to whore around instead."

"what's this whole place with calling me a whore?" she yells. "i've done absolutely nothing to anybody and you want to talk about me?"

minion one derides. "you've done a shit ton to youngjae, you deserve the shit you're getting."

she glares at him. "don't bring him up."

"why, because you loved him so much?" minion two coos mockingly. "you even begged your parents not to sue his family." he laughs.

he should be thankful only a few people heard that. she doesn't want everyone to know she dated youngjae prior to coming here. because that's embarrassing. really embarrassing.

mei couldn't help but push him to the floor, leaving the room in gasps. this was when renjun finally got up and ran over to her in worry, grabbing her arms back. "don't."

"what the fuck do you mean don't? they just mocked me, brought up youngjae and my fucking parents!" she says, trying to get out of renjun's grip. they mentioned the three things huang mei probably hated the most.

"mei remember why you're here. no fights, remember?" he whispers.

mei still doesn't listen, managing to get out of renjun's grip. she walks towards the standing minion (number one) and crosses her arms. "do you have anything else to say?"

"OW FUCK!" she hears from below her, she looks down as her shoe was on top of his hand. "get your shoe off of my hand!"

she only laughs in the boy's face. "shut up."

renjun successfully pulls her back again. "huang mei please. let's go back to the table." he whispers.

she didn't want to, but for the sake of not making renjun stressed, she glares at them one more time. "better tell youngjae to fuck off. he can't make you talk shit about me and not show himself." she scoffs.

renjun sighs in relief as he finally pulls her back and he drags her to the table as if she was his daughter. this was something that usually happened, he's just thankful this didn't last long since she's on campus. but god knows what she could do outside of campus.

she sulkily sits down on the table where the other boys sat awkwardly. she sighs. "don't ask. they brought up something i didn't want to be brought up."

"do you always have to resort to violence?" hanbin asks in concern. "you know, if you keep doing that–"

"shut the fuck up, hanbin." she snaps. "you don't know anything about me."

"there was no need to tell him to shut up.." hao says, defending hanbin who looked quite hurt at her sudden rude words. "he seemed worried for you and you respond like that?"

"okay?" she scoffs. "don't you think i know what i'm doing? i know it's bad but i can't help it."

"okay but you didn't need to react like that to him." hao shrugs.

"i hope you realise i deadass just got mocked for things i despise. i am not in the mood for nice talks." she runs her hand through her hair in stress.

"um, sorry about that guys-" renjun tries to change the subject with an awkward smile.

"how the fuck is she a top student?" hao suddenly asks.

here we go again. is what everybody on that table thought. all they knew was to always stay quiet when they are about to argue. the boys knew how bad hao can get when he's mad, and they obviously have never seen mei happy at all."

"do you always need to bring that shit up?" she scoffs.

"you want to be first in ranking but you aren't smart enough on your choices on how to deal with people picking on you." he mocks her.

mei rolls her eyes. "you don't even know what shit they were saying to me, shut up."

"god you're so annoying, why don't you just shut up for one second instead? if you didn't open your mouth all of the time maybe they'd stop." hao leans back in his chair, but this sent mei to be even angrier.

the group were all just watching intently, not bothering to butt in or defend the others. yet this argument literally just came from hao defending hanbin.

mei locks eyes with him and glares. "bro you need to shut your mouth too?? you're always trying to annoy the shit out of me. i've known you for like three days, take a break."

hao keeps the eye contact and fake smiles. "those three days are the worst of my life. i've never met someone so arrogant."

mei stands up, the sound of her chair being dragged out making a loud sound. "i'm going to fucking hate this year." she begins to walk away straight after.

renjun already knew she was going to hide somewhere to skip the next lecture, so he didn't follow after her. he just stays sat and sighs. "sorry about that. like genuinely."

"she's definitely a bitch, that's what i've learned." ricky sighs. "she was really rude to hanbin."

"it's okay." hanbin smiles. "she was already in a bad mood, i shouldn't have said anything."

renjun shakes his head. "i'm sure she appreciates it but don't do it again during these moments. i heard the things they were saying, it's a sensitive topic for her."

hao scoffs. "she clearly gets no discipline at home."

renjun gulps. "hao, let's not talk about anything like that please."

matthew sighs. "this is so repetitive, they're never going to stop are they?"

jiwoong shakes his head. "i'm already used to it, at this point. mirae is just some scary girl."

renjun laughs. "she's really nice, trust me. you're just all meeting her at the wrong time, especially hao."

hao shrugs. "i don't want to get along with her anyway, i want to stop this partner thing already."

"no!" renjun says in worry. "please don't. i know you've known each other barely a week and she's been horrible but she is here for a reason. give her time to warm up."

"yeah, i agree. she's here to improve her behaviour, it's really inevitable for her to act like this." hanbin smiles, patting hao's shoulder.

hao sighs. "yeah whatever. but for now, i'm not being nice to her until she's nice to me. she's a bitch."

"we can't just assume..." hanbin says.

hao shrugs and stands up. "i'm getting water. bye." he says before walking away.

renjun sighs. he knew this would happen, but he can't change mei. she will always be someone who people will hate at first and love after a long time of knowing her.

❦ ♪

— "FUTURE DROPOUTS" group pov.
- 3rd person.

the sun was setting and the nine boys were all almost sat in the dark, the only light source being their phone screens.

"i'm so bored." yujin groans, his head resting on hao's knee. "let's do something fun."

"like what?" jiwoong asks, sitting up from his seat and putting his phone down. making all of the other boys' attention go to him.

when together, the boys would normally be up and energetic doing anything that comes to mind. but this time, they were doing fuck all sat on ricky's floor on their phones.

"is there anywhere we can go to near your house?" gyuvin asks. "it's 8pm, we can go somewhere and i'm hungry."

ricky nods. "we can go snack and food shopping? it's a three minute walk out of the neighbourhood."

"do all of us have to go?" yujin asks, "can we like set up some movies or games or something while you're there?"

ricky smiles at the youngest. "of course, some of you can stay here. but i swear to god do not ruin anything in my house."

yujin fakes a soldier salut, "yes sir!!"

taerae laughs at yujin's cuteness, "okay who's going to buy us snacks and food?"

"what about me, gyuvin, gunwook and matthew?" ricky suggests, "we're all fast."

jiwoong nods in agreement, "okay! what do you want us to set up?"

the younger boy gets up from the sofa, and he opens a cupboard and it held many, many different movies and games. 99% of them being new. "these were all presents, so take whatever you want." he smiles.

jiwoong, hanbin, hao, taerae and yujin immediately run to the 6 foot tall cupboard and rummage around for something that piques their interest.

ricky sighs and takes his keys. "let's go, guys." he says, unlocking the door and letting the boys out. as they all leave the house, ricky locks the door and they all walk out of the huge shen house.

"so..." gunwook starts, hands in his hoodie pocket. "i have something to say."

"go on." matthew replies, walking besides him as ricky and gyuvin walk behind the two.

"don't you think hanbin has something for that mirae girl?" gunwook asks, leaving the other three boys go silent to think.

matthew wheezes. "already? and for mirae? no way that's happening."

"can we call her mei, the korean name is confusing." ricky says from behind, breaking the short silence.

gyuvin chuckles. "they both confuse me, but i agree with you gunwook."

"especially when he liked her post this morning, he was trying to stalk her account for something." gunwook mentions, "he's liked all of her other posts already."

gyuvin giggles from behind. "you're onto something. he definitely has some sort of thing for her."

"you think hanbin likes her already?" ricky asks in disbelief. "hanbin would never like someone so fast— or someone with that attitude anyway."

"opposites attract~" gyuvin sings with a silly laugh. "you never know guys."

"nah, the opposite of mei is hao." ricky says. "hao's sweet most of the time as mei is scary as hell." this makes the group of four nod.

"maybe mei is also sweet but if they didn't argue so much then like..." matthew laughs. "but i don't think them two are compatible."

"oh for sure. but they've argued five times in the past three days, so there's nothing. which is why i think hanbin likes her." gunwook laughs.

"he used to follow her a while back. i thought they were close." matthew explains. "then i found out recently she had followed him back."

"but how does that explain her being so rude to him yesterday? if they were close she wouldn't do that." gyuvin says.

ricky shrugs. "she's a confusing girl. those students from her old school kept saying she's a bitch to new people but nice to her closest friends."

"well she only talks to renjun and hanbin." matthew laughs. "maybe she likes him?"

"no way." gunwook refuses. "she looks like she hates every male to exist."

"considering she got forced to attend the all boys' university says a lot." gyuvin says, "and she's not been nice to anyone. not even spoke to people besides us and renjun."

"she's only been here a few days, she might warm up like renjun said yesterday." matthew shrugs. "anyways, we're here." he say, opening the door.

this was the closest small supermarket next to ricky's rich neighbourhood, it was huge and really close to his house. which looks helpful.

gyuvin grabs a trolley and runs inside, making matthew run after him and stop him quickly. "okay, let's buy chicken and everything, then we can cook." ricky says.

gyuvin ended up not being trusted with the trolley, giving it to matthew instead. the four walked through the food aisles and grabbed a bunch of ingredients.

"this one is so cute! can we get it?" gunwook jokingly asks, showing them a pizza plushie on the floor.

"i'm not spending money on a fake pizza. no." ricky sighs.

matthew resulted to be the leader, dragging everyone around and picking out ingredients as the younger friends watched like hungry kids.

"okay, now we just need snacks?" he asks, turning to a tired yawning gunwook who nods.

matthew smiles, pushing the trolley down to where all of the snacks were. the others followed like little dogs.

"wait i want these!" ricky stops matthew, picking up three bags of popcorn and shoving them into the trolley.

"really? all of that?" gyuvin laughs. "where's the chocolates?" he then asks.

"wait i want to find the jam biscuits too." ricky says, looking around.

gunwook pulls gyuvin and they basically run into the chocolate aisle as matthew and ricky follow behind slowly.

but then gunwook and gyuvin halted. "oh my god." gyuvin gasps.

"what's up?" matthew asks from behind. "just go in the aisle."

"mei's here." gunwook whisper-shouts. "as in hao rival hanbin girlfriend mei."

"what?!" matthew whisper-shouts back, peeking his head around with ricky, and they weren't wrong, mei was right there.

and she was smiling, widely.

"yo is she bipolar or something?" gyuvin asks. "she looks like a completely different person here."

"you can't just assume she's bipolar!" gunwook says. "but i do get where you're coming from."

❦ ♪

— mei pov.
- 3rd person.

mei and her father were in the snacks aisle, looking for things to buy as hanbin was coming to their house sunday evening and her father always made sure his guests ate a lot.

"but the jam ones taste better!" she whines, pointing at the jam biscuits sulkily. mei was currently trying to convince her father to buy snacks, since they rarely had them.

"hwang mirae at your age you're going to complain about a jam biscuit?" her father laughs.

"yeah." she crosses her arms. "i don't even know why you're refusing, you like them too."

"yes but what if our guests don't li–"

"but everyone likes these!" she takes them into her hands, putting it in the trolley. "please. if the family don't like it then i'll eat it all."

her father chuckles and pats her head. "i was only joking, what makes you think i wouldn't let you get biscuits?"

mei rolls her eyes. "this is why i like mother better."

"excuse me i earn more money than her." he warns. "say that again and you're not getting money-"

"okay! sorry!" she replies immediately. "can we get more snacks before we buy the main ingredients?"

her father sighs. "okay, just wait for your mother. she's coming, work ended half an hour ago for her."

mei smiles widely. she was a huge snacker, no matter what. she loves buying them even though her parents think she can be childish when craving them. but she didn't care, obviously.

"meii~" she hears her mother's sweet voice from behind. the said girl turns around in excitement and embraces her mother. "why are you so happy today?" her mother laughs.

"probably because of her musical boyfriend. maybe he apologised to her." her father chuckles. "their heated argument was a bit~" he teases, "oh your rivalry tension is so-"

"ANYWAYS." mei coughs, fake picking up a random bag of crisps as other customers walked by.

"ahh.. so you and your musical boyfriend. how are you getting along?" she asks, playing with mei's hair as they walk down.

"no. i still hate him. no musical boyfriend." she sighs.

"why do you sound so disappointed, mei?" her father laughs. "do you like him already?"

mei gags. "no, ew. i'm not friends with any of them."

"what about hanbin? you're supposed to be close now, aren't you?" she says in quite a loud voice.

"mother!" mei hits her mother's arm. "don't say his name like that."

"why? do you like him?" she laughs.

mei scoffs. "no! you're making it out to be that way. i think i hurt him yesterday anyway."

"nooo why?" her dad laughs. "apologise to him on sunday. i got told he's at a sleepover with his friends today and tomorrow."

mei sighs. "do i NEED to apologise?"

"of course, mei. he's coming to our house for dinner, and there's chances you're going to be with each other a lot that night. so be nice." her mother laughs, turning to the left and into a different aisle.

"have a good attitude, mei. hanbin's family are really sweet. they also think you're lovely." she adds.

mei shrugs. "hanbin's really nice, but whenever we talk in school i don't want to talk to him since i was nice to him when i met him."

"he might think you're bipolar. mean to him in school but when he's at our house you're suddenly an angel." her father chuckles.

"anyways, no more snacks. let's get ingredients, the sung family love our chef's cooking a lot." her mother chuckles.

❦ ♪

— no one's pov.

future dropouts
9 members

gunwook:
guys we're in the supermarket and
we just saw mei and like

gunwook:
sung hanbin you have a lot of explaining
to do!!! prepare yourself.

hanbin:
???

❦ ♪

sorry this is so short and boring. i'm on holiday and school starts in a week bare with me xoxo i wrote this all falling asleep pls