The blur of the teacher's voice, annoying like a bee buzzing and causing my head to spin, slowly awoke me from my ritual nap during... well, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴.

"...new student today! Let's all welcome him to the academy," She was saying, referring to someone apparently standing beside her at the front of the classroom.

I lifted my head up from my desk with a yawn, curiosity getting the better of me as I looked up to get a glimpse of the new student.

His bright smile was the first thing I noticed as he bowed to everyone. I rolled my eyes with a sigh. He seemed so naive with his perfectly ironed uniform and straight tie, his navy academy jacket folded neatly over his arm, monogrammed with his initials, "LF". 

I immediately categorized him as an obnoxious overachiever, that one kid who would remind the teacher to check our homework, but he was pretty enough to be a basic fuckboy, too. Either way, that smile would eventually get wiped off his face. The weak didn't – couldn't – survive here at King's Constellation Academy. I found that out fast enough, and learned to keep to myself, learned to suck it up and somehow survive.

After introducing himself with a wave, I crossed my arms on top of my desk and laid my head down again, intent on getting at least another 20 minutes of sleep before the teacher called me out, my curiosity now more than satisfied. 

But my intentions were ruined, my day absolutely shattered when the new student made a bee-line down the aisle for the empty seat beside me in the back of the class.

There were so many other empty seats scattered around the classroom, but he slung his coordinated navy backpack off his shoulder and slid it under the desk we now apparently shared as he settled in on my right. 

"Hi, I'm Lee Felix," He chimed with an excited tone that was rare here. It irked me, honestly. 

Because it reminded me of myself when I first came here.

"...I heard," I retorted, not bothering to hide the hint of annoyance in my voice as I shifted on top of the desk, turning my head away from him to bathe my face in a comfortably warm ray of sun that was streaming through the window above me to my left.

"...What's your name?" He pressed, not picking up on the clues that I wanted to be left alone. 

"Park Y/N," I sighed, closing my eyes and hoping that with that he would stop talking to me so I could sleep.

"That's pretty." The writing utensils in his pencil bag shook together as he retrieved it from his backpack. He drew back the zipper, and it seemed so loud and sharp. He shuffled through the pencil bag, apparently looking for a specific one to use, and the wood of the pencils and metal of the pens clinked together.

I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes tightly, trying to ignore it. 

Finally finding the pencil he was looking for, he opened his notebook, the pages crisply shuffling against each other. His thumb pressed down on the top of the mechanical pencil, not once to push out enough led to render the pencil useful, but twice... three times... four, five, six, seven....

𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬. 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬. 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬. 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬—

When he started to tap his foot under the table, his pencil consistently scratching on the paper as he took notes, it was the last straw.

I sat up straight in my chair, taking a deep breath to calm myself. I had to consciously relax my fists as they gripped onto my uniform skirt in my lap.

Felix's head snapped to look at me, his thumb freezing over the top of the pencil, which he was about to start clicking again since the thin line of led had snapped.

"You're not going to sleep?" He questioned obliviously, tucking his bangs behind his ear.

I shook my head, biting my tongue to stop myself from saying what I wanted to. I settled for a short, concise "Nope."

Felix's gaze fell to the navy pencil in his hands — was he purposely coordinating everything so perfectly? — and his eyes widened, as if there was some alien object between his fingers. He looked back up to me as I yawned, despairing in the fact that I would get no more sleep, today or ever, if the blond stayed beside me.

"Was I bothering you?" He held up the pencil, watching me nervously. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"No, it's fine," I lied through my teeth. "It wasn't you, I'm just not tired anymore." 

More lies. I was becoming more fluent in lies than I was the Korean we were supposed to be studying. My eyelids drooped even as I spoke, but someone in the front row of the classroom was clicking their tongue out of anxiousness after the teacher had called on them to solve an equation, which she had just finished scratching onto the board with an unusually squeaky stick of chalk.

Felix shrugged, going back to taking notes. "Okay... if you say so." 

I barely noticed that his movements became slower. He kept a hand on his knee to stop his foot from tapping. He had switched to using a smooth-writing pen, and whenever he painstakingly filled a page with neat and square handwriting, he took his time sliding a finger under the next leaf and gently turning it over. 

...

My parents were yelling at each other again.

Back and forth, back and forth...

Curses, threats, screams of anger... the occasional crash of a glass shattering or a book slamming against the wall with a hollow thud, the squeak of a door opening and slamming shut behind a swiftly moving body when one parent had had enough.

Sounds.

Loud sounds.

Loud, horrible, annoying sounds. Intermittent or consistent, it never mattered.

I covered my ears, my breath shallowing, my heart starting to race.

I was 15 again, huddled in a corner in my room, ready to scream to release the tension in my head, every single noise making my ears ring and my mind dizzy...

The screams of my parents, the bothering noises died out and were replaced with chatter as I woke up from another nightmare. Everyone was talking, laughing, conversing, voices of different pitches mixing together in a confusing and disorganized mess of words.

But two voices, both low in pitch, were closer, clearer.

I opened my eyes slowly. A back was turned to me, dressed in a navy uniform vest, blond hair barely brushing the seams at the shoulders. Felix was turned in his chair beside me, one forearm resting on the back of the chair, the other on the desk, his fingers twirling a pen as he talked with a classmate standing in front of him, towering over his seated figure.

He threw his head back and laughed at something the mutual classmate standing at our desk had said. His laughter breezed through the classroom, getting lost in the murmurs of the bustling students who were moving to chat with their friends now that we had reached a break in the day.

Pencils scratching.

Pens clicking.

Feet tapping.

Fingers drumming.

It was obnoxious.

It was overwhelming.

But I guess it wasn't their fault.

Yet another noise caused me to wince; it was my chair scraping across the floor as I stood up and pushed it back. I left everything at my desk to flee to the library and give my senses a much-needed break. It was the most peaceful place I could think of, where no one would willingly be during a recess.

I stood up and left so quickly, so desperately, that I didn't notice the academy jacket bearing the initials "LF" that slipped off my shoulders and fell to the floor in a pile of warmly knitted fabric.

And I didn't remember the notebook that I had left on the desk, the page opened to a drawing of my favorite flower, a daisy that I had poured all my focus into when my senses were overloaded during classes.

...

The library was my safe place. I stayed there more than just between classes when I needed my own break from everyone.

I slept there some nights to avoid going home to books piled on the floor, plates shattered and at least one if not both of my parents gone. I figured that if I was just going to be home alone, I might as well be in the academy library alone.

It was calmer, it was peaceful. I was guaranteed to be met with a plush wall-to-wall carpet that was a cozy shade of burgundy rather than a cold tile floor lined with fragments of broken objects and shards of glass.

But it was never guaranteed that I would be alone. 

I had taken refuge in the library one night, but until then it was a night like any other, they were all blending together. I was tossing and turning due to my uncomfortable position; I had learned to tuck myself into a dark corner so the security guard wouldn't find me and force me to go home. 

But as I restlessly moved, half-awake, a dull thud caused me to open my eyes and look around. As I sat up, the rustling of fabric reached my ears, the brisk shuffling of knitted cloth.

The now familiar "LF" monogrammed jacket was draped around my shoulders once again, the warm, navy material wrapping me in a comforting embrace.

Slow, steady breathing from nearby caught my attention, and I spotted Felix sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bookshelf, his eyes closed, his lap filled with multiple open books bearing titles related to auditory sensitivity.

One of those books, a thick leather-bound one about misophonia, had fallen from his hand, his tired body too exhausted to hold it open any longer. 

And laying beside him was a pure white flower, freshly hand picked.

A single daisy.

𝗔/𝗡:

𝗜'𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗴𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗲; 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘂𝗽 𝗮𝘁 𝟭𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗽𝗹 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱𝗹𝘆. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁 — 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗮. 𝗦𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 :) 

𝗜 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁, 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜'𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻.