Minho's life had always seemed like it was perfect. Complete. He had a solid group of friends, and was fairly popular. At his school being a runner was bigger than football and last year Minho and his friend Thomas had been the first freshman to ever make it on both varsity cross country and track. Girls loved him. He was so charismatic and had this charm people couldn't resist. He didn't think his life could be missing anything until he saw him.
Him.
Minho was walking down the hallway with some of his team mates sophomore year laughing about some crude joke when he turned his head to see him. A boy who looked about his age throwing his head back with laughter, a paintbrush tucked behind his hair. He stood right outside the art room with a girl who looked vaguely familiar and his eyes were lit up with what looked like magic. Minho stopped in the middle of the hallway as he was slammed into by a million thoughts and sensations. He felt like someone had sucked all the air out of him and was replacing it with some tangible form of happiness, of pleasure. The boy was beautiful. Sandy brown hair, freckles all over his tanned face, eyes that seemed to contain the answer to any question Minho could ever ask.
"Yo! Earth to Minho!" Frypan waved his hand in front of the stocky Asian who had abruptly halted. Frypan followed his gaze and nodded. "Oh yeah man she's hot" he chuckled clearly talking about the girl standing next to him.
Minho shook his head and turned away from the art student and continued walking forward, but he couldn't get his mind off of this guy. This guy. Minho didn't realize until later as he was staring down at his lunch that the person who took over his thoughts was indeed a guy. He had never thought about another guy that way, but then again he had never thought about anyone that way. He had kissed several girls, but had always just been going through the motions never feeling a thing. Certainly never anything like this.
The rest of the day Minho tried to focus on anything but this boy, trying to make conversation with Thomas's girlfriend Brenda, but she just ranted about mistreated orkas making it hardly a conversation.
"Oh, Brenda, I forgot to mention that Min over here was making googly eyes over an art kid today." Thomas smirked.
"Ooo I might know her what did she look like?" Brenda seemed very interested because for the past year she had been trying to hook Minho up with one of her friends. "A lot of the art students are involved with the theatre department too!" She was the president of the drama club and was the definition of a theatre nerd. Thomas and her made an odd match but it seemed to work.
Thomas went on to explain all the details of the girl he had saw, and he didn't dare mention the girl was the least of his worries.
When school let out the sky seemed dark and dreary and Minho found himself wishing he was looking into the boy's eyes instead, as he ran the track for practice. He tried to distract himself in running, still not sure how to feel about these sudden feelings he was having. When practice ended he was more worn out than usual and was receiving compliments from the upperclassmen about his impressive new speed, but he kept quiet.
At home MInho ran straight up the stairs to his room and walked to his desk where he grabbed his freshman yearbook and sat on his bed while he flipped through it till he stopped, almost passing the page. There sitting in front of him was a picture of the boy from the year before still as striking as always. Aris. Aris Jones. MInho's heart did a weird thumpety thump thing. The boy was no longer nameless, his name was Aris. God, even his name was hot. Minho blushed at the thought. This whole thinking boys are hot thing was totally new and surprised him with every new thought. He was desperate to talk about it, to tell someone, but he was too scared of what people might think about him, of being ridiculed. So he just laid there on his bed staring at the ceiling as he let his thoughts go wild.
The next morning he was eating his bowl of Lucky Charms, he listened as the whatever news channel his parents were watching brought up a murder that had happened at a gay-pride parade. MInho heard this more than he usually would have and tucked his head down farther towards his cereal, trying to tune the television out. Then he heard his father say something he wished he could un hear.
"Served that fag right hope they enjoy their stay in Hell"
MInho's eyes widened and quickly grabbed his backpack and jogged out the door where he then decided to not wait for Thomas to pick him up as usual and started walking to school. His thoughts went crazy pounding on the inside of his skull and he knew that he had to ignore all these feelings he was having. He desperately tried to convince himself his feelings had been a mirage and were now gone. He had to.
Just as he walked up the steps he noticed Aris standing at a locker leaned up against it smirking at the girl, who he had also identified last night as Rachel and all those tingly feelings inside him he had tried to push away came flooding back. There was no avoiding how Aris made him feel without so much as a glance. Minho was in more trouble than he thought.