9¾ (Run Away) | txt
-> pairing. txt ensemble x f!reader
-> genre. mystery, soft-fantasy, angst, fluff
-> rating. 13+
-> w/c. 2193
-> warnings. some sus behavior from the reader; school fire; manipulation?
-> a/n. This era has me in a chokehold.
-> collection. songfic
-> started. Sep. 1st, 2020 @ 23:30
-> fin. Dec. 20th, 2021 @ 00:22
-> edited. Wed., Jul. 12th, 2023 @ 23:56
-> divider credit. @saradika-graphics
Beomgyu sighed as he walked the long stretch over the field, the paint mechanism lagging behind him and dyeing a long white streak over the grass.
He walked and walked until he saw a soccer ball sitting idly a few meters in front of him. Coming to a standstill, the boy contemplated for a moment before, with a huff, he got a running start and kicked the ball further across the field and into the bleachers.
“Was that really necessary, Gyu?” Beomgyu startled at the sound of your voice. You were leaning against the bleachers, lazy grin tugging your lips upward. “It's not the ball's fault you got detention for ditching!"
"It's unfair! How come I got detention and you didn't? You ditched, too!"
You appeared from behind the bleachers, soccer ball in hand. "That's just because I'm a better liar." You smirked, throwing the ball up into the air. Beomgyu's eyes followed the object and watched it drop to the floor with a thud, looking up to find you gone.
In their homeroom, Yeonjun was sitting with a box-opener, cutting into the pages of a math notebook he seldom used these days.
He cut what looked like a door into it, leaning against his left arm that was propped on a stack of other school books, clearly bored and heavily uninterested. His bear was sitting to the left of him, just out of his peripheral view. The burn on his right hand had already healed enough to be only barely visible, and the cut on his hand stuck out like a sore thumb. Kids had been asking about it all morning, and it was starting to piss him off. Couldn't they mind their own business?
"What are you doing? You're making a mess!"
Yeonjun scoffed, looking up at you. "Does it matter?"
This time it was your turn to scoff, moving forward to pat his shoulder sympathetically, walking off to the back of the class somewhere. "Don't come to me begging to help you clean up!"
Yeonjun rolled his eyes with a smile, continuing his carving ritual.
"Kai! Did you finish the yellow line?"
"Yeah! I'm just about done with the blue one—"
"Great!" You stood still, looking at the road with scrutinizing eyes. "You couldn't make them at least a little bit straighter?" you chastised playfully, pointing with your finger at the particularly squiggly sections of line.
Heuning Kai grinned, elbowing your shoulder playfully before standing up to his full height, checking to see how it came out. "It's really cool looking..."
You grinned from ear to ear.
“Where'd you get the idea for it, anyway?" he asked, looking up at the classroom in the distance thoughtfully. You shrugged with a “hmmph”.
"Go clean your hands before someone pins this on you," you said in a bit of a whiney voice, pushing Heuning Kai toward the outdoor bathrooms. He laughed, turning around to say something but inevitably being left with an empty clearing and deafening silence.
"Wah, Soobin-ssi! This looks great!" you shouted with a happy smile, looking over the array of drawings on the whiteboard in the front of the class.
Soobin eye-smiled at you giddily.
"Still dreams?"
"Yeah. They seem to get... darker and darker as time goes on," he mumbled, finishing off the last line of the door he was doodling, admiring his work proudly.
"I'm sure it'll be fine,” you cooed reassuringly, rubbing a hand over the small of his back. "I'm sure we'll figure it out, soon enough."
Soobin nodded, smiling at you and closing his eyes for a moment. He knew you had vanished when he no longer felt that reassuring warmth over the small of his back.
Taehyun took his airpods out at the sight of his friend appearing in front of him, as you so often did. “What you listening to?" you asked with a sly tilt of your head and disarming smile.
He smiled weakly, shaking his head. "Nothing."
You raised a brow, still smiling at him slyly. “I'm not so sure about that, Hyunnie."
Closing his eyes, Taehyun counted to three, while simultaneously back in the homeroom, Soobin put on his colored glasses, looking at the door on the board.
When Taehyun opened his eyes again, they were sitting on the soccer field in a semi-circle. You watched Soobin intently as Beomgyu put a plaster over Yeonjun's cut before laying back with a content sigh. Chuckling, everyone else followed suit, huffing as their backs hit the ground.
"Man, this is refreshing. That stupid classroom was getting stuffy," you said after a few moments of silence, looking at the clear sky above you.
Soobin hummed, the others making a few comments about it before you got back on your feet.
"How 'bout a quick game, hmm?" The guys got up pretty quickly, grinning as you disappeared and re-appeared with the soccer ball from earlier. It was a 3v3: Yeonjun, Soobin and Heuning Kai versus you, Taehyun and Beomgyu.
"Y/N! Shoot, shoot!" Beomgyu shouted as he kicked the ball to you for the winning goal, tripping as Yeonjun tried to get the ball from him. When you got the ball in, Beomgyu picked you up, swinging you around while you all laughed triumphantly. From behind you, Taehyun was smiling and clapping, though the way he looked at you gave the idea that the gears in his head were indeed turning.
The five of you walked down the school halls together, split into groups or pairs as you walked, talking about a math equation and how hungry you were (cough Soobin cough).
Taehyun was standing idly further in front, and Yeonjun being Yeonjun, ran forward with a huge smile on his face, swinging his arm around Taehyun's shoulders and causing the smaller male to loose his footing; Yeonjun laughing at the shocked expression on his face. The rest of the group chuckled at the duo's antics, continuing after them quietly.
You stopped when you noticed Beomgyu lagging behind slightly. "Hey, Tiger! What's up? You look pissed," you said, commenting primarily on the rather intense look he was giving Taehyun from behind.
He shook his head with a somewhat forced smile: "Nah, it's nothing. I just don't think I did well in that math activity we did today."
You laughed. "Yeah, same. Tell you what, if you did better than me I owe you ice cream?" You wiggled your eyebrows challengingly, the taller boy laughing as he hooked an arm around your shoulder.
You were standing behind Yeonjun, the rest of the crew scattered around the room. Yeonjun was holding a pair of glasses over his notebook, and as the two of you were looking at it, the space in between where he had carved the box (or door, depending on how you wanted to look at it) had suddenly caught aflame. The lot of you shared looks with each other, though neither of you really tried to do anything about it, until that is, Beomgyu grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the notebook.
The only problem?
The fire was still going. "The fu—"
"Language!" Kai said before you could finish cussing, causing the lot of you to laugh.
Having made your way up the stairs and to the roof as the sky slowly started to darken, you had told Taehyun to bring the fire extinguisher along. "Why?" He asked, a questioning look on his face.
"I have a feeling something magical is gonna happen." You said, a mysterious glint in your eyes and sly grin pulling at your lips. Taehyun had eventually brought it along, not without a lot of complaining though.
"Y/N noona! This is heavy!"
"You have muscles for a reason, Hyunnie! I'm making sure you keep them!" Yeonjun and Soobin snickered at the comment, Hyuka offering to help Hyun, who very happily agreed.
From the corner of his eye, Soobin watched Taehyun and Kai, still walking with Yeonjun as he noticed that you had interlocked hands with Beomgyu, for some or other reason.
However, he ignored it when you got to the rooftop, considering that it was almost completely dark. The majority of them went to sit down, Taehyun having been told to keep standing.
"Right," you said, clasping your hands together in anticipation. "Use the extinguisher, Taehyun!"
Though he looked skeptical, the raven-head did as he was told, quite surprised when a weird beam of red light blasted out of the extinguisher instead of what you often referred to as 'whipped cream'. When you all headed off to the library (mainly because you and Beomgyu had been complaining about the cold), Taehyun had decided to grab a book, whereas Yeonjun and Beomgyu had fallen asleep leaning against one of the shelves.
You were scrolling idly through your phone, sitting across from Taehyun while Soobin and Hyuka wondered through the various bookshelves in hopes of finding something that'd catch their eye.
"Run! Faster, Y/N!"
You were panting, your chest aching painfully with the amount of running you had to do. Yeonjun grabbed your hand, pulling you along with him to urge you to run faster. The fire had already started spreading, and it was moving a lot faster than they had thought it would. Soobin had been the first to find it, quickly alerting the rest of them to the immediate danger, and here they were, on the ground floor of the school building, confused as to why you seemed to be the only one tired after having to run down five to six hallways, (this being your sixth) and a good five flights of stairs.
Beomgyu was quick to lead everyone to the indoor swimming pool. "Great idea, Tiger! The fire can't catch us in the water!" You praised him, still trying to catch your breath from all of the running.
"Well, technically it can still get us, the water isn't everywhere in the room," Taehyun argued, Soobin and Yeonjun nodding along.
Kai was quick to take off his shoes, climbing into the pool first. "Get in!" he shouted after resurfacing, his hair wet and accentuating his facial features.
The lot of you were quick to jump into the pool, not needing to be told twice. Though, it was fun being in the water, and soon enough you had forgotten all about the fire spreading through the building. You grinned evily, splashing water into Yeonjun's face. The look he gave you was pointed and playfully serious, somewhat offended even.
You merely smirked at him, hiding your face as he chased after you.
The six of you started goofing around in the water, though you were sure you had seen them fall/ jump into the pool just a few moments ago, in the exact same manner.
Soobin sat on the side of the pool, watching as you and the rest of the guys dove into the pool like in that one High School Musical scene, one after the other, reminding him of a row of domino's.
His attention was diverted to the hatch in the middle of the swimming pool though, and soon enough everyone was moving through it. You came in last, scared to jump down. "I can't do it, it's too high up," you said, fear evident in your voice.
"I'll catch you, noona! You'll be fine!" Kai said, opening his arms wide. You sucked in a nervous breath, jumping down with a scream. True to his word though, Kai caught you and gave you what was probably the cutest smile ever.
"What is this place?" Soobin muttered.
"I don't know.. It seems like a rainforest of some sort?" you mused, shining your torch around curiously. The further all of you walked, the more you noticed the opening on the other end.
Soobin pulled away the shrubbery at the end, giving way to a vast, open field. And a...
Giant sized, white door?
"What the hell?" Beomgyu said, moving forward with the rest of you. They stood in front of it, and Yeonjun, out of curiosity, put on the same glasses from before. Lo and behold, the door burst into flames.
"Wah... It's quite beautiful, isn't it?" You awed as the six of you sat in front of it, watching as it burnt and splintered under the heat of the flames. Yeonjun nodded slowly, watching with absent, glazed over eyes.
A few minutes passed, and Yeonjun looked down at his finger. Slowly he peeled off the plaster, revealing that his cut was fully healed. He looked it over a few times before shrugging. Not the weirdest thing they've dealt with, after all. When everyone got up to leave, Taehyun stayed behind a bit longer than the others. Noticing Yeonjun's bear laying on the dirt, looking different from before; a lot more ragged and cut up. So he picked it up. "Taehyun! Come on, let's go!" You called after him, having a mini staring contest before he finally joined the rest of you.
You took one last glance back at the burning door, your blue and green eyes seeming to glow in the light of the flames. With one last, mysterious smirk, you followed after your friends.
