No True Pair

Title: When the Cat's Away

Fandom(s): Mermaid Prince: The Beginning, Sound of Magic

Pairing/Characters: Choi Woohyuk + Na Ildeung

Content Notes: None

Rating: AO3-G

Prompt: September One - 1 & 3 - when the cat's away...

As soon as the door closed behind the last girl, cheers broke out. Someone turned on 2PM’s Hands Up, and half of the boys began to dance as they stripped out of their uniforms to change into their PE clothes.

Woohyuk headed for the door.

Arthur caught his arm. “Hey, what’s this? When the cat’s away, the mice come out to play!”

Woohyuk cast him a look. “You comparing the girls to cats or us to mice?”

Arthur considered for a second. “Uh…both, I guess?”

Woohyuk shrugged out of his grip, clothes clutched to his chest. “Whatever. I’m gonna go change.”

“The whole point of your almost strip-off in the classroom — against my sister, ewwww — was to establish dominance so we would have the classroom to change in on Mondays and Wednesdays.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “And now you’re gonna slink off to the bathrooms like a — like a —”

“Don’t you dare say girl,” Woohyuk snapped.

“Wouldn’t the right word be cat?”

Woohyuk and Arthur turned.

It was the transfer student. Na Ildeung. His introduction on his first day had been met by snickers and giggles.

It had been Arthur who called out, “Were you first place in your last school?”

Ildeung had lifted his chin and looked right at Arthur for a long moment, gaze piercing behind his round wire-framed glasses, before he stared down at his shoes.

“Yeah,” he’d said, and for so slender and pretty a boy his voice had been surprisingly deep. “In everything but math.”

And then he’d taken his desk in the corner and been almost completely silent except when he was called on.

Woohyuk might have forgotten about him, except during classes he had a habit of spinning a coin down his fingers over and over again. The way it flashed out of the corner of Woohyuk’s eye always made him turn to look.

But Ildeung was always paying attention to the teacher.

“You got changed in the bathroom too?” Arthur looked Ildeung up and down.

Ildeung had his neatly-folded uniform clutched to his chest. “Don’t want to be late,” was all he said before he headed to his locker to put his clothes away.

A few of the other boys who were singing and dancing to the song tried to get Ildeung to join in with them, but he just sat at his desk and tied his laces. The boys turned their attention to Arthur trying to coax him into putting his hands up, and Woohyuk took the chance to duck out of the classroom and head to the bathroom.

When Woohyuk returned to the homeroom with his uniform in hand, all the other boys had changed and a game of leapfrog was underway.

Ildeung was sitting at his desk, spinning that coin along the back of his hand.

Woohyuk paused beside him. “Why do you always do that? It’s distracting.”

Ildeung glanced up at him but didn’t stop. “It’s something to do.”

“Don’t do it during class.”

“We’re not in class — yet.” But Ildeung flourished his hands — long-fingered, graceful — and the coin vanished. “See you down on the field.”

Woohyuk watched him go.

Later that day, Woohyuk saw a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, expecting to see a flash of a silver coin. But — had Ildeung just made his pen fly? From one hand to the other? Across his desk? Woohyuk blinked, but there it was again. Ildeung was literally levitating his pen across his desk. He didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it, was looking at the chalkboard, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Woohyuk couldn’t help but stare. Magic wasn’t real. How the hell was Ildeung doing that?

“Choi Woohyuk,” the teacher said, and Woohyuk faced front hurriedly.

Miss Han looked at him expectantly. An unsolved math equation was in the middle of the chalkboard.

Woohyuk ducked his head. “Sorry, Miss Han. I don’t know.”

She arched an eyebrow at him and then said, “Transfer student, Na Ildeung. What’s the answer?”

Ildeung answered immediately, and Miss Han smiled, pleased.

During the break, Woohyuk stopped by his desk.

“You said you weren’t first place in math back at your old school.”

Ildeung looked up at him, surprised. He’d been doing one of those fancy pen spins across the back of his thumbnail, like Japanese kids did. “I — what?”

“On your first day of school, you said you were first place at your last school in everything but math.”

“In math I was second place,” Ildeung said.

“Oh.” Woohyuk eyed him. “Bet you were popular with the girls.”

“Praise enough, from one of the mermaid princes.” Ildeung was still spinning his pen, tapping idly at his notebook with his other hand.

His handwriting was painfully, exactingly neat.

Woohyuk winced. “Not a mermaid prince, not anymore.” Girls still called him that, but he’d quit the swim team. He’d gone from being a standby on the national junior swim team to — nothing.

He cleared his throat. “You’re still being so distracting in class.”

Ildeung arched an eyebrow. “I’m not spinning the coin anymore.”

The coin. Did he have a favorite coin or something?

“But you’re —” Wookhyuk gestured to Ildeung’s pen.

Immediately Ildeung shifted his hands, and the pen floated from one to the other, just like before. “If you’re getting distracted when I sit behind you, it seems kind of like a you problem.”

Woohyuk grit his teeth. “Do you always do whatever you want?”

Ildeung considered. “Yes, these days, more or less.”

“So, what, you didn’t before? Making up for lost time?”

“Something like that. And you, mermaid prince?”

“The thing I want is gone,” Woohyuk bit out, and immediately cut himself off. Why would he say such a thing to a stranger?

Because he was a stranger. He wasn’t Arthur, who was trying to be a good friend even though they were no longer swimming together, or Geon, who saw Woohyuk’s departure from the team as a betrayal. Geon had improved a lot and was number one, but the junior members on the team whispered that it was only because Woohyuk was gone.

And then there was Yoonyoung, who wanted to get back together with Woohyuk even though his heart had changed — literally.

Everyone around him remembered who he’d been and wanted the old Woohyuk back, but he could never get that life back.

“And now what?” Ildeung asked. “Will you find something new?”

That pen floated back and forth between his hands, almost hypnotizing.

If Woohyuk didn’t find something new, what would he do with his life? “I guess. Music, maybe.”

His care team had recommended music therapy after the surgery, and he’d slowly learned to play piano. He thought, maybe, that the person whose heart was now beating in his chest had once loved music.

Ildeung nodded. “You should do something for yourself, just because you like it.”

“Should we? Isn’t that a bit — selfish?”

“It’s not like we’re totally throwing over our entire lives and being total hedonists.”

Woohyuk scratched the side of his neck. “Well —”

“Are we mice or men?” Ildeung’s eyes gleamed.

“So what is it that you like?” Woohyuk asked, straightening up. “Besides distracting me in class.”

Ildeung smiled and turned one hand with a flourish. His pen hovered over his palm, seemingly in mid-air. “Do you believe in magic?”