“Hey.”

The weary Namjoon that was peacefully looking at the view of the bus station with his arm resting on the bus window was startled but happy to hear his friend Seokjin’s voice. “Hi,” was all he said with a slight smirk.

Seokjin sat on the seat next to Namjoon’s. “What a great day today was, wasn’t it?” he sighed.

“Yeah, it definitely was.” Namjoon had all the incredible happenings of that day in mind with this reply, from Taehyung’s outbursts to Miyeon’s unchanging conduct, both of which had unknowingly reached every student’s ears and upset the entire class.

Having known his friend for a long time, Seokjin could recognize the signs that something was off. “What happened again?” he smiled in hopes of brightening him up.

“Nothing apart from what you already know.”

All Seokjin did was nod. After that, there was a silence, for both of them would rather calmly relax on their seats after the tension of the day.

That was only until Seokjin noticed a familiar figure standing at the bus station through the window. “Isn’t that Park Miyeon?”

Namjoon turned to him again. “Yes,” he replied with displeasure, “it’s her.”

“She must be going through a really hard time now that her crush is gone,” he said sarcastically.

“Yeah, he hurt her a lot by abandoning her” – Namjoon joined the mocking.

“I seriously wonder what Park Jimin would think about all this.”

“He’d most probably think she’s insane. I don’t think this is the type of love he’s looking for.”

“Can you imagine her reaction when he reappears?” Seokjin chuckled at the thought and tried to mimic her voice – “‘Oh Jimin, why did you disappear like that? I love you so much, do you know that? Please don’t do that to me ever again!’”

They both burst out laughing. Those boys really were each other’s mood makers.

Then they saw Miyeon finally leaving their sight. It was satisfying to see her leave as they had both grown tired of having to see her miserable face.

“It seems that her bus is here at last,” Seokjin snickered.

“I hope she actually goes home instead of randomly deciding to look for her Jimin late at night.” Namjoon smirked at his own joke.

“She’s capable of it if she wants to.” Seokjin chuckled again.

Namjoon did not feel the slightest bit of guilt that who he once considered to be his friend ended up as just another girl he was laughing at behind her back. He even had no second thought about revealing everything about Miyeon, from the huge crush she had on Jimin to her attitude towards her disappearance, to Seokjin. He knew it was not his fault that they were not friends anymore. She was the one to treat her own friends like her enemies, thinking that move would bring her closer to her crush when it was unlikely he cared about her to the same extent. She was the one to waste her life being ultra defensive towards a guy that did not reciprocate her feelings for him. It was only natural for a girl like her to become a subject of gossip.

“Seriously though,” Seokjin continued, “what was her relationship with Park Jimin like before he disappeared? Did they ever speak to each other?”

“Nah. Jimin treated her like she didn’t exist. She never bothered to talk to him either. All she did was secretly take photos of him and show them to her friends, and now she treats those photos like precious works of art and thinks they are the only ‘memory’ of him.”

“Wow, what nice interactions those two had” – Seokjin went back to mocking. All of a sudden, however, he turned dead serious. “How about you though?”

His question caused Namjoon to eye him in confusion.

Seokjin continued, “Did you ever interact with him before his disappearance?”

Namjoon was initially ready to say no, as he could not remember any interaction between him and Jimin. However, after deep thought, he remembered… that he had actually had a chance to talk to Jimin.

Namjoon ran through the hallways nonstop. All sorts of emotions were haunting him: sadness, disappointed, and utter bitterness. Why did such an awful thing have to happen to him? What error had he commited in his life that had made him so unlucky?

He rushed to his locker and bust it open, taking out all of his books and items and putting them into his schoolbag as fast as he could. After the painful words he had heard from his very crush, coming across anyone else from school would do him no good. All he wanted was to get some time alone to think.

What foolish girl would reject Kim Namjoon? He had all the qualities every girl looked for: he was good-looking, witty, amiable and had an IQ of 148, which was the highest in his class. Most of all, he was a kingka, being ranked second in his grade. What girl in her right mind would reject a kingka?

As he was about to leave, he was stopped by a voice calling, “Hey, slow down! Why in such a hurry?”

He turned around only to see his classmate Park Jimin looking at him with a smile. Not in the mood for any conversations, he faked a smile and all he said was, “Hi.” After that, he sprinted out of the school building.

“Yah! Aren’t you going to say anything? Yah! What you’re doing right now ain’t cool, dude!”

Namjoon totally ignored Jimin’s calls, which echoed all over the hallway.

Namjoon looked at the floor in despondency, his eyes full of regret. That day, he could have made a friend. Had he temporarily set his bad mood aside and let Jimin approach him at that very moment, he could have become Jimin’s new friend. If he had become a more loyal and caring friend than the friends Jimin already had, he could have possibly prevented him from running away. He had already had a chance to stop him from leaving when he had witnessed him leave the school area with his own eyes, but he did not seize that chance either.

He frantically shook his head, trying to get rid of these thoughts. There was no way Namjoon would allow himself to feel responsible for Jimin’s disappearance.

The sound of Seokjin calling his name instantly made him snap out of his thoughts. He had almost forgotten about the question Seokjin had asked him a moment before.

“No!” he lied. He chose to keep his recollection and his emotions to himself.

“You’re speaking the truth, aren’t you?” Seokjin asked, seeing how startled his friend seemed, as if his mind were occupied by something he had remembered.

“I am, hyung!” Namjoon answered, trying not to look annoyed. He added, “And I’m happy I didn’t. I swear Miyeon really does overestimate that guy’s personality.”

“I can imagine,” Seokjin nodded and sighed. “Why is the bus taking so long…?”

Namjoon looked through the window to see if there were any remaining students coming so the bus could finally start, and was totally surprised to see Taehyung standing still at the bus station and not getting on the bus. “What is Kim Taehyung doing over there?”

Seokjin glanced at the bus station and saw Taehyung walking away from the station in a rush. With a shrug, he said, “Who cares.”

Namjoon wondered where Taehyung was off to, and why he was leaving so hastily and with such an angry expression on his face. However, he pretended to agree with his friend and not care.

Now that the last student left, Kim Taehyung, had decided not to get on the bus, the bus finally started.

☼

Busting the door open, he stormed out of the taxi. He was the only student wandering around the district late at night, but he did not care. The cold wind was blowing against him, slowing down his pace, but he did not care about that either. He had to take that big step in order to clear up the situation and put an end to that upheaval once and for all.

The school and especially his class had had enough of all those arguments, wrecked relationships among students and teachers, sentiments of sadness and guilt, and most importantly, the burden of having a missing student in their own school and being blamed for it. No one seemed willing to take action to solve the whole problem conclusively, though – not even the people that had seemingly been affected by it more than anyone else.

He himself was tired of watching his life slowly be ruined by everyone and everything. Having lost his friends and girlfriend, his position in the school had reverted to his original one: the silliest idiot of the class that absolutely no one wanted to hang out with and made everyone hate his presence with his boring jokes. However, he promised himself he would never become like that again. He wanted to show everyone that he could completely eliminate that image and prove his existence useful to the world.

The renowned area of Hongdae was extremely crowded as always and remained lively at night, with rowdy throngs of pedestrians jamming the streets and its clubs, cafés and karaoke bars full of students. He sighed in vexation. This is going to be much harder than I thought.

Pushing his way through the huge crowd in search of a specific person was not the most comfortable late-night activity one could undertake, especially in one of the largest and most popular districts of Seoul. He knew it would last for hours and he would not be going home anytime soon. That was where his instinct told him to go though. Considering the relatively short distance from the school, he somehow sensed it was one of the places the one person he was looking for was hiding at. Giving up was a step away from ridding himself of his ruined public persona and possibly restoring peace to the school. He therefore followed his conscience and carried on going wherever he sensed he should.

Minutes that quickly turned into hours of wandering around the riotous streets while observing the people around him were passing. His desperation was even making him look through the doors and windows of the bars and clubs he was passing by though he knew it would be futile. Nevertheless, that person had to be somewhere around there. His conscience, which he was trusting for the very first time, could not be fooling him.

To his aggravation, about two hours later, when he had managed to move away from the narrower roads, he could hear the faint sound of his phone ringing through the extreme boisterousness. Although he had no desire to stop what he was doing at all, he digged it out of his pocket and picket it up.

“What is it?!” he exclaimed, not caring to hold back his ire.

“Kim Taehyung, where have you disappeared at half past ten?” He heard his father’s stern voice from the earpiece speaker.

He was ready to reply when he made out a distinguishable figure through the crowds. It was a male that was wearing dark clothes and hiding his whole face under his black hood. He almost dropped his phone at the sight. That can be him. It has to be him.

“Answer me, kid!” his father yelled.

“I’ll be home soon,” he said coldly before hanging up.

He immediately rushed to the person he was suspicious of. He grabbed the male’s shoulder, turned him around and aggressively took off his hood… only to be disappointed to see it was not the wanted person.

“Do you want to die?” the stranger threatened with his fist.

Playing it tough, Taehyung pushed his fist down and ran away from that person without saying a word.

It was very disheartening that he had mistaken a random hooded person passing by for the guy he had been looking for for hours. He let out a deep sigh of exasperation. Aish, where could that punk be lurking?

He continued his aimless walk through the district for another hour until he eventually stopped. He had reached a wide area close to the bridge crossing the Han river. He saw how the streets were empty of pedestrians because it was getting late. He himself was also getting exhausted and wanted to go home.

But that was until, for the second time that night, he saw a familiar figure from a distance. This time, it was a male leaning against the wall of a building near the bridge, in a dark blue jacket and jeans, with his face also covered in a hood. For some reason, however, Taehyung could make out his face through the hood, and was instantly shocked at what he had just seen.

“Omo…!” he whispered to himself as he was staring at that face, mouth agape.

He was definitely not mistaken this time. It was certainly him; the one and only student that had disappeared from the school exactly a month ago, and was now standing at a distance of only a few meters away from him.

As soon as he saw the boy lift his head and had a clearer view of his face, he realized that he was right – it was him indeed. He slapped himself in disbelief. Come to your senses, Kim Taehyung. This is not him. It can’t be him.

That guy had been missing for so long it felt like forever. Getting to see that very face again with his own eyes for the first time in just less than a month gave him the feeling that the person that was facing him, was not a real person. It was hard to believe it was actually happening.

Both boys’ eyes widened in shock. Neither of them expected to run into one another under those unforeseen circumstances.

Kim Taehyung was the next person to have these six words come out of his mouth: “Long time no see, Park Jimin!”

The very moment Jimin heard his name from that classmate of his, he froze. For the second time before he could even voluntarily reveal himself, he was found by a student, yet this time, it was not any student, but his classmate, and not any classmate, but the last one to come up against before he ran away, and it was not a pleasant encounter either. Taehyung was one of the last people, if not the last person, he wanted to appear in front of.

Even if Taehyung had already seen his face, he could not dare himself to take off his hood. He had the strength to move neither towards him nor away from him. He was twice as shocked as Taehyung was, and could not move at all. There was nothing he could do to help the situation. He had never ever felt more hopeless in his entire life.

Hesitantly, he took a step back, but before he could turn away from Taehyung, he saw him run towards him.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Taehyung threatened him. He then pushed Jimin’s shoulder, causing his head to hit the wall harshly. The impact made Jimin’s hood drop.

Jimin tried not to groan in pain. There was no way he would hurt his pride so as to surrender to such a simple-minded and powerless guy as Taehyung. He could not even believe he had been hurt by the words of that very guy. Yet again, he had yet to find the strength to speak any words.

“Aren’t you going to greet me after such a long time?” Taehyung put his infamous idiotic wide smile on for a second, then switched back to his angry face. “How nice it is to see you again, our beloved Jimin.” He then pressed Jimin’s shoulder against the wall, keeping him from moving away.

Rather than instantly defending himself, Jimin just watched Taehyung act tough, trying to hold back his laughter. The similarity to Jungkook – one year his junior – acting equally tough towards him just a few hours before was undeniably striking. It was beyond belief that two of his schoolmates had both ended up threatening to avenge his lengthy and detrimental disappearance within less than 12 hours. The fact that Kim Taehyung was one of them was doubly a bolt from the blue. Taehyung, an antisocial classmate of his who was always desperate for his and everyone else’s attention, was in no way capable of causing him any harm.

“Do you know how hard a time we’re all having while you’re missing?” Taehyung continued, this time yelling. “Do you know how many people are hurt because of you? That the teachers can’t even have a proper lesson because of your absence?”

Taehyung himself didn’t know if he actually meant those words, or if he was merely trying to humiliate Jimin. He could not empathize with the people that had been dearly affected by Jimin’s disappearance, especially his former friend Park Miyeon. But then again, the whole situation was still affecting him, and sooner or later, he had to put an end to it.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose your girlfriend? For the girl you’ve been so happy with to suddenly stop being herself? Can you imagine having a new social studies teacher that no one likes despite her being such a cheerful and compassionate person? Could you think of spending almost every single period in total silence? Have you realized that this is all because of you?!”

Despite Jimin’s desperation to contradict Taehyung’s accusations, no words could come out. There was no way to describe the strong feelings of guilt and regret that were haunting him as he heard his classmate’s harsh but truthful words. There was no statement he had the right to make.

Little did Taehyung know that Jimin had witnessed the class couple’s breakup, and remembered it perfectly. How the two of them were arguing over Hyejin pulling a girl’s hair. How that unnamed girl was, according to them, obsessed with a guy whose name had not been mentioned either. The guy’s identity was unknown, yet he was the one being blamed. Maybe that guy was him.

Jimin then mentally slapped himself at the thought in order to bring himself back to reality. Though he was unsure as to whether he wanted to believe this, there was no way it was him. A girl obsessing over a guy like him to the point of being the leading cause of a quarrel was out of the question. Fantasizing was inappropriate at such a critical moment.

It then flashed into his mind that he also knew about the new teacher. It turned out it was that teacher Han he had once overheard the principal talking to. The student teacher that allegedly wanted to leave the school because the students did not treat her with acceptance. The one that wanted to brighten up the atmosphere of the class, but could not achieve that because of how ashamed a classmate’s absence had made them feel.

Last but not least, he did know the simple truth from the start – that it was indeed all because of him.

“Now what?” Taehyung cut in on Jimin’s thoughts in a lower tone as he let go of him. “Has it now hit you how much you’ve destroyed everyone?!”

With these words came a forceful punch on Jimin’s stomach, causing him to smash against the wall again. This time, the latter only winced in pain, as he still had not forgotten his aim not to prove himself a weakling.

“You can’t even hide your pain.” Taehyung let out a laugh, then he sighed. “Ah, you really don’t deserve that girl’s love…”

It was a second later that Taehyung realized what he had just blurted out. He instantly covered his mouth with his hand and widened his eyes in embarrassment.

The one thing he should never divulge was Miyeon’s obsessive love with Jimin. If he found out, she won. Jimin would know there was a girl out there who was in love with him, and that would be one step closer to those two possibly ending up together. Miyeon did not deserve a happy end; she had messed up as much as, if not more than, Jimin had.

Jimin, on the other hand, was beyond shocked by the other’s last statement. There was no way that very guy was telling the truth. No girl would actually fall in love with him. It was the second time that thought had crossed his mind, yet it still seemed implausible.

A long silence followed between the two. No word could be said; Jimin was in plain shock and Taehyung had run out of words, as there was nothing he could say without making things worse. Shame on you, Kim Taehyung! Did he really need to know that?!

A minute later, Jimin was the first one to find the courage to speak up. “Who…” His voice came out raspy and he struggled to let the words out, for they would be the first words Taehyung would hear from him in weeks. Eventually, he managed to ask that very important question in a determined tone. “Who is that girl?”

He got no answer. Taehyung was discouraged from saying anything more.

“Who is that girl?!” he repeated in frustration. For once, he wanted to know who that girl was. Being the second time he had heard about that girl without knowing her name, he had already had enough of living a lie.

Taehyung, who had utterly disappointed himself for not keeping his mouth shut, tried to make up for it. “I-It doesn’t matter who she is,” was all he could say, before going back to acting tough. “What matters is that—”

“Hey Kim Taehyung, can you just stop the excuses and tell me the truth?” Jimin was finally brave enough to stop him and demand an answer once more. “What has been going on while I’m missing? How long are you going to fool me?!”

“Fine! Do you want to know another thing you’ve done? We now all have to deal with a girl who’s been secretly in love with you for years and was so devastated when you went missing that all she does now is cry about you all day! You really have no idea how much she wants you back! Are you satisfied now?”

Jimin then hopelessly tried to figure out who that unnamed girl could be, until it hit him. He remembered one of his recent visits to the school. His most meaningful memory of that visit was the sight of one of his classmates leaning against the wall of the hallway and staring at her phone with tears blurring the lenses of her oval glasses. He also recalled the cowardness and reservedness that had been restraining him from approaching her. She was the first person he had seen crying since his disappearance.

“Is that girl—”

“I’ll let you find out by yourself.” Taehyung still had to keep the promise to himself not to reveal everything about Miyeon, so the last thing left to do was save her identity.

He then tried to walk away, but Jimin stopped him by shouting, “No, you won’t!”

Taehyung did not reply. Instead, he turned back to Jimin and without a second thought, he punched him hard on the face.

Jimin tried to lean on the wall to prevent himself from falling. He did not complain about the pain because he deserved it. He deserved every single punch Taehyung had given him in one night. He deserved it all after hurting everyone around him with his selfish actions.

As he was watching Taehyung walking away, he finally made the decision to rectify his mistakes. Hiding from the world for any longer was not the fix.

It was about time he revealed himself.