[CONTENTID1]CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]

I heard the scrapping on feet against the pebbles on the ground long before a face was illuminated by the single flickering light at the end of the dark street, and in all honesty, I would rather had not seen his face at all.

There stood JiMin, his eyes wide with terror and a glister of sweat sliding down his brow as he panted tired breaths of air into the air. In front of me, JeongGuk let out a mangled gasp, as if not yet ready for the confrontation that was about to happen between the two males.

And yet as JiMin came closer to JeongGuk’s crumbled form on the ground, his eyes never left mine, their molten caramel now representing a burned one, so much darker, and colder, and bitter. There was nothing friendly in JiMin’s eyes.

I could still remember the older male’s cold voice as he answered the phone only to find out that the caller was me, and not JeongGuk. I even remembered the way his voice trembled as he said, “I’ll be there soon” when I told him what happened to his friend. He was terrified then, but now… I wanted to get out from his overwhelming presence.

“What, exactly, happened?” his usually soft voice gained a sliver of malice, his rage nearly gaining a shape behind him as he trained his eyes on me.

“He got beaten up is all.” I tried to wave him off and my heel, wanting nothing less but to leave, and do it now.

Alas, my wrist was grabbed in a vice grip and I stumbled a couple of steps back, face to face with JiMin as he panted with his anger still let loose. “It was your fault, you know? How dare you leave when all of this mess is your ing fault?” though his voice was calm and controlled, there was frozen fury there. And I had never before heard JiMin curse, not in my face, anyway. To say I was scared was an understatement.

I saw JeongGuk’s hand twitch from his lap, head still drawn down and looking at the dirty ground. In defiance, I tried to shake my own limb free, trying to glare at JiMin with the same tension as he did at me. “What do you mean it’s my fault? It’s quite the contrary, I’m the one who helped him and called your sorry self to haul him back.”

His grip only tightened. “It was because you left.” He spat into my face and I cringed away, heart clenching in my chest. It wasn’t my fault. “You, who became such a good friend, a beam of support for Kim Tan, JungKoo