Yoongi coughed mildly and quickly covered his mouth. Some of the students in the library took a quick glimpse at him before minding their own business. They were not disturbed nor irritated with little noise he made, somehow, they were concern. The air conditioning was quite cold. Colder than usual.

Seokjin gazed at Yoongi for a few seconds before noticing that his roommate was struggling to adjust with the coldness of the library. Then, he was reminded by a glass of water and two white pills which Yoongi took before. Min Yoongi was not in his best condition.

“Yah, Yoongi,” Seokjin hissed and the other guy looked up while rubbing the back of his neck. “Are you cold?”

Yoongi nodded and massaged his sore wrist. He had been in the library a few hours earlier than Seokjin. From 9 A.M until now, 2.30 P.M. Yoongi was making questions for every chapter they learned. He was always hard-working and dedicated to his study. “Here.”

He looked up and saw a blue sweater in Seokjin’s hand. The other guy was offering Yoongi his sweater. Yoongi was dumbfounded for a while. He then smiled widely and accepted Seokjin’s kindness. He put them on and continued the lesson he was revising. Anatomy is not easy to begin with, Yoongi shut his eyes. When his eyes flutter opened, the white sheet of his notebook greeted him. However, there were two droplets of red liquid on it. Then, it became three, four and more. Blood. Yoongi’s eyes rounded. He quickly stood up, while covering his nose. He ran to the washroom.

Meanwhile, other students watched him, full of curiosity. Seokjin too was surprised to see Yoongi rushing to the washroom. However, when he saw droplets of blood on Yoongi’s notebook, he understood it. Seokjin became worried and ready to follow Yoongi.

“Kim Seokjin.”

His pace died. Seokjin froze. This voice, Seokjin knew him. He slowly spun around and he was right. “Sunbae-nim.” He bowed, politely.

Jungkook smiled awkwardly and patted Seokjin’s shoulder. “Chill,” he said and looked around. The library was very quiet and empty. Less than 20 students in it. Jungkook took a blue file in his bag, while Seokjin was staring at every action he made. The senior then handed the file to the junior.

Seokjin did not blink his eyes. His eyes shifted between Jungkook and the file he was holding. This is not the first time, Seokjin whispered to himself.

“Yah.” Jungkook shoved the file on Seokjin’s chest, surprising the junior. “Next week, all RT students will have examination,” he paused while looking around, avoiding the junior’s gaze, “these are my notes and past-year papers. Every year, the pattern of the examinations is constant. Nothing change. Do well, because later, you can choose your own mentor.”

“Mentor?” Seokjin’s forehead furrowed. “The Mentoring programme?” When Jungkook nodded, Seokjin’s mouth formed an ‘O’. “I heard that if I do well in this coming test, I can choose any of the RT seniors to be my mentor,” he responded, “is that true?”

Looking at how Seokjin’s face lit up, it amused Jungkook. This guy used to hang his head low when he met Jungkook’s eyes. Now, no more. Kim Seokjin was more innocent than how he thought. He chuckled and again, nodded. “Yes, hoobae. You can choose.” Taping the junior’s arm, Jungkook walked away, leaving Seokjin.

“Sunbae-nim,” Seokjin called him. Jungkook stopped on his track and turned around. “Thank you. Just to let you know that I don’t hold grudge towards others.”

The last sentence worked magically on Jungkook. He felt as if a heavy load of burden was taken away from his shoulder. After he wrongly accused Seokjin and gave the junior a hard time, Jungkook came to his senses. He realized that Seokjin did not badmouth him. It was purely a misunderstanding. He felt very guilty towards Seokjin, which was why he kept giving him his notes and other study guides. Jungkook was hoping, he could make up his mistakes.

.   .   .   .   .

“I’m interested in Awfulization,” Jimin voiced out while playing with the pen in his fingers. He stared at Yaerin who was reading attentively in front of him. She wore glasses and once in a while when it slipped down from the bridge of her nose, she would push it again.

Yaerin made a small dot at the third paragraph of the book she was reading with her pencil. Then, she looked up, tilting her head, indirectly commanding Jimin to explain more about his idea.

Jimin understood her body gesture and gave in. He leaned closer to the table and smiled. “You know, awfulization is very challenging for us to teach people. It's about how to cope with stress, right?” he asked, trying to receive Yaerin’s feedback.

She nodded. “Yes, very challenging. Especially for cognitive therapist. Go on,” she replied.

The short answer was enough to make the smile on his face became wider. “Just like how a lot of people refused to imagine the worst scenario of some matters, don’t you think it will be very interesting? I mean, are they afraid of something, or they are simply ignorant?”

“But that depends on the respondent’s background,” Yaerin replied calmly. She took her glasses off and put it aside. “So, who’s your sample?”

Jimin was taken aback. He was not fully prepared. “Well, I haven’t thought of the respondent.” He his dry lips and looked away. “But, Yaerin-ah.” He would not give up. “Let’s say if we make a research about awfulization; a habit of refusing to think about unwanted consequences, don’t you think we are going to get a lot of information?”

“Such as?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Such as,” he paused, thinking harder and he got it. “Such as Attributional styles!” His face brightened. “Yes! We can identify about Internal Locus of Control (ILC) or External Locus of Control (ELC).”

Yaerin nodded while tapping her pen on her chin. “So, if they are ILC, in whatever situation, they will try to change things based on themselves. They are going to correct and change themselves first because they believe that if a thing goes wrong, it might come from their incompetency. But ELC is the opposite; very weak in changing or controlling something,” she said, “So, you basically want to do about Coping Strategies for Stress?”

Jimin sighed. “I thought it was brilliant enough a few seconds ago, until you sum up everything and made it look too simple and…worthless.” He sulked. The pen he was playing with was thrown on the table.

It startled Yaerin. Her jaw dropped, slightly. She felt guilty for being too straightforward. “Yah, Park Jimin. Don’t get me wrong.” She sighed. “I found it very interesting when you brought up about Awfulization. But when you didn’t know who’s your respondent, and when you included Attributional Styles, you lost some points there.” Yaerin scratched her head. “I mean, there are several groups who’ll be doing about Coping Strategies which means, they are going to talk about Attributional styles. And of course, about Locus of Control.”

“Then, do you have any idea?”

Yaerin nodded. “I’m going to highlight about Defence Mechanism,” she answered. “Because Defence Mechanism is very powerful, yet unconscious. It is all about how one will do anything to protect their self-image.”

Jimin was planning to sulk for a while. However, Yaerin’s idea made him grabbed his pen back. He listened to her assiduously. “I got it. But how do we make survey questions on Defence Mechanism?”

This is why preparation is important, she smiled widely. “The survey questions will be about grudge and dissatisfaction which lead to harmful action. For example, bully cases. We will give them a lot of scenarios, and asked them: what will they do. But you and I, we are going to improvise those questions later. So, our Defence Mechanism will revolve around handling grudge and dissatisfaction.” Yaerin looked at Jimin and the guy was nodding all the time. He looked pleased enough. “And about the respondent, they should be from a school or instituition which highly drain the students’ physical and mental endurance.” Yaerin bit her bottom lip nervously.

“What if we take MMI students as our samples?” Yaerin suggested.

Jimin, who was deep in his thoughts was snapped out. He lifted his chin and gazed at Yaerin with his eyes as round as a saucepan. His expression clearly showed that he was against the idea of choosing MMI. Althought he knew why MMI, he still foolishly asked, “Why it should be MMI, Yoo Yaerin?”

.   .   .   .   .

The lecturer smiled at Seokjin, handing Seokjin’s performance card to him. Seokjin took a glance at his performance card and hid his wide smile. He was in the first place again. He felt delighted that he could maintain his grade well, despite getting ostracized by his classmates. For Seokjin, he was totally fine as long as that he had Yoongi and Jungkook.

“Well done, saeki-yah,” Yoongi whispered and winked at Seokjin. On the other hand, Seokjin smiled widely to his roommate and took a seat beside Yoongi. “You can choose your favourite senior to be your mentor later.” Yoongi reminded him.

Seokjin chuckled and put his performance card inside his bag before paying attention to the professor who was talking on the stage. The hall was half occupied because all the students there were RTS. From the first year to the final year students. They all gathered for the Exellence Award that was held after every examination. The purpose of the award was to appreciate students who had done their best, and motivated others to do better next time.

Really?

“That’s all for today. You may dismiss,” the professor announced. “However, I hope that the first-year and the second-year students could stay here for our Mentoring Programme.” And less than five minutes, the hall was left with less than 50 students. Twenty students of first-year and another twenty for the second-year students.

Then, they were asked to make a line according to respective batch. There were two straight lines, side by side. Once in a while, the seniors would glance at the juniors. However, everyone knew the seniors were targetting that one innocent soul. Kim Seokjin.

“Yah.” Yoongi whispered, calling out for Seokjin who was sitting anxiously in front of him. Yoongi could see how Seokjin was looking down all the time.

“What?”

Yoongi tilted his head a little. “Since you can choose your mentor,” he said while his eyes wandered around. “Who would it be?”

Seokjin smiled. He then held his left shoulder and it stung. It was a few days before the examination, he was summoned. Summoned by Kim Taehyung. When he entered Taehyung’s room, he was not prepared to face another five seniors there. He thought, Taehyung would be alone. They interrogated him, somehow, it seemed more like they were accusing him for being snobbish. And the last thing he knew, his favourite shirt was full of blood stain. His own blood.

He released a long sigh. “Probably not Kim Taehyung Sunbae-nim.”

Yoongi was speechless. Taehyung was his role model and hearing that line from Seokjin, it offended him in some ways. His excitement died. “Then, whom?”

“Attention, students. Our pairing session will start now,” the professor began. “We have changed a little bit of the pairing system of our Mentoring Programme under certain circumstances. After almost five years, none of MMI students were selected to be international exchange students. However, last year, Kim Taehyung has proved to us that nothing is impossible.”

A round of applause was given to Kim Taehyung. Seokjin glanced at Taehyung and the guy was smiling sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. Seokjin suddenly felt uneasy.

“So for this year Mentoring Programme, before I let Kim Seokjin chooses the senior he would like to have as his mentor, I would like to invite Kim Taehyung to come in front and choose his mentee.” The professor smiled widely, unaware of what kind of fatal trap he had set up.

The seniors were cheering up for Taehyung. Every step he made, they clapped for him until he was standing proudly on the stage. The professor handed him the microphone and Taehyung immediately spotted his favourite junior. His favourite junior was staring at the floor, as if the floor was the most attractive thing in the world.

He smirked. “I, Kim Taehyung, am ready to guide, to listen to my mentee’s opinions,” he started to spill the Mentor Vow, “to help him in any circumstances and to share my knowledge with…” Taehyung mentally shouted his victory. “With my junior, Kim Seokjin.”

The seniors clapped and cheered happily, at the same time full of mockery. They were mocking Kim Seokjin wholeheartedly. However, among the noisy crowd, there was one person who stayed silent, endlessly blaming himself.

It was no other than Jeon Jungkook.