I didn’t speak to Baekhyun at all the next day; I didn’t get a chance to. Contrary to his usual routine, he was late to school, appearing in the doorway about twenty minutes after class was in session, huffing and panting. I frowned as I watched him walk over to the teacher and explain.

 I had gotten worried when he didn’t reply my text asking if he wanted to take the bus to school with me. When I arrived, I searched for him but I couldn’t find him by the lockers or in the music room. I decided to try another tactic and searched for Chanyeol instead, finding his tall, imposing figure bent over a textbook as he tried to complete some unfinished homework.

“No,” he told me when I asked. “I haven’t seen him. I thought he was with you.”

I left him with a thanks and a quick pointer on how to solve the question he had been racking his brain to find the answer for. In the end, the bell rang and I was forced to move on to class. My gaze kept darting towards the door, wondering what could have held him and made him this late, and then worrying even more when the thought of him being ill or injured fleeted through my mind.

I was mulling over my thoughts when he came in, looking somewhat like an unkempt mess.

When he was done, the teacher nodded and sent him to his seat, giving him a quick warning about the consequences if he was ever tardy again. I tried to catch Baekhyun’s eyes as he walked past me, giving him a questioning stare that translated to ‘Where were you?’

He avoided my eyes though, keeping his gaze downcast as he passed me. I noticed the dark rings around his eyes, the fine worried lines that creased his forehead and the side of his mouth. The way he walked also had somewhat a depressing feel to it; his shoulders were hunched and he dragged his feet on the floor as if he was too tired to lift it. My lips immediately formed a frown. Didn’t he get any sleep last night?

My eyes still kept following him even though he had passed my field of vision. I tried to subtly turn my head back, still desperate to catch another glimpse of him, partly hoping that he would look up and give a smile to reassure me that he was fine.

I heard a thump as he set his bag on the desk behind mine, followed by the sound of rustling paper. I waited for him to stretch his legs and continually poke one of the back legs of my chair with them like he always did to annoy me.

I waited for the whole day, and not once did he try.

The last period we had that day was P.E., and by then I was getting both annoyed and concerned over Baekhyun’s odd behaviour. He had avoided me for the whole day, dashing out of the class as fast as he could before I could even open my mouth to utter his name and then coming in just as the bell rang so that he didn’t have to talk to me. I tried many times to try and make him look at me, but Baekhyun was adamant; he kept his gaze on the walls, the floor and the ceiling –everywhere but on me.

Every time I saw him though, there was always that same troubled frown, strange and foreign in his features. I was too used to having his face constantly painted with smiles that were as radiant and as bright as the sun.

I was just walking out of the girls’ changing room, armed with the solid resolution that I was going to confront Baekhyun today and question his incomprehensible, if not alarming, behaviour. I had literally barged into the shower and changed at lightning speed, determined to catch him at the main doors of the school before he could make his escape.

I was immensely annoyed and frustrated when I realised that I hadn’t taken the things I shoved in my locker this morning.

Stomping down the halls and alarming a few students who I pushed past in the process, I finally reached my locker. I dialled the combination of my lock with impatient turns and incessant aggressiveness, cursing my stupidity.

My anger dissolved into surprise once I found a gold box sitting on top of my books, embellished with a red bow on the top. I reached out and gingerly took it, gently inspecting it before lifting the lid slightly to see the contents. Chocolates. A card was taped diagonally on the top, coloured plain white with no words but a pouting bear holding wilted flower decorating the front. Cautiously, I flipped it to read its contents.

I’m sorry.

Come to the pond if you forgive me.

It wasn’t signed, but I knew the handwriting as well as I knew my own. I had seen it countless of times when I bent over his books and read the notes he passed to me when we both felt bored in class. I had seen how it had developed from a messy child-like scrawl into the elegant scripture of an adult’s.

Clutching the box to my chest, I ran down the hall, vowing that I would find out the cause of my best friend’s strange behaviour today.