Three weeks later.

“Bang! Where are you running off to again?”

“Bye guys! See you tomorrow!” Yongguk yells back at his group of friends as he dashes out of school.

“Yah, where do you think that idiot has been running off to recently?” One of guys with brown-dyed hair nudges his friend beside him.

“How would I know. That idiot has been neglecting us lately, don’t you think?”

“Yea… Yongguk used to be around always.”

“Do you think it’s a girlfriend?”

The group starts chattering away like a flock of disturbed mynahs.

“I bet it is! That’s why Sunhee disappeared!”

“Now that you said that, I think it really is!”

“Aish, Yongguk that bastard. Got a girlfriend and won’t tell us.”

>>>>>>> 

“Hello.” Yongguk plops himself beside Zelo on the bench on the train platform.

Zelo beams as he sees Yongguk and immediately s his bag to show his Hyung his latest achievement.

“I improved a lot for math!” Zelo shows off his test paper to his proud tutor who takes hold of the paper with a red ‘18/20’

Yongguk pats Zelo on the head and scans the test questions. “Well done. Looks like somebody’s got a good teacher.”

Zelo giggles, pride swelling as Yongguk reads the test questions.

“My teacher said the test was quite challenging but I managed to get an A!” Zelo chatters excitedly, hoping to see Yongguk’s look of approval again.

And Yongguk doesn’t disappoint him. “Really? Then you’re pretty good!”

Zelo beams. It’s been such a long time he gained approval from somebody, especially his teachers and his snobby classmates. The look on their faces when his teacher announced the top scorers of the test made Zelo want to giggle again. They looked at him differently when he went to collect his test script from his smiling teacher. Now that he’s tasted the sweetness of being recognized, Zelo wants to work harder so that he can stop being looked down on. He wants to be one of the best.

“Hyung, now you help me with my chemistry.”

Yongguk groans and covers his ears. “Oh my god…”

Zelo grabs him on the arm and shakes him. “Hyung…”

“Okay okay fine. But not all the time… I’ve been doing too much work recently thanks to you.”

Zelo laughs and punches Yongguk on the shoulder. “What? Hyung! I’m doing you good! At least I’m keeping you busy so that you don’t go out and fight again!”

“Well true.” Yongguk an eyebrow. “But I do kind of miss fighting…” Yongguk glances at Zelo sideways and leaps onto Zelo who scrambles away before he could get hold of him.

The two boys laughed their way through their train journey to Zelo’s house. Zelo has stopped asking whether Yongguk was alighting one stop earlier than him; Yongguk has stopped asking if he could go to Zelo’s house because it all seems so natural now. If Yongguk wants to come, he goes. If Zelo wants him to come, he goes as well. They practically spend all their time together at Zelo’s house nowadays and Yongguk notices his friends’ disgruntlement. They were all nagging him about his negligence towards them. Yongguk rolls his eyes at his friends’ complaints.

“Why did you do that?” Zelo laughs as he notices Yongguk’s expression.

“Nothing. Just that my friends were complaining how I’m ‘neglecting’,” Yongguk does a gesture. “them nowdays.”

Furrowing his eyebrows slightly, Zelo asks, “Do you think you’ve been spending too much time with me recently, Hyung?”

“Huh, why are you saying that?” Yongguk furrows his brows too.

Zelo looks away, face with a hint of blush and sheepishness. “Well because you know… I feel like I’m hogging you all the time and you hardly meet your friends now except in school…” Zelo’s eyes darts to meet Yongguk’s as he confesses.

Yongguk just laughs and assures him, “No… I chose to hang out with you. And it’s not like I cut them off completely.”

“But still… I feel like I’m… like… keeping you all to myself. Because after school, you’re always with me… Is it because of me asking you to tutor me?” Zelo’s eyes suddenly look worried as he stares at Yongguk. “If I’m troubling you then…”

Yongguk does a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Dude, I won’t tutor you if I don’t want to!”

“But…”

“Okay okay, shh.”

Yongguk silences a pouting Zelo as he leans back against the train door. If Zelo asks why, he can’t explain it because he isn’t sure either. So the best way is to shut Zelo up before he asks that difficult question he is also wondering until now.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

“Maria…”

The plump woman in her forties immediately returns to the bedside, a look of utter concern as she bends slightly over the bed, asking the sickly man, “What do you need sir? Water? Anything?”

The pale-faced man closes his eyes and shakes his head weakly, holding up a trembling hand to stop the quick-tongued woman before she bombards him with more questions.

“Don’t.” He swallows difficultly “Don’t tell Yongguk.” is all he got out of his raspy voice before he eases himself back onto the pillow again, brows furrowing at the pain in his abdomen.

“But, Sir…” Maria stops herself before the man before her speaks again. She knows he is going to be persistent about keeping shut and she don’t want him to strain himself to do that. She takes a long look at the pale face in front of her, resting with all troubles and pain written on his face. The best she can do for him is to do what he wants—don’t tell anything to Yongguk. Quietly, she pours out a glass of water and places it back on the table beside the bed before exiting the room with another glance at the patient.

She sits down on one of the chairs outside the ward, leaning her back onto the white wall of the sickly-clean smelling hospital. She was at the house, mopping the floors and scolding Yongguk for throwing his clothes on the floor when the phone rang loudly in the living room. She put down her mop and ran to the ringing phone while cursing it for giving her a fright. She didn’t expect the call to be a bringer of bad news until she heard the words from the other side of the receiver. She came as quickly as she could to the hospital to find her employer extremely ill.

Maria is a woman full of emotions and she can’t help but feel sad for someone she worked for so many years. What makes her even more sad than the doctor telling her that the man she came to see is probably dying of cancer, is that the poor fellow won’t even tell his own son, his only kin that he’s probably going to die of this gruesome illness. Maria feels tears leaking out of her eyes. Silly you, she thinks, don’t be so emotional.

Maria fiddles with her phone in her hands, having a tug-of-war between her mind and her emotions. To call or not to call? Well, Mr Bang said not to and she has to respect the man’s decision but he seems like such a poor thing if Yongguk doesn’t know! Maria sighs loudly and clutches her ph