Taemin paused outside the last of Minzy’s classroom before knocking on the door. The teacher answered the door, “yes?”

“Can I pick up homework for Minzy?”

The teacher motioned for Taemin to come into the classroom, “they’re taking a test, wait a minute while I gather the material. Why has she been absent lately?”

Taemin plodded over to the teachers desk, “uh, she’s been sick.”

“Hm, must be some kind of cold,” he shuffled through some papers.

“Yeah, I gues-“ Taemin started to respond but was interrupted by the light snickering coming from someone in the class. He pulled his lips tight and glanced around the room angrily. In the one of the middle rows was a boy bent over his test, his shoulders heaving slightly. Taemin hissed through his teeth silently, that test better be damn funny. 

“Eden, shut your trap,” the teacher chucked an eraser at the boy, “this is a test.”

The boy grumbled and shot Taemin an evil look before turning back to his paper. Taemin huffed and squinted his eyes; he didn’t know who this guy was, but he knew who would.

~

“Sulli,” Taemin shoved the homework for Minzy into his bag as he chased after the girl, “do you know a guy called Eden?”

She nodded, “that’s not his real name, but yeah.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

Sulli thought for a moment, “he’s a pretty popular guy, one of those ‘bad boy’ types. I’ve heard both good things and bad things about him. Quite the player.”

“Hm. Who does he hang out with?”

“The music club.”

“Anyone else?” Taemin tried to push her without being obvious.

Sulli raised her brow, “well, uh, I guess some of the less desirables.”

 Taemin grimaced, “thanks.”

He waved goodbye to the girl and made his way towards the back of the school where the music room was. A group of students were scattered around the door, practicing individually or tuning their voices. Taemin had a bad feeling wash over him, he stopped a ways down the hallway and watched them. In the corner of the hallway a brunette girl was sitting by herself with her eyes clothes. She was blatantly ignoring everyone else even though she wasn’t practicing, but she didn’t seem stuck up.

Taemin watched her for a while until someone came up and sat beside her. She opened her eyes and flinched at the boy sitting beside her; he ran his hand up her leg and leaned in, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

Once he left the girl pulled her sleeve over her hand and wiped her face; she made a horrible expression and stood up. Rolling his eyes Taemin blamed high school relationships for destroying love.

The redhead sighed and made his way out of the school and to Minzy’s.

~~

Minzy stood at the inside of the front door and watched as Taemin walked away from the house. Honestly, he could leave her alone and she would still love him like family. She knew he was trying to make up for what happened but she couldn’t blame him any more than she could blame her brother or a random stranger.

She sighed to herself and looked out at the street once more before closing the door. It had probably been about four days since she’d last been outside and five days since she last saw Jiyong. Seunghyun told him she was sick through a text message and not to bother her.

So far he’d done just so, only sending her text messages every so often to see if she could talk. She’d stuck to Seunghyun’s story of being sick and pretended to have lost her voice. She might as well have; other than to Seunghyun and occasionally Taemin, she didn’t say a word.

Curling up on the couch Minzy snuggled into the nest of blankets and pillows she’d made for herself. Everything was too much of a bother, reading, drawing, even watching television.

After a few hours of mindlessly staring at the wall someone knocked on the door. Minzy breathed silently and heaved herself up from the couch to answer the door. When she opened the door she was face to face with a pretty girl.

The girl had long brown hair with thick fringe over her forehead; the girl narrowed her eyes at Minzy.

“Y-yes?” Minzy blinked at the girl, concerned.

“You,” the girl clenched her fists and shoved them against her sides, “you screwed my boyfriend!”

~~

“Listen to me,” Seunghyun seethed into the phone, “and listen to me well. You make sure you are the one who picks him up. I don’t care where you are or when, you make it happen.”

“And then you bring him to me.”

Uh-huh

“Daesung!” Seunghyun slammed his fist against the wall of his tattoo studio, “I’m serious.”

The man on the other end made a pained sound, “I know it’s serious! And I told you I would. Just remember I could lose my job for this.”

“I know you would do just as much for my little sister as I would, so don’t act like this is a difficult decision for you.”

Daesung grunted, “its not. But I’m telling you that if this costs me my job. I’ll be staying with you for a while.”

  “I suppose I can do that. Any leads so far?”

“Well, the DNA matched another unsolved, so there’s that. But, we might have to do some unsanctioned police work.”

“You know I’m okay with that.”

~~

Minzy’s jaw dropped, “I-I did no such thing…”

“You liar!” The girl screamed, “he told me so! He said you seduced him into cheating on me. Why would you do that!?”

“B-but,” Minzy blubbered, fighting back tears, “I didn’t. I’m a virg-“

Minzy stopped and realized, the most precious gift she was born with had been stolen from her; she hadn’t thought of it before. She would never be able to give it to her most loved person. Minzy chewed on her lips, trying to bite back the tears. Eventually she gave up and broke down completely.

The girl at the door cocked her head at the girl sobbing on the floor, slightly concerned. She knelt down beside Minzy, “you really didn’t know?”

“It-it’s not that,” Minzy said through hiccups.

“What did you do to her?” A voice yelled, steadily approaching the front door. The man enveloped her in his arms, “why is she crying?”

The girl shrugged and stood up, “I was so angry when I got here… I accused her of sleeping with my boyfriend.”

“Get inside,” he hissed, pulling Minzy off the floor, “I need to talk to you.”

“Who are you?” He gently led Minzy back towards her bedroom before returning to the other girl.

“Uh, my name’s Bom,” she glanced cautiously around the house, “and who are you?”

The man motioned towards the back of the house, “I’m her boyfriend.”

I was originally going to leave Bom and Jiyong unnamed from the end part of this chapter to leave you hanging but I said, "meh, it." Ya'll hate me enough as it is. T_T