“I’m getting worried,” said Yura. “Hyuna hasn’t been acting like herself for days now.”

“I know, even I’m feeling sorry for her,” CL chimed in.

It’s been days since the volleyball accident and while Hyuna’s wounds have healed completely, her mind surely hasn’t. In that classroom, she distanced herself from the seven, stuck in her own world thinking of everyone knows what. She habitually stopped eating and barely slept nor spoke unless necessary. They tried their best to at least ease her pain, but their efforts were—quite frankly—useless.

“Have you tried giving her ice cream, she likes that, right?” suggested Sungyeol.

“Yeah, she eats tubs of them,” added Myungsoo.

Yura sighed. “She has been eating ice cream. Only ice cream. And that’s bad.”

“Hey, why don’t you go talk to your lady?” Sungjong said while patting the silent Sunggyu’s back. “She’ll probably listen to you and I bet you’re bothered too. Even you’ve been acting weirdly these days.”

From afar, Sunggyu gazed at Hyuna amidst the sea of classmates. Her hair was messed up, she had nothing but unevenly spread foundation on and not to mention, her clothes were wrinkled and seemed to have been used for days.

Sunggyu rubbed his forehead in frustration. “I haven’t tried. Ever since that volley ball accident, I couldn’t speak to her properly.”

“Aw, c’mon! Didn’t she forgive you? Man up,” teased Sungjong. “Just try. Maybe she’ll listen.”

“I guess…” Sunggyu said as he nodded then added, “And you’re the one who should man up. I’m not the one with the tiny waist, a big white teddy bear for a punching bag and stick-thin thighs. Sometimes, you even go all bipolar like you’re having a period. Seriously, Lee Sungjong, you’re just like a high-maintenance girlfriend if not worse!”

Embarrassed, Sungjong’s doe eyes looked at Yura’s. “I have some man in me! I swear!”

“Now that I think of it, it does kinda look small,” she pointed out. “It makes me insecure.”

Sungjong started to panic. “Waist doesn’t matter, okay?  Your thighs look good and so does your skin.”

“Thighs?” CL commented with her brows raised. “Tch, ert.”

He shook his head rapidly in distress, waving his hands in objection. “No, that’s n-n-not what I m-meant I—“

“Smoooth,” Dongwoo remarked.

To calm Sungjong down, Yura assured him that she will take what he said as a compliment.

Entering without a greeting, Onew pointed at Sungyeol like how a cop does when catching a criminal and yelled, “Lee Sungyeol, where’s my expensive branded jacket!”

“Busted!” The class chanted.

“Hey, I thought you bought it last night,” whispered Myungsoo.

Sungyeol whispered back, “I was but I saw an awesome pair of pants so…”

Seeing that Sungyeol failed to buy him a new jacket, he went for second best. “I like that nice leather jacket you’re wearing right now. Give it to me.”

“But dude, I only have a tank top under this,” he protested. The girls squealed.

“I don’t care. Now give me that good piece of a jacket.” He stomped his foot and extended his hand to grab it. “Now!”

“Fine,” Sungyeol said in defeat. He handed his jacket to Onew who then proceeded to wear his student’s jacket with much satisfaction.

“Fits me well, don’t you think?” Onew asked rhetorically. Sungyeol stood wearing nothing but a thin white tank top and black ripped jeans that made the girls flip their phones out to take pictures.

To hit two birds with one stone, Myungsoo took the opportunity to turn his scolding into fanservice. He grabbed Sungyeol’s tank top and pulled him closer. He half-whispered, “Dude, I told you to buy it yesterday, seriously!”

“I got it, I got it.” With a smirk, Sungyeol lowered the sleeves of Myungsoo’s studded leather jacket seductively, letting it hang loose to reveal most of his arms. Under his jacket, Myungsoo wore nothing but an equally thin black tank top that matched Sungyeol’s perfectly.

They leaned in closer to each other, stopping only when their faces were merely inches apart then both said in an airy tone, “Want me to rip it off?”

“YES!” The girls shouted. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“No!” objected Onew, killing the atmosphere completely. “Sungyeol, go back to your seat, Myungsoo, put your jacket back on and obsessed fan girls, disengage your ticking ovary bombs. Class starts now.” He clapped twice. “Chop chop!”

A few minutes later, the tension died down and Onew was able to officially start his History class. The discussion was fun and informative given that he would sometimes slip or say some history jokes. He really had a way with teaching and the class attentively paid attention to him the entire time. That is, except for one of them.

He called for her attention. “Hyuna, since I know you can’t give an acceptable answer, please recite a haiku with the word ‘history’ in it. It doesn’t need to be related to history, but it has to be good or else I’ll have to ask you to get out of the classroom.”

Hyuna stood up somberly and recited her 5-7-5 poem straight from the heart.

“Hurting, disgusted
The mind cannot bid farewell
All is history”

Mouth agape, Onew couldn’t believe that the bright and cheerful Hyuna could produce such a depressing poem. The class remained silent for sometime. Like that, the bell rang, cutting their silence.

“Class dismissed,” said Onew as he packed up his things.

The bell rang as the classroom emptied, leaving behind Hyuna in her seat and Sunggyu who stood at the very back of the classroom. He calmly closed the door then toughly approached her. Pressing his hands against the edges of her desk, he looked at her straight in the eye. She lowered her head, intimidated by his gaze.

He leaned a bit closer. “You’ve been really quiet lately.”

She looked away.

He pressed, “You’re getting thin; I can tell beneath your thick sweater. You can’t hide it from me. You may be walking and breathing… but you’re dead inside, deader than a piece of raw meat.”

She bit her lip, still looking away.

“Answer me, Hyuna.”

Silence.

He leaned closer, their foreheads almost touching. She glanced up and got trapped in the intensity in his eyes. She trembled slightly, her lips quivered.

“You have to talk to him,” Sunggyu said seriously. “Try as you might, you’re bound to break down eventually. I’m doing this for your own good.”

Weak and defenseless, she clutched the ends of her baggy sweater, refusing to give in.

Not wanting to make her cry, he distanced himself from her and said his final words. “Closure is what you need and if you think not, then good luck trying to heal a wound that just gets deeper and deeper ‘till the pain becomes unbearable. In the end, you will regret what you have failed to do.”

With that, he left the classroom making the door give a dry closing thud. Hyuna remained in the classroom. She didn’t eat lunch.

---

“Tchyeah, we’re walkin’ on the victorious way,” rapped Dongwoo coolly with awesome hand gestures.

“Not bad, actually,” Sungyeol complimented.

“Yeah, it’s good,” agreed Myungsoo and Sungjong.

The four then shifted their attention to Sunggyu who had been in deep thought since the beginning of practice.

“So what do you think, Gyu?” they asked. “Should we give Dongwoo his rap solo?”

“Whatever,” he indifferently said blankly holding onto the mic stand. They couldn’t assume whether it was a yes or a no. Instead, they went to the bottom of the reason why Sunggyu was acting so out of the mood.

“You talked to Hyuna, didn’t you?” asked Sungjong.

“Yeah,” the leader replied. “Didn’t turn out so well. She didn’t even speak to me and I think I went too overboard. I just—“

He couldn’t take it any longer.

Sunggyu tightly gripped the mic and gnashed his teeth. “It’s just that—“

He was fed up.

Hyuna can’t suffer like this anymore.

“,” he cussed then stormed out of the room. As he rushed off, he mumbled, “I’m going somewhere.”

Wherever somewhere may be, he knew it was where he should go.

You guys might have an idea as to where he's going, right? Let's see if it's that predictable in the next chapter. :)) (Maybe? OTL)

Thank you for reading and I hope you guys enjoyed it~! :D