After walking into Jiyeon and Jaebum, I wasn’t so sure what to do with myself anymore.

I soon came to the conclusion that I wasn’t skinny enough. I wasn’t pretty enough, so I was yet to be worthy of Jaebum’s warm touches; his kisses. That left only one option.

Without anyone knowing – not that anyone even would have cared – I began to skip classes. At first, it had been only for a few hours. That slowly grew to once or twice a week. Sometimes, I would just decide to ditch the whole weak, too drowning in self-hate to pull myself out of the covers.

Skipping classes, I would go for long walks around the town, not caring much for my aching limbs that would scream bloody murder. It didn’t matter anyways; hurting meant that I was losing fat. Hurting meant that I was losing weight.

At first, I was scared that someone would notice. They would realize that I was skipping classes and scold me for wasting my parents’ hard earned money. But no one did. My parents just couldn’t care less; the school had better things to worry about.

Arriving at school after skipping a week of classes (the most I’d skipped at once), I was met face to face with a steaming Daehyun, pulling me aside with his brows scrunched up into a thick stripe. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that he was worried.

“Where the hell were you?”

“Sick.”

His dark eyes did me a quick look over before they fell back on my face. For a second, we remained in silence, his eyes glaring holes into me. I wanted to squirm away. “You look sick.”

I winced at his words, cringing. I knew I looked disgusting. I didn’t need him to tell me. I had too much fat on my cheeks; too much hanging blubber on my stomach and thighs. It just didn’t matter how much I tried, I’d forever be too fat; too ugly.

“Have you even eaten lately?”

I hadn’t, but Daehyun didn’t need to know this.

“Move; I have to go to class. If I miss class again, I’ll never be able to catch up.”

“Yeah?” For a second, it would have been safe to assume that Daehyun would let me go. But he never had been quite all that normal. Out of all of Jaebum’s friends, he had always been the odd one out; the one with the weird black mask over his fatty lips that everyone knew blabbed too much for its own good. “Well, too bad, looks like you’re just going to have to repeat ninth grade.”

Under the narrowed glare of Jaebum, I let Daehyun lead me away, his hands wrapped around my wrist, tugging me out of the school building. What I should have done was to scream for help; but instead, what I did was follow out, only a few hisses of resentment escaping.

I guess I never really wanted to go to class anyways.