ByulHee went back to school after the weekend, and ran into JongIn with his bike at the school gate. The boy waved at her as he cycled his way inside the school compound, and she waved back, now with a smile on her face.

“See you in class!” JongIn hollered, turning back his head to look at her as he said that.

“Sure but keep your eyes on the road, JongIn! Be careful not to run into the pole!” She replied and giggled afterwards while watching JongIn trying to get away from the pole, which was just a few inches away from him.

Shaking her head, ByulHee entered the building and headed straight to her class. Unfortunately, just as she was about to reach there, MinJi and her friends appeared at the doorway and started grabbing ByulHee’s arms before pulling her away.

ByulHee, who was still astonished by what was happening, tried to gather her courage and asked, “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?” Though she was scared that they might beat her up for talking, she still wanted to know what they wanted from her now, after causing her a trouble few days ago.

Turning to her with a smile void of mercy, MinJi answered with an incongruously gentle voice, “We’re going for a little stroll at the park. You’d like that, don’t you?”

With that, ByulHee blanched straight away as they continued shepherding her towards the back door of the school compound. She didn’t need to ask MinJi for embellishment, as she instantly understood what she meant.

They were planning to play hooky, and they meant to get her involved.

“No, no! Please!” ByulHee exclaimed, before feeling surprised with herself for having such nerve in her to fight back. “Please don’t include me in this! I promise I won’t tell anyone! Please let me go!” She begged, looking around at the same time for any signs of help.

And as it turned out, there was no one around the area where the back gate was, just as she’d thought. JongIn told her once not to play around at the back gate alone, as it was quiet and if anything were to happen to her, nobody would know.

 And JongIn was definitely right. There wasn’t a single soul in her vicinity for her to ask for help. And the only word that screamed inside her head was ‘Trouble’, ‘Trouble’, ‘Trouble’.

“We’re going to have so much fun, sweetie.” MinJi said, opening the lock on the back door easily. ByulHee wondered where’d she find the keys to the door, but then it dawned on her that they must’ve done this a thousand times hence it wasn’t going to be a problem for them.

After the door was opened, they dragged her out and began taking her further and further away from the school. ByulHee tried to turn her head to look back at her school, which was getting smaller in her sight and suddenly thought of JongIn.

He must’ve been wondering where she had gone, and how she’d wished that she could send an air message to him, telling him that she was in trouble. Then he would come and help her, and she knew that he would.

ByulHee shook her head silently then and mentally scolding herself for imagining that help would ever come. No. She can never send a telepathy message to JongIn, he would never know where she was, and no aid was going to come.

The only thing that she was sure about was that she was in a deep, deep trouble.

“Hey, JongIn. Why the long face?” BaekHyun asked after putting his tray of food on the table right at the opposite of JongIn. The said boy, in the meantime, was a bundle of nerves. He kept glancing all over the cafeteria with an expecting and troubled look on his face.

“Where did she go?” JongIn said to himself, but loud enough for the rest of his friends at the table to hear. The rest of the boys began looking at each other, as if wondering the reason why JongIn was like a cat on hot bricks.

“Who do you mean, JongIn?” JunMyeon asked next, feeling worried that his friend was being all jumpy and on edge. They’d all noticed that from the minute JongIn entered the cafeteria and sat down on his chair harshly before beginning to scan the crowd.

Turning to him with a red face, JongIn exclaimed, “ByulHee! I couldn’t bloody find her anywhere!” his tone came out rather harsher than he would’ve liked, but concern coated his words hence his friends understood it immediately that he was just being too nervous.

They didn’t get to see that side from JongIn much. Rarely, I might say, so if he was being panicky about something, it had to be something serious.

“What do you mean you can’t find her anywhere? Wasn’t she in class?” SeHun asked then, tranquilly, as if to try to calm his friend down. JongIn’s attitude was worrying the others very much, and they could see that he was trying to hold himself back from running out of the cafeteria.

Shaking his head furiously with bated breath, JongIn explained, “No, she wasn’t in class. But I saw her this morning when I entered the school gate and that was it. I told her there and then that I’ll see her in class and she said yes but after that, I haven’t seen the sight of her the entire morning! This has never happened before and she’s not the type to skip classes.”

The others nodded their heads in sync and began to understand what was going on now. Leaving their meals aside, now their main concern was about ByulHee. Though they only knew about her vaguely, but they all liked her. A friend of JongIn’s was a friend of theirs too.

“Do you have any idea or clue what might have happened to her?” ChanYeol asked, the kid like demeanor of his had disappeared. This wasn’t a matter to be taken lightly. They all knew that ByulHee always stuck to JongIn and if she had disappeared after being seen by JongIn in the morning, then something was wrong.

JongIn nodded his head a little after giving ChanYeol’s question some thought. Yes, he kind of knew where she’d gone, after thinking about it. He’d searched for her the entire school every time a lesson ended and still couldn’t find ByulHee anywhere.

“Yes, I think I know where she might be and who she’s with.” He said, with a low growl that he tried to suppress. Just the mere thought of them caused his blood to boil and he would do anything just to get his friend back.

Standing up from his chair, he said to his friends, “If they lay a finger on her, I swear I’ll break all of them. I’m going to look for her now, and you boys can’t stop me. If anything were to happen to her, I won’t forgive myself. I should’ve known better than to let her wander off on her own when MinJi is still on her tail. So, are you planning to join me or are you going to be good boys and attend the rest of the lessons?”

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