I kept my expression neutral as I stood in the doorway. I don’t really think he can do anything to me.

“Take a seat, we’ll be having a long chat,” he gestured towards the chair in front of his desk.

I took my time walking to the chair and then plopped into it. I pushed myself all the way to the back and slouched as much as I could with my legs going out as far as they could. I crossed my arms on my chest.

“Sit up straight,” Choi said, one of his eyebrow’s twitching.

I didn’t move.

“Alright then, this has just confirmed which method I will be using to discipline you. You chose it; the way hard way,” Choi said

I half rolled my eyes as they drifted to a painting on the wall behind him.

“I know it was you and your friends who vandalized the garage,” he started. “And got Lee Sungjong to do something incredibly stupid. It was funny to you, was it?”

I didn’t say anything and determinedly stared at the painting of a sailboat.

“Exercising your right to remain silent?” Choi asked in a challenging voice. “Well I’d like to inform you that Sungjong has broken his arm, has stitches on his forehead, a sprained ankle and a neck brace.”

I was surprised but I kept my facial expression the same.

“Then there’s the lovely drawings on the garages,” Choi continued. “So, are you going to admit it?”

“Admit what?” I asked.

“That you caused Sungjong to fall from the second floor and it was you and your friends who vandalized the garages.”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” I shrugged. Sure there were cameras that could have seen us, but we were outside in the dark, no one could make out our faces in the dark. Not that Jung had ever looked through camera tapes to see justice, he would just glare and try to ignore what we did cause he knew we could do worse. Jung had never really tried to stop us doing what we do, that’s probably why we do stupid things so much.

“You know,” Choi said loudly, as if he was reading my mind. “There may not have been a camera outside to see you and your friends vandalize or to catch Sungjong’s fall. But there are cameras inside the school.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, what was his point?

And then it slowly dawned on me.

“There’s a tape of you and Sungjong walking through the halls,” Choi said, in a voice that suggested we were having a conversation about cupcakes and sweets. “And it only shows you and Sungjong. Sungjong says he doesn’t remember much of what happened before the fall, if we accuse strictly based on evidence, it could seem like you pushed Sungjong from that classroom.”

How could we be so stupid as to not consider the cameras inside? We never expected things to get this far, that’s why, none of us expected someone to actually try and dig up evidence against us.

Choi was still watching me closely, looking for a change in expression.

“I got special permission to keep this matter in the school’s hands, but I could easily take it back to the police. Do you know what that means?” He leaned forward. “You could be charged for attempted murder.”

A large rock seemed to have been dumped in my stomach.

“Got your attention now, eh?” Choi said, looking satisfied.

“So why didn’t you just hand me over to the cops?” I asked, ignoring his comment.

“I see no reason to put a criminal record on a young man when I can give punishment without ruining a clean record,” he stated.

“You should have given me to the cops,” I said, annoyed despite the fact that I didn’t want a criminal record. “I don’t need you to look after my record.”

He raised an eyebrow.

I was starting to grow quite irritated at this man. A few moments of seeing me and he decided I was out of line and that he needed to put me under his foot. I’m not stupid, he just wants to show me that he can boss me around now since I was disrespectful before.

“Okay, I’ll get straight to your punishment then,” he cleared his throat. “You’re suspended for two days, one of them being today and you will be volunteering at a children’s hospital until June.”

“Excuse me?”

“And you have detention for a month,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me.

“Yeah, cause I’m going to listen to you,” I scoffed.

“You will,” Choi narrowed his eyes. “Or I really will give this to the police. As I understand it, there is a police officer who is all too familiar with you and would love an opportunity to put you in jail.”

My jaw tightened as I thought of Officer Song and how he would stop at nothing until he saw my hands in cuffs.

But then there was this guy who was quite plainly enjoying that he might be able to get me to obey someone’s words.

“If that isn’t enough persuasion,” Choi said slowly. “I also have a tape of you and your charming friend outside, entering the club where this officer was stationed last Saturday.”

What the hell? Did this guy have a nice chat with everyone I was associated with?

I glared at him, “Why are you so keen to intervene with my life?”

“Because I believe in change, Mr. Kim, and you definitely need it. I’ve only seen your intolerable behavior a couple of times but that’s enough to make me want to reinforce the proper way high school students should behave,” he said. “So, will it be the police or will you quietly accept the consequences I’ve given you. I could go deeper you know, Principal Jung has many stories for me.”

I didn’t answer, but I didn’t say no either. I don’t think I have much of a choice, do I?

“Also,” I almost groaned out loud when he opened his mouth again. “I want you to write in this journal.”

From his desk, he took out a plain black, hard cover journal with a spine that read ‘Journal’ in cursive, gold writing. There was also a gold, stringy bookmark sticking out from the bottom.

“What?” I said in horror.

“Every day, even if it’s one line,” he said. “A sentence about your day or something you learned, because every day you learn something new.”

“You’ll be reading it?” I raised an eyebrow.

“No, it’s just for you.”

That settles that, I just won’t be writing in it then.

“I will know if you don’t write in this journal,” he warned. “I will know if you don’t go to your detentions or the children’s hospital. I can play very dirty if a student doesn’t listen to me. I’m warning you now to do as I say.”

“Is that all?” I said, taking the journal.

“Yes, send Oh Sehun in next,” he said.

I walked out of his office. There’s no way I’m doing anything he tells me to do.

Suspended, I’ve never been suspended before. I’ve always managed to escape suspension from school, thought I never thought I’d mind it, it’s a free pass not to go to school.

But as I sat in the office with the rest of my friends, waiting for our guardians to take us home, I actually felt nervous. What would my grandpa’s reaction be?

I was starting to feel ashamed and rather annoyed, no one had ever told my grandpa that my friends and I were troubling teenagers. I suspected he knew a bit but he never let on about it much, only discreetly hinting that I make better friends. Now because of that damn Choi guy, who knows how Grandpa will take this?

I’m scared to find out.

I hate Choi, it’s been one week and I hate him with all my guts. Suspending me, detention, going to a children’s hospital? On top of that threatening me, calling my grandpa, and pretending to be some civil hero?

I heard the office door open and my anger evaporated at once when I saw my grandpa come in. My friends kept their heads down, but my grandpa didn’t look at them.

Or even me for that matter.

He was a normal sized man, though I must say he’s been thinning in his old age. He had graying, light hair and always went around with is walking cane. My favourite part about his appearance was his hat, his infamous cap that he wore when he went out.

He was wearing it right now too, limping his way in front of the front desk.

After several painful minutes, grandpa was able to sign me out following the filling of some forms. Without looking at me again, he walked out of the office and I followed him.

There was literally a huge knot in my stomach as we walked outside. I hated how my grandpa wasn’t looking at me or talking to me.

Myungsoo’s car was waiting for us and Grandpa got into the front seat while I sat in the back, Myungsoo being the driver. Another pang of guilt hit me as I realized driving Grandpa here must have taken time out of Myungsoo’s busy schedule too.

The ride home was quiet, Myungsoo didn’t say anything, though he never really did in these types of situations. He had always known and disapproved of my friends and I’s ways, he always reprimanded me about it, but he never told Grandpa. He, along with me, didn’t like to worry Grandpa with regards to my misbehavior.

But now that interfering Choi ruined that.

I snuck a look at Grandpa’s face in the side view mirror and what I saw really hurt.

His small eyes were clouded with worry and there was so much disappointment in every line of his face.

I looked away, swallowing hard.

Myungsoo dropped us off at home before going to work and much too soon I found myself in the living room with Grandpa.

He was sitting on the couch in front of the TV while I was on a different couch slouching and trying to blend in with the sofa.

It seemed like hours before he spoke, “You are going to do everything Mr. Choi said, right?”

It wasn’t even a command, he was asking me in the most innocent way possible.

All thoughts I had in the office were gone as I nodded.

He looked down and then looked me in the eyes, I hated the look in them but I couldn’t look away either.

“I’ve always been a little lax on the way you behave sometimes, Jongin….. but I really don’t want you to hurt yourself,” he said softly. “Not just physically, but your soul and conscience.”

I didn’t say anything, my voice was somewhere in my stomach, and all I could think of was why we did something so incredibly dumb. Grandpa was doing a much better job at making me feel guilty than Choi.

“I think working with children will be a good experience for you,” Grandpa continued in a normal voice. “You might meet some new people, learn about different lives.”

There goes that word again; learn.

He looked at me again, “I really hope you learn things, Jongin. I want you to learn for the rest of your life.”

I have absolutely no idea what he means.

After that brief, but intense guilt trip, Grandpa and I were normal again. Grandpa isn’t the type to stay mad at me for a long period of time, it would get tiring for him. He was still disappointed though, and I know he expects me to go with all my punishments nicely, so I will.

From the sound of it, my friends hadn’t been given some lame journal to write in so I didn’t mention it to any of them. We had all been assigned different places to serve punishments.

That Friday afternoon, I took my grandpa to his doctor’s appointment. It was just a regular appointment, to check up on how he was doing.

When we got home, Myungsoo was making pasta.

“How’d it go?” he asked as we entered the kitchen.

“Fine obviously,” Grandpa said. “I may be old but my body is perfect!”

I silently laughed while Myungsoo looked amused.

“I have to go watch my show now,” he announced as he left the kitchen with a glass of water, leaving Myungsoo and I together.

“So, detention, volunteering, suspension, and a journal, huh?” Myungsoo said as he stirred the sauce.

“The VP overdid it way too much, he’s such an annoying prick,” I rolled my eyes.

“I think he wants this to be a collective punishment for all the other things you guys have done,” Myungsoo said.

“That’s not his job, he’s only been VP for a day.”

“Still,” Myungsoo shrugged and paused before saying in a rather quiet voice, “I’ve told you many times Kai that you’ve gotta change the way you act. You can’t be the way you are forever.”

I pretended like I didn’t hear him but we both know I did.

“In other words, get your together,” Myungsoo continued.

“My ’s perfectly fine,” I snapped. “It was just this one time, okay?”

Myungsoo shook his head but said no more and I began to help him with dinner.

“So where are you going?”

“Some children’s hospital.”

“That’s not bad, kids are nice,” Myungsoo mused.

“I hate kids,” I said.

“I think you’ll learn to like them,” he said. “You’ll learn a lot of things in a hospital, I sure did.”

That word again

Saturday morning, I woke up early at sunrise to clear my head. The house was suffocating, all the disappointment and the learning I supposedly need to do. I changed out of my sweats into shorts and wore a t-shirt with my best running shoes (Grandpa had bought them for me).

Without eating anything, I went outside and began my running route.

Running.

There are no words to describe how much I love to run, running relieves me of all annoying and bad feelings; it lets me be free. I can run away from judgment, from bad memories, I can run for as long as I want without anyone telling me to look back.

I can run at anytime but my preference is sunrise or sunset, those are the best times to run.

It’s weird, when I run I don’t exactly think about anything, it’s like all my thoughts and worries float out of my head with each step. I don’t think about anything except to keep going.

My usual route for the mornings is going around the neighborhood, through the park and up the trail. The trail takes me to a park on the other side of the neighborhood and from there is where I go back home.

When I first began running (which was when I was around seven years old), it was hard and tiring but I still liked it a lot. Now I can go miles without it being hard or tiring, I feel like I could keep going forever.

It solves all my problems; running.

When I got home an hour and a half later, my grandpa was awake and in the kitchen making coffee.

“Look at you, you’re so sweaty,” he made a face as I gulped down cold water.

“Am I?” I touched my face and neck, and they were wet though I didn’t feel tired.

“You know, most teenagers sleep in on weekends,” Grandpa said.

“You know, most grandpas are happy when their grandchildren wake up at such an ungodly hour,” I said in the same tone.

He flicked my forehead, “Your mouth is what gets you into all sorts of trouble!”

“I have a great mouth,” I said crossly, putting my glass down. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Mmm, okay hurry up. Myungsoo said he will drop you off at the children’s hospital,” Grandpa said as he sat down at the table and sipped his coffee while reading the newspaper, as he always did in the morning.

My stomach churned at the thought of the stupid hospital and the millions of punishments I was given.

So, as Grandpa and Myungsoo liked to put it, my learning started that day.

The children’s hospital wasn’t far from my house, only a couple of minutes away. I was told to go to the east wing, find the office and the head nurse named Mrs. Jang.

That’s what I did and the next thing I knew, a middle aged woman with a strict face was staring at me from across her desk.

“You’re Kim Jongin?” she asked, looking over her half-moon spectacles.

‘Well duh, lady.’ Was the answer I wanted to give but instead I nodded.

She looked off of her clipboard, “You will be here every Saturday from 10 o’clock to 7 o’clock. You will not, of course, be nursing the sick children but you will be playing and doing different activities with a select group of children with your partner for some time in the beginning. This does not mean you may fool around, you must take extra caution when handling the children and be gentle with them. You will do somethign with them until lunch, after which you will make sure the kids go back to their rooms and then you will report to me for the jobs you must do in the afternoon. Do you understand?”

I stiffly nodded. I was unused to having to listen and obey someone’s commands. On top of that, I am awkward and annoyed with kids, how am I supposed to spend nine hours with them?

“I will introduce you to the children today, you will be with four of them,” Mrs. Jang stood up and walked past me to her office door, gesturing me to follow her.

She took me to the brighter side of the hospital, with more windows and view and led me into a large room that resembled a playroom. In one corner there was a bookshelf and a carpet laid out in front of it. The room was painted in many different colours with encouraging messages written. One side had a mini jungle gym and there was a large open space in the middle of the room.

“Wait here, I’ll go get them,” Mrs. Jang said before leaving me alone in the room.

I sighed, thinking that I wasn’t planning on coming back here, but then Grandpa’s face floated into my mind and I knew I was bound to this.

Personally, I do not think I need to learn anything, hence this stupid journal is useless. What can I possibly learn, other than how to wipe snot, at a children’s hospital?

Hello hello hello :D

How are ya doing???

I had 75% of this chapter written ages ago but I had no idea how to end it. I guess it turned out okay.

Comment and tell me what ya think~!

Byeee