Uncle Hyunwoo tutted in annoyance when the lead of his pencil snapped while finishing a Sudoku he had started in the morning. He glanced at the clock: 7:38 pm. Hyunjung had told him she was staying another two hours after school, so he expected her to have been back by 6:45 at the latest and it had now been almost more than an hour since then.

He was about to give her a phone call to check if she was okay when the front door opened, revealing a blank-looking adolescent.

Hyunjung sluggishly took her shoes off and slung her bag off her shoulders. “Hi uncle.”

“Are you alright? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“No, no I’m fine. I’m just - um, tired. Yeah, really tired.”

Uncle Hyunwoo raised an eyebrow at her then looked back down at the Sudoku. “If you say so,” he muttered.

“I’m going to my room now.”

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

Hyunjung trudged to her room and face planted onto her bed. The confusion she felt after Jungkook suddenly hugged her like that was too overwhelming for her to cope.

It was true that they had started talking more, but she only thought of him as a friend of hers. And she was content enough for it to stay that way.

She was certain she didn’t hold any other special feelings for him, so why was she like that? It must’ve just taken her by surprise and she had gotten flustered at the suddenness of it.

She was so confused.

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t…” she chanted again and again until the words lost its meaning.

Her uncle was on the other side of the closed door and was about to call her to eat when he heard her talking to herself. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he knew something was bothering her, and in an ideal world he would’ve gone in and asked what was wrong; but from the way she was mumbling incoherently to herself and trying to keep it secretive, he knew she wouldn’t want to talk about it. In the end, he slid a note under her door saying her meal for the evening was in the microwave if she wanted it, and left her alone.

The screen of her cell phone glowed as fatigue slowly coaxed her into a slumber - she was too tired to check who had messaged her.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Taehyung stared at the creased photograph he held in his hand. It was eight years old, and the only photo with his mom in it that he didn’t throw away. The edges around it were faded, much like the memory behind it.

He studied the picture for a couple of minutes and tried to remember the day it was took. But no matter how hard he tried, it was now nothing but a meaningless, psychedelic merge.

It was a family photo; mom was smiling in the middle cradling a two year old Taewon in her arms, with dad next to her resting a hand on her shoulder. Taehyung chuckled when he looked at his nine year old self with unkempt hair and dark bruises and scratches on his legs from all the trees he climbed and logs he clambered over - he was the only one who wasn’t smiling, a scowl seemed to have been something that stayed with him even in his pre-teen years, and he was always a moody kid that never talked to anyone he didn’t like.  

But now he regretted not smiling that day, it made him come up with the conjecture that he could’ve been one of the reasons as to why she had left their family.

But thinking it over and over, it couldn’t have been his fault.

Taehyung at least remembered that he had clung with his mom throughout the majority of his early childhood; he was a good kid who didn’t habitually disobey his parents or misbehaved, but that just made him all the more confused as to why she left them.

The day she told them eight years ago, was a memory he remembered so well:

          Taehyung was lying on his stomach in the living-room playing with a miniature car that his mom had bought for him a few days ago. Dad was carrying a sleeping Taewon when she came in.

          “Mamma!”  Taehyung sprung up with enthusiasm, running up to her and hugged her legs. But when he looked up only sad, glassy eyes met with his own.

          “Mamma, why are you sad?” he asked, tugging the hem of her shirt in a desperate attempt to get her attention to focus on him.

          He turned to his dad for help, but he had the same melancholy expression that she had. What was it that his parents were hiding from him?

          It was probably one of those things that only adults seemed to know, those things that a child is curious about, but is only replied with the common; ‘you’re too young to understand’.

          Taehyung stared at her as she crouched down to his level and clutched his small hands tightly - it was obvious she was making an effort to stifle her tears for the sake of her son. Her brown eyes gazed into his own which were twinkling like broken stars.

          “There is someone else,” her speech came out in suffocating sobs, “that I love just as much as Taewon and Taehyung.”

          Although he was young, Taehyung understood what she was saying. And looking into her eyes one last time, he savagely yanked his hands away from hers and sprinted up to his room with never-ending tears falling down his face.

          He slammed his bedroom door and slumped his back against it, screaming;

          “How could you?! How could you?! How could you?!” over and over and over until his voice grew hoarse, secretly wishing that it would somehow make her feel guilty and stay with them.

          But she left.

 Taehyung just didn’t understand. 

He remembered spending days secluded in his room after that. He no longer climbed trees or clambered over logs; the bruises and scratches on his legs healed completely, his skin became pale and sallow as he wasted sunny, unclouded days inside with the music player his dad bought him playing on repeat. He was cold and distant towards his classmates and only talked to the ones he was already close to.

The day she was going to leave, regardless of his dad’s pleas to come down to the driveway to say a final goodbye to her, Taehyung stubbornly refused.

He had watched her leave from the window of his bedroom; he saw dad and Taewon by the driveway with mom, saying their goodbyes; it was a melancholy moment for all of them. Before she got into the car, he remembered her looking up at his bedroom window and for a time, they stared at each other – it was their last interaction. When she drove off, Taehyung felt something hot scald his cheek, but it took him a while to realize it was his own tears. That night he cried himself to sleep, and that was the last. He never cried since.

Eight years passed and he hadn’t seen or heard of her. The memory was bitter.

The screen of his cell phone lit up and saw that he received a text from Hyunjung twenty minutes ago:

I know you told me to stop apologizing, but I feel really bad and I’m really really really really sorry I brought it up…

He replied:

Idiot, I told you it’s not your fault.

He sent the text, but received no response.

 *  *  *  *  *  *

 It’s miraculous how one night of sleep can make you feel so much better in the morning. Hyunjung woke up with a clearer mind and more rational head, she reached the conclusion that she did not think of Jungkook as more than a friend. She was certain. Her friendship with him was just too precious for that, and it was selfish of her to even have those kind of unnecessary and troubling thoughts.

She walked into her homeroom, going over to her desk and took her water bottle out of her bag. A sip of water is good to have in the morning, especially if you’re feeling run-down and just simply lazy. When Jungkook comes in, she was going to be prepared to face him with a stoic expression and treat him like she always did.

She put her bottle to her lips, when someone appeared behind her and lightly tapped her on the shoulder.

“Morning,” Jungkook greeted quietly.

Hyunjung choked on the water. Well that backfired. What a flawless start to the morning. Ha-ha, no.

“Are you okay?” he asked. He watched her in concern and patted her back as she went into a vigorous fit of coughing.

“Yeah, yep, I’m -” she wheezed, “fine! Totally fine!”

“You sure?”

Hyunjung nodded hastily and gave him a strained smile.

A couple of girls behind them watched everything that happened and weren’t enthralled with it at all.

“Trying to catch his attention like that,” one of them remarked.

“Who? Hyunjung?” another one asked.

The mention of Hyunjung’s name perked Shinae’s ears and she couldn’t help but tone in to their conversation. Even though she was already talking to Jihyun, this was something that she found so much more interesting than how your older brother mismatched his socks with pink ones which he looked ridiculous in.

“- that was it though, wasn’t it? He only became friends with her because he pitied her.”

This caused her to snap her head round at the group of girls huddled around a desk behind her.

Shinae cleared , making sure it was obvious and conspicuous so that she caught their attention. “Hey.”

They turned and blinked confusedly as she gave them a dispassionate expression.

Jihyun looked at her in alarm, knowing where this was leading to and shook her arm lightly in an attempt to stop her. “Shinae, what are you doing?” she hissed.

Shinae ignored her and focused her attention on the girls that were gossiping behind her. “What were you saying? Try saying that to Hyunjung’s face, go on, I dare you.”

They stared at her bewilderedly in response. “We’d rather not.”

“Shut up then.”

“Shinae,” Jihyun laughed nervously. “That’s enough.”

Shinae shot the group a piercing glare as she rotated her body back to face the front of the room.

Jihyun took a chair from an empty table and dragged it opposite of Shinae’s desk so that she could sit across her. “I thought you didn’t like Hyunjung?”

“I don’t hate her.”

“But you told me a few days ago that you didn’t like her.”

“Meh,” she shrugged, sneaking a glance at Hyunjung and Jungkook talking quietly amongst themselves at the front. “She’s not annoying.”

Jihyun kept quiet. “What they said though, it’s not true right?”

Shinae didn’t know. She reflected for a moment. “Even if Jungkook only become friends with her purely out of pity, it doesn’t really matter now does it? Just look at them now.”

She watched as Hyunjung was talking to Jungkook about homework they received when he was absent. Although it was merely something trivial like that, he still appeared to be listening with full attentiveness and gave her his undivided attention.

“I guess you’re right,” Jihyun sighed.

Shinae folded her arms onto the desk and chuckled, a haughty grin stretching out on her face. “Naturally.”

*  *  *  *  *  *

  It was lunch and Jungkook had disappeared, again. But this time, Hyunjung couldn’t find him anywhere, he wasn’t in any of the places that he usually was and she was beginning to ask herself why she was looking for him in the first place. Maybe he didn’t want to be found?

She sighed deeply and sat down on the bench – the same one that she and Jungkook were on the day before. She opened her bag and took out her lunch. She was midway from taking a bite from a sandwich she quickly made that morning since her uncle had to rush to work.

“What do you think you’re doing?” A voice said from behind. It was distinguishable enough for her to recognize it was Taehyung.

“Eating my lunch,” she told him simply.

“The chemistry test is in three days. You were the one that asked me to help you revise.”

“Can we do it later? I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.” She frowned morosely, she was happy until he reminded her about that.

“For goodness sake,” he muttered under his breath. “Fine, whatever.”

“You can sit down if you want.”

Taehyung took a seat next to her and also took his lunch out of his bag. “You’re not with Jungkook today? That’s new.”

“I’m not always with Jungkook.”

“You pretty much always are.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

They both ate their lunch quietly, it wasn’t awkward, but she wished that Taehyung would say something. At the moment he didn’t seem to be open to conversation so she just continued to eat in silence. Although, she still felt bad for yesterday, but she didn’t know his parents were divorced. But now that she knew, she took note to never mention it again.

The sound of footsteps approached them and they both looked up, it was Jungkook.

“Hi,” Hyunjung greeted cheerily.

“Hi,” Jungkook said in return. “Do you mind if I sit with you guys?”

“Yeah sure.” Hyunjung budged up to allow more room for him to sit, but forgot that Taehyung was next to her and accidentally bumped her head with his.

“Ouch,” he winced and glared at her irritably, rubbing the side of his head.

Hyunjung apologized. “Sorry!”

Taehyung rolled his eyes and sighed, but still moved up so that there was room for all three of them to sit on the bench. It suddenly grew tense. Jungkook and Taehyung were sat on either side of her and she felt surprisingly uncomfortable.

She looked at her sandwich – right then she kind of felt like one. Being sandwiched between two of your friends who barely even talk to each other isn’t the most gratifying feeling in the world, especially if none of you can think of anything to say.

“Nice weather we’re having,” she said in an effort to start a conversation and ease the stiffness between them a little.

She had the sudden urge to face palm herself, she wished she had said something else.

Jungkook nodded and looked up at the blue sky. “Yeah, I guess.”

“It’s the same as yesterday,” Taehyung droned tediously.

Dead silence.

Well that did not help at all.

She peered at both sides; Jungkook was staring into an empty space, twiddling his thumbs aimlessly, while Taehyung was scowling at a blue paint stain on his uniform from an art lesson that morning.

When they thought it couldn’t possibly get any more awkward, hasty footfalls were heard coming towards them. They looked up and saw it was Jin; he was flailing his arms in the air while shaking a food container in his hands. “I have cake! Do you guys want some?”

Hyunjung sighed in relief as he approached closer to the three of them.

That may just be the icebreaker they needed.