Kyungsoo

There was something wrong with Stella.

At first, I could see it in the way she moved ever since that day. She barely spoke and was very jumpy when I would tap her shoulder or call her name in the halls.

Eventually, she stopped showing up. When I knocked on her door, no one answered, and if someone did, it was a very quiet and weak voice seeming to come from a mile away.

I no longer got rides to school from her, if she even came to school. The secretary at the front desk said her mother called her in sick for the next few days. I didn’t even know she had a mother living there. She never talked about her, not that Stella talked about anyone in the house or about her personal life at all.

Part of me was tempted to climb her balcony.

.

It was on the second Sunday following that I saw her again.

I always watched the eyehole in the door each morning for about five or ten minutes, hoping for a sign of life. That morning I had placed a bag of Starbursts in front of the door, knocking a few times before leaving. Yet thirty minutes had passed and it was still sitting there.

Every time a door or window opened, I leaped to the door to see if she would appear before me, waiting to go as if nothing had happened.

I was glad my older sister was out of town for the week, my actions were embarrassing and I could hear her condescending voice in my head, scolding me for waiting up on a girl.

Why did I care? I had other friends, didn’t I? There was Tao, but he had strict parents and a tight schedule. Lay was around, but there was only so much of him I could take. I let out an exasperated sigh, running my hands through my hair, glancing once more at the door before settling back in to the couch.

Her balcony was all too tempting.

.

It was at about noon that a door shut louder than the others. More nearby. I quickly ran to the door from my spot on the couch, and caught a glimpse of a brown bob running down the stairs. Immediately, I flung open the door and ran out after her, leaving my shoes behind, not caring about anything but talking to her.

But in reaching the bottom of the stairs, she was gone. Her bike was missing and there was no sign of her anywhere. Vanished into thin air.

Returning to the third floor, I notice the missing bag of Starbursts and a note in its place.

Soo,

Things will be explained soon enough, don’t wait up.

~S

p.s. Thanks for the bursts.

.

Three weeks. Three weeks had passed and still she eluded me.

I thought about the note and whether or not I should try to find her. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wasn’t one to ignore someone else’s problems, whether or not that included me.

Around school, I kept looking for her everywhere. Her schedule changed and she no longer had Spanish next to me, and every time I spotted her in the halls, she would disappear in the blink of an eye. I couldn’t figure out why she was like this, why she appeared like smoke before me; only one glimpse before she was gone.

Finally, I decided to find out where those guys were hiding from that day. Under the birches in the back of the school there was an area where no one really dared go due to the talks of wildlife. At least, that’s what the teachers said, but everyone else knew that’s where the kids on all sorts of drugs would go and find ways to scare passersby. This is where I knew I would find them. I knew that if I were one of the wannabe thugs, I would gather in a place no one really dared go.

I quickly found the boys under the trees and approached with as much confidence as I could muster. The leader, Jongin, was very menacing and growled in an obviously fake low voice, standing as tall as possible to me, who was easily four inches taller.

“What happened with Stella?” I ask, glowering back at Jongin.

Confusion sparked in his dull brown eyes for a split second before he turned to his group and laughed. “Well why do you want to know, Mister?”

His formalities seemed a bit out of place, which threw me off a bit. “She rarely ever comes out of her apartment and the few times I have seen her, she disappears into thin air before I can reach her.”

Jongin furrowed his brows and turned to the boys behind him, now grouping together to listen in to the leader. I heard whispering and a few words here and there, but nothing of any value. This pause gave me time to study the group of misunderstood boys. In the twelve of them, there were freshman, the dough-eyed boys with little experience, and there were the rest, who were a mix of the three upper classes, but it became difficult to tell them apart since they dressed so similar and all acted the same and their faces showed that they had no real purpose to do anything. I heard names thrown about, but it was hard to tell who they belonged to. One stood out, taller than the rest with a stern look in his eyes. His name was Kris, I thought, since the youngest looking one kept nudging him and whispering in his ear. He sat at the base of the tree and stared at me, making my confidence falter visibly. The image he gave off was that of a leader and I had a hard time finding that he took orders from Jongin.

I wondered if the only reason they were here was because no one else would take them into their cliques. They reminded me of the stories of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

The leader stood to me once more and smirked, one eyebrow raised. It was one of the smallest fresh bloods who spoke up, his deep voice cracking a couple times. “We would love to tell you some stuff about our lovely Miss Stella, however, we are sworn to secrecy. A nice fine would do you some good, but money won’t get you what you’re looking for. Only Miss Stella knows what happened to Miss Stella.”

I swore these fellows were part of an underground poetry club or something.

I furrow my brow at them, not understanding exactly why they said it like that. But I shrugged it off and looked to Jongin. “I have a 20 on me, what will that get me for now?”   

“You’d do best to stay away from Miss Stella, Mister Kyungsoo.” Jongin mutters under his breath, I may have been the only one to hear.

As I place the bill in his calloused hands, he straightens up and clears his throat. “There’s only one reason Stella has to leave her house. Once a week, she goes into town.”

That’s when the bell rings, and the boys disperse.

.

The school grounds weren’t new territory to me. I knew them quite well, in fact, and it was quite a shock to learn about the secret room.

Entering it, I found a man, the one who had passed me a note in the middle of Drawing 2 with a cryptic “Meet me in room 504 during free period.”

First off, how would he know when my free period was? Considering I didn’t share my schedule with anyone beside Stella and my best friend, Chanyeol. Second, our school had only three levels, there was no such thing as room 504. The highest room number I knew of was 328.

The front desk secretary gave me the most outrageous deer-in-the-headlights look when I asked. She wondered aloud if I was on something, making me scoff and walk away, annoyed. I needed answers, not assumptions.

I exited the front office and a faceless student passing by ran into me, dropping a note. Yelling after him, I had no choice but to pick up the note, only to find my name on it.

“Behind room 316.”

How can something be behind room 316? I thought, knowing that rooms 310-320 were all science labs. On the third floor, there wasn’t room for another place, at least, as far as I knew.

.

Room 504 was a greenhouse.

Through the storage closet of room 316 behind a pile of boxes, rested a greenhouse long forgotten by the science teachers, only used anymore for meetings such as these.

The man was tall, hair short and brown. He dressed similar to one of the Lost Boys, though it was hard to tell from the backside of him who exactly he was. When he turned around, I was face to face with the man who stared me down before behind the school.

“My name’s Kris, at least, that’s what you can call me.” I narrowed my eyes but nodded.

“I’m Kyungsoo.”

“I know,” He says quickly, voice deep and almost bored, as if he didn’t want to have anything to do with me nor the conversation. Long bony fingers picked a decaying leaf from a fern on one of the tables, obviously left for dead when the room was abandoned.

“What exactly am I here for?”

His eyes meet mine, changing to a serious undertone. “I need your help, Kyungsoo.” This makes me shift my weight to the other foot, intrigued. A smirk played on his lips. “You see, I’m not really a part of Jongin’s little… tea party. I’m the leader of a group of fighters – if you will – and, well, your friend Stella owes us.”

My whole face contorts to confusion and I give him a grim look. “So what do you want from me? What makes you think I’ll help you?”

Kris smiles. A sickening feeling finds my heart beating quickly in my chest. “You don’t exactly have a choice, Kyungsoo. Unfortunately, when you became friends with Stella, you sealed your fate.”

“She doesn’t even talk to me anymore, what makes you think we’re friends?”

My fist clenches when he laughs. “Kyungsoo, you’re cute. I like you. But just because I like you doesn’t mean I’m going to make this any easier.” I see his gaze shift to something behind me and he nods.

That’s when I hear a door shut and before I can turn to see the source of the noise, a sharp pain hits my neck and everything goes black and silent.