He sighs.

With a yawn, he leans back in the office chair—the plastic creaking and groaning—and stretches until part of his dress shirt untucks itself from his normally by-the-code uniform. The tests are over, and by now Park Bogum, like everyone else, should be gallivanting around the campus, lulled to a false sense of temporary freedom—or more likely, finishing up research papers and the like in the library.

But he can’t. And the Council (and their oh-so-competent principal) is to be blamed.

Most members have been working in overtime, turning in reports, tallying and balancing school accounts (To Seohyun’s insistence, a separate team is formed under her for the sole reason of helping the Treasury turn in reports for funds garnered and used through the year on time, and for tracking where the rest of the money went to.), and as the last month of school begins, Bogum starts an inventory of the school’s equipment.

Seungwan’s six o’clock alarm has long since rung, but hardly anyone left.

Except for Joohyun.

When it rung, he had expected her to get up as she did, but at the same time he had hoped that she wouldn’t leave. As what she occasionally does in several occasions to stay behind and help.

But he thinks he should have known better when he doesn’t see the necklace adorning her neck for days. When she doesn’t bother to talk to him. When he doesn’t muster the courage to stand up to her and apologize. (Let bygones, be bygones? Water under the bridge? Bogum doesn’t exactly know what he should say.)

Please be mine again?

Stupid. He thinks. She never was in the first place.

He does not want to admit that every action of kindness, every interaction to Joohyun had the spirit of hope tailing behind—with the dream, that just maybe, maybe their temporal arrangement could turn into something more permanent, with a label to boot. That maybe one afternoon, Joohyun would willingly hold her hand out to him—and not the other way around, as it always is (was)—and say, “I like you.”

And he would stare, as she would smile her soft enigmatic Mona Lisa-esque one, the one that tells him that surely he cannot be the only one dreaming of being with the Bae Joohyun, if the occasional stray chocolate box on her locker is the truth.

Bogum knows she isn’t shirking her duties however, when before she left, she had approached him with a curt air of no bull dancing around her, and promptly handed him a starkly minimalistic flash drive, saying that she had sorted out all the files for equipment and damages in relation to the clubs and extracurricular activities that she had in her computer. And with that, she had walked out, and Bogum had tried to ignore the discreet stares aimed at them—because somehow, the school’s gotten wind that they’ve broken up, and though successfully evading any sort of confrontation for days, how could he respond when there really wasn’t anything in the first place?

 He stares at the room before him. Seungwan quietly scrolling down, pressing a key or two occasionally, and sometimes scrunching up her face in a comically adorable expression when she sees something against her liking. Seohyun had employed her in her team as she had claimed her smarts are greatly needed. The said treasurer, with glasses perched on her nose, and soft face devoid of the pleasant expression usually set on it, scrunches up her nose as she leans forward to inspect something on the screen. Eungkwang and Namjoon chat quietly among themselves, and Yongsun calls Taeyong over for a favor of delivery. A few others come and go, and Bogum rubs his face in tiredness—lethargy permuting the air, and dims the room’s mood.

The steady hum of the air-conditioning unit makes him drowsy. He stretches his arms to fight it.

He allows a brief moment of nothingness, and then two, and another—

With a surge of abrupt movement, Bogum plugs the jet black flash drive in the laptop. His mind pathetically telling him that this very same flash drive is the one Joohyun personally uses—he knows because Joohyun happened to curtly add that he was to give it to her as soon as he can—and how her fingers had probably touched it the way his does now.

He presses it in with more force than necessary, before flitting his hand away, as if burnt.

Bogum waits a while (all the while cursing the outdated hardware), and then he clicks and accesses the files. He tries not to smile as he sees the drive still named after its generic store-bought brand, and he wonders if Joohyun’s incompetence when it comes to technology may or may not have something to do with this.

He shakes his head discreetly, and clicks on the folder labelled Reports, watching the screen expand with the numerous sub-folders and files. He allows his cursor to slide past the names of Gymnasium, Archery Club, and the like. He blinks in surprise when he reaches the second row and sees a folder listing of repairs for the oval track, but he knows he shouldn’t be when it comes to Bae Joohyun. Always meticulous in all means.

Opening a few folders, he nods in approval as his eyes scan the screen. The pictures for the equipment are all given, the documents, and even the names of the club and students assigned for the equipment’s care and usage are clear.

He clicks the exit button, and by complete chance, his cursor drifts slightly to the right, on the spot where the last folder is situated. Bogum’s brows knit, and he leans forward a bit to see if what he really reads on the screen says Personal and not something else entirely.

He doesn’t read it wrong.

Out of sheer confusion, he opens the folder—to find icons of pictures within, so different from the other folders with documents dominating most of the space. Thinking that Joohyun must have transferred the folder in by mistake when sorting away the files, a part of him strongly believes that this may have nothing to do with Council work at all. Yet, the morbid curiosity, and the strong feeling of loneliness overtakes Bogum, and he finds himself opening the first image onscreen.

It is an invasion of privacy, but he isn’t thinking straight—has physically, mentally, and emotionally been doing so for a while now.

It is a family photo, and by then Bogum should have backed out, clicked the exit button, deleted the folder when he realizes it has nothing to do with the Council—but he doesn’t. A ghost of a smile drifts briefly on his lips when he recognizes Joohyun in the photograph, younger than she is now by a few years, yet with the same reserved expression—somber even to an outsider’s point of view—but eyes glittering brightly. Her hands are folded tightly on her lap, as she leans ever slightly on the shoulder of an elderly woman. A man and a woman, who look to be her parents—Bogum marvels, when he realizes how Joohyun has the same intense dark eyes as her father’s—stands at the side.

He wonders if she still lived in Daegu when the photo was taken, reminiscing the times Joohyun showered him with small anecdotes (rare and treasured by him) about her childhood, and the move to Seoul. Telling him humorous stories, that showed an adorable snippet of her life.

Bogum had realized that it takes a while for her to warm up to someone—and with that memory resurfacing, he is filled with remorse for the outcome of his actions. He frowns, and with conviction, he clicks on the arrow to show the next pictures.

They are childhood photos of Joohyun with her parents, her alone, and he marvels when he chances upon a baby picture, so obviously of her, with her dark, dark eyes, and surprisingly sharp features even then, standing innocently with a floppy hat perched precariously over her head. The next one shows of her in a hanbok, a toddler Joohyun laughing unabashedly at something.

Pretty.

He skims through more photos, Joohyun is surprisingly organized in this aspect as, save for the family photo, the pictures are arranged by the age she appears to be in, getting older before his eyes with every click of the button. A picture of her with a group of friends (Strangely, Bogum recognizes a pre-pubescent Seulgi in the bunch, cheeks full of laughter.) replaces the previous one of just her and Seulgi—standing awkwardly beside each other, as if not knowing what to do.

Bogum minimizes the window, and bites back a tiny gasp of shock when he scrolls down and finds a hundred or so photos in the folder. Guilt tries to make itself known, but he pushes it away with conviction as he clicks back on the screen, eager to see the rest. Keeping his face in a neutral mask, he realizes that the Joohyun’s actual pictures are getting stark and harder to find, as most are of her friends, a few of her family, and Bogum swears that of the former—Seulgi’s presence almost always makes itself known.

He passes a photo of them smiling side by side, with Joohyun in her school uniform and the entrance of a school in the background (Bogum recognizes the middle school being the one a few of his friends went to) arms linked and faces red. He clicks on the next photo, mirroring the previous one in every aspect, except that Seulgi’s turning away from the camera—covering her face, and wiping stray tears—and Joohyun’s laughing, and playfully whacking the sobbing girl with a pretty pink bouquet. Joohyun’s middle school graduation.

The sincerity behind causes Bogum to smile, though he quickly wipes it away when someone curses violently for ten whole seconds, startling him into remembering his duties.

He perks, and feigns typing on something, and after a few minutes or so he goes back into his rather intrusive stalking duties. (Though it really can’t be labelled stalking, is it? Not when Joohyun is the one who blatantly—though more like, mistakenly—placed her files there for everyone to see.)

Click.

Bogum blinks when the chain of chronologically ordered photos break—regressing back to the past—when a photo of a baby pops ups. A toddler more like, and he tilts his head slightly in confusion when he realizes this isn’t Joohyun (the eyes are smaller and sharper, and the full cheeks remind him of someone else—though who? he can’t say for sure), although the sense of familiarity makes itself apparent at the back of his mind—niggling for his attention.

The little girl stares back cutely at the camera, almost in a baleful pouting sort of manner kids can only pull off, as if to say I want to go home. She holds a bouquet flowers, while clad in a puffy gray jacket.

He clicks on the next button.

It’s the girl from the previous photo, this time, older by a few years and having shed off a significant amount of pudginess babies seemingly acquire at first. Wearing a kindergartner’s uniform, and this time, curly hair set loose in a semi-do. Though it is the way she candidly poses for the picture that sets Bogum off on who she is.

Ah.

His jaw drops when he realizes that he is looking at a Kang Seulgi, ten years prior, mouth hanging open in innocent amazement at the wonders prepatory school would bring. It’s a cute photo, Bogum thinks, and even more endearing when he realizes Joohyun’s got it all saved up in her computer.

 Endearing.

Or so he likes to think.

Something feels off—an inexplicable feeling he can’t place, a thought he can’t trace to the source, for weeks now—as if he has just missed something blatantly obvious, yet hidden at the same time. In a sense, it is as though Joohyun’s hiding something from him—which is a strange thing to be suspicious of, because doesn’t everyone have something to hide?

Yet, it is something that he feels he should know of.

It doesn’t help that the seed of distrust is already planted in his heart, silently growing and shaking its foundations and stability that he has so carefully built throughout the years.

It scares him because maybe, it’s more fragile than he thinks it is, and he wonders what he’d do, when the time comes for it to break.

The feeling of suspicion intensifies when, upon quickly pressing the button, the pictures blur in a manual slideshow, showing a collection of photographs—that by just a glance, Bogum can tell that it is all of Kang Seulgi.

Seulgi smiling at the camera. Seulgi sleeping. A selca Seulgi takes, tongue sticking out playfully. There’s one of Seulgi grinning widely—making Bogum pause to examine the picture—in front, posture facing the lenses, but eyes directed at the person behind, taking the photo.

He thinks he might just know who is behind the camera.

His sense of dread isn’t alleviated when he closes the window, only to realize, upon the open folder, that a good chunk of Joohyun’s personal photos are personally labelled.

Inconspicuously,

Cutie.

It doesn’t take two and two for Bogum to figure out which photos they are.

Oh. Joohyun.

He feels a headache coming in.

---

Author's note(11): So, so, sorry for the delay. I've been making a bunch of drafts (and forgetting about them) and it feels like my mind is all over the place. I've also been busy with a bunch of other stuff and activities (Ugh. Sports every weekend.), AND so I've been... lurking, and just basically reading a bunch of fanfiction. 

Ooh! In the midst of my 'lurking' I have stumbled upon the treasure trove that is Faberry (I know, I know, it may be a bit late to join in the bandwagon) and I LOVE IT! 

Anyway, here's to Red Room, to Red Velvet, and hopefully to no-more-half-assed-chapters! *raises proverbial wine glass*