“I don’t know what you’re going through right now that you aren’t acting yourself, but get it sorted out quick. I can’t stand you not talking or smiling around me.”

All of a sudden, Wooyoung braked the bicycle. Minsun had to hold onto him tight or she might lose her balance from the sudden force and fell off the bicycle. She was about to ask him what was wrong when she looked ahead and saw another surprise waiting for her.

“Wooyoung?” Taecyeon asked.

“Hyung!” Wooyoung blurted. It felt awkward that Taecyeon saw them together when he was obviously waiting for her in front of her house.

“Minsun,” Taecyeon said when he saw Minsun getting off the bicycle.

“Have you… been waiting for me?” Minsun asked.

“Well, yeah. It wasn’t long though, don’t worry.”

“Why didn’t you get inside? Halmeoni-”

“I thought… it’s better if we meet outside.”

Wooyoung looked at them both, and they both didn’t seem that happy to see each other like how a couple supposed so. 

“I guess I’ll… leave first.” Wooyoung said and then left after he gave Taecyeon a nod. Both Taecyeon and Minsun waited silently until Wooyoung was gone. Minsun adjusted the jacket on her shoulder and then cleared .

“Sunbae, what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry for keeping you out here, but I need to tell you something,” he smiled a bit, and then cleared his throat. He looked nervous and weary; probably from his basketball practice, but his lips looked pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. For some reason, Minsun’s heart raced at the suspense. She kept guessing what Taecyeon was about to tell her. While she get more nervous thinking what it was going to be, Taecyeon suddenly pulled her into a hug, a tight one. 

“S-sunbae…” Her heart beat faster at his unexpected action. Then, those feelings came again. The haunting feelings which made her felt really bad to the point that she hated herself. She felt like she was lying to him that she couldn’t return the same feelings he had even when they were hugging tightly like that.

“I missed you.”

“I-”

“I wanted to see you so badly last week, but I was scared.”

She was scared too. She kept stalling for time, but in the end, she had nothing done. All she did for the past week was avoiding him and everybody else, as if she was back to her beginning, shutting herself up from everybody.

“I really, really missed you, but I knew something is wrong with us.” He added, and then slowly let her go from his arms.

Minsun was shocked to see his face. He looked…

Sad.

She had seen Taecyeon angry, worried, annoyed, but it was the first time for her to see him looking so sad. Like his life had drained from his body. Maybe because he had always been a leader to his team, he never presented himself in agony.

And this was what Minsun was afraid so much of.

Minsun looked to the ground. She guessed Taecyeon caught up after all those days that they didn’t meet and Minsun kept giving him so many excuses. And then there was that incomplete confession under the bus stop. She hadn’t finished telling him what she actually felt, but that was probably enough for him to guess what she was going to say anyway.

“Minsun, can I ask you something?”

“S-sure. What is it?”

“Have I ever hurt you without me realizing?”

“No!” Minsun quickly denied his question. Where did he get the idea? It was the other way around to be exact.

“Did I ever force you to do anything you don’t like? Or did I never do anything that you like instead?”

Minsun shook her head as tears began to gather at the brim of her eyes. He knew that Minsun was not able to stay with him anymore, and he was blaming himself for it.

“It’s not like that, sunbae. It’s just I…”

“So it’s just that my feelings are one-sided, huh?” Taecyeon laughed lightly, as if he was joking, but his voice lacked that warmth and kindness that drew people to him. He sounded so sad and suffered, Minsun couldn’t imagine how much pain she had inflicted on him, someone so innocent and sincere. 

Again, her habit that Taecyeon realized lately, especially when they were together, Minsun stared at the ground, hanging her head low. Her sight was blurred with so many tears that she tried to hold back.

Taecyeon cleared his throat continued after he calmed himself, “Why don’t… Why don’t we start over? Let’s get to know each other slowly, step by step? Let’s put aside the fact that we had been going out these past two months, and start all over again. I’ll be more cautious and-”

“Sunbae…” Minsun shook her head. He wasn’t making sense anymore. He looked so lost, and Minsun couldn’t think of anything that could fix that.

“I’m sorry. That was just ridiculous, huh?” He gently smiled at her.

“Sunbae, I’m really sorry,” Minsun finally said with her tears bursting out.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Taecyeon said while pushing her chin up with his hands, and then smiled at her, even though he looked pained doing so, “Please don’t feel bad. I was the one who should have realized that I’m just forcing my feelings onto you without thinking if you could ever accept them. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have given you all these burdens.” he said gently while wiping away her tears with his thumbs.

Minsun shook her head, disagreeing. She knew what he was trying to do. He knew how she wanted to break away from the relationship, but was afraid of doing so, afraid of the guilt of having to hurt him, so he turned the situation around. He was putting the blame unto him. 

He was saving her.

Minsun knew because Taecyeon was not someone who would give her up because she couldn’t return his feelings. He was always happy enough to see her smile directed at him. He always tell her how he missed her, or that he loved her even though never once did Minsun replied to him. He was the type who would only grew his feelings for her as days passed by, not the other way around. That was what she learned since she knew him more, which led her to her decision of letting him go. Because it was him who can’t be happy if he stayed with her. It was him who would be hurt and she couldn’t stand the guilt for causing those. He deserved someone much better, someone who could love him forever.

“I’m really sorry,” Minsun told him again, in between her sobbings. She could no longer hold back her feelings, but Taecyeon just smiled gently at her. Even while telling her to break up, he always looked at her with such gentle, affectionate eyes.

“Be strong, Minsun ah.” Taecyeon patted her head before he walked away in heavy steps.

Minsun cupped to muffle her own voice as more and more tears flowed down her cheeks. She kept wiping them again and again but the tears kept falling that she began to get mad at herself. 

“Minsun you idiot… Why are you crying like this? You’re not supposed to…” she told herself.

Minsun slowly bended her legs that were stiff from the cold  and crouched in front of her house, in the empty road. The sky began to get tainted with orange streaks, but she still couldn’t stop crying. She had to before it turned dark soon, or her grandmother would get worried.  

Wooyoung who had been hiding behind a stone wall all this while could only see her back, her shoulders shaking up and and down from the past fifteen to twenty minutes, crying alone in that empty street. 

What actually happened, he wondered?






Miryung High Gym
3.50 p.m.

Taecyeon wiped away the sweat on his face as he walked towards a bench on one side of the large hall. As soon as he took his seat, Munhwa handed him a bottle of water. He nodded to her as his thanks before he quickly downed the water. His eyebrows raised when Wooyoung suddenly passed by him, and then stopped in the middle of his way to stare at Taecyeon with a blank face.

Taecyeon was about to ask Wooyoung about what he was doing after he swallowed the water but Wooyoung talked first.

“Hi, hyung,” Wooyoung smiled and waved his hand at his hyung. Taecyeon swore he smelled something fishy about his smile, but he brushed it away.

“Hi, Wooyoung. What’s up?”

“Um… how do you do?”

“Well, um… good. Why do you ask?” 

Wooyong couldn’t say that he was concerned that it had been exactly three days since he officially break up with Minsun but nobody seemed to be aware of the fact, or maybe he didn’t want people to know, just yet. Minsun didn’t say anything either. Heck, it was as if she had disappeared. She never showed up at the gym anymore. She used to be studying alone at the library after school, but these days she went home straight after shool. She even skipped her Math Club meeting at times, saying that her mother wanted her to be home early. He wasn’t sure how much of those were true because she only started acting like that after their break up.

Taecyeon had been acting like nothing happened and practiced as usual that sometimes Wooyoung doubted if he actually heard right about their break up, but then Wooyoung realised one thing. Taecyeon wasn’t fooling around much. Whenever they were being plain dorks, he would just watch from the sidelines and smiled, instead of joining like usual.

“Um… It’s been a while since… NEVERMIND!” Wooyoung dashed away from his spot and joined Chansung and Junho who was sitting together, quite away from Taecyeon.  

Taecyeon just watched the younger boy as he sat with Chansung and Junho and chatted among themselves. He could guess what Wooyoung was trying to ask. He was probably curious about Minsun. Why she hadn’t shown up at the gym for almost two weeks? Why did she left so early everyday? Why is the Brangelina of the school seemed like they had nothing to do with each other anymore?

Because they didn’t.

Not anymore.

But Taecyeon at least wanted to be able to protect her. He was the one who asked her out in the first place, so he should be responsibled if they broke up. For now, he didn’t think letting everyone know about their break-up would be a good idea. Not when he still had obsessive girl fans following him around, saying that they will protect him no matter what. It would be bad if they ever knew that Minsun had nothing to do with him anymore.

Meanwhile, Wooyoung who had canceled his plan A of directly asking Taecyeon about what happened between him and Minsun, quickly changed to plan B and turned to the closest source regarding anything scandalous around the school.

Channuneo, the owner of the Gossip Boy blog.

“Wooyoung ah!” Chansung called him first before Wooyoung could ask him anything.

“Yah! Yah! Yah! Come here and sit right next to me!” Junho pulled on Wooyoung’s wrist and forced him to take the seat by his side. Then Chansung scooted closer towards Wooyoung so he could hear him better.

“Wooyoung ah, we need to ask you something.” Chansung whispered.

“Uh, sure. I have something to ask you guys too.”

“You’re close with Minsun, right?” Junho asked, squinting his naturally small eyes at Wooyoung, which left Wooyoung wondering if he could actually see while doing that.

“Pretty much,”

“She must at least told you something about her relationship with Taec hyung, did she?” Chansung took his turn to ask, more like interrogating to be exact.

“Well… That’s a bit…”

“Yes or no?” Junho pushed him  a bit.

“Yes! Yes! Geez, you guys…”

“Then, did she tell you anything, anything at all! Recently?” Chansung continued.

Wooyoung sighed. “No. In fact, she had been avoiding me and refused to talk to me.”

Chansung and Junho looked at each other, wide eyes.

“Something smells fishy here…” Chansung said wth his eyebrows knitted closely, as if he was thinking hard for an unsolvable case.

“Something smells?” Wooyoung looked around and checked if there was some rotten food around, trying to skip the topic.

“Something is not right!” Junho said, shaking Wooyoung’s shoulder with his hands.

“Really?” Wooyoung started to get curious. What were these two talking about by the way?

“Can’t you see?” Chansung whispered harder, “Minsun is not talking to you, she’s not showing up at the gym anymore and-”

“And there’s something not right about Taecyeon hyung!” Junho continued.

“You guys think so?” Wooyoung perked up when they mentioned about Taecyeon.

“You knew?” Junho asked. Wooyoung nodded.

“Isn’t he like… a little not himself?”

“You’re right!” Chansung responded on Wooyoung’s assumption. “Yesterday, he saw me flirting with a girl, I think she was from his class, he scolded me telling me to stop playing around with girls, but that was it. He didn’t ask me to run 10 laps at the track field, or get down and do 100 push-ups!”

Wooyong gasped in disbelief.

“That’s not just it.” Junho added, “The day before that, the coach was joking around and said that he might ask Munhwa to form a group of cherleaders for us. Taec hyung thought coach was serious and didn’t say anything. Isn’t he like always ‘No, I don’t want girls to get too close to our team! Especially me!’ Isnt he?”

“Wow, this sounded more serious than I thought…” Wooyoung murmured, but clearly the two boys could hear him.

“I wonder what made them both act that way. Are they fighting?” Chansung asked, more like to himself.

“Or worse…” Junho looked at Wooyoung, “They broke up…”

Which reminded Wooyoung of the conversation he heard last weekend. He was pretty sure they broke up, but he just found it hard to belive. They looked happy together, and he couldn’t see anything wrong between them, so Wooyoung was kind of hoping that they made up. But then, the current situation proved otherwise.

“If they really broke up, that woud be bad. Imagine what hyung’s fangirls would do to Minsun…” Chansung said worriedly.

“We must not let that happen. We have to protect her, we have to protect hyung too. He might gain antis from the scandal. Wooyoung ah, whatever we talked about today, you didn’t hear any of it, get it?” Junho added.

“I…” Wooyoung suddenly said after beng silence for a while, “I’ll try to confirm this with Minsun,”

“Oh! Good idea! Wooyoung you’re good at this. We might consider to add you as another admin for our blog!”

“No, thanks.” Wooyong flat out rejected the ofer as he walked away from the duo towards the court to continue his shooting practice.




6.00 p.m.

The practice had ended, and today will be the last day for their practice before the preliminary round in Christmas Cup started, which was in two days. Taecyeon and Coach Cho wanted everybody to have a good rest before the game, so all that was left was to clean up the gym. Everybody was busy with moping the floor and picking up the balls, but there was a certain boy who quietly, and mysteriously disappeared from the court, but Taecyeon knew where to find him.

“Jang Wooyoung, stay right there!” Taecyeon warned when he suddenly pushed open the door towards that hallway along the locker rooms at the back.

“!” Wooyoung paused his steps and slowly turned around, looking defeated.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Taecyeon strode towards him and then grabbed his collar from behind.

“I’m sorry hyung but I have to leave early. I have a really important matter to- I mean my grandparents are visiting this evening so my mom told me not to be late.”

“Oh, really?” Taecyeon let go of the boy again.

Funny. He usually wouldn’t buy that. Junho and Chansung was right.

“Oh, well.” Taecyeon sighed. He looked really tired when he wasn’t angry. Wooyoung wasn’t really used to that kind of image on Taecyeon. He guessed Taecyeon really had a hard time after the break up.

“I guess you should go. Take care then. See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks hyung.” Wooyoung said and quickly ran towards the back entrance of the gym, sighing in relief. Actually, deep inside, he was considering if he should stop by Minsun’s house and meet her because he had so many questions to ask her. Why did she break up with Taecyeon? Why did she change? Did something happen to her which led things to turn the way they were now?  

Wooyoung was walking across the school assembly square when he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. But he believed he had perfect eyesight, and that girl walking in front of her was Seo Minsun.

“Yah, Seo Minsun!” He called out.

Minsun looked at him, and then looked away again as she quickened her steps.

“Yah!” Wooyoung ran to her and grabbed her hand so she couldn’t run away from him.

“Let me go.” She coldly said.

“Not before you answer my questions.”

“I have nothing to tell you!” Minsun raised her voice as she shook her arm free from Wooyoung.

“Yah, why are you getting angry at me?!” 

Minsun looked away. Wooyoung was worried earlier but now he was just annoyed. Wooyoung took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Look, I don’t want to be angry at you but you keep running away. Everything about you feels wrong now. Aren’t you going to fix this? How about telling me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing happened to me, and nothing’s wrong now. This is how things supposed to be. What’s wrong was when I first talked to you. If I hadn’t agreed to your ridiculous plans nothing would have happened.”

“Exactly what happened? You and Munhwa being close friends? You and Taec hyung dating? Or you and Taec hyung breaking up?”

Minusn looked at Wooyoung again, looking surprised. “You knew?”

“I knew. I was listening that day. But I thought it was ridiculous. Taecyeon hyung was always happy that you guys are together even though he knew that you didn’t like him as much as he liked you. Why can’t you guys just be together?”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t! I can’t like him… I don’t want to hurt him…”

“But you’re hurting him now! All you did was running away! If you don’t want to hurt him, why don’t you get back to him, and do what you always tell me, just be nice to him.”

“I just want everything to be over. If I keep hanging around you guys, all of you would just end up being betrayed by me.”

“That sounds like an excuse to me! If you don’t want to betray us then you wouldn’t be acting like this. Stop being ridiculous. I’ll get you and Taec hyung together again.”

“Why can’t you just accept it? From now onwards we have nothing to do with each other again.”

“I don’t get it! You’re being really weird! Taec hyung is a really great guy, you don’t break up with him only after two months without ever having a fight, unless you like someone else!” 

“You don’t understand!”

“Oh, I do now! You’re breaking up with Taec hyung because you still have feelings for Jaebum hyung aren’t you?!”

SLAP!

Minsun spunned around abruptly at the loud gasp she heard  from behind. 

It was Gohee, staring at her wide-eyed, with her hand over . There was Taecyeon, Jaebum and the rest of the basketball team watching in shocked. She wasn’t sure how long they had been there, how much they had heard since she and Wooyoung shouted to each other. Wooyoung wasn’t sure either, but he regretted for not thinking before he spoke. But it was too late to regret now.

Minsun stood there, frozen, as if the time did too because nobody said anything, did anything. She no longer see anything else but Gohee. She thought she could never feel anything worse after all the things that happened recently, but she was wrong. Minsun looked like she was about to break down anytime, her eyes blurry, her breathing ragged, her legs weak.

“Unnie, I didn’t-”

“Minsun, it’s okay,” Gohee said gently. The look on her face was gentle, concerned, motherly. She took a step forward, to get closer to Minsun and tell her that everything was okay, that sometimes things just happened and it wasn’t her fault at all, but once Gohee reached out for her, Minsun ran away as fast as her body could, like a scared little kitten, without ever looking back.

“Minsun!” Taecyeon shouted and ran after her, followed by Gohee right behind him.

“Minsun, wait!” Gohee yelled.

Minsun kept running until she passed the school gate, but she could no longer hear Gohee’s voice, or people going after her. But then, she began to hear some kind of commotion from behind her. She heard lots of loud footsteps, and lots of people screaming. But among those voices, there was one voice which sounded the loudest. It was Jaebum’s.

And he screamed, “GOHEE, WAKE UP!”

Minsun suddenly felt a heavy air hovering above her. She slowly turned around as she silently prayed that nothing bad happened, but then she saw Gohee lying unconscious in Jaebum’s arms, while everyone else around calling her name, telling her to wake up. 

I'm sorry for being mean everyone ;A; I have no excuses for doing this. I just want the story to go this way, to show that Minsun was weak and she made a mistake.