He watched as all his classmates piled into his literature classroom; giggling, play fighting and flirting with each other. He rolled his eyes and adjusted his black mask that was somewhat tickling his nose.

Minhyuk was absurdly early today and already longed for the school day to be over.

“Where’s Jisoo?” He suddenly heard the tall lanky boy that sat next to him ask what Minhyuk assumed, to be his girlfriend. They were holding hands after all.

“That’s strange, she’s usually here before us every day,” He overheard the lanky boy’s girlfriend say. She moved to sit behind her boyfriend, evidently unbothered by the absence of this Jisoo.

Minhyuk smirked as he crossed his arms over his desk and put his head down. People were always interesting to observe, for the sole fact that they were never who they seemed to be.

“I should text her. Maybe she’s sick?” The lanky boy said, seemingly struggling within himself. Was it that hard for him to send said Jisoo a simple text? What was stopping him?

“You know, you worry too much. I’m sure she’s fine and even if she’s sick, Jisoo’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself,” His girlfriend stated, her tone light and airy. “Leave her alone for now, okay babe? If anything, she’s probably just running late.” Her voice went up an octave in mock positivity.

“You’re right. I should at least see if she comes to school first or not.” He smiled at her and lightly kissed her on the nose.

Minhyuk squinted at them from where he sat, truly amazed that the boy couldn’t see through his girlfriend’s façade.

“People, settle down and take your seats. I’m going to be handing out a worksheet that you’ll work on for the rest of the period.” Mr. Kim walked in, already giving out instructions as he always did. Minhyuk found it fascinating that he wasted no time and got straight to business as soon as he arrived. He was easily his favorite teacher by far.

Minhyuk looked to the overly attached couple and saw the lanky boy staring off at the side of the classroom, where an empty seat was.

He suddenly realized who they had been talking about, finding it odd that he hadn’t put the pieces together before.

“I’m sorry. I-I must be in your way. Here let me-”

He remembered how her arm had felt under his hand. She had been so warm, it had caught him completely off guard. Minhyuk had honestly contemplated whether she was running a fever or not, searching her face that had gone a bit pale, but quickly decided it was none of his business anyway.

So… her name was Jisoo.

Jisoo woke up with her head pounding, feeling like her brain was ready to jump out of her skull.

Despite that, the rest of her body felt oddly relaxed, especially since she couldn’t remember a trace of her having any type of dream or nightmare.

She massaged her temples as she looked over at her digital clock for the time. It read 9:03 am.

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her their sockets as she sat up way too fast, feeling the room spin around her. She was so late for school. She had already missed literature and she would definitely miss second-period environmental science and third-period trigonometry because of the bus ride.

Jisoo got up slowly, using anything she could find in close proximity for support. Why did she feel so horrible physically? She decided to shower and get dressed, not bothering with her hair. The shower had helped peel some of the fog she felt along with the headache, but it was still there pounding at the back of her skull relentlessly.

She chose to eat cereal for breakfast and sat down once she had served herself, but in the middle of eating, Jisoo looked down at her cereal and watched as the milk slowly turned into white-bright pink flowers. She cocked her head to the side, waiting to feel some sort of confusion, only to come up empty.

Jisoo shook her head, which was a terribly bad idea and just took her pain pills instead. She assumed that her mother was still at the gym, hence why she wasn’t rudely awoken and yelled at. “I’d better get out of here before she finds out.” She walked as fast as she could to the sink and placed the bowl down.

Although Jisoo felt like she should feel worried about her mother, she didn’t. She felt serene. Leaving so she wouldn’t get yelled at was more of a reflex out of the fear she usually felt.

“Well, I’ll be damned, did the DPH actually work?” Jisoo felt herself smile but didn’t feel the warmth that came along with it; which should have unnerved her also, but it didn’t.

For the first time in what seemed like years, Jisoo walked to the bus stop without a hint of worry or anxiety.

She arrived at school around lunch time, her headache subsiding in very slow increments.

After begging Ms. Kang from the school office to just give her the strike and not call her mother, she felt strange. She supposed normally she would be exhausted, but it was like her nervous system and her brain were shot, completely out of sync with each other.

She honestly felt nothing.

The bell rang and Jisoo got up from the school's garden bench to go to what was left of her day when she saw Minhyuk standing in front of her yet again.

Jisoo went to step forward, intending to go to her fifth-period Spanish class, when he came right up to her and stared her down. Had he figured out that she had his vial?

He slowly reached out his right hand and she watched as it sunk into her chest. Jisoo stared as Minhyuk’s hand sunk further in and pulled out something, holding it delicately in the palm of his hand. She glanced back down at her chest, her uniform now soaked in a black gunk she couldn’t recognize.

“You should take better care of it, you know,” Minhyuk spoke as she raised her eyes to look at what he was holding on to. Jisoo sensed that her eyes had gone wide in surprise, but didn’t feel surprised in the least.

There in his hand, laid her heart, dripping black sludge all over his hand and down onto the pavement. It was pumping the sludge rapidly, making a messy puddle, as if it had no blood to pump.

It should have freaked her out beyond belief, but she couldn’t feel a thing. For once she wished she could, because what was happening couldn’t be real.

Nevertheless, Minhyuk stood there with her heart still in his hand. Jisoo felt her stomach lurch and put a hand over , but it was no use. She could only gawk at the sludge-like liquid coming out of as she heaved and fell to the floor, her hands and knees now covered in it. The panic that wouldn’t come was enough for her to let out a scream instead. She didn’t know what was happening and couldn’t even deal with it in any way.

Trembling, she tried to crawl to the closest wall and used it to hoist herself up as much as she could. Jisoo didn’t trust herself to walk any further and decided it was better to just stand there. She looked over to where Minhyuk was meant to be standing, heart in hand, only to find nothing.

There was no Minhyuk, no heart, and no sludge puddles.

“What the ,” Jisoo cursed out as her chest heaved, her shirt also no longer stained.

Minhyuk had his headphones in as the bell rang and sat up from his usual corner in the cafeteria. He was the new kid and even though he didn’t mind socializing with people, the only people he had made ‘friends’ with were drug dealers. He didn’t want to keep them so close to him. He lazily picked up his backpack and started making his way to his fifth-period art class.

Everyone was still talking amongst themselves as he opened the door to the cafeteria; he was one of the few students that were always early to his art class.

He took a quick glance at the school garden and at the huge tree, where he had seen Jisoo for the first time. He wondered what had happened to her since this morning.

Just as he passed the grand entrance of the garden, he felt the hair on his skin stand up on end. Minhyuk pouted slightly as he turned back around and felt his jaw slacken upon the sight in front of him.

There stood Jisoo, the Jisoo from the conversation this morning, shaking and sweating uncontrollably as she held onto the garden entrance wall.

Minhyuk immediately knew he couldn’t just leave her there. So, before anyone else could see her, he swiftly made his way over to her, covering her just enough to hide her shaking frame. “Hey,” He said gently, making sure not to scare her as he put away his headphones.

The moment Jisoo looked up into his eyes, dread filled his veins. Her eyes were so dilated, her pupil's giant saucers that eclipsed her irises almost completely. “It’s you again,” she muttered with what seemed like fear and backed away from him, still using the wall for balance. He frowned at her reaction. Had she seen him today without him noticing?

“I…” He exhaled and watched as she flinched away from him yet again. “Let’s just calm down,” he said as he put his hands in the air, signaling he meant her no harm.

“I am calm,” She retorted with more vigor, “I can’t feel .”

What he had suspected to be a DPH overdose, was confirmed as he saw her grip on the wall weaken, until she slid to the ground in a heap. “I can’t feel anything,” She repeated, tears in her eyes this time.

“Let’s get you to a quieter place, yeah?” He kneeled down and put her arm around his shoulder and neck, grabbing her by the waist. If he carried her, the students would definitely know something was up. He couldn’t have the school finding out and he assumed she didn’t want that either. “You gotta help me out, okay? Keep your head up for me.”

“O… Okay,” She breathily mumbled out, doing her best not to let the fatigue consume her. Minhyuk just hoped that the students that were walking by wouldn’t look their away. He decided it was best to ge