The Falling Souls

0X1=FALLINGSTARS

Taehyun was staring outside the window. The classroom was empty. He then puts on his headphone, the tape on his hand was not playing but recording something. He then closed his eyes. 

-

Yeonjun, Soobin and Huening walking towards room 0202 and shouted "Beomgyu, let's go to school!" Beomgyu who was half awake remembered that they promised to visit their old school since it has been abandoned for 4 years already. 16th December, he didn't know why they chose the date, but he just followed them since they said something interesting is going to happen after midnight.

"Don't shout like that! This is a hospital, not a playground. I might ended up hospitalised again due to shock, not a heart problem.", said Beomgyu with a judging face he put towards his friends. They then walks out from the hospital and went to visit their old school. 

It was a gloomy day for a walk. The sky was dark, the cloud looks like they are going to cry any moment. Maybe because it is December, it's getting colder as they walk. They rushed to the school just in case the rain might fall but nothing happened. The sky was still dark. 

"Let's go to our old classroom. I bet it looks super old just like this main entrance," said Yeonjun while laughing at how old the building looks like. They entered the school, full of rusty things, dirts, dusk and everything one can expect from an abandoned building. 

They arrived in front of their classroom. It's empty. Nothing left in the classroom except for some desk, chairs and some fixed locker where students put their belongings in. 

They went straight to the locker as nothing else they could see in the classroom other than the closed locker. They looked around and Soobin noticed a locker that still have its safety lock on. "Should we try and open this? I mean it has been 4 years since the last time this locker had been used so maybe the owner forget about his locker?" Yeonjun said while pointing out to the locker. 

They look at each other and noded. 

As Huening was trying to open the locker, Beomgyu walks around the classroom and stopped in front of small notice board. He stared at the board intensely and notice something was off. Some forgotten memories of himself suddenly came accross his mind.
"Hey guys, do you know someone named Taehyun?" They then stopped everything that they are doing and all eyes was staring at Beomgyu. 

"Why did you ask?" Soobin asked while walking across the classroom, towards Beomgyu. 

"I saw this picture on the board and somehow I found him in some piece of my memories. His nametag says Kang Taehyun."  

Huening, Yeonjun and Soobin standing behind Beomgyu who was looking at the picture. "Why do I feel like I've seen him somewhere?" Beomgyu asking to himself and turned around to look at his three friends. Weirdly enough, they all avoided Beomgyu's eyes. Beomgyu sense something was off. 

Beomgyu walked around the classroom. He noticed that his friends were staring at him all the time, ever since he asked about the picture. As he walked in circle, around the classroom, he saw a table. The table was full of weird scratches, message and even some red marker. The table was the only table left in the classroom. 

Beomgyu with his curious mind, went to check on the table. He stopped. His feet felt heavy. He felt like he saw something that he did not supposed to see. His head starting to hurt like crazy. He screamed. He cried. 

"Wake up. Stop be friend with a son of criminal."
"Criminal son should die."
"You'll be a criminal too. Why don't you just die."
"Criminal blood flowing inside your body. Even if you dry your blood, your meat was made by a criminal too."
"This red mark, is a sign for you to die." 

Table tag
Name: Kang Taehyun
Class: 1-1-3 

In a split second, all the memories that he didn't even know where they came from just showed up in his head. He remembered everything. He again, screamed and cried as loud as he can. Huening, Yeonjun and Soobin, who was standing at the side, went to Beomgyu. They hugged him and cried together. 

-
Flashback 18th April 2017 

They just finished taking their school ID pictures for their class board. "Hey did you hear that meteor shower in 2022 going to be one of the biggest?" Taehyun asked with his shinny big eyes sparkling, looking at his friends.

"Taehyun, it's 5 years later. You really going into this astronomy things way too deep." Yeonjun said while laughing at how excited Taehyun looks when talking about the meteor shower. 

Taehyun face did not change. His eyes still sparking bright. Beomgyu looked at Taehyun and said, "It's okay, after 5 years we can come back here to school and look at them together. I think we can see it if we look at them from the school's rooftop." 

"REALLY?? I really wish we can watch them." Taehyun smiled so widely, with his never change shining eyes. "Beomgyu, stop listening to every wish he make. You always followed everything that he want. You need to let him know nit everything can easily come true." mumbled Soobin while looking at Taehyun and Beomgyu that were sitting in front. 
 

17th December 2017.

At the school rooftop, Taehyun standing there with blood all over his school uniform. 

"Did you see those annoying rich boys dragging Kang Taehyun to the rooftop? Are they gangsters? Why are they dragging a person as if it was a thing." Beomgyu who heard the conversation between the two friends interrupted, "WHERE?" 

Beomgyu ran through the stairs as fast as he can. "TAEHYUN! KANG TAEHYUN! KANG! TAEHYUN!" he screamed his lung out. As soon as he reached the rooftop, the door was locked. He pushed his body through the door for so many times until his shoulder starting to bleed and he fell. His head hits the strairs. Back of his head started to bleed as well. He got up with pain all over his body and pushed the door with all his remaining might. He succeed. The door opened but it was too late. 

He saw Taehyun was standing at the end of the rooftop, as he was ready to fall any time. Taehyun saw Beomgyu and smiled to him brightly. He took a step back and let himself fell of the rooftop. 

Beomgyu went speechless. His step was heavy. He did not have the courage to walk to where Taehyun was standing before. His eyes went unfocused. He looked around as he was trying to find the courage to look for Taehyun but what he saw was only a group of students, standing there doing nothing, with their hands in their own pockets. Beomgyu recognised them. They were in his grade. 

He quickly understand what was happening. He furiously ran and punched the kid that was standing in front of him. 

Yeonjun, Soobin and Huening, who were in the other school building, finally showed up with a teacher by their side. By then, Beomgyu has been beaten up half-dead. 

Beomgyu was taken to the hospital. He woke up on a small bed inside a dark and cold room. He looked around and realised, he was hospitalised. He saw his mom was there and asked, "Where's Taehyun? Is he okay? Did he hurt badly?" His mom didn't say a word and only stared at Beomgyu. Beomgyu suddenly jump off his bed and started running out of the room. He ran out of the hospital like crazy but he was stopped by Soobin and Huening that was just arrived in front of the hospital. He then lost his conscious again. 

It has been a month since the incident. Beomgyu, who remained unconscious ever since that traumatising day, finally woke up but he acted weird. As if he did not remember anything about what happened. The doctor checked and said, "His brain might have locked all the memories that he had for the past few years while he was in coma, for the sake of his will to survive." 

Ever since then, no one talked about Taehyun and the incident anymore, for the sake of Beomgyu. 

End of flashback.

"So what happened after that day?" Beomgyu asked while holding the pain on his chest. "We did a small funeral for him. The incident was widely known in news and all over the country so they decided to close down the school. The school was not closed down because the principal did something bad. It was just us who make up the story for you. Police did caught those students that lead to the incident and police found out that they've been doing that ever since the beginning of year 1 because one of them knew about the secret. 

Taehyun dad was one of the worker at his dad's company before and he recognised Taehyun but none of them was taken any action because they're from families with names." Soobin explained everything that Beomgyu should know. "We decided to tell you now is because of the promise we, I mean YOU, made to him. Today is the meteor shower day." Yeonjun said while holding Beomgyu's hand. 

Huening walked towards the locker that was lock and open the lock with 040314. It was the date of their first met. He took out an old looking cassette tape and said, "It's already passed 12am, I think the meteor shower will start any soon." 

They all got up after hearing what Huening said and went up to the rooftop. Huening took out the tape and said, "When I first accidentally listened to this back then, I decided to kept this tape for today. The day we all can listen to it together. 

Huening look at his friends and pressed the play button. 

Taehyun's message tape 

"I believe when you guys listening to this, we could never see each other anymore. I just wanted to say that I'm thankful to have friends like you guys. Each of you have been my biggest reason to stayed in this school. I just want to make more happy memories together. Do you guys remember about the meteor shower I talked about? I know I could never see them myself, I'm just so happy that you guys willingly wanted to watch them with me. I hope you guys can enjoy it together and maybe that time, I will be one of the falling stars because I read that falling stars are signs for falling souls who will be going to heaven. So please watch me, and send me to heaven, together. Thank you for being my bestest friend." 

The moment when the tape stopped, meteor shower started to show up. Amazingly, the stars were falling into one direction. The direction was the place where Taehyun fell that day. "Taehyun, I hope you're happy that you're going to heaven and you will live a wonderful life like no other people can. Thank you for being our friend."

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Yeonjunkookie7
1122 streak #1
Chapter 1: This was such a beautiful story even though it was a bit sad..