Minki stepped into Dongho’s bedroom. His face showed no signs of love or compassion, or even friendship. If his eyes could have turned colours due to anger, they would have. He didn’t lean against the doorframe as he spoke. His arms were crossed behind his back tightly; he looked quite uncomfortable.

            “How would Aron know what happened last night?”
            Dongho snapped back. “His room is right across the hall.”
            Minki stepped closer, his blonde hair stringy in front of his lips as he spat. “I didn’t make any noise.”

            Dongho inched away from him, his back almost against his window. The sunlight was dimmer than ever, it seemed, as his large body blocked the glass. The maknae didn’t give him a chance to respond before he tossed hard another shout.

            “I can’t believe you.” Minki rose his voice. “Do you have any idea what you did!?”
            “What I did? You came onto me!”
            “I wouldn’t have if you and that American weren’t hiding something from JR!”

            Minki’s open hand was dangerously close to Dongho’s face as his fingers balled, becoming a thick fist. His knuckles turned white.

            “You don’t want to know what we were hiding!”
            “If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t be asking you!” Minki threw a punch at the older boy’s face. Dongho flinched to the side, ducking out of his reach.

            “Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so,” Minki kicked him now. Dongho stood as fast as he could, throwing his own fist this time. He hadn’t missed by an inch. Blood flowed from the small cut on his pale white skin, where Dongho’s ring had hit him.
            “If I weren’t so what!?”
            Dongho brought his arms to his face, as if protecting himself. “If you weren’t so beautiful.”
            “Look at me now, Baekho! Am I still that beautiful to you!?”
            “You are, Ren! You are and I love you!”

            The two were quiet for a moment before Minki spoke again, his teeth gritted. His tongue hissed against them. His voice was terrifying.

            “You’re pathetic, Kang Baekho. I could never love you.” He paused again, bringing a hand to the cut just next to his nose, on his cheek. “You’re not half the human Jonghyun is.”
            “What’s JR got to do with this?”

            Minki kept his mouth pursed for seconds before he spoke. “That’s why I’m so angry at you. Thanks to you two bastards, he’ll never want to talk to me again. I could never love you, Dongho. I love Jonghyun.” The maknae stepped out of the room, whispering through his teeth again just before closing the door. “Worthless piece of,” his voice was cut off by the sound of the crowd downstairs, at Minhyun’s party.

            The tears rolled down Dongho’s cheeks with nothing to stop them. Curled in the blankets of his bed, he pulled them to his face and smelled the only thing he possibly could; Minki. With every inhale, he sniffled again. His eyes, red with pain and loss of hope, he hadn’t bothered to rub them clean. Picking up the pen and placing it on the paper, Dongho couldn’t help but shake. Growling at the pen as it scratched against the paper, unable to write, he tossed it, with force, against the door of his bedroom.

            As he climbed over the sheets, he reached a free arm out and reached under the bed, pulling out none other than his father’s pistol. He’d told him to keep it in the house in case of any emergency; he was a hunter at heart. No matter how much Dongho protested keeping a gun in the group’s home, his father insisted. He hadn’t known much about it, but he knew how to shoot it, and that was all he needed to know then. Shaking as he set it next to him, he was almost afraid to look at it, knowing what it would have done in just a couple of hours. He pulled another pen from the bedside table and wrote, glad that this one worked.

            He scribbled his letter as fast as his shaky hands would allow him. The pen skipped multiple times across the paper, leaving most of his words in pieces, but he truly could have cared less. More tears dribbled down his cheeks as he finished. He tore the paper from the notebook and folded it, placing it on his pillow.

            It would be an easy escape. Minhyun’s party was bound to have many people, and the entry would be filled to the brim with people; he’d hardly be noticed, if at all. Dongho the trigger of the pistol before placing it in the deep pocket of jeans. He wouldn’t use it, of course. Not if he could find Minki.

            Before leaving the house, Dongho peeked into Minki’s bedroom. It was torn to shreds, several of the blonde’s favourite shirts missing as well. The brunette wanted to fall to the ground in tears. He was truly afraid of himself. He rethought his plan. He could easily make everything right again. He could easily put Minki in the back of his mind and.... no, he couldn’t. He wished he could, however. He was scared. No one could simply understand how he was feeling; not even he could. He’d known Minki for years, and only just recently had any of this happened.

            Come to think of it, why was Minki’s face so sunken the night before? Why did he hardly talk, and where did Jonghyun go after he and aron had gone into the kitchen? None if those fickle things mattered; he had to find Minki. He searched his room for a trace of him, but as he suspected, he sound nothing, aside from the clothes strewn across the room and a missing duffle bag. A suitcase. Dongho’s head pounded more as he stood, moving quickly down the stairs and out of the house.

---

            Aaron sat alone. The fact that his bedroom was right next to Dongho’s hadn’t helped matters any. He glanced upwards towards the still broken mirror, and right into his bathroom. He stood, his face still full of anger as he opened the cabinet. He pushed everything from the shelf, knocking all medications, razors and the like to the floor. The first thing he plucked from the pile was the half empty box of bandages. He calmly stuck one around his injured finger before continuing on his rampage.

            What he was looking for, he had not a clue. His mind was clouded with those same thoughts of Dongho with Minki. Dongho and Minki. Their faces echoed behind his eyelids as he shut them. He quickly opened them again, standing. He had to calm down. Whatever this was, the feeling that he had to put Dongho out of the picture, he had to get it out of his head. Moving past the broken mirror, he watched himself. His eye caught the other and he stopped. He rested his hands on the desk and sighed. He still had to dress for the party.

            The brown haired boy placed a silver jacket and dark wash pair of jeans on his bed straight from the closet. He slipped into the attire and made for the door. As he moved down the stairs, more guests came into view. As each face turned as he walked, we watched them with repulse. Every blonde girl and brunette guy, or even guy and guy for that matter, reminded him of the previous night. His jacket made him seem slimmer than ever, and it’s colour brought out his eyes, as his mother would say. He smirked into each room. It was hardly ten o’clock and people were clearly already stumbling over furniture. This was probably due to the majority of them being underage.

            Minhyun was nowhere to be found. The only other one of his friends that he could find was Jonghyun. He stepped into the living room with him and several others. The room was overheated, either from lack of oxygen from so many people inside of the house at once, or because Jonghyun’s emotions still hung in the air. The leader looked away from the others and at the eldest, hard.

            “Where’s Baekho? I have to apologize for earlier.” he asked him over the sound of the music. Jonghyun shrugged his shoulders. To be honest with himself, Aaron needed a word with the vocalist. He thought for a second that apologizing for how he’d acted earlier that day was the right thing to do. That idea left his brain quickly.

            Jonghyun wondered the same thing himself, though. He’d not seen anyone but Aaron and Minhyun since earlier that day. However, not Dongho nor Minki were on his list of priorities as he downed another shot of whatever alcohol he’d been given by the tall, blonde American girl he’d seen only seconds before.

            The leader scanned the room for Minki. He was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t lie to himself, he did miss his face, even though it hadn’t been a day since they last spoke. He moved around the house, searching for the blonde. He reluctantly stepped into his bedroom. The same sight that Dongho had seen earlier still stood. This wasn’t like the maknae. He had always kept his things neat and orderly. Where could he have gone?

            Jonghyun panicked. Where could he have gone? How could he not have seen him? He looked under his bed. One single suitcase of his many were missing. The dark haired boy’s eyes widened as he saw that their photo that normally sat on his desk was gone as well. Where would he have gone?

            Jonghyun hunted the house frantically for Dongho, but he was nowhere to be found. Knowing that he and Minki; harumph, Minki; had had their own sort of falling out as well, naturally, he worried for his friend. Placing his hand on the doorknob of Dongho’s bedroom, he was surprised to find it unlocked, as it hardly ever was. The room was empty; all except for a shakily written letter sitting at the foot of the bed. Jonghyun took it in his hands as he sat upon the sheets.
 

‘I’m writing this in hopes that by the time it’s read, I’ll be dead. This is going to sound much like the cliche suicide note. Covered in dried tears and shaky writing. I didn’t even want to write it myself, but I knew it had to be done. I’m sorry, all of you. I’m sorry mom, I’m sorry dad, I’m sorry hyungs, I’m sorry ㄴㅇㅅㅌs. There’s no other choice I have. If any of you knew the force behind this choice, the reason I’ve made this decision, you’d understand. No one would blame me for leaving. According to him, I’m worthless. According to him, I’ve only done this for his own gain. He loves you so much more than I ever could. I wish you could understand me. I wish you could hear me. I wish you could read my mind and watch my dreams and feel how I feel. I wish you knew all that I do. God, I still can’t believe I’ve fallen into this trap. This is all my fault. Don’t blame my death on anyone other than me.

-Dongho’


            Jonghyun dropped the letter to the ground and made way for the door, pushing past Minhyun and the others, not thinking of Minki, or Aaron, or anyone else he was worried about at the time. The brunette’s mind rushed with many thoughts as he fumbled with his car keys, shoving nearly every single one into the lock until he realised that he could have pressed the automatic button. Almost driving away with the door hanging open, he pulled it closed and sped as fast as he could the wrong way down the known one way street on which they lived.

            "Where am I going?" was the one question that Jonghyun had asked himself when he’d gotten a good ten miles from the house. There was no way he’d find him like this. Not in a car. Not without any way of knowing where he went. Then a second thought struck him hard in the forehead. "What if Ren’s with him?" That would make his heart beat even faster, if it could. Pushing down on the gas pedal even harder, Jonghyun clenched a fist to his chest, tears dripping from his eyes.

           "He loves you more than I ever could." Those words rang in his ears as he thought, one hand still on the wheel, his eyes clouded with fear, angst and tears. "He couldn’t have meant me. We kept it so well hidden." Jonghyun pounded both fists against the steering wheel and shouted, his perfectly carved brown eyes shut tightly. Pulling the cell phone from his pocket, the brunette directed his attention to the screen, quickly dialing Minki’s number.

           “You’ve reached the voice message box of Choi Min Ki.” Jonghyun growled at the phone tossing it into the seat next to him. "What did he mean!?" the leader shouted in his head before letting the words escape his frightened, tight and dry throat as loud as he possibly could have. “What did you mean!?” He emphasised the final syllable.

           Jonghyun could feel the blood dribbling past his lips, but he ignored it. It wasn’t often that his rage or emotions could have made his nose bleed, but that was the last of his worries at that given moment. Without thinking, he pressed the pedal even further. Reaching godspeeds of 170 kilometers per hour, the only thing that Jonghyun could pray for now was Minki’s safety. For all he knew, that was where he’d disappeared to.

           Driving only a little further, Minhyun crossed his mind. He hadn’t wanted to pry his friend from the biggest birthday party of his life, but this was certainly more important.

           “Hello?” Jonghyun felt the all too familiar feeling of the airbag against his chest, and his vision went blank in seconds. “JR? Hello!?”