Woohyun’s POV

“What do you mean she decided to go to Japan?” Sungyeol asked, frowning deeply. “When did this happen?”

“She’s in Japan right now?” Sunggyu went on. “Why?”

Hoya didn’t know what was going on, but he thought that the main reason why she left was because of me. I could tell he was thinking of that from the way that he looked me. “When did she go?” he asked, looking at me but was addressing to Myungsoo.

Myungsoo looked around. “I’ll tell you guys later, during lunch. I can’t explain everything all at once but I’ll tell you,” he said quietly, not quite meeting my eyes and I wondered if I was really the reason to blame, too.

So during lunch, we all waited until Myungsoo had settled before we jumped on him. Sung Jong and Dongwoo, not knowing what was going on.

Sunggyu turned to them and said, “Kasumi is in Japan.”

Sung Jong looked hurt. “What? And she didn’t tell us?” he blurted out. “I mean, even though we don’t talk to her that much lately, she should’ve told us about it.” He turned to Myungsoo. “You knew, obviously, but why couldn’t you have told us? We’ve been friends for so long. So why not now?”

“Because Kasumi didn’t want you guys to know,” he replied. “Look, Sung Jong-ah, just listen to me —”

He stood up and glared at me. “This is your fault.”

“I —” I tried to say.

“Sung Jong, just listen,” Myungsoo spoke up and everyone turned to him. He didn’t dare to look at me. “I think I better tell everyone what happened before you guys all start to jump into conclusion.”

“Well, then, spit it out,” Hoya impatiently huffed.

“Okay, well, it started when I was looking at photos of Kasumi when she was a baby in this photo album she brought back home the other day when she went to the institution on her mom’s death anniversary,” he started. “She was with me, of course. So, we were looking at her pictures when we saw a letter attached to it. We read it.”

“What was in it?” Sungyeol wanted to know.

“It was a letter from her mother,” he said quietly.

“But didn’t she die some ten years ago?” Hoya questioned.

He nodded. “It appears that Nobuko had written the letter to her a long time ago when she was still alive. Well, that’s obvious. But, anyway, in the letter, her mother wrote that Kasumi have some relatives in Japan. Her father had a sister and a brother. She gave her their contact numbers and that if she ever wanted to know her family, because Nobuko wasn’t sure if she could ever be enough to support her. So she said that if Kasumi ever wanted to know more, she could just call them.”

“What makes you sure that they didn’t change their numbers?” Hoya wanted to know. “I mean, it’s been, what? It’s been almost ten years, right?”

He had a good point. A lot can change in ten years.

“We called them,” he answered plainly like that was the most obvious thing to do. “It was a good thing that they were still living at the same address they’ve been living in ten years ago. They asked her to visit them whenever she could.”

“So she went,” Dongwoo finally said something.

Myungsoo nodded. “It was hard, trying to convince my parents about it, but eventually they saw it was best if Kasumi at least knew her relatives. And because, well, she was done with her exams and there really isn’t anything much she’s needed in school, she decided to take a few months break.”

“But she’ll be back in time for the year-end trip,” Sung Jong finished. “Well, I guess she must’ve planned it out properly. There is no way she can miss the year-end trip. It’s the biggest trip ever!”

He nodded once more. “My parents checked with the principal and she agreed, so Kasumi is excused for two months. It’s a good thing she still remembers how to speak Japanese, so she could communicate.” He looked around us with a solemn expression. “Now if any of you are starting to think of going to Japan to visit her, forget it. She needs a break from everyone.”

Sungyeol and Hoya’s faces fell and we all knew that they were thinking about it. I just put my best poker face on so no one would know I thought of doing so, too.

“How is she?” Sunggyu was curious.

“She calls every night,” he reassured our leader. “She’s fine. She seems really happy to be there. She’s learning so much.” He looked at me and softened. “Even though she didn’t say, I think part of the reason why she left was because of you. . . . It still hurt, whenever someone says your name.”

I looked down. I wasn’t surprised. I did hurt her in the tiest way. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Sung Jong and Hoya looked as if they wanted to say something, properly to sneer at me as usual, but I was grateful when they just kept their mouths shut. But then I looked up and realized that both Sunggyu and Dongwoo were giving them warning looks. I looked back down to my tray of food. Suddenly I didn’t feel very hungry anymore.

“By the way,” Myungsoo added, “Block-B knows about her being in Japan. She told them a couple of days.”

Sung Jong’s face darkened. “Well, that’s it, isn’t it?” he snapped angrily and we looked at him. “They’re her new best friends. Of course she’ll tell them everything when we have to hear everything from you.”

“Maybe,” we heard Jaehyo saying and we looked up in time to see Block-B walking past us, “the reason why she told us and not you was because we actually care about Kasumi. She’s not just Jiho’s tutor to us.”

“We cared about her first,” Hoya fumed indignantly.

“Maybe so, but where were you when your friend hurt her?” Taeil sneered, looking at me.

I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat.

“Have you noticed that she’s still close to her brother but she practically cut all ties with you?” B-Bomb chimed in, smirking callously.

“That’s because he’s her brother,” Sunggyu reasoned, gripping his drink that his knuckles were getting white. “Of course he would be closer to her. They see each other every day. They live with one another.”

“Kasumi could’ve easily tried avoiding him,” Kyung argued back and we kept quiet because we knew that that was a valid point.

“You guys drove her away from us,” Sung Jong fired up. “You took her away every chance you get whenever you see her hanging out with us because you were scared that she might abandon you guys for her first friends.”

“We didn’t take her away because we were scared she might ‘abandon’ us. We were doing her a favor. She didn’t want to be anywhere near you, especially if it reminded her of him,” B-Bomb spat out, glaring at my direction. He stressed on the word ‘him’ as if it was some sort of plague.

“If there was anyone who drove her away, it was you,” P.O chimed in.

“And how did we do that?” Sungyeol asked crisply.

“It wasn’t us who made her turn against you,” U-Kwon spoke up. “It was you, who didn’t care about her. It was you guys who never bothered to see if she was okay after the whole drama with her boyfriend.”

Taeil chimed in, “The reason why her brother is the closest to her, and is the only person in Infinite she feels comfortable talking to up until now, was because he made an effort to show that he was there for her, whereas you just waited for her to come to you. You didn’t back her up. Sure, you might’ve isolated Woohyun for a bit, but that’s about it. You didn’t try to talk to her; you didn’t try to check to see if she was okay.”

Infinite was utterly speechless and Myungsoo hung his head low, indicating that he was in full agreement with them. We didn’t blame him, actually, because we knew he cared a lot about his little sister.

Zico raised a disdainful eyebrow at me. “You’ve caused quite a lot of damage just because you needed to satisfy your desire, didn’t you?” he mocked. “Congratulations.” He cocked his head and they left, contented.

“Guys, don’t you see this is what they’re trying to do?” I said weakly as six pairs