“Where has Jongin been?”  Sooyoung asked as she smeared peanut butter over her chocolate chip cookie.  Sooyoung was always weird when it came to eating things.  She put extra pepper in everything and put peanut butter on her pancakes.  She didn’t like cream cheese or bananas either.   Seulgi didn't particulary mind much.  Everyone had different eating patterns.

Seulgi shrugged in response and said nothing.  They were all looking at her for an answer and she had none.  Just because Jongin confessed to her didn’t mean she would know where he was at all times.  In fact, Seulgi hadn’t seen him at all since Sooyoung’s birthday.  As far as she knew he wasn’t coming to school either.  She hadn’t made any effort to call him or ask around for him because she didn’t even know if he had friends.  He could be dead for all she knew.

That worried her.  Now that she had actually thought about it, not knowing where Jongin was upset her.  Why was he avoiding her?  

“He’s a jerk.  I don’t care where he is,” Seulgi lied.

“I think I’m starting to see why teenagers shouldn’t be in relationships,” Sooyoung said, rolling her eyes.

“Have you asked Mark where Kai would be?” Seungwan asked as a suggestion.  

Of course, that would have to mean Seulgi expressing that she cared and she clearly hadn’t done that.  Maybe it was that her friends actually cared more than she did or maybe they were asking for her sake.  Jongin was some sort of twisted form of stability for Seulgi.  She’d never even talked to him before their encounter in the grocery store but somehow he’d become a huge fixture in her life.

“It’s like he disappeared.  I convinced my mom to go the grocery store and they said he quit his job there,”  Sooyoung pouted.

“How did you even know he works there?” Seulgi snapped.

“You told me, you know, the day you told us how you met the guy and ranted about how much of a he was,”  Sooyoung said.  “It’s not like anything’s changed either.  You still rant about how much of an he is.”

“Can we stop talking about Kai?  We have a civics test next period and I’m pretty sure you guys didn’t study either,”  Joohyun piped up.

Seulgi shot her a thankful look to which Joohyun just nodded.  She wasn’t in the mood to be pushed to the point where she would want to shout at her friends.  Seulgi didn’t like it when they fought because it was very rare that they did.  She would engage in arguments with Sooyoung from time to time but it had never amounted to anything serious.  She took out her notes and the four of them began to frantically review for the test.

Seulgi had already studied and she knew it couldn’t hurt to review one more time.  As she scanned the words on the page, she began to grow more and more irritated.  She couldn’t stop thinking about he guy that had been their topic of conversation a minute ago.  He couldn’t have disappeared.  He wasn’t some sort of secret agent that could go dark just like that.  He wasn’t even in any gangs that she knew of.  He had worked at a supermarket out of all places.

“Where’s Mark?”  Seulgi asked.

They looked up from their sheets with knowing smiles and almost all at the same time pointed towards the table packed with the football players.  Seulgi rolled her eyes at them and walked over to the group of boys.  Mark was in the middle of them laughing and joking around with everyone.  Seulgi felt a bit irritated at how he could be so calm that his own cousin was missing.

“Where is he?” she asked, staring straight at the red haired boy.

Mark looked around at his friends and gave Seulgi a nervously look.  He didn’t seem to want to have the conversation in front of everyone but she wasn’t giving him a choice.

“I can’t tell you,” he told her.

“Why not? First he tells me he likes me and then I never see him afterwards.  What the am I supposed to think?”  Seulgi exclaimed.  “Is he not showi