home, jaemin

chapter fifty-seven

7 days. a week.

it had been a week since the group of friends had last seen jiyoung and known of her whereabouts. now, they had no idea where she was or what she doing.

everyone was a wreck without knowing where she was, especially jaemin.

how could she just run away from them like that? was something wrong? did they do something wrong? where was she?

they all wanted to know where jiyoung was at and whether she was safe or not. it was scaring them not having any contact with her but what was even scarier was that no one did.

they tried getting a few of their classmates and parents to text her and see if she'd answer them but that wasn't the case.

her social media's disappeared after day two without any traces. at first, they thought maybe she had blocked them because they'd done something wrong but now they didn't know.

that's when they began worrying more.

at first, mark and jeno were taking initiative trying to keep everyone in order and calm but after seeing her accounts had been deleted, they too began worrying too much.

they just want to know she's safe.

"i don't want to."

nayeon sighed, rubbing her cousins back as tears welled up in her eyes. she didn't like the sight in front of her. she missed jiyoung too which only made the tears threaten to fall. "you have to get back to school."

jaemin sniffled, his face still smothered into his pillow as he laid flat on the bed, tears stains on his cheeks. "what's the point? without her, i'm going to fail anyway. she actually helped me understand school but now it's just a waste without her."

"jeno can always still help..." she trailed off.

"i don't think i'll be as helpful. jiyoung was much better than me at helping him understand," jeno sighed, walking inside of the bedroom and to the edge of jaemin's bed. he took a seat, looking at the boy with sadness radiating off of him.

"you know she'd hate to find out you're blowing off school and practices. especially because of her," nayeon said, dropping down to eye level with jaemin.

he turned to face her, his eyes red and a bit puffy from rubbing them too much. "i don't want to go, nayeon. bring my work here if you'd like but i seriously can't find it in myself to get up right now even with the pep talks. seriously."

the older girl nodded, standing up. jeno stood up as well and intertwined their hands as they walked outside.

"he's in love with her," he said as they walked outside.

nayeon nodded, "it was too obvious. and now he can't even get out of bed long enough for school."

"i wish we could help him. to tell him it's all okay and jiyoung is probably safe somewhere just waiting to come back. but we can't. because we don't even know."

"me too. but i don't think mark's healing water is going to be enough to mend his broken heart."