BENEFITS | YUNSANG

Atone

"I never hurt Yeosang."

"Silence, Yunho." Mr Jeong utters, shutting his son up.

"Principal Nam, I reckon Yeosang has been receiving a continual amount of mistreatment from his peers for the past couple of weeks. He has been coming home looking all muddled and untidy along with missing belongings. He refused to talk to us about it when we confronted him."

"So you're accusing my son of bullying him?" Mrs Jeong crosses her arms at Mr Kang's explanation. "This is outrageous, Principal Nam. Surely Yunho isn't the only one contributing to the damage. What about the other students? There's no way my son is the sole cause of the occasion."

"We are nowhere near blaming Yunho for the entire thing, but Yunho's the only person Yeosang ever talks about." Mrs Kang defends her husband kindly, in which Yunho's ears perk up at the last sentence. "We just wanna know what really happened to Yeosang when he was in school."

Principal Nam directs his gaze to Yunho. "Well, Jeong Yunho, what do you have to say on that?"

Yunho takes a deep breath, trying to twist the truth so the parents wouldn't suspect his past relationship with Yeosang. "Me and Yeosang got into a huge fight a few weeks ago. We were good friends ever since he first came to this school but he never disclosed about our childhood. When I found out about it, I was offended and totally lost it. But I swear on my life, Mr and Mrs Kang, I never wanted to hurt Yeosang physically and I never knew he was being bullied."

"And the drone? What happened there?"

"I suppose it must've lost control. I saw it flying towards me so I punched it away. I guess Yeosang saw the whole thing and got really angry."

Yunho didn't know how to continue about the hand incident, but they were all waiting for him to go on. He imagines the darkness in Yeosang's eyes moments before he hit the wall, those eyes were screaming to hurt him. But why didn't Yeosang do it? Why wouldn't he hit Yunho after he had spoken those mean things to him? Didn't Yunho deserve that?

You live in the same body as the person that I fucking love!

"Yeosang he..." Why is it so hard to get those words out of his mouth, Yunho scolds himself. "He wanted to hit me but... He didn't. He took it out on the brick wall that was behind us. It was my fault for pressuring him."

There. Yunho said it. He took the blame for indirectly hurting Yeosang. Whatever happens next, he will be accountable for it.

The door suddenly barges open and everyone spins their heads towards Mia running in.

"Excuse me, principal!"

"Miss Han, we're in the middle of a very important discussion-"

"It was me. I spread the rumour." Mia confesses, bowing 90 degrees.

"You did what?"

"I made up the stories and shared them with a couple of students. And I was the one who stole Kang Yeosang's controller and gave it to two little boys so they could play with it. I didn't mean for them to almost hurt Yunho and break the drone. It's my fault, sir. I'm turning myself in."

"Mia, why would you do that?!" Yunho growls as he gets on his feet, his tone scaring the girl. "Do you realize what you've done?!"

"Son, sit." Mr Jeong holds his son's hand and tugs him back on the sofa. "Calm down."

"I'm so, sorry, Yunho..." Mia whispers, shaking her head. "I'm sorry for doing this to Yeosang, Mr and Mrs Kang. Please punish me, principal Nam. I've messed up everything."

Principal Nam sighs. "Very well. In that case, Miss Han, I will be calling your parents regarding your violation of the student's code of conduct and you will be punished very soon. Please wait outside while I settle this with the parents."