That Stupid List (A Seventeen Fanfic)

Chapter 12: He Read It

After turning her room inside out and still had not found her diary, she quickly ran out of her room in her pajamas to the library where she thought she'd left it. It was so cold outside, and she was in light pajamas and her hair was still wet from her shower. She was chilled to the bone, and she just knew she was going to get sick after this. But that didn't matter now. She needed to find her diary before anyone else did.

When she finally arrived, she felt instantly bothered to see that it wasn't on the table where she had sat. She looked around the area, on the floor, in the shelves. She asked the librarian if anyone had turned in a lost item recently. She went to the lost and found. She asked security. It was nowhere to be found.

She went back to the area where she wrote her last entry: that list, that stupid list. She looked again and again, hoping that it just magically appears. She felt the frustration well and she just wanted to cry. The thought of losing her diary was extremely distressing.

"Are you looking for something?" a voice asked from behind. Jin turned around to see who it was.

"Umm, yes," Jin responded to Mingyu, who was looking onto her with such concern.

"What is it?"

"A notebook," Jin said, feeling the breathless desperation in her voice. She looked and sounded ridiculous, "it was here, and now I lost it."

"When did you lose it?" he asked her.

"A few hours ago," Jin responded, gulping and feeling the unwelcome tears threaten to reveal themselves to this kind-of stranger.

"There was a guy studying here like 20 minutes ago. He may have picked it up," Mingyu told her reassuringly.

"Guy? Who?"

Mingyu narrowed his eyes as he tried to recall, "I don't know his name. But I vaguely remember what he looks like. If I see him again, I'll ask him for you," Mingyu said to her.

"Thank you," she responded and bowed to him, "I will be forever in your debt if you find it."

"Don't worry about," Mingyu responded. He then grabbed his own notebook from the table at which he was studying and wrote down something. He tore the paper and handed it to her, "here's my number. Just send me a Kakao message to telling me you're the girl who lost her notebook so that I have a way to contact you if I find it."

She took the piece of paper and bowed. "Thank you," she said again, not knowing what else to say. She was too overwhelmed to say anything else. It took ever ounce of power in her to keep from breaking into tears.

"Don't worry," Mingyu said, reaching out to hold her shoulder, "we'll find it."

"Thank you," she repeated for the third time. She looked ridiculous to him and she new it. Wet hair, in pajamas, almost crying and frantically searching for a notebook, "I'll go look in my room again," she told him, bowing.

"Okay. I hope you find it. Let me know if you do," he said to her with a sympathetic smile.

She nodded, and just as she was about to turn her head, he looked over her shoulder and said, "wait! That's the guy!"

He pointed at someone far away who had just left the library. Jin couldn't make out who it was, but she followed when Mingyu dashed towards the suspect. When they made it out of the library, and Jin had a clear view of who it was, she felt like she wanted to just disappear.

It was literally the last person in the world she wanted to see.

"Hey," Mingyu called out to him politely, "excuse me."