Not Alone || Jung Jaehyun

Chapter 12 | "protect you"

With only one days until regionals, Hyemi was panicking. The dances were going well. Too well for her to mess up badly enough to throw the routine without it being obviously intentional.

The weight of Kyunghee's threat was heavy on Hyemi. She was terrified that she would loose her brothers if they found out, but she didn't want to throw the routine.

It was all too much for her to handle at once, and this time, she couldn't just dance her pain away. She needed to get out of there. She felt like she was about to go psycho.

"Take five everyone." Jaehyun said as they finished running through the dance one more time. Hyemi jumped on the opportunity, standing and rushing towards the door.

"I'm gonna... go and grab some water. I'll be back."

"Alright, we'll wait up for you. Don't take too long." Jaehyun replied as the team cooled down.

- - -

"Where is Hyemi?"

Jaehyun had a bad feeling in his chest. He knew something was up with Hyemi, and when it took her longer than 10 minutes to come back from the fountain, it made him worried.

"Hey guys, I'm gonna go check on Hyemi. Go ahead and run the number again without us."

He broke formation and walked out of the room as he heard Yuta begin calling out the counts in his place. He went to the fountain and, unsurprisingly, she wasn't there. He pulled out his phone to text her but got no response.

Starting to feel nervous now, he ran through the school, searching for her. He checked her locker, the quad, all the places he's seen her hang out before, but she wasn't there.

Swallowing his pride, he eventually made it back to the dance wing and knocked on a familiar door.

"Jaehyun? What the fuck do you want?"

"I'm not here to fight, Taeyong. I'm here about Hyemi."

"Hyemi?" Jaehyun watched as Taeyong's whole expression morphed from annoyed to worried. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know. She asked to go fill up her bottle and was gone for 10 minutes, so I went to look for her and now I can't find her. Do you know where she might be?"

"I don't but.... uh one second." Jaehyun watched as Taeyong turned to look back at his team. "Jeno? Can you come here for a minute?"

The boy ran over to the door, sweaty and out of breath.

"Yeah, Taeyong, what's up?"

Taeyong didn't respond, instead simply gesturing to Jaehyun.

"It's Hyemi. She left practice and hasn't come back. I've looked for her around the school but haven't been able to find her. Do you know where she might be?"

Jeno paused, thinking for a moment.

"Well, you know that Hyemi spreads herself pretty thin between school and dance, so usually when she's tired, she'll go for walks around the quad." Jeno said, but Jaehyun just shook his head.

"I already checked the quad and she wasn't there, plus I don't think she was physically tired... more emotionally tired and stressed."

"The roof."

"What?" Jaehyun and Taeyong said in unison, looking at Jeno in shock.

"She used to go there a lot in high school when she would get especially stressed, she would go sit on the roof to clear her head. If you can't find her, check there."