Secretive (2kim fanfiction)

2: Empty Seats

"Pleeeeeeeease?"

"No, Wonyoung. Enough with the mischief" Minju sighed. 

Her younger friend had always been a troublemaker, and unfortunately, she tended to circle the blame to Minju. So, Minju's best course of action was to stop it happening in the first place

"Yuriiiiiiiiiii" Wonyoung whined "Can you help me?"

Yuri opened her mouth, but Chaeyeon interrupted "I'm with Minju on this one."

"You too?" Wonyoung complained, summoning up all her cuteness to convince them.

"Wonyoung, last time you pranked someone, you ended up in detention. And whined about it. Clearly you were upset, and you annoyed everyone else with your whining. So, for the convenience of everyone, you'll kindly stop talking about it"

"Ugh, fine" Wonyoung gave up. 

Nako smiled "What would we do without you, Chaeyeon"

"Live in chaos" Chaeyeon said, grinning.

Hitomi sighed "I don't know if I could deal with that"

"Anyway, back on topic" Yuri said. Then paused. "What were we talking about again?"

Minju sighed. This was what life with her friends.

And yet, she wouldn't trade them for anyone else. 

-

Minju's eyes kept lingering to 4 empty seats. 

The table they were sitting at could fit ten people, and yet, only she and her 5 friends were sitting there - while the rest of the tables were full or mostly full. 

There was no outright reason for this. Minju's theory was that Wonyoung's pranks had irritated most of the people in this room - but she could never be sure.

Not that it really mattered. Minju loved talking with her friends. But it still felt weirdly empty.

Anyways.

Chaeyeon noticed Minju staring again and sighed.

Wonyoung grinned, breaking the tension "Maybe we should make up 4 available people to sit with us"

"Hello, Mr. Invisible" Nako grinned "How was your day?" This made Minju giggle.  

"No, Miss Invisible" Hitomi joined in "I haven't chosen a partner for the class project. I was thinking about partnering with Nako... you can partner with... Invisibella over there...."

Minju laughed harder, and just like that, she had forgotten her troubles. 

-

Minju's parents seemed worried when she got home. 

She had just been casually talking to Yuri, then she went home. And she knew something was wrong.

But she wasn't suspicious or anything. Things happened at their job all the time that made them worried or frustrated. And normally, even though Minju was a bit young, they didn't mind telling her about it - even though there were a lot of things that she didn't understand. 

"Did something bad happen at work?" Minju asked her mother.

She just smiled "You don't need to worry about it"

This confused Minju. So, she asked her dad, and boom, same result. 

Maybe they're just embarrassed about something. And that's why they don't want to talk about it. Minju thought. This seemed like a reasonable solution. And so, she didn't really put much thought into it.

Little did she know her life was about to change in a big way