I Need You | Seonghwa

16

The next day arrives, and Seonghwa makes his way to the lounge of the university with a stronge resolve. 

On his way there, he notices a familiar face. Yunho is back on campus?

Seonghwa pulls out his phone warily and finally notices many messages from his friends, but he hadn't even read any of them. He's been trying to avoid interacting with them as much as possible, so he had muted their messages on his phone. Yunho must have decided to come onto campus in their groupchat.

Seonghwa takes a deep breath and walks around Yunho while keeping a large distance between them. Haerin shouldn't see him together with any of his friends.

He makes it into the lounge, and that's when he realises that this might be his final time in this lounge. His friends spend time in here and he can't afford to be seen near them ever again. On top of that, Haerin usually spends time here.

Seonghwa storms over to her table and takes a seat in front of her, taking her by surprise. She feigns an innocent expression and opens her eyes wide when she's met with the most deadly glare from the man sitting across from her.

"Seonghwa? It's so nice to see your beautiful face this early in the morning!" she beams, quickly regaining her composure. The man can only sigh in hopes of calming himself a little. Right now it feels like his blood might start bursting through his ears from the anger.

"I'm going to get straight to the point. I'll stay away from my friends, so leave them alone. Don't you dare lay a finger on me or my friends ever again," he threatens in a low voice. The girl looks surprised for a moment. "What do you-"

"Don't even try to act innocent. I know you've been behind all of these 'accidents' that have been happening lately. Leave me alone! I don't know what you're after but if it's me, I'll tell you now that I have no interest in you and the best thing you could do for me is leave me alone!" he rants, losing his temper again gradually.

Haerin tilts her head slightly and puts a finger to her temple, as if she's mocking Seonghwa. "I know this isn't like you...Hongjoong, is it? That Hongjoong guy has been feeding you lies, right? Don't listen to him. He's just trying to turn you against me but I'd never hurt anyone," she explains.

"Shut up! Don't bring him into this, he has no relation to this! Don't touch him...please," Seonghwa begs with more desperation. Haerin blinks curiously at him and slumps back in her seat.

"Fine, I guess you don't even talk to him that much either since you just met him recently. You know I care for you, right? I really do love you," she smiles.

Seonghwa feels the violent urge to throw up. What haunts him is the fact that behind her expression, there really is genuine warmth and affection.

He wants to scream and cry. Why must she like him? What did he do to deserve this?

It hurts even more that she likes him. It makes Seonghwa feel a small hint of guilt, as if everything that his friends are going through are indirectly his own fault.

Feeling tears prick his eyes, he suddenly stands up and hurries away to the bathroom. Once he's done painfully releasing the contents of his stomach through his mouth into the toilet, he sinks to the filthy floor and sobs his heart out.

Everything that has been happening lately has been way too much for him to handle, and only now is the stress of it all catching up to him. What happened to San could have really been fatal. He was so close to losing one of his closest friends yesterday, the anxiety still wracks through his body in the form of electrifying shivers.

He couldn't even bring himself to visit San in the hospital with the rest of his friends today. The fear and guilt was too overbearing for him. San has been through enough already, Seonghwa hates the thought of bringing more pain to him. He's gotten enough consolation from the doctor informing him that San would be okay yesterday,

As long as everyone recovers, Seonghwa will be able to endure the lonliness.

After taking a few deep breaths, Seonghwa washes his face and rinses his mouth at the sink before wiping his eyes one last time. He pulls out his phone and texts his groupchat an apology and that he's too occupied with studying to meet anyone.

The exams are coming up in a few weeks. He'll have to make up a new excuse when the exams finish in two months. For now, it's easier to go with this. Especially since every time it's exam season, Seonghwa tends to isolate himself to study anyway. His friends will surely understand since they're used to this.

Much to his relief, his friends support him and tell him to take care of himself. Tears make their way to Seonghwa's eyes again. Despite being in pain, all his injured friends are wishing him the best and are encourging him too. He wishes he could tell them about how he feels, but he knows that they'd face Haerin and get hurt again.

He can only dream about recieving comfort right now.

His friends in the groupchat also assure him that San has woken up and is okay. Yunho texted saying that he is feeling good enough to attend classes again, but thankfully for Seonghwa, he has no classes with Yunho so it'll be easier to avoid him.

He releases a small smile seeing that his friends are slowly getting better. Good. He needs to maintain this.

But then another text arrives from Hongjoong privately.

"How are you feeling? Let's meet up and talk about everything, you must be going through a horrible time."

Seonghwa reads the preview of Hongjoong's message without actually opening the message and his heart shatters. The only friend he has left that hasn't been targeted yet. He's still so caring even now, Seonghwa feels even more scared to interact with Hongjoong.

He bites the inside of the cheek before finally making the decision to uninstall his messaging app once and for all.

This is only for the best for his friends.