wander [ hyunlix ]

40

Minho couldn't stop thinking about it.

The boy had been delivered safely back to his house, courtesy of Chan and his effortlessly speedy driving skills, and had returned to an empty house—thankfully, as he was tired as hell from the last day's excursion.

The trio had driven to the beach house again, found nothing new, as expected, and trudged back to their hometown with a weird sense of defeat lingering in the air. Chan had only muttered a hundred times that there "had to be something we missed," and secretly, Minho agreed.

They had missed something. Or at least, Jisung and Chan had.

It had only taken a second for Minho to swipe that little novel they'd poured over ages ago from one of the beach house's tables, and shove it into his bag without a word.

Pulling it out now, as he sat in his room, all he could do was let out a deep breath.

"August... July..." Minho muttered the names of the months as he swiped through his photos on his phone, in a bid to find what he was looking for far back enough.

And there it was.

Dated from over a year prior, numerous photos of half-full notebook pages and completed worksheets filled his screen. Minho couldn't help but smile as he clicked on one, reading over its hastily written contents.

'An analysis of Jane Eyre by Hwang Hyunjin:
Where do I even begin with how questionable this book was...' Minho snickered as he read the opening lines of that assignment, one he'd a hundred-percent cheated off of and somehow managed to get a better grade on.

But it wasn't time for reminiscing. The novel he'd taken from the beach house now sat on the nightstand next to his bed. He grabbed it, and opened it to a random page, flipping through until he found a page with over a paragraph of writing in its margins.

With the two samples held up next to each other, the answer became glaringly obvious.

The handwriting was exactly the same. Minho had been expecting it, but seeing this fact cemented into reality still left a sick feeling in his chest.

"Hyunjin, you sly bastard..." Minho whispered to himself almost in awe. "What do you think you're doing?"

No offense to his best friend, but Minho had thought the boy to be a little bit smarter than the type to hide out somewhere that his own family quite literally owned. Not to mention the whole Felix situation...

Minho couldn't quite even wrap his head around how that happened yet.

For lack of a better phrase, he'd always known Hyunjin to be the lone wolf type of person. Never letting anyone get too close, trusting no one but themselves...

Then again, that was before last year happened. Before perfect, quiet, well-behaved Hyunjin had gone totally off the rails for the first time. Minho didn't know how many of the traits he'd known in his beloved best friend might even be left, at this point.

To be completely honest, Minho had known that his best friend would leave before he'd even been told.
Hyunjin hadn't exactly been subtle about it. First, it had been weird, paranoid calls and texts. The boy had been citing reasons left and right. He'd been getting sick out of nowhere. His family had been acting tense. His beloved aunt wouldn't look him in the eye and he had no idea why.