Ten

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Taesan sat on the floor of his bedroom as he finished unpacking his items on a Friday afternoon just as the sun set. He could hear the chatter from different teenagers in the town, and a small part of him would have wanted to join, but he knew where he had to be.

His mother was in the living room watching television, and soon he was going to join her.

As Taesan continued to organize his items, he heard familiar voices outside the window. It was a group of the teenage boys passing by his house.

'Who lives there?' one of the boys asked his friends.

'Oh the dumb new kid,' he heard Leehan's voice answer clearly.

Taesan felt bad hearing that, and it made him feel emotional. He dropped the book he was holding in his hand and crawled over to his window. He slightly parted the curtain from the window and peeked out, seeing almost all the boys from his class except Jaehyun.

'Don't call him that,' one of the boys smacked him. 'Jaehyun will get mad.'

'Jaehyun isn't here, and I don't know why anyone would defend that quiet loser who probably lives in his head...'

Taesan immediately let go of the curtain and moved away from the window. He didn't want to hurt himself further listening to what they thought about him. He sighed. Still, he had to remind himself that this was better than staying in the city – at least he had to convince himself that. It's not like they would like him if he returned anyway,

Taesan continued to sort his items and stopped when a photo fell out of a book. He grabbed the photo from the floor and looked at it – it was a photo of him with his previous best friend. The two of them smiled at the camera with their school as a backdrop. Taesan had his arm over his friend's shoulder and a peace sign on his other hand.

He slightly smiled as he looked at the picture, it was with Sungho. Sungho would not even want to see him now. He probably hated him.

Taesan sighed and looked up at the ceiling, a tear trickling down his cheek.

'Taesan,' his mother said as she opened the door and stepped into his room. 'What...what are you doing on the floor?'

'Nothing, I was just fixing up some stuff.' He hastily wiped the tear that had made its way down his cheek. He then tucked the photo back in the book.

His mother looked at him thoughtfully, before she walked towards him. She took the book from him, even though he initially grabbed unto it to keep her from taking it. She opened the book and immediately saw the photo.

'What are you still doing with this?' she asked him with disappointment evident in her voice.

'I thought I got rid of it.' He answered honestly. 'I wouldn't want to see it either.'

'Well,' she returned the book to him but kept the photo. 'I'll get rid of it for you then.' She tore it in two in front of him, then further until it was four pieces. 'I'll take this far away, okay?'

Taesan nodded with tears lining his eyes, but he didn't want his mom to see his gloom. Thankfully, Taesan was sitting in the shadows of the golden sunset trickling in his room, so his mother could not even see his wet eyes.

'Sure.' He nodded.

'Oh, I actually wanted to tell you something important.' She sighed and sat down on his bed, while he remained on the floor. He turned to her direction. 'Taesan, my office in the city needs me tomorrow, they need me to give them documents which only I had access to. But I really needed to start my baking business tomorrow. Someone already told me that the best day to start is on this Saturday because it's a special day in this town, and most people enjoy pastries.'

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