comes in waves ↠ kim sunwoo

chapter twenty four

Third Person POV

"I will kick his ass," Sungyoon announces to the group sat at the table. "And I will seriously give it a good kicking."

Heiji sighs. "I don't want that, Sungyoon. But thanks. I don't doubt that you could kick his ass."

"A real good ass kicking," the boy repeats, with his hands clasped sitting in front of his face, leaning on the table, which Jinsoul reaches over to place her hand on top of his and calm him down. "Why didn't you tell us until now, Heiji?"

"I couldn't."

It was true, it had been only two weeks since the boy disappeared, and the more the group started to worry about her whereabouts as well as Seoho's, Heiji knew she had to let them know. It wasn't that she wanted to speak for Seoho or his current situation, but she didn't care if she spoke for him - especially after what he done to her. 

"It took Haknyeon to convince me to even come today," Heiji says truthfully. "I didn't get out of bed for a week then I didn't get out of it for another few days. I figured I'd rather not leave you all in the dark."

"You shouldn't feel like you have to," Lia says, placing her hand on the girls lower back. "We knew something wasn't right when the both of you weren't responding."

"I can't speak for him, no one can," Jinsoul starts. "But when things came to light all those years ago, he done the same thing. He disappeared for a while and he never came back."

Heiji nods, she knew that was most likely exactly what was happening, and so did everyone at the table. Mia reached under the table to hold the girls hand, whilst Haknyeon gave her a reassuring smile. 

"I just want to clarify," Heiji coughs. "I don't expect any of you to stop being his friend. That isn't my intention. I'm angry with him for how he treated me, it doesn't mean he is a bad friend to any of you."

Hyunjae looks up at the girl, he knew she was talking about him. And she was right, how he treated her was no reflection of the friendship the two had. Hyunjae was angry. Not at the girl specifically, but how things had turned out between them. Seoho was his closest friend of the group, and he would struggle to let that go. 

He didn't owe it to Heiji to end his friendship over their fallout, but he felt the same sympathy he always felt towards the girl. He just couldn't bare the thought of losing his best friend because of his foolish actions towards someone else, someone he truly cared about. He wanted the best of both worlds, but he knew he couldn't get it. So with that, he decided to leave. 

"I'm gonna get going, guys," Hyunjae speaks the first words he had spoke in about an hour. The whole table glanced over at him. "I'm sorry, but I'll be here next week."

He barely said proper goodbyes as he got up and left, taking a final look at Heiji. He noticed how sad her eyes looked, and he felt awful, he felt torn. 

No one at the table was shocked by his actions, to be honest. Everyone knew this would hit Hyunjae the most. Everyone else was no where near as close with the boy as he was, it was understandable that he was confused.

But that hurt Heiji. She never intended to hurt anyone else's feelings today, or make anyone feel as though they needed to choose between herself or Seoho. Truthfully, she knew that the majority of the group were on 'her side' and she wouldn't have to deal with seeing Seoho around much longer. 

"He must feel terrible," Sungyoon said quietly. "I can see why."

"Absolutely," Heiji nodded. "I did say I didn't want anyone to feel indifferent towards him, I can't do much else about it."