Amelioration || Choi Jiung

Bonus 2: Choi Jiung and Hwang Intak

As the class teacher walked into the classroom, Intak turned his head to look at the empty desk beside him.

His seat mate is not the type to be late. She's rarely absent too. This made him a bit confused and worried.

"Students, the school has an announcement to make." The teacher said, looking a lot more serious than usual.

The class waited, but the teacher only looked outside, waiting for someone.

Soon, the vice principal entered the classroom, making the students whisper to each other, wondering what happened, that even the vice principal had to come.

"Good morning, students of year 3 class 2."

Everyone quieted down as the vice principal spoke.

"This morning, a student of your class has attempted to commit suicide. She's sent to the hospital right now."

Instantly, all the students looked around, and turned to look at the only empty desk at the classroom in shock.

"Chaerin?! It can't be her, right?"

"Man, I barely notice her in class, but she didn't seem like she isn't okay."

"For now we don't know her condition," the teacher spoke amongst the whispers, "I'll be heading to the hospital later to understand the situation."

"We care about students' mental health here," the vice principal said, looking concerned. "If any of you feel bothered by this event and need someone to talk to, you can find any of our teachers or social workers here."

The class stood up and bowed as the vice principal left. The teacher talked about some class matters before leaving as well.

The students sat back down, continuing their discussion on the sudden event, while Intak could only slowly sit down, trying to recover from the shock.

Aren't the others scared? Because he certainly is.

Someone that he's used to seeing almost every day, at such a close distance, may disappear from the world from now.

If she ends her life... she's going to die, right? She's not coming back anymore, right?

Barely exchanging any conversation, he never knew what the person next to him has been through, that she chose to end her life at such a young age. An age that he thought should be the most exciting (though su-neung has pretty much took away most of it), and had the most to look forward to.

But I guess you never know.

After a while, Intak went to where the people in Chaerin's squad sat.

"Hey." They all looked at him as he spoke.

Seeing that he got their attention, he continued, "do you guys know what happened? Did she look for you guys the night before? Or days before?"

The girls all shook their heads.

"She didn't seek help from us, at least we don't recall her doing so..." one of the girls responded.

"Okay..." Intak nodded, heading to his seat once again.

His eyebrows furrowed, overhearing the girls only complaining about the school giving them too much work while "caring about their mental health", instead of worrying about their friend.

Is he caring too much or is it them who doesn't care enough?

———————————

"Oh, Intak!" Their class teacher was a bit surprised to see the boy looking for her. "Are you alright? Looking for someone to talk to?"

"How is Chaerin?" He asked, looking a bit nervous.

"Thank you for caring about your seat mate," her expression softened, "I'll be making an announcement to the class later. She's okay, but it'll take quite some time for her to recover and come back to school."

Intak immediately felt relieved. She survived.

"Are we going to do anything for her?" Intak asked, "like visiting her? Sending some gifts?"

"Yes, I would like to find a representative for the class. I planned to ask her friends later, but if you want to, you can be the one to visit on behalf of the class."

"Okay, I'll do it."

———————————

Intak headed towards the convenience store after finishing his lunch. But before he reached there, he could see Chaerin with another guy inside.

The boy squinted, feeling surprised and confused. He always thought that he's her only guy friend, according to what she told him. Though just a few days ago Chaerin reposted an instagram story of her and quite an instagram-famous boy. Yet today it's another boy again.

But what bothered Intak the most was the way Chaerin looked at that guy.

He didn't realize until now that she makes it look so obvious when she's interested in someone. And that's because she had not been interested in him since the start. He had never seen her being in love.

"Why has she never looked at me like that?" Intak thought to himself.

—————————————

Jiung

Hello
Are you Intak?

Yeah?

Um sorry for bothering you this late but
Chaerin is at my house right now and she drank a bit

What the fuck

Wait let me finish

If you do anything to her I'll fucking kill you

Supposingly I should be taking care of her but I can't
So can you take care of her instead? Like pick her up the next morning

...
I don't know if you know this but Chaerin and I are in a fight?

Uh... I couldn't tell from the previous messages

...
I guess I'll come over in the morning

Thank you

But... don't you like her?
Why are you asking me to do this?

I do
But I'm like... really tired
It sounds hilarious and you probably don't understand but
I just can't do anything right now