Kim Jungwoo, known as the unsociable beauty of the campus, paint himself as an ordinary junior college student. But that was just a mask to cover his anxiety-driven life filled with nightmares and self-doubt, which resulted for him to seek for the '...
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The moment I saw his ashen face I knew that something happened. I gave Obok's leash to Mark and took Jungwoo's cold shaking hands and pulled him for a hug. "What happened?" I murmured in his ear. He just gave a shrug and an inaudible answer before burying his face on my shoulder, hugging me tightly as he could.
"Yo, we've been waiting for you for over an hour. Where have you been?" Mark asked with a slight frown of concern on his face.
"Just around," Jungwoo answered quietly as he released his arms around me and turned towards Mark. "Thanks for dropping Jaehyun. I'd like to invite you over but I...I want to rest,"
"Oh, okay. Yeah, no worries. It's already late anyway, I have to head back too. You sure you're okay?" Mark asked again.
"Yeah...just drained or something,"
Sensing that Jungwoo was telling the truth. I gently squeezed his shoulder and nodded at Mark. "Hey, thanks for the ride and for taking care of Obok. I'll treat you next time when we meet up. He just had a long day,"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. See you at the store," Mark bid farewell and handed me the leash before he walked towards the elevator.
I watched him get on and punched the floor button before I let my attention focused on Jungwoo. He was still silent as if he was in a daze, unmoving and his eyes were unfocused as if his mind was somewhere afar. His clothes smelled like vomit and by the looks of it were also dirty. This was not the state when we parted ways earlier this afternoon. So many questions were racing in my mind, demanding to be answered but I internally pushed it at the back of my mind to handle the present situation. "Jungwoo?" I caressed his shoulder.
"Hmm?"
"Let's get you inside the apartment so you can take a shower and lay down,"
"Yeah..."
"C'mon, Obok. Let's give you a treat," We walked side by side towards his apartment door as I tried to guide him with the same hand holding the leash. He punched in his code and we walked inside without talking. The first thing I did was to remove Obok's collar and let him roam around the place. Then, I noticed that he was having trouble taking his shoes off, so I bent down and undid his shoe for him. "There," I said as placed down his shoes beside mine.
"Thanks," he mumbled and walked towards his bedroom.
"Do you want me to make you a bath?"
"No...I can do it myself,"
"Oh? Okay, just call me if you need me," I suggested. Watching him trudged to the bathroom with a pale stoic face made my heart twinge a bit. I don't know what was wrong with him or what has happened but I wanted to make it all go away and make him feel better.
