Notebook

Chapter 9

Enjoy your read!
 
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Tae flips to the next page and reads "I love you Taehyung".

Tae's eyes widened and he immediately shut the book. His heart was beating wildly at a rapid pace. His face was flushed pink and he felt butterflies in his stomach. He tried calming himself down and looked down at the closed notebook.

He was trying to validate why he was feeling this way when he didn't even know the man who just confessed to him.

He slowly opened the notebook to the confession page and continued reading.
 
“I had always been a silent boy as a child. I loved maple leaves. I used to pick a fallen maple leaf and treasure them inside my books. I was so fond of them that when I came to know that we were shifting to another town, I brought home a leaf, planted it in a pot and watered it daily only to find it completely dry.

Foolish of me to think that I could grow a tree out of a leaf.
 
We shifted and I joined the new school in middle of the academic year in that town. I was a loner back then minding my own tasks at hand not bothering or being bothered by anyone or anything.

But one day, it changed when I found myself punching my bullies hard on their faces. I felt an unknown relief while releasing my anger.

I then realised that I had a deeply buried anger and fire inside me. And to give it a proper direction and a fair reason, I decided to join the army.

Everything was going good, until one day. That day flipped my whole life.

As usual, I was on my duty to inspect the field I was allotted. But then I saw a white lamb in the field with a little boy chasing it.

I yelled at him to stop running. But he started running even farther away from me in the field. I chased the boy to hold him back from moving any further, but before I could, he stepped on to the mine. He died. He died because I wasn't able to save him.

I felt devastated and when I noticed the gun next to me, it was then I realised that the boy wasn't running away fearing me but fearing my gun.

Guilt ate me up slowly and I ended up voluntarily retiring from the army.”
 
Jin and the children were in town one fine day. They were in a field filled with maple trees and the ground was covered with the warm-hued orange-red-auburn leaves.

He loved it there. He sat under a tree, leaning on its trunk with his eyes closed while the children were playing a little farther away from him.

When he heard Joonie exclaim "Seokjin teacher, look what I found!!", he turned to him.

His eyes widened in horror when he saw Joonie waving his hand holding a grenade. He shouted "Joonie throw it away" and started running towards him with all the other children following Joonie giggling.

All the way he ran towards the children, he was getting glimpses of that fateful day where he was chasing the little boy years back.

Jin was sweating profusely while panting, but that did not hold him back to slow down.

When he was just a few steps away, Joonie turned back, grinned at them and removed the safety pin of the grenade.

The grenade fell down from Joonie's hands and it rolled towards the other children. Jin was terrified and leaped on it immediately. He shut his eyes tight and was bracing himself to get ripped apart.