THE TRAGEDY OF YOUTH, jungwon ✓

06 | successful first month

I was almost fourteen, Jungwon already fourteen, when I found out the real reason he was always so busy and tired.

It was a summer night, and Jungwon was busy yet again, not really a surprise anymore, so I was hanging out by myself in my room, looking at the pictures of Jungwon I had—mostly just selfies of us two. A lot of them were of his last two birthdays, blowing the candles out on his cake, cutting it, the huge smiles he wore as he opened his presents. I had to smile as I rewatched the video of him opening the box containing the new phone his mother gave him for his fourteenth.

His eyes went wide and he stared at it speechlessly for a few seconds, while I, who knew everything, of course, about his presents from us, giggled at him from behind the barely-steady camera. Then he leaped up and into his mother's arms, screaming thank you at her while she laughed. "I'm so proud of you," was what she said. "You've been doing so well, Jungwon."

At the time, I'd wondered what she meant, but like everything else that came with being a friend of the Yang family during those days, I didn't question it. Neither did my mom or dad. It was easier to just ignore the fact that something was definitely up.

I was flicking through the rest of our selfies together—quite a few of them featured me tugging playfully at the strands of his dark hair—when my mother knocked on my door. She poked her head in and asked what I was doing.

I was sitting by the door, where the electric sockets were, charging my phone and I did what I was doing—going through our pictures, so of course, she saw what I was doing the second after she asked, and her expression went kind of sad and regretful. I think it was because Jungwon and I had had plans to go skating that day, but he'd cancelled the outing three days earlier because he was busy again. And on one of the few days we did have together anymore. She knew I was upset about it and trying not to show it.

I just kind of stared at my phone for a few seconds. It was a shot of one we took on his birthday last year. "Thirteen is milestone," he'd said to me before we'd taken that shot. "It means we're teenagers now."

"I'm still waiting for mine!" I reminded him with a playful scowl. He had laughed, took my phone from me, and made me pose for the selfie. It was one of us two laughing at our idiocy, our playfulness, our ability to somehow still ignore that our friendship just wasn't what it used to be anymore. He had one arm around my shoulders and our heads were resting against each other in our laughter. He hadn't meant to press the shutter at the time when our eyes were closed, but somehow the picture had come out looking...a lot better than expected.

Was I being obvious about how I felt? Yes.

But this was my mother, the woman who's always known more about me than anyone else—even Jungwon. I'm fairly sure that she knew when me and Jungwon were at odds, the first time he started acting differently, but she just didn't say anything. She would always watch us two very carefully and even though I never asked why, I had a feeling that it was about how we were fighting in some ways.

"If you don't have anything else to do tonight," she said to me, "how about we have a girls' night out, just the two of us? We can go out to eat, if you want."

I looked up at her with a wide smile. "Really?!" I exclaimed. We hadn't had much time to ourselves, lately. Or ever. With her working so often and me putting in more hours for school and extra activities as I grew older, the distance between us always seemed great—until she stepped up and proved to me I was still her baby. I loved her for that.

"Really," she confirmed.

Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting at one of the regular restaurants we went to with my dad on our family meals out together, but he was busy that night. While I did wish he was there, I didn't really mind; I hadn't had my mother to myself in way too long.

For the next half an hour, we ate and talked about anything, from school to our social lives, including the people we didn't like. Just regular mother-daughter gossip. The kind of thing I wish I had more of with her. That half an hour was something I really, really needed, because for the first time since Jungwon had started disappearing all the time, being so busy, I felt really relaxed. I wasn't thinking about how much I cared about him and how much he disappointed me these days; about how the boy I knew was still in there but a little...inaccessible.

Until she brought him up herself. "So...how are things with you and Jungwon lately?" she asked, almost casually. Except she sounded too concerned.

I stopped stirring aimlessly at my vanilla milkshake. "It's okay, I guess."

"Are you talking to him? I mean, you're not mad at him, are you?"

"Honestly? I don't know," I shrugged. "He's not around as often as before, but we get along well enough. I'm just a little disappointed that he cancelled one of our few chances to go out together again."

"That was a little uncalled for," she agreed, "but at least he gave you advance warning."

"That's the only reason I'm not angry. He wasn't a jerk about it."

"Yoora, can I ask you something?" she said seriously. I looked up and nodded, confused but a little scared. I knew what she was going to ask before she said, "do you have any feelings for Jungwon?"

I considered playing dumb for a moment, buying myself a second to come up with even a half-believable lie. Except that never would have worked with my mother. She already noticed the startled and guilty expression that crossed my face, so I just nodded, looking past her, aimlessly scanning the customers in the restaurant.

"He's not a bad person," I said quietly to her. "I just think that he's..." a cheer caught my ears, and my head swiveled to the table in the corner just five rows ahead of us, and the blood rushed into my face and ears—not those of embarrassment, but of anger—and I blurted, "...right there?!"

"What?" my mother followed my gaze and saw what I was seeing. "I don't understand!"

"No," I clenched my fists, "neither do I. Can I go ask him what the hell he's doing here after telling me that he's busy?"

"No," she shook her head. "Not worth it, Yoora."

"I'm just going to make it look like I'm saying hi," I persisted. "I'm not going to make a scene, not with his friends there."

"Yoora—"

Without letting her finish, I got up and strode across to the table. I half-regretted when I actually made it there. But I held strong and stood right across from Jungwon, to the right of the tall, handsome boy with big eyes to his left. He didn't notice me at first, as he was laughing and saying something to the boys on his right, but then he realized all three of them were staring at me in confusion, and looked up. He paled.

"Yoora!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"My mom and I thought we would spend the night out together," I said, smiling at him, glad of the fact that my clenched fists were below their range of vision. "I saw you and I thought I'd say hi. What are you doing here, though? You told me you were busy."

He fumbled with his words for a moment. His friend with the big eyes looked at him with a slight frown. Then he turned to me and said brightly, filling in for him, "we're all here tonight to celebrate his successful first month at Big Hit."

My smile fell. "Big Hit?"

"Yeah," one of the boys to Jungwon's right, the one who looked kind of like someone I thought I knew. "Big Hit Entertainment? We're training there, with Jungwon, who's just joined. He passed his first monthly evaluation with no problem. Didn't you know?"

"I didn't," I looked Jungwon straight in the eye. He looked ashamed, refusing to meet my eyes. "Well. That certainly explains a lot of things, then. Congratulations, Jungwon. You couldn't have told me?" he was silent. "Huh. So much for best friend."

I turned and walked back to my mother. "Can we just go home?" I asked, my voice on the verge of breaking. She studied me for a moment, and then she called over the waiter. As soon as she paid the bill, we were out of there. She had her arms around my shoulder as we left, which made it hard for me to sneak one last glance backwards.

I saw Jungwon watching me guiltily, and gave him my best scathing glare.