Veiled Intrigues | Taehyun

t h i r t e e n

"Beomgyu?" She called out hesitantly, slowly pushing the door to his room open.

The king-sized bed placed in the middle of the room was neatly made. Meaning that Beomgyu hadn't slept in it last night. It was a usual occurrence to see a tangle of sheets since the boy never made his bed.

So it concerned her that the only hint of Beomgyu's presence was the faint lingering scent of his cologne. Haneul took another step forward, coming further into the older boy's room. That's when her gaze drifted to the carpeted floor beneath her feet and her breath caught in her throat.

A feeling of dread started to creep its way into her stomach when the guard looked down and saw a few drops of a dark red liquid on the ground. Looking further ahead, she saw another few drops clustered together. They lead to another patch further ahead which eventually went round the corner of the bed. She had seen enough of that coloured substance to immediately know that it was unmistakably blood.

Not wanting to jump to conclusions though, the first thing Haneul did was instantly pull out her phone and dial Beomgyu's number. After a couple of rings, the phone beeped, the call not going through, which only amplified the anxiety building up within her. The same anxiousness that she had tried to keep at bay the second she had stepped into his room.

Even though she was trained not to overthink things, she couldn't help but let her mind run amok, each situation worse than the last. It could've easily been something ordinary, Beomgyu would turn up, and say something like he just got a paper cut or something and couldn't be bothered to clean up the carpet so he went and slept elsewhere. But as she stared at the point near the blood, she spotted the gleam of a stained pocket knife.

Haneul was suddenly brought back when her phone started ringing. She lifted it to see Miyeon's name flashing on the screen. Assuming that the girl was also concerned about her crush's mysterious disappearance, Haneul quickly answered and didn't even give Miyeon a chance to say anything as the guard spoke in a rush.

"Beomgyu's not here. I've tried calling him. He didn't answer. There's blood, Miyeon. Blood and a knife. Ah, damn it! What are we going to say to his father? How — "

Miyeon immediately cut her off, her tone as calm and collected as Haneul's should've been.

"Relax, Haneul."

"Huh?"

There was silence for a while on the other end of the line.

"He's with me, Haneul."

At that, Haneul started.

"You mean..."

"No, no. Nothing like that. I was just...I just had an issue last night and I called him because I knew that you were busy and... I didn't really have anyone else to call."