crack in the mirror | gayeon 🪞

-24-

"Gunil," Jiseok whispered, closing the door to his working place at Oasis with a loud shriek that almost set Jooyeon to the ground, making him shiver terribly.

"Weren't you supposed to tell me what's up with Hyeongjun?" The boy furrowed his brows, observing as Jiseok wandered from left to right, as if looking for something that definitely wasn't there or even any near. He eyed Jooyeon as the silence between began to pierce him through, and cleared his throat.

"Gunil." He stated, correcting his sleeves. "It all starts with him."

Jooyeon only nodded, not knowing what was going on. He looked around as if trying to copy Jiseok, and this way he found his way to the chair, pointing at the second one to make Jiseok sit down and explain everything at the right pace.

He didn't have to wait long for Jiseok to start talking. All he could do was breathe out—extremely quietly so as not to distract Jiseok—and think about how he was finally going to find out everything about this bothering him relationship between Hyeongjun and Jiseok... but the words he'd heard from the older one earlier that day about pretending to hear nothing stuck in his head.

"He wants to take you away from me." Jiseok let out, making Jooyeon fix his posture, leaning closer to him as if he was a plant begging to be closer to the sun. "Remember when he had seen us together in the art room?"

It was the day they first kissed, how could Jooyeon not remember? Gunil walked in almost catching them together holding onto each other so close that he would have known everything. Fortunately to them, the art room was dark—shrouded in worry and support—and Jooyeon knocked down a jar, distracting Gunil from everything.

"It was then that he began to spend more time with you. He asked you where you were going whenever you wanted to go upstairs, outside or even to the toilet." Jooyeon remembered all that. He remembered Gunil clearly asking him about his destinations almost always, he remembered Gunil asking him for help at home more often, and he also felt his presence as if he was his shadow yet he had no idea what this feeling really was. At first it all felt like some dark cloud of uncertainty surrounding the murders dragging him down like a ball and chain, now... he wasn't quite sure it was only the turmoil of thoughts.

Maybe Gunil caused all that... no.. it didn't sound right.

"He doesn't do anything bad," he choked out, shaking his head sideways. "He is just worried."

"Worried? About what?"

"I don't know.. It's just that I doubt he means any harm." He bit his lower lip, staring into Jiseok's eyes. A thought that he could think the same about Jiseok—that he wanted to take him away from the others—went through his head, but he would never believe these words, because as he was looking at his face—into those eyes—the look in them wasn't mischievous, sly or anything else but scared.

"Harm, maybe not harm," Jiseok played with the word, thought about it, analysed it... "He is simply scared you're going to learn more about them, which isn't a thing he, or anyone else, would want."

"What do you mean?" He felt something clench in his stomach.

"Nothing is the way it seems, Jooyeon. Oasis isn't a good place—even they know that. Listen, nothing has ever been between me and Hyeongjun. I know you were convinced otherwise, but he just made it up—he had to, he wanted to blame me on everything. The death of that janitor, it was not an accident—he tried to frame me."

"What death?" He gasped loud enough for Jiseok to understand how surprised he was.

He couldn't grasp anything Jiseok was talking about... nothing seemed comprehensible.