|| Philophobia || Baek Kyung

Chapter - 21 The vanishing

For a week,  Baek kyung's father kept sending him messages threatening him to come back and letters with tiffin to school begging him to come back. Although everyone seemed to be aware of his father being abusive, many still turned their noses up at Baek kyung with distaste every time he ripped apart the letters and dumped the tiffins in the dustbin

The day started like any other—same dull homeroom, same scripted greetings, same suffocating air and same letter and tiffin that Baek kyung dutifully got up to dump in the dustbin again, sometimes the blatant wastage of food unnerved Yeona, but considering his father could have poisoned it, she let it be

Yeona was lazily propped against her desk, chin in her palm, already halfway to dreamland thinking of lunch break yet again when Danoh's shrill voice cut through the silence and almost murdered her eardrums 

"Baek Kyung-ah, you're always frowning. It's bad for your skin!" She sighed as she pressed a finger to his forehead trying to stop the creasing

Baek Kyung didn't even blink. "I'd rather frown than talk nonsense all morning." He yawned and if possible frowned more at being poked and prodded early in the morning

Yeona smirked, eyes still closed. "Ouch, poor Danoh. Getting roasted early in the morning" She drawled as she opened an eye to peek at Danoh's exasperated expression

Danoh gasped. "Yah, Yeona! You're supposed to defend me!"

Yeona cracked an eye open again. "Why? You're perfectly capable of embarrassing yourself without my help."

"Unbelievable," Danoh muttered, dramatically clutching her chest. Haru, seated right beside her, chuckled softly. But the chuckle glitched, almost like someone cut the sound midway. It was uncanny, and sounded nothing like his actual chuckle

Yeona's brow furrowed. "Did you just... glitch?"

Everyone turned towards Haru who just blinked, looking lost. "What?"

"You literally sounded like a bad Wi-Fi connection," Yeona deadpanned with uncertain eyes that flickered between his face and Danoh's hand around his

Do Hwa leaned over, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Maybe he's a robot. That would explain why he's too perfect." He grinned as he winked at Haru suggestively, to which Danoh replied by grabbing Haru's hand and glaring at Do Hwa who just laughed

Namjoo scoffed from the back. "Perfect? Please. He barely talks."

"And still manages to be more likable than you," Yeona shot back instantly, earning muffled laughter from Do Hwa and even Baek Kyung's lip twitching.

Namjoo rolled his eyes. "You're obsessed with me."

Yeona leaned back in her chair, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yes, Namjoo. Nothing screams 'ideal man' like duck lips and an ego the size of Seoul Tower."

Before Namjoo could retort, Haru's pen slipped from his hand. His body jerked unnaturally, then froze for a beat too long. He looked at his pen for a solid second before picking it up again and sitting straighter in his seat

"...Haru?" Danoh's voice trembled. She shook his arm. He blinked, then smiled faintly as if nothing happened.

Baek Kyung's expression darkened. "Something's off." He muttered as looked at Haru pensively and furrowed his brows again

Yeona tilted her head. "No kidding, Sherlock." But despite her words, her chest tightened. She didn't like the way Danoh's hands trembled. Class went on, but Haru grew more distant. He missed his cues. He stared at empty spaces like he was seeing another world. When the bell rang, instead of standing, he just... disappeared

One second he was there. The next, his seat was empty. 

"No. No, no, no—" Danoh shot up, knocking over her chair. Her voice cracked. "Haru?! Haru!"

The entire room froze. Yeona's blood ran cold. She'd seen weird things happen in their stage, but this—this was different.

"Calm down," Baek Kyung muttered, though his own hands clenched white around his desk. "He'll be back."

"You don't know that!" Danoh shouted, eyes glassy with tears.

Yeona stood and wrapped an arm around Danoh's shoulders, steady but firm. "Hey. Breathe. He's not gone forever. The stage doesn't erase main characters that easily." But he is, in the end just a nameless side character Yeona thought as she pursued her lips

Danoh buried her face into Yeona's shoulder, her voice muffled. "Then why does it feel like I'm losing him all over again?" For once, Yeona had no witty remark. She just held on tighter comforting Dan Oh quietly

Do Hwa ran a hand through his hair, clearly panicking beneath his usual smile. "We'll figure it out. Haru wouldn't leave without a fight."

Namjoo tried to mask his unease with a scoff. "Great. Just what we needed—another disappearing act." But his gaze lingered on the empty seat longer than anyone's

The teacher walked in then, completely unfazed by Haru's absence. Script blindness. The rest of the class carried on as though nothing had happened. But for Yeona, for Baek Kyung, for Danoh—the silence around that chair was deafening.

That evening, Yeona sat on her bed, staring at her phone. Danoh had texted her sixteen times in a row, each message more desperate than the last.

Baek Kyung's name popped up on her screen.

BK: "Stop looking like someone died. He'll come back."

Yeona smirked bitterly at the bluntness, typing back:

Yeona: "I wasn't crying. That was Danoh."

BK: "You were close though."

Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard before replying:

Yeona: "You sound jealous."

There was a long pause. Then—
BK: "Maybe I am."

Yeona froze, heart stuttering. She stared at the message until the screen dimmed, her sarcasm failing her for once.

And somewhere in the silence of their world, Haru's seat in class remained empty and Dan Oh's world kept crashing down