LIPBALM 一 TAEKOOK

II

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"What's your excuse this time, Jeon?"

Jungkook, who was standing at the foot of the door, simply shrugs his shoulders before making his way to his assigned table. His uniform was a mess, as usual. His tie was hanging loosely around his neck, showing that there was little to no effort to make it appear presentable.

"Jungkook, detention." The teacher sighs, "Although I know you'll just skip it again."

The boy cocks his head and scoffs. He turns to stare out of the window, tuning the rest of the class out. He doesn't notice that there's someone else staring at him. The rest of the class passes just like this – Jungkook staring at some trees outside with everyone else paying attention, taking down notes. The exams were just around the corner after all, but it's not like Jungkook knew that anyway.

When the school bell rings signaling the end of the period, Jungkook is the first student to grab his bag from the floor and shuffling out of the class, not even sparing the teacher a single glance. He groans out loud, and several students passing by him in the corridor turn to look at him. But they don't stare for long – they're too afraid to find out what might happen if they do.

Jungkook swings his locker open, the sound of the old metal door swinging open resonating. There isn't much in his locker, really. Other than the 3 old dusty books and a ballpoint pen sitting on the second shelf, he also had his secret stash of cigarettes in there. Jungkook believed that it was the best hiding spot. His parents don't know that he smokes, so he can't keep them at home. It's not like Jungkook was afraid of his parents, he was just afraid of getting his allowance cut. He doesn't have much in his locker, so it doesn't take him long to notice the unusual purple envelope sitting on the bottom shelf.

Jungkook takes a moment to ponder over whether he should just leave it there and go for his smoke break. But curiosity gets the best of him and his hands scramble to tear the envelope open. The frown on his face gets deeper when he pulls out the Nivea lip balm from the envelope. A small, tattered piece of paper falls out together with it.

"Your lips are chapped."

Jungkook curses softly under his breath. However, his tongue shoots out instinctively to wet his lips. Are they really that dry that someone has to leave him a pair of lip balm anonymously? The boy analyses the lip balm a little. It's obvious that it has been used by the way some of the words on the cover was fading. Pulling the cover off, Jungkook's expression grows into one of disgust when he notices that the balm was already half gone. As if school wasn't already tiring him out, he now had second-hand lip balm in the middle of his palm.

He grabs the ballpoint pen from the locker, and scribbles messily on the back of the paper that came with the lip balm.

"Whoever you are, I don't want your used lip balm." He throws the note along with the lip balm into a random plastic bag and hangs it over his locker. He hopes that the stranger sees it and takes it back.