Saviors

20

   The members watched Jihoon leave, always leaving. Never arriving. Minghao stood up from his spot on the floor.

   "I'm going to the bathroom." He mumbled. Some of his members nodded, barely noticing him. Instead, he  walked into his room and put on a thick black hoodie. It's collar covered the lower half of his face, so he didn't bother with a face-mask. Minghao crept past his members in the living room and walked straight out the door. His members didn't notice. A day actually arrived where I'm glad that my members don't notice me. Minghao thought sourly. If you talked more- the tiny voice. The voice that was always in his head. He squashed it down, instead of letting it berate him like he usually did. Today he had a mission.

   His members would probably be mad if they knew about his mission. They said specifically 'don't snoop'. And here he was, snooping. Or rather, stalking. But this is to help Jihoon Hyung, right? I'm not just doing this to satisfy my own curiosity. Minghao told himself. He mustn't falter. One wrong step and he would get found out. And he did not want to get Jihoon angry.

   Slowly, Minghao followed Jihoon. He followed him to a shop. A flower shop to be exact. Is he going to visit a secret girlfriend? But Jihoon told us that he never dated before. He peered in the window and watched Jihoon pay. The girl at the register smiled at him and twirled her hair. It was so obvious that she was flirting with Jihoon, even Minghao noticed. Jihoon seemed to be oblivious though. His mind was apparently somewhere else, other than with slightly attractive girls in flower shops. Minghao backed away from the shop as he sensed their conversation coming to a close. He pressed himself into the shadow of the building and Jihoon exited. The precautions were unnecessary though, because Jihoon started walking away from Minghao. It was back to following him.

   Jihoon was pretty easy to follow, because he never turned around and rarely ever took his eyes off of the ground. The buildings around Minghao soon became unfamiliar to him, though Jihoon navigated around as if he came there a lot. And he probably had.

   Jihoon approached a large black fence, the gate open. Minghao couldn't see what was beyond the gate, he was too far behind Jihoon to see. Jihoon walked through the gate and started to head for some trees. Minghao got close enough to see that there were tons of oddly shaped rocks on the ground. As he got even closer, he realized that those rocks weren't rocks, or at least, not exactly. Jihoon had lead him to a cemetery.

   Minghao followed Jihoon into the trees, confused as to why they were in a cemetery on his birthday. The trees thinned out a bit and Jihoon stopped. Minghao stopped too, behind a tree.

   He peered out at Jihoon from behind the large oak, watching him set down the flowers at two of the three graves in front of him. Then he started speaking.

   Minghao couldn't understand all of it, he was too far away. He heard the words  'mom' and 'grandma' though. Minghao assumed that those were the two graves. That's terrible! Both his mother and grandmother are dead? Minghao imagined how it would be like if his mom and grandmother died. The thought almost made him cry so instead, he turned his attention back to Jihoon.

   He was crying now and was kneeling before the two graves. It took all of Minghao's strength to not go running to comfort his Hyung. He had never seen Jihoon cry before, and it was terrible to watch. Minghao's throat closed up and he drew a sleeve over his own eyes. Poor Hyung! Minghao must have shifted his foot because Jihoon stopped moving and turned around. Quickly, Minghao hid behind the tree. Jihoon must've turned back because when Minghao looked out from behind the tree, Jihoon was facing the graves again and was wiping his eyes. Then he checked his reflection on his phone. He touched his puffy eyes then stood up. Minghao slid around the tree as Jihoon walked past him.