Non-bulletproof Boyscouts

Scars

Namjoon's pov

I sighed and looked around the temporary Mon Studio. Yoongi and I had locked ourselves up in our studios after Hoseok's breakdown. Jungkook and Jimin were devastated. Taehyung and Seokjin were quiet, so I knew they had seen everything.

My head hurt from overthinking. I stared at the white page in front of me.

Hoseok wasn't the only one with a problem...

I started to get frustrated when I saw my camera and remembered Taehyung's necklace. I took the camera to look at the picture and copied the text from the tags. There were two tags, the first one was for identification so I didn't copy that one, the second one had a quote.

I got up and left the studio. Sure I could have looked it up on the internet but I needed to get out of there before I went insane.

The village had a small library, I had been there once before to confirm if it was really there. I went inside and looked for dictionaries. I found one and took it with me. 

I walked to the table in the middle of the little building. Because it was such a small library there was only one table. When I got to the table there was a girl sitting there. She was reading an English book. I noticed the huge pile of books next to her.

She briefly looked up at me as I sat down. I laid out the note with the text from the tag and opened the dictionary. I came across words I didn't even know existed.

I tried pronouncing one but failed horribly. How did I know? Simple, the girl on the other side of the table snorted with laughter and immediately apologized for laughing.

"I'm so sorry, it just came so unexpectedly," she said.

She had covered her mouth with her hand.

I smiled, knowing it must have sounded funny to her.

"Well, how do I pronounce it then?" I asked.

She pronounced the word, I listened and repeated.

"Very good!" she said: "you want to learn Dutch?"

"I wasn't planning on doing so, but I just found out I'm going to be here for longer than I expected. So I might just do that."

She frowned a little at my words and said: "Ok. Tell me if you need help."

I nodded and we both went back to what we were doing. I looked at the quote.

'She would know' I thought. I looked up at the girl and wanted to ask her.

"Excuse me..."

She was leaning over the book she was reading. She sat on her knees on the chair, both her elbows planted next to the book, her head between her hands. She looked up at me.

I noticed the deep red stain on her white sleeve.

"Are you bleeding?" I asked.

Her eyes widened, she sat up straight and looked at her arm. She cursed and ran to the toilet. I ran to the counter to ask for a first-aid kit and ran to the toilet. She had taken off her white blouse, luckily she was wearing a tank top underneath. She was washing the sleeve but gave up when she noticed the blood dripping from her arm.

"You should go to the hospital," I said. She shook her head and said: "No I shouldn't have scratched it before." She looked at me as I put the first-aid kit next to the sink she was using.

"They're not that deep, nothing I can't handle myself," she said. She reached for the first-aid kit but I stopped her.

"Allow me." I said: "I'm used to doing this since I'm a bit clumsy myself. How did this happen anyway? These are cuts right?"

"I fell and something made out of glass fell next to me," she said as she looked away. I nodded as I put the Band-Aids on.

"Thank you." She said.

"No problem." I said: "Can I ask you something?"

"Well, you helped me so I guess I can't say no," she said.

She shrugged and smiled.

I smiled back and showed her the note.

"I found this quote but I don't know what it means."

"Let me see." her smile faltered as she read it. Her hands went up to her neck.

"Right... that guy still has it," she mumbled.

I frowned and asked: "What's wrong?"

She looked up at me and scratched the back of her head. "Well, the quote you found is the same as the quote on my grandpa's necklace. Grandma gave it to me when he passed away."

"Really? What does it say?" I asked.

"The scars you can't see are the hardest to heal," she said. She turned to look at her mirror reflection. She looked really pale.

I stared at the words on the note. Something familiar stirred inside of me.

"Why is that on your necklace?" I asked without looking at the girl.

She hesitated a little, which made me look at her.

"Because no one cares about the scars you can't see," she said.

I nodded as I saw the member's faces inside my head.

"You're right, they don't. They just leave you to fix it yourself." I said as I turned around and ran home.