Fire and Ice | A TzuKook FF

8. Breaking the Cycle

The next week followed a repetitive, continuous cycle. I wake at five o'clock every morning to go through my daily exercise routines. Around six, Tae usually wakes up for breakfast, and afterwards, we run through the nearby park. Autumn had fully come, and the wind always smelled of crisp leaves and snow.

At school, the only class where I wasn't with Jungkook was History, and the only class where I was with Taehyung was Chemistry. But aside from the people inside the classes, there were the lessons themselves. As I quickly found out, skipping three years of your schooling life was not exactly conducive to an efficient learning process here, in the final year. As a result, almost all of my free time was spent learning, revising and studying content, past, present and future.

Easily the most boring lesson was History, which was taught by seventy-three year old Professor Moon. Indeed, I frequently found myself wondering why I had decided to take History as Professor Moon repeated for what seemed like the seventeenth time how to properly format a bibliography when writing a history essay. It didn't help that I had exactly no one in my class to talk to.

Since my initial meeting with Miss Park Chaeyoung, I hadn't talked with the girl again, catching glimpses of her every now and then around the school. Taehyung always joined me for lunch, which meant we were often joined by Jimin.

After school, Jungkook and I would work together in the library. It was harder on that first day, but it got easier to lock him away, that boy in my memories. We were different people. Chou Tzuyu and Choi Juhee. Chou Tzuyu hated Jeon Jungkook, almost as much as she had loved him. Choi Juheee didn't. She was a shield. She dulled the memories that surfaced, the conflict that flared whenever I saw him. It was only occasionally, when he pressed the wrong subject that I found the door opening a crack, the mask slipping. But the ice always flowed in to fill the cracks, I always refocused, maintained the facade. And so it was easy for me to talk to him, tease him, laugh with him. Even in class, I found myself enjoying our banter, laughing at his jokes, his stupid antics. And I hated myself all the more for it.

But today, I knew something was off when I arrived and he wasn't there yet. He was always early. The clock on the wall read ten past three. I set my bag atop a desk and sit down. I check my phone. Still ten minutes past three. Might as well do something productive.

~

Five minutes past four. I fight the urge to start pacing. I guess he's just not coming today. Good. Get more work done anyway. But while it was hard to focus when Jungkook was nearby, here it was similarly difficult. Where is he? What's he doing? I shake my head, then rub my eyes with the heels of my palms. This is getting me nowhere. I stand to leave. With one last look at the empty room, I turn to go home.

***

I clap a hand over Lisa's mouth as footsteps sound. Hidden in the alcove of this seldom used hallway, we were completely wreathed in shadow such that no one could see us unless they walked to the very end. It was why I had picked this spot, no one ever came here unless they were lost. The footsteps don't stop, steady, calm, familiar, growing louder with each passing second. I shut out the coiling dread in my stomach, as I realise exactly who it is.

The footsteps halt. I don't dare turn around to check, but judging from how loud her footsteps are, it's almost impossible she hasn't seen us. There's a pause. Then the footsteps sound again, growing quieter with each passing second. Steady. Unhurried. Uncaring, as if she had all the time in the world.

I check my watch, as the footsteps fade to silence. Four-fifteen. Oh fuck. I push off of Lisa and take a step back. She smiles and smoothes down her skirt. "Come on. Let's keep going," she whispers.