Episode 1: Graduating Batch of 2013

[Jungkook's POV] Year: 2013

I kept my saxophone down and took a deep, deep breath. Tomorrow, I'll be leaving school. I, the dumb Jeon Jung-kook was finally going to be free of everything annoying. School, homework, teachers, expectations, everything. I was going to miss playing basketball though, and music classes...but the sadness of losing them was overcome by the happiness of getting out of MM High School, the place where all evil resided.

I looked up when I heard the otherwise empty boys' locker room's door creak. School had been over an hour ago and I had stayed to practice a bit.

Ho-seok hyung peeked his face from outside into the room, "Jung-kook? You there?"

I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked to the exit, "Hyung! I'm here." Then I saw his face. He was panting and his hands clutched his knees as he bent over for breath. "What happened?"

He tilted his head toward me, "Yoon-gi..." he muttered out and stood up straight.

"What happened to Yoon-gi?" I asked stepping closer, my hands gripping the side of my bag tightly. "Say it, hyung!"

He shook his head, "No...it's those girls..."

Tension pricked up on my skin. No no no, not Yoon-gi, not today...."Where?"

"Basketball ground," he said and the next thing he saw was me bolting out of the hallways, my sneakers slapping on the tiles and echoing across the walls.

"Don't go there!" he yelled, "I already tried stopping them!"

I didn't care, if my friend was in trouble, I go, I didn't really think about me getting hurt at that point of time. I should have.

The basketball ground was empty except for Yoon-gi and those four horrible girls.

They called themselves Throne Queens and they were standing around him now. One of the girls, oh I knew her name...Thalia....she stepped forward and knelt in front of him. That's when I stopped running, because I saw Yoon-gi's face.

It was ridden with lines of blood. His lips were torn in places and he was struggling to open his eyes. A heeled sandal lay next to his head on the floor and I noticed Thalia was only wearing one heel.

I flinched at the thought of getting hit by the sharp point of a girl's heel. That hurt more than a knuckled punch from a boy. Thalia slapped his face and removed her other heel. She lifted his chin with the tip.

Yoon-gi coughed and blood spluttered out. I stepped closer to listen, not sure what would be the best thing to do right now. Even if I barged in, there were the other three. Two of them were Taekwondo black belts. I was one too, but they got their belts by beating me.

"Darling, should I caress you with the other heel of mine? You should be honored I wasted my first heel for you. It cost a lot," Thalia purred.

"I thought you got it for just 20 bucks?" one of the girls spoke, Miley. I'd know that deep taunting voice anywhere.

Thalia laughed, her eyes running over my friend on the hard basketball ground, "Exactly. It cost a lot compared to the shit that's his face."

They snickered like they always did. "Just get it over with, Thalia. I can't wait to see how his face would look like in tomorrow's graduation photo," Lisa ordered. She was the leader of Throne Queens. Tall and naturally pretty just like the other Throne Queens and unlike me and my friends, who were just high school nobodies.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and turned me around, "Jung-kook, what are you doing?"

"Yoon-gi is in danger! We have to do something," I told Tae-hyung who was trying to pull me away.

"Leave me, I'm thinking of something, I'll save him," I said, really thinking, something I'm really not used to.

"You can't."

I turned to look at Tae-hyung. His eyes were blank like he had given up hope long ago. I felt like a baby being ordered around. But...hyung was right, wasn't he? If I went there...I'll get hurt too. Why stir up more pain when all this is going to be over by tomorrow, the last day of school? Last day of the reign of the Throne Queens.

A pained scream left Yoon-gi. Thalia had hit him with her other heel and he was writhing on the ground, his hands covering his eyes and howling like a lost wolf.

I ran towards him and lifted his face, "Yoon-gi! Are you okay?"

Thalia laughed, "Oh look who has come, our Prince in shitty armor," she nudged Miley, "Your heel is pretty sharp too, right?"

Miley smirked reaching for her leg, "Extra. Just for this occasion."

"Yoon-gi look at me, are you okay?" I tried asking, not paying attention to Miley. Yoon-gi barely moved his lips.

"What?" I asked leaning closer.

"Run away. R-run away, Jeon Jung-kook," he managed to warn me. I looked back and Miley came at me with a heel in her hand. I jumped up and blocked it.

Lisa walked forward and pushed Miley to the side, grabbing the heel from her, "Gimme that."

I fixed my stance. I was going to fight. I will, this was the last day of their reign and there was nothing to be afraid of.

Lisa laughed and ran towards me, leaping in the air. I stumbled back. I could have dodged it, but my brain was in fear of what it would feel like to get hit by that deadly heel.

She swung her leg at my face and I was pushed backwards, landing on the floor with a loud thud. My eyes went black for a second. "Nghh..."

My vision started to clear as I slowly got up and saw Lisa towering over me. I was a little short of normal height then and it made Lisa look like an evil goddess. I saw her white smiling teeth before she swung her heel at me. I closed my eyes, waiting for impact.

But no impact came.

Tae-hyung had ran and tried to block her. But her arm was too strong, I knew that from the previous fights. The heel managed to leave a deep scar on Tae-hyung's face, blood dripped from his eyebrow.

Lisa scoffed and threw the heel which had broken into half from impact to the side. I watched it clatter as Lisa said to the others, "We're done here." And they walked away. Before all of them left, Lisa looked back at us and I was the only one who met her smiling eyes.

I glared at her, huffing and swore to God that she'll get what she deserved some day. Her smiled dropped when she saw my dead-on stare. Without wasting another second, she turned forward and joined the rest.

"Tae-hyung, I could have handled her! We need to get you to the hospital," I said. Why did he have to get in the way? Tae-hyung placed a hand to his eyebrow and shook his head at Yoon-gi. "I'm okay, get him to the hospital first. Call Nam-joon, he can drive us there."

Nam-joon abandoned stacking up his books to throw in the trash when he got the call. In a haste, he ran to the garage and rolled out his almost broken car. It had been his dad's but then he stopped using it so Nam-joon took it. It ran sometimes, sometimes it didn't. They could have repaired if his family wasn't neck deep in debts.

Tae-hyung and I helped Yoon-gi get inside the car, but he didn't stop screaming from time to time. "Just a little more longer, Yoon-gi, hold on!" Nam-joon said. His face was scrunched up and darting from side to side.

"Nam-joon, what's wrong?" I asked, sensing something. He shook his head and parked the car in the hospital. "Nothing, get him out, I'll call the doctors."

Two hours passed before Yoon-gi could go back home. By that time, he had stitches around his forehead and ointment on his cheek.

I remember what the doctor asked, "Who did this to you?"

"Some of the girls in our school," I blurted and Tae-hyung looked at me sharply before I realized what I had said.

The doctor raised his eyebrows and paused for two seconds before he started laughing, "Girls? Oh dear, how have your fathers brought you up? What are you twelve?" he mocked looking down at Yoon-gi's knee and shaking his head, "Girls," he muttered jokingly.

"I'll introduce you to them," Yoon-gi spoke for the first time that day, his voice was steeled and filled with hate, "Why not see if an old man like you can survive the sharpness of their heels?"

The doctor went silent and moved on to apply ointment on Yoon-gi's cheek, remembering the ten pairs of heels in his wife's shoe-rack. Suddenly they looked deadly, he would never see those heels the same way again.

.......

Nam-joon called for a sudden meeting at his small house that night. Yoon-gi made sure he took the entire sofa for himself even though his legs didn't hurt as much as his face anymore.

Jimin, Tae-hyung and Ho-seok sat on the floor while Seok-jin was leaned over in front of the TV, surfing through random channels, laughing spontaneously at some of them, then switching channels again. I crunched on some chips and played my next card in our little card game.

I sensed an elephant in the room and it was making me uneasy. I shifted in my position and pulled out the blue-tooth speaker I always carry around in my bag. "I'll put songs?" I asked already scrolling through my phone to select one.

Nam-joon stood up, "No wait, I have something to tell you guys."

Seok-jin looked up and switched off the TV and slipped onto the floor. He was the eldest among us and already graduated. He worked as an assistant for some small director then.

Yoon-gi was almost his same age and the only reason he got picked on today was because he worked as a librarian in the school to make money to get by his own needs.

His parents made sure that they wouldn't give him money to make "rough boring" music. I didn't know what I would have done if my parents were that way. Some of us just have it hard.

I look at Nam-joon now. He looks happy on the outside. But if you really know him, you'll know his eyes get dull sometimes and there are no dimples on his face. Jimin must have seen me thinking because he nudged me and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head and tried to smile. Ah, Jimin. Will I see him after my graduation? Will I see anyone right here? More importantly, what am I going to do now? The Suneung is coming...it's the national college entrance exam. I was still debating on whether to write it.

Nam-joon looked at me, "I want to say congratulations to Jung-kook, Tae-hyung and Jimin for graduating, finally!"

We all applauded and Ho-seok patted my back. I turned back and smiled along with Jimin.

"But the reason I called you all here is," Nam-joon said, calling our attention. "Remember the application we all gave in? For the audition?"

"Yeah, the K-pop training one. You heard back?" Min Yoon-gi said, interested.

Nam-joon nodded,"Yeah...but..."

"But what?" I asked, remembering the tense expression on his face when we were in the car, on the way to the hospital. Something was really wrong.

"Only Seok-jin, Tae-hyung and Jimin managed to get in."

Yoon-gi looked away. He tried to stand up, holding the sofa for support, "I'm going home." He glanced at Seok-jin, Tae-hyung and Jimin each, "Good luck guys."

And he walked away. Nam-joon sighed and sat on the chair. I jumped up and clapped for Jimin and the other two, "At least three of us got in!" Jimin smiled sadly at me. "I'll write the Suneung and join you guys later on! I'm sure!"

We spent the night celebrating for the three among us seven. I really was happy. But...

I was kind of depending on this and now,

I didn't know what to do.