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13
I Promise

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JISOO

Joy's face is red. Like, actually red with anger. Her fists are clenched and she's scowling. It's scary.

Is this what a tainted person looks like?

She dashes away from the classroom, the whole class staring dumbstruck.

I chase her through the halls. She's turning blindly, as if she doesn't know where to go and her haste indicates that she's panicking.

Still though, I trail after her because I need to use this opportunity to extract the leaf. If I don't do it now, I'll probably never be able to.

Standing up for myself felt good. It was empowering, but I won't count on myself to pull that stunt again, because it was nerve-wracking as heck. I just want to extract and cleanse this leaf to get it over with.

Finally, Joy bursts into an empty room and slams the door shut. I hear her lock it from the inside too. Although I know it's useless, I try opening the door and jiggling the knob, grunting at the pain shooting up my bandaged arm.

I sigh, knowing that I can't open the door even if I tried.

Well, I can't, but RC can.

Dashing to the nearest bathroom, I check to make sure no one's around and bite into the pearl of the bracelet that hasn't left my wrist for several weeks now.

It feels extra relieving to transform today, the aching in my arm slightly subsiding.

As soon as I make it inside by unlocking the door with my powers, I find Joy clutching her chest in the center of the room, sprawled out on the ground.

She's panting and sweating hard, murmuring a series of incoherent chants.

"Joy?"

When she looks up, I get a good glimpse of her eyes and gasp.

They alternate between a lifeless, matte orb of black and a slightly warmer shade of black - if that's possible.

"H-Help me," she barely manages to choke out, and I lower myself to her.

I gently tear her shaky hands from her chest and urge her to lie on the ground. She's not thrashing around, but she's definitely jittery.

My hands hover over her chest as she continues sobbing, and I close my eyes to focus. The sensation is similar to trying to stabilize the blue dot in my vision when I stare at a light for too long and the light suddenly goes away.

Joy almost screams in pain, but her eyes roll to the back of her head instead, indicating that she passed out.

I feel slightly guilty, but I know that this is the only way to save her. I close my eyes again.

Aha!

Gotcha.

I find the little pull of negative energy, and furrow my brows in an effort to get it out. It's almost there. I just have to focus a little more--

"Joy! I heard you come inside this room!" Sungjae's voice interrupts my focus, and I momentarily halt. My mind is scrambling for a solution.

His knocking gets more frantic and I have to divide some of my energy into making sure that the door stays locked. I focus on the door knob from the inside, always twisting it so that even if the door becomes unlocked, no one can get in.

Or I try to, because a thump on the window and interrupts my concentration.

It's V.

He's barely clinging onto the ledge of the outside window, and I see him mouthing 'Save me!' as one hand desperately slides down the glass. Did he try to jump into this classroom from the roof?

What an idiot.

I sigh, though I find myself smiling lightly when I open the window and he practically faceplants. It reminds me of when I saw him tumbling through the window on our first encounter.

"Ouch." He sits up and rubs his nose tenderly.

"You're late," I say, making it back to Joy and trying to drown out the noise of Sungjae's knocks.

"You're just early. How did you get here so fast?"

Oh shit. The only reason why I'm here early is because I was practically already here.

"No time, go block the door. Someone's trying to get in," I order, and he rushes to do that.

With Sungjae out of my concerns, I resume my focus on extracting the leaf.

C'mon.

Almost there...

"He's unlocked the door! There's other people with him!"

V's frantic whisper breaks my flow yet again and I finally take note of the several voices outside the door.

"Joy! We're here to help you!"

"Sungjae said that you're in this room!"

The knocking on the door gets harder and I can tell that V is struggling to hold the door back.

I run my hands through my hair, "Shit."

"What do we do?" V is sweating.

I scan the room until my eyes land on the window that V came in from. The school gym is right outside, so we could land on it if we jumped. I grab Joy's arms and position them over my shoulder, bringing her onto my back. V gapes at me like a fish.

"Let's go."

"Let's go? Let's go where? Where the hell are we gonna go?"

I open the window and place my foot on the ledge, "Meet me on the roof over there. I think it's an assembly hall or an elementary school, I'm not sure."

I add in that extra detail so he can't figure out my identity.

With that, I jump as far as I can from the window ledge, holding onto Joy's legs as I plummet to the nearby roof.

TAEHYUNG

RC jumps out the window with no hesitation.

I'm left in mild offense because, hey, what about me?

The people behind the door are trying to kick it down. I have to dash as fast as I can to the window in order to not be seen. Chances are, I'm going to fail.

I'm right.

As soon as I release my hold on the knob, the door swings open and people come barging in. I make it to the window and jump immediately, but there's no doubt that they at least caught a glimpse of me going down.

"Did y'all see that kid?"

"I could've sworn I heard Joy in here!"

The voices fade out as I land on the roof with a soft thud, the frigid weather of the extended winter causing me to shiver.

I find RC releasing a shaky breath and tightly gripping onto the tainted Bangtan leaf, as a purple glow surrounding Joy's chest disperses.

For some reason, the sight infuriates me.

RC always does the real work while I just do sidekick work. I especially wanted to be useful for this mission because I'd be helping my friends. Although I will never understand why Joy wanted to do that Jisoo, they're both people who are precious to me.

And I want to be there for Jisoo. I want to be the one who helps her out. But of course, RC remains superior when it comes to saving my friends' lives too.

"How do you manage to do that so effortlessly?"

"Huh?" RC looks surprised by my outburst.

"Everytime we have to do something, you're always the one doing most of the work while I can only do the side jobs."

"Is that my fault?"

"Excuse me?" I'm almost offended, but I see her teasing expression and calm down, "Ugh, no. I'm just mad at myself. I wish I could do better."

Her faces softens, "V, you're doing fine--"

RC's reassurance is cut off when Joy squirms around and flutters her eyes open. Our attention goes to her and she sits up groggily.

"Hi Joy, are you feeling okay?" RC asks softly.

Joy takes a moment to scan her surroundings, before darting her head around in alarm.

"What happened? Where am I?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" I sit down too so the three of us are huddled in a triangle formation of some sort.

"I-I don't remember anything! All I know is that... I was at home and I felt something in my chest... wait, did I? Was that dream?"

She panics and pulls onto RC's arm.

"You--You're RC. And you..." She points to me, "Oh my god, what is happening?"

Joy continues to babble on in understandable confusion as RC and I try to communicate. How does Joy even know RC?

"What should we tell her?" My voice is barely a whisper.

RC shrugs in response, so I settle for tapping Joy on the shoulder.

"What day is it? How old am I--"

"Joy calm down. You're fine," I say.

"What do you mean, I'm fine?" Joy restates, flailing her arms wildly.

"I think you have transient amnesia," RC explains.

"The translucent amn—what?" Joy breathes out.

"It's basically where you randomly lose memories. If you've experienced something emotionally strenuous lately then that might be the cause."

I nod as if I know exactly what RC is talking about.

"We're just cosplayers who found you here and climbed up to make sure that you're okay, but we have no idea how you got here." The lie slips gracefully off her tongue.

"Yes! Exactly that," I chirp in. If I'm not mistaken, I see RC struggling not to roll her eyes.

"You should probably go see a doctor after this," she continues. Joy is still trying to take in the information.

RC and I give her a moment to process. Joy goes through a series of facial expressions, the cold air chilling her skin to the point of visible goosebumps.

"I... okay. This doesn't make sense but I trust you. I don't know about this ninja guy, but I trust you, RC." Joy forces a small smile.

"What? Why her and not me? I helped save y--"

"Wow, that's so sweet Joy!" Uncharacteristically, RC hugs her and sends me a warning glare.

Oops, maybe I shouldn't have talked about saving her.

"Anyways, we kind of have to go," RC says, and I notice how her hands are slightly shaky while putting the extracted leaf in her pocket. "Do you need help getting back to school?"

Joy looks around, "I... I think I can manage." She takes out her phone from her pocket, "I'll get Sungjae. He always knows what to do."

I smile at her words. Although the couple's display of affection can be annoying at times, I can't deny how precious their relationship is.

Nodding her head in a gesture to tell me to 'Get up!', RC stands up and stretches her arms. I quickly follow suit, and we're about to climb down the building when Joy calls for us.

"Did anything happen that I need to know about? My phone says it's Friday, but I don't remember any of yesterday."

Truthfully, I really want to tell her about all the nasty things that happened to Jisoo after her little "act", but I bite my tongue.

"You'll probably find out." RC clenches her teeth too.

"Ah, okay. Uh, thank you then."

I give her a nod and start to turn away, but RC suddenly looks back.

"Do you dislike this girl named Jisoo?"

My eyes bulge out of their sockets when RC asks that. How does she know about Jisoo? She surely doesn't go to this school because she didn't know the layout of it earlier.  Joy is in the same state of surprise as I am, blinking repeatedly.

"Just curious!" RC lifts her hands up in a submissive gesture, as if she were caught doing something bad, "You were mumbling stuff about her earlier but you totally don't have to answer."

Internally, I nod my head in realization. It makes sense for RC to ask that in case that information is helpful towards us as superheroes. Joy doesn't know that we're superheroes, so she is still in confusion.

"I don't hate her. At all."

I tilt my head at that, because her actions while tainted definitely said otherwise.

"I'm actually really jealous of her," Joy confesses.

RC and I both lean in to hear the rest of her answer. If she was jealous of Jisoo, did she want to take her down?

"Have you ever wanted to do anything to her? Like, something you wanted to do but always stopped yourself from doing it?" To my surprise, RC appears awfully invested.

Joy is taken aback by the question, and fumbles through random syllables for a few seconds to decide what to say.

"You don't have to answer," I reassure, though I'm pretty curious myself. It's after another moment of silence before Joy finally says something.

"I don't have anything against her," Joy breathes out, shoulders sagging in the process, "I actually really admire her."

"What? That doesn't make sense," I blurt out, before being jabbed in the ribcage with RC's elbow. "I mean, ahem, do you wanna talk about it?"

Luckily, Joy seems too dazed from literally waking up a few minutes ago to notice the stiffness of both RC and I.

"I used to think she was rude like everyone else. I mean, she has no friends. But... that changed a few months ago," Joy exhales sympathetically, "I was complaining about how my grades dropped ever since I started dating Sungjae and how my parents weren't happy about it. We had a history test the next day, and I caught Jisoo putting something in my locker."

I furrow my brows, racking my brain for possible things Jisoo would've put inside.

"It was a notebook. At first I thought she was pulling a prank on me, but she gave me her good notes. In the end, I passed the test," Joy laughs incredulously, as if in disbelief herself.

My heart warms at the thought of a timid Jisoo hesitantly slipping her notes into someone's locker. She was probably nervous but convinced herself to do it because deep down, she doesn't want anyone to suffer.

"Another time, a girl was freaking out about her period coming early, and I saw Jisoo shoving something in her backpack. Later that day, the girl told me that pads magically appeared in her bag."

I start to realize that Joy doesn't make sense. If she likes Jisoo, then she shouldn't have had any desire to make people dislike her, right?

"Oh really? That's uh, cool," RC coughs, weirdly shy. "Well, wow, uh, we really gotta go now--"

"So have you tried being friends with her? Or do you still think she's rude like everyone else?"

In the heat of my interrogation, I barely notice RC giving me an embarrassed look, as if she wants to leave immediately. I shrug it off and await Joy's response.

"No. To both questions." Joy frowns in thought, "She's really nice, but lets people say whatever they want about her. There was a time when I got so frustrated with her pretending to be some tough girl who doesn't care about anyone that I lashed out on her."

I remember that, if I recall correctly. It was the lunch spilling incident.

"I thought that maybe, if I pushed her enough, she'll finally break and admit to her real feelings, even if she ends up getting hurt in the process." Unexpectedly, tears are pooling at her eyes, "It's pretty horrible of me, right?"

"No no, it's okay." RC rushes to bring Joy into a hug, patting comforting circles around her back, "I'm just glad that you don't hate her."

I'm too shocked by Joy's confession to take note of RC's emotional expressions. I'm mad. Not at Joy, but at The Sender. Joy's approach might have not been the best, but her intentions weren't evil. I knew that The Sender manipulated people's emotions, but I never imagined it to this extent.

"I think we should go now," I grit, still annoyed at the world and at myself for barely being able to do anything to help Jisoo or Joy this time.

RC seems startled, but quickly follows me. "Take care, Joy."

The girls wave to each other as I prepare to leave. In silence, RC and I go down the building, being sure to make it seem like we were climbing down, when we were really jumping down from the nearby trees.

When we finally make it to the grassy ground with a soft thump, I let my frustration out.

"Gosh, The Sender is so messed up. The victims don't deserve this shit."

RC shifts around, unusually tense. "Yeah, Joy doesn't deserve that at all."

"And Jisoo," I add, "Jisoo doesn't deserve that either."

I almost forget that I'm not supposed to know what happened to her, but RC doesn't look suspicious of my words so I don't worry about it.

"You don't know that. If everyone thinks that she's rude or mean, there must be at least an inkling of truth in that."

I turn to RC in disbelief. Why in the world would she judge someone who she hasn't even met? She did this the first time we met too, getting all angry at the tainted mother. But this is different. Jisoo wasn't even tainted. She did nothing wrong and enough people are doubting her. It infuriates me that even RC, a freaking superhero, would do the same.

"Well, you don't know her." I struggle to keep my calm, but RC doesn't sense this. She shifts her gaze to the ground, expression unreadable.

"Yeah, but I'm sure that what goes around comes around, right? She must've done something to have no friends."

That's it.

"Jisoo did absolutely nothing wrong!" RC seems taken aback from my yelling but I keep going anyway. "Stop assuming things about her, would you? She's not anything like those stupid rumors."

I firmly look at RC in the eyes with fury. Her words mirror the exact things that Jisoo cried in my arms for. It feels like a stab in the chest to hear, again.

"I'm not leaving until you take that back. She does deserve friends. In fact, I think she deserves a lot more than that."

RC doesn't say anything. For a moment I think I'm too harsh when I see her eyes tearing up, but I don't back down because I'm simply defending a friend. A very good friend.

"If you're too stubborn to take it back, at least promise me that you won't doubt Jisoo from now on," I urge, not breaking eye-contact.

A gust of wind rushes past us, blowing her hair in a captivating way and sending shivers down my spine. Strangely, she looks more stunned than angry. We're both staring at each other so intensely that I barely notice the sound of Sungjae exclaiming to Joy in worry from the other side of the building.  He says something about being her knight in shining armor and how he's going to save her from falling off the roof or whatever.

I can tell that they're close to us but I don't care. I won't leave until RC says something.

Finally, she does.

"I promise," she breathes out, still seemingly in awe for some reason. "I won't doubt Jisoo from now on."

Author's Note:

me after writing this^ the love square rlly said "let's introduce ourselves" in this chapter.

y'know, i wish there was a word that was stronger than thank you because words can't really describe how grateful i am to you readers. truly, thank you SO much for reading!! C:

<3 lalalalala7fire