“He’s dead.”

That was the fact. Any normal person would be terrified if they found out they had been talking to a dead person (or spirit, whatever it was) over the past few days. Indeed, I should have been terrified. Possibly angry, because I had been lied to. But at that moment, I couldn’t feel any of those. Because the only thing running in my mind was Chanshik’s lonely expression, his desperation whenever he talked about his brother, and the bitterness in his voice whenever he mentioned his parents. Park Chanshik was dead. He said he was fifteen. He hadn’t even finished high school. And he would never be able to be with his family again.

“Paran.” My mom called my name again but I was only reminded of the way Chanshik muttered my name earlier, and the sound of his voice when he said sorry, and I couldn’t hold back the tears.

My mother asked no questions. She just held me until I calmed down. She led me in the house without a word and sat me down in front of the kitchen table, fetching me a glass of water. I didn’t want to drink because I knew what was waiting once I finish all of it. But I knew that one way or the other I was going to drink that glass of water, and my mother was going to say my name again, and I was going to tell her about everything.

“I knew this was going to happen sooner or later.”

My eyes shot up to hers upon hearing my mother’s puzzling response to my explanation. She had this guilty expression on her face as she pressed a fist to , her elbow resting on the table.

“You’re confused right now. And you have a lot of questions in your mind.” She stated with certainty. And she was right.

“But you don’t have to deal with everything right now, Paran. We can talk about this tomorrow, if you want.” She looked at me cautiously as she said this, waiting for my response.

I felt uncomfortable under her gaze, and the realization unnerved me. Because right then I wasn’t sure if this was the woman I had been living for the last eighteen years of my life. My mom has always been, at the mention and sight of anything out of the ordinary, the one who easily got paranoid, the one who always worried, and the one who was the quickest to panic. But right now she had the composure that I didn’t. And that made me nervous.

I couldn’t answer her. Instead, I thought about why the dead stay even after they die (even though I wasn’t completely sure there was a place they could go after this world, I wanted to believe there was). And I thought about Park Chanshik who died at fifteen. And I thought about the boy, Park Chanyeol, who lost what he probably considers the other half of him. And I thought about how he would always get furious at the sound of his brother’s name. And I thought of Mr. and Mrs. Park, who I’d never met, but I knew had lost a son they loved dearly. And I knew I found my answer.

“Tell me.”

A/N: Another short chapter. I probably should've uploaded this right after the last one. Anyway, the next chapter is going to be a bit longer. :D