Later that night there was a knock on Choonhee’s door while she was studying, which she was hoping that no one would interfere now that she finally has time to catch up and focus on work.

“Oh, did I come in at a bad time?”

“Oh, no you didn’t” Choonhee placed her pen down and turned to face Jinhoo with her hands resting on her lap. “Hwanhee told me what happened today with Ms. Kim – sorry that you had to be involved with our problems, we were hoping that you wouldn’t” Jinhoo looked down at his feet with guilt. The room was silent as Choonhee waiting for Jinhoo to continue.

“Look” he moved to the bed to sit, “as curious you may be, I can’t tell you the full story of why this is happening, until the others tell you why they’re here… with all honesty, the reason that this is all happening is to hide the truth from the public. Xiao made himself the divergent of the situation – but it has really affected him this past year…” Jinhoo felt lost in thought and in regret ever since he agreed to Xiao’s idea to let Ms. Kim be distracted by him so that she didn’t find out that half of the boys are illegally living there.

Choonhee stayed patient as they both sit in silence, Jinhoo was lost in thought and couldn’t make eye contact with Choonhee as he felt useless. Being the eldest he felt responsible to take action of the situation but Xiao despite being the youngest has only allowed himself to take the impact and no one else, and now he’s dealing with emotional suffering that no one can help with no matter how much they tried.

 “You know…” Jinhoo looked up to Choonhee, her tone of her voice hardened. It wasn’t quiet or delicate like normal, it took him by surprise she had that voice. She swallowed to control her tone of voice as he waited. This whole time she was being polite and quite to everyone in the house, not so that they could like her, but because she lost herself after her parents pasting and was still trying to find herself, and when she did she didn’t know how they would react to her true personality.

“I know you all mean no harm but when you talk to me I know you’re being cautious with your words, so you don’t reveal the truth. I want no secrets. You tell me all of this stuff, but honestly, I’m this type of girl. So making me wait and act like I’m a timid girl, I feel pitiful” Jinhoo looked away embarrassed. He didn’t want her to feel like that. He was worried that he made her innocence disappear, but that was always her personality. Before the incident she was blunt and smart, and was caring when she wanted to be.

But now, she got impatient

“But–”

“Why do you guy already know my story? Was it… not a big deal to keep it a secret?”

“Please don’t misunderstanding Jun, he did it so that ten guys wouldn’t try to get too close to you to know about your past. As ironic as it sounds, he didn’t for your privacy” Choonhee refused to make eye contact and watched her curled fingers. Jinhoo realised his selfish subconscious self after Choonhee shown that light on him.

“You know that I was the first to join, right?” Choonhee shook her head still avoiding eye contact, “well I was, and it wasn’t easy for Jun to convince me to join” Choonhee slowly looked up at Jinhoo, he chuckled to himself about the memories he shared with Jun long before the others joined. “After my parents pasted when I was little I had to move to the countryside where my grandfather took me in and raise me to best of his ability for a short amount of time before he fell ill. He was rather fond of Jun even before I came so when he made Jun my legal guardian and all gave him all he inherited, I didn’t want to live Jun at the time. I thought my Grandfather was crazy to trust a stranger and I thought that Jun was going to ditch me and run with the money. I saw him often but I didn’t like him because he looked like a homeless” Jinhoo rubbed the back of his neck embarrassed for making a bad judgement and awkwardly chuckled, Choonhee eyes widened in surprise.

“A homeless?”

“Yeah … he also didn’t have a happy past like all of us. That’s why he’s here now, taking care of us. He didn’t want us to miss the opportunity to have a future worth living for, it was my Grandfather that inspired him to do what he is doing now.”

“I had no idea…”

“We were all like that at the beginning”

“What happened to him before meeting you?”

“…We’ll save that for another day, I think I did a lot of talking for one day – but remember what I told you before” Choonhee nodded with a smile “It will take time but you will eventually find out about everything”

The door closed and Choonhee let out a deep sigh of worry that something wrong could happen.

“AH I can’t believe I said that to him! He is my Sunbae too UGH why!?” Choonhee pulled her face down like the scream in regret and cursing at herself for being so stupid.

She looked towards her desk and took a glimpse of the spine of Wooshin’s book, she’s near from finishing it, to bookmark was awkwardly titled from when she was rushing to finish that page before leaving school that nearly got her late. Choonhee got up and left her room without completing the rest of schoolwork.

As she stood on the balcony is had occurred to her that she had no idea who owned what room. Choonhee walked down the stairs while looking back at the doors and mouthing their names she assumed were in what rooms they were in. When reaching the couch in the living room she had a clear view of all the bedroom doors.

One of the guys walked past her as she continued to mouth their names and pointed at each door.  He halted and turned around to Choonhee who paid no attention to him, he smirked and walked behind her and leaned down to her ear only centimetres away.

“Stalking is a bad habit” chills trickled down Choonhee’s spine when Wei’s breath tickled her neck as he whispered.

“OH MY GOD” she pounced away from him in fright and fell back onto the back of the couch, Wei moved quick and grabbed hold of her waist before her back bent any further than it already was. Her arms were held near her face frozen in place while her eyes were closed shut waiting to hit the couch. Choonhee opened her eyes one by one since she felt no impact, once she noticed the situation her body tensed.

Wei leaned closer to her face, “are you okay?” he looked at her with concerned eyes as their faces were close enough that Choonhee felt that she was going crossed eyed. His warm light breath heated her face, his grip firmed.

Waiting and still.

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