~~~~

Then it hit me like a wave. A sudden flashback of a conversation between Minseok and I had.

~~~Flashback~~~

It was lunch, and we were eating chips outside on a bench. "Justina, what would you do if you wanted to start over?" Minseok suddenly asked me. 

I tried to get another chip from the half empty bag. “Like changing my name?” 

"Yea, what would you change your name to?" He seemed really curious.

"Not sure... I mean, I really like my name, so..." I trailed off, still struggling to get a chip from the bag. The struggle is real.

"Of course, you do," he sarcastically responded. I shot him a look but he ignored me. "I would change my name to Xiumin."

"Wae?" I asked in Korean. I kind of picked up on the habit of speaking Korean once in a while. "Is it Korean?"

"Aniyo, it's written in Chinese characters, but you can write them in Korean." Picking up a stick from the ground, he began to write something in the dirt. '시우민​'. "See this is Xiumin in hangul, and this is how to write this in Chinese." I bent over to see how he wrote it, which came out as, '秀珉'. I was pretty impressed because he could write in both Hangul and Chinese. 

He started to underline one of the Chinese characters and then another one. He pointed his stick to the first one he underlined, 秀. "This means pretty, or handsome." Quickly writing down the meaning in English and then pointed to 珉. "This means  jade-like stone, it uses the same character as in my real name, Min." Also, wrote down the meaning.

I looked at the meaning in English and it made sense, especially the handsome part. "So, Xiumin means handsome jade-like stone?" Interesting name choice. 
"Yup!" he said with a yawn as he leant back from his bent over position. I giggled as I thought of something, and he just looked at me as if I were crazy. "What's so funny?" 

"I still think you should change your name to Baozi," I said, grabbing his cheeks and pulling on them. He just swatted my hands away.

He coughed, trying to maintain a manly posture. "Anyway, other than changing my name to Xiumin, I would also fake my death."

"You mean like in books when the main character fakes their death, but really they had already got on a plane to another country?" 
Snapping his fingers in agreement. "Yup, exactly what I was thinking of."

"Do you have a plan?" I mean, it was a good idea but he still needed a plan.

"Yes, but... I won't tell you!" he shouted as he got up to run away with MY chips. He was fast but not faster than me. 

I grabbed his arm as I caught up to him. "Come on, give me a hint," I pouted.

Looking at my face, he gave in. "Fine... it's somewhere in our special hideout." The forest? What is this, the suicide forest? 

"That's our forest, though, why would you want to do it there?" 

"Because it's the last place I want to remember before I fake my death," Reaching out for my hand. "Come on, the bell's going to ring."

I walked with him, hand-in-hand. Why would he want to fake his death in the first place? I mean, even though he's being bullied, doesn't mean that he should run away from it. I'm not calling him a coward, but he has me to help him face these problems. 

~~~

I was still holding onto his mask until he swats my hands away and pulled his mask back up. Even his eyes looked exactly like Minseok's. I remember this because Minseok made me put on eye contacts for him, which made his eyes seem a bit bigger, so I have the image of his eyes stuck in my memory. I kept on staring into my kidnapper's eyes, they were just as pretty as Minseok's and Xiumin's. All three of their eyes were cat-like and were single eye-lidded.  

"Your eyes are really pretty," I unconsciously complimented him. I was really calm about this situation, but it was because he wasn't doing anything, yet. 

I got out of his arms