Marcus whirled around in shock. I whipped my head up as well, looking in the direction of where his voice came from. Through my tears, I saw a blur of blue as Heechul rushed over at light speed and pushed Marcus away with a hard shove. He then looked down at me, and turned back to Marcus, with his hands on his hips like a displeased adult.

Marcus was about to push Heechul but he was stopped by a notorious bellow from Mr Lee. Mr Lee walked over angrily and smacked Marcus hard on the head. “Marcus Song! What did I just tell you about being nice to your classmates?” Mr Lee shouted angrily, “Come with me! I’m going to call your mother!” He then turned to Heechul, “Kim Heechul, you still owe me 100 lines by tomorrow okay?” Heechul nodded and Mr Lee walked away, pulling Marcus along with him by the ear.

“Aish… If only that Mr Lee isn’t here… I’ll whack the daylights out of that idiot!” Heechul looked down at me, “Are you okay?” I shook my head and held out the torn teddy bear tearfully, “Ryeowook’s bear… I’m sorry that…”

“It’s not your fault. Why are you apologizing? Come on, let’s go home,” Heechul interrupted me and turned to walk away. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands and stood up, using the wall as a support. My injured leg was in a terrible pain. I followed behind Heechul very slowly, with my heavy bag and hurt knee slowing me down.

After a while, Heechul turned back and saw that I was falling very far behind him. He then hesitated for a while before running back to me. Standing in front of me, he looked at my hurt knees and the beads of sweats that were forming on my forehead due to the effort I was using. Just then, Ryeowook, who was waiting for us at the school gate, saw us and ran over. He was very shocked when he saw my wounded knees and the torn teddy bear that I was hugging tightly in my arms.

“Brother!” he greeted Heechul before turning to me, “Yonni ah! What happened? Why are you hurt? Why is your teddy bear broken?” I did not answer him, and simply looked down at the mutilated teddy sadly. The pain in my heart that I felt for the torn bear was much more than the physical pain that my knee was causing me.

“Ryeowook ah, carry Yonni’s bag for her, she can’t walk with the bag in this state,” Heechul instructed Ryeowook, then turned and said to me, “Come. I’ll carry you on my back.” Ryeowook and I stared at each other in shock. Did Heechul, who usually hated me, just offered to carry me on his back?

“Come on! What are you waiting for? Christmas?” Heechul repeated himself impatiently as he stood bent over in front of me. I got onto his back and we set off for home. The three of us did not exchange any words throughout the way home. When we reached home, Auntie Yuri was waiting in the living room for us with a gloomy face. Did she found out what happened in school despite our combined effort?

“We’re back,” the three of us said in unison as we stepped in through the front door. Heechul put me down onto the ground and went into the kitchen to get a cup of water. Auntie Yuri did not answer us. Instead, she called for me to go over.

“Yonni, your teacher called and said that you skipped classes for half of the day,” She said when I walked over. Damn! In my eagerness to help Heechul, I forgot about my own lessons. Heechul was standing by the kitchen door, looking worriedly at us. I must not sabotage him, not after all we had done to keep the incident under wraps. “Mum…” Heechul started speaking.

“I… I went to play,” I interrupted him, “I’m sorry, Auntie Yuri…” Auntie Yuri looked from Heechul to me and asked, “Why did you go out and play when lessons had not ended?” My brain whirled for an excuse. “She saw the puppy that the school caretaker keeps in school and went to play with it,” Heechul said, walking over to us. I nodded. Auntie Yuri stared at him suspiciously, “How did you know?”

“I found her playing with the puppy.”

“Yes Auntie Yuri, I had so much fun playing with the puppy that I forgot about the time. I didn’t even know that school was over.”

“That’s right Mum, Yonni even hurt her knees while playing chasing with the puppy.”

“How did you know? Were you with her?”

“Heechul found me when I was playing catch with the puppy. He was the one that told me school has ended. I’m sorry Auntie Yuri, I would not do it again.”

Auntie Yuri stood up and walked over to the coat hanger and picked up a thin cane that she uses to punish Heechul and Ryeowook when they did anything wrong. “Yonni, Auntie Yuri has to punish you for playing truant,” she said, motioning for me to stretch out my hands. Heechul looked at me helplessly. I was whacked three times on the palm and sent up to my room without lunch. That was my punishment for ‘playing truant’.

Heechul came up to my room some time after lunch. Ryeowook had already came in previously with some pieces of biscuits. I was sitting on the bed, picking at my wound when Heechul knocked on the door. “Can I come in?” he asked nervously. I nodded and turned back to picking at my wound. He came in holding a first-aid kit. “I… I wanted to tell you to clean your wound. It might get infected,” he said, holding up the kit. I nodded and reached out for the box. He held it back. “I’ll do it for you?” he offered. I agreed.

“Why… Why did you help me?” he asked as he was cleaning up my wound. He was behaving in the gentle manner that I had only seen him used with Ryeowook. I smiled, it was a good sign that he did not seemed to hate me anymore.

“Because we are a family. Besides, I believed you,”

“Why?”

“Because you never lied. You will do all the bad things then admit it.”

He smiled a little as he searched through the medical kit for a piece of bandage to cover my wound. I looked at him, and suddenly remembered that when he yelled at Marcus for bullying me, he referred to me as his ‘sister’. I decided to ask him about it.

“Heechul?” I began, “Just now, when you saw Marcus bullying me?”

“Yea?”

“You called me your sister,” I continued, looking closely at his face for any signs of displeasure. His face was straight when he said, “So?”

“So… I’m not a tomato-faced scarecrow anymore?”

“You still are. Just… My tomato-faced scarecrow sis…” he hesitated.

My young heart skipped a beat, “Your tomato-faced scarecrow what?” I prompted anxiously.

He started throwing all the things back into the med box and stood up. “Sister,” he answered quickly, before bolting out of my room as fast as he could. A smile crept onto my face as I stared down at my bandaged knee. If this small wound had earned me the approval of Heechul, it was worth it.

That night after dinner, I slipped up to Heechul’s room and found him writing the lines that he was supposed to do. “Need any help?” I asked as I stood by the door. He looked up at me, shook his head, and resumed scribbling profusely on the notebook. “Can I come in?” I asked again. He nodded without stopping his work. I walked into the room and sat down on his bed, staring at his back silently as he wrote his lines.

‘Have you finished your homework?” he asked as he flipped to a new page.

“Yes.”

“Need any help with it?”

“Nope.”

“Good.”

Silence resumed in the room, and only the ‘swish swish’ sound that the pencil made as it danced across the paper could be heard. After a long while, Heechul finally finished his 100 lines. He stretched with a loud yawn, closing the notebook loudly. Standing up from his chair, he threw the notebook casually into his schoolbag. Then he strode over to his closet and took out something. I followed him with my eyes curiously.

When he turned back, he was holding my teddy bear in his hands. The long tear along its torso that Marcus made had been patched up. He held out the bear to me and said, “Now I don’t owe you anything.” I took the bear from him, my small fingers tracing the massive ‘wound’ on my inanimate best friend.

“You… You fixed it by yourself?”

“Yes, don’t complain about how ugly the patching is. I made it, to begin with.”

“You made the bear?”

“Ya, I gave it to Ryeowook for his birthday last year.”

I looked down at the patched up bear in my hands, and felt a sudden surge of joy. It was as if my best friend had come back to life, not only so, it now has a ‘specially-for-me” feeling to it as Heechul had patched up the bear just for me. I jumped up from the bed and gave Heechul my first hug since I arrived three months ago.

^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~

A sudden ringing brought me back to the present. Looking around, I found the source to be my alarm clock. It was already 6.15am in the morning. “That was fast… Maybe that’s why they say getting lost in your memories…” I thought in my head as I turned off the annoying ringing and looked back down at the old teddy bear in my hands.

Ever since the incident, the relationship between Heechul and I took a massive turn for the better. He was mean to me in the beginning because he hated strangers, and the fact that Ryeowook had given me the teddy bear. He felt as if his brother was being snatched away by a stranger. All it took was for the incident to show him that I really treated him like family, and he quickly accepted me into his life. Now, he was both my brother, and my best friend. Life was kind to me, it took away my parents, but gave me not only one, but two of the most amazing brothers that anyone could ever wish for.

I smiled and put the teddy back to where it was and stood up from my bed. Walking over to the window, I opened the curtains and felt the warm rays of the rising sun greeting me. My mood was incredibly good, and I could not help but leaned out of the window and shouted happily, “GOOD MORNING WORLD!”

A few of the early joggers downstairs looked up at my building in shock. I must have looked very prominent, a girl leaning dangerously outside the window wearing purple PJs, for most of them looked at me almost immediately. I waved happily at them, “GOOD MORNING! HAVE A NICE DAY!!!” I shouted again, almost losing my balance in my excitement. They waved back and me and smiled. What a nice and friendly neighbourhood.

I turned back into my room, skipping a little in my ridiculous good mood as I grabbed my towel together with my uniform and literally danced out of my room as I went towards the bathroom. 

[A/N]

This marks the end of Yonni's reminise about the past. From now on, the story will be based on the present time. I hope that I had been able to explain Yonni's past clearly, and you guys will be able to understand Heechul's development with her. I know i had been very long-winded but please bear with me!  Please feel free to leave comments with regards to any queries about the story =)

Attn: NEW CHARACTER COMING OUT SOON!!!!!  =)))))