She shook her head. “No,” she tried to deny it. Perhaps, she thought, if she says it out loud, it would be definite. “No,” she repeated. “You’re kidding,”

“I’m not,” Minhyuk replied, his voice firm. He placed his hands on her shoulders and grasped them tight. “Try to remember, Chorong. It wasn’t a dream. You slipped, and you fell,”

She shut her eyes close, wanting to block him out. “No,”

“Chorong ah,”

“No!” she whimpered as she threw him a glare. “What about you then?”

“What about me?”

“Why are you here?”

Hearing that, he looked away, and with both his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, he neared the streaming river and hunkered down just inches away from the edge. He picked up the biggest rock he found and started digging the earth without any purpose in particular. “Just like you,” he began in a soft and delicate tone, “I was falling,”

Chorong stared at him, her eyebrows knitted. “What do you mean?”

He glanced up at her first, then at the pale sky above them. “Up there,” he said.

Following his gaze, she tilted her head up and held her breath. She knew what he meant, but her heart refused to believe. It was everyone’s worst nightmare ― hers especially. Letting out a heavy sigh filled with both fear and anger, she closed her eyes and let herself to be drifted away to the past time.

: :

“Hey, wake up,”

Slowly, Chorong opened her eyes, only to be greeted by the bright morning light. The sky was pale with only few noticeable clouds. The air was chilly yet dry at the same time. She heard noises not far from where she was, and only then that she remembered where she was.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands before finally looking up. “Hi, Hoya,” she said groggily.

“How can you sleep at times like this?” Hoya frowned as he took a seat next to her.

“Because I’m awesome like this,” she replied.

He shook his head lightly, chuckling. “You know, I always wonder what Minhyuk sees in you,”

“Well, he sees things that you don’t, apparently,”

“For example?”

With her eyebrows knitted, she cocked her head to one side, thinking. “Now that you asked, I don’t know either,” she returned before turning to face him with a puzzled look. “What do you think he sees in me?”

“You don’t ask someone the same question that person asked you, Park Chorong,” he laughed, flicking his fingers at her forehead.

“Ow!” she cried. Feeling the sharp pain, Chorong instantly put one hand on her forehead, rubbing it to ease the soreness away, while the other slapping Hoya’s arm as a payback. “You know what, Hoya? You’re just like your brother. Always the same spot,”

She made a face at him and he returned the favour by mimicking her, which only brought her more annoyance. Their banter came to an abrupt halt when they heard their names being called. They glanced at the direction where the voice came from in unison, and found Minhyuk half-walking, half-jogging towards them. None of them said anything as they stared at each other.

“So?” Hoya broke the silence.

Almost forgetting how to breathe, Chorong darted her eyes back and forth between the two brothers as she waited for the older one’s answer. His face was unreadable, which made it even worse. “Oh come on, just say it already!” she grumbled, frustrated.

The corners of Minhyuk’s lips curled up into a goofy grin. He then revealed the paper he was hiding behind his back to the two. “I passed,” he smirked proudly.

Neither Chorong nor Hoya reacted for a moment. After what felt like eternity, Chorong finally spoke. “You passed?”

With his grin never leaving his face, Minhyuk nodded. “I passed,”

Her face lit up, and instantly she threw her arms around his neck and jumped excitedly. “You passed!”

“I passed,” he repeated.

“Congrats, hyung,” said Hoya, patting Minhyuk’s shoulder.

Minhyuk smiled at his brother, and then turned to Chorong. “Now I can drive you around. Just wait a little more, and I’ll be able to fly you around,”

: :

“Did it hurt?” she asked upon opening her eyes.

Minhyuk glanced at her and shook his head. “No, not really. At least, I can’t remember exactly how it felt,”

“Was it scary?”

This time, he nodded. “Yes,” he answered. “Mostly because I was scared I wouldn’t be able to see you again,”

Chorong looked away and crossed her arms, feeling the chills in her bones. “What happens now?” she asked. “What’s this place?”

“I don’t know. In between, I guess,” he replied. “I don’t have the answers for everything,”

“How long do we stay here?” she went on. “What happens if we don’t go back?”

Looking into her frightened eyes, Minhyuk took her hands and squeezed them. “Like I said, I don’t know,” he sighed. “But we’ll go back,” he continued. “You’ll go back,”

“I won’t go back,” Chorong argued, shaking her head.

“You’ll go back,” he told her. “You have to leave now,”

“No, not without you,”

Hearing that, he smiled a sad smile. “Hey, remember what I said the last time we spoke?”

“Yes,”

His smile grew a little wider, but the feeling it gave off remained the same. “You’ll go back. You’ll live,” he whispered. “And then you can wait for me,”

Crystal beads began to emerge from her eyes. “But what about you?”

“I’ll be fine,”

She gazed into his brown orbs while trying her best to fight back her tears. “Why do I have to leave first? Why can’t I stay with you?”

“Because it was my fault that you’re here. If I was there with you, you wouldn’t be here,”

“We wouldn’t be here,” she corrected him.

“Exactly,”

She bit her lower lip and sniffed. “Promise you’ll come back to me? That you’ll open your eyes?”

He nodded.

“You can’t break your promise,” she muttered in between her sobs.

“I won’t,” he returned. “Will you wait for me?”

“Of course,” she replied. “Till kingdom come,”

“Till kingdom come,” he echoed.

“I love you,” she whispered, closing her eyes. Another teardrop fell down her cheek.

“I love you too,” he smiled as he wiped her tears away. “Now wake up,”

: :

“Wake up,”

Chorong’s eyes fluttered open slowly. She felt a strong hand gripping her wrist tightly, and the warmness of it against her cold skin somehow made her shiver even more.

“Hey, wake up,” the voice called again.

Through her blurry vision, she saw a particular someone staring down at her, but she failed to make out that person’s face properly. Instead, she saw another person. She thought she could see him smiling her favourite boyish smile at her. With tears starting to well up in her eyes, she called out his name. “Minhyuk?”

Then everything out again.