“Yunho-ah, I guess you deserve more than an explanation. I’m really, really sorry that I’ve lied to you this whole time,” Hyukjae let out an apologetic smile to Yunho.

                “What’s with your hair? What are you doing here? What do you mean ‘this whole time’? Who are you people, really?” Yunho’s tone rises with each question. He almost couldn’t hold it anymore. He was having a bad enough day and with their home being partly blown up, strangers trying to kill them and their ‘friends’ turning out to be not who they said they are, he was in a dire need of a logical explanation.

                “Yunho, you have no idea how hard it was keeping it all from you and how sorry I am for having to lie to you this whole time, but it’s not my place to explain. I’ll get you to safety, then I’ll explain what’s going on,” Hyukjae tried to explain. Yunho drew a long heavy breath as he tried to calm himself once again.

                “Then can’t you at least answer one of my questions?” He demanded.

                “Well, the only question I can answer is about myself, so I guess it’s alright to tell them who are we, right Kyu?” He turned to Kyuhyun for confirmation. The said person just nodded as he busily typed something on his phone.

                “Who are you, then?”

                It was Changmin who asked, not Yunho. Kyuhyun seemed to notice the owner of the voice and decided that it was his turn his turn to answer. Changmin is his friend, after all. And he highly doubts that it will stay that way after all of this.

                “My name is Cho Kyuhyun, as you already know. I’m roughly the same age as you. Most of the things I said to you about me are true; the fact that I’m always the top student, that I’m a loner and I hate crowds and that I’m an only child,” He explained to Changmin as he looked him right in the eye, his gaze unwavering. 

                “How about your house? Your family and origin? Is that why you never want me to come over to your house? Because it was all just a lie?” Changmin attacked viciously. Kyuhyun cringed at his words; he seemed a little bit uncomfortable.

                “I do live in the outskirt of the city, just not with my parents. I have family, just not who I said they were. I tried my best to lie as little as I can. Right now, those are the only thing I could explain to you. It’s dangerous out here. These people,” Kyuhyun referred to the dead bodies around him,” They are trying to kill you. And if we’re just going to stay here while I’ll explain everything, more of them will come and we’ll be in much more trouble than we already are. Believe me, we are not going to hurt you, we are here to protect you,”

                Changmin scoffed as he walked further away from Kyuhyun, his face unreadable as a just stood there facing the other way. Jaejoong just looked at him with his calm gaze, unsure of what to do. Then Yunho’s voice changes his focus.

                “What about you?” He asked to Hyukjae, his voice stern.

                “My name is really Lee Hyukjae, but everybody calls me Eunhyuk. You can call me the same way, if you want. I don’t really care. I’m also the same age as you and for the past two years, I have actually lived in the same building as you. I’m right one floor below you,” He explained, not changing his cheery tone.

                “Then it was you that have been following me all these time?” Yunho asked again.

                “No, that was one of our friend,” Eunhyuk’s gaze softened at the mention of the said ‘friend’. “He was just substituting for my other friend who happened to have something to do tonight. They have been watching you ever since you moved here, making sure that nothing unwanted happen,”

                “Until I found him dead in front of your house tonight, right after I dropped Changmin off. That’s when I realized that we are not the only one who knew about the three of you; the ‘bad guys’ have found out as well. Then I ran upstairs and found Changmin just standing there, in front of your door. The rest… well, you know what happen after that,” Kyuhyun completed the story.

                Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun’s statement fit some puzzle pieces in Yunho’s mystery, but he still had a lot of questions left unanswered.

                “Where are you going to take us?” Yunho demanded.

                “A place where we’ll all be safe from all of these threats, and hopefully, where you’ll find out the truth,” Eunhyuk answered .

                “All of these…” A soft voice speak up; it was Jaejoong, ”…They’ve got something to do with our parents, don’t they?”

                Now all four pairs of eyes are on him, even the sulking Changmin that was standing about ten feet away from the group. Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun exchanged looks which if anything, tells Jaejoong that he guessed correctly. He didn’t even expect that his wild hunch would be right, though he always had the feeling that everything ‘out-of-the-place’ that happened in his life has always something to do with their deceased parents whose even until their death four years ago, still felt like such a stranger to him and his brothers.

                Jaejoong still remembered like it was just yesterday, hours after hours of the day that changed his life forever, he still remember all of those. He was just a 17 year-old senior back then, coming home one night from a late swimming practice at school only to found Yunho who seemed to freeze on one corner of their house, holding a phone on his right hand. As soon as Yunho saw him, he just dropped the phone on the floor and dragged him out of the house; didn’t even mind to lock the door of the house. Being the obedient kid he was, Jaejoong didn’t even complain when Yunho took him out on his brand-new motorbike and speed off like there’s no tomorrow. He didn’t want to ask what happened or what’s wrong, because somehow, he just knew that whatever kind of answer that came out of Yunho’s mouth, won’t be a good one. His question was answered correctly when Yunho stopped in front of a well-known hospital in the city. When most people tend to forgot –or forced themselves to forget- about traumatic things, Jaejoong remembered every single detail of that night. How the security in front of the hospital was screaming at them to move their motorbike away from the car parking area and how Yunho didn’t give a damn about anything as he just ran inside, is face extremely distraught. He remembered how Yunho’s voice wavered as he asked about their parents and how the nurse had been nice and sympathetic enough to take the two confused teenagers to the doctors that had been taking care of their parents. He remembered how they waited in an excruciating silence for three hours only to found out that their parents were already dead on the scene of the accident and that the one in the operating room was their 14 year-old brother, fighting for his life. He remembered how Yunho’s wall of emotion just broke right there and then as he just slumped on the floor and cried his eyes out in Jaejoong’s embrace.

                He remembered every single detail of that horrible night. Their parents never told them about the details of their work. Every single time they asked, the only answer they got was ‘consultant’ and that’s why the two of them never seemed to have a fix office building. Though being a consultant didn’t explain the occasional absences that occur as long as they could remember. It also didn’t explain how their parents wouldn’t come home for weeks at a time, leaving the three of them by themselves with a note on the fridge and a sum of money under the vase near the entrance.

                “I… that’s…” Eunhyuk was at a loss for words. He knew he couldn’t explain more about anything until they got to safety but the amount of truth behind that small question Jaejoong spoke earlier kind of bemused him.

                “We’re neither at the place nor the position to speak further of this matter. We will have to bring you to safety first before anything we don’t want happen. We’ve put a barrier around this place but it wouldn’t last much longer. If you haven’t notice, with all of those noises we made earlier, none of your neighbor nor have the police come to this place. They will in a matter of minutes and if we didn’t get out of here and let my other friends take care of this place, we’ll be the one behind bars before you could even find out about the truth. If we meant to hurt you, we would’ve done so a long time ago, but the fact that we haven’t should’ve offer some kind of prove to you that we never meant to cause any harm to you. So, please, please, could we go now?” Kyuhyun explained impatiently in one breath. The longer they stayed to ‘chat’ here, the bigger the chance of their opponent to come back with some reinforcement and they will be in greater problem than they already are. He will drag the three of them away if he could; he wouldn’t mind being hated if in the end of the day, all of them will still be breathing.

                After what seemed to be a very long minute, Yunho spoke up.

                “Okay. We’ll come with you,”

                That one sentence gave Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk a long relieved sigh.

                “Then let’s go. My car just around that corner…” Eunhyuk said.

                Eunhyuk had barely managed to finish his sentence and they haven’t even got to take more than one step away from where they stood when they heard a loud bang and a soft thud followed shortly. Four heads turned around in fear and saw one of the men in suit, though looking as he had been through hell and came back, had managed to stand and take charge of his gun, pointed at them. In what seemed to be a scene in fast-forward, a thin strike of electricity went through the man’s head and he was dead in seconds.

                “I thought you killed all of them!” Kyuhyun turned to Eunhyuk, looking totally annoyed.

                Before the one he spoke to could even answer, Jaejoong’s voice pierces the still night in utter horror; sending all of them to shift their gaze upon a dreadful scene.

                “NO! Changmin!”

these past few days had been hectic with me moving my stuffs into my dorm. i've had this inside of my head since the last time i update but i just got the time to really write and post this now. anyway, thank you for subscribing and comments are highly appreciated. enjoy!>_<