Thirty Three          {Part I}

“Geez, it’s drizzling…” I muttered as I held the school bag above my head and sprinted across the street to the café. Top said to meet him there after school and that he’d find time to ditch his practice a little and ‘tell me everything’.

What did that mean? I didn’t get him at all, but the more I thought about it, the more curious I got.

Maybe… it has something to do with… Jiyong?

I waited inside for 30 minutes before he finally showed up. He was wearing a mask and had a cap on his head so no one would recognize him.

“Hey.” I greeted him with a cup of coffee.

“Yo. There’s gonna be a storm soon Jinhee-ah. And it’s cold, damnit.” He shivered and sipped his coffee.

Silence.

“So… um…” I laughed nervously. “What was it… that you wanted to say?” I took a glance at his face and saw that he’d completely turned serious.

“Right. There’s something Jiyong’s been hiding.” He said looking at me intently. I was right. It was about Jiyong.

“E-eh?”

“Seungri, Daesung and I didn’t know about this. This secret, I mean. He’d only told Taeyang and… well, we found out.” He stalled. “He’d kill me if he knew I was going to tell you but…”

“But?” That was it. My curiosity had snapped.

“But he’s hurting you. And more than that, he’s hurting himself. You have no idea how much of pain and hurt he’s gone through.”

“S-Seunghyun…-” I was impatient. What was this?

“So I’ve decided, I’ll tell you. It’s going to be a bit…,” He hesitated, seeing the eager and worried expression on my face. “A bit… difficult, but are you ready?”

“Y-yeah.” I gulped in nervousness.

“It’s stopped drizzling. Jinhee-ah… wanna take a walk?”

Jiyong’s POV

“So, what’s this new dorm like?” I questioned, propping my chin on my hand while I looked at the city flying past us in the car. Lemme tell you, the last dorm we had to stay in was a complete horror. There was only ONE bathroom, TWO tiny rooms that smelled like rotten eggs and every time anyone accidentally knocked the table near the wall, the plaster would crumble and fall to the floor.

“It’s not exactly a dorm,” Jaebom Uncle tilted his head while turning the steering wheel to the left. “It’s a house.”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHH???!!” 13 year old Daesung and Seungri shot up and exclaimed. “A HOUSE?!”

“You’re joking.” Taeyang merely smiled. Top just nodded with him.

“No, I’m being serious. It’s a house. You see, my brother got a job transfer to Singapore. He’s been moving a lot with his wife, and he has a young daughter. Well, they’ve decided to leave their daughter here as she’s just joined school. So I think,” He paused and looked at me and the others. “You five, can look after her.”

“How old is she?” I asked.

“Eleven.”

“Yah, then what’s with that? She can take care of herself.” I sighed and turned to look at the scenery again.

The 14 year old me wasn’t going to bother taking care of some 11 year old brat. Besides, I’m training to be a singer. I’m not gonna have time.

“Clean. The. Living. Room. NOW. It resembles a PIGSTY.” Her voice dripped with anger and I backed up a little. Seriously, for a 12 year old she was pretty scary. One year living with Lee Jinhee had passed, and it’d been the reverse effect. We were so busy training, day in and day out. She was terrible at cooking, but she improved. Sometimes I felt we should apologize for causing her so much of trouble – hey, she’s after all only 12 and burdened with five hungry guys who keep coming home at 3am in the night. But then, I remembered the time she whacked my head with a bucket for ‘stealing’ her freshly made cookies. No thank you, wasn’t gonna apologize to a monster like her. Instead of taking care of her, she took care of us.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO STICK A KNIFE DOWN YOU