Two days passed ever since Lay had played the piano with Fei. He wanted to ask her to teach her the melody she played, but he never got the chance to do so. It seemed like once they were out of the room, away from the piano, Fei would be her old self again. Gone were the occasional small smiles of hers. She'd just continue to live her life in the circus like when she first arrived. And whenever Lay wanted to talk to her, she'd excuse herself politely and go.

Lay tilted his head, which he propped up with his hand, his elbow on the table, and watched Fei from afar as she was tidying up. Why did he even want to talk with her? He didn’t know it himself. There was just the curiosity that took him over whenever he looked in her eyes. She seemed so mysterious. But mostly it was the small, small spark of vulnerability that he'd sometimes see in her eyes – it would last less than a second –, that made him want to protect her. Made him want to reach out his hand to her.

Albeit he didn’t know exactly of Luhan and Fei's past, he knew that it must have been a very sad one. The way Fei acted right now reminded him of Luhan when he first came here. The boy who never spoke, never looked people in the eyes, yet was loved by the audience. While many artists were jealous, Lay never felt envious of Luhan, because the first time he met him, being the eagle-eyed boy he had always been, he already saw that pain in his eyes. Hidden, but he knew that behind the mask it was burning.

Lay had always been a person who'd care about the people around him, rather than about him. He was a selfless human, and with that wonderful nature of him, he simply couldn’t help but worry about Luhan. He still knew how be approached the boy. How the boy slowly started to talk to him. Even though their small talks consisted of unimportant things, he liked the way their friendship slowly started to grow.

Lay never dared to ask what happened to Luhan, afraid that it'd bring back old, painful memories, and he realized too late that was is mistake. Luhan became a precious brother to him and the other members because of the time they spent with each other, because of the bond that grew while they were training together and because of knowledge that they'd never judge each other and just accept each other, but he, and so did the other members, realized that, although Luhan seemed to enjoy the days he spent with them, was hiding something. But confronting him with it was impossible, because after all the time the wall he built around his heart was too strong to be broken by him and the other members. It seemed impossible … until Mihyun came.

He didn’t know what Mihyun did. He only noticed the times Luhan was missing in the circus, or Mihyun was visiting them, and the time they'd spent alone. Would they just talk? About what? He didn’t know, but what he knew was one day Mihyun came back with Luhan, who had disappeared, and then he saw it: the change in Luhan's eyes. The wall was gone. Luhan didn’t behave all too different, but he could clearly see that the latter didn’t have to hide all his sorrows anymore. How he could enjoy with all his heart again.

And although he could barely see through Fei, he knew that there was much pain hidden. He wanted to help her. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he made with Luhan. He – “Lay,” A deep voice interrupted him, snapping him back to reality. Pushing the trail of thoughts to the back of his mind, he finally answered, “Yes?” Kris patt