Zora sat in front of the little white puppy, and fluffing its fur as it cheerfully wagged its tail. It obediently sat there; its beady black eyes almost seemed to be smiling at her. Baekhyun glared at the familiar puppy, although unable to recognize it. Zora finally noticed Baekhyun towering over her and beamed at him, carefully picking up the small puppy and playfully waving it at him.

"Well done, it's a puppy" He stated bluntly. Zora shot him a look as she raised her eyebrows. 'I know that!' Baekhyun interpreted. 

"Yeah, yeah, it's cute, we need to get home, Uncle Max is gonna have my head" He scoffed as if he was joking (when in fact it was quite literal). Zora pouted, turning the puppy to look at.

“Awf?” The puppy barked quietly, suddenly her glasses lens. Zora laughed inaudibly, smiling at it before carefully placing it back down and waving goodbye. Baekhyun hopelessly rolled his eyes before walking away, Zora following.

“You seem to like animals” He commented before suddenly taking her glasses off her face, using his shirt to clean the dirty lens covered with dog saliva. Zora nodded, still sulking about leaving the little thing behind. “Why?” He asked, handing her back the frameless specs. She pinched it back to carefully place on her face and suddenly turned to him with a knowing look. But this time, Baekhyun couldn’t tell what she meant. “What?” He shrugged. Zora pointed at him, gesturing something small with her hands. “Is this about the time I brought home that puppy?” He scoffed.

The story was an old one. Back when Zora only just moved in, Baekhyun just finished Taekwondo lessons and came home asking Uncle Max if he could keep a stray puppy he found on the streets, obviously that offer was bluntly dismissed. Uncle Max had allergies to dog fur and hated being around animals in general.

“Well, don’t bother sulking, Uncle Max won’t let you keep it” Saying that, he still couldn’t be too sure. Since Uncle Max had babied her ever since she moved in, if she batted her eyes a couple of times and faked a few tears then the least he would do is consider it. Even if he was convinced of this- he could only assume it was what she did, since he’d never actually seen Zora try to squeeze tears out of her eyes before. “And besides, I bet it already has a…” He turned his neck to look over his shoulders and paused after seeing the puppy following behind them. He stopped walking, leading to Zora doing the same; and so did the dog.  

There was a pause where the dog seemed to blink innocently at him. “It’s following us" Baekhyun sighed, crouching down to look into its cute; rounded black beady eyes. “…Stay…” He commanded, pointing at it with his index finger. But it didn’t respond, just continued to stare at Baekhyun whilst wagging its furry white tail.

After that Baekhyun and Zora walked home; Baekhyun having to check behind him every few minutes to see if the puppy was still following them, but after a couple of minutes, he was reassured that it obeyed him. And although the walk back home seemed relaxed and laidback…coming home was another.

Baekhyun opened the front door and strolled in without a care in the world. “Old man! We’re ho-“

“Byun Baekhyun!” A voice boomed from the living room. A middle aged man with an unimpressed frown on his face strode towards him before hurling his hand across his face; the impact strong enough to make Baekhyun stumble and almost fall to the ground. Zora let out a silent gasp.

For a moment, Baekhyun froze; having to blink several times to recall what just happened within those few seconds he stepped through the door.

It took the throbbing, painful sting to snap him back to reality; he turned to his uncle with eyes burning of fury. Out of all things, it was a slap. Baekhyun would rather take a punch in the face or a knee to the stomach than to be slapped by a relative. It reminded him of a certain person from his childhood who would slap him across the face to get him to stop crying; that memory was a blur, but the feeling of anger and sorrow was fresh in his mind. His Uncle didn’t seem to feel any guilt in slapping his nephew, from the look on his face, he wouldn’t be afraid to do it again.

“You ignorant child!” he scolded him through gritted teeth. The intensity in both their eyes seemed thick enough to cut with a knife. Zora’s heart raced as she stood there in complete confusion and shock. “Have you not been listening to me after all these years- HUH?!” He knocked his fists against Baekhyuns head once, then twice, and Baekhyun could only let his skull knock with his hard knuckles and wince at the pain before Zora had to step in and plead her uncle to stop for Baekhyuns sake, seeing as he wouldn't do it. 

After seeing Zora was alright, despite not quite being in the right state of mind, Uncle Max decided to calm down a little. “Zora, go to your room” He sighed. But Zora just stood there and glanced at Baekhyun who didn’t seem to even notice her. He was too busy glaring daggers at his uncle with a tightened jaw. “Go. To. Your. Room.” He repeated with a stricter tone. For a moment she was hesitant, but she knew respect for elders was a must. She lowered her head and scurried up the stairs. Only when he heard her door close did Uncle Max notice Baekhyuns eyes- if only looks could kill.“…Cat’s got your tongue?”

“…” Baekhyun didn’t reply, his left cheek starting to develop a bright red glow and he poked the inside of his mouth with his tongue in agitation. “You’re lucky I’m not reporting child abuse” He scoffed, rubbing his throbbing cheek. “Taking her out for her birthday must have been really bad to get you to lash out like-“

“You don’t know anything Baekhyun” His uncle cut in.

“And whose fault is that?” He scoffed hatefully, to his uncle’s surprise. 

“Baekhyun!”

“You want to deny it?! Go on then! Tell me where mom is! Tell me what happened to dad!” Tears started blurring his vision as he gazed at Uncle Max.

There was a long pause. No reply. His Uncle stood there in a loss of words, not suprising- he expected as much. 

“Tsch! Some uncle you are; won't even tell me where my ing parents are" 

“THAT’S ENOUGH BAEKHYUN!” His uncle bellowed at him, his face red with anger. “This just proves…you’re not ready for those answers…Go to your room”

And so Baekhyun gladly did as he said. He turned away from his Uncle, secretively wiping away the tears in his eyes and entered his room, closing his bedroom door with a loud slam. Baekhyun took a deep breath as he leaned on his door and slid his body down to the floor.

He felt as though he’d stayed like that for hours, just thinking and sighing to himself in self-pity before the knock on his door had jolted him back to earth. He stood up to open the door and found Zora standing there, back in her white pyjamas with his clothes neatly folded in her hands. He noticed the apologetic look on her face as she handed him the clothes. “Just keep it” he said rather bluntly before slamming the door on her face, only to hear the same knocking seconds after. He rolled his eyes before opening it again. "What?" He snapped, agitated.  

Zora jumped before gazing down at the clothes and gave a silent sigh. She gestured towards his cheek in concern. “I’ll be fine.” He said to reassure her. But she looked less than reassured; she couldn’t help but feel apologetic and responsible for everything.

He softened a little, seeing how sad she’d become and after all he’d been through for her today. “…not such a great ending to your 18^th birthday, huh?” Baekhyun managed to smile ever-so slightly for her. Zora smiled back and suddenly wrapped her arms around him, which threw Baekhyun by surprise. He’d usually try to scrape her off his body after the first second, but just for today, he patted her head. “Get to sleep, it's late" He said to get her to release him. 

Turns out she didn’t want to go to bed and remained stubborn in expressing that she wasn’t tired, despite it clearly showing in her eyes that she could nod off at any second. Baekhyun sighed, feeling defeated for the 10^th time today before suggesting for him to stay in her room to finish off his homework. Zora was more than happy to welcome Baekhyun, truth was at times Zora would get lonely and find a way to either talk to Baekhyun or make her way to his room. But he couldn’t blame her. He would get lonely too if he had to stay in his room all day, but still it was annoyed him at times.

“Remember- this is a one off” Baekhyun reminded as he placed his bag beside her desk ready to study and get his homework done despite it being late. Zora nodded as she jumped onto her bed, only to grab her sketchbook and fountain pen again. Baekhyun caught her and shot her a look. “Stop drawing for Christ sake, it’s late- get to bed” He practically barked at her. Zora wasn’t very happy about his tone- it said so in her eyes, but she just pouted and gave him a pleading gesture. He sighed, frustrated as he couldn't be bothered to argue with her. “10 minutes- I mean it” He spoke in monotone before sitting on the white office chair to get his stuff prepared. 

After about 5 minutes, Baekhyun thought he was too generous about the time he'd given her. He spun to face her, about to open his mouth and decrease the time when he spotted her and realized- he didn't need to. She was already in dreamland, her glasses crooked on her face with the sketchbook and pen still in her hands.

Baekhyun inwardly groaned to himself. No one could go out like a light that fast without being tired. And he wasn’t surprised; it’s been quite a hectic day- even for him.

His plan before coming over was to wait until she fell asleep, then he’d sneakily go out of her room in case he did anything to wake her up. But yet again, her room drew him in. He gazed from her desk all the drawings plastered on her wall and it suddenly reminded him; he had her present in his bag. He buried his hand into his bag as carefully as he could so that it wouldn’t make any noise that could possibly wake her up and took out the renewed pen that glistened under the dim light beaming from the desk lamp. He displayed it on the desk in front of him and smiled in content. You’re a nice person after all Baekhyun he told himself a little too egotistically.

Apparently he was cold-hearted even since childhood, but only a few months ago had he realized it for himself just how lifeless and cold his heart really was. He often turns away from girls who confesses to him blatantly and give them the cold-shoulder without even trying and he’d make short and blunt remarks to everyone, even his friends and teachers. He often stayed in his own world too; his friends would always act shocked and surprised whenever he actually turned up for their get-togethers. It should have been obvious, but it only hit him when everyone from school started giving him names like ‘Ice-prince’ and things like that. It made him cringe and gag just thinking about it. He wasn’t a prince. He was popular in school he couldn’t deny- but not a prince; or at least he didn't want to be. Baekhyun didn’t want that kind of image- it was burdensome, not to mention totally cheesy and cliché fan-fic kinda thing. 

Somehow he started thinking about the recent incident with his uncle again and the pain from his cheek suddenly prickled from the thought. All of that yet he still doesn’t know why Zora couldn’t go outside. His only assumption was that Uncle Max over-reacted about the whole thing and he was just too scared that his vulnerable little girl could get hurt or something. His second gag for the day. He wanted to remind his uncle that she turned 18 today, not 8. It couldn’t be that bad- how could it?

Baekhyun gave a long winded sigh before gathering his things to place back into his bag, only to find sheets of brown A5 pieces of paper inside. His eyebrows knitted before he fished them out to look at and recognized them almost straight away. Zora’s drawing. He’d forgotten he’d kept them with him when they’d fallen out. There was a light smile on his face before it suddenly disappeared. His eyes froze on a paper in particular.

The dog.

His eyes narrowed at the detailed drawing, having to blink several times to make sure that his fatigue wasn’t playing mind tricks on him and even resulting in shaking his head a little. The dog in the picture and the dog from before…were identical. If it were any ordinary picture of a dog, it wouldn’t have been so shocking. She could have easily seen the breed on TV and had found it cute- it was likely…however the black mark on its neck was definitely not what he was expecting. “What…” Baekhyun whispered in bewilderment. It was so accurate that it was freaky. He quickly flipped the paper over the desk to avoid looking into it any further and decided to pack his things away whilst ignoring it.

He stood up and walked to her, taking off her glasses as gently as he could and later doing the same to the pen and sketch book. However he felt snoopy today, he glanced over the artwork she managed to draw within those 5 minutes (or even less) with an arched eyebrow.

This character Baekhyun could recognize alright. It was a drawing of a boy with ebony black hair surrounded by black splats of ink. He could recognized him since it wasn’t the first time that Zora’s drawn him; just taking another glance around her room, Baekhyun could already spot a couple more of this character stuck on her walls. She'd probably drawn this character so many times that she could do it with her eyes closed- although he failed to see what was so special about it in particular, just that he was kinda good-looking. Maybe this was Zora's ideal kind of guy? Baekhyun scoffed just assuming it. He noticed a few quick annotations and didn’t hesitate to read them out in a whisper. 

“Kai, 19 years of age...specialty in teleportation, mischievous but caring, extremely skilled and handsome…” He laughed to himself before glaring at the picture with furrowed eyebrows "Humph, I don’t see it” Baekhyun whispered, in fear of possibly waking her up…

When suddenly.

“Gee, you're nice”

“HOLY-” Baekhyun jumped out of his skin when a voice suddenly spoke into his ear- cursing a little too loud and making Zora jolt awake from her bed. Baekhyun’s battle reflexes automatically turned to the dark figure behind him and swung a fist towards it, but hitting nothing but a flash of black steam. The same voice spoke again from above Zora's wardrobe. 

“Whoa! Relax man, jeez, I didn’t think I’d-“

“W-WHO ARE YOU!?” Baekhyun immediately dragged Zora up from her bed in panic, she'd looked half-asleep yet completely puzzled as to who Baekhyun was talking to. She squinted her eyes as Baekhyun pushed her behind him; being short sighted as she was, her vision was to blurry to see what was going on. All she knew was that Baekhyun was freaking out over something. 

And freaking out he was. If there was someone in the room before, he would have sensed it- yet this person had no problem sneaking up behind him without him even realizing- it was impossible. He stared at the person sitting casually on the wardrobe in complete shock. “H-how did you-"

He suddenly laughed playfully, as if he found Baekhyun's shocked state amusing. “Dude seriously, chill, you’re acting as though I’m gonna eat you alive or something- jeez” In a blink of an eye, the person was suddenly stood only a couple of feet away from them, making both Baekhyun and Zora jump out of their skin.

"WHOA! W-W-WHAT, WHAT WAS- HOW DID YOU-" Baekhyun stumbled backwards, bring Zora back with him. The boy raised his eyebrow at him, revealing a familiar looking black imprint that stretched from the corner of his eye all the way down to his finger tips before started to stretch out his body. Baekhyun took the chance calm himself down and look at him properly. Ebony black hair and with slightly dark skin tone- could it be? Baekhyun glanced at the picture taped onto the wall right beside the boy, his heart somewhere in his throat at the uncanny resemblence. 

100 percent match.

Impossible. 

A/N: Really long chapter- sorry. Hope i'm not boring you already~ <3