The moment they were in the clear, Tiffany broke into a desperate and frantic sprint, practically dragging Seohyun along behind her.

She had been so damn scared in there. So goddamn scared that Seohyun would come to harm. For the briefest of moments, Tiffany was transported back to that horrible tempestuous stormy night that Dom took his own life. Back to that moment when Tiffany had felt the very real fear of possibly losing her baby sister. Back to that moment when Tiffany had leapt in front of the descending knife and felt her world detonate in an unbearable upsurge of excruciating pain.

So goddamn ing scared.

Tiffany had by now led the two of them back to where she had left her bike, which was actually quite a ways away.

First rule of participating in anything illegal: always have your getaway plan some ways away from the action. You can always double back when it’s safe.

Tiffany stood by the tree the bike was leaning against and crouched down into a ball, her arms around her knees, not saying a word.

Seohyun stood beside her unnie, her heart still pumping and racing with adrenaline from her near death experience. She stood there and didn’t say a word. She watched in curiosity and concern at her unnie, who seemed to be in some sort of distress.

Then, to her utter astonishment, she saw Tiffany’s shoulders and back begin to shudder and tremble. At first, Seohyun thought Tiffany was cold and was going to take off her sweater to give to her unnie, having totally forgotten that she was supposed to be ‘angry’ with Tiffany after everything that had happened tonight. But then she heard the unmistakable sound of sniffling and muffled sobbing.

Tiffany was crying.

Seohyun freaked out.

She didn’t know what to do.

The same girl that just a few moments before had somehow kept her head level and rational in the midst of a ring of testosterone pumped half- men, a gun pointed to her face, and being d disgustingly on the , was now utterly clueless as to how she could comfort her crying unnie.

But before Seohyun could even really react, Tiffany had stood up again.

The older girl roughly wiped away her tears and got onto her bike.

“Hop on. We’re going home,” Tiffany said gruffly, her voice a little deeper and huskier from crying.

Seohyun wanted to ask if she was alright, but for some reason, had lost the ability to form something called ‘words’ and was obliged to keep silent, opening and closing like a gaping fish. The younger girl got on behind Tiffany, trying to balance her weight without having to grasp Tiffany’s waist. But of course that didn’t work so well. Without even asking, Tiffany grabbed Seohyun’s hands and wrapped it around herself before kicking off the kickstand and riding off into the night.

…

…

…

Neither girls said anything for almost ten minutes, and the silence was so loud it was pounding like bongo drums in Seohyun’s ears. She wanted so badly to say something but had no idea what to say. Hell! She wasn’t even sure she could physically speak right now!

As Seohyun was agonizing over what to do with the awkward situation, she never noticed that she was gripping her unnie particularly hard, hard enough to leave bruises. Tiffany was honestly quite fine with it as her body was battered and bruised anyways, but at one point, Seohyun’s nails dug in so deep Tiffany suspected they may have broken skin. And as if that wasn’t enough, it was the area right over one of her badly bruised ribs. Tiffany couldn’t contain the slight harsh intake of air at the smarting throbbing.

Seohyun snapped back to reality and finally realized how hard she was gripping Tiffany. In her bid to quickly rectify the situation, the younger girl didn’t think and completely let go, resulting in her falling backwards and tumbling off the bike, scraping back, elbows and knees.

Tiffany immediately leapt off her bike and let it crash to the asphalt in her haste to get to her dongsaeng. Luckily, they were still kind of in ‘sketchy-town’ and there were not many cars on the road, or else Seohyun could have been run over by passing cars.

Tiffany hauled Seohyun up and carried her over to the side, propping her up by a derelict looking whitish-grey fence.

“Stay here,” she muttered before disappearing behind a tree.

Seohyun heard some rustling and less than a minute later, Tiffany appeared with a thick tangle of tensor bandages.

“Lift up your shirt,” Tiffany said, already slipping her hands underneath Seohyun’s sweater.

Seohyun blindly and obediently complied, still in a daze after her tumble. She felt Tiffany wrap the tensor bandage around her back and whimpered a little as the bandage touched the areas where there were scrapes. But Seohyun had to admit that she felt better after Tiffany was done.

Then Tiffany gingerly rolled up Seohyun’s pant legs to reveal bloodied knees. A quick check on the elbows revealed the same thing.

Once again, Tiffany disappeared behind a tree, and this time, Seohyun heard some ripping of cloth. When Tiffany returned, she had four shreds of what remained of her white t-shirt in her hands, her sweater back in place.

Tiffany wordlessly wrapped up Seohyun’s scrapes as best she could without causing pain to the younger girl, her eyes concentrated and rather grave. There was also a resentment there that Seohyun couldn’t really understand, but it hurt the younger girl nonetheless. She felt it was directed at her.

Tiffany was indeed angry.

But it was anger at herself.

Seohyun was innocent and naïve, someone she wanted to protect and keep from harm. Yet here they were, in the heart of ‘crapville’, with Seohyun almost getting killed and now scraped up all over the place. Tiffany hated herself for having driven Seohyun to this.

As Tiffany was finishing up the last of the bandaging, Seohyun started to snap out of her daze and she finally realized something.

Tiffany wasn’t carrying any bags or backpacks. She had fashioned the knee and elbow bandages from her own t-shirt, which meant the tensor bandage was from somewhere on her body as well.

“Where are you hurt?” Seohyun squeaked. The younger girl didn’t know what came over her or why she suddenly had the courage of ‘Pipsqueak the mouse’.

“No where,” Tiffany muttered grudgingly.

And then, it was like something was triggered inside Seohyun. Those two words, ‘no where’, sounded too much like two other words that Seohyun had come to absolutely abhor. Seohyun also didn’t understand the sullen way Tiffany had said it, almost like it was all Seohyun’s fault that Tiffany was hurt in the first place!

A little voice in Seohyun’s head cheekily intoned that Seohyun was in fact part of the reason Tiffany was like this, but the younger girl angrily brushed that annoying voice aside.

“Tell me where you’re hurt! Tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into! Tell me why you keep doing this!” Seohyun screamed into Tiffany’s face.

Seohyun couldn’t stop herself. She knew this was wrong. She knew she should be apologizing and trying to make up and reconcile with Tiffany. She knew she owed Tiffany her life. She knew her unnie was hurting and messed up and in need of her support more than ever.

But her words came out like vomit.

She couldn’t stop them from spewing out.

And Seohyun hated herself for it.

“I wouldn’t have taken to dressing like a common street thug, wandering the streets at night, straying into the unsavory part