chapter four; diving into poverty

»  Donghae held onto Dara's hand as they walked to a small house. Compared to Dara's old home, it would probably be the side of her bedroom alone but she didn't complain. She didn't have any right to. She looked at the people that were in the house staring at her and she quickly hid behind Donghae. She bit her lip, trying to make herself invisible.

"Yah Donghae... who's the girl?" Sungmin, his older brother asked. He got up and tried to look at her, only to find out that she kept hiding behind Donghae.

"Oh?" Donghae smiled and pushed Dara to be in front of him. "This is... Dara." He smiled at them.

"So you abandoned your job to bring a girl to show us?" he asked. He noticed that she was hiding behind him and grinned. In a way, Sungmin was happy that Donghae brought a girl home. Mostly because from what he noticed, Donghae would have never spoken about any girl. Especially when he would call Donghae to ask what type of girl he liked and Donghae would always avoid the question.

Dara's eyes widened as she looked at Donghae, who was shocked at what his older brother has said. "No no no... it's not like that, Sungmin hyung!" He couldn't believe his brother would even think of something like that right now. "This is the girl that I was the bodyguard for. But now she doesn't have a place to go because well... something happened..."

"So why is she here?" a girl that looked to be only a little younger than Dara asked. She had hair that went past her shoulders but it was tied up into a high ponytail.

"I still need to protect her, Yejin..." Donghae replied. "It's part of my job... despite the fact that I won't be able to get money for our family... she's my main priority. It's the pride of being a bodyguard."

Yejin nodded. "Unnie... you can stay in my room with me..." she said, holding Dara's hand before pulling her to her room.

Dara looked at her then back at Donghae, scared on what Yejin was going to do.

"Everything will be okay..." he mouthed to her as she disappeared into Yejin's room. But then he remembered Yejin loved the dark since he heard Dara cry because it was dark. He quickly ran to the room and turned the lights on. "Uhh... she doesn't like the dark like you do, Yejin..." He hugged Dara, who was clinging to him. Out of everyone, the only one that Dara felt safe around was Donghae. It might be because he's the only one that stayed with her since Tablo has disappeared after the whole thing. He looked at his brothers and sighed. "I guess she'll stay with us in our room, Hyuk..."

Hyukjae blinked and was about to protest but as soon as he saw her crying against Donghae, he gave up and nodded. "Fine... she can take my bed and you can sleep in my bed with me, Hae." The boy agreed while Dara shook her head like crazy.

"She'll sleep in my bed with me, Hyuk. I don't think she wants me to leave her right now..." Donghae looked at her with soft eyes. "You okay with that, Miss Dara?"

She nodded, biting her lip.

Sungmin smiled at her and walked up to her, bowing. "I'm Lee Sungmin, Donghae's older brother and the one with the creepy gummy smile is Hyukjae, Donghae's twin brother... and the girl is our younger sister, Yejin." He tried his best to make Dara feel comfortable in his home since they didn't really live with their parents. But they understood how Dara felt with no longer having parents.

Dara started to feel a little more comfortable around them, at least to start talking. "Hello... I'm Dara. Nice to meet all of you." She looked around to try to look for their parents but didn't see anyone but she didn't want to ask them.