As you step into your room, the smell of kimchi and perfume envelopes your nose. Heechul is lying down on his pink bed with a piece of paper on his face. You take a few steps forward and the sleeping Cinderella suddenly bursts wide awake.

"HANEUL, WE GOT IN!" he jumps, as though he had never been asleep.

"The contest?" you ask.

"Yeeees~" he sings while flailing around a piece of paper. "The contest organizers sent this letter to let us know that our demo CD had been approved!"

"Wah, that's great, hyung!!"

"The competition will be held in 2 weeks so we need to practice practice practice!! GAHHH!..." Heechul goes quiet suddenly.

The smell of rotten kimchi and eggs fills the room. You quickly cover your nose. "HYUNG, DID YOU JUST--"

Heechul gives you a big apologetic grin.

You run out of the room.

That was horrible. I need some fresh air. Dx

GARDENS

You go to the garden. Walking along the dimly-lit path, you see a silhouette in the dark of the gazebo. Yes, Flashlight Guy's here! Aaaand he has problems with his flashlight again, I bet. He's not using it now. o:

"Hey," you say.

"What are you doing here?" the silhouette asks.

"Dude, just because it's some time since we haven't seen each other doesn't mean I can't go here anymore. Babo. Anyway, have you been doing okay?"

"... I don't know."

"Hm? Why? What's wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Fine, be that way. =_=

"If you say so..."

You both sit in silence. Trying to break the ice, you tell him about the inter-band competition and how you guys have been doing so far. You also decide to tell him about Donghae's stupid antics with Jessica. Flashlight guy is a bit unresponsive tonight, but you still try to carry on a conversation, thinking that something probably happened so you want to make him feel better.

Suddenly, a light flashes on his face.

"Cho Kyuhyun???" you gasp. "It was you all this time????"

He opens his eyes wide and blinks. "What?" he asks cluelessly. "Turn that light off," he told the guy who was shining the flashlight on his face. You look behind you and see the other guy, shrouded in the darkness behind the light of his torch.

"W-who are you?" you ask, confused.

He turns around and runs away from the scene. You stand up to chase after him because you think that that other guy might have been the real Flashlight Guy, and also because you don't want to believe that it could also be Cho Kyuhyun. As you stand, he grabs hold of your arm (not the one with the broken wrist). You look back at him in the shadows.

"Let me go," you say firmly. You try to shake his hand loose from your arm. He holds it tighter.

"... Please don't leave me."

...

"Please..."

Total darkness. You are shocked speechless. You try to find the words to say but you can't even seem to grab hold of at least one of the gazillion things running across the exploding vastness of your mind. And in the midst of this giant tornado, deep in the eye of the storm, he echoes with a whisper that quiets everything down.

"Please..."

You sink down to your knees and put your arms around this Kyuhyun that is now so different from who he usually is. Suddenly, you just know. You are hugging a child, lost and forgotten, forsaken by many, forced to turn his warm beating heart into a stonecold chunk of metal in order to survive in a world where men eat men by slicing their ribs from behind and taking out pieces of their lungs, but mercilessly never the whole thing. Is it because of the pitch blackness that you are able to see things more clearly? 

You stay like this for what seems to be forever rolled into a brief moment of a skipped heartbeat.

"Why?" you whisper, confused.

He hugs you tighter. "Don't leave me like everyone else..." he whispers, his head buried in your neck.

You stay with Kyuhyun.

You go after Flashlight Guy.