---

You manage to walk away from the lobby towards the parking lot. He still has his arm around your shoulder to keep you warmer. You’re still a little out of it so you remain hushed. In fact it is too silent for his liking now that he’s been getting the urge to talk. “I expected you to come… but not really this late.” He murmurs.

You blink, “I didn’t know he’s leaving.”

“I know.” He sighs as he comes to a halt. Apparently, you reached his car.

“Then how did you expect me to be here when you know I didn’t know?” You ask a little annoyed. He’s talking nonsensical things around you that you want to slap him to straight up. You hate feeling guilty and helpless and that’s exactly what he’s wanting you to feel, whether he really means to or not.

He opens the car door for you and lets you slip in. “Hm, instinct? Why would Kris be not answering your calls?” He has a point there though. You remember that you even dreamt of seeing the plane leave. Maybe you weren’t really just expecting him to actually leave. It never went in your mind, perhaps because you don’t want it to linger around.

You just stare at the night outside. It’s getting chillier every second. He buckles your seatbelt since you remain stiff, possibly thinking. He slowly closes the door beside you and walks to the other side to get in. He buckles up and starts the engine for you to leave. Kris has told him to go back home immediately as soon as he goes on board. He specifically wanted you out of sight when the plane flies off.

“Why are you here?” You ask out of curiosity but end up sounding irritated. “You don’t want me here?” He asks as he turns around the curb towards the long way home.

“No, I mean yes.” You want to be alone and he’s presence is not helping at all. Still, some parts of you are just glad he’s around. You want to hit yourself for the confusion you’re making. “I mean, why were you in the airport?” You ask still averting from his gaze. “He asked me to bring you home in case you show up.” He casually says almost sounding aggravated as well. You’re not sure if he’s actually making you feel guilty or he’s just really so bad at masking his feelings right now. Either way, you don’t care.

“Should I be thanking you then?” you ask sardonically. He takes a sharp breath and answers, “Pretty much.” He smirks after. You can see how he seems amused by your actions. What an . I’m never saying so anyway. Not with him like this.

You reach your house about two hours after because the traffic got really heavy. You try so hard to keep yourself awake during the ride since you didn’t want to become a burden to Tao in case you’d fall asleep. You want to be alone until you are clear-headed and got yourself together, so him helping you is the last thing you want to happen. Even though he already did so earlier.

You step out of his car and immediately walk inside. He didn’t intend to stay anyway. You can hear the engine starting again as soon as you reach the stairs. You are mostly hoping he won’t show himself until school starts again, like he said so yesterday. You still haven’t fully taken in the fact that Kris is leaving or better yet left already, and you need time; time to sort out your clattered mind. And you need to do that alone because you don’t want to depend on others. You can’t.

You remembered the two rare times you did, and you only ended up feeling empty when those two people left, died. You know you’d somehow feel the same way with Kris. He is your best friend after all. You just need to slowly take in the realization until you learn to live with it. It would be hard, possibly even harder than how you coped up with two people dying, but you have to try.

Kris is one of the very few people you trusted with all your heart that his long absence might cause you to slowly fall apart again. With this thought, you need to cope up well and fast. You know he will come back, but you’re just taking necessary precautions since you don’t know when you’ll be seeing him face to face again. It’s hard to try and build another full trust to a stranger again, even though it might be the slightest possible. Tao could be one, but it’s a tricky option under the circumstances you’re in. You can’t risk having another heart break.

It’s too much that you end up talking to yourself later in the night. “You managed living three years without him in Europe Jae Min. A few years more is tolerable. It might actually turn out well even.” You mutter with yourself wanting to believe in what you’re saying but only end up having a crowd of tears threatening to fall from the tip of your eyes. “Think of it as another obstacle you need to conquer. You’ll manage. I know you will.” You keep repeating on yourself taking in deep breaths every time. You keep your eyes open because you dread for the tears to fall. “You need to calm yourself. Breaking down is not an option right now. You s-should…” But you lost it.

You curl yourself like a baby on your bed and cry yourself senseless. It will be different tomorrow. It will be better. But for now, you just finally let yourself be weak. Besides, no one else sees you like this. You are safe within these four walls of your room. You have to let things out once in a while. You have to break.

You cry and cry under your sheet until your body too weak and mind too tired to even think. That’s the time you close your eyes and willingly fall to a deep slumber.

You shift yourself to the left and hear swishing sounds as you do so. You feel uncomfortable with your lying position that you moved to the right instead. You are half-conscious by now as your mind slowly learns to quite differentiate dreams from what’s really happening. And you’re actually still physically asleep in your bed and mentally drained out. You can hear noises, voices of people downstairs, but you couldn’t quite grasp who they belong to.

You slowly turn to sit up straight since going back to sleep is rendered useless now that you’re half awake. Besides, your head throbs in pain. You reach both your hands up to your head and massage your temple hoping to ease the pain but it doesn’t work like that and you know it too well. It is because I cried last night.

You scrunch your eyes in a circular manner and jolt back when your door suddenly flings open, revealing your brother’s head. You groan at the incident. “Can’t you knock?” You blurt out with a y tone. No one would want to piss you off when you just woke up.

“Sorry to bother your sleep but our relatives are downstairs.” He says gently with a bit of sarcasm.

“So? They don’t need me there anyway.” You turn to your right and shoot him a glare.

He takes one step back and two steps forward to examine your faces clearer. “Oooh~ Grumpy lady’s been crying last night…” He comments on after seeing your messed up face and your red, puffy eyes. You take the nearest small pillow from your reach and throw it harshly towards Kyu. Bullseye.

“Ow! Tch… I’m just stating the obvious,” He says as he constantly clicks his tongue. He bends down to grab the pillow that hit him and walks towards your bed. He chooses to sit on the farthest end after. He sees your swollen face clearer now with the little distance and he sighs. He knows you hate being pitied so he acts normal around you like this. He feels sorry for you for once again being left out, but he can’t do anything. Besides, he knows Kris well enough to believe he’ll come back. “You better fix yourself. You look terrible.” He says as he blocks his face with both his arms on a crossed manner as he sees you attempt to throw another pillow. He chuckles and so do you. He sighs in relief knowing to have made you feel better, even for the slightest bit.

“Why are they here?” You ask. It’s really rare for them to visit your place like this. It’s actually the first time since your grandfather died.

“I don’t know exactly. But I heard someone died.” Your eyes widen at Kyu’s bluntness. “Grandpa’s brother, I think.” He mentally hits himself for mentioning grandfather. He badly wants to say sorry after seeing your gloomy expression but thinks better of it. He stops himself since you’d just feel bad when he would apologize.

“Is that all? They don’t usually come here just because someone died.” They are all but kind people. They are greedy with money and are heartless… too heartless.  You ask without any hint of sadness. Just coldness, pure coldness. Kyu felt that. He’s afraid that if your sulking continues… you’d go back to being emotionless just like all two other times before. It was already hard for him to keep you smiling eight years ago. He doubted he would’ve done it if it wasn’t for Kris’ help. But Kris isn’t even here anymore. He sighs again.

“Business s of course. One of our hospital branches in the countryside’s a bit off of workers… and the law firm in Europe is having a small problem right now.” He lists out uninterestedly. He knows sooner or later that your father will make him retire from his music career and take over being the CEO of your law firm based in Korea. It was a long debate before he became an artist, but it ended up with your father winning of course. It’s just that he let Kyu be the one he wants to be for awhile as he can still manage. Aside from being on tours and doing things an artist does, Kyu has been studying law. You wonder how he even manages to balance two hard things together. You love how hardworking Kyu is.

You’ll never be like him though. Sure you’re smart and rational most of the time. It’s just that you are simply born lazy. That explains your constant fights and number of complaints from professors at school. It was hell for your parents dealing with you that time. You don’t rebel as bad like before because you’re a tad scared. You learned a lot from your stay in Europe and you kind of don’t want to go back there anymore. You stayed a great glass house but as punishment you had to strive for your every meal there, and money was damned hard. You were only clinging to life’s beauty thanks to Hana. She received money weekly from her parents. Practically, she wasn’t even exiled like you.

It was fun while it lasted though. Sure, you play songs with your friends at a bar and you were damned feeling what freedom was like - going to parties every night, getting drunk and whatnots- you still like it when money just comes without you doing anything. You are lazy after all. You call yourself the clan’s black sheep because out of everyone, you work the least. Out of all your cousins, you are the youngest and the most stubborn. It’s a relief you weren’t actually born dumb.

“Yah? Are you listening?” Kyu asks as he shakes you a bit. “You were saying?” You ask and he just stares at you.

“You’re impossible!” He runs his hand over his face. “Just get up and quickly fix yourself. It’s almost lunch time. Everyone’s eating together… and it includes you.” He emphasizes the last three words and stands to leave the room. You sigh in annoyance but do so nonetheless.

You slowly stand up from your bed and get in the bathroom. You manage to peek through the wall clock hung on your wall before you closed the door and your eyes got wide open. It’s already 12 o’clock. How long did I sleep?

---

For a week, you’ve been doing nothing but sleeping. You only break away from your bed when you eat or take a bath. You let yourself get drunk with ballad songs from your three biased boybands and you’re happy with just that. Somehow, you feel calmer. You sometimes think for the week to never end. Being back in school without having Kris around would be different. Really different. And you’re not really the expectant one.

Tao really never came back since Monday. You guessed you’ll be seeing him when school starts indeed. It was a relief somehow actually. It would be awkward with you sulking, and being out of it when he’d be around. At least he had the right mind to be considerate.

You step out of your ride as the engine stopped. You usually go to school on bus but your mother insisted you have a personal driver. One reason is because of your heavy fall last week and your cuts and wounds from a month ago, that are still slowly healing. All bruises got healed already but you’re specifically wearing long-sleeved shirts to cover the cut on your arm. Your father is very keen on the family’s reputation therefore no one should know about the almost kidnapping incident, even though some of those guys already know… like Suho and Chen.

“Miss? You forgot your uhh… lunchbag.” Your driver shyly said as he reaches out the bag to you. You take it reluctantly and leave immediately. Your mother prepared it especially for you as she quotes ‘I want my girl to heal up fast so healthy foods and only healthy foods are you allowed to eat. Here.’ You roll eyes at the thought. On the other hand, she’s acting more of a mother to you know than usual - which is both annoying and weird- that you wonder why she’s suddenly like this.

You walk up to your room. It’s been a month since you last saw this place and it’s riveting yet reminiscent of Kris. You both miss and hate it at the same time.

“Jae Min! I missed you! There were so many updates about…” Hana beams at you taking your lunchbag as you sit on your parallel chairs together. She keeps on blabbering words that just go straight off your other ear. You obviously don’t want to hear any of it but she still tries. She’s always so bad at this anyway. She’s acting weird again.

“Sure, whatever.” You coldly said off, slightly ditching her. You only want so badly for her to shut . And she did, suddenly feeling the eerie aura you’re giving. “Jae Min…?” She trails off.

“Just stop it, Hana. I’m tired. Let me feel invisible for awhile.” You mutter and wash you face off with your hands. Everything in the room just feels so somber. You gathered they all know about Kris leaving, and they probably feel piteous toward you knowing full well that he’s your best friend. But you don’t want this. You don’t like this kind of treatment one bit.

“I’m so hungry.” Hana whistles out pouting like a barbie.

“There’s food in the bag. You can have it.” You suggested. There’s no way you’re eating that food anyway.

“Really? Wow tha—I mean, are you sure?” She acts hesitating to open the many lunchboxes. It looks as if it could fill 10 people’s empty stomachs. But of course, it is Hana. She can finish that within minutes.

“Just take it before I change my mind.” You threatened but don’t plan on doing so anyway. You’re too irritated for that. She meekly says a thank you and starts to eat the food. School just started again so you doubt there’ll be regular classes until next week.

The whole day dragged with people constantly looking at you with either pity or smugness. They do that even when they actually know nothing about you and Kris. Hana, being the knowledgeable one, makes it so obvious every time. She talks on and on about things happened to her to distract you but it never quite helped. In fact, it only made you think about Kris more. It . Though you’re slowly accepting his absence, you still feel bad that he left. You still think that one way or another, it’s your fault. And you hate it how every one of them seems to be treating you like you’re some kind of fragile glass. Especially EXO… except Tao.

Tao knows. He knows that you can manage better on your own that’s why he’s been keeping a good distance from you. You silently thank him for that.