*Ririn’s POV*

xxx

Slam!

“I’m sitting here.”

“Uh...okay?”

The least Chul Yong could’ve done was wait for an invitation.

“You know,” I mumbled after taking a sip from my juice box. “The least you could’ve done was wait until I say ‘Hey, Chul Yong, do you wanna come and sit on my table?’. Now you ruined my peaceful lunch!”

So after getting to know each other from outside the principal’s office, he and I are suddenly friends. We realised that poking one with sharp pencils in the back and desiring to beat up the other was just a painful waste of time so we pulled away our differences and decided to get along.

Yeah, Chul Yong is a pain in the but I’ve never actually met anyone who’s as eccentric as me.

“Hey, at least you’re not sitting not gonna be sitting on your own at lunch anymore!” He exclaimed.

I woke up with a banging headache this morning... And right now, I still have it! It’s like there’s some weird powerful force that’s just putting so much pressure on my brain. I could’ve stayed at the apartment, but then I’d be pretty bored. Oh, and I’d have to put up with the guy’s random concerns. Ever since I’ve recovered from that stomach ache, they’ve begun telling me to eat a lot, sleep earlier, drink lots of water, take paracetamols with me to school and so on... The one that showed the most concern towards my health this morning though was surprisingly Ji Yong.  He wasn’t in his normal hyper self when he woke me up this morning, and neither were Daesung and Seungri.

Gee, I wonder what’s up with all of them.

I suddenly felt a liquid dribble down from my nose... Am I having a cold? No, my nose wouldn’t be this runny. Okay, what the hell?

“Hey, hey! Ririn!” Chul Yong spoke in alarm, raising a pointed finger towards my face. “Your nose!”

“Huh?” I gave him a confused look then immediately raised my hand up to where I felt liquid contact my skin.

I curiously glanced down at my fingers which were tinted with crimson liquid.

Blood.

Okay... How weird! Why is my nose bleeding???

I quickly shot my other hand up to cover my nose to prevent the blood dripping down my uniform. Not that I was bothered about staining it since I hate wearing the thing anyway, but if Seung Hyun and the guys find even one small drop of blood on my uniform, they would probably have some sort of heart attack or something.  

“Your nose is bleeding!” The guy across me exclaimed, a panic-stricken look on his face.

“Just go get me a tissue, Chul Yong!” I bellowed at him, giving him a ‘hurry the hell up!’ look. “Man, this nosebleed’s like the Niagara Falls!”

I’ve never had a nosebleed this bad before... It was like that movie Daesung and I watched the other day. I think it was called ‘Drag Me to Hell’ or something when that blonde woman began squirting out blood from her nose and it splattered all over her boss. Haha, that was a pretty hilarious film.

Instantly, Chul Yong pulled out a white handkerchief from his pants pocket and handed it to me. I eyed the piece of cloth and said, “Are you sure? I mean it’s white!”

“It’s fine.” Chul Yong insisted. “Just wipe that blood off of your face! It creeps me out!”

.

..

...

....

.....

“Hey, what happened to you?!” That was the first thing Daesung said when I opened the front door of the apartment. “Did someone hurt you?!”

“Uhm, what do you mean?” I gave the tall guy a puzzled look.

He pointed at my collar and said, “Why is there blood on your uniform?”

I swore not one drop of blood fell on my shirt... I even asked Chul Yong if any of it got on my uniform. Unless if that kid’s messing with me again... Oh he’s gonna get it tomorrow morning.

“What? Blood?!” I heard Ji Yong’s voice call out from the living room then faint footsteps which gradually became louder.

Oh no.

Just as expected.

It’s pretty damn obvious these boys are hiding something from me. The thought of them, the only people I trust (apart from Joon and Ms. Kang), not keeping secrets from me just makes me mad.

UGH.

“Did someone hurt you?!” Ji Yong repeated Daesung’s question.

I eyed both of them curiously. “Why are both of you suddenly so concerned about me?” I questioned. “You two never used to be like this! It’s one tiny stain of blood, so what?”

“But we’ve always been concerned of you!” Daesung cried out all of the sudden.

The look on their faces suddenly changed to a pained expression mixed with guilt, and both their eyes riveted to the floor.

“But not this concerned!” I continued, raising my voice unintentionally. “Are you two hiding something?”

They stiffened.

The fact that they completely froze just gave away everything.

Suddenly, a small flashback appeared on my mind. The envelope with the contents they didn’t want me to read and the letter addressed to me which Seung Hyun took away from me. Maybe the secret they’ve been keeping from me is in one of those two. But where would they be... If Seung Hyun were to hide something from me, the most likely place he’d store it would be his...desk? Without hesitation, I quickly pushed past the two men, and rushed up the stairs, despite the fact that both of them were protesting.

“Ririn!” I heard one of them call out though I didn’t bother listening to them.

Once I reached the first floor, I hurried down the hallway to Seung Hyun and Tae Yang’s room and opened the door. (Thank goodness the doors didn’t have locks!)

I walked inside the large clean bedroom and made my way to the desk located against the wall on the left side of the room.

“Ririn, what are you doing?!” Ji Yong exclaimed.

I heard loud footsteps running up the stairs.

I glanced down the neatly piled papers on the table and tried to remember what both of the envelopes looked like. One was a brown manila envelope and the other was a letter with my name on it.

“Ah, there it is!” I said to myself when I say the brown envelope on the top left corner of the desk with the other small one on top of it.

I grabbed the envelopes from the table then took the contents, which were two pieces of papers with my name and a whole load of writing, out of the larger one.

“Ririn!” Daesung and Ji Yong were right outside the door.

They watched me as I began reading the words on the papers.

.

..

...

What is this...?

Huntington’s disease...?

The letter read out:

Patient’s Name: Park Ri Rin 박리린

: Female

Date of Birth: August 02 1991

An Introduction to Huntington’s Disease:

Huntington’s disease is an incurable devastating brain disorder. This is caused by a genetic defect on chromosome 4. The defect causes a part of DNA, called a CAG repeat, to occur many more times than it is supposed to. Normally, this section of DNA is repeated 10 to 28 times. But in persons with Huntington's disease, it is repeated 36 to 120 times.

Nerve cells become damaged, causing various parts of the brain to deteriorate. The disease affects movement, behaviour and cognition - the affected individuals' abilities to walk, think, reason and talk are gradually eroded to such a point that they eventually become entirely reliant on other people for their care.

The results from the last test (date: January 12 1999) show that the patient is positive with having the disease.

It suddenly feels like the whole world’s crashing down on me… It’s hard to breath. I couldn’t move a single muscle.

Thud!

“Ririn!”