It was five in the morning and Hyosung was awake.

She glanced over at the other set of bunk beds. Jieun had curled up into the fetal position to keep herself warm as Sunhwa had somehow managed to steal Jieun’s blankets again. Back when they had all been sleeping in one room on two beds pushed together, Sunhwa had always taken Jieun’s blanket then, too. Hyosung didn’t know how Sunhwa managed to even get a hold on Jieun’s blanket all the way from the bunk above her, but Sunhwa was incredibly skilled that way. Hyosung couldn’t really see Sunhwa in the dark and hidden in the fort of blankets around her, but Hyosung could guess what Sunhwa’s face looked like – open as usual except for when she was grating her teeth. Hyosung ducked her head to look at the bunk below her. Zinger was sprawled out, her blankets strewn about. Zinger was the deepest sleeper amongst the four of them, and she was also the most energetic in tossing and turning. Zinger actively had conversations and even rapped in her sleep, so Zinger’s hand movements would inevitably lead to this chaotic state of her blankets.

Hyosung silently climbed down the ladder and softly opened the door and left the bedroom. Maybe because of that period in her childhood when she delivered newspapers, Hyosung had no problem waking up at such an early time. In fact, in a way, she delighted in the calm and quiet of dawn. Hyosung pulled on a sweatshirt (she wasn’t sure if it was hers, it might’ve been Jieun’s originally, but at this point, they all had worn it) and put on her sneakers. Pulling the hood over her head, Hyosung left.

Hyosung didn’t really have a destination in mind; she just wanted to be out in the brisk air. Becoming a singer was the biggest dream she had ever dreamed, but even though it had now come true, she still sometimes felt the stifling oppression that she had felt when Five Girls had fallen apart and Hyosung had thought that it was the end of her career before it had even started. So she just walked, inhaling the coolness of the dawn.

Kikwang inhaled and exhaled rapidly as he jogged down the street. He hadn’t worked out last night and he wouldn’t be able to work out tonight, so he needed to exercise this morning. Kikwang wasn’t usually much of a runner – he preferred lifting weights – but this morning, he had just had this urge to be out in the crisp air.

So Kikwang had left his slumbering groupmates (It wasn’t hard – they all required lots of sleep to begin with, but with their schedules, they didn’t have many chances to sleep deeply - So they took every opportunity that they could to sleep) and he was now jogging in an unspecified direction, though the direction didn’t matter as long as he was out in the slightly chilly but refreshing air.

Kikwang was glad for this time to be alone. He arguably had the busiest schedule of all of Beast and so he had to always be in a state of intense concentration to do his work and to do it well. Part of this concentration had to do with working with and connecting with others. Not to say that Kikwang wanted to be a hermit and hated people or anything, but it just got tiring sometimes.

Hyosung was getting tired, so she slowed down. She hadn’t realized how fast she had been going. She stepped over a newspaper that had missed its target, sat down on a nearby bench and hunched over, her elbows on her knees and her hands on her eyes.

Hyosung was very talented at extracting her bubbly, joyful personality when it was necessary for her job as an entertainer. She was an expert at putting aside anything negative and just focusing on what she needed to do. But all it took was seeing that newspaper and the image of her mother, father, and sisters and the whole family delivering newspapers would bob up in her head. And she could see every last bristle of hair on her father’s head, but the fear that she would forget even one strand stirred and tumbled in her stomach. And Hyosung had to force herself to not allow the image of her father when she was young to morph into the image of his body shrunken from the inability to eat for forty days.

But that image rose up anyway and it was blurry. It was blurry from her tears and it was blurry because then, her mother had told her that the living must live and she had sent Hyosung back to Seoul. Hyosung hadn’t been there for her father in his last moments. She hadn’t been there.

The air was silent and so even amongst her thoughts about her father, Hyosung had the thought, “Nobody is around, so it’s okay to cry.” The regret and the guilt swelled and pushed at her tear ducts and at first, it was just one drop, two drops squeezing through the cracks between her fingers. But then Hyosung inhaled and choked on her breath, and she couldn’t exhale, she could only keep on gasping for air again when she was supposed to breathe out. And Hyosung trembled and shook as her wretchedness pressed on her insides, trying to get out, but she couldn’t let it out, she couldn’t. She found herself having thoughts as if she was a stranger observing herself – it was almost laughable, the odd thoughts that were going through her head. I sound like a quiet foghorn or maybe an elephant. A baby elephant. Hyosung noticed in a detached way that even though she knew she was alone, she kept her volume in check, just in case there was an onlooker.

Kikwang stopped as he caught sight of a figure folded over in half on a bench. The hood of the person’s sweatshirt had partially fallen off her head and so Kikwang could see some of the girl’s hair that was dyed quite the peculiar color…

Even before Kikwang had noticed the hair color, he had instantly recognized Hyosung. Secret and Beast had interacted on numerous occasions, and at some level, they were all friends (And Kikwang knew the Beast boys definitely had an interest in being more than friends), but the Secret girls were hard to get a grasp on. Hyosung, in particular, was a riddle. She was certainly exuberant and friendly, but Kikwang had an intuition that very little of herself was actually shown to others and to him.

And it appeared that Kikwang was right, though he was starting to wish he wasn’t. He couldn’t stand to see others in pain and Hyosung was clearly hurting.

Should I go and talk to her? Or would she want to be left alone? Or should I go and comfort her? Or…

Kikwang couldn’t just leave Hyosung. He started to walk over to her. Kikwang saw Hyosung look up, catch sight of him, and hurriedly wipe across her face, as if to sweep the sadness from it.

“Kikwang-ssi - ” Hyosung began to speak.

Kikwang didn’t say anything. He just encircled Hyosung in his arms and he held her. Hyosung had never ever allowed others to see her in pain or even allowed herself to fully be in pain even when she was alone. But she was sobbing now, finally succumbing to her grief and letting herself just be lost in her sorrow.

And Kikwang held her, ready to hold her together after she was finally falling apart.