That annoying blaring alarm rang in Baekhyun's ears. He sat up immediately like a corpse sprung into life, a popping daisy, and drowsily looked around. Back then, he didn't notice many things. He didn't care about many things. He didn't notice that the sun was extra bright and beautiful that morning, that it illuminated his plain blue walls and made his whole room look suspended in water. He got out of bed and ruffled his hair. 

"Omma!" He yelled, opening his closet. His mother didn't answer, she never did. He sighed and pulled out a handsome black suit. He crossed his arms and pulled off his white T-shirt he'd worn to bed, exchanging it with the handsome button-up of the suit. The fabric brushed his pale skin like grass on a summer day. He went into the bathroom and adjusted his slim grey jacket in the long mirror. Just as he thought, he was the more handsome brother. 

"Omma?" he called again as he combed his freshly brown-dyed hair and sprayed on cologne. Once again, no answer. He wondered what he expected, and why he expected anything at all. How long had it been since his mother last actually paid attention? She was always away somewhere sipping wine and chatting with other wealthy women.

"Do you need your Mommy that badly?" 

Baekhyun heaved an angry sigh and turned to face Baekbeom. He always had to poke fun, didn't he? Baekbeom leaned against the bathroom doorway. It always surprised Baekhyun how alike they looked, even though they shared entirely different genes--perhaps they both took after their father. 

"Go away, hyung," Baekhyun snapped and stormed past him. Baekbeom rolled off the door and settled himself in a different position to continue watching Baekhyun busily darting around the room grabbing his things. 

"Socks, socks, socks, " Baekhyun mumbled as he dug through his wardrobe.

"Third drawer," Baekbeom nodded his head at the piece of furniture. 

Baekhyun rolled his eyes and opened the drawer, dug a pair out of socks, and dropped onto the bed to put them on.He stood back up, and snatch his wallet from the black wadrobe, along with a chic pair of expensive sunglasses. 

Without a word to his brother, Baekhyun left the room and took to the hallway. Baekbeom, not ready to let his immature sibling get away with this again, followed him out. 

"Where are you going?" Baekbeom's voice sounded worried, "You're not going out to a club again are you?"

"Why does it matter to you what I do?" Baekhyun grumbled under his breath, taking the stairs two at a time. His fingers gliding across the sleek metal surface of the railing.

Baekbeom stopped as he reached the bottom of the stairs and Baekhyun went to slip into his shoes, "at least eat something!" his brother pleaded. Baekhyun turned around, his fingertips heating in unnecessary anger. He could never explain why he got so angry.

"Just leave me alone! We aren't even real brothers!" Baekhyun spat. 

Baekbeom bit his lip. That ignorant punk. Everyday like this, wake up, yell, fight, leave to who-knows-where, and come back long after everyone has gone to sleep either drunk or beaten up, too angry to tell anyone what happened. The next morning comes, and the cycle repeats. There was nothing Baekbeom hated more than routines. Baekbeom sighed, even Baekhyun's mother wouldn't try to stop him, she believed him too easily; let him do whatever he wanted. 

"See? You can't even say anything. You don't even have any reason to stay in this house," Baekhyun snarled, not knowing why. Wishing he hadn't said it, wishing he could stop being angry. Feeling sorry. "Why don't you just get out?" He snapped and shut the heavy front door with an echoing thud that bounced around the walls of both the brother's hearts. 

Baekbeom shook his head and sat down on the marble steps. Baekhyun's words stung every time, even though this wasn't the first time he'd said such a thing. Baekbeom rubbed the back of his neck and rubbed his forehead. There was no reasoning with his brother. If only Baekhyun let him get close enough to help. 

I'm sorry, Hyung. Baekhyun thought, his brother wasn't the one he was angry at. Baekbeom knew that. The one Baekhyun felt the most disgust for was himself, his own skin, his own face in the mirror. He was the problem, the one problem Baekhyun had no idea how to fix. And it's what brought him this far. The driveway was long and the sun was hot. The pale peach stones burned like tiny fires on the way to his car. Baekhyun pulled keys out of his pocket and clicked the unlock button. With a snap he unfolded his sunglasses and pushed them up his nose, then climbed into the car. 

He crammed the key into the ignition and turned it. In seconds he was out of the driveway of the Byun family's grand mansion, surging down the street, wind tousling his brown locks against browner sunglasses. He wove his silver convertible in and out of cars he shot by. Trees blurred, the world moved in slow motion. It felt good to escape that place and the ropes that tied him to the people inside, to a life he didn't want to live. Yet those ropes were elastic, and he knew no matter how far he ran, he would always be pulled back, and always being attached. 

He slowed at the stop light, having reached the center of town. People rushed by the crosswalk like worker bees in a hive, everyone had somewhere to go. Someone in particular caught his eye. Why he saw only her of all the people there, he didn't know. Maybe it was the contrast of her jet black hair against a dove white dress, maybe it was the heavy looking boxes she carried that looked to big for a girl her size, maybe it was the brilliant white smile on her face, he wasn't sure. 

Then she was gone, lost in the crowd once more, and Baekhyun focused on the road again. It couldn't have been more than two seconds since she passed by, but her image had engraved itself in her mind. 

He shook his head, shook off the idea, and continued on. Baekhyun had come to believe there was no such thing as fate and coincidence in life. They weren't things that happened to him, or existed. They were for dreamers and fools. Baekhyun would never let himself be a fool, never again. 

As he pulled up to the bar, his phone vibrated.

"Hello?"
 

"Why didn't you tell me if you were leaving the house!"his mother's worried voice blarred from the device.

I tried to, Baekhyun groaned in his thoughts. Not like he hadn't made an effort to call for her, but as always, she wasn't listening.

"Are you at the agency?" 

Baekhyun wasn't anywhere near the agency he'd auditioned for last year as a trainee. He made it in, he always made it in. But that's as far as he went. He didn't have the audacity to continue, he entered and then left, always scared of finishing a race he started. 

"No."

"Then are you going to school?"

Baekhyun glanced at his shimmering gold watch, an expensive one bought with his father's money. It was about time for his lecture to start, but he hadn't thought of going to his university in a while.

"No."

"Are you with friends?"

Baekhyun laughed dryly. Friends? What friends? Every friend he'd ever made only wanted his money, his privilege, his life. How many years had it been since he'd stopped having friends? 

"Yes," Baekhyun looked at the dance lounge before him, "I'm with friends."

His mother seemed satisfied with that, "Okay, have fun," and hung up.

Baekhyun pushed the device back into his coat pocket and leaned on his car for a moment. The low hum of dance music pounded from the building like a heart beat, the whole thing thrummed like it was alive. Into the building he went.

A narrow flight of stairs led into the stomach of the beast. The music grew louder and louder until it drowned out any other noise, roaring like a lion with a megaphone. Flashes of purple and blue strobe lights flickered and flashed with the music. Girls in tight clothing tossed their long hair and dangling earrings side to side. Smoke rose from the second floor where men lit their cigarrettes and flirted out sideof the fast-moving crowd below. It was completely dizzying. A girl shoved her way through the crowd, looking revolted by men who moved around her, swatting at hands and spitting hair out of her face. Baekhyun laughed at her, he'd never seen someone looking so out of place. He reached a hand into the crowd and caught her wrist, with one quick tug he plucked her out of the field of bodies. 

She tumbled into his chest and then stumbled backwards, trying to gain her balance in tall beige high heels. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked at Baekhyun.

"Are you new around here?" He shouted over the loud music.

"Are you hitting on me?" she screamed back, then shoved past him, back into the outside world. Baekhyun his heel and anxiously followed the curious girl. 

She ran her hands through her hair to get it out of her eyes, taking the stairs two at a time, the whole time :

"I'm sooo late!"

Baekhyun blinked in the harsh light of the outside and raised a hand to cover his eyes.

The girl in white tumbled by, now free of the boxes. "Aish! I hate these things!" she growled at her heels. From the corner of his eye Baekhyun could see the bleeding blisters on her feet. "!" she patted her dress down and adjusted her hair in the reflection of the corner shop window. 

Baekhyun laughed at hearing such a petite thing with foul language. It had been a while since he last laughed.

"Hey you," Baekhyun called and the girl looked up. He waved his fingers at her. 

"Leave me alone, I'm busy," she barked, then pouted over her ankles.

"I said come here," Baekhyun raised his eyebrows and motioned at her to come. She rolled her eyes and tottered over, clearly new to the concept of high heels. The way she walked was more soldier than goddess, despite her appearance. 

"You want a ride?" He flicked his head at his car.

"From you?" she rolled her eyes, "Ha! I'm sorry, but I don't get in stranger's cars. Especially not male ones who look like a rich kid with too much time on their hands."

Baekhyun held his arms up in fake shock, "You got me! How did you know I'm a rich kid with too much time?"

The girl didn't look impressed. 

"I'm in a hurry, okay?" she turned away and started to walk. As soon as she did, she yelped in pain and bent her knees. A streek of bright red liquid ran down her beige heel. Baekhyun quickly reached over into his car and opened his glove box, yanking a box of tissues out. He dropped to the ground behind her and started blotting the wound.

"What are you doing?" she yanked her foot away, "leave me alone!"

"Stay still!" Baekhyun barked, not remembering the last time he'd felt the need to do something kind for a stranger, "do you want scars on your feet forever?"

The girl bit her lip, not having any words to say in return. She allowed Baekhyun to pull off her high heel and gently pour water on the wound and blot away the blood with tissues. She was embarassed, having a man at her feet and one high heel on in the middle of a busy street, but Baekhyun didn't seem to mind. He pulled cut medicine out of his pocket, something he always kept with him now a days because of all the fights he got in. The girl flinched when the medicine touched her cut, Baekhyun smiled at her acting tough. He knew how bad the medicine could sting. 

He popped up and dusted his hands off, plucking her heels off the ground. 

"Yah! Give those back!" the barefoot girl yelled and wiggled her fingers like a crab. Baekhyun held them out of reach and motioned to the corner shop,

"Have coffee with me, then you can have them."

The girl stomped her feet a little and looked around as if searching for an answer, "Agh but I'm busy!" she clenched her tiny pale fists and looked at her feet. But it was nice of him to fix her up..

"Fine! But just buy it and I'm out of here!" She stormed off shoeless into the store. Baekhyun laughed again, and followed. Today was interesting. 

"So Mr....?"

"Baekhyun," Baekhyun said, handing her the small orange juice she'd ordered. What a strange girl, he invites her to a coffee shop and she buys juice, like a kid. 

"Mr. Baekhyun," the girl continued, holding her chin high in the air, "what are you doing around here?"

"Making trouble," Baekhyun replied, smirking at her. His eyes stuck to her and made her heart flutter in a way she didn't want it to. 

"pfft!" she laughed off her nervousness and sat down at a booth, Baekhyun slid into the older side, "what's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing much," Baekhyun breathed, staring with distant eyes at the steam rising from his coffee. 

"Night clubber, huh?" she took a slurp of juice, "even during the day?"

"You'd be surprised, but there's just as many people during the day as at night."

"I'm not surprised," she shivered, remembering how many people were there, "why do you like that?" 

"I don't," Baekhyun shrugged, "it's just loud."

"Ear masochist," she said under her breath.

"What?"

"Nothing!"

Baekhyun laughed, even though she was making fun of him. It was fine by him if she thought he was strange. Most people probably did. 

The girl patted the table, "Well Mr...?"

"Baekhyun," Baekhyun laughed and looked at her, "is it that hard to remember?"

"So what if it is!" she countered, her girlish face blooming red, "Anyways," she stood up, "thanks for the help, but I need to go."

"That's it?" Baekhyun opened his arms, "I bought you a drink and saved your feet and that's all I get?"

The girl gave him a curt nod.

"Fine," Baekhyun sighed and stood up, knowing he couldn't stall her any longer. He handed her heels over to her. She slipped them on and brushed off her dress again. 

She plucked the receipt off the table and held her hand out. Baekhyun looked at it in confusion. The girl sighed and yanked a pen out of Baekhyun's front jacket pocket. She tore the paper and scrawled something across one half, then shoved it back in Baekhyun pocket along with his pen.

"I'll take this," she jiggled the reciept half of the paper in her hand, "next time I'll pay you back."

Then she left, marching awkwardly in her heels past Baekhyun and out the door that jingled to announce her departure. 

Baekhyun dug into his pocket and pulled out what she'd pushed in. 

"Her handwriting is terrible," Baekhyun laughed, and pushed the paper back into his pocket.

Baekhyun sat in his dark room with only the lamp on. So much had passed since then. He hovered protectively over the small slip of paper in his hands, the curled brown edges revealed where it had been burned, dark stains dotted the paper. This note had died and come back to life with him, only in an opposite way. Baekhyun who had been burnt and bloody, came out clean and new. The paper that had been clean and new now came out burnt and bloody. How had Miyoung come out, broken, or fixed?

As if on cue, a knock sounded on Baekhyun's door. He looked up and smiled as the girl invited herself in. He had almost been worried about how to tell her she could come in when he couldn't speak.

Miyoung instantly noticed the paper in his hands. Before he could tuck it back into his drawer she snatched it from his fingers and looked at it. 

"The same one from the hospital?" Miyoung dropped to the floor and folded her legs, "Where did you get this?"

Baekhyun wished he could just come out and say 'it was you, you gave it to me', but even if he did, would she believe him?

"and another question I have," Miyoung continued, not noticing the gloom surrounding Baekhyun, "Why does it have my name on it?"

Miyoung looked at him expectantly for several long seconds before Baekhyun rose his shoulders and shrugged. 

"What was I expecting?" Miyoung sighed to herself and set the paper on his bedside table, then jabbed a finger in his face, "But I'll find out eventually!!"

If only Miyoung knew that she hadn't changed at all. He was sure she was thinking her before self and the person she is now are different, but that wasn't true at all. Miyoung was Miyoung. All the time, always. 

Miyoung twiddled her thumbs, she'd come in for a reason, but she wondered if she was brave enough to say. THe lamp cast dark shadows on her brown eyes, she looked hollow. She looked nervous. She blinked once and didn't look up, "By any chance, do you know anything about..." she swallowed hard, "a flower phone charm?" 

Baekhyun's heart stopped. Everytime she asked him something like this, brought up something from before, it terrified him. How long would it be until she remembered, until it all came back, and she realized? 

"Baekhyun?" Miyoung noticed Baekhyun's discomfort, "What's wrong?"

He shook his head and bit his lip. It's not that he had a reason to be scared, it wasn't something so traumatic for him. It was Miyoung he was worried about. How would she feel if she knew? He was sure she would hate him, she would never forgive him. It wasn't something he wanted her to find out, not ever. 

"Why do you always react when I ask you stuff like that?" Miyoung said and his hair, "I'm doing my best to remember, you know, but if you don't want to remember, I won't force you." She sighed.

Baekhyun ducked away and picked up his notepad. 

Let's go somewhere tomorrow.

"What do you have in mind?"

Just somewhere.

Baekhyun smiled widely. 

"What's with that face!" Miyoung barked and gently slapped his cheek, "that's suspicious!"

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"Hey! Stop that!"

They laughed. Perhaps when the truth came out, her laugh is what Baekhyun would miss the most. 

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Sorry it took so long guys but I got out the next chapter! Once again, a short chapter. I'm never sure what to write about anymore!

I hope this chapter helped you all get a better idea of what happened before this story began. 

Thanks for reading! 

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