He grew up contented with all that he had and hated his mother.

Oh Sehun never really bothered questioning it. When he had been old enough to ask for his mother, his father’s answer was plain and simple. She abandoned you because she hates you. It was the first and last time they ever talked about it. He grew up hating with everything he had the woman he had never met, the woman who had given birth to him. He grew up with no complaints with the way his father had been so protective. He grew up with no complaints about his sheltered life because in his mind, father knew best. His father raised him single-handedly after all.

Now he was nineteen years old and the harsh truth about his mother was slapped harshly against his face.

Sehun hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Well, not really.

He had just often wondered why whenever Aunt Mihyuk, who he had known since birth and was introduced as his father’s friend, visited, she and his father would always make the time to lock themselves in his office and ‘talk business’.

Sehun thought they were ing each other in secret.

It was that suspicion and sheer curiosity that led him to stand outside his father’s room the night before and press his ear against the door. He normally wouldn’t have dared. But the possibility seemed so out of character for his normally prim, serious and formal father that it made him more curious.

He ended up with more than what he had bargained for.

Sehun was a few minutes away from leaving for the university now yet he remained seated on his bed; his face pale and blank and his eyes bloodshot. He hadn’t slept a wink last night. How could he? He just found out that what he believed and knew all his life was a lie. Something really, really bad happened nineteen years ago and he was more than certain that his father had everything to do with it. The mother he had hated for his whole life had been wronged. He was sure of that too. And now she was dead and he’d never get to see her in flesh ever again. Sehun felt tears brim his eyes at the thought. What exactly happened and what his father meant about her going crazy, Sehun didn’t know.

But he was going to find out.

“Mom.” He whispered into the air. “Where are you? I’m right here. I’m right here, mom.”

He had to something and he had to do it now.

Abruptly, he got up from his bed and strode across the room, seating on the chair of his desk with a purpose. Waiting a few, agonizing moments for his laptop to come to life, opening his web browser and thanked the heavens for Korea’s fast internet connection. He typed quickly, entering those five words he had been memorizing since he heard them the night before.

Psychic Research and Investigation Center

Their homepage appeared on screen seconds later and Sehun clicked the contact icon, finding short profiles of the different members of the Center with pictures to match. A certain Shim Changmin and Cho Kyuhyun were named by the webpage as the heads of the Psychic Research and Investigation Center; the website going on to name and briefly describe its other members.

Grabbing a paper and pen from one of the compartments on his desk, he wrote down the address of the office as quickly as he could and, without bothering to properly shut down the gadget, he snapped it close and was out of his seat in a heartbeat. Folding the precious piece of paper and stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans, Sehun grabbed his backpack and quickly emptied it of his school things. Knowing he didn’t have much time, he hastily packed a backpack full of clothes, the money he had stashed around in different parts of his room and a framed photograph of his Aunt Mikyung he had somewhere in his room. His lips curled at the picture and quickly stuffed it at the bottom of the bag.

Instinctively, he reached for his own, which sat peacefully on his bed, but he thought against it and decided to leave it behind.

He had just zipped up his bag when he heard two curt knocks on the door of his bedroom. “Sir, it’s time to go.”

Sehun in a sharp breath and shouldered his backpack. He willed his heartbeat to slow down and prayed that it wouldn’t give him away. His face assumed its usual poker faced expression and he walked towards the door with purpose, flinging the door open and barely bowing in gratitude at the butler who had called him out. In silence, he walked down the hallway, down the flight of the stairs, across the main hall and out of the house with the butler following behind him. Sehun stood on the bottom step, waiting un