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"Here."

Soo Yun blinks in surprise. Yoora is handing her a cup of coffee while curving a small smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. Soo Yun takes the cup with a hesitant hand while her other hand finally puts away her phone on the table reluctantly. "Thanks," she mutters softly; her eyes catching a glimpse of her tired expression in the swirl of bitter taste coffee that tastes as bitter as her heart. 

"Are you alright?" Yoora asks, and Soo Yun nods a little bit too quickly. Yoora had been asking her that same question for the past hour and she had been nodding in return every time. If she speaks, she's afraid she would not convince Yoora that she's okay. Yes, she's okay. But she's not fine at all. The adjectives are actually contrasting; they carry a different meaning that she only manage to fathom now. Soo Yun muster up the strength to sit up properly and takes a sip from the bitter coffee that washes fiercely. Then she takes a deep breath and looks up at Yoora who's watching her with reassuring eyes. "I'm okay, unnie. Really." she smiles half-heartedly. She realizes how selfish of her to make Yoora worry about her, when they should be worrying about Chanyeol's sake. 

"He'll be back soon, I'm sure of it." Yoora nods, trying to convince her. But her gesture is still tense, and her eyes carry a sense of sorrow and alert, as if she's mentally preparing herself for something bad to happen. 

"I'm sorry unnie. It's all my fault." Soo Yun looks down, her fingers shaking relentlessly that she has to pull them away from the paper cup to form them into fists on her lap. "Did something happened?" Yoora asks, her voice still encouraging, warm as sunbeam. Soo Yun nods again, but this time she strains not to cry. "We...g-got into a fight yesterday. And I...slapped him." 

Yoora smiles apologetically and takes Soo Yun's hand. "Don't blame it on yourself. Even if he did leave because of that reason, he probably needs some time alone. I know my brother well. I'm sure you guys will sort this out. And Chanyeol is not the type of person who gives up on someone, especially someone who he cares about. You know that." Yoora squeezes Soo Yun's hand gently and Soo Yun smiles thankfully, her eyes b with tears. 

"By any chance, are you guys a couple now? Since you're going through this stage of the relationship.", Yoora teases playfully. 

"UNNIE!" Soo Yun hisses alarmingly, her cheeks flush in embarrassment. 

"What?" Yoora laughs, flaunting her straight row of white teeth. "You've known each other for quite a while now. You're a fun person to be around with, and you're gorgeous, don't even try to deny it. My brother is blind if he doesn't go for you."

Soo Yun bites her lip; Yoora is right, Chanyeol doesn't go for her. They're just friends. It has become a regular habit for her to chant that thought into her head whenever someone mentions the possibility of them to be more than friends. An inkling suddenly pops into her mind like a pop-up advertisement tab; the one that she's been heaving for the past weeks. "Unnie...I...need to ask you something." She hesitates.

"About what? If you need my approval to be his girlfriend, you don't have to. You already have my consent." Yoora beams playfully. 

"Ani!" She waves her hand in front of her to dismiss the assumption, her cheeks turning red again. She swallows hard before continuing. "It's about Chanyeol. I've been dying to ask him this but I didn't have the chance. He...changed since the incident the other day." 

"What incident?" The word catches Yoora's attention immediately. Soo Yun tries to decide where to start, but in the end she spills everything to Yoora about what happened that morning--the encounter with the fans, their "date" at the fun fair, the boy at the park being brutally beat up, Chanyeol spacing out for a few minutes and the glint of understanding and fear in his eyes. And the faded scars on his eyelids. Yoora listens without interrupting. 

"....And then we came back after Chanyeol talked to the doctor." She finishes her story by then, not wanting to tell Yoora about what happened afterwards that still lacerates her heart whenever she thinks about it. Yoora inhales deeply and closes her eyes for a few seconds, deep in thought. When she opens them again, she gazes at Soo Yun with a solemn expression that she's never seen before from the bubbly unnie. "The scars on his eyelids...." Yoora starts, and Soo Yun sees her slowly floating away in her own trail of thoughts. "....is one of the scars that he has that will never heal. Chanyeol....was bullied heartlessly when he was a child." 

Soo Yun's heart stops and her mind goes blank. She's unable to decipher at first, but then Yoora's words slowly seeps into her mind and she feels a new kind of pain inside. "H-how...w-why?" she stutters.

Yoora sighs; she feels pained to recall the traumatizing experiences that Chanyeol had to endure. "Chanyeol was a happy kid. He'd always been happy, from the day he was born. He used to smile all the time, and makes the people around him happy too. But the kids at school didn't like it. They and called him names like stupid, mentally-deranged and disgusting, because he smiled all the time. But Chanyeol didn't care, smiling was his nature and he didn't mind that." Yoora says, her lips curving a little smile of her own. But then the happiness dissapear from her face like a fading ember that's extinguishing. "But there's this one kid, who hoards hate and despise towards Chanyeol more than anyone. Because of the fact that he always smiled. And that act of happiness drove him mad, to the point of him making Chanyeol the target, the victim. He wanted Chanyeol to never smile again." 

Yoora takes a moment before continuing. "Sang-chul. That was his name." Her face turns sour, as if the name was a bad jinx. "There was never a day that he left my brother alone. Chanyeol gets bullied every single day; physically, mentally, you name it. At first it was just the pushing and tripping deliberately, but then things started to get serious in a few months. Sang-chul began to steal his food, threatened him, tried to drown Chanyeol's ferret in a toilet bowl once for fun, and beats him up to pulp until he can barely get up. That sick kid won't stop until Chanyeol either begs for mercy, or pass out. It gave Sang-chul a sense of pleasure somehow, to see my brother suffer. It kept going on like that, and Chanyeol didn't even tell us. When he got home from school with a face thats barely decipherable, and legs filled with bruises, he gave excuses like falling down the stairs or crashed into a pole. But I knew he was lying. I kept forcing him to tell our parents about it, to tell the teachers, but he begged me not to. He said that Sang-chul would kill him if he told on him." 

Soo Yun's face twists, and she touches a hand to her forehead, as if rubbing out some brief and inconvenient pain. Yoora is speaking faster this time, the dark memory afloat on the surface of her mind.

"You don't even know the aching pain in my heart whenever I watched him writhed in torment when I treated his wounds every night. When he shrunk away from my touch whenever i hugged him, when he cried on my shoulder and blamed himself for what happened. When I could never see my brother smile again from that day on." Yoora's voice cracks, and Soo Yun quickly retrives her hand and squeezes is tightly. 

"It was awful. We couldn't even tell the teachers about it because they would never believe Chanyeol. Or maybe they wouldn't even dare to make a report since Sang-chul was a rich kid; his father was the mayor of the town and his family funded almost all the school's supplies. I didn't know how long Chanyeol could take it. Or how long Sang-chul would keep bullying him. I tried to talk to my parents about transferring Chanyeol to a new school, but that means moving to a new area and our family didn't have enough money. And my dad would lose his job. So we stayed, Chanyeol stayed. But the thing is, he didn't mind at all. As long as he didn't have to leave her."

"Her?" Soo Yun asks, her eyes mirroring her confusion. 

Yoora's lips form a smile. "Min Haneul, Chanyeol's best friend. Well technically, his only friend. The other kids wouldn't befriend him since Sang-chul threatened them. But Haneul--Hani, was an exception." Yoora explains, and Soo Yun kept listening, intrigue by Chanyeol's childhood friend. "Hani wasn't afraid of Sang-chul. She was the one who always protected Chanyeol from getting bullied at school by staying close to Chanyeol all the time. She brought him food everyday, and made Chanyeol laughed. She was a good friend to him. A genuine one. But most of all, she made him happy and that's all that mattered. I think that's probably why Chanyeol was willing to endure everything, because he had Hani by his side." 

Soo Yun wonders why Yoora's using past tense in her explanation but then she shakes her head to shake off the thought. Then she asks, careful not to sound too curious. "Where is she now? Why has Chanyeol never spoken of Hani before?" 

Yoora drops into a long lapse of silence. After what feels like an eternity, she finally takes a deep measured breath before answering, locking eyes with Soo Yun with a piercing stare of emptiness. Her stare seizes Soo Yun still.

"She died. In a fire." 

As if on cue, a loud rasping can be heard from the entrance door that made both of them jump out of their wits. Soo Yun and Yoora exchange glances before launching off from their seats and head towards the door by instinct. Soo Yun arrives there first; her heart beating feverishly against her chest. She reaches out for the door knob and turns it slowly in her grip. Cold air slaps her in the face but a figure stands in front of her, a stature of long height. Soo Yun looks up, and gasps in shock. 

Chanyeol.

"Yun-ah," Chanyeol huffs a breath of relief, a small smile forming on his facade. But his sight suddenly blurs, and his head spins in a whirlwind. He blinks a couple of time, trying to disperse the haze forming in his vision. His body feels heavy and he feels like he's being pulled into a deep oblivion. "I..-" 

Soo Yun screams when Chanyeol loses his balance and falls into her arms; unconscious. 

2 hours earlier

A sign of "RESTRICTED AREA" that dangles precariously from a fence greets him. Chanyeol dodges the sign and ducks through a gaping hole in the fence. The moonlight illuminates the trees that line the road and makes the abandoned and ramshackled houses to appear more eerie. There's no light to guide him besides the light provided by the moon and the stars twinkling far away in the sky. There's no street lights in this area that's working either, most of them broken. And his phone is also dead. Chanyeol trudges slowly, his sneakers kicking pebbles that roll away down the hill, as he searches for the right house. He suddenly hears shuffling and footsteps behind him, but when he turns around there's no one there. He faces forward again, and walks faster this time. He'd weighed this idea earlier; whether its the best decision to make, but deep down he knew there was no option there. He needs to see it for himself. 

No.35, he thinks to himself.

After passing a few more street lights, he spots the broken down house with a charred roof and blackened walls with an embossed of 3-5 on a wooden plank in front of the house. Ashes swirl around his sneakers when he makes his way towards it. Chanyeol coughs into his trenchcoat, his fingers already blue and numb. 

Surely this is it. 

".......an intense blaze tore apart a single story brick house in Hongdae. Officials reported county fire units were dispatched to the village for a house fire which took the team almost two hours to put out the flames that was one of the severe cases in the year. By the time the firefighters arrived, the home was ablazed and smoke were pouring from the windows of the house. The fire didn't spread to the other houses; nevertheless it had caused a huge ruination to the area. There were no survivors found, only the remains of two bodies were discovered. Police concluded that the remains belonged to the family resided in the house for the last ten years. Hae Young, 34 years old, and her daughter, Min Haneul, 14 years old, were killed in the fire. The chief in charge said it was too early to say what caused the fire but they believed it was an accident...."

Chanyeol can't hold back the tears that's slowly forming in the rims of his waterline. He didn't plan on crying and mourn for her, but the sadness engulfs him like a thick black mist and he can't, he can't breathe. Chanyeol falls on his knees, his body shakes mercilessly with his sobbing as he tries to grip the pain that's eating him from the inside like a parasite.

I'm saying this because I'm sorry

I'm saying this because you're crying

I'm saying this because I'm running out of breath

Words that my foolish heart is rushing out

I try to hold it in and block it

I cover my mouth with my hands but

The words "I love you" remains as if it's written on my heart

I'll walk slowly, one step, two step

Your footsteps are so familiar to me, one step, two step

You're getting farther away and disappearing little by little with heavy footsteps

In case you get erased and forgotten

In case you grow out of my sight and disappear

In one second, I repeat these words a thousand times: don't go far away

This is the last time, once, twice

I make promises that I can't keep, once, twice

The one who should be hurt is me, please, please

After a few minutes, Chanyeol regains himself as he wipes his eyes furiously and rubs his face with his hands. He looks up at the sky and takes a deep breath through his mouth. Chanyeol takes a last glance towards the blackened house in the shadows and promised himself that she will always have a place in his heart, forever. When he's about to turn back towards the fence, he feels a hand tugs him forcefully from behind and Chanyeol turns around reflexively and is about to hit the person whom he assumed is an attacker when he sees an old man with a thin frame covered by old worn out clothes and a saggy wrinkled face. Even in the dark, Chanyeol can decipher that his face is suntanned with its countless creases that somehow reminds him of a prune.

"What are you doing here boy?" The old man scorns, his eyes bloodshot. His grip of Chanyeol's arm doesn't loosen.

"V-visiting." Chanyeol stammers, his nose crunches up from the smell of the old man's heavy breath. 

"There ain't no visitors here n'more, boy. Even if there are, it's quite late to be visiting, don't you think?" His lips curl into a sly smile that shows a collection of yellow teeth and Chanyeol flinches away. "Well, I suppose, but I have to get going now ajusshi. I apologized for any inconveniece." Chanyeol finally manages to pull his hand away and he quickly turns around to walk away. 

"The Min family, what a pity they are." The old man says with a smirk, and Chanyeol stops dead in his tracks. 

"You knew them?" Chanyeol finally turns around to look at him, but keeping his distance from the suspicious, disdainful-looking ajusshi. 

The old man laughs humorlessly that makes Chanyeol cringe. His laugh is like the sound of nails scraping a chalkboard. "I knew them well, boy. The whole family is cursed. The mother sold herself to feed her daughter, going out at nights and coming back only in the morning. The father stunk of alcohol, didn't have the slightest care in the world. And the girl...she was a pity, having to have parents like that." He snickers. "Look at them now, burned to ashes in an arson." 

Chanyeol's heart stops. "What did you just say?" 

"I said, they were burned to their last breath, in an arson." His cunning smile is prominent in the moonlight that sends shivers down Chanyeol's spine. "No...that's-, that's not true. It was an accident!" Chanyeol raises his voice; he refuses to be fed with lies. His mind is now swirling with thoughts. 

"No boy. It ain't no accident. It was far too conspicuous to be an accident. The fire was deliberately lit." The old man says, and his lips. "By the father." 

Chanyeol stumbles a couple of steps back, the weight of the news hitting him like a harsh blow to his body.

No. It can't be.

Hani.....was murdered?

"I'll leave it your conscience to believe me or not, boy. Like I said, the whole family is cursed. Until the end." 

{ A/N }

Hello lovelies! Sorry for the long wait but I hope you guys enjoyed reading this chapter! :) I won't be updating as often as I used to since school is reopening very very soon but I will finish this story! (hopefully, pray for me!) 

Thank you you for reading this story and giving it a chance! You rock! I hope you can leave a comment and upvote & subscribe if you really like this story! A small feedback makes my day :D

-Z