Baby, don’t cry tonight 
After the darkness passes by 
Baby, don’t cry tonight 
You won’t even remember why 

I will never let you disappear into the sea 
Won’t you please listen to me? 
So baby, don’t cry, cry 
I promise my love will protect you
~ Baby Don’t Cry (EXO, SilverTear’s English Lyrics)

“You’re probably judging me right now, aren’t you?” Rainie looked down at her crossed legs. 

Peniel, who’d sat back down in his seat beside the bookshelf, shook his head. “No.” 

“Why not? Everyone else did.”

“It wasn’t you.” He answered matter-of-factly.  

Rainie swallowed and lifted her head to gaze at him. “The thing is, I’m not sure I agree.” She had been intoxicated. Or so she thought. She’d never actually had alcohol before that day at the club, so she wasn’t sure what being wasted felt like, even now. Peniel opened his mouth as if to say something, then decided against it. Rainie uncrossed her legs and pushed herself into a standing position. “I really need to go now.” 

Peniel sighed and got up as well. “I’ll take you home.” 

“No, you really don’t need to.” Rainie picked up her backpack and turned towards the door. 

“But… there might be bad people out there.” Peniel started after her. “Drunkards, rapists, creeps…” Rainie turned around and shook her head at him. “Okay, sorry, that was a really bad choice of words. Just please, let me drive you home. I want to make sure you’re safe.” Peniel touched her arm softly.

She moved away slowly so that he dropped his hand back down. “I’ll be fine.”
 

Rainie wandered aimlessly for a while. She really had no intentions of heading anywhere; she’d simply felt a bit lonely in her own skin at the BTOB dorm. Everyone there was just so… happy. Yes, of course they were humans and had other emotions and such, but they all had this spark in their eyes that never left. The sparks were like flames; supposed to warm hearts, but Rainie only felt the burn. 

She was still spending every night in Papa’s spare room, deciding against returning home even though Sungjae begged insistently for it. Although things had returned to the way they’d been years ago with the two of them, nothing else had changed. Her parents still hated her. They’d always preferred Sungjae over her and the incident last year made it so that nothing could change their relationship. Her mother still spoke to her like a stranger and her father, well he just yelled at her whenever they were forced to talk. 

Rainie could smell the musky scent of woodchips under her feet. She gazed up to find herself standing before the yellow slide in the park she’d spent the majority of her nights at last year. Rainie climbed up the side of the playground structure and brushing the thin layer of snow off, she sat down with her feet dangling on the slide. The bright lampposts were like spotlights focused on the park in the darkness. She took her backpack off and pulled out her English textbook. Rainie had finished the rest of her homework at school and left her worst subject to do last. Placing her glasses beside her and opening the book to the assigned chapter, she leaned down and began to translate. The chapter was entitled, “Recalling Details.” After minutes of struggling with the second sentence, she sighed and closed her eyes. 

“Rainie?” A voice she didn’t recognize called from somewhere in front of her. 

With a quick jolt, Rainie shoved her glasses back on and looked around. “Who’s there?”

“Um, over here.” The same voice sounded closer now, but Rainie still couldn’t see anyone. “It’s Changsub.” 

Changsub? The name sounded familiar, but Rainie couldn’t put the name to a face. Finally, a pair of boys emerged from the shadows before Rainie, one of whom she recognized. Although she’d never spoken to him, the boy on the left was a familiar face to anyone who knew BTOB. The other boy though… She didn’t know him. 

“What are you doing out here so late?” Changsub asked Rainie as he and the other boy sat down on a park bench a few feet away. He smiled cheerily at her. 

“I – I didn’t really feel like going home y– ” Rainie mumbled. Her voice caught in . “Yet.” 

“Oh.” Changsub nodded. Turning to his friend, he patted the boy on the back and looked to Rainie. “This is my friend, Mark. He’s in GOT7.” Mark nodded in greeting. “And Mark, this is Rainie, Sungjae’s sister.” 

“Sungjae’s sister?” Mark looked at her with friendly curiosity. “I didn’t know he had a sister.” 

“Neither did the rest of us. Why didn’t you show up earlier, Rainie?” Changsub laughed goodheartedly. Rainie shrugged shyly. 

“You just met her?” Mark raised his eyebrows at him. 

“Well, we found out about her a couple days ago in this one restaurant she was waitressing at. We didn’t even know who she was until Peniel talked Sungjae into telling us.” 

“You and Sungjae weren’t getting along very well before, right?” Mark quietly asked Rainie.

“Something like that.” Rainie nodded. 

“That happened to a friend of mine. Her parents forbid her from to speaking to her brother because he was a construction worker. They thought he’d ruin her idol image.” Mark said thoughtfully. “She only started talking to him again last year, at her parents’ funeral.” 

“Man, that’s harsh.” said Changsub. 

“Yeah. It’s good you’re spending time with your brother now, before you both regret it later.” Mark stood up and approached Rainie. 

She watched him warily. When he extended his hand to her, she sat frozen, not sure what to do. “Let’s shake hands. It’s a bit of a… greeting custom where I’m from.” Mark gave her a friendly smile. 

Rainie hesitantly took his hand. Mark squeezed her hand and gave it firm shake. It was a simple gesture, but Rainie felt as though a whole conversation had passed between them. At least, it felt like that for her.   

“Advanced English?” Mark asked, pointing to the textbook in Rainie’s lap. “You must be pretty smart.” 

“I have a lot of time to study.” She bit her lip, embarrassed. 

“Well, if you need help with English, call me up or something.” Mark smiled at her. “I aced that in JYP school.”

“He means he’s American so he didn’t have to take the class.” Changsub scoffed from the park bench as he brushed snow off of it.  

Rainie nodded and looked back down at the book. She was too nervous to try and carry on a conversation with Mark. He watched her for a little bit, then moved to sit back down beside Changsub. He stopped halfway there though, as Changsub had already gotten up and was moving towards him. Rainie glanced up and saw the two boys standing halfway between their bench and her, awkwardly debating with their eyes what they should do. Struggling with herself, she decided it was now or never. “Wait, Mark.”

“Yeah?”

“Could you maybe help me translate this?” She pointed at the book in her lap while avoiding his eyes. 

“Sure. But um, you’re going to need to come down. My joints are bit sore; our manager was in hyper-pre-concert mode today.” Mark laughed sheepishly. 

Rainie slipped on her backpack and slid off the playground structure as Changsub got up to throw a soggy woodchip at Mark. He laughed when the latter ignored him and sat down on the bench. Rainie approached cautiously and sat down on the bench beside Mark. Changsub took a seat beside Rainie. Glancing discreetly at her, Mark grabbed Changsub and pulled the boy over to his other side. Mark seemed to have noticed that Rainie wasn’t very comfortable sitting between the two boys. 

“Here, give me your book.” He held out his hands. Rainie handed it to him opened to the correct page. “Recalling Details? This looks interesting.”

“Dude, look at the hot agent lady.” Changsub leaned over to point at the picture in the book of a female secret agent. The caption underneath the photo said in English, FBI Agent Smith. 

“We’re not here to stare at the pretty pictures, Changsub.” Mark said without looking at him. 

“Sorry.” Changsub mumbled. 

After a few moments, Mark turned to Rainie. “Alright, so I’ll just explain these to you in Korean, okay?" After Rainie nodded, Mark began to translate the passage, which turned out to be about a female secret agent named Valerie Smith who had to identify a thief at a royal ball. 

“This sentence says that she knew the thief was wearing red high heels.” Mark said as he moved his finger along the page to indicate what he was reading. “Make sure to pronounce high heels correctly, lots of people often say heers with an r instead of an l.”

Within minutes Mark finished explaining the reading passage and all the homework questions to Rainie, who had begun by this time to fall in love with his voice. She was by no means fluent in the language, but it didn’t take a professional to hear how nicely the words flowed off Mark’s tongue. He handed the book back to her and reminded her again to ask him if she needed any more help. Rainie thanked him politely and began to pack her things. 

“You coming over to watch The Avengers with us tomorrow night, Mark?” Changsub clapped his hands around Mark’s arm and shook excitedly. 

“Yeah, it’s either that or have to deal with JB’s rants. He’s been PMSing again.”

“Is he still mad about me putting peanut butter in his shampoo? I didn’t even put that much in.” Changsub bit his lip. 

“Ha, no. Jr mixed his colored shirts with JB’s white ones in the wash and now JB’s got a lot of pink v-necks to scream about.” Mark laughed miserably. 

“Perfect, so come over tomorrow and forget about things for a bit. You should come too, Rainie!” By this time Rainie had already picked up her backpack and was standing awkwardly off to the side looking down at her feet. With a start she looked up at Changsub. “Me?” 

“Unless my invisible friend Rainie wants to come instead, I do believe I’m talking to you, yes.” Changsub giggled goofily. “It’ll be fun!”

“I don’t know…” Being blackmailed into visiting the testosterone-filled BTOB dorm once this week was already a bit much for Rainie. 

“Come ooooon.” Changsub begged. He looked really pitiful, with eyes bulging and mouth slack like a rabid squirrel.

“You have a whole day to decide, Rainie. We won’t force you to come if you don’t want to.” Mark said while elbowing Changsub.

“Ok.” Rainie nodded gratefully at Mark.

A ringtone she vaguely remembered from the Mexican Special Day at Papa’s restaurant started blaring obnoxiously from Changsub’s pocket at this moment. 

“Seriously? The Mexican Hat Dance?” Mark raised his eyebrows at Changsub. 

“What? Peniel said it suits me!” Changsub pressed the green answer button. “What do you want?” A person shrieked loudly through the headpiece. It sounded like Changsub was being reprimanded. “It’s for you, Mark.” He covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s JB.” as he handed the phone to the other boy. 

“Hello?” Rainie could faintly hear the person on the other line scream something about calling fifty times and not getting an answer. “My phone ran out of batteries, sorry.” Mark said in a tone that was clearly not apologetic. “No, I am NOT at a strip club.” Changsub started cheekily gyrating against Mark and hooting into the phone. “I am NOT with a e either.” 

Changsub grabbed the phone. “Hello? Is this JB-Oppa? Aiyahaha!” He squealed into the phone and hung up. 

“Why’d you hang up?!” Mark groaned. “I’m going to die tonight.” 

“He’ll be asleep when you get home, don’t worry about it.” Changsub smiled cutely. 

Mark scoffed, “Asleep my . He’ll be sitting in that stupid chair of his beside the door, you just watch.” Changsub simply shrugged. “I better get back before Jr goes to sleep. At least then JB will have more than one person to yell at. It was nice meeting you, Rainie.” Mark nodded at her and headed back the way the two boys had come.

“Oppaaa, what about me!?” Changsub yelled in the direction of Mark’s disappearing figure. 

With some begging and more puppy eyes, Changsub finally convinced Rainie to let him walk her home. At the front of Papa’s store, Rainie bowed politely to him and was surprised with a tight hug. Changsub was clearly not the type to restrain from PDA. She opened the steam-covered windows of the restaurant and felt the warm wave of air caress her smiling face.  

A/N: Not sure if my updates are any good. Ah, oh well. I'm running out of steam.