Chapter Two

TAEYEON

"You have five minutes left of your examination," Taeyeon heard the sixty-year-old examiner say. She looked up to check the clock and took sight of the examiner. She didn't look very old not hideously anyway. She had bright pink lips like most seniors did, her recently permed hair looked more like a bouncy afro and her arms, hands and neck were covered in gold jewellery.

How she was able to carry that kind of weight in gold was beyond Taeyeon. Her mind started to linger and realised she only had a few minutes to finish her employment relations exam. She took a deep breath and held the grip tighter on her pen and started to write.

After what looked like a paragraph of decent information she rested her pen down. Taeyeon sighed in relief. She had finally finished her last exam for the year. She was thankful that she could just leave this year of university behind her. There were times where she wanted to drop out but she couldn't do that to her brother. The disappointment he would potentially have towards her always stopped her.

Just thinking about it caused a strain in her shoulder. Teayeon immediately rubbed at the pain and looked around the room. Hoping she wouldn't catch sight of the people that caused her such turmoil this semester. When she caught sight of one of them she quickly turned away. She didn't want either of them to know she still withered in pain when she thought of them and that she was still struggling to believe their betrayal.

When the examiner took her paper from her table Taeyeon stood up, grabbed her bag from under her seat and went down the stairs of the examination building. Taeyeon  was thankful that she had spent her break up focusing on her exams rather than her actual break up. But now, Teyeon had no distractions and the thought of it started to creep up into her chest and the familiar tightening returned. Now nothing was to stop her from remembering, nothing to stop her from the pain, even for a second. She had nothing left to give. Taeyeon was tired of who she was, who she was now labelled and what labelled her.

She had heard the whispers throughout campus but she also heard the praises Onew got for having kept such an affair a secret for so long. Taeyeon also heard the support he had obtained. Only a handful had sympathised with her, those who knew her brother felt sorry for her. Though they told her what a dirt bag Onew had been, they were Sooyoung's friends not hers.

But their support only did Taeyeon so much she didn't have a true friend she could lean on. She only had Sooyoung but he was on the other side of the world and she couldn't go and tell him about Onew. Sooyoung would kill Onew twice over and then her for being stupid enough to let him do that to her. No, she couldn't tell her brother. He had enough on his plate and she didn't want to tarnish his news that would no doubt upset him.

So Taeyeon just kept it to herself but she knew Sooyoung would find out. He always had a way of finding out. One of his friends would tell him. Taeyeon knew it would only be a matter of time until he would confront her, to confess what the 'dirt bag' did to his little sister.

Sooyoung had always enlisted the help of his friends and their brothers to help him take care of Taeyeon when he graduated from high school. Her brother wouldn't let Taeyeon go through high school without any kind of protection. Sooyoung and his best friend, Hyoyeon, had ruled their high school. All the girls loved them and all the boys wanted to be associated with them.

He had shielded her from the high school she knew existed, Taeyeon knew it would have been worse for her if she didn't have her brother. She owed her brother everything her apartment in the city, away from their folks and paid for everything that came with the apartment: the bills, the maintenance and the furnishing. She loved her brother with all her heart and the fact that he was coming home from New York in a matter of days made her smile.

" Taeyeon, hey!" sh