“Daddy!” Minhee excitedly said through the phone.

“Minhee!” her dad exclaimed. “How are you?”

“I’m good, how about you?” Minhee asked.

“Wonderful. What have you been up to? Do you like your new school?” he asked.

Minhee bit her lip, she didn’t want to tell him she wasn’t used to it yet.

“It’s great!” she fibbed. “The kids are really nice and warm.”

Which was the total opposite of the two ice cubes she sat beside.

“How’s Luhan?” he asked. Luhan was her older brother, he was 25 and was a police officer.

“He’s good,” Minhee replied. “When are you coming home?”

“Not for a while I’m afraid,” her father said sadly. “There’s a lot of work here.” Minhee’s father worked as a pilot for the military. That meant he was hardly at home, you could say he didn’t even have a home seeing as he travelled so much.

“Oh,” Minhee tried not to seem so disappointed.

“I’m sorry, princess.”

Minhee forced herself to sound cheerful, “Its okay! I understand.”

“But don’t worry, I’ll definitely be there for your arts banquet,” he assured.

Minhee smiled, “Okay.”

“I have to go now. Tell Luhan I said hi,” he said.

“Okay, bye daddy. Be safe,” Minhee said.

“You too,” he said before hanging up.

Minhee sighed as she threw her phone on the table. She looked around the empty living room and sighed. I wonder what it would be like to have all family at home, living a regular life.

Minhee and her brother had just moved into the large penthouse and already she was bored and lonely. Since her father’s position changed a lot, she had to move many times. She couldn’t keep any friends for long because she moved so much. And the few friends she had had…. Weren’t the best. They only cared about their grades and Minhee’s status. She’d been hurt by a lot of her ‘friends’ and became much more independent because of that.

As she was pacing, her phone rang and she picked it up, “Hello?”

“Minhee, I’m coming home early today. You want to eat out or do you want me to cook?” Luhan asked.

“It’s your choice, oppa,” she answered. “Although I would like your special noodles.”

“Special noodles it is then,” he immediately agreed. “I’ll be home in a bit.”

“Okay,” she hung up.

She decided to go through the books she’d written, she loved to write. It was her way of escaping reality and writing down her little fantasies on paper. She let her feelings pour out through her writing. She loved how when she wrote, there was no limit to her imagination, she could go as far she wanted.

She hadn’t gotten published yet, but she was getting an award for her work and one of her stories would be published through that. This award was everything to her and would be presented to her at a special arts banquet in November. This banquet would recognize all forms of art; theatre, music, poetry, writing, painting etc.

She was going to attend the banquet with her father and it was something she had been looking forward to for a long time. She would spend the night with her father and he said he would find a way to stay for the next day so he could spend time with her and Luhan.

Everything was supposed to be perfect, but as most know, perfect doesn’t always happen.

◌◌◌◌

Kai groaned for the nth time that day, it was 4:00 and he didn’t feel any better.

He rolled off the couch and onto the floor. It’s so hot.

He coughed as he stood up to go to get the thermometer from the kitchen. He checked his temperature; 101 degrees Fahrenheit.

He groaned again. A fever?

He let out another sneeze and decided he had to go to the doctors.  He coughed again and began to inwardly ache for someone, anyone, to take care of him.  

◌◌◌◌

When Kai got home from the doctor’s, he immediately took his medicine and went to sleep on the couch. He slept for 4 hours before waking up at 9:00.

He rubbed his eyes as he sat up, he felt much better now and not to mention hungry so he went to the kitchen to make himself some noodles. When he finished, he went back to the couch and began his ‘gourmet’ dinner.

As he was eating, his phone rang.

“Hello?” he said tiredly.

“Hello, is this Kim Jongin?” a female voice asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m calling from one of the Seoul Library branches. You are becoming a volunteer, right? For school?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he coughed.

“Okay, I just need your information and when you will be volunteering,” she said.

Kai told her his address and all the other things she asked for.

“I can come on Sundays,” he said.

“Very well, can you come for five hours from 11-4?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Kai replied, then he sniffled.

“Okay, well thank you for choosing our library. You will have to come for a training session, just so you know what to do and you know where everything is,” she told him.

“Okay, when should I come?” he asked.

“This Saturday would be good, then you can start volunteering on Sunday,” she said happily.

There goes my weekend. Kai thought miserably, not that he had any better plans.

“Okay, I’ll come,” he replied.

“Very well, have a nice day!”

“You too,” Kai mumbled before hanging up.

He finished his noodles and put them in the kitchen.

This better be good for me.

◌◌◌◌

After school on Thursday, Sehun headed to the performing arts building to be introduced to the job.

He bowed at Mrs. Lee when he got to the main desk.

“Sehun! I’m so glad you decided to come,” she smiled sincerely. Mrs. Lee had always liked Sehun, he had been a pleasure to have in the dance class when he came with the orphanage and was such a nice, charming boy. To her anyway.  

“Yeah,” he half-heartedly smiled.

“Okay, well I’ll take you to our head instructor. He’ll show you around and tell you everything you need to know,” Mrs. Lee said, leading him into the main dance part of the building.

“Lay!” Mrs. Lee called when she led Sehun inside. A boy a couple of years older than him, turned away from the guy he was talking to and walked to Sehun and Mrs. Lee.

He smiled and his dimple showed, “Yes?”

“This is Sehun,” she put her hands on Sehun’s shoulders. Sehun smiled weakly, he hated it when people touched him but decided to endure it just this once. “He is our newest instructor. Can you show him around and explain everything to him?”

“Yeah sure, I can take it from here,” Lay smiled again.

“Very well, have fun!” Mrs. Lee patted Sehun’s back before leaving the room.

“Nice to meet you, Sehun,” Lay said as they started walking.

“You too,” Sehun said.  

“So you have experience in dance?” Lay asked.

“Kind of,” Sehun sheepishly shrugged. Lay led him into one of the dance rooms.

“Let's see what you can do,” Lay a stereo in the corner.

A random hip hop tune began to play and Sehun prepared himself to start at the right beat. After a minute or two of watching Sehun freestyle, Lay turned the music off.

 “Wow,” Lay clapped. “You're really good.”

“Thanks,” Sehun smiled, feeling he had been a bit off.

“Let's go,” Lay led him out of the dance room and to the main dance office.

“You don’t have time to be a full instructor, do you?” Lay asked, looking through some papers on a desk.

Sehun shook his head.

“So you can help me with my kids then, I have the largest group and some extra help would be great,” he said and handed Sehun a little instructor’s guide pamphlet. “You only need to come once a week.”

“What do I do?” Sehun blinked.

Lay laughed, “Well in the beginning of class, we do some stuff together and show the kids some things, I’ll tell you about that beforehand. Then they go off in their little groups to practice for their monthly performance. But right now they aren’t doing that, we’re preparing for a charity event we’re doing for the library. All the dance kids are putting on a show to raise money for it and the library will have some book stalls and food.”

Sehun nodded, “Okay.”

“Can you come on Saturday at 1?” Lay asked, looking at his schedule. “I’ll you some more stuff and then at 2 we start with the kids until 4.”

“I can come,” Sehun nodded.

“Great. That’s all you really need to know, we’ll start on Saturday,” Lay told him. “See you then.”

Sehun gave him a small bow before exiting the office and heading towards the outside of the building.

I hope this’ll be good.

◌◌◌◌

On Friday, Kai wasn’t completely better but he had to go to school since he had missed two days already.  

He wore an extra layer under his uniform and stuffed his pockets with tissues. He didn’t eat breakfast usually and when he was sick he definitely wouldn’t be eating it.

Instead of walking, he took the bus to school and managed to get a seat instead of standing.

After a couple of minutes, he arrived at school and rumors were flying around about why he had been absent for two days.

He was so frustrated, how did people manage to come up with all these things when he had been locked in his house for two days?

Some were saying he had fought a brutal gang.

Some were saying he had been beaten by his brother who was a street fighter.

Some were saying he had been kidnapped by a mugger.

Kai shook his head as he entered his class and sat down in his seat. He put his bag on his desk and rested his head on it.

He heard someone else enter the class, probably Ara, she never stuck around in the halls either.

Apparently, someone else didn’t either because he heard another pair of footsteps enter the class. He looked to his side, still buried in his bag, and saw Minhee sitting down. She looked at Kai and he quickly closed his eyes, hoping she hadn’t seen them open.

The three of them were silent, not that it was expected from any of them to talk, especially with Ara and Kai’s personalities. Occasionally, Kai heard the ruffling of papers; Minhee was probably working on something.

When it was time for class to start, the rest of the class piled in. Some of them staring at Kai, others wondering what the three of them were doing inside the classroom.

“Okay, quiet down!” Ms. Song tapped her podium and settled the class. “Take your books out.”

Kai groggily lifted his head and took his notebook out. He rubbed his eyes and sniffled as some people looked in his direction.

He assumed he didn’t look very good, his eyes were probably all droopy and his nose was red.

As Ms. Song began her literature lesson, Kai thought about the days when his literature classes were a lot more fun.

“Miss, how do you spell photosynthesis?” Kai asked his grade 4 teacher. It was beginning of the new school year. The class was doing an exercise where they had to write down ten words they wanted to learn that year. 

“Dear, I have a rule in my class. When you have a question about a word, you have to look in the dictionary,” she said crossly.

“But I don't know how to spell it.”

“Look in the dictionary,” she reminded. Kai made a 'what the heck' face and walked to his seat beside Sehun.

“I hate the first days of school, we have to be good!” Kai grumbled to Sehun. They both had a rule: in the beginning of the school year they would seem like normal kids to soften the teacher up before causing trouble.

“Why? What did she say?” Sehun asked.

“She told me to look in the dictionary. How do I look for a word I don't know how to spell?” Kai snorted as he reached for a dictionary in the basket that had supplies in it.

“Why are teachers so stupid?” Sehun shook his head.

“I know right.” Kai agreed, going to the letter 'f' in the dictionary.

After looking through the entire 'f' section of the dictionary, Kai stood up in an annoyed way and walked to the teacher. It was ridiculous to him. First he had to act like a good boy and do his work and then he had to go to the teacher twice to confront her stupidity.

Sehun amusedly opened his ears to listen.

“I can't find it,” Kai said, giving her the dictionary turned to the beginning of the f section.

“Oh dear,” she shook her head. “Dear, you're in the wrong section. Photosynthesis doesn't start with f! It starts with ph.”

“That's why I asked you to tell me how to spell it,” Kai gritted his teeth. “How do I find it in the dictionary if I don't know how to spell it? Why can't you just tell me anyways? If I look in the dictionary then I'll know the meaning of it and this whole thing will be more pointless than it already is.”

His cheek earned him a detention and Sehun had to bail him out.

“Miss, you see, Jongin didn’t eat breakfast this morning and that made him cranky,” Sehun explained to his teacher. Their teacher was in the doorway talking to Sehun and Kai was sitting at a desk watching from behind.

“That is no excuse for rude behaviour.”

“No, but Jongin is complicated. You see um, our, uh,” Sehun looked at Kai.

Kai got on all fours, let his tongue hang from his mouth and then collapsed on the floor.

“Our dog died,” Sehun nodded looking back up at his teacher with sad eyes. “Jongin was very close to our dog and he died recently so Jongin has been a little out of sorts.”

Kai scrambled back to his desk and looked sadly at it as their teacher turned around.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely.

Kai sniffled and looked out the window. Sehun bit back a laugh as he admired Kai’s acting skills.

Their teacher sighed, “Very well. You may go, but do not let your emotions get the better of you next time.”

Kai grinned and dashed out of the class with Sehun.

“You owe me,” Sehun said as they ran outside.

“Hey, I got you out of the paper thing!” Kai argued. For fun, Sehun had taken a girl’s papers and hid them. Every time she would go get another one and every time Sehun would hide it. Kai had saved him by stuffing all the papers in the desk and saying that the girl was forgetful.

“Whatever,” Sehun said and they began to plan something to do during their next literature class.

Kai sighed as he looked at the empty seat to his left. He was still completely baffled (and not to mention angry) that random people claiming to be from the government could just take Sehun like that and not let his real family see him. They had given no clue as to where Sehun was and in the span of two hours his brother had been taken out of his life. It had seemed quite unreal the first few days, and it was during that time that Kai had realized and fully appreciated how attached he was to Sehun. He had never even dreamed of doing something without him, it had never crossed his mind that he would not do even one thing without Sehun. He had always automatically associated Sehun with whatever he was going to do.

There was a different reason, Kai was sure it wasn’t about Woobin not being able to take care of Sehun.

He just wondered what it was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hiiiii

Today was one of those days where all you can do is think 'I should have....' and 'OMG REGRET'

I have this biiiiggggg project due and I was doing it on my usb yesterday, and I am 100% sure I saved it properly. Then today when I wanted to continue working on it, it wasn't there. And I tried EVERYTHING but it was gone and i was just like NOOOOOOOOO D;

And it was one of those assignments where if it's lost, you gotta start from scratch cuz you can't remember anything from what you did before and you can't change it either. And I'm sure everyone knows by now that I'm very impatient and I hate repeating things so doing this assignment AGAIN is just plain frustrating.

So it was a heart-breaking day for me..... but I stayed strong and positive..... on the outside.... on the inside im cursing this project.....

But oh well~! Gotta move on, the lesson is to always have a second file handy. 

Well bye~! :D