Luci didn't recognize him at first but then she clicked. "Jiho!!"  Luci called and wrapped her arms around his neck. This is the guy who Luci hasn't seen since he was a 16 year old kid with blonde hair. Now, he's a 21 year old young man with light brown hair. Jiho laughed as he returned her grasping hug. 

"Better not call me Jiho in public, Luc." He chuckled. Luci pulled away from the embrace and looked at him knowinly. 

"Still going by the name 'Zico'??" She laughed amusingly. She faced the taxi and waved it to go. Called out a thank you to the taxi before it drove off.

"Yeah." He smiled at her and scratched the back of his neck. 

"I have seen you in 5 years. How have you been?" She asked him, genuinely happy to see him. Which surprised Luci because of the events of today. I guess if you see someone who used to be special to you on the street after 5 years, you'd be happy. Jiho was Luci's first crush, believe it or not. 10 years old when she first met him and he was 13. They were close, as close as best friends, but 3 years later, Jiho up and moved without another word and a week had passed before Luci and Yongguk, a boy who sat beside her in every class she had since primary school and became good friends, got together. Unlike some, Luci actually remembered when her and Yongguk first started going out. It was her best and worst week of her life. 

"Good, good." Jiho replied. He stared at Luci a lot. 

"What are you staring at?" Luci giggled. 

"How much 5 years hasn't changed you." He replied. "You've gotten taller, but not much taller. You're still short. Your face has gown out but you still look young, and your hair, you've grown it out. It was just above your shoulders but now it's up to your elbows." 

"Observant as ever." I laughed. 

"How could I forget you?" He smiled at Luci. 

"As easily as it was to leave me without a word." Luci whispered in reply. She sighed as they began to stroll dow the street. Being around Jiho, she knew she could walk as freely as she wanted with him by her side. Even if it was almost dark, she always felt safest around him. 

"How's Yongguk?" He asked. Whenever she thought about Jiho while being with Yongguk, she always wondered if Jiho knew about Yongguk's feelings for her before he left.  

"You knew, didn't you?" Luci whispered saddly, then realization hit her. "You knew about his feelings for me and my feelings for you, didn't you?" They sat down on a swing set at a small park lit by the streetlights on the footpath. It was dark and she could only see a silhouette of Jiho, but she heard him sigh. 

"I was walking in the same direction as my parents." He began softly. "I wasn't going to involve you with my family issues, not when you had your own at home." 

"Is that why you still go by 'Zico'?" She spoke to him with worry. 

"Not really. Not in the sense you're refering to, Lu. I still fight, but it's more of an on-call thing instead of a full on gang-related association. Block-B only get together when people need back up or when they want us to protect someone. We're like bodyguards." He spoke with so much pride for Block-B that Luci had to believe him when he said he was clean, more or less. "If we were in different situations or if we met and our family history was better, was clean, I would have had no reason to leave. I would have swept you up and never let you go." Jiho said softly as she felt him look at her. She stared off into the trees, avoiding what little eye contact was avalible. "But this is the life we were put into. I'm still doing the same thing now as I was 5 years ago and you're still in the same amount of danger, being around me. Exept you're older and wiser. You're 18 now, you can make any kind of decisions you want to make." 

"Why didn't you ever visit me?" Luci asked saddly. 

"I study abroad for 2 years in America. Then I came home, I visited a couple of times but whoever answered always said you were out. I assumed you didn't want to see me after leaving, but I saw you out with friends and with Yongguk every now and then and realized that maybe all of my visits were just bad timing. Over the 3 year gap between getting back from the US and now, I checked up on you every now and then. Made sure you were okay, more or less, but you looked so happy, I couldn't ruin that for you." He explained to Luci. She nodded in understanding. 

"I little bit of me wishes you did." Luci mumbled to herself. 

"Why?" 

"Maybe if you ruined things earlier, I would have someone to blame other than myself for the break-up between Yongguk and I." Luci chucked unamusedly. "Selfish, I know, but the past 4 hours of being single, I've never felt worse." 

"I'm so sorry." Jiho muttered. "For not ruining things." Luci, this time, cracked a smile.

"Too late now." She said and playfully shoved him.

"Why did you and Yongguk split? If you don't mind me asking." He asked kindly.

"You want to know a secret?" Luci said.

"Sure." 

"You're not allowed to say anything until I've finished." Luci said and Jiho nodded. "He came over earlier with the intention of breaking it off. He explained to me that because he's only been with me, I'm the only thing he knows. He wanted a change and, to be quite honest, I don't blame him ... but when I told him about the current state my body is in, he didn't want to break up anymore. He wanted to stay together, not because he still loved me, but because it was the right thing to do. So I told him to go." Luci said unemotionally. Yet, she was dying on the inside. 

"What current state is this, Lu?" 

"My body is currently going through pregnancy." She replied. \

Jiho got quite angry after that little annnouncment. He wanted to track down where ever Yongguk lived and punch him in the face. When Luci finally calmed him down, he began to walk Luci back to her house.

"It takes two to tango, you know." Luci said, still prepared to calm Jiho down if he was to have another outburst. "And, as much as I hate to admit it, he did want to stay together for the sake of the baby." 

"If you love him so much, why didn't you let him?" Jiho growled through a clenched jaw. 

"Because staying in a loveless relationship will result in in him either cheating on me or long nights spent arguing, and the only one that will get hurt in the end is him, me and this baby. Besides, if he wants to find something or someone else to explore, who am I to hold him back from doing so? Like you said, older and wiser and making any decisions we want to make." Luci said, trying desperately to stay sounding normal but she knows her voice cracked at some point. 

As they reached her house, Jiho gave Luci his number. "I won't text you until tomorrow maybe. I'm gonna head out in the morning and change my number, maybe buy a new phone all together. Mine is getting old." 

"Wait for me tomorrow. I'll come with you." Jiho suggested. Something told me that he knew that I was planning on ditching school for the rest of the week. "I'll pick you up at about 10am tomorrow morning. Spend the day around Incheon maybe. Bike or car?" He asked. 

"Jiho, you know I would choose Bike in a heartbeat, but car is safest." Luci smiled at him. 

"Okay." He pulled Luci in for a hug and kissed her forehead. "Get some rest. See you in..." Jiho glanced at his watch. "12 hours." 

"Sure thing." She replied. As Zico left her doorstep and Luci entered the house, she went straight to her room. 

Luci glanced at the room and she closed her door with her foot. She closed her eyes and wished that this was a different room, a different setting ... a different life. When she opened her eyes, it was still the same as it was before she had closed them. She walked past her desk, her book selves and her wardrobe. Glancing at all the couple photos nd memories. Becoming angry with the kind of turn life has taken for her, she swiped everything off her desk and wardrobe in a heart beat. Picking up the photo frames and throwing them against the wall, listening to the glass shatter into a thousand pieces. She was ripping pages of of books and burning the pages of her diary and chucking them into the steel trash can. She forced of the drawer where Yongguk keeps his clothes and other and chucked them out the window. After she was done tearing her room apart, the put the fire in her trash can out with last night's water bottle and she fell to her knees and hands, uneffected but the sharp broken glass underneith her and cried for what seemed life hours. Until Luci got up and made her way down stares and outside to the drawer she threw out the window. She took it all inside, emptied the contients and sat my the fire in the lounge, throwing everything in one by one. After doing so, she went back to her room and laid down on her bed, not caring to clean up the blood on her hands and knees. Not caring that tomorrow, she'd wake up with dry blood on her hands and knees. 

~~~~~

The only thing I have to say is: I'M SO SORRY. x