“Nicole, come here, you’ve got a new friend here,”

Five years old Nicole hid behind the door, peered through the window, watching her Mom bringing a little boy into their home. Her Mom took her hand and asked her to greet her new friend.

“Nicole, you two shall get along together, okay? When Mom isn’t home, play with him and don’t go outside home too far, okay?”

Being an obedient kid, Nicole nodded her head and smiled at her new friend. But she was scared. It looked like the little boy didn’t want to befriend her. Nicole’s smile faded as she rushed to hug her Mom.

“It’s okay, the two of you will get along well. Stay together when Mom isn’t around, okay?” her Mom brushed her pinky cheeks and took her hand to hold the boy’s hand.

And then her Mom went outside the home, leaving little Nicole behind, who called her Mom with the little boy watching her confusedly.

“Mom,”

“Mom!”

Nicole woke up from her dream, and she could feel the sweat all over her face as she panted, clutching her chest. For the past few days, she always had the same dreams, and an unknown feeling filled her being afterward. She didn’t know the meaning of it all. Was it a signal for something? Or was it because she misses her Mom?

Out of sudden, the sound of something dropped down into a crack coming outside. Her eyes went wide, and she held her breath and paused any of her movement to take a better listen outside the house. And the sound came again, a loud crack, and she was sure this time it wasn’t just a random sound. With a broom as a weapon in her hand, she charged toward the door.

“OH MY GOD!” she bravely opened the door only to found the two men falling to her feet with a loud groan. “Seungri? Soohyuk?”

“OH, HI NICOLE!” Seungri looked up at her and waving his hand as Soohyuk smacked his head telling him to shut up.

Nicole sighed a relief. At least, it wasn’t those thugs that always comes for Jiyong.

“What are you doing here?” Nicole helped the two to get up, and she could smell the strong alcohol as Seungri breathed and hugged her which earned him another smack by Soohyuk, this time in his ribs.

“Look, we’re sorry, Nicole. Were we disturbing you?” Soohyuk said, and from what she could see, he was kind of sober, unlike Seungri that seemed drunk and unconscious of what was happening around him.

“Of course you idiot. If it wasn’t because of you dropped that goddamn cans, she would’ve been sleeping peacefully!” Seungri started blabbering and then bowed multiple times to her. “In behalf of this reckless idiot, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize, Miss Nicole.”

Nicole meekly nodded when Seungri started to shake her hands, begging for an apologize. “Yes, yes, It’s okay,”

Seungri smiled drunkenly and clung to Soohyuk’s arm. “Look, Soohyuk, my friend. Miss Nicole said she is okay.”

“Yeah, yeah, shall we go home now?”

“She said she is okay! You hear that Kim Soohyuk?”

“It’s Lee Soohyuk, you idiot. Let’s go home now.”

Nicole watched the two helplessly and to make things even more severe, Soohyuk started throwing everything inside his stomach out. Gladly, he did it outside the house. Seungri caught her arms just when she wanted to step outside to check on Soohyuk condition.

“Nicole, we’re going home now. You said you are okay, right? So I can inform that to Jiyong. He told us to come here to check on your situation. But, sshh, let it a secret okay? He didn't want you to discover us. Soohyuk, my friend, let’s go home!” Seungri walked to Soohyuk unsteadily and waved to her before he dragged the pale Soohyuk away.

Nicole watched them drunkenly walking like a zombie toward the gate until they were out of her sight. Closing the door, she sighed deeply and walked back to the bed. The clock showed 5 A.M. She didn’t feel like going back to sleep at all. There was this peculiar of restlessness when he replayed Seungri’s words before.

He told us to come here to check on your situation.

Kwon Jiyong asked his friends to check on her situation.

Just why? When she thought about it, he did keep his words very well. She hadn’t seen him for two weeks straight since the last time he brought her into this house and even until now the owner still unknown. She wasn’t naive to not suspicious of him at all. Not that it was a bad thing though. If this house was his, why did he lie to her? He was right at one point. Up until now, no one comes to bother her again. The neighborhood was also very friendly toward a newcomer like her. She likes her new environment, albeit sometimes she missed her old home and the memories she had with Hara. But at another point, she bothered by the fact the neighborhood refused to give her further details about Kwon Jiyong when they knew who he was. She could only assume maybe he lived in this house previously or he used to live in this neighborhood.

She got startled when the sudden thunder started booming outside. Sneaking under the blanket, she watched from the window how heavy the rainfall.

It’s just like two weeks ago when Kwon Jiyong walked through the rain calmly, she thought.

* * *

It was rare to hear the noises filled the entire house in the morning, but today was the exception. When Jaejoong went to check into the living room, he found his aunt trying to get away from Hyun Mi’s prevention and as soon as she saw him, her face displayed incredibly anger as she pushed the girl harshly and stormed toward the man. She threw a paper in his face angrily.

“Cancel your resignation.”

Jaejoong glared back at her for a few seconds before the corner of his lips twitched into a taunting smirk as he picked up the letter. “Why? Isn’t it your all t