Mirae’s POV

I woke up with a terrible pain in both my hands and especially in my head. I lay on a bed in a bright room with the daylight shining in through the windows on my left. “Oh, you’re awake. I’ve just finished giving you morphine that should kick in soon. I’m guessing you’re in a lot of pain... The doctor will come and examine you as fast as he can. It’s a busy day today.” I turned my head a little to the right and saw a nurse standing next to my bed. An even brighter light was exposed to my eyes as the nurse checked my reflexes and other things. I couldn’t see anyone else in the room.

“Where...where am I?” I asked, feeling quite groggy and out of place. I hardly remembered anything from before I fainted, only that Kris and Tao had been there. Instantly, the mere thought of them made me panicked. “How did I get here?!” I screamed at the nurse.

“My dear, c-calm down!” she stuttered, holding me down on the bed. “You’re safe. Your brother is here, outside. And your mother and father will be arriving soon. You’ve been unconscious for about two days now and there’s been an investigation about what happened. The police found you with...” She paused. “You know what, I’ll get your brother here so he can explain everything to you.” The nurse smiled at me quickly and then hurried out. A moment later Jongin rushed inside and directly to my side. He took my hand in his and I could tell he had cried recently.

“You’re awake,” he whispered. “You have no idea how worried I’ve been! Are you feeling all right? Are you in pain?” He caressed my forehead while smiling. I shook my head.

“No, no pain. But I’m not all right. Tell me what happened,” I told him severely. Jongin’s face stiffend. He swallowed hard and blinked away a couple of tears; his reaction didn’t calm me. “Jongin? How are you?” I instead asked.

“Not now, angel,” he replied. “I’ll tell you some other time, okay? You need to rest.”

“What?” I stared at him confused. “No, Jongin, tell me what happened! Where’s Luhan? Where are Kris and Tao? How did I get here?” Jongin set his jaw and looked away. “What is it?” I demanded knowing. His facial expression confused me even more than before. It stood pretty clear to me that he was hiding something from me, perhaps this was more critical than I thought at first. “Jongin, tell me what’s going on!”

“Fine. That bastard- I mean, Luhan is down at the police station.” I looked at him in shock. Police station? What on Earth was he doing there? The quizzical expression on my face demanded that Jongin ought to elaborate further. “Mirae... he’ll pay for what he did, okay? I’ll make sure he pays for it.”

“Pays for what? What did he do?!” I could see Jongin’s tears well up again. “Jongin! What did he do?!”

“He... They...”

“They? Kris and Tao? Jongin? Tell me!” I was starting to sound desperate and scared. In fact, ‘scared’ would be a huge understatement. I was terrified. Jongin’s tight grip on my hand began to hurt, but I didn’t mind it right then. I just wanted to know what had happened to Luhan, why he was down at the police station and where Kris and Tao were located. Until then I didn’t care about anything else. “Jongin, please!”

“They think he you!” Jongin cried out. His face turned paler than ever and I could feel the silence that would follow. My bottom lip trembled while the tears came flooding down. It had to be a lie, it just had to. Worst case scenario had been thinking it was , or that Luhan had killed someone but I refused to accept it. Sure, Luhan and I had been in a small fight but he would never do that to me. Would he? I jerked my hand out of Jongin’s grip and turned my back to him, lying on my side with my hands under my head. “Mirae? I swear, he won’t get away with it.” Possible scenarios and scenes began to form in my head as I imagined how it could’ve played out. I saw Luhan’s smirk – the smirk he had shown me the first time we met – and how he slowly ped his jeans...

“Go...” I mumbled. I couldn’t think, hardly even breathe properly. It felt like my heart was going to implode and all my dignity and pride had been ripped off my back. I felt dirty, forsaken. Had I lost my ity in a dirty alley, unconscious and to someone I thought cared about me?

“Listen, the doctors don’t know yet because they haven’t examined you. But if you want to put him behind bars you’ll have to-”

“Leave me alone!” I screamed. I desperately grip