“Go!” Baekhyun yelled, letting go of me and Sehun who he also appeared to have dragged out of the place. People were opening doors, worriedly going to the old man’s apartment.

Go, help him. I thought desperately, feeling a sudden surge of anger towards Suho and the ringleader of the other guys. Whose stupid idea had this been? And why did they not get accurate information? Why had I agreed to breaking into someone’s house anyway? What was the point? What had I gained from it?

I had no time to dwell on these questions because we were running in all directions. Sehun, Baekhyun and I towards a bus stop in the opposite direction.

“Phewf!” Baekhyun said, skidding to a stop as we arrived at the bus stop. “That was close!”

I did not share his relief, I was looking at the building, hoping someone had gone to help the man.

The bus arrived and we got on it, trying not to look to suspicious. Sehun and I had removed our caps and stuffed them in our pockets.

It was a long bus ride home and when I got there, the absence of a lecture from Myungsoo felt odd. As though I wanted a lecture, I wanted someone to reprimand me for what happened.

---

When I went to the hospital the next day, I was completely out of it, more than usual. That morning on the news they had reported the break in, as well as footage of us fleeing from the scene. You couldn’t see any of our faces, they were hidden by the caps, the bad quality, and the blanket of darkness, but the cops were still out there, looking for us. The old man, they reported, was okay and unhurt.

So when Mrs. Jang asked me how I was helping Jaehwa and Sara (who I was sandwiched in between at one table) with their creative writing pieces, I stared blankly at her.

She gave me a hard look and nodded her head towards Sara who was writing and erasing something on her paper.

I pushed the thoughts of the previous night out of my head. Grandpa nor Myungsoo had suspected anything as I didn’t come home past my usual time, 10:30.

“Erm, are you having trouble with something?” I said awkwardly to Sara.

Looking equally awkward, she nodded, “How do you spell phone?”

I told her the spelling and watched her work. She was such a small little thing, I was surprised she was able to hold the pencil without it falling. And her pigtails would bounce every time she bent down to add something to whatever she was writing.

I turned to Jaehwa who I observed had been observing me observe Sara.

Look away from the eyes, away from the eyes. I reminded myself as I reset my gaze to his hand, “Need some help?”

“Are there two p’s in appreciate?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, daring to look at his face.

It really was like mine, even past the eyes, just the general upper face area. His lips were smaller though, and he was very pale.

He looked away and fixed whatever he had been writing.

Now it was my turn to observe him; he wrote very slowly, as though he was taking great care and caution with what he was writing. He paused every now and then to thoughtfully think out what he was going to write next, it was like whatever he was doing, he had to do perfectly and with care.

It was admirable really, compared to my rushing of things and giving every mediocrely important idea in my mind less than three second of thought. But this kid, it seemed even if it was the smallest of acts like picking up a pencil, he did with carefulness.

The task that the kids had been given was to write about their dream day, a perfect day. Saehee and I were supposed to help the kids write it since their skills were a little less than perfect owing to the obvious reason that they were only kids.

“When you’re done bring them to me and I’ll hang them up,” Saehee said, she was standing at the far wall, taping up Haneul’s (who of course had finished hers in record time) work.

Half a boring hour later, all four of their papers were taped up and they were on the jungle gym once again. Well three of them were, Jaehwa was sitting at a table reading.

Saehee left to go do something and so I was delegated the task of sitting with Jaehwa.

He seemed quite unperturbed by our earlier awkward encounter, and was calmly reading his book.

He held it up with one hand to scratch his ankle, but that was apparently too much for that hand because the next second the book had fallen onto the floor.

I picked it up and held it out to him, making sure to keep his place in the book with my finger.

“Thank you,” he smiled and took the book back. It was a rare, beautiful smile.

“You like reading?” I asked, attempting to make conversation.

He nodded.

“What kind of books?” I asked, I had never been much of a reader. I read the books we were supposed to read for school but never went past that. Words made my head hurt.

“Action and adventure,” he replied, showing me the Magic Treehouse book he was reading.

“Cool,” I said, now realizing that I was really bad at making small talk.

“Do you read books?” he surprised me by asking me a question too.

“Not really,” I responded.

“They’re fun, you should,” he said, before disappearing behind the pages of his novel.

I sat there staring at him for a long time.

---

Mrs. Jang had me deliver papers around the hospital while Saehee gave the kids lunch in the cafeteria. After last week’s little mishap with the lunches, I was glad not to have to analyze the food and remember every kid’s rules.

After delivering lab results to a doctor, I stopped at a vending machine to grab a drink. As I sipped the cool pop, I walked around, savouring my free moments before Mrs. Jang would somehow find me again.

As I was walking, I noted that a hospital was indeed a very odd place. First off, there was a funny smell distinct to each department. Then there was the fact that no matter how hard they tried, the hospital just couldn’t provide home comfort to patients, who I noted longingly looked out the windows and fluffed their pillows in frustration.

I saw a nurse put a vase of flowers near a patient, the moment they hit the side table, the patient, who was a middle aged bald man, began sneezing like mad and yelling about allergies. The nurse, rather embarrassed, quickly scurried out of the room with the flowers.

I continued down the corridor and Mrs. Jang appeared in front of me once again.

“Saehee has to leave so I need you to look after the kids in the playroom while they wait for their parents,” she said.

“Sure,” I said and headed back to the playroom where Wookung and Jaehwa were having a discussion on books (the two had such different taste, Wookyung liked to read books with knowledge, as in facts while Jaehwa liked stories). Haneul was teaching Sara a complicated handshake and laughing at the silliness of it all.

As I watched them, I found it amazing that these kids were still quite likeable even when they were sick; they weren’t bitter or crybabies. They probably hardly went outside and Saturdays were the only days they got out of their ‘bedrooms’.

I sat at my window ledge and looked out the window, not even looking when a parent came by to pick up one of the kids. When I did glance at who was left in the room, it was Sara, who looked jumpy and nervous, glancing at the door every three seconds.

When a woman with a kind face and round eyes walked in, Sara’s shoulders slumped in relief and she ran towards the woman, “Mommy.”

“Did you have fun?” her mother asked.

Sara nodded and looked at me but then looked away.

“I’ll take her now, thank you,” her mother smiled at me, startling me but I nodded and she took Sara and left.

I got up from my ledge, tucked the chairs into the table and did a last check to make sure everything was in order. I walked towards the door and when I took a step into the doorway, Saehee slammed right into me, her head colliding with my shoulder and (it was really funny to be quite honest) bounced off.

“Oops, sorry,” she said sheepishly, looking up at me and taking a few steps back.

I shrugged, “Am I still needed?”

She glanced into the room, “Nope, I guess not. See you.”

“Yeah,” I said offhandedly and headed home.

---

Saturday kept me busy and away from thoughts about Friday’s little adventure, but on Sunday I had plenty of time to dwell.

I woke up feeling like a pile of crap and barely ate breakfast, though that wasn’t out of the ordinary, I never really ate breakfast.

“Plans for today?” Grandpa asked, looking at me over his newspaper as I prodded and poked my cereal. He, Myungsoo and I were seated at the table, Myungsoo was drinking coffee and looked very tired. He just got home from an all-night shift. Though he was downing a mug of coffee, I knew he’d be in bed knocked out by the next hour. Coffee never kept Myungsoo awake.

I shrugged, “Homework, I guess.”

“Any news about university applications?” he asked. Grandpa was very excited at the prospect of me starting post-secondary education. He had been a lawyer back in the day, and I knew he was one of the best. You could just tell with the way he talked and convinced people of his opinion. He really wanted me to attend post-secondary school, study hard, and get a good job.

I’m looking forward to university as well, a little change in surroundings would be nice. I want to go into science, not sure where but definitely somewhere in the medicine or forensics field.

“Yeah I think they’re going to give us the information on applying soon,” I said.

Grandpa smiled and returned to his newspaper.

“You might want to think twice on going into science, especially if it involves working at a hospital,” Myungsoo said tiredly, slamming his empty cup onto the table.

Grandpa laughed and I smiled as Myungsoo announced that he was going to sleep for an eternity and a half.

“I’m going out,” Grandpa said, folding his newspaper and placing it on the table.

“Where?” I asked as he stood up and put his hat on.

“Banks, law firm, here and there,” he replied, grabbing his walking stick. Grandpa was always visiting his old law firm, he had many contacts there and they were always keen on talking to him, even having him help out with a few cases.

“Be good,” he gave me a warning look before leaving the kitchen. A couple of seconds later, I heard the door open and close and knew Grandpa was heading for the bus stop.

I emptied my cereal and milk filled bowl into the sink. As I turned away from the sink, my eyes landed on Grandpa’s newspaper. On the front page, not as the headline, but as a side article was the break in that my friends and I were responsible for.

I grabbed the newspaper and turned to the appropriate page and began reading.

The article was accurate; almost a dozen teenage boys all dressed in black breaking into an old man’s apartment, vandalizing it.

There were witness quotes too.

“They were like crazed monsters. They trampled over poor Mr. Lee and the place was a mess. It was absolutely disgusting, almost everything was thrown out of place and there were vulgarities written everywhere,” said Mr. Lee’s neighbour. “The poor man’s going to live with his kids for a while, some neighbours have volunteered to help clean the place up.”

“Those creatures were running in all directions, not a care in the world. It was absolutely nauseating to see such cruel and cowardly youth,” said Shin Haeyoung, another neighbour. “I just can’t believe they did this to an innocent elderly.”

I stopped reading at this point and felt the little breakfast I had eaten churn in my stomach, threatening to come out the wrong end. I threw the paper in the trash angrily and leaned against the counter as words from the article sprang out at me.

Monsters.

Creatures.

Cruel.

Cowardly.

Innocent.

Trampled.

The old man’s scared face floated in my head and I wanted to throw up.

I felt like ’s , whatever that means. I hate the way everyone is depicting “those boys” and I hate that I can’t do anything about what’s happened.

I decide to head out, clear my head a bit. I grab my jacket from the hall closet, throw on a pair of shoes, make sure I have my phone and go out the door.

I take the bus to the mall, maybe some act of stupidity committed by the human race will take my mind off of the current situation.

However, the world seemed to hold so many more elderly people when I entered the mall. There was a small, old lady being lead by her grade-school granddaughter to a toy store, an elderly man on his walker waving to someone who could only be his son.

Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans and determinedly not looking at anyone I made my way over to the more modern stores.

I walk into a random store with a bunch of hats and shoes and pretend to be interested in the newest pair of Nike shoes.

“Need any help, stealer?”

I jumped out of my skin and looked at the saleswoman next to me who was looking quite perplexed at my reaction.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I said, “Need any help, sir?”” she repeated.

“O-oh,” I stuttered. “Er, no thanks.”

She nodded her head at me before turning away to another customer, and I let out a shaky breath. I left the aisle I was in and made my way over to the hats.

After a few minutes of looking at hats but not really seeing them, I left the store.

I was starting to feel like it had been a very pointless trip as I left the shop, it had been a very meaningless outing indeed.

As I was leaving, something collided with my knees.

I looked down and saw a bouncy pair of pigtails before Sara’s face looked up at me.

“Sorry,” she said, taking small steps back. She was wearing normal clothes (a pink skirt and a matching white top) and I was too stunned to speak, what was she doing outside of the hospital?

“It’s okay,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“My nurse said I could go out for a couple of hours with my dad,” she said, looking up at me again.

“Oh, er, that’s nice,” I said awkwardly before noticing the absence of a dad. “Where is he?”

She shrugged and shook her head and I was startled to see tears in her eyes when she looked at me again.

“I think I lost him,” she whispered.

“H-hey,” I said awkwardly, bending down to her eye level, thinking it was the dad who had lost her. “Er, it’s okay.”

She blinked at me and it came over me that that was the worst possible comfort I could give a seven-year-old.

What I really wanted to do was send her away to find her dad by herself.

What I couldn’t do was send her away to find her dad by herself.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll help you find him,” I offered, and was surprisingly pleased as relief spread across her face. I straightened up and jumped a little as she grabbed my hand. It was a very small hand, a very warm hand, and it was trembling.

“Where did you see him last?” I asked.

“By the frozen yogurt place, but I can’t find it anymore, it just disappeared,” she said nervously.

I almost laughed at how astonished she was that the frozen yogurt place had seemingly vanished. It was cute.

“Let’s try again, shall we?” I said, and led her to the frozen yogurt shop I knew the location of.

“Oh! That’s it!” she pointed at the shop excitedly.

“Yeah! Imagine that,” I said, smiling.

There was no sign of her father so I bought her some frozen yogurt (just a scoop, since I wasn’t sure she was allowed to have frozen yogurt).

“Do you know where your dad wanted to go?” I asked as we stood outside the frozen yogurt shop. “Like what shops he needed to visit?”

“He said something about a suit,” she said, taking a small bite of the yogurt. I knew this mall very well, and knew that the formal, expensive clothing shops were all clustered together in the mall.

“Come on, I know where the suit shops are,” I put my arm around her very small and skinny shoulders and led her to the formal stores. It wasn’t too far but I still felt the need to ask, “Are you tired? I can carry you if you want.”

She shook her head, her pigtails flying in all directions and threw her empty yogurt cup into a nearby trashcan.

We arrived at the expensive end of the mall and Sara pointed to one of the shops, “He goes to that store a lot.”

I grabbed her hand and led her into the shop, where we were immediately ambushed by a salesperson.

“I’m just looking for this girl’s dad, she got lost,” I said, cutting off the person’s speech on the exquisiteness of the store. The man looked rather affronted but then invited us to explore the store for the girl’s dad.

It was a fairly large store, so we began navigating our way through it right away. It was amazing how five pairs of pants could look exactly the same but be so different in price. It was also astounding how many tuxedos and matching leather shoes a place could hold. I was starting to get a headache from the smell of freshly waxed shoes and dry-cleaned suits.

As we were passing the assorted arrays of ties, Sara stopped and squeezed my hand, “He’s right there.”

She was looking at a man who was examining two ties that looked exactly the same. That wasn’t what struck me as odd though, what struck me as odd was the fact that this man was looking absolutely unconcerned at the fact that he had a potentially missing daughter. It seemed as though the ties he was holding were of far greater importance than a lost child.

I looked at Sara and saw that she didn’t look very happy to see him. Relieved, perhaps, that she had a ride home and wasn’t lost anymore, but she didn’t run up to him, give him a hug and yell “Daddy!”. Then I remembered yesterday at the hospital, Sara was looking nervous as she waited for her guardian to pick her up, and there was evident relief on her face when her mother got her. Had she perhaps been scared that her father was going to pick her up?

“Let’s go,” I guided her to her father and we stood beside him as he continued to touch up the identical ties.

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat and looked at me. “I have your daughter.”

It was then that he looked down and laid his eyes on a scared-looking Sara.

“There you are,” he said, though not in a tone that suggested he had been wondering where she had been. “Stupid girl, I told you to stay by my side. Ugh, I told your mother I couldn’t take you along my errands today, you can’t even watch out for yourself.”

I raised an eyebrow at that statement and saw Sara’s eyes begin to water again.

“I’m sorry, daddy,” she whispered to her feet.

“Don’t call me daddy, you’re not my child,” he said coldly and Sara shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, I think I’ll take this one!” he called to one of the workers, holding up one of the ties.

“Thank you, Kai oppa,” Sara said, looking up at me. “I really appreciate what you did, and the frozen yogurt.”

She let go of my hand and my hand felt a rush of cold where hers had been. Her tone indicated that I could leave, however, I did not want to leave her like this, with that man.

“What are you waiting for?” her father barked at me. “You’ve dropped the dying brat off, go on, clear off.”

This time my eyebrows flew to the top of my head and I literally would have given anything for Sara not to have heard what he said, because the look on her face went from fear to utter terror.

“Is that how you speak around a seven-year-old child?” I asked incredulously. “She’s a kid, you’re the parent, you should have been watching her. It’s not her fault she got lost, kids always get distracted in malls.”

“I don’t need a lesson in parenting from you, silly boy,” he said loftily. “You may leave now; you’ve done quite enough.”

“I’ve definitely done more than you,” I snapped. “Looking at your freaking identical ties while your daughter is missing-”

“She’s not my daughter and I think it’s high time you minded your own business!” he said threateningly. “Go before I call security!”

What I really wanted to do was throw a punch at this guy and tell him you don’t call a sick little kid “dying”. I also wanted to tell Sara that she wasn’t dying, that she was going to be okay.

“You’re disgusting,” I said. “You-”

“Kai oppa,” Sara said suddenly, causing me to look at her. Her father then took this opportunity to badmouth me to a worker and insist on my removal from the store. “Thanks for bringing me here, but you can go now.”

She was incredibly uncomfortable with the situation I realized when she said that. She was embarrassed, she didn’t want me to see this life of hers, quite extraordinary for a seven-year-old to feel that way.

I bent down to her eyelevel again and said so only she could hear, “You’re going to be okay, Sara, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

She nodded, her eyes forcefully wide and wet.

“I’ll see you Saturday, bye kiddo,” I patted her head and stood up.

“Excuse me sir, but I must insist-”

“Yeah yeah, I’m leaving,” I rolled my eyes at the employee who had spoken to Sara and I when we first entered the store and left the store, not entirely at ease I must admit.

“That was…….unexpected,” a nastily familiar voice said next to me as I was heading for the exit of the mall. I nearly jumped out of my skin again as I looked and saw Vice-Principal Choi standing beside me.

“What the hell?” I said in an annoyed voice. “Are you stalking me? I’m not “under your discipline” right now.”

“I know,” he said, keeping up with me as I walked away. “I just witnessed that little scene in that shop over there.”

“Oh you decided to witness it instead of do something about it? That’s your idea of taking action? Going through with your stupid change?” I shot at him in an accusing tone. How many coincidences can occur in one day? Bumping (literally) into Sara and seeing Choi at the mall, who would have thought?

“You handled it just fine.”

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“Is she one of the kids you work with at the hospital? I caught the unfortunate use of the word “dying” in that scene,” he said conversationally. “I also caught your very obvious anger at the hostility towards the young girl.”

“I’m starting to think all you like to do is observe and hand out punishments. I’m surprised you didn’t start handing out detentions back there,” I snorted as we entered the parking lot. It was very odd to see the VP outside of school hours, outside of school. It was even more odd to hear him not yelling at me.

“You know, Jongin, hide it though you may want, you showed a very good side of you back there,” he said, stopping to turn to the left where the cars were parked. I stopped too.

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s a nice side, a side I hope will come out more with your continued work at the hospital,” he said, smiling. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

He walked towards his car and I turned the other way to the bus stop. I put my hands in my pockets, I was surprised too, he wasn’t nagging me or judging me. Though I was reluctant to accept his praise, he seemed genuinely happy at what he had seen. 

I, however, wasn’t. The way that man treated Sara was disgusting, she’s so fragile and he was treating her like she was made of iron and steel. I didn’t feel like I did anything so praiseworthy that Choi was all happy about, all I did was snap at an older man and get kicked out of a stupid suit shop.

---

            Next morning, I went to school ladled with lasting guilt from Friday night, and lurking worries about Sara, who I assumed was back in the hospital.

So when I met my friends before school on the field, it’s safe to say I was less than happy to see them.

“AYO KAIIII!” Chanyeol yelled gruffly, slamming into my back as I approached the group.

I shrugged him off and fixed my bag.

“We were just discussing how awesome it was that we got away with Friday, can you believe that?” Suho grinned at me.

I didn’t smile, and I could see Sehun and D.O weren’t sharing the rest of the group’s excitement, or should I say pride. Looking at all, or most, of my friends impressed faces, my temper rose to the surface once again.

“You think it was awesome, did you? What we did that old man?” I said testily. “You think it was cool how we trashed his apartment, do you know how much that’s going to cost him?”

“Dude, chill. He’s not paying for anything, insurance and elderly pension or some like that,” Baekhyun said, looking surprised at my response.

“Aside from financial costs, we scared the out of him,” I said angrily. I rounded on Suho, “One of your buffoon friends knocked him over and no one bothered to stay and help the man! He’s probably too scared to live by himself now. And why the hell did you drag us along on that freaking joy ride with your idiotic apes from Busan, when they couldn’t even get the apartment right?”

“You need to calm down,” Suho said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “And I didn’t see you objecting when you and Sehun were throwing apart the front entrance. Besides, the old man is fine, bills are paid for, what’s the big deal?”

“You’re unbelievable,” I shook my head and walked away. As I was walking away, I saw Choi watching me. I rolled my eyes and walked faster.

I ended up being early to class for the first time in all of high school.

---

That thing I was a part of on Friday was the first time someone got physically hurt in our shenanigans.

I never want to feel this way again, it’s like my guilty conscience is literally chewing up my insides.

I hate it, I hate it so much.

---

Helloooo~ :)

I don't know guys, I really don't know. I feel like Kai's character is weird :( :( :( :( I might change this chpater up a bit when I'm more awake (it's the middle of the night right now), but I felt like putting up whatever I had.

Have a good day/night!

PS university is really intense, really hard, and I want to cry.