Niel walked towards his mother’s room that night. He stopped when he heard voices coming from her room.

“mother..” niel heard byunghun’s, he eavesdropped the boy conversations with his mother.

“byung-Honey..what happened to ur face sweetheart?” the mother of the boys asked once she saw his precious son face was painted with purplish bruises

 “i…i…fell” he lied. “are u feeling any better mother?” he tried to switch the subject.

“I do, thanks for the herbs honey, but those herbs were not easy to be found, it must have cost you so much son”

“it’s ok mother, I don’t mind at all, as long as u’ll get better is enough to make me relieved”

“oh honey, what a nice boy I got myself”

Niel couldn’t believe his ears. After those incident and meeting with a weird magician, byunghun ran away. Not just he gone but the magician as well. no one could see him anywhere. But as to think about byunghun, had he gone to bought more herbs? To replace those ruined herbs earlier? But those were really expensive..

he was startled when he saw the door opened, to see byunghun standing there, in front of him.

“mother is asleep. U wanna come in, young master?”

“byung..” niel said quietly. He could see dark bruises peeking out on the boy’s cheek and forehead. “i…” guilt threatened him. he should be blame. he need to protect this boy but yet he doesn’t and let everyone bullied him.

“do u need anything, young master Ahn?” niel bit his tongue. He can’t let his guard down; he was much want to apologize. “earlier, u ran away…to buy another herbs right? why did u buy such an expensive herbs?”

“I read those herbs could break mother fever. Her fever growing worse nowadays and I can’t only watch her being weak. She needed them”

“u don’t have to though, if I had known, I will-“ “but u didn’t know” byunghun cut him off

“excuse me?”

“u always called me a slave right? Well, this is my duties after all. Father always sends me off to buy herbs and I read a lot about medicine and treatment, so that, I can know what herbs best for what diseases and how it looks like and where to get those. And forgive me for saying this young master, but u didn’t know that ur mother fell ill since a month ago. U were too busy to spitted no righteous words on my face”

Niel eyes widened as he listened to byunghun’s sudden burst. From what he heard, he knows that byunghun also hate him as much as he does. However, he couldn’t hide how embarrassed he was feeling because all that byunghun just said was….right. he don’t even had any idea that his mother was actually ill until byunghun told him. he was too busy to find the other boy’s mistake until he forgot about thing regarding to his mother.

Byunghun bowed and turned away “excuse me, young master”

“wait.. byung…”

“y-yes young master”

“thank u”

 “eh?”

“for taking care of my mother when I