“HOLY CRAP THIS PLACE IS GONNA BLOW.”

            “Calm down Jackson,” I said, trying to keep calm myself. “If Taemin’s plan works out, then we can make it out in time. Hopefully.”

            “Where did you hide the parachutes on the roof?” Kai asked Taemin.

            “I hid two,” Taemin replied. “One taped on the inside of the smokestack, and another in the electrical compartment.”

            “There are two vent passageways that can lead to the roof, though. We should take the one that goes past Suho’s office,” Kai suggested.

            “Why?”

            “Not only is it shorter, but since it also goes past Suho’s office, we can make a pit stop and get whatever we can to use against him.”

            Taemin smirked. “Not bad, Kim Jongin.”

            It was so strange to see the two agreeing on stuff, but I wasn’t complaining as the four of us made our way into the air vents.

            “Watch out,” Taemin warned, leading the way, “there might be rats.”

            “Awh ,” Jackson cursed as he trailed along behind him. I was next in line, with Kai being the caboose.

            Then we all heard it again: the ticking. Except this time, it was even louder.

            One of the bombs was near.

            Taemin stopped. “It’s down there,” he whispered.

            I craned my neck past Jackson’s big head. Sitting in front of us was a little black device, with a countdown marked clearly in flashing red: 00:20:52.

            “We only have 20 minutes until this place blows the up?!” Jackson shrieks.

            “Should we disarm this thing?” I asked. “If anybody knows how to…”

            Taemin sighed. “I do. I taught them how to make the damn things. I have a knife in my pocket.”

            “Then what are you waiting for?! DISARM THE DAMN THING,” Jackson cried.

            “How many do you think there are?” I asked.

            “Five at the max,” Taemin replied as he took off the top part of the bomb to reveal the wires. “One for each part of the building. That way, wherever we are, we’d get blown up. But Suho’s not that smart. The roof should be the safest place.”

            We all watched as Taemin cut three wires with his knife: all of them were shades of blue.

            “I purposely made it easy to disarm,” Taemin replied in clarification. Then he turned to me. “And blue’s your favorite color, Hyemi.”

            I heard Kai growl beside me as he rolled his eyes.

           Taemin finished disarming the thing, and the timer stopped at eighteen minutes. We were running out of time.

            “C’mon, Suho’s place is this way. A few steps after that is the vent to the roof. We’ll be out in no time,” Taemin said calmly. He seemed confident that he would make it out of this unscathed, but I wasn’t so sure.

            Once at Suho’s office, Kai and Taemin proceeded to take whatever they could while Jackson and I stayed in the vent. They grabbed money, papers, documents, and stuffed it in their pockets.

            “Suho can say whatever he wants to the police,” Kai said. “But this is hardcore evidence of what he’s done.”

            The four of us then continued a couple of paces further, finally reaching the roof.

            “Ah! Sweet fresh air!” Jackson said before his eyes widened.

           Because right in front of us were the other four bombs that Taemin had predicted, laid out right in front of us. And behind it all was Kim Suho himself. A remote was in his hand.

            “Last chance, Lee Taemin,” Suho sneered. “Where is the money?”

            “This is all for only 5 million?” Jackson muttered in the back.

            “Do you know how much that would do?” Suho asked. “For myself?”

            “Huh. So you never planned to use it to rebuild the company after all. It was for your own spending, and you manipulated the poor leftovers of Exo to help you get what you want, thinking that they were going to get a share,” Taemin said.

            “You’re sick, you know that?” I said aloud. “You used all of those people, ruined their lives and made them miserable, all so you can be happy? You want to know where Taemin and I first ed? Fine. I’ll tell you.”

            “Hyemi,” Taemin hissed. But I gave him a look, and right then and there he knew exactly what I was planning.

            Suho seemed surprised. “You’ll tell me?”

            “Anything to end this.”

            “If it’s a false location, you’re dead.”

            “It’s not,” I said, taking a step forward so that he had his full attention on me. Kai and Taemin got into their positions while Jackson hid behind Kai.

            I had Suho’s attention and I knew it. For the first time in so long, I finally felt like I had control, power, and dignity. “He and I,” I said slowly, “had our first kiss on the Ferris wheel at Lotte World. We had our first date at Champagne Lovely’s, and we had at…” Just a little bit more Taemin, a little to the right, Kai. “…the lake house.”

            “The lake house?”

            But by now, Taemin was charging towards him, knocking Suho off of his feet and landing on the floor. The remote fell out of his hands and Kai grabbed it.

            “HA! You think you can outsmart me?!” Suho cried. “The minute someone else touches that thing it’s—“

            “JACKSON, THE PARACHUTES!” I hollered.

            But Jackson was already a step ahead of me. He tossed me a parachute. “ I hate heights,” he cursed.

            I looked back to find Kai and Taemin wrestling with Suho before the two of them knocked him unconscious. Then I saw how Kai was still holding onto the remote.

            The minute someone else touches that thing…

            I saw from the corner of my eye the bombs, rattling like they were going to blow.

“Kai!” I said as I ran up to him. “WATCH OUT!”

            I grabbed the remote out of his hands. “HYEMI!” someone shouted before ashes filled my nostrils and a burn grazed my entire body. The last thing I remember is a strong arm grabbing me by the waist, pulling me down with him. His arm was tan.

            “The burns will heal, but she has suffered a bit of head trauma, it might even be memory loss.”

            “Memory loss?”

            “She’s been mentally strained for quite a couple of months now. My calculations say around September?”

             “The month I went missing…”

            “Wait. D-Does that mean she…forgot…”

            “You? Perhaps not entirely, maybe bits and pieces. Time will tell.”

            “Any of you willing to donate some blood?” the doctor asked.

            The two boys immediately shot up. They glanced at each other competitively.

            “What type is she?” Taemin asked.

            “Type A.”

            “I’m type A,” Kai said. He looked back at Taemin, who had shrunk back in frustration. He was type B.

            “I’ll donate some also,” Jackson chimed in. “I’m type O, the universal.”

            “No,” Kai said. “You lost a lot of blood too. Doctor, just take mine.”

            “Alright then,” the doctor said. “Right this way.”

            Kai sat down outside your hospital room, the seconds ticking by.

            “What the hell are you doing out here?” a voice boomed.

            Kai glanced up. “Waiting for her.”

            Taemin crossed his arms. “You’re in no position to do that.”

            “Why not?” Kai asked. “I’m her boyfriend.”

            Taemin scoffed. “Oh, are you now? Because the last time I checked, you betrayed her.”

            “So did you. And you know that you’ve done worse than me.”

            “She might actually remember me.”

 “We don’t know that for sure.”

            “Stay away from her if you know what’s good for you,” Taemin threatened. “You may have given her the blood she needed, but I’m back now, which means that things will also go back to the way they were. You’re no longer entitled to attend the same school as her, and you don’t even have the money to. Suho’s gone, no longer paying for your attendance. You won’t see her there, you won’t see her anywhere, and both of your lives will go back to its proper sphere. It’s just the way life works. She’ll forget about you, and will come back to me.”

            “She wouldn’t forget about me.”

            Taemin smirked. “Wow. You must’ve fallen for her reealllyyy hard. But hey, who wouldn’t?” He put a hand on Kai’s shoulder. “Let her go. It’s her decision now, whether or not she still wants to be with you, even with me back. Don’t pressure her into staying with you when it’s not even worth it.”

            A nurse popped out of your room. “She’s awake.”

            Kai and Taemin glared at each other once more before walking in.

            You were lying on your cot, with a couple of bandages on your arms here and there. Your head was also wrapped. Your eyes were blank, clouded.

            “Hey,” Taemin said. “Are you alright?”

            “Are you…are you Taemin?” you asked him.

            “You remember me?”

            “A bit…you’re someone important to me, right?”

            “Mhm,” Taemin replied, happy that you’d remembered him.

Kai’s heart pounded against his chest as you met eyes with him.

            “And…who are you? Whoa you look a lot like Taemin.”

            “You don’t remember him?” Taemin asked.

            “Whoa,” you kept saying. “You two look alike.”

            “Hyemi,” Taemin said again. “Do you remember this guy?”

            “No. I don’t.”

            Taemin smirked. “Go home, Jongin,” he whispered. “Consider yourself lucky that Hyemi had forgotten you first. You should do the same.”

            You were looking at Taemin, but when you glanced over at Kai and met eyes with him once again, you felt something trigger in your mind.

            And as he left the hospital room, you found yourself wanting to call him back in, even though the boy you thought you loved, Lee Taemin, was right beside you.

            Taemin drove you home from the hospital when you were released. He’d even helped you to your room, even though you insisted that you were walking fine.

            “Ah. Home sweet home,” Taemin said, even though he wasn’t even exactly home. “The hospital gives me chills.”

            You laughed. “No kidding.”

Taemin’s sharp eyes flickered over to a picture on your desk. Your debutante picture.

            “What are you looking at?”you asked him.

“Nothing,” he replied swiftly as he slyly grabbed the picture behind his back.

            “Hello sir, what is your business?”

            “I’m here to see Moon Hyemi, please.”

            Taemin’s head shot up. “Excuse me,” he said to you with a forced smile as he hurriedly scurried downstairs. He found the maid at the front door, and sure enough Kai was standing right outside.

            “I’ll take it from here,” Taemin said to the maid as he dismissed her.

            “I didn’t ask to see you,” Kai said.

            “I don’t think you understood what I told you back at the hospital,” Taemin replied, annoyed. “Stay away from Hyemi.”

            “You can’t tell me what to do,” Kai retorted. “You’re scared, aren’t you? Scared that she’ll remember me and leave you.”

            “And why would she leave me?”

            “Because she’s in love with me,” Kai said. “You don’t mean anything to her anymore.”

            “We’ll see about that.”

            “Taemin,” a voice said from the inside. “Who is that at the door?”

            “Some guy, Mrs. Moon,” Taemin replied. “I don’t know who he is...maybe you might?”

            Mrs. Moon appeared by the door, filling in the space beside Taemin. “Oh. Aren’t yo .Kai? Hyemi’s debutante date? You had also taken her on that horrid motorcycle date?”

            “Motorcycles?” Taemin questioned.

            “Hello, Mrs. Moon,” Kai said with a polite bow. “I just came to visit Hyemi, but Taemin is not letting me through the door.”

            “He’s a stranger,” Taemin argued.

            “To you,” Kai spat. “But not to her.”

            “I’m sorry, but...I think it’s best if you keep your distance from Hyemi from now on,” Mrs. Moon replied.

            Kai’s eyes widened in shock. “Huh?”

            “No offense, but...even before I sensed that she had a slight interest in you, and it was probably only due to the fact that you resembled poor little Taemin over here, in conjunction with her rebellious phase,” Mrs. Moon said.

            “That’s not true.”

            “Taemin is back now,” Mrs. Moon continued matter-of-factly, “and honestly, I value my daughter’s relationship with him too much to put it in jeopardy. You and Hyemi live in two different worlds. You should go along with yours, and leave Hyemi to Taemin, just like how it was before all those months ago.”

            “But I...I need to see her.”

            Mrs. Moon showed no sympathy for the boy. “If you don’t abide by my request, then I might have no choice but to take legal action. Hyemi is extremely mentally strained right now, we wouldn’t want you to harm her.”

            “But I would never do that,” Kai said now, panicking inside. “I would never hurt Hyemi. Taemin has been the one doing it all along I would never stoop to his level.”

            “Taemin has just been protecting his father’s company, just like he should,” Mrs. Moon easily replied. “He did no foul harm.”

            “You’re not serious.”

Kai looked over at Mrs. Moon, whose dark, cold eyes showed no hint of emotions whatsoever. With one last look upstairs, Kai swallowed hard as he turned around and left.