A/N: The flashback story in this chapter correlates with those from previous chapter and chapter 7, not sure if you still remember lol

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Joohyun struggled to put on her uniform.

The wounds on her back were still fresh from her father’s whipping a few days ago. Any movement as simple as smoothing her arm into her uniform sleeve brought immense pain to her torn apart skin.

She spent five minutes trying to put the blouse alone, wincing and groaning ever so slightly everytime the fabric rustled against broken skin.

Once finished, she swept her backpack in hand and opted to walk out of her room just as the torn bunny doll beside her bed caught her attention.

She stared at it numbly, wondering why she felt more guilty and less angry now that her treasured doll was ruined.

The image of Wendy wrenching it back from her father only to be paid back with a choke on her neck fleeted back into her mind and she shook her head vigorously.

She stepped outside of her room before guilt could gnaw on her further.

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“Wendy, get in the car.”

Wendy stared between her father and her sister with a conflicted look. The man repeated himself twice as firmly and snapped her to attention. “I said get in the car, Wendy.”

Wendy climbed up to the car shakily, her voice worried as she looked at Joohyun who clearly avoided eye-contact. “But unnie is sick...She should ride the car with-”

“She’s going to walk to school. It’s her punishment.” Her fafther stated sternly. Joohyun decided to kindly remove herself before the glistening layer on Wendy’s eyes broke into full-blown cry.

“I’m going.” She said shortly before turning away.

She had marched away far enough from her house for her father to disappear into small, insignificant background when she noticed that she had no money on herself to take a bus.

Her wallet was confiscated and without a vehicle to ride it would take her one and half hour to walk to school.

Joohyun cursed mentally.

“Unnie!”

Startled, she turned around and found Wendy jumping off of their halted car, her hand rummaging panicky inside her backpack as Joohyun opened to protest.

“What are you doing? You are going to get me scold-“

“Here.” Wendy shoved something into her hand -- coins -- and she looked so anxious, she totally missed the absence of anger in Joohyun’s usually cruel voice.

“School is far and you’re still unwell so... p-please take a bus.”

She blinked nervously before hopping back inside the car. The driver looked behind anxiously in fear that they would be seen by his master.

“I-I will see you at school.” Wendy stammered shortly and the car rolled away before Joohyun could say a thing.

She was left alone to stare at the coins in her hand, refusing to feel but feeling her walls crumble down all the same.

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School was still hellish.

The last incident of her pushing Wendy to the ground seemed to double the murmurs whenever she walked by in the school corridors.

Joohyun paced down the corridor faster with her head bent low. She happened to pass by Wendy’s class in a hurry when she caught a glimpse of the girl sitting alone.

It was weird, Joohyun thought. Wendy usually had dozens of drones crowding around her.

She let the thought pass however, and continued to make a beeline for the girls’ bathroom because she was eager to get away from every noise.

The last thing she expected when she put her hand on the doorknob was another noise, and a familiar one on top of that.

“So, she really shoved Wendy down until she fell? What a .”

Joohyun noticed the voice, her unfailing memory telling her that it was the same girl who spoke to Wendy a few weeks ago.

“Yeah, I saw it myself! It was so scary. She looked like she could murder her right then and right there. I got goosebumps!”

“See? I always told you guys that there’s something wrong about her. She’s so quiet and freaky.”

“Scary.”

“Monster.”

The hushed whispers continued to drag on and Joohyun’s fingers curled tightly around the doorknob until her knuckles turned white.

She was about to barge in when the next words stopped her in her track.

“Luckily, Wendy refused to come down with us today so we can talk freely like this.”

“Yeah. Remember last time when we were talking about Joohyun and we didn’t know that they were sisters? She got so mad yelling at us and insisting that her sister wasn’t a bad person.”

Joohyun’s hand stilled and her eyes opened widely, realization hitting her hard like a sledgehammer to her head.

Wendy was defending her.

She wasn’t spitting stuffs behind her back, and yet she --

“Ignorant. Look at how the witch paid her back. Stupid.”

“Yeah, she’s so naive. I personally think she is an idiot. But hey, that's why we can leech money off her --“

The door blasted and the girls snapped in unison to its direction with horrified looks. Joohyun stood before them with teeth baring.

“You.” She growled and swept forward, making the three girls back immediately against a wall. She hovered before them with a glare so sharp it could tear through their skin. “Stop saying so much about other people before you get hurt.”

She snarled and left them squeaking frantically. “S-sunbae! W-we were just talking --“

“Talking what?” Joohyun hissed, the intensity of her glare alone could burn their flesh into blackened ash. “Talking about my sister and about me being a monster? Yeah, right!”

She sent one hand up the leader girl’s collar and fisted it tightly. “Since you’re so sure about me being a monster, how about you watch your words before I rip out that tongue and feed it back to you? You garbage.”

She threw the girl aside harshly and the girl cried out loud when she crashed against hard sink, her friends scrambling down to fetch her.

“Y-you! We will tell this to the principle! Y-you will regret this!”

Joohyun glowered, her eyes cold and unforgiving as she bent down to hold the girl by chin, her voice cruel and spiteful.

“I don’t care. Try and see what will happen. You asked for a monster, I will make sure you get one.”

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Wendy was sitting alone near the basketball court when a bag of packed lunch was tossed to her lap.

“Eat some.”

She looked up to find Joohyun staring down at her with a stiffened look, awkward but somehow friendlier than she had ever been.

“Unnie?” The lack of hostility threw Wendy off and the word slipped out of  a tad too loudly. “Oh, sorry. I know you hate me calling you that in school.”

“Not just in school.” Joohyun said stiffly, but she sat down beside the girl all the same. “Anywhere.”

“Right.” Wendy looked down to her lap again and Joohyun cursed herself for how inept she was at communication.

Luckily, Wendy was as pleasant as everyone claimed her to be.

“Did you buy this for me?” She waved the plastic bag around with wide-eyed wonder and Joohyun looked away.

“No. I bought too much for myself and I couldn’t finish it.” She lied.

Wendy hummed nevertheless and started unwrapping the pack gratefully. “Thanks, un- ah, I mean thank you. I haven’t eaten.”

Joohyun knew the girl hadn’t had lunch because she wasn’t used to eating alone in cafetaria without her drones, but she asked anyway. “Why?”

Wendy’s eyes dimmed slightly and she muttered. “I...I had a little argument with my friends and it’s uncomfortable for me to join them now.”

There was long silence before Joohyun asked. “Well, do you want to join them again?”

Wendy looked up and found her words stuck in  because Joohyun was staring at her properly for the first time in forever without disdain. It was so baffling because without anger and hatred like this, Joohyun looked so soft and beautiful.

“No.” She muttered quietly. “I don’t really want to.”

There was a small smile stretched across Joohyun’s lips, tiny and almost invisible, but for Wendy who had been so used to snarl and glare, it looked as vivid as a burst of colors.

“Great. Then maybe I don’t have too stupid of a girl to be my sister.”

There was a quick evasion of gaze following that statement but Wendy felt like the jibe meant no harm. Instead, it felt warm and peaceful for the first time.

She dipped into the packed lunch with small smile, keeping the question as to why Joohyun approached her first today burried somewhere.

She didn’t need to know as long as Joohyun was willing to do this more often.

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The next few weeks took Wendy in complete surprise in a way she only dared to dream before.

Joohyun had warmed up to her existence somehow, no longer glaring at her like she had stolen her entire world or yelling at her to get away whenever she came close.

They would often have lunch together, short and awkward because Joohyun was as socially inept as someone could be, but the older girl didn’t stop coming and Wendy was more than delightful.

She would make Joohyun feel as comfortable as possible, carrying casual, idle talk about movies, hobbies and favorite books to which Joohyun responded surprisingly well.

It surprised Wendy that behind that guarded, stern mask, her older sister was a soft-spoken and shy person. A complete opposite to her bubbly and chirpy nature.

On normal days, Wendy would drag her around to see stuffs around the school that wasn’t in the library, and on better days, she would nag the older girl to go home together.

Like today.

“Wendy, father is going to get mad at me again if I ride the car with you.”

“He doesn’t have to know.” Wendy grinned, mischief playing in her eyes. “It’s tiring for you to walk, we can drop you off a few meters before we reach home!”

“Yes, we can, but our driver also has a mouth that can report things to father.” Joohyun exasperated and added tiredly when Wendy pouted at her. “He’s paid for it.”

“Alright.” The younger girl frowned and Joohyun thought that she had finally tamed the stubborn girl -- she really thought she should have remained the scary, angry unnie from before -- but to her shock, Wendy waddled with her little legs to the driver and looked up with her chin held high.

“You go home alone. I’m walking with Joohyun-unnie.”

“Wendy, what?” Joohyun flustered and the little girl turned around with a proud grin. “What? There’s no order from dad saying that I can’t walk home with you.”

Joohyun gaped and Wendy extended her hand quickly. “Come on, unnie. You won’t get punished this way.”

Joohyun wasn’t sure if it was the confident, round eyes or the wide, carefree grin, but she would like to think that it wasn’t because she began liking Wendy’s company that she accepted her hand.

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It was both good and bad to take Wendy with her to the bus station.

Good because she had someone to walk with, and bad because Wendy was not used to public transport and its crowd, just like how she was not used to.

Maybe it was right that they were both rich, spoiled brats.

“There’s n