Mina let her gaze travel from Nayeon's face down to her ankle where a band-aid was sloppily placed. She successfully sneaked Nayeon into her room and let her clean herself up. She wasn't going to let the girl use her bathroom but she didn't have much choice. She really didn't want to explain to anyone why she brought home a beaten up girl.

She stood up and walked over to her bed to where Nayeon was curled up. The band-aid was bothering her so she pulled it off quickly, earning a yelp from Nayeon who was just starting to doze off. "Oww! Why would you do that?"

"You didn't put it properly. It barely covered anything." She grabbed the box of bandages on her bedside table and got a new one to replace the one that she pulled off. She carefully placed it on Nayeon's ankle and smiled. "There." When she realized what she just did, her hand shot up to cover . She cleared and returned to her swivel chair. She checked if Nayeon was still awake and if she knew what Mina did but Nayeon looked like she's been knocked out. In the most literal sense. Like a gamer, who's only boxed using a Wii, was suddenly thrown into a ring to fight Ali.

Mina started wondering if Jungyeon and Jihyo knew about this. If they did know and they didn't do anything about it, then they're ty friends. She'd like to believe there's a good explanation for all of this. She's trying to piece things together but all of the conclusion she could come up with were ridiculous. She heard a familiar sound and looked at the monitor to see Chaeyoung inviting her for a video chat.

She made sure once again that Nayeon was comfortably sleeping before she accepted the younger girl's invite. "Hey, Chaeng."

"Hi, Mina-unnie. Why weren't you online earlier? I was looking for you. I was forced to play with noobs. Ugh! They're kind of idiots."

Mina giggled. "You were once an idiot, too. Remember when you kept dying and I had to keep on reviving you and then 5 seconds later, you die again and our team mates were you calling you names. One of them asked if you had child hands and suggested for you to use a smaller keyboard."

"Why would you remind me of that?" Chaeyoung whined but she stopped when she noticed the unusual lump on Mina's bed. She's used to seeing pillows and plushies on Mina's bed but this one definitely did not look like it's a pillow or a plush toy. "Why is there someone on your bed?"

Mina looked at her bed and then back at her monitor to see what Chaeyoung was seeing in her screen. She quickly moved to try and block Chaeyoung's view of her bed. "No one. That's no one."

"Liar! Who is it? I thought we were friends and you were going to tell me everything, unnie."

Mina frantically covered the camera with her palm and sighed. "Damn it. Fine but I have a totally good explanation for this so don't you dare jump into conclusions." She stopped covering the camera and sat back down. "It's Nayeon."

Chaeyoung gasped and covered with both hands. "Oh my god, Mina-unnie! A girl shouldn't be giving her heart away that easily!"*

"What?"

"Just because she likes you doesn't mean you have to easily let her in your bed. You need to play hard to get."

"Wh...You! You have such a dirty mind, you erted child." Mina could not believe what she was hearing from her cute junior. There she was thinking that Chaeyoung often talked about dating and kissing only because she was curious. "That's not the reason she's on my bed, SLEEPING, right now."

Mina went on to explain what had happened to Chaeyoung. "Oh. Well, that's really nice of you, Mina-unnie. Do you have an idea who did that to her?"

"No. I told you, I have no idea she even went to our school until the start of this school year. I didn't go to my classes that much and I don't remember being in the same class with her until now. I don't know anything about her."

"That has to change. How could you date her if you don't know anything about her?"

"Da-wh...What? You are totally... Listen here, child. No one's daing or will be dating anyone. This is why you get shot at and die, you miss the point of things very easily."

Chaeyoung's attempt of keeping a straight face failed and she bursted out laughing. "You called me 'child.' You only do that when you're being defensive."

"I do not! I don't want to talk to you anymore." Mina huffed and crossed her arms across her chest.

Chaeyoung's laughter only got louder. Seeing Mina sulky was very rare. In fact, seeing any other kind of emotion from Mina was rare. Chaeyoung would usually compare it to a scene that she's watched from a movie where the main character tried to stop herself from shopping by literally freezing her credit card and when she couldn't take it anymore, she tried everything to thaw the huge block of ice to get her card.

To put it simply, Mina was that huge block of ice and the credit card was her emotions. They've been online friends for a year now but Chaeyoung knew that there were more to Mina than the girl would let on so she tried to remember small details about her and observe her every time they talk.

"Then, shouldn't you be ending the call now?"

"But I have nothing else to do and I'll be bored. Where am I even supposed to sleep now?"

The two came to an agreement that Chaeyoung would stop making fun of Mina as long as the latter helped her brushen up her skills on a game that she recently got into and they played it for hours. They only stopped when Mina heard someone groaning. She almost forgot about Nayeon.

She shut her computer off in a haste and abruptly stood up. Nayeon was waking up and Mina started panicking for some reason. She checked the clock and it was already 3 in the morning. She thought that in about 3 hours, she needed to go to school again but she remembered it was a weekend. She had all the reason to stay in bed.

"Bed. I should be sleeping by now. She might think I'm weird for still being up this late."

Nayeon was starting to move so Mina carefully but swiftly occupied the part of her bed that Nayeon wasn't occupying. Her position was very akward but she tried to keep still as she felt the bed shifting because of Nayeon.

Mina wondered what she was doing and she flinched when she felt Nayeon tapping her arm. "How do I get out of here?"

She did her best to try and pretend like she just woke up. "Uh...jump out of the window?"

"Oh okay."

Mina bolted up when Nayeon started making her way towards her room's balcony. She pulled Nayeon by the back of her shirt. "Stop. We're on the second floor. Do you want to die?"

"You can't die from that fall unless you land on your head first," Nayeon replied as she fixed the shirt that she was wearing. It was a shirt that Mina let her borrow.

Mina told her to stay put as she checked if there's anyone downstairs. When she was sure that everyone was asleep, she and Nayeon came down to use the front door.

"Are you sure you could go home alone? It's 3 am."

"I'm not going home yet. I have somewhere I need to go to."

"At 3 am? Where?"

"I'll give your shirt back on Monday," Nayeon replied before she walked away, leaving Mina with more questions left unanswered.

Monday came but Nayeon was still a no show and Mina couldn't help but think about the most terrible things that could have happened. It was like googling why you have a headache and learning that there's a chance that you could die within the next five months.

She tried to talk herself out of it, saying that she sould not care about Nayeon. A month ago, they didn't even know of each other's existence and Principal Song said they should be study buddies. She didn't say anything about babysitting the girl.

She was telling herself not to meddle but as she did, she was already making her to the Im's. She could already see the Im's gate and was about to turn around when she saw Nayeon trying to sneak out of their own property.

Mina hid behind a post and contemplated on following Nayeon so she could finally find out what girl was up to. "I shouldn't even be here in the first place. What the hell am I doing?" she asked herself as she carefully shadowed Nayeon.

As hard as it was for her not lose Nayeon, since she was making sudden turns and walking in unfamiliar alleyways, Mina was able to keep up. She saw Nayeon enter a building and got on an elevator. She stood by the elevator when the door closed and waited to see which floor it would stop. She then used the stairs to go up to the 4th floor and found Nayeon standing in front of one of the units.

Mina watched as the door opened and out came a lady who looked like she was in her late 50s. Nayeon looked up at the lady and got on her knees to do a big bow. She couldn't quite hear what Nayeon was saying but the old lady's voice was loud enough for her to hear what she was saying.

"Didn't I tell you not to come back? No amount of apologies will make me forgive anyone from your family for what your father has done to my son!" The lady bended her knees to reach Nayeon's hair and pulled on it, making her look up.

Mina balled up her fists, getting angered by what she was witnessing. She decided to walk towards them but stopped when she heard Nayeon muttering, "I'm sorry," repeatedly.

"Do you see what your father has done to him? How is this better than my son dying? One month of being in a coma! He lived only for the doctors to tell us that half of his body is now paralyzed! He tried to kill himself countless of times and eventually suffered depression. He refuses to get better. So tell me, how is your sorry going to help?"

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm here to offer help. We could help with the medical expenses. I just need you to sign--"

Nayeon was cut off with a hard slap on her cheek courtesy of the furious woman. "I just really need you--"

Another hard slap followed by a shove and Mina couldn't just stand there to watch it. She ran towards Nayeon and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her up. "We're leaving."

Before Nayeon could protest, Mina was already dragging her away. She could hear Nayeon asking her to let her go but Mina wasn't going to do that. Once they were outside the building, she faced Nayeon and saw tears streaming down her face.

"Please let me go. I-I'm just doing this...for my family. Please."

Mina let her grasp loosen. This was far from the Nayeon she first met a month ago. She's never seen anyone look so broken and she was having a hard time trying to pretend that she was apathetic.

"I just want to help my dad. I just want my mom and sister to come back." Nayeon's voice broke. She was having a hard time catching her breath from crying too much. "I just want my family back. I-I need my...family back." her head hung low as she finished her sentence. She's never felt so tired in her entire life and she felt like passing out right then and there.

When Nayeon's body finally gave up and her knees gave in, Mina was there to catch her and prevent her from falling on the floor. She immediately whipped her phone out of her pocket and called the first person who knew could help her.

---

Jessica handed her sister a glass of water and waited for her to finish it before saying something. Mina has told her what had happened and now she was also curious to know the rest of the details.

"Everyone in the faculty just assumed she was getting into these gang fights with other students but we were all wondering why it was just her and her two friends were out of it. Mrs. Song talked to her but she couldn't get much information. Nayeon simply told her that she got into some random fight and she told Mrs. Song it was never going to happen again and then three days later, she hasn't shown up to school. So Mrs. Song called the guardian that was listed on her emergency contacts."

Mina remembered the last words that Nayeon has spoken. "Who?"

"It wasn't her parents. It was a guy that her father had entrusted to look after her while he was away or at least, that's what the other teachers were saying."

Mina knew that she probably wasn't going to get anything from Nayeon when she wakes up so she decided to call the two people that she could squeeze out an information from.

---

Jihyo and Jungyeon sat at the foot of Mina's bed where Nayeon was currently sleeping on. Mina had called them, saying that it was urgent and that they have to immediately go to her house.

The two refused to come at first and kept on asking Mina why they had to but as soon as Mina told them it was about Nayeon, the call was ended and twenty minutes later, the two girls were knocking on the door, panting like they just ran a marathon.

"I still don't think we should tell you anything."

"I don't think Nayeon would want anyone else to know. Especially anyone from school." Jungyeon stared at her unconscious friend, guilt building up.

Mina took a deep breath. "Look. I just saw your friend getting hurt by some woman. In front of me! I need to know why this..." she looked at Nayeon, "this person who had no problem defending me to some bully the other week didn't do anything and just let someone hurt her like that. I'm not gonna ask again.You either talk or I'll let the principal know about this."

The two girls knew Nayeon wouldn't want that to happen either so now they're conflicted on what to do. Jungyeon looked at Jihyo as if asking her for permission and Jihyo gave it to her hesitantly.

"All of this has to do with her dad. Mr. Im wasn't a bad person."

Jungyeon went on to tell Mina what transpired five years ago. Mr. Im owned a construction company that he inherited from his father and has made millions from it until eight years ago when he was almost forced to file for bankruptcy.

He prevented it from happening with the help of a long-time friend who made a living by lending people money with a very high interest rate. He convinced Mr. Im that the payback was huge enough and in a few month's time, he'd be able to pay his debt with the money that he's gotten from it.

"Mr. Im only agreed because he didn't know at first how his friend made sure that the people he gave loans to would pay him back," Jihyo said. She knew the story because her father had told her when she was younger.

Mina didn't have to ask. She knew what the Mr. Im's friend did for a living. "The guy was a loan shark."

Jungyeon nodded. "Mr. Im only found out when he said he wanted out because he's finally paid his debt and their business was picking up again but this so-called friend didn't want to let Mr. Im go that easily. Not when he's getting a lot of commission from all the deals that he does with Nayeon's dad."

"One day Mr. Im stopped giving the guy money so he had no source of money and he won't be able to loan other people money anymore and that pissed him off. Then five years ago, he found a way to get back at Mr. Im. He framed him and managed to gather all the people he's lent money to to file a case against Mr. Im. The guy went as far as brainwashing those people into believing that it was Mr. Im's fault that they got into whatever storm they were in. He probably fabricated those evidence so his name would stay clean while Mr. Im gets all the blame."

"Most of the cases that were filed were serious physical injuries related and because the guy had convinced people to be witnesses, the case against Mr. Im got stronger and..."

Jihyo could see how Jungyeon was struggling to finish the story so she decided to finish it for her. "Mr. Im got convicted for crimes that he didn't even commit. Not directly. I mean, he didn't even know that the guy he thought was his friend harrassed the people that they've given loans to and hurt them and their families when they didn't pay right away."

Mina put the pieces together but there was still something amiss. "This doesn't answer why she's constantly getting hurt. It doesn't make sense to me."

"Right. A week ago, their family lawyer told Nayeon that he's finally succeeded in filing for a retrial. The case has been opened again and the lawyer informed her that if there's not enough number of witnesses or if those people sign some sort of an agreement then Nayeon's dad could be able to get a shorter sentence."

"Shorter than 10 years," Jihyo added.

"So she's trying to get those people to sign that?"

The two girls nodded in response and Mina didn't quite know what to feel after hearing that story.

_____

*if im not mistaken this is a lyrics that is included in both like ooh ahh and cheer up lol well for LOA i think it's "im not an easy girl" or something
im not a gamer so i honestly have no idea about computer games that are played online. i really only played time management games like hotdog bush or burger island or nerd games like bookworm. i've failed gamer mina OTL

This chapter is way too long im sorry look at that huge wall of text and for those who've followed me on twitter. Feel free to just talk to me im in dire need of someone to fangirl with (because my only cousin who likes kpop doesnt stan twice)