"Why are you following me?" I yelled to her behind, still faced forward.

"Ch..don't flatter yourself, Mingyu-sshi. Goodnight, see you tomorrow," Dahyun said sarcastically.

I stopped and turned around, seeing her figure walk up a path that hardly had any lights on the streets. I questioned if she really lived in this area, so I did the more un-Mingyu-like thing and followed her from a safe distance.

The road was barren, and just like I observed, there were barely street lamps. There was probably one every 3 blocks or so. I followed her until she stopped in front of a small..very small, house. It wasn't nice, but it was the nicest one there; it was the only house with color considering the flowers that were grown in the front yard.

I don't know what prompted me to act like this: following her home and all. I wanted to make sure she got home safe..but I didn't care...!

Once she was in, I lingered around a bit and sat down under the street lamp by her house, bringing my knees up and leaning against her brick wall.

I didn't want to go home. I dreaded going home because it wasn't a home. It was just a house, a place that sheltered me. As I was following Dahyun, I looked around. This must be the low income houses because they all look the same for the most part and the only clean and "impressive" looking thing were the streets.

They were pretty spotless for a neighborhood like this...Not to be steriotypical or anythning, though.

But as I was walking, I wasn't just thinking how anyone could live here. I thought about my parents. Something I solemnly wanted to remember. The incident that happened with them all that long ago still wakes me up in the middle of the night, sometimes crying, but most of the time, sweating that accompanied bad memories.

As I said before, Wonwoo and I have been friends since we were young. Probably the 1st grade. We also had a third member-- Vernon. He became friends with us in 2nd grade and we were just kids who were the best of friends up until middle school- up until the incident.

My first year of middle school, my parents were involved in an accident, which is the incident that started it all. I remember it clear as day. I was walking with my aunt and uncle out of a grocery store where we secretly bought my mom a cake while my parents went to get the car to put away groceries. It was my mom's birthday. She liked plain vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.

My aunt, uncle, and I were about to exit when we heard the sound of a car crash, screaming, and pure, bloody silence that followed when we finally stepped out to see the bodies of my parents, unconscious on the pavement. I couldn't help but stare at the pool of blood that surrounded them.

I stared until my aunt and uncle ran over to help them. I stared until I saw my uncle throw punches at the driver of the car. I stared until the ambulance came. I stared until my eyes practically bore holes at the emergency room doors, waiting for answers. I stared until they were in their respective caskets, ready to be greeted with eternal darkness. And I stared at the headstone, waiting for everyone to sing her (belated) happy birthday.

They never sang.

After this, I just saw the world as vanilla. Plain, typical, no-surprise...vanilla. Rarely did I ever see the world as vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. 

I shut myself out from the world, including Vernon. Wonwoo only knew about my parents' accident because he was at the funeral himself due to our parents being co-workers in the same company. But unlike most friends who's parents were friends, we didn't have a forced friendship.

Vernon took this personally. He didn't find out until high school and blamed himself for being a to me. He became distant from us. To this day, I'm not sure if he's still upset about this incident or just ashamed to show his face to me for acting how he did.

I stood up and cursed at myself for remembering this event, then headed back down the road to my house, wiping away the evidence of sadness that I left behind on my face.

---

Author's POV

Nearing Christmas break, people at Heir's took it seriously upon themselves to be as festive as possible. It had just been announced during lunch that the annual talent show will occur the day before Christmas break and auditions were starting at the beginning of December for the first week.

When this was announced, the lunch table immediately looked back down at their food sadly.

"Wow! A talent show?! My school never allowed this kind of stuff, guys lets do it, let's--!"

Dahyun finally turned her attention back to her group of foreign friends (+ Hoshi) and was beaming excitedly, but then stopped smiling once she saw their heads low and sulking faces.

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