Joohyun couldn’t sleep for the next two days since she knew the fact about Chanyeol and his father. Her knowing that the guy who got beaten was Park Chanyeol really made her wonder why. Out of the guys, why did it have to be Chanyeol, the guy who she recently decided to dislike?

Now her curiosity about his issue with his father grew up after Joohyun searched “Park Chanyeol’s father” on the internet. She was shocked when one of the articles on the internet said that Park Jooyeol, his father, was the head director of Park Corporation, a big company that worked in industrial machines. This company ran the production of industrial machines for factories in the whole country. All factories in the country trusted the products of Park Corporation.

“Were you beaten because you didn’t do what he asked?” Joohyun found herself whispering, staring at the screen where showed the whole page about his father and the company.

Joohyun grabbed her phone, opening Chanyeol’s personal contact her friend sent a few hours ago. She asked her for his contact since she couldn’t help but feel somewhat guilty. And the urge to talk to him was high.

“Should I introduce myself first?” Joohyun opened a blank new message. “No, no, that doesn’t need to.”

“Argh! Let’s just end this,” Joohyun groaned after several minutes, typing something on her screen. It says: “Hello there, I’m the one who helped you that day. I hope you still remember me.”

“Send, send, send,” Joohyun pressed the OK button frantically, throwing her phone on the bed as if it was going to explode any time soon.

 —

“Here comes our drum–” Baekhyun stopped when Chanyeol entered the room, his eyebrows were knitted. “Chanyeol, what happened to your face?”

“I fell on the floor,” Chanyeol coldly answered, making his way to the drum set. Since his father’s attack, Chanyeol hadn’t left the apartment. He’d been trying to recover his face so that it wouldn’t look as bad as it used to. But for two days he hadn’t thought of the fake reason to cover up.

“How did that happen?” Sehun’s attention was fully caught by Chanyeol’s new appearance. The wound on his forehead might be real but the purple circle on his face looked too weird to be a reason he fell on the floor.

“My eyes are a different story,” Chanyeol pointed to his eyes as if he knew what the youngest was thinking. “Just a dumb morning, I don’t really want to talk about it.” He thought that would shut them up.

“I want to know how dumb it is that makes a cold guy like you got a purple circle,” Baekhyun added, followed by a cheeky laugh.

“Maybe Chanyeol is secretly very dumb when he’s alone,” Sehun snapped his fingers, wiggling eyebrows to the oldest.

Chanyeol didn’t respond back, taking his drum sticks out of the bag. When he grabbed the sticks, his phone accidentally fell off. Chanyeol picked it up to see a new unread message from an unknown number.

Probably a threatening message from that guy, his mind said. He then opened the message:

“Hello there, I’m the one who helped you that day. I hope you still remember me.”

Chanyeol lifted his eyebrows, blinking several times. He had forgotten about the girl’s presence since he couldn’t find who this person was. But when this message showed up, he felt glad, if he had to be completely honest. Now he could at least contact the girl for saying a thank you.

“Hello. Of course, I still do, thank you for helping me that day. Now please tell me what’s your name so I can return the towel. Thank you again, by the way,” was the reply Chanyeol sent.

Joohyun received the text right when she was having lunch with Junmyeon. She almost choked on her drink when she noticed that the contact name ‘PCY’ popped up on her screen.

“Be careful, Joohyun-ah,” Junmyeon whispered, the girl didn’t answer back. “Who is that?”

Joohyun quickly replied without thinking any longer: “You’re welcome, please keep the towel. Also, I’m sorry but the name doesn’t really matter. Anyways, I have a question, if you don’t mind answering.”

She was honestly not really sure if she was doing the right thing but the curious thoughts in her mind wouldn’t stop clouding there.

“Eh, yes, Jun Oppa?” Joohyun got her sense back to the older guy in front of him.

“Uh,” Junmyeon blinked a couple of times before asking one more time, “who is that?”

“Oh, this is just– my friend,” Joohyun flashed a reassuring smile before slurping her noodle. No matter what would happen, she would never tell anyone that she was having a conversation with Chanyeol from The Rebels, not even Junmyeon.

Junmyeon only nodded then focusing on his food again. Joohyun took a glance at her screen to see another message from Chanyeol. She internally praised how fast Chanyeol was to reply to her text. She quietly opened the message under the table: “Name doesn’t really matter, I like that. And yes, please ask away.”

Oh, he’s quite polite, Joohyun’s heart spoke, nodding a little. She then replied back after thinking for a while: “this might sound a bit personal and I don’t think you’d ever want to answer but I’m just wondering, what happened to you and your father?”

Joohyun continued eating, occasionally checking her phone once in a while but the guy on the other side hadn’t replied yet.

“You look so excited reading these books,” Junmyeon commented, breaking the silence. His eyes pointed to the three law books. “Are criminal cases really that interesting for you?”

“Ah, yeah,” Joohyun nodded, smiling firmly. “These are my favourite. It’s so fun to read these chapters, honestly.”

“You’re not planning to kill anyone, are you?” Junmyeon grinned jokingly.

“No, I’m planning to kill you, Oppa,” Joohyun stuck her tongue out in return, followed by a short giggle.

Junmyeon stopped his track, trying to digest what the words Joohyun just said could possibly mean. Among all the wildest thoughts, Junmyeon assumed that she implied that she had a feeling for him and used the word “kill” to cover it.

Junmyeon shook his head, whispering in a very low voice, “that’s impossible.”

Joohyun’s phone squealed, blinking a message pop-up on the screen. Joohyun opened it: “Well, that’s the question I never thought you’d ask. But you already got my answer; ‘this might sound a bit personal and I don’t think you’d ever want to answer”

Joohyun snorted softly at the last sentence Chanyeol copied. She then replied: “Okay, let’s be honest here, I’d like to help you. You might look calm and all but your eyes are crying for help. You might have a lot of friends but you’re deeply a lonely person. I totally can see it in you. Let me help you, please.”

That one was quite long and Joohyun was proud of herself for being able to think fast then pouring them into words.

“Let’s go home,” Junmyeon announced after feeling left out since Joohyun had been busy with her phone. The younger girl nodded then getting up.

“Stop having pity on me, I don’t need that. If you contact me only to lecture me, I’m going to block you. Thank you,” was the first message Joohyun saw once she arrived in her room.

“Wow, look at this bad-tempered guy,” Joohyun chuckled softly before replying: “I’m not having pity on you, I promise I’ll be a good listener. I want to help you, that’s all. You’re never alone.”

“Do you guys know whose the heck this number is?” Chanyeol sat on the couch, looking around his band members who were busy watching funny videos complication on Youtube. “Guys!”

“Hmm,” Baekhyun turned his head around, annoyed.

Chanyeol jumped off the couch and sat next to them, having his phone screen face them. “The last three numbers are 837.”

Baekhyun squinted his eyes a little bit before shaking his head. “No, maybe Jongin or Sehun does,” he got on his tummy once again, focusing on the screen with the others again.

“Useless,” Chanyeol cursed beneath his breath before replying to the text: “I’m not telling anything to someone who doesn’t even want to give me a name.”

The next message came in quicker than before, Chanyeol could tell how curious this person was. It said: “They say talking things out with strangers is much better than with the ones we already know. Let’s prove this right.”

Another new message came in before Chanyeol could reply: “You can trust me, your secrets will be a hundred percent safe with me. You want proof? Look at what we have here, if I were a bad person I would have told the world that Chanyeol of The Rebels just got beaten by his own father, but I didn’t. I bet nobody excepts me