“Jasmine! Yah Han Jasmine!”

He swiped his sweaty forehead with his shirt. Sehun had been searching the girl for two hours now. They were playing hide and seek near the forest just across their neighborhood. After Sehun finished counting one to one hundred, he began to search for Jasmine near the bushes just where she always hiding, but to his horror, she was nowhere to find.

Panic, Sehun tried to call her name and searched her in the surrounding but failed. Grumpily, he boldly walked into the forest because his instinct told him that the girl had go there. Fortunately, the eight years old Sehun had come into the forest a few times before with Mr. Han to go fishing at the river in that forest.

When he arrived near the river, he saw Jasmine was trying to walk in the water, her body bent down as if she was looking for something in the river.

“Min!” Sehun hollered her name but the girl did not even turn to him. So, he started to run to get her.

“Jasmine! What are you doing in there?”

Sehun watched as the girl looking around frantically in the water. Just by staring at her, he knew that Jasmine was in the verge of tears. He softly tugged both of her hands and pulled her so that she was facing him. Just like he thought, Jasmine suddenly cried. Her face was dirty with dry grass and dirt, including the dress that she wore.

“What is it? Tell me.”

She was still crying, shoulders hinched and snot started trailing under her nose, making Sehun disgusted. He dipped his hand into the water and clean her face, while the girl was still crying with her hands gripping to his shirt. Sehun gently raked her hair with his fingers before he tied them with a rubber hair that he always brought anywhere because Jasmine didn’t like her long hair and she didn’t know how to tie her hair.

“Min. What is it?” he asked again, this time while cupping her face. The girl tried to calm her breath before she answered.

“My sho-“ her tears started to fall again.

“Your what?”

“My shoes! That blue shoes that you made for me! Both of them drifted by the water when I tried the catch a fish!”

“So why are you crying? You can buy a new one-“

“No!” she cut his words. “That was made by Shun! It’s mine!”

Sehun kept his hand to her ribbon on her dress as she tried to go under water again. He looked down to his body, and then to Jasmine before he sighed loudly to himself. The girl loved everything that she received from him, did not matter even if it was a piece of paper with only his name on it. If she lost it, there was only one way to stop her from crying.

“Han Jasmine.”

The girl looked up to him, her eyes red from producing so much tears. She looked so miserable that Sehun could not help but to cup her tiny face and his mischief fingers wipe her wet cheeks. He quickly bent down and planted a kiss on both of her cheek, which made Jasmine immediately stop crying and only blinked confusedly at him.

“I’ll make you a new one, okay? Let’s go home.”

Sehun carried the girl on his back, who fall asleep as soon as she wrapped her hands around Sehun’s neck and slowly whispered his name to his ear.

“Shun.”

…

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

Jinsoo’s voice softly asking her. Jasmine could hear that Sahee was trying to take the phone from Jinsoo but failed.

“Hmm. I’m having a fever anyway. I can’t even stand properly.”

She then heard voices muffled on the other side, and Sahee finally got to talk to her.

“How come you’re having a fever? Is this because Sehun got into that scandal and you were just too disappointed that you-“

 Jasmine huffed. “It’s not like that, Sahee. I was in the rain yesterday when I went to the grocery store. I forgot to bring umbrella with me so I just walked in the rain.”

“You are so stupid Min. You could just wait somewhere under the roof until the rain stop.” 

“It was already late that time so I had no choice.”

Jasmine pulled the blanket up to her neck. She could feel how hot was her body. Even when she exhaled, her breath was hot. Luckily that it was already semester break.

“If that so, Jinsoo and I will go home then. It’s not fun to watch EXO when you’re not there. Are you sure this is not because of Sehun’s scandal yesterday?”

Jasmine actually snorted but then she coughed. She had to take a few breaths before answering Sahee.

“It is not, Sahee. I need to rest. Bye.” She ended the call before Sahee could even say goodbye. She was too tired to walk down the stairs and make breakfast so she could only drink water from the tap in the toilet. Jasmine felt lonely, especially that she was sick like that. There was no one to look after her other than herself. She did not want to burden Sehun by telling him or else he would need to cancel some of his schedule.

And Sehun just got himself into a scandal.

Dejectedly, Jasmine pushed herself to stand and walked into her library. She left her phone in the bed, only bringing the blanket along with her. The tiles felt so cold under her feet, so she tried to walk as fast as she could.

The library was dark but the air in it was still lingering with jasmine scent that came from the candles. She switched on the night stand. She took the pillow on the sofa, put it on the carpet and then she lied there, covering her body with the thick blanket to warm herself.

…

It felt like hours before Jasmine heard the door closed and someone trying to pull