2 months after

They say that flowers only grow when given the right care and the warmth of the sunlight. Yuta was like that—a man who had changed under the right love and guidance. From someone who was often moody and always snapping at people, Yuta hardly did that anymore.

The same way he had changed, we were both inseparable. Yuta was more than just a step brother to one, more than just a friend to many and more than a lover to me. He was his own self and he had a certain wisdom to him that I learned of with the time I have spent with him. I found myself alternating between my own room and Yuta’s private room, dressed in his silk pajamas more often than I had liked.

Today, I had turned around to feel his breath against my shoulder, Yuta mumbling something as I stirred in my sleep. There was a faraway pounding sound and I wondered what that was, Yuta kissing my shoulder repeatedly like he did every morning when I realized that the pounding wasn’t very far away.

It was right in front of his door.

“Yuta,” I murmured, Yuta groaning when he realized that something needed his attention. He refused to move, pulling me closer for his legs to tighten around mine and both of us ended up in a double fetus position when we heard the voice of his stepbrother demanding for us to open the door.

“Yuta!” Jaehyun was yelling. “She’s here! Did you do this?”

Jaehyun sounding stressed seemed to have amused Yuta, my boyfriend smirking against my skin and I turned around to frown at him. He looked so beautiful in the morning and I traced his nose with my finger, asking him what he did.

“What did you do?” I asked, Yuta shrugging, kissing my hand softly.

“We got our happy ending,” he told me, Jaehyun giving the door a kick but his efforts were futile. “And I was thinking that maybe Jaehyun should get his own happy ending, too.”

“Oh, Yuta.” I had heard of New York on more than a couple of occasions. I also knew that Jaehyun and New York weren’t in the best of terms. “You didn’t—”

“I did.” He nodded, stretching and sitting up. “I had to find a way to bring her here.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I hurt Jisung,” he said simply, standing up to finally face Jaehyun. He opened the door and I saw a fuming Jaehyun with his arms crossed. He was glowering at his stepbrother, Yuta pushing past him to head to the common room.

I followed them, pulling my hair back into a bun and just as Jaehyun was about to yell at Yuta, most likely to demand an explanation, the door of the Corsiva common room opened and a female yelled out his name.

Just like that, Jaehyun had dropped onto the ground and rolled to the side.

“Nakamoto Yuta! What did you do to my brother?” a woman said. She was wearing a dark blue blazer and looked like she just arrived from her trip. Her long black hair was let loose and she had a purse to her lips, her eyes narrowing at my boyfriend.

Behind her was Park Jisung, the younger boy looking down on the ground. Defeated and sad.

She was most definitely New York.

“Why did you make my brother cry?” she demanded, Yuta sighing at her.

“To be fair, New York, when does Jisung ever not cry? I just said he had small eyes—”

“You know he’s insecure about his eyes. Why would you bring it up?” She made big motions with her hands. She was intimidating but she also seemed so motherly, the way she turned to ask her brother if he was feeling fine.

“Oh, please. Stop babying him. He’s fine,” Yuta snapped when a book fell and a small “Ow!” could be heard from the background. I saw Jaehyun crawling on the ground, hiding himself away behind the chairs so New York wouldn’t see him.

New York’s anger left as fast as she had stormed in when Yuta lifted up to arms in the air and she chuckled, the female embracing him.

“Welcome back.”

“Good to see you too, Na Yuta.” She smiled, patting his shoulder. “Feels weird to be back after my break up with Jaehyun.”

“Mhm.” Yuta had a knowing smile on his face. “Yeah. I know.”

“Doesn’t feel like a long time ago, though.”

“Definitely not.” Yuta replied, his voice strained. I knew Yuta was the reason of their break up and I could see how uncomfortable he was with the conversation. “But now that you’re here, do you have any plans?”

“Not really. I actually came by to help Dana. My half-sister is getting married soon, so they asked me to make sure everything will go smoothly.” She massaged her shoulders.

“You should stay. For a while, at least. Everyone would want to see you—” Yuta coughed, saying the name so quickly. “—Like Jeffrey. But do stay.”

She raised an eyebrow as if she was saying she didn’t hear his whole sentence, Yuta repeating his actions. He coughed, cleared his throat and snuck a small “Jeffrey!” in there, New York still oblivious.

Jaehyun, however, heard it. I looked to see him making a growling face at Nakamoto Yuta, hidden behind the shadows of the seat.

“I’ll think about it. Won’t hurt to stay for a day,” she said and Yuta shook his head.

“Make it three. Come back when you’re done with the wedding.” He tilted his head at her innocently.

“Hold that thought. It would be nice to spend time with the rest of the people,” she admitted before shrugging. “It is kind of worth it to come back. Is…”

She seemed to be uncertain whether to ask the question, her lips pressing against one another before she forced a smile.

“Is Jaehyun here?”

“He should be on school grounds,” Yuta replied nonchalantly.

“Oh, I don’t know whether I should say hi. It seems as if he is avoiding me,” she said, clearing . “But all is well. Come, Jisung. We need to help Dana with her dress.”

With that, she had grabbed Jisung’s wrist and pulled him alongside her.

The moment the common room door closed; the red that was hiding behind the chair emerged with his eyes on Yuta. Jaehyun scowled at his stepbrother, Yuta giving him a meek smile before looking down on the ground, Jaehyun berating him for telling her to stay.

“Three days? She’s going to come back after the wedding?” Jaehyun squeaked, throwing his hands in the air. “Why would you do that? I don’t want to see her! She fell in love with you!”

“Ah… Yes.” Jaehyun had triggered a topic that Yuta wanted to talk about. I knew about this but Yuta had told me he wanted to break it to Jaehyun himself. “About that….”

20 seconds later

Yuta had flown through the air, his back slamming against the rumble of broken statues for the second time as Jaehyun blasted him with all his power. I didn’t stop them. Yuta deserved it. Jaehyun deserved to be angry.

“What? You lied?” Jaehyun seethed, his eyes flashing red. “I cried for her!”

“No , that was what I wanted—”

Yuta’s words were cut off with another blast and he, once again, sailed through the air and rolled on the ground.

“You didn’t confront her! All you did was take my word for it!” Yuta reasoned, jumping up and raising two hands in the air to show surrender. “All I said was “I made this happen. I made her fall in love with me because I want to break you.” and you believed it!”

“Why wouldn’t I not?”

“There was no bet between New York and I in the first place!” Yuta yelled out, Jaehyun stilling. “All I did was befriend her and you guys ended up dating! I lied about all of it. The day she had to leave for her family, I told you that I had set her up to make you fall in love with her but she fell in love with me.”

“You were spending so much time with her—”

“We had a ing project to work on together, Jeffrey!”

“Do not say my name!” Jaehyun hissed. “So Aera was the first bet?”

“Of course.” Yuta heaved a sigh. “Do you honestly think that New York would do something like this? No offense, princess…”

He had turned to me and I lifted an eyebrow.

“But New York isn’t evil.”

“Are you saying I am evil?” I pointed at myself, Yuta paling. “Wait, the whole bet thing. How did you know he would try it again?”

I asked Jaehyun, the red hovering on his shield as he glared at Yuta.

“He told me that day, that he’d do it over and over and over again. I wouldn’t doubt his words,” Jaehyun replied.

“You were kind of dumb, you just assumed,” I pointed out, Jaehyun scowling.

“Stick up for your boyfriend, why don’t you?”

“But because I love you,” I added, giving him a smile. “You get to hurt Yuta as much as you want. We both know he’s the evil mastermind here.”

“Ahuh. Come here, boy,” Jaehyun began, Yuta making a face at me.

“You just had to.”

“You deserve it, sweetie,” I replied, shrugging. “Besides, like you said…”

I smiled at my lover, planting a kiss on his cheek before whispering in his ear.

“I’m evil.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The turn of events came after honesty had shone a light in the past events of Jaehyun and New York’s break up. A beat-up Yuta, to which Taeyong very so begrudgingly nursed him while he kept telling me that violence wasn’t the answer, and a very scared Jaehyun cowering against one of the statue pillars.

There were very few people who could scare Jung Jaehyun and it may be because he was always so carefree. New York, however, instilled so much fear in her ex-lover that he had shrunk in the corner his eyes refusing to leave the ground.

“Let me get this straight.” She could be heard saying, the students witnessing the infuriation of their graduated senior towards their current Integrita Head Boy. “You downright believed your step-brother instead of confronting me and just broke up with me while I was in love with you?”

“On the day you had to move back to Amerika, yes,” Jaehyun mumbled under his breath. “After talking to Jungwoo—”

“You are not going to blame the closest yellow!” Her voice was sharp and even I jumped at the sound. I was standing in by the hallway, waiting for Yuta to come out and Jaehyun gave me a pleading glance from where he was at.

I shook my head because I didn’t want anything to do with it.

“Jung Jaehyun, you know me better than that!”

“Okay, okay. I know!” Jaehyun finally said, sniffing. “But can we skip all the yelling and go to the loving now that you’re back?”

Her shoulders relaxed, the infirmary doors opening just for Yuta to walk out. He had a band-aid on his cheek and I touched his skin, Yuta pressing his lips together at the pain.

“Taeyong refused to give me painkillers,” he told me. “He said I deserve all the pain.”

“You do.” I nodded. “All’s fair in love and war.”

Yuta had told me to go back to the common room, the shared one, where all the colors could gather. It was proven that Yuta and Jaehyun were the reason why the reds and the greens were so adamant about being distant from one another.

After their “making up”, the shared common room was then often filled with people. No more did we have individual common room houses—the shared common room was big enough for all houses and I found myself spending so much time with people of other houses.

Taeyong, our dear Bubu, was ecstatic. The shared common room was always filled with cookies and he loved it, the head of student services telling me I did an amazing job. I had gotten my cloak back, Doyoung apologizing profusely for kicking me out of my own color but he insisted that it had to be done.

Talk about tough love.

As we headed to the shared common room, I saw Dokyeom and a few Justicias by the entrance. The yellows chirped up, greeting Yuta and I as I gave them a nod. Dana and Johnny were at a corner and I could hear them halfway through an argument, Yuta pulling closer by his side. The couch was inhabited by Jeno and Bunny. She had her head on his lap, Jeno staring into the fire like he always did.

He always seemed like he was in thought and we all knew it was because of the return of his father since two months ago.

Bunny had a storybook in her hands, the female reading it before she looked up at Jeno.

“You got to do the voice.”

“I am not going to do the voice,” Jeno said to his girlfriend, Bunny making a face.

“But you’re the beast,” she told him.

Jeno and Bunny had kept their relationship a secret from Doyoung. The blues never talked about it, the reds were scared of Jeno so they didn’t either, the yellows were loyal to Bunny to never even mention it to anyone. It was a secret among everyone in every house that was well-kept and I wondered how it never reached Doyoung’s ears.

I had sat down on the couch, Yuta pulling me onto his lap. I rested my cheek against his chest, closing my eyes, both of us basking at the warmth of the fire when I heard the bickering intensify.

“Johnny and Dana are going at it again,” Yuta told me and I nodded, hearing a string of words from both of them. “Can’t believe Dana is getting married to Mingyu.”

“I got to go, Johnny. I got to go tomorrow. There is nothing you can do to stop me!” Dana was saying and Johnny fell silent when he gave a small “Okay.”. “Okay?”

Dana said the last part a little bit too shrilly.

“Why aren’t you stopping me?” She gasped. “Don’t you love me?”

“Yes, but you told me there is nothing I can do to stop you!”

“But you got to reassure me!” Dana whispered loudly to him but the echoes of the common room were for all to hear.

“You got to reassure her, Tall Boy,” Jaemin’s voice piped up and I saw him at the side with his girlfriend; both of them playing a round of chess that had no kings, no queens, and I was pretty sure they were both just pretending they knew what they were doing but had no idea how the game actually worked.

I chuckled to myself when I could hear incoming footsteps from the other side of the shared common room entrance, Doyoung saying something about the basin. Jeno’s eyes widened, Bunny still in trance from the words of the storybook when the door of the common room began to move to the side.

Just like that, Jeno had grabbed Kim Bunny and catapulted her across the room away from him so the secret would remain safe.

And through the air, Kim Bunny flew, dropping right down at her very confused brother’s feet.

Kim Doyoung had looked down at his sister, his eyebrows knitting into a frown when Bunny looked up, her pigtails swinging back and forth.

“Hello….” she greeted her older brother. “What a coincidence…”

“Did I just see you fly across the other side of the room?” Doyoung asked, looking up to scan the room with his eagle eyes when his gaze landed on Jeno. “Jeno, you’re reading a storybook.”

“Yes, it’s good for my imagination.”

Jeno had taken the liberty to act as naturally as possible, holding the storybook that Bunny was reading up in the air as if he had been doing it all along but I noticed something strange about the whole setup. Kim Doyoung too, had caught it almost immediately.

“Jeno, the book is upside down.”

“All the more,” Jeno answered, his hands gripping the book so tightly I saw his knuckles tur