The orange dusk painted the streets through its window of clouds, heralding the imminent coming of the night. Baekho didn't notice. Like most people he had reached that time of his life when he no longer took the time to ever look up at the sky any more. A time that the people grew to at younger and younger ages each generation. There might once be a day when all eyes are aimed only at life down below from the very first day, it was not far away.

Even if he had wanted to, he wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy the beautiful sunset that passed unnoticed. He was quite upset

JR had stood him up. They were supposed to work on their research report together, and had made plans to meet up at the library, but JR never showed up. Baekho had waited for him, given him the benefit of the doubt, telling himself he might've been held up or lost track of time. After about an hour the excuses he made began to sound incredible and he instead began to worry. Maybe he'd been in an accident, maybe he got run over. Why else could he be so late and not leave a message? After the second hour he just got angry.

Anyone else would have given up and called it a day much sooner, but Baekho wasn't that kind of person. He was trusting and patient, he gave leeway, lots of it. One might argue his kindness was often exploited, and he would fervently disagree. His friends wouldn't do that, his friends could never do wrong. He was sure JR had not intended to stand him up. It should be noted that he wasn't angry with his friend. He was angry with whatever unfortunate circumstances forced him to fail to uphold his promise.

He was especially angry at the time he lost. All the time I spent waiting I could've gotten a start on that report, he argued. It would've saved us both work later on. Of course, it wouldn't, it would only save JR a lot of work if Baekho did all of it while he never showed up. But Baekho refused to see it like that.

He was upset that his day was mostly over, that he was returning home so close to dark. He didn't feel comfortable doing that. He felt he was treading on thin ice.

It wasn't illegal to travel at night, but it was greatly discouraged. Things happened after dark. Things no one liked to talk about.

Now that dusk was approaching these things suddenly became very real and tangible, and he didn't like that one bit.

It was upon entering the student apartments courtyard, after he scanned his wristband at the gate, that he was shaken from his worries and confronted with something quite unusual in these parts: a child. A small girl in a yellow dress sat squatted on the ground in front of a wall. Somehow Baekho couldn't help but approach her.

What made her so interesting was how out of place she was among these surroundings. These buildings housed only students and no one stayed here longer than a few years. Families had no business here, and especially children were an uncommon sight.

Was she lost?

She couldn't be.

There was only one way in this building-enclosed court and she must've made a conscious decision to enter it. But why?

Regardless, he couldn't think of any other question to pose under the circumstances, and his curiosity was too much for him to just move along. He walked over to the girl, who was busily digging through a bright yellow Powerpuff Girls backpack, and leaned down slightly to be closer to her eye-level before tapping her shoulder. “Are you lost, dongsaeng?”

The girl jumped up and turned to him with such vigour and glaring so angrily that it almost scared the smile off his face, but he managed to keep it.

“No. I'm not stupid, I don't get lost.”

Snappy little kid, he thought, taking note of the tone sounding like lashes.

She was sweet-looking, he would have to admit that, but there was grave discrepancy between her appearance and attitude. At first glance what struck him were her cute chubby cheeks and her small but bright eyes set in an angelic round face. Her short hair was tied into pigtails with light blue silk ribbons, which kids didn't do much these days, he noted. Her lips formed a cute pout but her scowl was far from it. She held a look of stern determination, and was clearly not intent to talk to strangers. That wouldn't keep Baekho from trying to help her, though. He wasn't that wise.

“Then what are you doing here? This is no place for kids. Is there anything oppa can help you with?”

“Why should I tell you? ” She crossed her arms and her mud-strewn sneakers kicked a pebble defiantly at his feet.

“If I assume you have nothing to do here, I need to ask you to leave, this place is only for students, you're not allowed to be here.”

That caught her off guard, he saw, and she let down her iron defence, but only in the slightest.

“I'm looking for my dog. He went missing yesterday when I was playing with him after school, and I've had my oppa make these posters for me so people can call us when they find him.” She dug her hands into her backpack again and retrieved a stack of papers, all headed with the pleading photo of a young beagle above the name Hoi-hoi and further details to help recognise him.

“Want me to help you put those up?”

“I know how to use sellotape, thank you very much. Why would I want your help anyway? You're just a weird old guy who's bothering little girls.”

Ouch. Why would she say that? The little brat.

“Old?” he asked, properly befuddled. How could she think of him as old? He was her senior by ten years, at best.

“Yes, you're old. And weird.”

“You're weird.” It was a new low, arguing with an eight-year-old girl, in the manner of her own people, but she had hurt him.

“No, you are. Look at your hair.”

“What about my hair?” Self-consciously he touched his bleached coif as if to sense if there was something out of the ordinary with it. He didn't think he looked weird.

“It's half shaven, blonde and floppy. That's weird.” He could think of nothing to counter that other than a possible nu-huh accompanied by him sticking out his tongue at her, but that seemed too immature a reply. He had to be the wiser one here. Besides, he knew his hair didn't look weird. Granted, he personally liked it better if it was gelled up, but Ren said it looked cute like this, and he definitely trusted Ren's judgement more than that of some random rude child.

“Yeah, well, I'm not the one who calls a puppy Hoi-hoi, that's a stupid name.”

That was a low blow and he immediately regretted dealing it when he saw its effect. Instantly, the girl's features changed. Her expression became infinitely darker but lost its hard edge. She wasn't endearingly spunky any more, she was haunting. Without dignifying him with a reply, she shoved the stack of posters into Baekho's hand, and in his surprise he gripped onto them tightly.

Looking down at the simplistically laid out a4 papers he heard the girl utter something in a low voice.

“You're going to put these up inside the building and at your school. Everyone should see them, and someone will find him and bring him back to me.” It wasn't a request, far from it. It was an announcement, and he would not argue. He felt insanely guilty over what he had said, he should've never tried to win from a child, no matter how insolent she was. He realised all too late that the girl hadn't been as strong as she had made herself appear.

“I will.”

She looked up at him and nodded. Amazingly, she smiled at him. It was weak and apologetic but very heartfelt.

“You'll find him, I'm sure. But you should go home before it gets dark. I'll make sure these will go where everyone can see them.”

Nodding again, she picked up her backpack and hugged it to her chest, fumbling with the straps nervously. She was suddenly a picture of innocence, a world of difference from the determined angry girl before. That's when Baekho realised she wasn't rude, or unfriendly, she was scared. Scared she'd never see her pet again, scared that it would be her fault if anything happened to him and scared because she was too small to make a difference.

“Oppa,” she whispered without meeting his eyes, finding shyness from hidden depths. “Thank you.” She her heels and ran away before he could reply and he just watched her run. He could've sworn he saw a glimmer of tears before she left, and that after all that sass she gave him.

People do strange things when they're afraid.

Author's Note: This chapter's a lot shorter than I'd planned it to be. I ended up splitting my original chapter into this one and the next when I realised there was no way I'd finish it before I need to start studying for my exams. So here's this little bit for the time being. I hope you've enjoyed Baekho so far. =)
The little girl is Rainbow's Hyunyoung by the way. I wanted to give her at least a little part in the story because I have a totally not-so-secret girl crush on her and all her perfect flawlessness. Don't look at me like that, she's gorgeous.
I mean, look at her:

That gif probably turned every woman in a ten miles radius gay, I kid you not.
I made her the child because she struck me as someone who'd look adorable as a little kid. Chubby-cheeked and cute and whatnot. And very sassy. I don't know, I like rude kids, I admire their spirit.
More interesting and scary stuff will start happening next chapter, I promise. But before that time comes, I have brainmaps and latin terms to memorize for my exams. XD Wish me luck.