"W-Where is she?" Song Hee asked while running, not even bothering to change. Jonghyun, though, was wearing a baggy black hoodie so nobody would recognize him.

"I... don't know," Kai responded. The married couple stopped in their tracks. Kai, wondering why he heard no more footsteps behind him, turned to see both of their angry expressions.

"Bwoh? Then why did you say you did?!" yelled Jonghyun, rubbing his eyes from fatigue.

"Do you know how worked up we got?!" Song Hee added.

"It got you out of bed, didn't it?" Kai argued back and shrugged. The two silenced, having nothing to say afterwards since it was obviously true. "Paaallliiiii!" he whined, tugging on Jonghyun's hoodie. "Just trust me!"

Song Hee and Jonghyun looked at each other hesitantly. As much as they wanted to see their little girl again, trusting a 13-year-old boy was not how they wanted to. Although Kai was telling the truth, they had no idea who to trust anymore.

"Prove it," Song Hee blurted out first. "Prove to us that you actually know our daughter."

Kai groaned and ruffled his hair. "Aish, fine!"

He thought a moment, trying to find the best thing he could think of. "She loves watching y horror movies!" Seeing the unimpressed parents, he sighed and quickly thought of the next thing off the top of his head. "Her bodyguards' names are TOP and Daesung!" Kai saw their faces soften a bit, making him think of more. "She ran away because she wasn't let outside, and you didn't let her out because of when this weird lady tried kidnapping her when she was a baby. She can't dance. Every year for her birthday he would have a ball which she secretly hated...." he continued his rant and didn't even notice that Jonghyun and Song Hee were grinning at each other.

"...um, uh... she didn't know a lot when I first met her, her real name is Jin Ri, her favorite color is pink, she knows everything about etiquette, she-"

Kai was silenced when Song Hee herself wrapped him in a hug. Kai put on a weird, disgusted face and awkwardly pat her on the back. Once she pulled away, he asked, "What was that for?"

"It seems like you really care for my daughter, and I can tell that you would be a nice young man for her. Thank you for taking care of her all this time," she smiled at him. Jonghyun nodded in agreement. "Now let's go find her!"

Kai sighed in relief, partly because he was running out of things to say, but mostly because he was just glad that he could go find Sulli again. Wait, but what did she mean by, 'You would be a nice young man for her...?'

Before he could ask, though, his feet were already sending him away, sprinting as fast as he could. He had thought he knew where he was going, but turns out that Ji Eul's directions led him to the ladies' room at the market.

After searching far and wide for hours, Kai panted heavily and bent down, holding the stump of a tree for balance. Song Hee and Jonghyun did the same.

"I think... we should... call it a day. It's... getting... late," Jonghyun pointed out. Kai' eyes rounded as he immediately stood up from his weak state.

"A-Aniyo! We can't, I... just..." he tried to think of an argument, but nothing passed his mind in time.

"Listen, Jongin, was it?" Song Hee questioned. "Jongin, I think all three of us need some rest. The police are still on it, and I'm pretty sure your mother would want you back home right now. We can continue tomorrow."

Kai pouted in defeat, but then face palmed once he remembered his parents and how late it had gotten. He checked his wrist watch. 11:27. "Oh crap!"

***

"Madame, we're back!"

Sulli's eyes widened as she heard the strangely familiar voice. She was not able to sleep in the very uncomfortable chair Ha Yoong had put her in, and even though she wasn't sure who the person (or people) were, she just hoped that they would be on her side and help her out.

The lights flickered on in the room. A hand spun her chair around to face the person. She would have yelled if it weren't for the duct tape around when the identity was revealed.

"Shihon ad Sihon adussi?" she tilted her head as the muffled cries of desperation escaped .

They both blinked in unison, and it kind of freaked Sulli out. It was like the two did everything together or something. Shindong was the first to react as he ripped the sticky tape off of her face, leaving a large red mark across the bottom half of it.

"Owwwwww..." she groaned and was about to reach up and massage her stinging jaw, but was restricted by the ropes that tied her together. They were quite rough and Sulli could almost say that she couldn't feel her hands anymore. "Ahjussi! Can you help me out of here?"

The duo looked at the helpless girl, then back at each other.

"I- we're afraid we can't do that," Siwon looked down guiltily. I still can't believe she was able to do this without us...

Sulli's eyes fell and her face turned into a look of both anger and confusion. "W-What? Why not?" she almost growled. "What's going-"

"Shindong, Siwon. Basement. Now," Ha Yoong passed by the door and furrowed her eyebrows as to why the duo were socializing with the captive. "Ahem." she sent them a glare and jerked her head. Shindong bowed and nodded before slapping the tape back onto her face and leaving the scene along with Siwon.

Another jolt of pain shot up Sulli's body as she could almost feel the ropes tighten and constrict her wrists while struggling. Tears brimmed the edges of her eyes. Sulli tried kicking the desk next to her in frustration, but ultimately failed when she had forgotten that her ankles were tied to the bottom of the chair as well, making her flip over and land on her side with a thud. This time, it stung to keep in her tears. They flowed down the side of her face.

I should've never run away in the first place...

-

Morning soon came the next day when Sulli realized she had cried herself to sleep, still on the hard floor. Pain struck her back hard, and now it was safe to say that her wrists were definitely cut and bleeding. Her ankles, however, were still okay since she wore long pants and Ha Yoong tied it over them. Her head spun and she had a huge crack in her neck.

Overall, she just felt crappy.

Kai, on the other hand, almost felt crappier than she did. He had rolled off of his bed onto the floor while in the middle of a Sulli-related nightmare. It was about how Sulli's funeral was the next day and it was all Kai's fault. If only he would just have made her go back home in the first place. If only he would have gotten to her before anyone else did. If only there was someone to save her.

If only...

he didn't fall head-over-heels for her.

Then they wouldn't be in this mess.

"It's all my fault..."

***

Sulli stayed in that uncomfortable position, not bothering to do anything else. She heard the door crack open, though she never really paid attention to who it was. She just thought it was Ha Yoong.

She nearly screamed when she found hands on the side of her chair. They continued to turn and toss it around until it was back up on its feet again. Being the polite person she was, she muttered a low, strangled, "Thank you." One of the hands pat her head, and she almost thought it was her father's hand, her hair to calm her down like how he usually did when she couldn't sleep. She almost could hear his calm singing, his sweet voice floating in the air, taking Sulli back in time when she was a little kid.

However, when she looked up, she was given an ultimate shock when she realized who it really was.

"Wha ah oo ooin?" she asked, still forgetting the restricting tape on . They pulled it off, and to Sulli's surprise it didn't hurt as bad as it did before. She stretched a bit to adjust before repeating her sentence.

"What are you doing?!" she almost panicked. "You're gonna get caught!"

"Shhhhhh," they shushed her. "Just be quiet and we won't."

"But-"

"Hush," they commanded as their hand reached up and put a finger to their lips. "Don't you want to get out of here?"

"W-Well yes, but-"

"But what?" they raised an eyebrow.

"But I just thought you were on her side," she responded. The man, Shindong, chuckled above her.

He pat her head again. "Sulli, I was. Not anymore."

"What about Siwon ahjussi?" 

Shindong sighed and continued to unravel her tied hands. "I don't know. But if doing the right thing means losing my best friend... I guess it wasn't meant to be."

He was stopped when someone took him by the back of his shirt collar.

"Ahem."

================================================

...I bet you thought that the person was Jonghyun/Song Hee/Kai... or not... whatevs! xD Anyways, I was dying to finish this chapter since I was on a roll but then I had to go somewhere last night and had to lend my laptop to someone so they could install things and I have to leave it for the rest of the weekend so I was like "NOOOOO!" so now I'm using my old y laptop... It's hard to type on this keyboard again... :(

-dino-nerd525