No One’s POV

Lu Han went back to Exo a few minutes later, having enough of being reminded about the pain he felt every time he went somewhere filled with memories of Eun Hae. He walked in the dorm, ignoring his friends in the living room and inside the bedroom. He sat on his bed, closed his eyes and sighed.

The door opened slightly and Chen came inside to check on his friend. “Are you okay, gege?” he cautiously asked his elder friend.

Lu Han shrugged. “Do I look okay to you? How could I possibly be okay today, of all days, Jongdae?” he asked back. He sighed heavily and propped his feet up on the bed, lying down. He looked up to the picture of him and Eun Hae. He smiled softly, reaching up to touch her face.

“Dui zhang is okay, though, even after Min Ah’s death,” Chen said.

That was the wrong thing to say.

Lu Han abruptly sat up and glowered at him. “Dui zhang is dui zhang and I am me!” he exploded. “Do you want to know why he got over his depression so fast? It’s because Min Ah is human, and she would die eventually. She wouldn’t be able to live long. But for Eun Hae, she’s a demi-alien; she’s not supposed to die that fast!”

Chen took a deep breath and decided to reply back bravely, “I disagree with you, gege.” His voice shook a little when he said that.

“Excuse me?” Lu Han said quietly. Damn, Lu Han can be scary when he wants to be. And now he was scary.

“I said I disagree,” Chen replied a little bolder. “I think it’s because you’re scared to let go of the pain of remembering Eun Hae because if you let go, it’s like you’re cutting all ties with her. But that’s not true. Just because you’ve accepted the fact that she’s dead doesn’t mean you will stop loving her.”

“Accept the fact that she’s dead?” Lu Han repeated. “If I didn’t accept the fact that she was dead I would be looking for her everywhere but the graveyard!”

He winced. “Sorry.”

“You should be.”

“But you shouldn’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.”

“Is it because you’re scared that if you let her go, you might realize that you actually were never in love with her?” Chen wanted to know.

“No, I definitely know my feelings for her and I definitely do love her. I am definitely in love with her, no mistaking that,” Lu Han shook his head.

“Oh. Well . . .” Chen shrugged awkwardly, not knowing what else he should say to try to comfort his friend. He was not as close as before because Lu Han pushed everyone away.

He looked at Chen and hesitated before he opened his mouth and said, “You know, while I was down at Earth, I saw a girl who looked like her. But it’s not her. Do you know how painful it was, thinking it was her but knowing that it wasn’t?” He sighed wearily.

Chen winced, hearing the pain in his voice. “Ah . . . Gege, maybe you shouldn’t have gone down to Earth today, since it made you feel even worse.”

Lu Han ignored that remark. “I want to sleep. Leave me alone.”

Chen shrugged and walked back out to the others in the living room. They looked up when they saw him approaching them. He sighed and flopped down next to Lay and covered his face with a hand, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“How is he?” Tao wanted to know.

“Depressed.”

“What else is new?” Kris muttered sarcastically.

XiuMin scowled. “Tell us something we don’t know.”

“Okay.” Chen sat up straight in his seat. “Lu Han gege told me that he saw a girl who looked like Eun Hae on the streets just now.”

They gaped at him.

“But it’s not her. She just looked like her.”

XiuMin nodded. “It happens. Once, while I was hanging about in Earth, I was throwing darts, with dui zhang’s picture in the center. I was trying to get his nose, you see, and just when I hit bulls’ eye, I saw someone coming inside the room and I got scared because it looked like dui zhang — until I saw that it was actually a girl.” He shuddered. “But, damn, she looked so much like dui zhang it scared me!”

Everyone burst out laughing until Kris shot them dagger looks.

“Ah, dui zhang,” they said before they turned to XiuMin. “He did it!”

Kris glowered at him. “You were throwing darts in my face?”

“Aiiieee . . . did I say dui zhang? I meant Baekhyun . . . yeah, Baekhyun,” XiuMin quickly lied and smiled innocently at his leader.

“Busted,” Tao snickered.

XiuMin blushed. “Traitor,” he hissed.

Lay was quiet throughout the whole time.

Kris shot him a sideways glance. “You’re not still feeling guilty because you couldn’t save her, are you?” he wanted to know.

“If I’d been a second early . . .”

Chen threw a pillow at him. “C’mon, don’t be like that,” he encouraged his friend. “The thing is, Eun Hae is at a better place now. We don’t have to worry about her suffering from all of the pain anymore.”

“Especially since Lu Han gege was the one who caused most of the pain,” Tao mumbled under his breath. He sighed and shook his head.

For saying that, Kris docked him on the head. “Be nice, you idiot. We were all partly to blame for hurting her as well, okay?” he chided.

“Aww, dui zhang, it hurts.”

“Good.”

Youngjae’s POV

After the case, I went back home, satisfied that my client was proven not guilty for the crime everyone said that he had committed. I told Changjo about it and he told me he’d just resolved another case as well, with good news too. We chatted as I drove home, smiling and laughing, relieved that our business seemed to be going really well.

I checked the time after we hung up. I still had about ten minutes’ drive back to the same apartment we’ve been living in. I can’t wait until I get out of this suit and get into a nice, warm bath and relax.

Yongguk, Himchan and Zelo should be home soon from school. It was almost three. And Jongup should be home from the dance studio today, too. He did not have any classes for the rest of the day.

When I got home, I could hear the water running inside the bathroom, with someone singing and probably even dancing and sure enough Jongup was home, taking a bath to wash off all the sweat. When he came out, he smiled at me.

“How was the case?” he wanted to know.

I smiled back, putting my brief case down. “We won,” I told him happily. “How was the morning dance class? Were the students all behaving today?”

He laughed and nodded, wiping his wet hair with the towel. “Yeah, surprisingly they listened and they all got the moves right, too,” he said.

“We’re home!” Yongguk, Himchan and Zelo all hollered from the front door before the three of them all bounced into the living room where Jongup and I were standing.

“Today was a good day,” Yongguk said, smiling. “All my students seemed to be cheering up, getting better from their depressed states.” Working as a counselor was hard because he was faced with many troubled kids. Some of them didn’t know what to do with their future and some had problems at home or with school.

Himchan beamed, setting his brief case down on the floor and loosened his tie. “All my students passed their language exams. Some were near to failing, but they still managed to pass, which is considered very good already,” he announced, giving a thumbs-up.

Zelo waved a piece of paper in the air and we all could clearly see the big letter A+ in red. “I passed my math test!” he said gleefully, jumping around, and we all cheered and celebrated his happiness with him.

Math was Zelo weakest subject, you see, and to even get an A+ for that subject, that was really something. It was a huge improvement.

“Well, guess what, you guys? We won the case,” I told them before they could ask me about it and they all gave a loud whoop, cheering.

“And my students didn’t give me a hard time today, which was a first, actually,” Jongup chimed in and they made an even louder cheer.

Yongguk was impressed by the news he was hearing today. “It looked like today is a good day for all of us.” He looked up to the ceiling and he smiled. “Eun Hae ah . . . this is all your doing, isn’t it?”

Himchan smiled and dashed for the bathroom. “Me first!” he shouted.

“Yah, I was next!” I exclaimed, aghast.

He stopped short at the doorway. He turned to face me, a look of disbelief on his face. “Yah?” he repeated. “Were you just informal with your hyung?”

Grabbing the opportunity while he was distracted, I squeezed passed him and pushed him away from the door before I closed the bathroom door behind him, laughing evilly while he just pounded on the door.

After we all bathed, with Zelo being the last one to bath since he was the youngest, we all crowded around the kitchen counter, where a cake was placed in the middle, with the words Happy Birthday, Eun Hae on it.

She may not be here, but that didn’t mean we can’t celebrate her birthday.

“Let’s sing her a song,” Yongguk said and we all began singing the birthday song, clapping our hands while smiling and beaming at the cake as if we could feel her presence with us at the very moment.

Then Yongguk raised the knife to cut the cake and all of us watched in anticipation, hardly able to contain ourselves to wait to eat the cake.

“How dare you guys start the party without me?”

Yongguk dropped the knife in surprised and it fell to the table, making a loud clatter as it hit the table, and we all turned our heads to where we heard the sound coming from. Our eyes went wide and our jaws dropped.

“Daehyun!” Yongguk and Himchan exclaimed while Zelo, Jongup and I shouted, “Daehyun hyung!”

We all ran to him and gave him a big bear hug. We couldn’t believe this! Daehyun is back! He’s back after two years! He’s really back! And it’s also really him! This was not a dream; this was real!

Wow, he sure changed a lot.

If it was possible, he grew taller, and he had dyed his hair from blonde to light brown. It looked good on him. But he still had that manly yet boyish face. And I’m pretty sure that he was still the same loving guy all of us knew before he decided to mysteriously disappear from our lives to the ends of the earth.

Yongguk arm-locked him and gave him a noogie and he winced in pain while the rest of us all just laughed at the two of them. “When did you get back, huh?” he asked him playfully. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming back? Where have you been for the past two years, huh, Daehyun?”

“Ahhh, hyung, that hurts, lemme go,” he whined, trying to break free, but not before Himchan jumped on him, and the rest of us followed.

While all six of us jostled around on the floor, we all couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the sudden yet happy reunion. Our family was back. B.A.P was once again reunited as one.

Just like how it should be.

“When did you get back, Daehyun hyung?” Zelo wanted to know once all of us had calmed down and were seated around the living room.

The cake lay forgotten on the kitchen counter.

Daehyun shrugged and smiled. “I only just came back,” he replied. “I decided I should come back to see how all of you were doing. I also came back to celebrate my sister’s birthday.” He shrugged. “I was planning to go down to the graveyard later.”

“Why didn’t you come back last year during her birthday, then?” Jongup wanted to know, happy to see that his hyung was back.

“It was time celebrating her birthday without her,” Daehyun replied. “It hurt a lot and if I came back last year, I would probably just disappear again and not come back for a very long time.”

“We didn’t know if we would ever see you again,” Himchan told him and all of us nodded gravely. “How have you been? Where were you?”

Daehyun shrugged nonchalantly and sat back in his seat. “I was actually here and there,” he replied. “I never stayed at a specific place for too long.”

“Are you planning to stay here permanently or are you going to disappear again after today?” I asked my closest friend. I had really missed him.

He looked at me for a very long time, thinking hard about the question. After what seemed like days, he finally shrugged and answered, “Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess I’ll have to see how it goes.”

“Aww, hyung,” Zelo whined.

Daehyun messed up his hair. “And how are you all?”

“Today was a really good day for all of us, actually,” Yongguk spoke up and told him about the good things that happened to each of us today. “Do you think that maybe this could have been all Eun Hae’s doing?”

Daehyun looked up to the ceiling and laughed, shrugging. “I don’t know, but today seemed to be getting better, isn’t it?” he asked us.

“What do you mean?” Jongup wanted to know.

He rolled his eyes. “Simple. I’m here.”

We all groaned good-naturedly and shoved him aside, making him stumble onto the floor. Zelo and Yongguk even threw pillows at him and he raised his hand to shield himself from the raining pillows. “Yah, stop it! Yah, yah, that hurts! Okay, okay! Mercy!” he laughed.

“So, hyung, how have you been?” Jongup wanted to know. He gave him a little nudge and winked at him. “Have you found a special someone yet?”

Daehyun’s eyebrows furrowed and he gave the younger boy a look. He flicked his forehead and laughed. “Now why would you think that?”

“No reasons.”

“You’re not answering the question, Daehyun,” Yongguk told him and we all gave him a punch. “Have you met someone special or not?”

“Don’t try to hide it!” Zelo squealed with excitement.

“Hyung, who’s the lucky girl?” I teased.

Daehyun rolled his eyes. “You guys are so third grade,” he mumbled under his breath. He looked up and shrugged but his eyes were twinkling. “Well . . . I did bring a friend over.”

“A guy or girl friend?” Himchan asked with a slight tease.

Daehyun smirked. “Girl.”

“Oooh,” we all cracked up.

“Where is she?” Yongguk wanted to know.

Daehyun checked his phone and his eyes lit up. “She’s outside the door.” He went to get the door for his friend and we all waited impatiently. Finally he came back with the girl hiding behind her. “She’s a little shy, so be nice to her.” He turned to her and smiled. “They’re waiting.”

Just then a brunette-haired girl popped her head out from behind him.

“Annyeong, Oppas,” she said softly to Yongguk, Himchan and me. Then she turned to the younger ones. “Annyeong, Jongup. Annyeong, Zelo.” She stepped out from hiding and smiled shyly at us.

All of us dropped our jaws, stunned. She was very pretty, with her cute hair cut and she was wearing a floral dress that reached down to her knees, and she was wearing white flats. She was . . . wow, I think everyone in the room have gone silent when we saw her because we just could not believe it.

Eun Hae.

“Hi,” she said shyly. “My name is Krystal.”

Krystal . . . not Eun Hae . . . but . . . she . . . My heart sank when I realized it was not my little sister, cursing myself for ever thinking that Eun Hae was alive. I looked at her again and my eyes widened.

No, she is Eun Hae. It has to be her!

Eun Hae is alive.

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Wait for it... just wait for it... (: