“My brother…he probably didn’t even know that our mother was in the hospital,” Luhan said as he looked at Ellie. They had come back from the store and both took residence up on Luhan’s couch while eating ice cream together. Much to the relief of Ellie, it seemed like things were going somewhat well with the whole ice cream idea. “How am I going to tell him that she died?” Slowly, the tears started falling again as he ate some more ice cream.

            “Look, if you aren’t on good terms with your brother than I can help you try to say something to him,” Ellie suggested as she put a supportive hand on Luhan’s back.

            “No, no,” he said shaking his head. “I should tell him.”

            “If…if you don’t mind me asking,” Ellie slowly said as she ate some ice cream, “what exactly happened with your brother and your family?” Luhan looked at Ellie and then back to his ice cream. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, if you don’t want to answer it then it’s perfectly fine,” Ellie quickly said hoping to help the situation.

            “No, no, I guess it’s time I came face to face with the situation after all,” he mumbled to himself as he ate some ice cream. “You know, this stuff is really good.”

            “Isn’t it?” Ellie asked attempting to ease out of the conversation about his brother. She wished that she had never asked that question in the first place. “Now I know why girls always eat ice cream when they’re sad.”

            “Why is that?” Luhan asked as he moved his spoon around the melting part of his container.

            “Because somehow ice cream makes it all better,” Ellie said giving Luhan a smile. He smiled back and Ellie was thankful. She didn’t know what she would do if he was sad all day. She understood that he was sad about his mother’s death but she knew that he had to pull himself together or else he was going to be like that forever.

            “Ellie,” Luhan slowly said as he stopped moving his spoon around and looked up at her.

            “Yeah?” Ellie asked turning to look at him.

            “I…I like you,” he hesitantly admitted.

            “What?” she asked not knowing if it was real or not and before Luhan could answer her question, he pressed his lips right against Ellie’s and began kissing her. “Luhan-oppa, you can’t be doing this,” Ellie said when she managed to break away.

            “But I like you,” Luhan attempted to reason.

            “You’re distressed, you’re saddened by your mother’s death, your emotions are all confused, you don’t know,” Ellie said figuring that he didn’t like her. Sure the words made her seem fuzzy inside, but it could just be something that happened without him realizing what he was saying since he wasn’t in a very stable mindset.

            “No, I know I like you. I’ve liked you since the first day I met you,” Luhan said with a laugh. “But I just didn’t know how to confess to you. Looks like my stupidity got the best of me.”

            “You aren’t stupid,” Ellie said trying to comfort him again. “Just…just wait until all of this passes and try again. So, tell me about your life growing up.”

“Noona, Minhyuk is sleeping,” Chen said sitting down next to her as he came out of the room where Minhyuk was already soundly sleeping in a pile of blankets.

            “Thank you, you always remember how to make him sleep,” she said as she watched him sit.

            “Why wouldn’t I? I remember Mom putting hyung to sleep that way,” Chen said recalling the fond memories of his childhood before everything turned upside down.

            “Your hyung…my oppa, I miss him. But how has your mother been? Good? The same?” she curiously asked.

            “Good,” Chen said nodding. “The same, really.”

            She knew the way of his mother. She knew the way that his mother acted and the way that she could get when things didn’t go her way. For years she told Chen to just leave the blasted woman, but he couldn’t. It was his mother that they were dealing with.

            “Hope she’s treating you well,” she sternly said.

            “She is, don’t worry noona,” Chen said flashing her a smile. He didn’t want her to worry. She had enough to worry about already with Minhyuk and Chen didn’t want to add more onto her plate by bringing in more of the problems that he was already dealing with. Chen figured that he had been dealing with them for a lifetime so it didn’t really matter whether or not he brought someone else in. He was a big boy, he could handle anything that was thrown his way.

            “Are you ready for tomorrow?” she asked after a long silence between the two.

            “I’m always ready for it. Are you?”

            “I guess,” she said sighing as she looked down at the ground and brought her knees up to her chest. “It feels the same every year.”

            “I know, it does. I have that feeling, too,” Chen said as he leaned over and hugged her. “The feeling will just never go away.”

            “It’ll always be here,” she whispered. “But there’s no time to be thinking about that. We should both get to bed, too so we can wake up tomorrow.”

            “Okay,” Chen said getting off of the floor and helping her get up. “Let’s go to sleep.”

            The next morning, Chen awoke first and began making breakfast for the three of them since he didn’t want to wake her up figuring everything that she had done for Minhyuk and him before. Chen thought of it as a repayment of some sort even though he was sure that he would need a thousand good deeds to repay her. Through assembling everything and getting everything ready, Minhyuk awoke because of the noise.

            “Sorry Minhyuk-ah,” Chen said as he saw the sleepy boy rubbing his eyes as he walked over to where Chen was standing and preparing the soup. “Did I wake you?”

            “It’s alright,” Minhyuk said.

            “We’re going to make this as a surprise for Mommy, okay?” Chen asked picking the boy up and showing him what he was making. Minhyuk nodded his head in agreement as Chen put him back onto the ground. “Now, can you go put these on the table where they belong?” Minhyuk nodded his head. “Good boy.”

            Chen didn’t give that much work to Minhyuk, he just made sure that it was stuff that the boy could do without really messing everything up. Finally, everything was done and it was time to wake her up. “I go wake up Mommy,” Minhyuk said disappearing into the room while Chen got the final touches ready.

            Not long afterwards, Minhyuk emerged with her trailing behind him. “Chen, Minhyuk, did you guys do all of this?” she asked in surprise as she saw the breakfast neatly lied out on the table.

            “We wanted to surprise you, Mommy,” Minhyuk said as he looked at his mother.

            “And a great surprise it is, thank you,” she said leaning down and tightly hugging Minhyuk. “And thank you Chen.”

            “No, it’s me that should be thanking you,” he said with a satisfied smile.

            After breakfast, she began packing a bag while Chen was helping Minhyuk get ready. “Are you ready to go?” she asked as the two boys walked out of the room together.

            “Yeah,” Chen said looking down at Minhyuk and holding his hand. He knew that the boy didn’t know what was going on, but he figured that he would understand in the future. “Let’s get going.”

Ellie awoke in her own room after a long evening of helping Luhan. At nine, she was finally able to go to her own house, much to the annoyance of Kris who wanted to know where she was. Still, he wasn’t giving up the question asking as she made her way down for breakfast and on her way to school.

            “Are you sure you were with Jiyeon last night?” Kris asked looking at Ellie as he drove her to school.

            “I’m positive,” Ellie said. She didn’t like lying to Kris and she didn’t know why she didn’t want him to know about Luhan, but there was just something inside of her saying not to tell him. It wasn’t that Luhan was a bad guy, and after the ice cream episode, she was sure that she had learned more about him to prove that he was anything but. Still, though, she knew how protective Kris could get, especially about guys, and knew that it was probably safer for the both of them to keep him hidden…for the time being.

            “Alright, I guess I just have to trust you,” Kris said sighing as he pulled up to the outside of the school. “I mean, you’ve given me no reason to doubt you before.”

            “Exactly,” Ellie said nodding her head.

            “Hey, don’t plan anything for today after school.”

            “Why not?”

            “I just figured that we should spend some time together, it feels like forever since we last did something with just the two of us since school started.”

            “Okay,” Ellie said nodding her head in agreement. She was originally thinking about going over to Luhan’s house after school but figured that her and Kris haven’t been spending much time together and she would like to do something like that. “And I’ll make sure that Jiyeon stays away.”

            “Thank you,” Kris said. “Have a good day in school.”

            Ellie stood there and watched Kris leave before turning and going into school, to be almost knocked over by Jiyeon. “Hey Ellie,” Jiyeon said as she swung her arm around Ellie’s shoulder almost causing her to lose balance.

            “Oh, hey,” Ellie said attempting to be as friendly as ever. “Nice balance you have there.”

            “Thank you,” she said with a big smile. “So, how is the whole Chen thing going?”

            “I don’t know,” Ellie said. It was the best excuse she could do knowing that she hadn’t told him a thing yet. “Maybe…I don’t know.”

            “What, do you know something I don’t know? Does he already have a crush?” Jiyeon asked as the questions kept popping into her head.

            “No, no, it’s not that,” Ellie said shaking her head. “Maybe…do you think it would be better if you just told him how you felt instead of me saying it?” she asked. As much as she didn’t want Jiyeon to go after him, she felt as though it was better than just prolonging the inevitable of telling her that she never did it, even when she asked.

            “I don’t know, I’m nervous around him, though,” Jiyeon said suddenly getting into her shy state as they neared their classroom together.

            “Just…don’t be. What is there to be nervous around him for? We eat lunch with him every day,” Ellie said.

            “You’re right…I guess… Can you help me figure out what to say to him?”

            “Sure,” Ellie said with a smile as they entered the classroom. “I’ll help you during lunch today. I’ll sit on the same side as you since I have something to do after school.”

            “Alright,” Jiyeon said with a smile as she went to her own seat.

            It wasn’t until the beginning of the first class that Ellie noticed that Chen wasn’t in school. She began wondering if he was in the hospital again and wondered if something bad happened to him when he was doing whatever he had to do. Stealthy, Ellie took out her phone and texted him.

You aren’t in school. Please tell me that you aren’t in the hospital.

Slowly closing her phone so it didn’t make any sound, Ellie placed it on her lap so that she was able to look at the screen for when she would get a text message since putting it on vibrate would be too loud. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Chen to reply.

I’m not in the hospital, I’m perfectly fine. It’s just a cold. I’ll be back tomorrow. Promise. And you better take good notes for me.

Ellie smiled at the text message. It put her heart to a little rest knowing that he was just sick with a cold and that nothing was majorly wrong with him.

Alright, do you want me to come over or bring you something?

Once in a while, Ellie would glance up at the teacher while she was waiting for a response from Chen to show that she was paying attention. She was never caught texting on her phone in school and she didn’t plan for that to happen when she was a senior.

No, I’m fine. My mother is here with me, but I’m serious. Take good notes.

Ellie let out a quiet laugh as she put her phone away and began taking notes of the lesson knowing that Chen would ask for them later and start bugging her.

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What is Chen going to do there? What day are they waiting for? What feeling wouldn't Minhyuk undersatand? Why would Chen lie to Ellie? What would Ellie say to Luhan's confession later? What exactly happened to Luhan's older brother? How is Ellie's day with Kris going to go?

Here is Chapter 12. Hope you enjoyed :D