“What was that?” Kris asked suddenly turning around and gripping even tighter on Ellie’s arm.

            “It was the wind,” Ellie said silently laughing at the way that Kris was acting. She had never seen him act that way before. Anywhere else he would seem like he’s the toughest and strongest man alive, but apparently not towards scary things, they were apparently the enemy. “Are you sure you’re okay? We could just say that we give up.”

            “No,” Kris said. He was determined not to give up, he wanted to get through the maze and tell people that he actually made it through. There was no way that he would tell people that Ellie wasn’t as afraid as he was; there was no way that anyone would know anything. Kris was certain that he was going to make Ellie keep it a secret forever no matter what he had to do.

            “You know, normally in these situations, wouldn’t it be the girl that’s more afraid than the guy?” Ellie asked thinking about their reverse situation. “And how are you even considered like my bodyguard? I mean, you’re afraid of like everything.”

            “Am not,” Kris retorted back, before something else made a noise and he started freaking out again.

            “We’re barely anywhere in doing this thing, how are you going to make it in life?” Ellie asked attempting to stifle her laughter that was about to explode from inside of her. It was the first time she ever saw Kris like that.

            “Let’s just get it over with as quickly as possible,” Kris said in an attempt to keep himself calm. “I’ll do my best to stay levelheaded.”

Chen opened his eyes to his dark bedroom. Blinking a couple of times in order for the blurriness in his eyes to go away, Chen sat up before he quickly put his hand on his head. His head was aching and throbbing and his body felt sore. He wondered what he had done before to make things that way when it finally hit him what happened. “Ugh,” he groaned as he sat up in bed and looked for the nearest clock, which just so happened to be his phone, but before he could see the time, he saw that he had five missed calls from Ellie and a couple of text messages from her too. When he finally got to the clock, he saw that it was already seven at night. Where did the day go?

            “Chen?” Ellie frantically asked as she picked up her phone. “Chen, are you okay? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day. Did something happen to you?”

            “No,” Chen said shaking his head. He was already used to lying, so why stop? “You called and texted a bunch of times,” he nervously began as he was playing with a piece of paper in his hands, “why?”

            “Why not?” Ellie asked concerned about how Chen was sounding on the phone. It surely didn’t sound good, but was that the way that it was when he got home? Ellie had never been to Chen’s home before and she had surely never asked him about his home life. Was something going on? “I was wondering if you wanted to work on the photography project, but if you’re too tired then we don’t have to.”

            Chen sighed. He didn’t really want to work on the project, but it was something that had to get done. “Sure,” he reluctantly said after a while. “Your place, I’ll be there soon.”

            “Oh, alright,” Ellie managed to say before Chen hung up the phone. She didn’t know why Chen was acting strangely, was there something going on? Surely something must’ve happened considering that she called and texted a lot and he didn’t pick up or answer. Ellie was worried about him, that wasn’t anything new. Ellie had been worrying about Chen since he was in the hospital. Somehow she always found herself extremely worried about his situation and she didn’t know why. Her mind was already in a jumbled mess because of Luhan and then what happened at the scavenger hunt with Kris. Things were just confusing.

            Within no time, the front door rang. Ellie had to get up off of her seat and get it since Kris had decided he was going to go to bed early for some odd reason. Ellie figured it was because he was still somehow slightly afraid of something, but she wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

            “Ready to work on our project?” Chen asked as soon as Ellie opened the door. Holding onto the door, Ellie stared at Chen in confusion. There was no way that that was the kid that was just talking with her on the phone. The one on the phone sounded so unhappy and depressed and now this kid wasn’t. The guy standing in front of Ellie was the Chen that she was always used to. There was no way that the one on the phone was Chen. It was too confusing.

            “Uh, y-yeah,” Ellie stuttered as she moved away and let Chen inside of her home.

            “Thanks,” he said giving a smile as he made his way towards the backroom that was already so familiar to him.

            Ellie slowly followed behind him as she thought about all of the possibilities of how Chen would act differently from on the phone to arriving at her house. She figured that he probably got hit on the head with something or maybe he was sleep talking, but how would he know how to talk or come over to her house if he were sleep talking?

            No, nothing seemed probable in Ellie’s mind. Surely everything was slightly possible, but nothing stuck out as it would probably be the one reason why he was acting that way.

            The two finally made their way to the back room where they just both collapsed onto the couch where they had sat before. They spent at least a good hour attempting to bounce ideas back and forth in attempts to find out something that they could do for their project. Chen was putting his full effort into it, but somehow he wasn’t really feeling it, but he had to do it. He knew that Ellie was probably worrying about him and he couldn’t have that happen.

            “We have to think of something,” Ellie said as she gripped Chen on his shoulders and started shaking him in frustration. “Our project is due soon and we have nothing, absolutely nothing.”

            “Well, what do you find the most beautiful thing?” Chen asked looking at Ellie. If he were brave enough, he would’ve already told her his feelings. Even despite his crappy mood, Ellie always somehow tended to ease the pain. His heart was racing from the comment and he felt his face starting to turn a darker shade of red. Chen hoped that Ellie wouldn’t sense anything and suddenly look his way. He had been hiding it for a while, his growing love and he hoped to continue hiding it. It made him both happy and hurt.

            “I don’t know,” Ellie said messing up her hair in frustration. “I’m sure the other kids have gone overseas to take their picture.”

            “We could go overseas, too,” Chen suggested, but in reality, he didn’t have a passport, but he couldn’t tell Ellie that. That might ruin everything.

            “No, it would take too long,” Ellie said staring at Chen. She began her thinking process by attempting to relax and close her eyes, a sort of meditation, but it was quickly interrupted when she heard a click. Immediately her eyes opened and went to Chen. “What did you just do?”

            “Nothing,” Chen innocently said.

            “Where’s the camera?” Ellie asked seeing as it wasn’t on the table in front of them anymore. They were using it to get inspiration for some pictures. “You,” she said pointing at Chen. “You took a picture of me.”

            “Prove it,” Chen said holding the camera above his head and standing on the couch.

            “Hey, give that camera to me,” Ellie said standing up on the couch next to him and jumping up and down to get the camera. She knew without a doubt that he had taken a picture of her.

            Chen liked doing things like that with Ellie. He liked joking around with her like a true friend since he had never really had one before. Those were circumstances and events that he would rather not discuss. Sure he had friends and he had girlfriends, but none of them ever made him feel like he felt with Ellie. There was a sense of trust with Ellie that no one else had, still, Chen wasn’t sure how much he would be able to trust her. Ellie was different, Chen knew. He knew from the very first moment they ever made contact with one another.

            Unexpectedly, Ellie jumped onto Chen causing the camera to fly out of his grasp due to the pain that he experienced. It wasn’t because of Ellie, but because his body was sore. Everything happened too fast and the next thing they knew, Ellie was lying on top of Chen on the couch with their faces inches away from each other. Ellie could feel her face starting to burn and Chen could feel his heartbeat quicken. Chen also felt the burn of his sore body, but he didn’t want to do anything in case it would alarm Ellie and cause her to thoroughly look over him, something that didn’t need to happen.

            “The camera,” Ellie said quickly getting out of the awkward atmosphere and reaching for the camera that had now fallen onto the floor. She opened up the pictures and opened wide at what she saw.

            “Looks like we found our most beautiful photo,” Chen said as he was looking over her shoulder. Suddenly, Ellie took notice of his close presence. Somehow with one single line, Chen’s whole existence made Ellie’s more alert and aware of her surroundings. She didn’t know why, but the air in the room seemed to be a little different now.

            “It’s not the most beautiful photo,” Ellie said attempting to divert the attention away from the picture. She had to admit, though, that it was a pretty good picture taken. It was of her and Chen in a happy moment, a moment of bliss of fighting over the camera. A rare joint happy moment for the two. Ellie hovered her finger over the delete button, she didn’t want the picture to exist anymore.

            “Don’t,” Chen said reaching out his hand to stop her. He wanted the picture, it was a good picture. If Ellie didn’t want to use it for their project, then he at least wanted it as a memento of their time spent together.

            “W-why n-n-not?” Ellie stuttered as she felt Chen’s warm hand burn her skin. She didn’t know why she was feeling that way, it was foreign and new.

            “Because I like it,” he said with a smile as he slowly backed away from her and leaned back onto the couch.

            Slowly, Ellie’s finger ventured away from the delete button as she turned and looked at Chen, but her attention was drawn elsewhere. “Chen, what’s that?” Ellie asked pointing towards his arm.

            “What’s what?” Chen asked following her gaze until he saw his arm. Quickly, he attempted to hide it and cover it up, but it was no use, Ellie had already seen it.

            “Chen, tell me the truth,” Ellie seriously said as she moved closer to Chen. Her quickly beating heart was no longer a problem. The problem was the fact that there was a softball size bruise on Chen’s arm. “Were you in a fight?”

            “Y-yeah,” Chen sheepishly admitted as he scratched the back of his head. “I got into a tiny fight.”

            “A tiny fight?” Ellie asked in disbelief. “There is no way that this was a tiny fight. Do you see the size of the bruise that you have?”

            “It’s alright, it’s alright,” Chen said standing up. “I should leave now. We have our picture if we want to keep that one, if you don’t, that’s alright.”

            Chen got up to leave the house with Ellie right behind him. Ellie didn’t know what to say to make him stay. It just seemed like he was going home no matter what and there was nothing that Ellie could do. She wondered if he really got into a fight and what the fight was about.

            “I guess…I guess I’ll see you,” Ellie said with a heavy sigh as Chen went to open the door.

            “Yeah I guess,” Chen said with a fake smile. “I’ll see you in school, alright?”

            “Yeah, glad to see that you’re feeling better.”

            “Hmm?”

            “Feeling better, you were sick?” Ellie asked wondering if she got the information wrong.

            “Oh yeah, sick, yea, I’m getting better,” Chen lied once again. He hated lying to her, but he had to.

            Chen opened the door and turned around to see someone already standing at the door holding flowers. “Luhan-oppa, what are you doing here?” Ellie asked in shock. She didn’t expect him coming over, he didn’t even know where she lived. She didn’t like everyone knowing that she was rich and it was one secret that she wanted to keep from Luhan at all possible costs.

            “I looked up your name and found your address,” Luhan said looking around the house. “This is quite a nice house you have here.”

            “Yeah,” Ellie awkwardly said. She just wanted to get Luhan out of her house as quickly as possible.

            “Oh, are you a friend?” Luhan asked taking notice of Chen’s presence.

            “Ah yes, I’m—,” Chen began to introduce himself before Luhan interrupted.

            “You’re Xiumin, right? I believe I already met you before, I’m Luhan,” Luhan said extending his hand for Chen to shake. Chen stared at Luhan with a confused expression. How in the world would this guy know his dead brother?

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What happened on the scavenger hunt? Will Kris be able to tell Ellie his feelings? Will Chen be able to tell Ellie his feelings? What was Luhan doing at Ellie's house? Who would Ellie choose out of the three? How does Luhan know Xiumin? What actually happened to Chen? Did he really get in a fight?

Here is Chapter 17. Hope you enjoyed :D

And I feel as though there are always more questions than answers, but at least this time it's not a prolonged question. You already found out who Xiumin is :)

Now, who is Lay? And what happened to Chen?

And thanks to Renzei27 for giving me the idea for their perfect picture. I kind of tweaked it from what it was originally to better fit the story at the point where it is now. Well, that's it for this chapter :)