When Sunhwa woke up again, she felt groggy, but more importantly, had the insistent urge to pee. She sat up, threw off the blanket that had somehow appeared around her, and then staggered to the bathroom.

After Sunhwa was done doing her business, she noticed that the dorm was eerily quiet. She peered around the corner and called tentatively, “Taemin? Onew? Minho? Jonghyun?”

There was no reply. “Hmpf,” Sunhwa huffed. “Now what?”

She returned to the couch area, not really tired or hungry, but rather bored. I should practice, Sunhwa decided and stood up. Where can I find a mirror?

Sunhwa peered into the first room she saw – and smiled delightedly when she saw large full-body mirror against the wall. This is a lot bigger than mine.

Sunhwa began counting to herself and started going through the moves to “Replay”. After a while, she became tired and sat on the ground. “Hm…do they have music?” She crawled over to the bookstand, where there was a set of speakers for a MP3, but no music. Maybe it’s in here, she decided and opened a drawer.

NOPE! Sunhwa thought as she looked inside briefly and saw a colorful drawer full of…underwear. She quickly slammed the drawer shut, shook her head to get rid of the image, and opened the next one.

Whoever owns this room is really organized, Sunhwa thought as she went through the records. There were stacks of books, CDs, and bundles of pictures. Sunhwa reached into the very back of the drawer and felt a small lump with her hand. She pulled it out to see a small velvet bag with a drawstring. Her curiosity piqued, Sunhwa carefully untied the knot and dumped the contents into her hand.

They were pictures. Some were black-and white, some were color that had faded. The edges were creased with age. Fascinated, Sunhwa inspected the pictures carefully.

One was of a smiling couple, both of them in their mid-forties to fifties. The woman looked like she had been stunningly beautiful in her youth, but she still retained some of that beauty. She was grinning. The man had his arm around her and deep laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, though his face had traces of wrinkles already. They appeared to be standing in front of a small, gray building in the middle a field.

Sunhwa set aside this picture and moved on to the next one. It was a color photo with an elderly halmeoni with a walking stick and small squinty eyes behind glasses. However, she looked anything but fragile, back upright with stick-straight posture and a sharp, intelligent gaze.

There was a picture of two children sitting on wooden steps, both looking about eight years old. One was a girl who had a full-toothed smile and was wearing overalls, pretty in a cheerful way. Hey, she looks kind of like me, Sunhwa realized with a start. There was definitely some resemblance in the shape of the nose and the mouth, the curve of the jaw – things Sunhwa saw every time she looked in the mirror. It wasn’t so close that they looked like sisters, however. The boy next to her was wearing a slightly grungy pair of jeans and a collared shirt. Both their clothing looked old, but the boy’s looked carefully taken care of, his shirt tucked in and clean despite the tattered strands. He, too, was smiling. That looks like…Key? Sunhwa thought with wonder. Or maybe Minho?

The last picture was of the same girl, but she had grown to be about twelve. She was wearing a dress then, obviously dressed up in dusty black shoes and a hair ribbon for some occasion. She still had the same smile, though. Sunhwa didn’t have time to inspect the picture further because they were yanked out of her hand. She only had time to look up and register the angry face of one Kim Kibum, and Sunhwa thought, I’m dead.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” he shouted, and Sunhwa winced a little inwardly at the volume. She knew it was wrong that she had been looking around, but she was bored! And they were only a few pictures…right?

Sunhwa defended herself, “I thought no one was in the dorm! Where were you, anyway? Aren’t you guys supposed to be taking care of me?”

“I went grocery shopping for about two seconds,” Key sneered back at her. “I didn’t think you would manage to get your filthy hands on everything in that time, but I guess I was wrong.”

“I’m sorry if I was violating your privacy or something,” Sunhwa shot back angrily, “but I hardly thought looking at a few pictures would do any harm! Normally people don’t scream when other people look at their photos.”

“You have no idea what these mean to me, you stupid peasant.”

“Would you stop calling me that?!?” Sunhwa glared right back at Key for a few moments, and then added just to spite him, “Who was that girl, anyway? Is there a reason she looks like me?”

At this, Key went deathly quiet, and his fingers clutching the pictures whitened and started shaking. Although she would never admit it, Sunhwa was more frightened by this than his shouting and unconsciously took a step back.

“Get. Out,” Key hissed lowly, not even looking at her.

Sunhwa backed towards the door and turned to leave. Something inside made her turn around, though, and she said softly, “Key – ”

“I SAID LEAVE!” Key shouted in sudden fury, whirling on her and pinning her with his gaze. Her words suddenly dying in , Sunhwa darted out the door and closed it.

As she leaned against the wall, the back of her head touching it, Sunhwa heard a dull thump as Key threw something. Hard. She closed her eyes, the image of the smiling twelve-year old girl resurfacing in her mind.

Key…mianhe.

What have I done?

Look at that - angst! Hope you liked the chapter. xD

Anyway, my commenters/subscribers motivated me to update again. You go, guys! Please keep doing what you're doing, I love you all <3

Happy Mother's Day! :)

- tigress

P.S. I have exams soon, so I might not update for a bit. Just a heads-up.