-- Geum Min

The next two weeks fly past. I'm perfectly aware of the time passing, but it's like I don't register it. Suddenly I stop in my tracks, look up, and realise that two weeks have passed since the incident on the rooftop. 

And I still haven't confronted Skye about it.

What kind of friend am I?

Frowning, I mentally scold myself. Then I decide to turn my feet towards her house. 

"Yoomin, I want to go talk to Skye," I say aloud, glancing at my sister next to me.

She looks shocked for a split second, then she registers what I said. "Oh no, I completely forgot!"

Silently, I nod. I know exactly how she feels. I don't even know how it just slipped my mind. Then a weight slips into my stomach, and my frown deepens. Minah asked my friend to confront her alone - I hope to the heavens that Skye hasn't already done something so rash. Alarmed now, I quicken my pace towards her house.

Training just finished a while ago, but it ended early today. It's the earliest we have ended all week, and I find that I have a lot of energy to spare now. We've been training a lot harder than usual, because they decided to send us to Japan in a month or so to do some promotion. We'll hold a few concerts, maybe have a fanmeet or two, and then we'll return to Korea. It's meant to give us a taste of what to expect when we debut. 

I shiver slightly. The idea of debuting is so close that I can touch it, but I don't dare to hope too much, in case fate decides that I've tempted it too much and takes all my chances away. Although I think of how far we've come as a group and I want to celebrate already! It takes a lot for me to calm myself down and tell myself to wait a little more patiently - after all, don't count your chicks before they hatch. All this could spiral out of control so easily that it's slightly scary.

We arrive at Skye's front door just then, and I lift my hand to ring the bell. After a few moments, her figure shows up at the door. As she sees us, the smile on her face drops - just a little, but enough for me to notice, and enough for my heart to plummet. Why doesn't she feel happy to see us?

Wincing a little, she steps out and closes the door behind her. "You guys want to go for a walk?"

Yoomin crosses her arms over her chest. "Are you afraid to talk to us in your own house?"

Skye panics a little at my twin's loud tone, and she waves her hands about trying to quiet her down. "I know what you guys want to talk about, but my parents can't hear it," she whispers, looking back at the front door as if it suddenly grew ears.

"Fine then," I say, suddenly feeling a little annoyed with her.

Turning, I lead the way out of her garden and turn down the road away from Skye's house. At least Skye hasn't gotten any new injuries - that must mean she hadn't gone to confront Minah, at least not yet. And if I have anything to say about it, she will never have to go and do something stupid like that. 

"Your parents don't know that you got yourself into a fight?" Yoomin questions, and I can clearly hear the sharp edge in her voice.

Skye shrugs. "They think I stopped."

That makes me pause in my tracks. Whirling around, I level a glare at my friend.

"You used to fight?"

She looks uncomfortable, and avoids my eyes. "I grew up in a rough neighbourhood."

Suddenly I'm lost for words. It strikes me then that the person I have known for almost nine months now - she's a stranger to me. I know almost nothing about where she grew up, the kind of friends she had, why she doesn't talk to them anymore... I reconsider my friend, wondering how much of a mystery she is. And why is it that I only realise this now? Have I been that blind before? Or was I just ignoring what was in front of me?

What kind of person does that make me?

"Skye, I think you should tell us from the beginning," I start, my voice surprisingly calm and smooth - free of all the emotions that are coiling together inside me.

"You should also explain why Minah hates your guts," Yoomin adds.

My friend nods, taking in a deep breath. "So I'm a little rough," she starts. "I didn't grow up in the safest of neighbourhoods, so I learnt early on how to fend for myself. I had a good teacher." As she says this, her lips quirk up in a weird, crooked smile that I've never seen on her before. "I'm quick on my feet, and I can pack a punch, so I'm pretty good. Unfortunately, that got me a little addicted to it, so I got into fights all the time. It got so bad that my parents decided that they had to do something. Obviously, staying in such a rough neighbourhood wasn't an option anymore. They worried that I mixed with bad company, and they decided that we needed to uproot ourselves from there. We came here instead.

"They took my phone and trashed it, so that I couldn't ever contact my friends again. Of course, that was a useless thing to do, although I haven't told them - I memorised most of my friends' contact numbers because I suspected that my parents were going to do something like this. I haven't contacted them since coming here though, because I decided that I needed a new beginning. Besides, when you leave the community like I did, people don't really want you back. I think I'd get shunned now if I tried going back.

"Then I met you guys as well. You guys are good people, and I feel better about myself just by knowing you - that's the kind of aura you give off. I genuinely wanted to be your friend, and I thought that I could only deserve your friendship if I became good. So I didn't find any gangs, I didn't go looking for fights, I hadn't used my fists at all until Minah and her gang confronted me on the rooftop."

As she says this, I realise we've stopped. We're at the playground, again, and the sun is high in the sky. It seems unnaturally bright, maybe because the light contrasts so much with the dark story that Skye's spinning. She hasn't even finished yet, but already she's shocked me to the core. I find that I can't take my eyes off her face as she talks to us, and I see every expression as it flit across her face. I can tell that it's not an easy story to tell, and that there are lots of things she's not saying, but I don't call her on it. Kill me, but I still trust her - she'll tell us as much as she wants to, and I'm okay with that.

"I don't really know why she confronted me," Skye continues, looking at her feet. "But I know that she's a rough one too - I can see it in the way she stands, in the way she looks at the world. And I'm sure she can identify me as one also, which is probably why she agreed so readily when I offered to fight her alone."

She turns her gaze on us suddenly, eyes bright. "I made her a promise to show up alone, and I will keep my promise. I don't want you guys involved in this. And besides, I can hold my own well enough."

Suddenly a silence stretches between us. She seems to be waiting for one of us to say something, but I'm too busy trying to absorb what she just said.

"Wow," Yoomin finally states, her eyes wide.

I think that pretty much sums up everything.

Skye's eyes crinkle into a small smile. "Sorry to spring all this on you so abruptly," she mutters, shuffling her feet. 

But things don't add up for me. Skye must know why Minah is so bent on fighting her, so why isn't she telling us? Am I reading too much into the situation?

Closing my eyes, I try and think back to all the times I'd seen Skye with bruises. There was that one time when she fractured her foot - thankfully that's all healed now. And then, out of the blue, I recall that one day when my friend came over to my house with a bruise on her arm. She moved gingerly then, as if her stomach pained her, and she hunched over ever-so-slightly. Had she thought that we wouldn't notice? I'd passed it off at the time as monthly problems, but now the bruise on her arm lent it more significance - had she been in a fight?

Thinking harder, I remember also that Kwangmin had been surprisingly gentle with her that day. He hadn't let her out of his sight, actually. Did he know something about all this? I make a mental note to ask him about it, and to tell him everything that Skye told us just now. It might be betraying her trust, but I had a sudden feeling that she hadn't been entirely truthful with us either.

And now I feel like a hypocrite - wasn't it only seconds ago that I thought I trusted her enough to let her hide what she wanted to hide?

Maybe my curiosity is winning out. Or maybe I just want to make sure that she doesn't end up getting hurt. Or maybe I'm making excuses.

Maybe I don't trust her anymore.

Shuddering, I look up and find her eyes on mine. She looks worried, but also calculating, as if trying to assess what I just thought about. My blood runs cold. I know that she can't have read my mind, but I guess enough of what I was thinking showed up on my face because she looks a little closed off - like she knows that I don't trust her anymore. Her eyes go back to the floor again, and I think I imagine the sudden brightness I saw in her eyes. 

"I'm sorry, guys," she tells us, and her voice is so strong that I'm now convinced that I imagined the tears I saw in her eyes.

"It's not your fault," Yoomin tells her, patting her arm. "We're still your friends - I mean now it's even better because you can bash away all the stalker fans that we have in the future! You can be our own personal bodyguard!"

Skye looks up and smiles at her, but it looks wrong to me somehow, maybe because her eyes are still sad. 

"Wait," I finally speak up. "Skye, promise or no, you can't go fight them alone. What if you get hurt?"

She raises an eyebrow. "I won't."

"How can you be so sure, though?"

"I've been in enough fights to know how to get through one unscathed," she tells me in reply. "Besides, I know from the rooftop how she fights, and I know I can handle her."

"What if she gangs up on you?"

"It's easier to surprise or confuse them that way."

"Skye, are you sure about this?" Yoomin interrupts before I can shoot another question at her. 

My friend nods at her, her smile genuine this time. My gut twists right then, and I'm not sure whether it's wrenched by worry, guilt, anger, or a mix of all three. Probably the latter. 

"Alright, Skye, but please take care of yourself," my twin says, her voice unsure.

"Yoomin, I'll be fine. You'll see tomorrow," Skye tells us, confidence in her tone. 

Tomorrow? I store that information away safely, prepared to take action whenever I can. As we walk back towards home, my gaze lingers on Skye. It alarms me, quite a lot, that someone I thought I knew so well could turn out to be such a mystery.