And yet there she was yet again, letting her feet dangle off one of the few remaining branches that remained on the sad looking tree. It wasn't the tallest anymore because lightning had struck and the very top of it had fallen. She stared sadly at the ground wishing she could find the answer hidden beneath in the pile of autumn leaves that were starting to rot into the earth again. Maybe the answer was there below, she thought, peering closer. It was a steep fall, almost 30 metres down and if she fell she probably wouldn't survive. "But what about mom... what about Taemin?" she argued, hitting her head to rid herself of the thought of suicide. She pulled herself off of the branch and was about to descend from the tree when she suddenly her a gasp from below. "Naeun?!" the familiar male voice yelled out from below.

Just as she'd  been thinking about him he appeared, Naeun was too surprised to even move, she wanted to suddenly sink into the bark so he wouldn't see her, But it was too late anyways, she stared down at the man who'd dropped several plastic bags of groceries and was now attempting to climb the tree after her. "Don't move!" he yelled, hoisting himself up onto the first foothold which was easier now that he was a lot taller. "I'm coming to get you!" "Its fine oppa! im coming down!" she shook her head crossly, lowering herself to meet him. "What are you doing here?" "I was visiting my family home, i live in the house by the ginko tree over there" he waved his hand in no particualr direction, more distracted by her movements as she climbed down and hoping to god she didn't fall. "Im wondering more why YOU'RE here!" She laughed, pulling him up onto the branch where she was currently perched. "You guys STILL live there? i should have dropped by and paid your mom a visit..." He gaped, wondering if she'd once been a fangirl  who stalked him. But he couldn't remember her, and the way she talked about his family it was almost like she'd met them a lot. "What do you mean? you dont know my mother do you?" he asked suspiciously, eyes darting nervously around as he tried to pull her closer to the tree trunk so she'd stop swinging precariously on the branch. Naeun stopped laughing, realising she'd been hinting too much about her crush on him. She realised that maybe it was time to remind him, they'd come so far in their relationship anyway it would probably be best to tell him everything. Even... telling him about her father. "You know... we knew eachother as children" she finally admitted, turning to glance at him as she pulled the leaves off of the end of a twig. "I know, you told me we were in middle-school together" he said shrugging as he stared at her with a quizzical expression. She stared back, her expression unfathomable. "You still don't remember? we spent a whole summer together!" she huffed, standing up and before he could grab her she jumped as far as she could five feet away to the next branch below. "DONT DO THAT!" he yelled, gripping his chest when he saw that she landed safely and leaning back against the tree trunk. "I'm really good at climbing trees you know, you even said i was like tarzan once..." Naeun threw her head back and laughed, walking along the branch at ease, not even having to hold onto anything to balance herself. "How old were we when i told you this?" Taemin suddenly asked, sitting up. "you were turning ten that year" Naeun turned to face him, her silhouette darkening as the sun began to set behind her. "And we spent the whole summer together and promised to be best friends... but when we went back to school you forgot about me oppa. I mean it was only one summer  but still..." she didn't let herself cry, her time with her father at the prison cell had already dried her tears supply. Taemin stood up too, gulping nervously as he looked down the ten metres that weren't life-threatening, but still terrified him. "I... I'm sorry" he said, trying to climb down but not sure how to get over to her branch, he sure as hell wasn't going to jump like she did. "It's too late for apologies" she waved him off, watching him struggle and eventually give up moving from that branch. "Maybe i should leave you here by yourself to pay back for all the times you left me up this tree alone?" She sat down and stared at him blankly. "I really dont remember what you're talking about though" he continued pleadingly" he said, still trying to get closer to her. She looked up at him, still unbelieving. "People wouldn't just forget what we had Taemin, why?"

Somewhere deep inside were memories that he'd tried very hard to suppress and was near successful in doing so. As a young boy he'd often go over to her house, at any time of day he was welcome. During that summer he would sometimes sleep over, almost always though he had to ask her permission first because she needed to be sure her father wouldn't be home that night. He was never sure why it was such abbig deal that he never saw her father, but one particular night he decided he wanted to surprise her and so snuck out of his own house and to her bedroom window without telling her. He climbed the railing along her house easily, glad that all the tree climbing they did together was paying off. When he heard muffled cries coming from her room, he froze. It sounded like someone calling out for help, it sounded like Naeun. "Naeun-ah!!!" he hurried to the window and wrenched it open, climbing inside to be met by the most horrible sight he'd ever seen in his life.

Crouched in the corner of her bed, blood dripping from and semi- save for the bed sheet she hastily wrapped herself in was Naeun, sobbing into her hair and hands with blood all over the sheets. Above her stood a man he didn't recognise, his fist and belt raised and wearing nothing but boxers with something angry looking poking out of them that he'd about from his brother and the disgusting things he and his friends would say when they were talking. She wouldn't stop crying and he kept yelling, jumping off the bed and advancing towards him. He did the first thing he could think of in that moment, screaming as loudly as he could and throwing a nearby lamp at the man, causing it to shatter on the ground when he knocked it away. "Get back here!!! the main yelled trying to grab his jacket before he could jump back out of the window. He managed to grab the back of it and it was ripped off Taemin's body, sending him flailing into the cold night with his shirt. The cold wasn't the first thing that him though, it was the searing pain he felt in his leg after just falling two storey's to his possible death. He lay on the ground, the pain intensifying with every spasmical movement he made to get up and keep running. Instead of turning back, going to save Naeun, he wanted to escape. Because after all he was never the kind of person she was, he cried and he cried often. He didn't jump from braches, he had a lot of fears, and he was very much conscious of death and his own mortality. The lights were all on in the house behind him but he didn't notice, then the sound of a woman screaming, the man yelling. Had he turned around he would have seen that he actually had saved her in a way, after years of abuse that Naeun had never dared mention to her mother, he had finally been caught because of the racket Taemin had made. "How could you?!" he managed to hear a shriek followed by sobbing before he stood up, limping away back to his house where he would be safe.

The week following Taemin sat in the hospital nursing his broken leg while his parents sat around him trying for the hundredth time to get him to explain what he'd seen at the Son house that night and how exactly he'd broken his leg. They knew he'd gone there because they often saw him sneak out into the night, then Naeun's mother would call them laughing telling them of how she suddenly found two giggling lumps in her daughters bed. She assured them that it was okay for him to stay over and they didn't mind, as long as they were told where he was. His parents trusted Naeun's mother, a woman they'd known for a long time, but now they were confused, they never saw Naeun or her mother again because they'd moved away somewhere on the other side of town. The father had gone to jail for reasons they didn't know. Taemin refused to tell them, in fact he refused to utter a word since that night. A child psychologist had been brought in to examine him and told his parents that he had witnessed something traumatic that night and it might be best if they bought a hypnotist in to make him forget. And so the hypnotist came, put him in a deep sleep and when he awoke he had very little memory of what happened, it was as if his brain had been reset to the very start of the summer holidays. He spoke for the first time in a week asking his parents how he'd broken his leg, didn't he just come home from school? His mother cried and hugged him and filled his blank memory back with something new. He'd been made to forget about the things he'd seen, but in the process was forced to forget about Naeun and their friendship. His parents thought it was for the best, but there was still one little girl on the other side of the city who cried herself to sleep every night for three years, then eventually stopped crying altogether. But though he forgot almost everything something Taemin told himself to never do, though he didnt know they were words from her, was cry.