“Pain is only in the mind, just like everything else… but you still feel it. You’ll feel it even if you try to find some way to turn your brain off. Some way to deactivate yourself. You’ll always feel it… So, where does that leave you? Just what’s left for you when everything falls apart? When it disappears? No one knows until it happens. But that’s just what makes it scary… and what makes the pain even more real and hard to ignore…” ~ Taemin

(Jae’s POV)

I couldn’t be scared anymore. He was going to let me live and let my brother go free. Jinki would be able to go back to his happy life. What did I have left? Minho had up and disappeared. And because of Jonghyun, I’d been handed over to someone that initially wanted me dead. Neither of them was around to help me. On the other hand, there was Taemin. Not much he could’ve done, to be honest. He relied on me for everything and he was just getting comfortable with himself. 

No one was there for me.

Well, no one but Kibum.

Kibum sat in my dungeon cell with me. I sat curled up in the corner as he offered me his hand, telling me how he’d set Jinki free already.

“What do you plan on doing with me?”

“I’m going to use you to get what I want. I’m sure you’ll be more useful and cooperative than that idiot before you…”

“You mean Jonghyun?”

Kibum shrugged but grinned. Neither gesture seemed to fit him, his personality. Even though I didn’t know him very well.

He waved his hand in front of me, slowly, as if he was scanning, waiting for something to happen. My hands clutched into fists at my sides, the sudden pain in my chest making me want to scream.

“You feel that,” he asked quietly, tone surprised.

All I could do was nod. I feared that it would turn into some lame, generic, low-budget, stereotypical scene from a horror movie if I parted my lips to answer. There’s always at least one scream.

“So, he was right then,” he muttered, hands folding in his lap.

“Wha—Who… Who was right,” I croaked out, air rushing to my lungs of its own free will.

He grinned. I clutched my chest. I waited until the pain faded before risking movement and resting against the cool stone wall beside me.

“You haven’t forgotten Minho, have you?”

Cue the stare. Why did he know people that were close to me? How had I never even heard his name before?

“He’s something like a tracker. It doesn’t take much for him to learn all about you… and for you… he knew quite a lot.”

I felt my world going dark. I wasn’t fainting. I wasn’t dying. I was being reborn, just seeing life through a new set of eyes.

His touch was cold as he pulled his fingers through my hair. Just once before he cradled the side of my face. I saw that blue electrical current, the same one from the day I’d been taken by him. This time the world didn’t disappear. The streaks of blue curled with a gray smoke, thin lines of white – bright white – currents surging through the mix.

Kibum smiled his feline smile.

I shouldn’t have felt so at home.

(Jinki’s POV)

I don’t need protection. I’ll be okay. I promise. You don’t need to protect me. I’ll be fine.

I couldn’t understand why those were the only words that I could remember. All I could remember about that point in time was waking up. Even now though, that’s all I can remember. Everything about the moments before is simply blurred or completely gone.

I peeled my eyes open and immediately felt like I’d been swimming a marathon. My chest felt heavy like I’d swallowed a lot of water. Jin Kyong was staring down at me, her eyes red – her irises as well as from being bloodshot. She looked prepared to give me CPR, but her face lit up in the split second I’d opened my eyes to the sight of her and consciously took my first breath.

Her grip when she hugged me was tighter than usual. It left me gasping for air again. My cheeks flushed when she kissed me.

“I’m so glad you’re awake.”

“Y-You kissed me…”

“Huh?”

“Our first kiss… Jin Kyong-ah, you kissed me.”

It finally hit her. I thought she was going to apologize and get all flustered, but I just felt her lips on mine again.

Everything that had happened, from what I could remember was suddenly just a bad dream. Nothing more. I sat up with her help and took in another breath, trying to see if I could remember anything.

“Jonghyun, he’s here.”

Jin Kyong’s voice made my ears ring. My head was pounding and pain shot through as I tried to recall.

“Where is she?”

Now, both Jonghyun and Jin Kyong were in my sight. He smelled like dirt. She smelled like fruit. That had been his voice.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled weakly.

And I didn’t. I had no idea where we were being held to begin with. I think he just wanted to know if she was alive. What answer could I have given? I didn’t know that either. That Kibum guy could have killed her already.

But there was something I did know.

“She’s not coming back to us…”

Taemin’s red head bounded toward me. He looked hurt by what I said, although there was still some string of hope hiding in his eyes.

“What do you mean,” he pressed.

Just something else I didn’t know. It was just a feeling. A strong one but just a feeling nonetheless.

“She won’t be the same…”

Three Years Later…

(Minho’s POV)

I was in the process of dying my hair. It was cut noticeably shorter and bleached. I was going to be forced back to the stylist. It wasn’t something I liked, but a minor change was something I needed.

I put a hat on, one of the black knitted ones Jae had gotten me. They would’ve been considered a couple set here. That’s what we’d been informed when she was buying them.

I must’ve really missed her because I’d been walking back to our apartment after almost three years of not having seen her. I didn’t want to go back to her. It was too possible of a chance for her to kill me. But I wanted to see her. I really did.

I reached the building and ran my fingers over the brick. I sensed everything I had been scared to find. Her presence was strong. Dangerously strong. That puppy’s trail was still there. Faint, but mainly just drowned out by hers. There was another one, similar to his. Did she have someone new living with them?

I pulled my hand away, fingertips black. Not from the dirt coating the red of the bricks. Darkness lingered, the residue of her distinct presence.

 Just what had I missed?

My answer was in the alley a few blocks down. Taemin’s hair was still red and was a lot longer than I remembered it. His eyes flashed the same color as his body crashed onto the pavement leading into the alleyway. He must’ve caught my scent with the way he snapped his head in my direction. He let out a sharp snarl that I could hear, even from where I was before disappearing back between the buildings. I hurried toward the sound of what I assumed was his whimpering and, when I reached my destination, I realized that that’s exactly what that was.

“What’s going on here,” I questioned coolly.

The figured resembled Taemin so much it was quite scary. Their frames were about the same  with the other’s being only a hair or so bigger, facial features, hair color…

“I’m punishing my brother for being a . I apologize.”

Taemin kicked himself free, heel of his boot landing directly with the other’s male stomach. Said man dropped him and doubled over.

“I don’t need you watching out for me, Taesun…” The slightly smaller male spoke up.

“That girl will probably kill you. I’m just finding you… I don’t want you dying…”

“She’s the one that helped me find you! Don’t say stuff like that.”

“You better be happy I’m here for you, that I care enough about you not to kill her,” Taesun gritted.

“Jae wouldn’t hurt me… Or you!”

“Just how sure of that are you?”

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my trench coat, the cool air around them disappearing for the moment, until I realized the name he’d said.

“Jae,” I could barely hear my own voice, “What’s going on?”

“You know her,” Taesun crossed his arms at his chest, “She’ll probably find some reason to kill you, too. It seems like that’s all she’s been doing lately.”

“That-That can’t be true…” I looked to Taemin, whose sullen expression spelled it out for me.