For a second, Taekwoon thought he was with his mother again. There was a soft hand his face, and there was a familiar cherry blossom scent lingering in the air.

Taekwoon moaned as he leaned into the touch.

“Hey, there,” the woman in the room said.

Taekwoon tensed up. That voice definitely not his mother’s, and Taekwoon was violently returned to reality once he remembered that his mother was dead, and his last memory was that of being trapped in the trunk of a car.

He opened his good eye, and was greeted by a woman looking down on him with a smile.

“Are you awake already?” the woman asked, bringing her hand away from her face and placing it on her lap.

Taekwoon nodded. “Where am I?” he asked as he looked around the room. He should be relieved that he wasn’t in another basement, or still in a trunk.

Also he was laying in a bed, and it was very comfortable.

But waking up in an unknown location and being greeted by a strange woman wasn’t reassuring.

The woman smiled. “I’m Minah,” she said. “I’m...an acquaintance of your dad’s.”

Taekwoon didn’t react. He wasn’t sure how to. This woman seemed so nice, but his gut was telling him not to trust this woman at all.

“You’ve actually only been here for a few minutes,” Minah continued to explain. “Can I get you anything? You must be still hurting a lot, right?”

Taekwoon didn’t answer.

He still didn’t know where he was; he was still in pain; and one of the last things he heard his father say to him was his plan to throw him away.

“My dad wants to get rid of me?” Taekwoon asked, his voice cracking.

“Do you want to talk to him?” Minah asked. “He’s still here with his brother.”

Taekwoon was quiet again. He once again didn’t know how to respond, and he was too tired to figure out his emotions. Taekwoon wanted to see his father; he wanted an explanation; he wanted a chance to win his father over and convince him to not let each other go. They were the last surviving members of their family, and they needed to support one another. On the other hand, Taekwoon was beginning to think that everything would just be a waste. For the first time, he was starting to see just how right his friends and Brian were. His father didn’t care about him, and he most likely never would. Taekwoon held onto the slightest hope that maybe they were wrong; that maybe his father did care about him, he just didn’t know how to show it.

But Taekwoon had enough confirmation. Right now, he wanted to see his friends and Brian more than anything, even if it was just to tell them that they were right all along. He desperately wanted to be with them, and it caused a sharp pain in his chest in realizing that he may never see them again.

“You don’t speak much,” Minah said with a smile, breaking his chain of thought. “Maybe things would have worked out between me and your dad if he was anything like you.”

Taekwoon turned his head away when Minah started his cheek again.

“I’ll get you some water,” Minah said as she stood up. “You must be hungry too. I’ll get you a snack.”

She walked out after that, leaving Taekwoon to himself.

Taekwoon looked around the room. He figured he wasn’t in Minah’s room; he was confident that this room was much too plain to be regularly inhabited by a woman like her.

Taekwoon went rigid as he heard his father’s voice in the distance.

Taekwoon wondered why that man would still be here. He was certain his father was the type that would have just dumped him here and left.

Which means that his father only stayed because of Minah, and that made Taekwoon hurt even more.

Minah walked into the room again, a glass of water in one hand, and a bar of chocolate in the other.

If his dad wanted him dead, would she even bother to feed him?

Unless she poisoned the water and the chocolate bar to make his death easy and painless.

Minah smiled, noticing the look on Taekwoon’s face.

“I didn’t do anything to them,” she said. “Should I prove it to you?” She took a sip of water.

Taekwoon bit his lip. At least he was sure the water was clean. He slowly sat up, wincing in pain. He sighed deeply as he was finally elevated and leaning on the bed’s headboard.

Minah sat on the edge of the bed and handed the boy the glass of water, smiling when Taekwoon finally accepted. “Do you want me to prove the chocolate is poison-free too?”

Taekwoon shook his head. He drank from the glass before placing on the bedside table. “What’s going to happen to me?” he asked. Taekwoon hated the fact that he had no idea what was going on.

“Do you also need some medicine?” Minah asked. “They really hurt you, didn’t they?”

Taekwoon wasn’t dumb. He could tell Minah didn’t want to answer his question, and it was really frustrating.

“Does he want to kill me?” Taekwoon asked.

Minah shook her head.

At least that was an answer. It didn’t provide an explanation, but it gave Taekwoon more knowledge that he didn’t have before.

“Am I going back home eventually?”

Minah shook her head again, this time it almost seemed to break her heart to do so. “What happened, Taekwoon? Why did he do this to you?”

Taekwoon tried unwrapping the chocolate bar, but failing because he could barely move his left arm. Minah noticed his struggle and grabbed the chocolate bar from his hands, unwrapped the chocolate, and handed it back to him. Taekwoon