| AGE 6 | ONE MONTH AFTER THE FIRE |

The endless dance of flames flickered before his eyes again, pestering his subconscious relentlessly. The smell of burning wood and flesh still lingered his mind, the torturing screams of the Bulwich family still resonated in his ears. The screams had only been getting worse, night after night. Ever increasingly, he could hear them cry out. Yet he was not able to help them. He never was. This night was no different: he ran toward the house with all the courage his little heart could muster, but he was always too late. When he did manage to reach the house, he was still powerless against the hurling flames. Then, when he had completely broken down, he could hear the screams chant his name. "Taekwoon!", they screamed, "Help us!". He would try to explain, but the scene never changed.

The cries of his dreams would occasionally fall together with those of Ana, jolting him awake. Down the hall from his room, he could hear his father trying to wake and calm her, but failing. When this occurred, Taekwoon would wait in his bed and listen to his father eventually giving up, before quiet as a nine year-old possibly could, slipping out of his room to go sit at Ana's side. He felt an inexplicable feeling of responsibility for the small girl, deciding time and time again that he would do anything in his power to make sure she would one day smile again. Whenever Taekwoon came to her, Ana would clutch his hand firmly, non-verbally forbidding him to leave her, until eventually, the two children fell asleep together, banishing the cruel visions from their minds.

~

Silently, she plucked at the seam of the tablecloth. Her small fingers played with the loose strings, while her round, green eyes blankly stared at the flowers embroidered onto the pale yellow fabric. Taekwoon sat down next to her, inquisitively looking at her busy little hands. He sighed and looked over to his father, who bore an expression the boy had gotten used to over the past month. A hollow, grief-ridden expression, that seemed to carve deeply into the man's face.  Hakyeon softly shuffled onto the terrace, sitting himself down next to his father. The shade that covered the table and the company sitting at it, caused by the vines that intertwined across the pergola, was very welcome to Hakyeon's tired eyes. Agatha, the family's housekeeper, put the last bits of the breakfast on the table and excused herself silently after receiving a small nod from Mr. Jung. Fifteen minutes passed slow as could be, seemingly bending the rules of time and space. Meanwhile, Mr. Jung started peeling his fourth peach of that morning. Ana started at it intently. Keeping absolute track of how the small, curved knife pierced the peach's skin and allowed the clear juice to drip out. Mr. Jung noticed the little girl's eyes fixated on the fruit, sighed with a soft smile and motioned for her plate. The girl quickly complied and watched as piece by piece the dissected peach was put on display on the light blue porcelain.

"Do you like peaches, Ana?", Hakyeon, who had been curiously watching, asked her. Ana looked up at him and opened as if she was about to answer him, but after a fraction of a second, she closed her jaws and curtly nodded. Hakyeon sighed and whispered to his father, "Are you sure we shouldn't let anybody take a look at her? Shouldn't she be grieving? Yelling? Crying?". Mr. Jung slowly reached for another peach and rasped his voice, "She [shouldn't] be doing anything.". And with this, Hakyeon knew, the conversation was over. At least for now.

~

"Little Master.", Agatha announced her presence, "Have you seen Miss Ana?". Taekwoon looked up from the plant he had been investigating and stood up before the maid. "I'm sorry, no.", he replied softly. The woman nodded, thanked him for his time and requested him to please wash his hands when he went inside. Taekwoon nodded, but never verbally made such a promise. He waited until their keeper had walked the small, winding path up to the main house, before running down the hillside in the one direction he knew almost for certain he could find Ana. It didn't take his small, agile body long to reach the lavender patch his late mother had set to grow and at the outskirt of it, he saw a suspicious trail of stomped stems. He carefully entered the bush, following the narrow trail to the flattened out spot, which Ana used to frequent. Surely, there she was. Surrounded by the sweet-smelling lavender flowers, her mahogany hair slightly ruffled and disorganised. He sat down next to her and watched her hands at work. She would pick a flower, rub it between her hands until the petals fell off, smell her fingers and repeat the process. Once he had been there for a good half an hour, she looked at him after dropping her latest victim and pushed her hands under his nose, forcing him to directly inhale a near-nauseating dose of flowery odour. He coughed and pushed her hands away after backing up in response, falling on his back due to the shift in momentum. The little girl stared at him, the corners of slowly pulling upward, but ultimately pulling back into the usual line-shaped mouth she had adopted as her basic emotion.