White was the color that Jieun saw when she opened her eyes, it was her favorite color yet right now it made her body tremble because the realization came too fast and it hit her hard she was left helpless. Everything felt awfully familiar and all she wished was to be anywhere but here. She closed her eyes tightly, wishing that when she open them again she would see another color, but she knew she wouldn’t so she just bit her lips, letting the tears to fall along with the hope that slowly faded away.

She heard someone opened the door and walked toward her then that person hold her hand and she chocked a sob.

“Sssh, it’s okay. Everything will be okay.” A familiar voice whispered while her hair gently.

“I’m here, you’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.” The words were whispered again and again like mantra. Jieun wanted to believe in them, but she knew she shouldn’t because the last time she hung all her hope in them, they betrayed her and let her fall mercilessly. She was once broken, then miracle fixed her, now it seemed like life decided to break her once again and she didn’t know if there’d be another miracle that would be able to put back the shattering pieces together.

Time passed and finally the tears stopped falling, it dried but the pain lingering. Jieun opened her eyes slowly and saw a pair of eyes that looked at her lovingly. They are wet just like her own, there were pain in them just like what she would see in hers if she faced the mirror.

“Hi.” Lay said, smiling.

Jieun didn’t have the strength to greet him back, so she just tried to pull her lips upward.

They stayed in silence for a while more, words were not needed in time like this. They had already through this and just like last time, this time they also find a little comfort in their wordless moment.

“Where’s grandpa?” Finally Jieun found the strength to speak.

“He is talking with Uncle Kim in his office.” Yixing said while tightening his held on Jieun’s hand.

Another silence.

“This time...h-how long...” Jieun couldn’t finish her question.

“Everything will be okay, Jieun-ah.”

“Stop lying, you know that’s a lie.”

“You just need to do the surgery.” Yixing still trying to keep his optimism but Jieun knew that he also realized that it wouldn’t be that easy.

“It relapsed, Yixing. Everything will be repeated again, I will feel all those pain again, I’ll be trapped here again.” The tears were falling again, “I-I don’t w-want to...I-I’m afraid.”

“Ssssh... I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jieun-ah.” Lay hugged her tightly and they stayed like that until Jieun was asleep in his arms.

Lay laid his best friend on the bed gently and look at her while her hair.

“If I could, I’d take away all your pain, Jieun-ah. I’ll gladly switch our position so that I’d be the one suffering. It hurts me more to watch you fall apart while I have no power to lessen your pain.” He said.

***

The sun was slowly disappearing in the horizon and now the sky was painted by shades of orange. Four young lads were lying on their back after a basketball match that they held on their own. They should go home by now but no one wanted to even move a limb. Too exhausted, too comfortable, and maybe they just wanted to stay for a little while because graduation was near and so they wanted to create some more memories together until they have to walk away from the school gate and not come back in the next morning.

“Boring.” Said Tao, the one with face that reminds you of assassin but if you know him he is no more than a teenager girl in disguise.

“Right. Boring.” The one with face prettier than most girls, Luhan, agreed.

“So what should we do?” Sehun asked with his infamous poker face.

“I don’t know. Games?” Luhan said.

“What about truth or dare?” Tao asked enthusiastically, but his face fell when he watched his friends’ responses.

“Why? What’s wrong with truth or dare?” He asked, a tone higher than normal because he felt the urge to prove that his idea was not bad at all.

“Well, it’s too girly.” Sehun said as if that’s a matter of fact.

“That’s stupid. I play it with my cousins all the time and they are boys.” Tao argued.

Sehun was just going to reply but Luhan saw it and he knew if he didn’t stop them, another pointless argument would be started.

“Okay. Let’s play it, then.” He said. Tao cheered and said something about Luhan being his best best friend or something and Sehun looked at him with shocked expression.

“What? Why?” Sehun asked. Luhan just gave the boy a look and he shut up.

“You are okay with this game, right, Jongin?” Luhan asked their other friend that hadn’t spoken a word since before. The said Jongin that everybody else calls Kai—a boy with tanned skin, handsome face, hot body, and smart brain that make all the girls worship him—just nodded silently.

“Okay then, let’s start.” Luhan said.

“Wait, we must make some rules first.” Tao interrupted.

“What rules?”

“Well, there must be punishment if one of us tell lies or fail to do the dare.”

“Um...okay. What do you guys want as punishment?” Luhan asked them.

“How about buying lunch for the one who ask the question or the dare until graduation?” Sehun said.

“Until graduation? That’d be four month from now. Isn’t that too long?” Luhan asked, but both Sehun and Tao shook their head