It took a hit in the head and an elbow nudge for Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to stop gaping at Hana after seeing the slight uplift of her lips. The unusual twitch gave them more than just happiness. It gave them hope, hope to get her to open up more and more importantly, it fueled their determination to crack her shell open. They noticed the slight changes in her behavior; her little inputs every now and then assured them that they were right on track.

“So our options are now narrowed down to, a song about winter, love, Christmas, friendship and homicide…..? The heck? Who wrote this here?”

All eyes turned to Baekhyun who was slowly seen backing away.

“Oh come on! A song about love?! Friendship?! Seriously? What are we? Happy tree friends?!”

“Actually….Happy tree friends are morbid so……”

“Shut up Lay.”
“Just saying.”

“Look Baek, as much as I appreciate your….how should I put it….’enthusiastic’ recommendation-“

“You don’t appreciate it at all.”

“- I really must remind you that this is a SCHOOL festival, to be attended by FRIENDS and FAMILY, and is being held in WINTER, around CHRISTMAS time. So singing about murders isn’t really a great option, alright brother?”

Baekhyun commences his string of theories justifying his ideas while Hana has her chin propped on her palm and enjoying their bicker fest. The smile gracing her face had been visiting frequently ever since a month ago. She was too focused on their quarrelling to notice that the boy next to her was looking at her with the warmest smile and unlike usual, hadn’t attempted to break the two boys apart.

“-we most certainly cannot sing a song about ‘the mysterious death of someone’s girlfriend’! Its highly inappropriate!”

“Yes we can! If Michael Jackson can perform ‘Smooth Criminal’ in front of an all age audience, we can sing something similar too!”

“Ok honestly? You’re going with that now? Alright, how do you expect Lay to write about someone’s girlfriend getting stabbed huh?”

“She doesn’t necessarily have to stabbed, we can shoot her too.”

“Potato, pota-to, same story.”

“Oh puh-lease! Lay’s a genius he can come up with something, can’t you buddy?”

Both heads whipped towards the said boy who had zoned out their voices. He was brought back to earth when he felt Hana turning towards him and turned his own attention to the expectant eyes ahead of him.

“What?”

“Wow….it’s getting worse isn’t it?” Baekhyun said with an expression that looked almost pitiful.

“Yup…” Kyungsoo nodded to his friends obscure statement which left both Hana and Lay with furrowed eyebrows.

“What’s getting worse?”

“You think he’ll figure it out?”

“Nah dude I don’t think so.”

“Guys, I’m still here.” Lay said slightly agitated by the way his friends ignored his existence. He noticed Hana’s raised hand, probably to remind them of her existence and looked back his friends.

“We were just discussing your caliber as a song writer.”

“No you weren’t.”

“Yes we were. Apparently Baekhyun here wants us to sing about 'someone’s girlfriend getting murdered' at the winter festival and I was knocking the fact of this being a ridiculous idea into his thick skull.”

“The only thing ridiculous here is the size of your eyes.”

“Really Baekhyun? Really?”

“Guys!”

“Right! So I was telling Mr. Bug eyes here that Lay is a genius who can come up with lyrics for anything. So will you write an amazing homicide song for your buddy here?” Baekhyun said as he leaned in closer to Lay with his hands clasped and blinked multiple times. Lay looked towards Hana who, by now, had slowly inched away from the scene with a slightly amused, slightly bewildered expression.

“Ummm….. I’m flattered that you think I’m capable of producing such a……grotesque piece, but I think Kyungsoo’s right. A murder song for Christmas is not really the brightest idea you’ve ever had.”

Kyungsoo let out a short satisfied laugh, "Thank you! See! Told you didn't I?!"

Baekhyun’s expression dropped as he leaned away, “You guys are so boring. Fine let’s go with something cuddly and cringe worthy”. He sulked into his seat with folded arms when Hana got up, earning questioning gazes from the other two boys and sat next to Baekhyun, patting him on the back. The boy brightened up immediately at Hana’s smile.

“Alright guy, let’s get to work.”

_

Junmi didn’t miss the change in Hana’s behavior either. The first twitch Hana flashed her made her experience a whole new level of happiness. She then realized that she had made the right decision. Junmi had had second thoughts about informing the guys about Hana’s condition. She had not showed the entire picture, neither had she told them the cause of the entire situation, she had just shed some light upon Hana’s behavior which they were bound to find unusual sooner or later.

She had explained Hana's reason for not speaking as her being shy and said that they should give her some time to open up to them but the boys were convinced that there was more to what they were told, however, they didn’t probe further. For now they were content with what they knew, and hoped greatly that the rest of the story would be narrated to them by Hana herself.

Junmi also didn’t fail to notice how Hana would continuously smile at her screen everyday during breakfast.

“So Hana, how’s the preparation coming along? Good?” Hana nodded at her aunt’s statement and Junmi took the brave step of asking the question that had been bothering her for days.

“Hey I was thinking, maybe you don’t like your current psychologist, which is why your attendances are poor.” The topic had the effect Junmi had been expecting. Hana’s smile faltered and she looked up from her phone screen, her eyes no longer sparkling. However, there was no going back now, she had mustered the courage to bring up the topic and now she had to see it through and observing Hana’s condition getting better each day, she felt that things would end in her favor.

“And so I thought that maybe, we should change psychologists? There’s this amazing doctor, I read about her in the newspaper as well. I met her yesterday at her office and she was really nice.” Junmi continued warily as she observed her niece. The cold Hana was back, no nods, no smiles;the same stoic expression was etched on her face.

“Look sweetie, don’t you think it’s about time you moved on? You have friends now. Don’t you want to be able to express yourself like them?” Hana stood up abruptly, hardly preventing the chair from falling due to the sudden movement. She collected her things, gave a slight bow to her aunt before walking out the main door. Junmi sighed; she expected the situation to turn out like this. The only thing she could do now was to hope that Hana would actually consider her words.

_

“Dude you’re smiling at your screen.”

“And…?”

“It’s creepy.”

“Your point?”

“Its creepy.”

Kris sighed as he saw his brother shrug while smiling like a fool at his phone. He had observed his brother’s foreign behavior ever since he came back from university and it didn’t take him long to figure out the possible reason behind his brother’s new found addiction to his phone.

“So what’s her name?” Kris asked out of the blue and Lay responded with a ‘huh’, suddenly alarmed by his brother’s question.

“What’s whose name?” Lay snapped his head towards his mother, who was looking inquiringly at her eldest son. Kris saw Lay’s pleading gaze and inwardly smiled.

“No one mom.” Lay let out a relieved sigh at his brother’s response but his peace was short lived.

“Just this girl your son has been texting continuously for the past few days.”

Lay’s eyes widened as he stared at his brother while Kris let a sly smile spread across his face.

“A girl?”

“No mom, he’s just hallucinating.”

“Oh yes a girl! And he likes her too~”

“I DO NOT!” Lay defended as he gaped at his brother. He had mentally let out a string of profanities towards his brother already.

“So there IS someone?” Fei said as she laced her fingers together above the table and expectantly looked towards her son who was fidgeting in his seat.

“Mom, trust me. It’s nothing. Just a friend of mine from school. Remember that project I told you about? The one I’m working on with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo? She’s in it too. We were just discussing.”

“Discussing. Yeah, sure.” Kris snorted as he muched on his bread and Lay had a 'not so nice' thought about his brother choking on it.

“I better get going or I’ll be late for school.” Lay said as he scampered away from his evil brother and curious mother. Hastily putting on his shoes, he was about to exit the door when his mom held him back.

“Drop this at the hospital. Your dad had a night shift and he’s probably hungry.” Lay took the brown bag from his mother’s hand before pecking her cheek and exiting. But before he could even walk out the door, he heard his mom say “Bring her over someday”, and groaned in annoyance. He would definitely get back at Kris.

His mood however, turned from sour to sweet when a familiar name blinked on his screen.

‘Hana: My last class would end at 1. Should I meet you at the soccer field or wait until Baekhyun and Kyungsoo finish with their club meeting?’

‘Lay: nope I think you should just come early. Who knows how long they’ll take :P ‘

‘Hana: Alright! See you then!”

_