"Seyeon-ah, how are you?" 

 

"Alive and kicking..." Aelyn answered dryly.

 

Sehun poked her in the forehead.

 

"This kid, don't try to be cheeky. How are you adapting?"

 

"Quite alright. The country's beautiful, and the local food is yummy."

 

"Ah...you must bring us out on a food trip one day...though I'm not sure if Manager-hyung would be pleased. Anyway, how's school?"

 

Aelyn shifted her gaze towards the floor.

 

School.

 

"It's horrible, I get bullied everyday, the girls are meaner than those you see in chick flicks, and you don't know how much I'd like to use hapkido on them. I'm suffering." a tiny voice echoed in Aelyn's head. 

 

"School? It's manageable. I'm doing decently." 

 

"Decently? Are you kidding me?" 

 

Sehun stood up abruptly and rummaged through his cupboard. He took out a ring file, kept deep in a corner. He flipped opened the file. 

 

"Math 4.0, Biology 4.0, Chemistry 4.0, Physics 4.0, Humanities 4.0, English Literature 4.0, Chinese Language 4-point-freaking-zero, Japanese 4.0 dude to think those aren't even your native language. Overall GPA: 4.0 that's the highest attainable grade AND YOU DARE CALL THAT DECENT."

 

"How did you know?" 

 

"It's in your progress report. I'm you guardian, remember? They send me one all the way to Korea every term. You...genius. Oppa barely passed high school." 

 

"That's because you're dumb." 

 

Sehun flared his nostrils and started jabbing Aelyn in the ribs. "Zaps", were Aelyn's weakness, and she was most sensitive at her rib area.

 

"No I mean...EEE...that's because EEE....you were busyEE...training...OPPA STOP IT!" 

 

"That's more like it." Sehun stopped, after giving Aelyn one last poke. 

 

Aelyn composed herself. When she looked up Sehun was looking at her solemnly. 

 

"Aelyn, tell me the truth. What's going on in school?" 

 

"Nothing's wrong. Everything is fine." 

 

"Fine?" 

 

Sehun flipped a couple of pages in the file. Aelyn was quite touched. Sehun wasn't exactly an organised person, but he took the trouble to file up all of her progress reports neatly, and even kept the file safely in his cupboard. 

 

"Aelyn is a sweet and shy girl, rather introverted at times. She does excellently in her studies, but could afford speak up more." 

 

Progress reports were an excellent showcase of the art of bullting, that is, teachers used flowery language, turning bad points into good ones, making everything seem positive and that all was well.

 

"The Seyeon I know is cheery, witty and confident. A 'sweet and shy girl, rather introverted at times'? That's just not it." 

 

"People change. You haven't seen me in years." 

 

Sehun held onto Aelyn's hand and pushed up her uniform sleeve. Bruises, in the shape of finger marks were revealed.

 

"Who did this? Who manhandled you? What's going on in school? Are you getting bullied?" 

 

Aelyn kept silent. Sehun squatted down to meet her eye level. He looked right into her eyes.

 

Aelyn looked away.

 

"Yeon-ah. Look at me. You don't have to put on a strong front. Tell me. What's going on? Oppa is here, Oppa is here for you." 

"Oppa is here for you." 3 years of loneliness, 3 years of silent suffering and angst, but her Oppa was now there, she finally had someone to lean on. These 5 words opened up the floodgates, and all her emotions that had been bottled up for the past 3 years came pouring out. 

 

She cried. She bawled. She bawled so hard. She told him about school. She told him about Bethany. She told him about the Bethlets, the teachers and basically the entire school. She recalled every instance of bullying. Everytime just came flooding out, right at Sehun like a tsunami.

 

Sehun never broke his gaze on Aelyn. He pulled her in for a hug, and patted her back. This made Aelyn sob even more. 

 

"Oppa's sorry....I didn't know....sorry I couldn't protect you..." 

 

They stayed there for 5 minutes, crying in each other's arms. 

 

After the good cry, Aelyn felt much more at ease. It was back to business.

 

"Why didn't you tell me? You could've called me." 

 

".....they threw my phone away..."

 

Sehun was shocked. These girls were demons.

 

"Why the change of name?" 

 

"...I didn't want people to know that I was your sister...you know how badly I've been treated ...what if you lost fans if they knew that I was your sister? I only did that to protect you..." Aelyn said softly. 

 

"Pabo, if they knew you were my dearest dongsaeng who means the world too me, you wouldn't be bullied at all. In fact, they'd all try to be your friend." 

 

"...I didn't want that kind of attention either...I just wanted them to be friends with Seyeon, the real me, not Sehun's sister....but things didn't turn out the way I had expected."

 

Sehun sighed.

 

"So Bethany was the girl I picked twice?" Sehun scoffed. 

 

"If she ever knew you were my precious dongsaeng, boy, would she be in for a shock." 

 

Aelyn giggled. 

 

Aelyn felt so much better with Sehun around, this heart-to-heart talk had washed away all her accumulated pain and frustration. 

 

Sehun squatted down again and looked at Aelyn. 

 

He held both her hands. 

 

"You, are Oh Seyeon. You are a smart, happy and bright girl. Most importantly, you have me. You are invincible. No one can bring you down." 

 

Aelyn blinked. 

 

"Throw the Aelyn in you away. Make Aelyn disappear from the traces of the earth. You will not be bullied, you will not be a pushover, you are not in any way inferior to the rest of your school. Keep your head up, for you are Oh Seyeon."

 

Seyeon rubbed her eyes. 

 

Seyeon nodded.

 

Seyeon smiled.