A buzzing from the night table woke Cheondung up from his sleep. Slowly opening his eyes, his gaze first landed on the sleeping Haneul next to him. From there, he carefully turned around to pick up his phone and checked on the time.

“2 am?”

Placing his phone back onto the table, he slowly shifted back comfortably on his mattress as he stared at the ceiling. He was lost in his own thoughts until he felt a move from his side and turned his head to see Haneul still asleep but moving a little bit closer to him, closing in on the gap that was left between them. With both her arms against her chest, she had her face against his shoulder with her forehead slightly leaning onto it.

He could feel the beating of his heart as it was pounding against his chest and it made his skin warm at her touch.

Without realizing it himself, he was watching her as his eyes fell from her brown hair down to her closed eyes, then down on her small nose and pink lips. It was the first time he was looking at her this way and it was sending a strange tingle all over his body. He couldn’t understand what took over him, but the more he was gazing at her, the deeper in awe he was.

He carefully turned around to be face to face with her. The tip of his fingers were lightly touching the skin of her arm as he felt its softness; a small smile appeared across his tired lips as he looked back up at her. Careful again, he pushed some strands of her hair that had fallen behind her ear ending up gently placing his palm against her warm cheek.

What was taking over him to act so boldly? He didn’t know and truth is, he didn’t care. A fuzzy feeling was creeping up his veins and it made him act out; he found himself leaning in closer towards her lips, wanting to kiss them. The closer he got, the stronger the beating of his heart was becoming.

The tip of their noses were finally touching; he was looking down, somehow hesitating but once he glanced back up, he was staring straight into her eyes making his heart stop. She did nothing but stayed still, leaving him to believe that whatever he had in his mind wouldn’t bother her at all.

Seeing him leaning further towards her, she felt his lips hover above hers, making her heart skip a beat. From the bare touch, he fully placed his lips over hers, taking her breath away as he was softly kissing her. He slowly placed his arm around her, pushing her towards him where she placed her hands on his chest, holding onto him.

Was it a dream or reality? He couldn’t tell. All he could feel right now was the emotion that was swaying across his body, heating up his skin as the kiss went a little bit deeper, leaving his heart to take control over his action, ready to explode at any moment.

He couldn’t pull away and it wasn’t like he wanted too but the lack of air made him stop with his lips still gently pressed against hers before he slowly backed away to have the tip of his nose back to touching hers.

With only their breaths that could be heard, they locked eyes with Cheondung looking back at her, feeling like the kiss wasn’t enough. He leaned back and kissed her once more, but this time with more confidence, cutting her breath short once again. He let himself completely go, enjoying the way his lips were perfectly moving against hers with his heart yearning for more.

With his sanity completely gone, he let his body speak as his hands were trailing down her hips, gently holding her. Slowly and carefully, he turned around ending on top of her without breaking the kiss; she still had her hands against his chest and was tightly clutching onto his shirt while forgetting everything else. Having him close to her made her feel things that were hard to describe, an unknown feeling that kept roaming around inside of her and hit straight her heart.

As for him, that same indescribable feeling was taking its place inside of him. He was never like this yet, she brought out this side of him and it made him feel, somehow, good; he took action on the thing he wanted and now he couldn’t let go; he didn’t want to.

The faint sound of a ringing phone caught his attention; instead of picking it up, he simply ignored it as he was too focused on pouring out his heart. Over and over again, it kept ringing making him more annoyed by the second. To make it stop, he lazily pulled away and reached out for his phone only to find himself back to where it began: waking up from his sleep by his side of the bed.

Confused for just a moment, he shook his head and went to pick up his phone to look at the time.

“5 am… I guess its time to go…”

Placing the device back onto the table, he turned around and saw Haneul still peacefully asleep; sudden thoughts about his dream came  back to his mind as he lightly grazed his lips with the tip of his fingers, trying to get a feel from the dreamy kiss.

‘It felt so… real…’

He let out a deep breath as he slowly sat up and carefully got out of his bed, quietly walking out of his bedroom without making any noise. Once out, he closed his door enough to leave a small crack to let a little bit of light from the living room shine through.

He looked at the time and decided to quickly prepare himself before being picked up by his manager.

From the shower to the dress up, he was now in the kitchen, preparing some breakfast with whatever was left in the fridge when he heard the small tired voice of Haneul calling him. He turned around to see her rubbing her eyes awake while standing still at the entrance of the kitchen.

“What are you doing awake?”

“I couldn’t sleep anymore.” She looked back at him and slowly walked her way to the table where she took a seat. “What’s going to happen today?”

“I don’t know yet, we have to wait until the others come, which wouldn’t take too long.”

She nodded at his response and dropped her head down to look at the table while her hands were placed on her lap. He sighed as he went to sit next to her, making her look up at him. He took her hands in between his and showed her a soft smile, hoping to see the corners of her lips go up the same way.

“Haneul… Your family is probably worried that you aren’t home and are maybe even looking all around town to find you.”

“But what if I don’t have a family?”

Her question caught him completely off guard. He looked back at her, slightly frozen in his spot as he tried to figure out how to answer; but at the same time he started to think of the ‘what if’s’ of her situation, like what if she was actually on her own and didn’t have any family to look for? He shook the thought away and tried to reassure her with his best answer yet.

“I’m sure there is someone looking for you.”

“What if I don’t want that person to look for me?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“What if I want to stay?”

Once again, he felt his heart stop its beating, leaving himself to stare at her brown eyes. “H-Haneul, you can’t stay here…”

“Why? You don’t want me?”

“It’s not that, it’s just that… you already have a home, why would you want to stay here?”

“Because there’s you here; I want to stay with you.”

He was about to answer when the doorbell rang; still left speechless, he got up from his seat leaving Haneul in the kitchen and walked to the entrance, opening the door to let his friends in, their tired face still marked across their skin.

“You’re ready?”

“Hmm, y-yea, just give me a second.”

He quickly went back to Haneul to let her know that he had to work this morning and that he will soon be back.

“I’ll come and pick you up later today, okay?”

“What should I do?”

“She should come with us; I don’t want what happened last night to repeat itself; you need to focus today, Sanghyun-ah.” He turned around to see his manager walking up to him. “Help her dress up and we’ll meet you downstairs, okay? Hurry though, we need to get to the salon before the first schedule.”

“Mhmm.”

With the manager back to the group, Cheondung led Haneul to his sister’s room and picked out a simple pair of skinny jeans and a shirt, telling her that she had to wear these.

“On top of this?”

“No, you have to change clothes; I’ll wait outside, okay?”

“Mhmm.”

Closing the door behind him, she turned back towards the bed where the clothes were and softly traced the fabrics with her fingers before looking down on what she was wearing.

Just like yesterday’s lady showed her, she took off her pj’s one piece at a time and finally wore the new clothes. Satisfied with herself, she stepped out of the bedroom to stand in front of Cheondung with a bright smile on her face. “Tada!”

Her happiness made him chuckle as he lightly patted her head in amusement. “There’s another thing you need to do before we leave.” She followed him towards the bathroom and once they were standing in front of the sink, he took out a new toothbrush and handed it to her, telling her what she needed to do; he used his own and showed her to make sure she understood.

“And don’t swallow it, okay? You need to spit it out in the sink.”

She nodded her head and started to do as she was told, and soon found herself enjoying it. After she was done, he led her back to the entrance and helped her put on a pair of shoes and a jacket before turning off the lights and walking out.

“Are you good?”

“Mhmm.” Nodding her head once again, she gave him one of her best smiles, which left him in awe for a moment before her giggle brought him out of his daze. “Okay then, let’s go.”

“Are you sure you don’t know her?”

“Yes officer, I would know how my own daughter looks and its not her.”

At the end of the day, they were back at the police station.

With Haneul and MBLAQ’s manager inside the building, the rest of the boys were waiting in the car with an anxious Cheondung looking out through the window.

Back inside, Haneul was sitting next to the officer’s desk with the manager behind him after the woman from earlier had left, heartbroken. As for the girl, she was looking down on her lap while the two men were still discussing about the case.

“In all of Seoul, the woman that just left is the only one with a missing daughter. Unless this young lady came from out of the country, we can’t do much. I mean, if she had some kind of identification lying around then, of course, it would’ve been easier, but without that, she’s just… nobody.”

A heavy sigh escaped from the manager’s lips as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to figure out what to do next. He looked down at Haneul who was still staring at her lap, avoiding any eye contact; he looked back up at the police officer, figuring out what options he had.

“What now, then? Do we send her to an orphanage? Does she stay here? What do I do? I can’t take care of her, I have a group of five boys to take care of!”

“Sending her to an orphanage isn’t an option since she looks like she’s over 18 and we can’t make her stay here since we can’t do anything about her situation. At best, she needs to figure out what she forgot and for that she needs all the help she can get.”

Another sigh out, the man was left defeated. He thanked the officer for his help and led Haneul out of the building as they made their way back to car.

He opened the door, letting her take her place by Cheondung’s side before telling the boys what happened.

“So nobody came to claim for a missing person?”

“No. They contacted all the districts in Seoul and only one person had responded; a mother looking for her daughter but when she saw Haneul, she said that it wasn’t her. So for now, we need to find a solution and a very fast one at that; we can’t be taking care of her and you too Sanghyun, its not your job.”

“I don’t mind doing it though.” The boy in question looked back at his manager as he put out his thoughts into words, truly not minding taking care of the girl.

“You want to juggle your schedule and take care of an amnesiac girl? You guys are preparing for a comeback album for this coming winter and then you have a tour. Right now you guys are about to fly out to Japan for that new single in just a few days. You don’t have the time!”

“Then what do we do? We can’t leave her like this! I told you already; I’ll take full responsibility for her.”

With Haneul listening attentively to the conversation, she was slowly figuring out in her head that she was just causing trouble, and that nobody really wanted her. It was hurting her heart as she felt it squeeze and the more she was thinking about the events and the repetitive arguments about her situation, the more shame and useless she felt for not being able to either help in any way or even have a glimpse of her memory. It was tearing her apart.

“It worked out perfectly fine last night, I don’t mind if she stays a little longer. I’ll talk with my sister when she’s back from the tour.”

The manager eyed the boy before glancing at Haneul who was still looking down, afraid to lift her head up. She was tightly gripping her hands together with her eyes closed, trying to stop herself from crying.

Yet another sigh escaped from the manager’s mouth with his head dropped down as he scratched the back of his neck. “Okay, but I’m giving you one more chance. If things go wrong, it’s over, understood?”

“Mhmm, thank you.”

“Yea, yea, whatever…”

“Haneul? Haneul! Where are you going?!”

The moment they had their backs turned away, she took this chance to run away from them, letting herself get lost into the streets with no lights except from the moon, as the day had gone by.

Abandoning the others, Cheondung quickly followed her as he ran after her as fast as he could. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough and soon lost her as she was now completely out of sight.

“ ‘Damn it!’ Haneul! Come back!”

Catching his breath, he stared at the direction she left in and cursed at himself for being careless in that second he turned his back on her.

“Where did she go?!”

He turned around to find Seungho standing behind him as he was catching his breath.

“I-I don’t know… I lost her.”

“You lost her?! Already?!”

“Yah!-”

“Don’t ‘yah’ me! You better find her Sanghyun, or you will definitely lose her and not just because she ran away from you.”

“I will. I don’t care if it takes me all night long, I will find her.”

He let Seungho be as he walked out on him, continuing on the same direction Haneul had ran off too. With his hands inside his jacket’s pocket and filled determination, he carefully looked around, checking every possible place she could’ve used as a hiding place.

At least an hour had passed and he was getting tired. He found himself walking towards a park and sat on a bench with a tired sigh coming out of him. He looked up at the night sky and simply stared at the stars while trying to think of a place where Haneul could be.

“She doesn’t even know the city… All she knows is that place where-”

He suddenly picked out his phone from his pocket and called his manager, asking him to bring him to the set of the last photoshoot they had just yesterday.

“Why there?”

“I think that’s where she is.”

With the call over, he waited for barely five minutes until he spotted the familiar van and quickly climbed inside before being driven towards the location from yesterday. It had taken maybe even another hour before finally arriving when Cheondung jumped out of the car and ran straight towards the field without any regards of the people he left behind.

He yelled out her name over and over again as he walked across the high grass. Left to right, he kept turning his head, trying to find the tree from where she fell off from.

Once he spotted it, he held his breath inside as he quietly walked towards it, carefully examining the area. The closer he got, the more his heart was racing, leaving him hanging on either relief or defeat.

“Haneul? Are you there? It’s me… Cheondung.” He looked up and finally breathed out, relief washing over him as he spotted Haneul sitting on one of the branches. He called her out once again as he softly reached his hand out against her feet making her look down with clear sadness filled in her eyes.

“Come down from here, please. For me?”

With her lips in a pout, she finally listened to him and got down from the tree, this time without falling on anybody. Once she was on her two feet, she felt herself being crushed against the boy’s chest as he was tightly hugging her with his arms wrapped around her waist, happy to see that she was safe.

The contact made tears appear in the corner of her eyes with a little sniff from her nose, letting the boy know that she was about to cry. He slowly pulled away to look at her while she looked away, staring down at the ground.

“I’m ugly, aren’t I? Nobody wants me because I’m ugly…” Hearing those words out loud broke his heart as much as it did to her for saying them. But truth be told, he didn’t find her ugly at all, it was quite the opposite. “You’re not ugly. You’re beautiful.” Once again, he let his heart speak, forgetting the piece of sanity that was left inside his brain.

“But you don’t want me.” She lifted her head up, showing him a broken gaze. The feeling of being alone crept back up inside of her and was making her heart ache again, making her feel cold; that sudden coldness went away with Cheondung’s words, possibly the one that would make her want to feel the effect of his warmth against her skin.

“I do.”