Shinhye went to school the next day still contemplating on her new found knowledge. For all the kindness her guardians had shown her since she was young, the least she could do was find their long lost son, but where to start? Her first period today was in the piano room, and she never spared even Hyomin a glance when she came in. Hugging her folder tight to her chest she stiffly sat down at her regular piano and stared blankly at her fuzzy reflection from the black surface of the neatly dusted grand piano. Minhyuk watched her carefully from afar, noticing how “out of it” she seemed today. He decided not to approach her for now.

            “What’s up with you? You haven’t said a word all morning and this is our slack class.” Hyomin sighed, unable to take the silence anymore. She forced herself a seat beside Shinhye and waited for a response.

            “Oh? Uh… Sorry. I’m just thinking…” Shinhye bit her lip, resting her elbow on the piano keys to produce an ugly sound that made Hyomin wince away.

            “Yes, obviously. About what?” She wondered, taking over Shinhye’s piano to play a simple music piece. The teacher liked to monitor their progress once a while and if no sounds were coming from the piano they’d be scolded for slacking. The reason this was a slack class was because it was easy to pretend to be productive.

            “It’s something about my foster parents—“

            “Attention students, we have an important announcement.” The pager went off and the room fell silent.

            “I’ll tell you later.” Shinhye whispered in a hushed voice and then quieted down again. They all waited for the voice to come back on.

            “It has been reported that there is suspicious activity going on in the community close to the university. Please be cautious when venturing outside of the building.” The voice warned before switching off again. Everyone brushed off the warning, after all, they were in a beaten down neighborhood where people claimed the mafia used to rule. Rumors of the mafia still hiding in this community exist today, and odd crimes happen on a weekly basis here. With that, class ended and there was a three hour gap before Shinhye’s next class with lunch right in the middle. She grabbed her folder off the stand and left the room, leaving Hyomin to chase after her like she usually did.

            “Shinhye wait, you never finished telling me.”

            “Telling you what?” It seemed like her thoughts were too clustered today.

            “Something about your foster parents?” Hyomin stood uneasily beside Shinhye, wondering if it was even right for her to bring it up again. Family was always such a sensitive topic. Hyomin actually never knew much about Shinhye’s foster parents or biological parents.

            “They had a son.” Shinhye confessed, feeling like it was all she could think to say. It was ridiculous that having lost all her thoughts to this one concept for an entire morning still left her clueless for words.

            “Had? You mean he’s dead?” Hyomin gawked, but Shinhye shook her head before her reaction exaggerated further.

            “Well I don’t actually know. They left him soon after birth…” Shinhye stuttered the last sentence, not sure if she had the right to share someone else’s personal information with her best friend. It was too late to turn back now anyway. With Hyomin she knew it was either you told the entire story or you never bring it up.

            “How old is he?” She wondered, eyeing Shinhye’s expressions.

            “He should be our age.” Shinhye nodded, calculating all the years in her head using her fingers as assistance. Math was never her strong point.

            “Ah… Wouldn’t it be so funny if he went to our school?” Hyomin imagined, looking down the hallway and glancing at all the guys who passed by, selecting them as pontential candidates for my search.

            “Hey, don’t you have a class right now?” Shinhye reminded, pointing at her white watch strapped comfortably around her left wrist. Hyomin jumped and began running down the hallway with an awkward wave goodbye. When she was out of sight, Shinhye made her way to her locker. She didn’t normally rent lockers at the university, but it seemed like this semester had more paperwork than usual and she couldn’t possibly carry everything around with her—especially the bottomless musical history workbook of doom. She sighed, getting ready to pull it out and maybe get ahead during her free time before lunch when she noticed a small white envelope laying beside it. She picked it up carefully and examined both sides. There was no writing, and the only thing interrupting the perfectly white surface of the letter was a crimson rose emblem stamped in the top left corner. It looked pretty and filial, and she felt even more compelled to open it.

            “You can guess who I am, right? Let’s meet at the back of the campus by the large field during your lunch break.” She read quietly so no one else would hear and then slipped the note back in the envelope. There was no signature or name signed anywhere, but it seemed obvious that the sender was probably Kang Minhyuk. Out of all the guys in the university, Minhyuk was the only romantic who had any sense of elegance or class. Plus, guys nowadays would rather send cheesy text messages than a hand written letter. The sincerity in it convinced Shinhye, along with her curiosity, to meet with the sender during lunch. 

A/N: Sorry this chapter is short and kind of boring. It's 3:33 am and I'm really sleepy or else I would've made this a longer chapter for not updating in forever. It's winter break now so i'll try updating more but no promises!