Everyone has secrets. Some bigger than others and some might be small, but none the less, they all have their fair share of secrets that’s locked down somewhere deep inside themselves somewhere and away for no one to see, locked down in a maze whose walls change sempiternally and whose locks are coded in a hundred thousand encryption so not even they can open it again. Everyone has secrets that they would die protecting, ones that they would make sure to never see the light of day, ones that are meant to be buried deeper than the depth of the ocean. Everyone has secrets. Kim Yubin isn’t an exception, yet Choi Seunghyun wasn’t going to give up.

Everything seemed oddly and painfully familiar, he remembers vague images of a figure walking away from him and he remembers the hurt it brought, the pain and the aching that was deepens with every clacking sound the person made as they walk away. The person was crying, he remembered the sounds of loud distinct yelling and crashing ceramics, strong stench of alcohol was there. The person suddenly turned around and left, Seunghyun stood there not knowing what to do because suddenly every part of him hurts. As if he was suddenly engulfed with water, his lungs started to hurt just by breathing, his chest starts to constrict in pain, and as if he was suddenly tied and held by thousand angry hands, he was hurting and he couldn’t even move. He saw images of glass shards, bottles of wine scattered, voices yelling from a phone, voices, voice.

“Seunghyun.”

It sounded all too familiar and it hurts. Just a simple call of the name was enough to set his heart on fire, enough to make his head spin, enough to make everything crumble.

It didn’t make any sense, he couldn’t remember when or where those images happened in his life but the feeling that it brought and it all felt so real for it to be just a hallucination of a dream. He felt it all right from the screams to the scattered wine bottles on the floor, and then the crash. He felt the crash his his skin, break his bones and scrape his skin, he felt his life oozing out in pools of metallic crimson. And the last thing that he felt was the bitter taste of tears in his lips, and a somber love confession on his ears, and another broken heart before it all fade to black.

“Seunghyun!”

And it all went back to how it was, yet the pain remains.

He opened his eyes to see a familiar sight of his worried ex band mates and their girlfriends, along with their girlfriend’s friends whom he happens to know too and with the 2NE1 girls as well. They all had the same expression, even Sohee who was expressionless most of the times was showing most of her colors, but they weren’t as cheerful as he’d hope. It was the same sight as it were three years ago, everyone was worried sick about him and he couldn’t figure out why.

“Why are you all looking at me like that again? Did I crash my car again or did I get hit by one?” He asked as he sat up in his bed feeling like utter crap, a slight sense of humor evident in his tone. But the others were far from being amused.

The last time a scene like this happened, he was lying on a bed in a hospital feeling like utter . He can’t remember how he got there, he can’t remember what happened yesterday and he can’t remember half of what happened in his entire life. They said that he crashed his car, that he was drunk, that he was having a breakdown, and he without any reasons not to, he believed them.

They shook their heads. “No, you fainted in the middle of the road after you walked her to the bus stop a few hours ago. We had to bring you home.” Jiyong answered.

“How did you know my lock code?”

“It’s not rocket science hyung.” Daesung, the cheery ex member said. “You used the date 4th of October 1988 for every code.”

Seunghyun laughed, it was true. “I don’t even know why I chose that date when it doesn’t even mean anything.”

The others didn’t share the same sentiments, their expressions didn’t change and Seunghyun had a feeling that they were hiding something.  One of them was sweating bullets from  his head, the other fidgets too much, Jiyong kept looking away and avoiding eye contact, Chaerin kept on playing with her phone’s case, Daesung’s legs won’t stop moving, Minzy was hiding behind Yeeun, Seungri kept on giving him glances when talking to his idol girlfriend named Sunmi, Bom was trying not to cry, Dara kept looking to the ground, and the fact that Taeyang wasn’t even there gave it all away. He knows them for too long to not know what they do when they lie, he knows them too well to not know.

“Say, Sohee.” He looked up to meet eyes with hers. “And Jiyong.” Then moves to glance at her lover. “How did you guys know her?”

The two didn’t answer.

“Hey, they were regulars at Yubin unnie’s coffee shop right?” Chaerin interjected a little too fast and smiled. “Of course they know her! Oh her caramel frappuccinos are awesome!”

There was something definitely wrong.

There was a lot of things wrong with what they just said. Seunghyun never mentioned Yubin’s name so how did Chaerin know who were they talking about? Then they said that he just fainted a few hours from walking Yubin off, yet date in his phone stated that it’s already been three days. Maybe they talked about it while he was out, maybe they had a long conversation, but the fact that Chaerin referred Yubin as ‘unnie’ shows that she might have known Yubin or at the least acquainted with the coffee shop girl. The last anomaly was Chaerin’s allergic to caramel.

The others watch him lay back on his bed sighing, feeling guilty because they tried to cover up his own life. Was it the right thing? Doing what she had ask of them? Were they doing the right thing just by listening to one part of the story? All of them went out of his room and into the living room, leaving Seunghyun to rest alone for awhile, leaving him because they couldn’t take lying to his face anymore. They were all torn with the same feeling, were they doing the right thing? As far as they can tell, they’re ruining both. The girl is hurting, the guy is obviously confused, and they don’t know whether they’re helping or just making things worse.

“We should tell him.” Chaerin spoke up.

“We promised her, Chae.” Dara replied. “Now I know we all don’t like to see him like this, but she’s in an even worse state than him.”

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