Hana’s eyes widened in surprised upon seeing Oh Seryung. She greeted the younger girl with a smile. Seryung nodded, feeling uncomfortable at how comfortable Hana and Tao seemed together. She shifted on her feet and wondered whether she should say ‘hello,’ she couldn’t remember what terms she was on with these two people, whether they were friends or acquaintances. Seryung didn’t know what they wanted to be known as either.

 Hana wondered the same thing. Their meeting introduced an intolerable silence that neither party was willing to break. Tao sensed Hana’s discomfort and frowned inwardly. He patted Hana’s head to assure her all was well. She gave him a weak smile in response to let him know she would be okay.

Another soundless crack, Seryung scrutinized the two of them. A simple action from Tao had placed a wall between the parties. She felt as if she’d been cast aside without knowing whether or not she was close to begin with. Seryung swallowed the lump in and glared at Tao, sometimes Hana’s knight was too much! Tao’s open display of affection towards Hana was constructing itself to break Seryung’s heart. She wished she was reading too much into it but she couldn’t help suspect they were a couple because profound skinship was second nature to them.

Seryung curtly inclined her head in the form of a greeting wondering why she just had to run into them. Her thoughts were displaced by mistrust towards the two and she didn’t particularly enjoy the burning sensation in that rose from their joined hands. Her expression remained neutral but her eyes were filled with mixed emotion stemming from betrayal and mistrust. She laughed at herself for leaving her heart vulnerable enough for the two people in front of her to get in even now a nagging voice was telling her that it was a misunderstanding. Seryung began to doubt herself, her thoughts, her heart, everything, when it came to Tao, she hated him too for making her feel like this but she didn’t have the will do show it because he’d helped her too many times.

Hana swallowed, she’d rarely saw Oh Seryung outside of school. Seryung’s charming image made Hana feel small, much smaller, Hana recalled her forlorn mother’s words. “Mrs. Oh is so lucky to have a daughter like that. What I wouldn’t do to make Hana like her…” Hana’s expression faltered for a moment to reflect her thoughts before she forced her thoughts away and attempted to smile. “I was just about to call you but here you are! Tao and I were thinking of going to Everland. You should come join us. Why let the parents have all the fun?”

Seryung smirked, “Why am I being invited to something when we’re not even friends?” Seryung could have sworn she heard a sharp intake of breath come from Hana but she wasn’t in the mood to care too much.

Hana’s smile fell, “We are friends!” She insisted wishing that Seryung wouldn’t fight with her on a day like today.

Seryung shook her head. “You’ve got the wrong person,” she informed the two of them and then bitterly added. “If it’s oppa you wanted to invite, you should ask him yourself. I can’t guarantee he’ll join you though.”

Hana nodded pretending it didn’t bother her. Logical reasoning told her Seryung was mad at her and that she didn’t mean it but Hana wished Seryung would stop making things difficult. “Are you and Sehun talking to each other again?”

Seryung flinched as if she’d touched fire after receiving frostbite; it was sudden, painful and frightening. Seryung’s hostile glare against Hana was genuine this time because Hana had heard from Sehun that they were fighting.

“Cool down, hot head,” Tao finally interjected shaking his head as if speaking to a kid. Seryung clenched her teeth to glare at him too but he didn’t squirm like Hana did, Tao was more relaxed. He gave her a half-smirk that told Seryung he wasn’t affected by her neither amused nor offended. ‘He doesn’t care what you do, he just puts up with you.’  Seryung smiled to herself, she was mad at herself for being delusional and for dwelling too long in the fantasy realm because Tao existed in the real world and in the real world he would never show her affection, ‘Of course not, why would he? He has no reason to when he has Hana.’

“You should come with us, to Everland, it’ll be a nice change. Bring your uptight brother too since you brought him up. He needs to learn how to loosen up.”

Hana opened to say something but Tao squeezed her shoulder telling her to stop. Seryung noted the secret communication, “What time?” She really didn’t want to entertain the two of them, but Tao’s insistence had brought the question to her lips. Her conflicting thoughts would give her a headache, she knew that, but Tao was looking into her eyes and Seryung knew she would be unable to refuse his offer.

Seryung hated his control Tao had over her, ‘Would you jump of a bridge if Tao asked you to?’ She asked herself in a scolding tone. Her heart responded to her mind, ‘He would never say that.’  Seryung wanted to kick herself because her heart was jumping with joy, beating happily at the thought of seeing Tao outside of school under the delusion that they could become close when her mind was warning her, ‘You will get hurt!’

-

It had become habitual for Sehun to visit Rae Mi every weekend as part of his weekend ritual. He would place fresh flowers – lavender – and remove any stray weeds that threatened to untidy her resting place. He would tell her about his week and ask about how she was getting on. He would sit by her side reminiscing about her until his eyes became moist in remembrance, he would silently cry to himself after that, afterwards he would always promise himself that he would go home but somehow always ended up in front of a smaller grave -- Han Miyoung’s grave.

Sehun would always tend to Miyoung’s grave as respectfully as he tended to Rae Mi’s. There wasn’t much to say to Miyoung because she was quite literally, with them in spirit.  Miyoung would always smile whenever Oh Sehun left fresh flowers on her grave. No one seemed to remember her. Her parent’s had moved forward in life. Seryung never frequented the graveyard, and Miyoung had never had any other friends who would do kind things for her.

Sehun must have known because he always made sure to buy fresh white lilies for Miyoung. Miyoung would always wait by her graveside for him. However, today he was taking much longer than usual and although Miyoung knew she shouldn’t, she hurried to where she knew he might be even if it meant eavesdropping.

Sehun was sitting beside Rae Mi’s grave. Miyoung pouted, the siblings had, had a rough week and Miyoung could vouch that Sehun was explaining his frustration to Rae Mi.

She heard him laugh. Miyoung tilted her head and hovered closer towards him. To her surprise he really was laughing. She wondered how long it had been since she’d heard him laugh so genuinely.

“The two of you are turning out to be pretty similar, both of you are romanticists but you were definitely better at English than her,” Sehun paused sensing he wasn’t alone. No shadow was cast, and Sehun suspected that something was watching. He was tempted to turn around and shoo Miyoung away because Miyoung and Seryung shared everything. Sehun sighed, his sister would find out he’d visited the graveyard through her ghostly friend. Sehun decided it was best to ignore the ghost and continue his conversation with Rae Mi.

“I wish Hana was better at English! We’re doing a project together and all the flaws she was trying to hide are showing. It’s going to be a hassle correcting her part of the work. What’s even worse is that English is one of the harder subjects to teach. How am I meant to explain things like spellings and stuff? We had an argument the other day, over nothing really. It’s weird, I don’t think I’ve fought over something so ridiculous in my life. The protagonist in our story was meant to eat a biscuit and that’s where it all started… We fought over the spelling of ‘biscuit.’”

Sehun raised his hand to his mouth and laughed as he recalled the scene. Maybe it was because Hana was so different from his sister but Sehun always found that she managed to surprise him in one way or another.

“She’s cute,” Sehun admitted. “Maybe if I had met her before I meet you, something might have happened.” Sehun humored the thought. The idea of having Hana as his girlfriend was still alien to him. When the term ‘girlfriend’ cropped up Sehun could think of no one but his first love -- other girls didn’t matter to him.

“She spelt biscuit as b-i-s-k-i-t and when I pointed out that it was wrong, she got mad. Honestly, I was only correcting a mistake. She didn’t need to get angry. She said she wouldn’t write anymore. It’s a pair project but she didn’t want to work! Isn’t that funny? Does she think I will do it all for her and present her with an A grade? I guess I would… You know how much I hate working with other people. Still, she should at least try to contribute! I think she’s gotten too used to me. She’s not afraid of me anymore. She used to call me ‘Sehun-shi’ at the beginning, as if I was some old man or something, now she just calls me ‘Sehun.’ I wonder how she’d spell Sehun in English? She spells phonetically and when the spelling turns out to be wrong she gets mad and asks why the English alphabet isn’t as easy as Hangul. She mutters a lot too. She thinks I can’t hear her if she mutters. Listen to this one: 'Why couldn’t King Sejong have been an English king? He would have saved everyone a lot of trouble!'” Sehun laughed recalling how frustrated Hana had been when Sehun had made her write out spellings she’d gotten wrong five times.

Hana had protested and tried to get out of writing but he’d made her sit down and take her punishment with hopes that her spellings would improve as he threatened to make her write repeated mistakes ten times.

“It’s not hard to teach her but she shies away whenever I try to teach her. If she does that it obviously gets harder to explain things. It’s annoying that she isn’t willing to learn. Still, makes me want to take up the challenge, doesn’t make it any less tiring though. Hana’s like a lost puppy that needs guidance… I think she’s just hurt.

“She jumps back into her shell the minute things seem uncomfortable. That’s probably because of me, right? No one likes a traumatizing school experience. I feel sorry towards her. You know how much I hate when something is my fault. It makes me hate myself too. I tried to fix things and ended up making a bigger mess of things…

“I don’t think I want to be a teacher,” Sehun mused as he played with the grass, “I guess that’s one career down… How do people decide what they want to be when they grow up?”

Sehun sighed. His quiet lifestyle had become complicated due to outside forces. Sehun wasn’t sure if he could go back to the way things were but he did miss those times of peace and quiet.

“Seryung’s not talking to me anymore. We ended up fighting because she tried to push Hana towards me. I exploded at her and now she’s being childish by not talking to me… When will it end I wonder? I hate fighting with her! She hasn’t spoken to me in ages, and we’re traveling to school at different times. The drivers, the maids and everyone else are having a hard time too by doing things twice… What should I do?” Sehun sighed again as he ran his hand over the grass and smiled. “I’m talking about useless things, I won’t bother you with those.

“I think that’s enough about me, how are you dealing with the afterlife? I don’t think I can forget you. Do you still remember Oh Sehun? Has your asthma gotten better? Do you have someone to take care of you? Are you still like that? Do you still think you’re if you act strong you’ll be okay? Do you still bottle things up inside? You should let it all out and take care of yourself.”

Sehun plucked the stray weeds that loitered around the grave, “Thank you for always been a good friend to Seryung. You’re closer to her than I am. You know, I met another ghost that tried and succeeded at controlling me. It was scary, losing all my self-control the way I had. I became a complete puppet acting of that ghost’s words. I almost hurt an innocent person in the process too.”

Sehun shuddered as he recalled what he had been having nightmares about ever since that day. Yang Jin Sung would haunt his dreams calling him a murderer. He’d have blood on his hands after strangling a body – Hana’s body – then he’d wake up shivering in cold sweat. “Every time I see that person I remember what I almost did to her and that’s why I want to shield that person, kind of like an act of forgiveness.”

Miyoung was suddenly interested, she popped up in front of Sehun. “Perhaps you love Hana. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but the way you talk about her is actually very tender.”

Sehun blinked, he was bewildered that he could see and hear Miyoung perfectly well without straining himself. Sehun quickly composed himself from his bafflement, “I don’t love her, I just have this urge to protect her because of that incident.”

Miyoung simply smiled in response. “Hana is currently shopping with Tao. those two and all smiles and laughs. They seem quite amiable with skinship too! Do you think that’s normal?”

Sehun blinked, once, twice, and three times. He stared at the translucent ghost. His eyes narrowed for the briefest second and he sighed heavily. “Tao is a good person. Hana should be fine alongside him.”

Miyoung pouted because Sehun wasn’t jealous at all. It injured Miyoung’s mischievous side to see him so lax when his fiancée was in the arms of another man when she was trying to induce a reaction.

“Tao put his arm around Hana like this,” Miyoung demonstrated using the head stone.

“He also did this,” she pretended to pinch a cheek and replayed their chumminess for Sehun to see. “Tao will steal Hana from you, just wait and see! Hana is innocent so it’s easier for Tao to steal her.” Miyoung provoked but Sehun seemed indifferent to her cries. It infuriated the ghost to see her provocations fail. She decided to probe further to relieve Seryung of her headache and Sehun of his past heartache.

“What will you do if Tao ends up hurting Hana? How will you protect her from that? What if he makes her cry, what then? Or worse! What if he does something that Hana isn’t ready for? Hana is innocent but Tao isn’t, Tao and Hana are close, close enough for him to hurt her and make her suffer! Tao’s not serious about Hana in a romantic way. The minute Tao hurts Hana; Hana will crumble. What will you do then? What if Hana crumbles the same way you did for Rae Mi? Will you stand for it? Can you stand by and watch? What about Hana? What will become of her?”

“Stop it! Stop it now!!!” Sehun shouted. Miyoung was glad that the reaction she’d waited for had finally come, Miyoung wanted Sehun to steal Hana so Tao and Seryung could have a peaceful relationship. It was tiring for Miyoung to see Seryung looking glum and dejected.

“Why do all you ghosts want to hurt Hana?! What did she ever do to you?” Sehun scolded as he frowned. Miyoung’s words contained what Sehun was afraid of. “I don’t want to hurt Hana.”

Miyoung sighed. She feared the conversation was returning back to where it has started from and that was the last thing she wanted. Miyoung didn’t want Sehun to walk out of the graveyard without some sort of plan to separate Tao from Hana, Miyoung would never admit it but she wanted to see Sehun fall in love too. “What if someone else hurt her? Would you be able to take it?”

“Tao wouldn’t.”

“Tao is advancing on Seryung and at the same time is hanging out with Hana! They can’t share Tao. One of them will fall!!!”

“Why are you telling me to choose Hana when it’s clear that the one who’ll fall will be Seryung? Shouldn’t you be trying to convince her to stay away from him?”

Miyoung cringed, there was something that Sehun and Seryung didn’t know and it wasn’t in Miyoung’s interest to tell them. She’d gained plenty of penalty points for interfering with humans already. It was something they needed to find out for themselves. “Seryung won’t fall, Seryung is strong! Strong people don’t fall.”

“Hana will fall?” Sehun tapped his chin. He didn’t believe that Tao would let Hana go just like that. Sehun had the impression that Tao wanted to protect Hana, hurting her was out of the question.

Miyoung didn’t want to leave Sehun rolling in thought for too long. She desperately searched for words to use to convince him he needed to in. “Tao and Hana are going to Everland. Seryung’s invited too. I think she’ll definitely go because she likes Tao. Seryung is much more charming than Hana. Tao will fall for her. It’s impossible for him not to fall for her when all the guy’s in school have confessed to her at one point or other! Then-“

“-That pabo will get hurt,” Sehun finished in a mutter. He groaned and rubbed his temples. Things were becoming complicated, to top things off no one had bothered to invite him to join them!

Miyoung nodded as solemnly as she could. “Hana will get hurt.” The ghost sighed hoping her job was complete because she was now dying to laugh or cry – whichever came first –she wanted to give MAMA the latest updates on her friend’s love life.

Sehun removed his vibrating phone from his pocket and stared at the screen, it was a message from none other than Kim Hana herself. Sehun smirked, ‘What are the odds?’

“Hi, I know this is sudden and you’re probably busy but myself, Tao and Seryung are planning to go to Everland. Would you like to join us? I’m sorry for the short notice and for bothering you when you’re most likely to be studying. It’s completely okay if you can’t make it. I don’t hold grudges – Kim Hana.”

Sehun laughed, “Why is this person like this?” Sehun asked showing Miyoung the text message. “She’s not even expecting me to go. It compels me to go more because she’s judging to early.”

Miyoung nodded enthusiastically in agreement. “Have a good time, don’t think too much and just enjoy yourself! Don’t bother Seryungie too much that she feels burdened but don’t forget to show a bit of brotherly affection because Seryungie’s like that. She doesn’t respond well to words as she does to actions. Don’t be too suspicious of Ziana because there might not be anything to be suspicious of.”

Sehun shook his head at the ghost, “One minute you say something about Tao and Hana and next you change your mind! What the hell is a Ziana?!”

Miyoung grinned, things were starting to getting exciting in her boring world full of lifelessness. “It’s always best to be cautious,” Miyoung advised sticking out her tongue.

“Thank you for the lilies as always!” Miyoung cheered waving at Sehun as if he’d told her he was leaving.

“You’re welcome as always!” Sehun replied and waved a little less eagerly for fear of being seen waving to air.