Intrepid [in-ˈtre-pəd] adj. - characterized by resolute fearlessness, fortitude, and endurance

“The time has finally come, and I’m sorry to say it, but Sehun and Luhan are going to have to come back with me in a few days. What this means is that we probably all won’t be seeing each other nearly as often any longer.”

“We don’t have a lot of time left together, but we should make the most out of what we have left, right?”

“I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that Sehun and Luhan are coming home with me soon and I will probably never see the rest of you ever again, but the good news is that I’ve brought presents!”

Mihyun groaned loudly to herself as she walked down her school’s hallway. Jinsuk had notified her that he was waiting at the front gates, ready to drive her over to the Noye house; it would soon be time for the moment she had been dreading for nearly the entire day. After a few days of acting as if nothing was wrong, the guilt had practically consumed her, and she knew that she couldn’t postpone her announcement any longer.

The problem was that she didn’t know what to say. Rather than attending to her work, she spent all of her hours pondering the different phrases she could deliver to the Noyes – none of which sounded even the slightest bit appropriate.

“What to do? What to do?” Mihyun murmured under her breath in distress. She felt even more frantic at the fact that she wasn’t able to come up with a solution as easily as she normally did. Was she losing her touch? Her cleverness?

“Calm down,” Mihyun scolded herself as gently tapped her own forehead.  She caught a glimpse of Jongdae out of the corner of her eye and stopped mid-step, crouching over to pretend to tie her shoes while she secretly observed the other. After the talk he had with Sehun a few days back, she hoped that she could detect an alteration of his character – even the slightest bit would be satisfying.

To her uttermost disappointed, it seemed like Jongdae and the other boys he called his friends were deciding on which unlucky soul would be the victim of their cruel treatments.

“How about the prick Junmyeon? I didn’t get to beat him to my heart’s content since that dumb had her body guard come,” one of them snickered.

Jongdae’s eyes widened at the suggestion and he opened his mouth to protest, but quickly shut it right away, afraid of the taunts and jeers he would receive in return.

Mihyun sighed as she pushed herself off the ground, maybe some people were just in too deep to be fixed.

“Hey guys, instead of beating somebody up, why don’t we go out and eat? My muscles are aching from the laps Coach Jo made us run, and I could really enjoy some good ramen. What do you guys say? My treat?” Jongdae spoke up finally, his eyes nervously darting around to observe the others’ reactions.

Mihyun froze mid step as she processed the other’s words. Her lips curved into a small smile of satisfaction, and she glanced over her shoulder to get a look at Jongdae’s face.

He was staring at them all with a hopeful expression, his hands curled into tight shaking fists at his sides.

“Your treat? Hell yeah I’m in!” his friends rooted in delight, much to both Jongdae and Mihyun’s relief.

A wide, genuine smile spread across Jongdae’s face as he took a breath of relief. He raised his head and widened his eyes when he caught eye contact with Mihyun. The girl gave him a small wave and a bright smile, and he returned the action with the shy curve of his own lips.

Mihyun turned back around and continued her stroll out of the school. Jongdae would be alright. Maybe there wasn’t anything in the world that wasn’t capable of being fixed. Maybe everything had a solution.

Her smile dropped when she stared at Jaesuk who was patiently waiting for her in front of the familiar car.

Well, not everything.

“Luhan hyung, help me!” Sehun called out as he attempted to tug his shirt over his head. For some unexplainable reason, the head hole of Sehun’s shirt had managed to shrink over night, and the Noye was having quite a bit of trouble tugging it over his head. “Hyung! It’s stuck!”

He heard a muffled sigh through the fabric of his t-shirt. “Hyung! Don’t just sigh at me, come help,” Sehun exclaimed with exasperation as he tugged viciously at his shirt. He knew Mihyun was going to be coming any minute, and he didn’t want to be caught in such an embarrassing situation. “Hurry!”

He could practically feel the way Luhan rolled his eyes before going to help his dongsaeng. Luhan fastened both hands to the hem of Sehun’s shirt and gave a rough tug.

“Hyung, gently!” Sehun protested as he winced in pain. “That hurts!”

Luhan let out an impatient huff and tried to gently slide the stiff fabric over Sehun’s head.

“Hurry up hyung! You’re taking forever!” Sehun exclaimed.

Luhan let out a loud growl and stuffed each of his fists with a handful of the fabric before yanking the shirt off with all of his strength. He managed to free Sehun’s head from the tight ring of cloth, but the force caused him to topple backwards with Sehun following closely after him.

“Thanks hyung,” Sehun grinned sheepishly as he rubbed his forehead, happy to be free from the suffocating fabric. He froze once the sound of soft footsteps registered in his head, however, and slowly turned his head to the door of the cage once they came to a stop.

Mihyun blinked as she stared at the shirtless Sehun and Luhan who were currently positioned in an uncompromising situation. Was it possible that she had underestimated their relationship all this time?

With the of her head, Mihyun bluntly asked, “Are you guys in a relationship?”

Luhan’s face immediately turned a bright red, and Sehun’s jaw dropped incredulously at the girl’s words.

“I don’t mind it if you are,” Mihyun clarified, worried that she might have offended the two. “If that is the case I’m sorry for imposing on your time alone so often, I should have known better. I’ll take my leave now and go find the others. Please enjoy your time together.”

Luhan and Sehun watched speechlessly as Mihyun gave them a small bow before turning around to leave the cages. After a few minutes passed, Sehun finally stammered, “H-Hyung, does she…?”

Luhan just sighed and patted his dongsaeng’s head pitifully. Now it would be even harder for the girl to realize Sehun’s feelings.

“Yah! Why did Mihyun just come to me asking if you guys are engaged in a relationship?!” Chanyeol howled with laughter as he strolled into the cage with Baekhyun at his side.

Sehun let out another loud groan and face palmed himself at the news.

“Yeah, is there something you guys aren’t informing us of?” Baekhyun piped up as he plopped onto his blanket. “I was always suspicious of how close you two were.” He let out another howl of laughter when Sehun released a low growl.

“Baekhyun! Chanyeol! I told you not to interrupt!” Mihyun exclaimed as she shot into the cage, flustered. She tugged at Chanyeol’s upper arm in an attempt to drag him out. “Come on, let’s go!”

Sehun let out a growl and then an even louder one when Chanyeol burst out into another fit of laughter. He stomped over to Mihyun’s side and tugged her away from the howling other. “Listen here!” Sehun growled as he stared straight into her eyes. “Luhan and I are not in a relationship, you hear me? What you saw was a misunderstanding!”

“It’s fine, Sehun,” Mihyun smiled gently as she reached upwards to pat the front of the boy’s head. “I don’t mind if the two of you are in a relationship, really, I don’t.”

Sehun snarled in exasperation, and pushed Mihyun backwards until her back gently hit the hard wall. Both of his hands shot out to hit the wall at each side of her head, and he leaned his face forward until Mihyun could feel the other’s breath fan her face.

“I. Am. Not. Gay,” Sehun growled out each individual word as he maintained eye contact with the small girl. “Do you hear me?”

Mihyun blinked. “If you say so.”

The corner of Sehun’s lip curved upwards into a small smirk, and he pulled away from Mihyun with a satisfied expression. “Good, so don’t you go around asking others if I’m in a relationship with Luhan or Baekhyun or Kyungsoo.”

“I never asked if you were in a relationship with Baekhyun or Kyungsoo,” Mihyun clarified with a tilted head. “Just Luhan.”

A small giggle escaped her lips when Sehun rolled his eyes from irritation.

“Didn’t you say you were going to tell us something once everybody got together, Mihyun?” Chanyeol asked.

His statement were enough to erase her smile, and she froze for a split second when she processed his words. She gulped when she eyed Kyungsoo and Jongin enter the room out of the corner of her eye, and she began to feel beads of perspiration form on her forehead. It was time, and she couldn’t postpone her words any longer.

“Mihyun, are you alright? You look like you’re going to pass out,” Baekhyun voiced with concern as he stood up to wrap his arm around her shoulders. He pulled away once he received a sharp glare from Sehun, however, and grumbled under his breath as he went to sit down next to Chanyeol.

Sehun quietly took Baekhyun’s spot by her side, and placed one hand on top of her right shoulder as a stabilizer. “Mihyun?” he spoke her name quietly, snapping her out of her nervous trance.

She her dry lips, her eyes darting to all the curious faces of the room. “I… I had to tell you that… the papers are moving along quicker than we had estimated. It seems like I’ll be able to bring Luhan and Sehun home with me as early as next week.”

A sudden silence spread across the small caged room, and Mihyun felt her heart plummet at the blank faces that stared back at her. She knew they understood the underlying meaning of her words. They hadn’t been educated as far as they should have been, but they weren’t stupid – they knew how to read between the lines. They knew that the words Mihyun had spoken were her way of telling them that their meetings would be cut short – extremely short.

“Is that what you had been stressing about all this time?” Baekhyun scoffed as he rolled his eyes. “Jesus, I thought you were going to tell us that you were dying or something. You got me all worked up for nothing.”

Mihyun’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. Perhaps they didn’t understand the actual words she had been trying to get across.

“We know, Mihyun. We know that that means you won’t be visiting as often anymore. We knew that since the second we opened our mouths to speak to you,” Chanyeol gave her a kind smile.

“We’re Noyes,” Jongin shrugged as he stretched his arms above his head. “For us, nothing good ever lasts very long.”

Mihyun felt her heart shatter at Jongin’s statement. It had been said casually, with no intention of being harmful, but it was that carelessness that made it hurt so much more. How was it to live a life like that? To live a life expecting everything good to be taken away in the near future? To live a life with no expectations, to have nothing to look forward to, to have no dreams?

Jongin quickly noticed that his words had stuck in a way he hadn’t intended it to, and his eyes widened in realization. “I-I didn’t mean it like that, Mihyun. Don’t take it the wrong way, I don’t mean to say that you want to leave us or anything, really.”

Kyungsoo jabbed his elbow into Jongin’s side and held a finger to his lips to tell the other to shut up.

“Mihyun…?” Baekhyun tested. “Mihyun, are you alright?”

Mihyun snapped out of her thoughts and gave him a small smile. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something… Can I… Can I ask you guys something?”

“Sure, anything,” Chanyeol grinned, happy to know that she was no longer in a state of sadness.

“If you… if you weren’t a Noye… What would you want to be?” Mihyun asked slowly as she observed the reactions of the other Noyes.

They all processed her question blank faced, as if they weren’t capable of answering such a thing. Their dreams had been discarded long ago. The chances of them actually leaving their Noye title behind was next to impossible, and therefore had found it pointless to waste any time pondering on things that would never be. Now that the girl had formulated such a question, they all had to dig deep into their brains, deep into the archive to find the folder that had lain untouched for so many years.

“You mean… like a job?” Baekhyun finally asked with a cocked head.

“I… I guess, yeah, you could think of it like that,” Mihyun nodded. “Not just a job to earn money, though, a job that you’d actually enjoy doing.”

Another lengthy silence captured the room, broken finally when Jongin cleared his throat to answer. “I always wanted to be a dancer,” he stated awkwardly, his eyes darted around the room to test the reactions of the others.

“You’d want to be a performer?” Mihyun asked curiously, imaging Jongin dressed in some stagy outfit with hundreds of girls chanting his name. “Like an idol?”

His face blushed a cherry red and he ducked his head down in embarrassment. “Y-Yeah. Like an idol.”

“I think I’d be one of your fans,” Mihyun smiled brightly at the boy.

“I’d want my stage name to be Kai,” Jongin added in eagerly, more confident from her words of approval. He wrapped his arm around Kyungsoo’s neck and pulled the boy in. “Kyungsoo said he wanted to be a singer, and that we’d sing and dance together as a group. Kyungsoo’s voice is beautiful!”

Kyungsoo slapped Jongin gently against the chest, flushing a light red at Jongin’s reveal. “I-I-I was on-only jok-joking.”

“Don’t lie, Kyungsoo,” Jongin grinned happily. “You said your name would be D.O, remember?”

Kyungsoo smacked his hand over Jongin’s mouth to muffle any more information Jongin was to spout about him while his face climbed to a whole new shade of red.

“I hope you will sing for me one day, Kyungsoo,” Mihyun stated with a genuine smile.

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to protest, and deny the claims of Jongin’s praise, but pressed his lips together. Instead, he just gave his head a brief, sharp nod before ducking his head in embarrassment.

“I think I’d want to be a lawyer,” Baekhyun piped up suddenly as he tapped his chin thoughtfully. He nudged Chanyeol with his elbow and leaned in front of him. “What about you, Channie?”

“I don’t really have anything I’d really dream of being in the future,” Chanyeol murmured. His cheeks flushed a light red and he shyly stared down at his twiddling thumbs. “I just want to live happily with Baekhyun.”

“Yah, Park Chanyeol! Don’t expect me to make all the money for the two of us!” Baekhyun exclaimed as he smacked the other on the back of his head. Despite his outburst, his eyes were still gleaming with happiness from Chanyeol’s confession.

Mihyun could feel the smile on her face broaden from the couple’s cute exchange, and she turned to Luhan with curiosity. “What about you, Luhan?”

Luhan stared at her unmoving for a few seconds as he pondered her question. He finally picked up a stick that had been stranded besides him and carved his reply into the ground. Kindergarten teacher.

“Do you like children, Luhan?” Mihyun asked with interest.

Luhan paused for a second before he nodded his head, a shy smile spread across his lips.

“And you, Sehun?” Mihyun asked as she raised her gaze to the taller man. “What would you want to do in the future?”

“I don’t have any dreams,” Sehun responded right away.

“Ey, don’t be such a party pooper, Sehun!” Baekhyun exclaimed as he locked the other into a head lock. “Just confess already!”

“Hyung!” Sehun protested as he struggled against the grip. “Hyung! Hyu- fine!”

Baekhyun released his grip with a satisfied smile and plopped back down next to Chanyeol. “Well?”

Sehun’s eyes darted around the room, feeling suddenly nervous from the pairs of eyes that were trained on him. “I…” he murmured as he his dry lips. “I guess… maybe I could be… I uhh…”

“Oh! I realized that I forgot to show you all something!” Mihyun exclaimed suddenly, interrupting Sehun who was awkwardly stuttering along. “It’s a surprise I had made for you guys.”

“A surprise?! What is it? Where is it?!” Baekhyun exclaimed as he clapped his hands together gleefully.

“I have it right here, don’t worry,” Mihyun smiled as she picked up the rather large bag she had brought today. Sehun captured her eyes for a split second, wordlessly expressing his gratitude for saving him. She gave him a small smile in return, hoping that one day Sehun would be able to tell her his dreams without even the slightest bit of hesitation.

She put her concentration back into rummaging through the bag, and finally found the object she had been looking for. She pulled the large package slowly out of her bag to create a little more suspense for the other Noyes.

“What is it?” Chanyeol asked with a cocked head as he examined the flat object in her hands.

Mihyun gave them all a bright smile as she turned the picture frame over, propping the frame up in her lap so they could all see the group photo they had taken just a few days ago. She had the photo frame custom made, which is why it had taken quite a while to have the whole thing set up. The frame was of a silver color, with threads of gold weaved in between the metal.

“Chanyeol! Chanyeol I’m going to murder you!” Baekhyun screamed right away once he got a glimpse of his appearance in the high quality snap shot.

Jongin and Kyungsoo doubled over in laughter once they saw their hyung’s pose as well, and Chanyeol immediately jolted up to sprint out of Baekhyun’s grasp. Sehun caught Luhan’s eye and gave the boy a dirty look once he noticed Luhan’s out stretched fingers in the photo, and the older returned it with a sheepish smile.

Mihyun smiled to herself as she stared at all the commotion before turning the photo frame so she could stare at the framed picture herself. Her eyes slowly scanned the photo, taking in all the details from left to right.

The picture began at the left, with Jongin’s arm draped around Kyungsoo’s shoulders and Kyungsoo’s fingers engaged in a peace sign. There was huge distance in height from the top of Kyungsoo’s head to person standing beside him, Sehun, who was stiffly stationed there with a stoic expression on his face. It wasn’t obvious, but if one looked closely enough, they could see how Sehun’s pupils were shifted just slightly to the left, meaning that he had been gazing at the girl besides him out of the corner of his eyes. Mihyun was smiling happily next to him, with an overly eager Luhan beside her. His two arms were stretched out to his side as he attempted to place bunny ears on top of both Sehun and Mihyun’s head. The picture was then concluded with Baekhyun and Chanyeol: Baekhyun, with his eyes squeezed close and his jaw hanging agape, and Chanyeol, his head thrown back in laughter with Baekhyun’s hair in between his fingers as he disheveled the smaller’s do.

Mihyun concluded her examination of the photo, and smiled brightly up at the 6 boys in front of her. This dim, dirty cage with insects crawling around and a now undetectable stench in the air was the place she could truly call home. A new glint of determination found a spot within Mihyun’s eyes as she clenched her fists tightly at her sides. These boys were her family, and she’d be damned to let somebody, even her father, take them away from her.

Besides, who ever agreed that blood was thicker than water?