Lamentable [la-ˈmen-tə-bəl] adj - Deserving an expression of great grief or regret; pitiable.

Mihyun didn’t even flinch when a hand shot in front of her, preventing her from leaving her classroom. She turned her head to the side without interest, and raised an eyebrow at the bruised and beaten Jongdae that was standing next to her. She eyed the man from head to toe, and a small frown slipped onto her face, “What happ—”

“Jongdae, I’ll wait for you outside, okay?” Junmyeon called out from down the hallway.

Mihyun glanced over Jongdae’s shoulder to see the boy, and was taken aback to see him in an equally beaten state. Realization dawned upon her, and her eyes formed small crescents as she stared proudly at Jongdae, “You’ve done well, Jongdae.”

Jongdae flushed at her praise, and scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment until he remembered what he had approached the girl to talk about. “Mihyun, I heard from Yixing Hyung.”

The smile that had been on Mihyun’s face immediately slipped off and she stiffened at the boy’s words. Her eyes glanced from side to side, and after seeing no other students in the hallways she deemed it to be safe enough to respond, “I thought I told Yixing not to tell a soul?”

“Don’t look like that, he only told me, and he won’t tell anybody else. He knew that I talked to you occasionally, and wanted me to persuade you to change your mind,” Jongdae explained. His eyes flashed with worry. “Mihyun, I owe you a lot, and I really do think of you as one of my friends. I know it isn’t my place to say anything, but please don’t do it.”

“If you know it’s not your place, then don’t over step your boundaries,” Mihyun snapped back in a cold tone. Mihyun’s face softened when she registered the hurt expression that flashed onto Jongdae’s face, but kept her stern tone, “Jongdae, I like you right now, and I too consider you as one of my friends, so… don’t make me change that.” Because you haven’t received the title, not yet.

“Now please excuse me, I’m rather in a rush,” Mihyun stated as she pushed passed Jongdae. The phone call she had had earlier with Yixing flew into her mind, and she bit down on her lip as she quickened her pace.

“But Mihyun—”

Mihyun held up a hand to cut him off. She gestured to his injuries before staring him straight in the eyes, “You fought for what you believed was right, Jongdae, so don’t try to stop me from doing the same.”

“Why?” Jongdae called out right as Mihyun was about to turn the corner. “Why are you willing to risk your life for them?”

Mihyun paused for a few seconds as she thought over his words. She glanced over her shoulder and gave him a small smile, “For the same reason you were willing to get beat up for Junmyeon.”

“I don’t understand,” Jongdae responded with furrowed eyebrows. He jogged down the hallway to catch up with her, “Please, explain it to me.”

Mihyun paused, “What is Junmyeon to you?”

“Junmyeon Hyung?” Jongdae asked with raised eyebrows. He tapped his pointer finger against his chin as he thought up an answer. “Hyung is… Hyung is the only person that I can truly act like myself around. He’s the person that allows me to abandon my façade, and doesn’t treat me different because of it. He’s like a home… if a home could take the form of a person, anyways.”

“And why did you finally confess that he was your brother despite the fact that you knew you would suffer the consequences?” Mihyun continued patiently.

“I guess, I guess cause I was tired of putting up with this mask, I was tired of Junmyeon Hyung getting hurt by the stupid actions of the people around me. I wanted it to be better for him, even if it did mean that I’d likely get beat up. I wanted him to be happy, and myself as well, I wanted to be happy too,” Jongdae replied thoughtfully as he scratched the back of his neck.

Mihyun gave him a satisfied smile and patted him gently on the shoulder.

“Wait, you haven’t said anything. Where are you going?” Jongdae called out in protest when Mihyun turned around to leave.

“Don’t you already know the answer? You said it all yourself,” Mihyun responded as she turned the corner, not even giving the other a second glance.

“How is he doing?” Mihyun asked quietly as she stood in front of her closed bedroom door.

“He’s… coping,” Jaesuk responded uneasily as he glanced at the closed door. “He was frighteningly calm the entire ride home, and I haven’t heard even the slightest bit of noise since he entered. Will you be alright to go in by yourself, Agashi?”

Mihyun nodded as she quietly turned the knob of her door, “I’ll call for you if you’re needed, Jaesuk.”

After casting him a final glance, she quietly entered her dark room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. Her eyes scanned the room until she found the figure she had been looking for, sitting on her bed as he gazed out the window with his back turned to her.

“Kris,” she called out his name softly, and he jumped slightly at the sudden sound. She watched as Kris hurriedly wiped his eyes with the back of his arms before he turned to her, flashing her a small, saddened smile. “Did you hear…?”

“Yixing called me,” Mihyun answered as she took slow, cautious steps towards the Noye.

“You would think that after getting the money from selling me, they would have survived, huh?” Kris chuckled bitterly as he stared down at his feet. He felt the bed dip when Mihyun sat down beside him, and tilted his face to the side so she wouldn’t be able to see the tear tracks. “Why did I have to go through all that suffering if my family was just going to die in the end?”

Mihyun hummed in agreement, knowing that what the boy needed right now wasn’t her words of her sympathy, but rather to let out words of his own.

“Did Yixing tell you how they died?” Kris asked as he briefly glanced at the girl from the corner of his eye.

Mihyun shook her head as she pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin on the top of them. “I didn’t ask.”

“Well I did,” Kris responded as he stared straight out the window. “Said they starved. Neighbors found their bodies just a few months after I was taken. What a stupid family I came from – they didn’t even know how to make 200,000 won last?”

“I sacrificed myself for nothing. They didn’t even appreciate me enough to actually try to survive,” Kris muttered. Tears brimmed his eyes, but he swallowed hard, not wanting to shed any tears in front of the girl. “Stupid.”

A long pause filled the room, and Mihyun turned her head away when tears began to slip past Kris’s restraints and drip off of his chin, knowing that the other didn’t want her to witness such a sight.

“Do you think you could hit me?” Kris finally asked. “Could you hit me really, really hard?”

Mihyun glanced at him with her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“You know, I read in books that if you get by a car or something really hard that you’ll go through amnesia,” Kris explained as he turned to face the girl, forgetting about the shining tears that were drying on his face.

Mihyun chuckled quietly at the boy’s words, “I don’t think it works like that.”

Kris’s face fell, “Yeah, I know. It’d be nice if it did. It’d be nice to forget.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Mihyun agreed as she leaned her back against the frame of her bed. “It’d be nice if we could discard the memories that we don’t want to keep, the memories that hurt us, but we can’t. But it’s not all too bad, you know. Don’t you think those memories make us stronger?”

“What if I don’t want to be strong?” Kris responded in a quiet voice.

Mihyun fell silent for a few seconds, “Life doesn’t take our wants into consideration.”

Kris chuckled bitterly at her words and let out a loud sigh as he leaned back to flop onto the bed, “What should I do now?”

Mihyun glanced at him, “What do you mean?”

“I had planned to return to my family once this was all over. I had planned to forgive them, and to try to get back the past few years of my life,” Kris murmured as he pulled his arms over his eyes. “But now there’s nothing left for me anymore.”

“You’re always welcome to stay with me, you know,” Mihyun offered as she nudged the male with the tip of her foot.

Kris pulled his arms away from his eyes to stare at her for a few seconds, “Why are you so kind?”

Mihyun chuckled under her breath, and a light flashed in her eyes as she glanced away from him, “Don’t be fooled, Kris. I’m not as kind as you might assume me to be.”

Kris shook his head before he stared up at the ceiling above him, “I think you’re too nice for your own good.”

“Then you think wrong,” Mihyun responded simply as she stretched her arms above her head.

Kris tossed her a curious glance before he pushed himself off the bed to sit upright again. “Don’t you have to go see the boys today?”

Mihyun hesitated before she nodded, “I can postpone it till tomorrow if you don’t want to be alone.”

Kris paused for a few seconds before he shook his head, “I can’t be that selfish. I don’t know what you did, but you got those kids to really like you, you know?”

A knowing smile slipped onto Mihyun’s face and she nodded her head absentmindedly. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Kris stared at the smile on her face for a few seconds before a similar one slipped onto his own lips. “I’m going to go clean up and then get some early rest. Don’t keep them all waiting for too long.”

Mihyun nodded her head without protesting the other’s words. “I’ll tell Jaesuk to come keep you company.”

Kris shook his head before he closed the bathroom door behind him, “There’s no need for that. I don’t want him to waste his time.”

Mihyun didn’t even hesitate before she replied with, “Alright, I’ll tell Jaesuk that you’re waiting for him.”

Kris chuckled quietly to himself once he heard the muffled reply of the girl through the closed door.  Once he heard the sound of the door closing behind Mihyun, he raised his head to stare at himself in the mirror. He was rather ashamed with his appearance and somewhat embarrassed to have shown this vulnerable side of him to the girl. He gnawed on his bottom lip as he thought hard about the next step he would have to take.

He glanced rather remorsefully at his toothbrush that was sitting besides Mihyun’s tooth brush and his blue face towel that was hanging next to Mihyun’s purple one. He would certainly miss the other’s company. Kris took a deep breath of air and stared at himself in the mirror with narrowed eyes.

The decision had been made, and he couldn’t back out any longer.

“Where’s Kris Hyung?” Baekhyun asked as he scanned the room for the familiar face, completely oblivious to the scowling Chanyeol beside him. “Is he not feeling well?”

Mihyun paused for a few seconds before she shook her head, “Kris decided to stay home for today.”

Baekhyun pouted at her words and pushed away Chanyeol who was trying to grab his attention. Mihyun eyed the pair and chuckled quietly under her breath. It didn’t take much to see that Chanyeol was utterly jealous of the other Noye for taking so much of Baekhyun’s attention.

Mihyun glanced to the side when she felt a light tap on her shoulder, and smiled when she saw Luhan sitting innocently beside her. “How have you been doing, Luhan?”

I’m surviving.

Mihyun ruffled the front of his hair affectionately and pressed a soft kiss against his forehead. “You’ll get to leave this place soon, alright?”

And live happily with you and Sehun?

Mihyun gave his hand a light squeeze, “Yeah, and live happily with me and Sehun.”

Luhan smiled contently at the thought of their future, and nestled himself up against Mihyun’s side. He had missed the girl for the past few days, and longed for the warmth and protection that Mihyun emitted.

“Where are Kyungsoo, Jongin, and Sehun?” Mihyun asked as she glanced around the room looking for the familiar others.

Baekhyun bit down on his bottom lip as he uneasily admitted, “Kyungsoo… got into one of his moods again. Sehun and Jongin went to try to calm him down.”

Mihyun frowned at the information she was given, and her eyes flickered to the door of the cage. She stared sadly down at her hands and whispered, “He’s not getting any better, is he?”

Baekhyun quickly denied her words in an attempt to raise up her mood, “No, no, he’s starting to get better. The progress is slow, but he’s getting better. It's just that the words Jaemin had told him… there weren’t exactly lines you could forget over night.”

Mihyun’s hand clenched into a small fist at the thought of the foul bastard. He had destroyed Kyungsoo, and in return she wouldn’t hesitate to destroy him.

“Mihyun.”

Mihyun’s head whipped over when a familiar voice breathed her name, and a smile immediately spread across her face when she caught sight of an exhausted Sehun resting against the frame of the doorway. A similar smile lit up the Noye’s face at the sight of the girl, and he eagerly bounded forward to engulf her into a hug. He pressed his chin against the top of her head and took in a deep breath of the girl’s scent, “You’re okay, right?”

He smiled widened when he felt her small arms wrap themselves around his torso, and pulled away when the other responded with a soft, “Yeah.”

“M-Mi-Mihyun?” Kyungsoo stammered as he appeared at the front of the cage with Jongin beside him.

Mihyun’s ears pricked up at the voice, and she quickly moved to the door to greet the other Noye. Sehun frowned for a split second as to how short his reunion with the girl was, but smiled contently to himself as he sat down next to Luhan. Luhan nudged him with his elbow, his lips curved into a small, knowing smile.

“It’s been hard on you, hasn’t it?” Mihyun whispered quietly as she engulfed the other in a tight hug.

Kyungsoo buried his face in the girl’s long hair and sniffled as he gave her a curt nod. Mihyun glanced up at Jongin and offered him a kind smile as a greeting. The other cracked a smile back, and patted her on the shoulder as he moved on to enter the cage. He was happy that Mihyun was there, for Kyungsoo was always so much calmer with the presence of the girl.

“Kyungsoo, Mihyun has to leave soon, so it’s best that we get started on what she had come to say,” Baekhyun finally spoke up after several minutes passed by.

Kyungsoo flushed a light pink and he immediately pulled away from the girl, ducking his head in embarrassment. Mihyun smiled fondly down at the boy, and patted his head reassuringly before she seated herself in front of the other Noyes.

“Before we can continue on as planned, it seems that there’s a rather large road block in our path,” Mihyun spoke up the same quiet tone the boys had gotten so used to.

“Which is?” Chanyeol asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We need to get our hands on a map of the Noye house in order to plan out our escape,” Mihyun stated as she crossed her arms. “Unfortunately, the blue prints to such a large estate are kept hidden from the public eye and placed under maximum security. Even I wouldn’t be able to get even a glance at such a thing.”

“So how are we going to solve this?” Jongin asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“We’re going to be making our own,” Mihyun smiled mischievously as she withdrew several items from her sack. She handed each of the Noyes a small notebook along with several pencils each. “From now on, wherever you are to go, you must document everything you see in these books. Make estimations as to how far apart buildings are, which hallways lead to which rooms, and so on. This was definitely be a rather rough sketch of a map and will be filled with missing gaps, but it’s the best we can come up with as of now.”

The Noyes nodded their heads with seriousness as they processed her words. It would definitely be rather complicated to document everything without attracting the attention of the other Noyes or the guards, but it would still be possible.

“Make sure that you proceed with caution. It’d be rather easy to get caught, and if your notebook is confiscated you will undergo an intense punishment,” Mihyun stated uneasily. “To ease this, I’ve gotten started on my own draft of the area, but there are still a lot of places missing.” She pulled out a large folded paper from her bag, and unfolded the paper to show the Noyes what she had done so far.

Baekhyun’s jaw dropped once he saw the intricate drawing, and his eyes sparkled in amazement. Mihyun was definitely one to never disappoint.

“This is so detailed, when did you have the time to look at all of this?” Chanyeol whispered in awe as he traced his finger down the familiar hallways.

“Are you forgetting my photographic memory?” Mihyun chided as she tapped her temple with her pointer finger.  She wrapped the sketch back up and tucked it safely into her bag. After glancing at her watch, she rose to her feet and reluctantly informed the others that it was time for her to go.

“So soon?” Baekhyun pouted as he stared up at her with puppy dog eyes. “Can’t you stay any longer.”

Mihyun thought back to Kris who was sadly awaiting her return, and shook her head. She bid them all her goodbyes, and turned around to leave the cage until she felt a small tug on the hem of her dress.

“Sehun?” Mihyun called out as she glanced down to face the other.

Sehun opened his mouth to say something, but hesitantly closed it once more. He let go of her dress and stared shamefully down at his hand, “It’s nothing, sorry.”

Mihyun hesitated for a few seconds before she nodded her head, calling out a soft “Good bye,” before she left the cage. She was about to climb up the staircase to leave the cages until the cry of her name and pounding footsteps sounded in her ears.

She was taken aback when a pair of arms engulfed her tightly from behind, wrapping tightly around her torso. Her body tensed for a few seconds, but she relaxed once she processed the familiar scent of – “Sehun?”

“When this is all over,” Sehun stated as he pressed his face into the crook of Mihyun’s neck. “If this ends up being a success and we’re all free… even if we’re free… can we still stay with you? Luhan and I? Can I still stay by your side?”

Mihyun’s heart warmed from Sehun’s question, and the corners of her lips unconsciously curved upwards. “You don’t want to be free? To go on your own paths?”

“No,” Sehun responded firmly. “I want to be with you.”

A few seconds of silence passed, and Sehun quickly realized has bold his words had been. “I-I mean, I mean only if you want us. I can’t really speak for Luhan hyung but I’d really like it if I could stay by your side for a long time, hopefully for forever. I-I don’t really have any advantages but I wouldn’t be too much of a pain and I’d try to stay as quiet as possible and I’d do my best to protect you and –,” Sehun rambled on from embarrassment.

He was cut off when Mihyun suddenly turned around. She cupped the boy’s face with her small palms and warmly smiled up at him, “I’d like it if you two were by my side as well.” She tilted the boy’s face down, and tip-toed to press her lips against the taller’s forehead, sealing the unspoken promise with a kiss.

Sehun’s entire face was a bright red by the time she pulled away, but there was still a silly grin stretched across his face.

“Bye, Sehun,” Mihyun smiled as she gave the boy another small wave before making her way up the stairs. Just as she stepped out of the underground level, she heard the happy cry of “ASA!” from behind her. She chuckled to herself as she made her way out of the Noye building and over to the car Jaesuk was waiting in front of.

“You seem rather happy, Han Agashi,” Jaesuk finally stated as he glanced at the smiling girl from his review mirror. “Did something happen, perhaps?”

Mihyun gave her head a small shake as she pressed her forehead against the cold window, deciding to keep the small exchange she had with Sehun to herself. “How is Kris doing?”

“He is coping,” Jaesuk answered hesitantly.

“I told him that he was welcome to stay with us. You are fine with that, right Jaesuk?” Mihyun asked.

“I am fine with whatever you wish to do, Agashi,” Jaesuk responded. He wasn’t really surprised with the girl’s words, for he had already expected her to extend her kindness to the Noye. He glanced at the smiling girl from his review mirror and a small smile appeared on his own lips. Jaesuk’s loyalty towards his Agashi would remain solid for the entire duration of his life. His Agashi’s heart was simply too large.

“Jaesuk,” Mihyun spoke up with alarm. “Are those men beating that student? The student with the same uniform as mine?”

Jaesuk slowed the car and glanced out the window to see what Mihyun was talking about. “Would you like me to intervene, Agashi?”

“Yes, Jaesuk,” Mihyun stated through gritted teeth. “How cowardly of them to gang up on a single person. Wouldn’t it be much more appropriate if the playing fields were at least of an equal number?”

“Neh, Agashi,” Jaesuk responded as he pulled the breaks on the car. He loosened his tie and ed the cuffs of his suit before climbing out of car.

“Jaesuk, wait,” Mihyun spoke up before he could take a step forward.

He glanced back at Mihyun to see her staring at the victim of the fight. He recognized the expression Mihyun had on, and knew she was running through her memory to see where she had seen that face before. Jaesuk then turned to look at the victim himself, and he stared for a few seconds before the light bulb lit up. He remembered that face as one he had beaten up himself, back when Mihyun had requested for his air to defend one of her school mates.

Sure enough, Mihyun soon whispered under her breath, “He’s tainted.” She immediately straightened herself up, and stared forward without sparing the group a second glance. “Let’s go home, Jaesuk, Kris should be waiting for us.”

Jaesuk climbed back into the car without hesitation as he started up the engine once again. It would take no more than 5 minutes for Jaesuk to have beaten the amateur fighters to the ground, but he wouldn’t dare to betray a single order of Mihyun’s.

He glanced with uncertainty at the group of men but drove away nevertheless. He had to correct himself. His Agashi’s heart definitely was rather large, but there’s was a set standard as to who qualified to receive such kindness.

And unfortunately for him, that child hadn’t made the cut.