Closure [klō-zhər] n. - a feeling that an emotional or traumatic experience has been resolved to allow one to move on with their life.

Mihyun bit down hard on her bottom lip, worried as to what she was to find when she returned home. She scolded herself for her immaturity – although it had felt rather good to speak back to her father, she knew the momentary victory wouldn’t be worth the punishment that was to follow.

“Can’t you drive any quicker?” Mihyun asked the driver in a sharp voice, not caring if she was to come off as rude. Jaesuk would soon resume his position by her side, and she had no purpose in creating feeble relationships with people who weren’t worth her time.

She leaned back in her seat nervously, continuing to gnaw at her bottom lip until she eventually broke the skin, allowing her taste buds to process the metallic flavor of blood. She had tried calling Jaesuk multiple times already, but the man had failed to answer every time, causing her worry to only increase in size.

When the car finally came to a stop, Mihyun nearly sprinted to the front door. She made sure to smooth down her flying hair and dust the imaginary dirt off of her dress before calmly pushing the door open.

“Ah, Mihyun.”

She inwardly cringed at the sound of the voice, and mentally cursed at herself for possessing such foul luck.

Her father smiled at her, and it seemed rather simple enough. It wasn’t tinged with the hint of a satisfactory smirk like she had been dreading to see; then again, her father always was quite a good actor.

“I’m going to see President Youn right now, but please make sure you will be available for dinner,” Chando announced as one of the servants handed him his coat. He gave her a brief nod good bye before slipping on his shoes to step outside.

Mihyun stood unmoving for a few seconds, just long enough to hear the front door close behind him, before she sprinted up the stairs to her bedroom, not caring about how ridiculous she must have seemed to the servants around her.

“Sehun!” Mihyun exclaimed as she flung the door to her bedroom wide open, causing those inside to jump in startle. Her frantic eyes and heavy breaths only added to her frazzled appearance, and Sehun stared back at her with eyebrows creased in worry. He unconsciously tried to move forward to see what was wrong with the girl, but his movements caused painful jerks to run through his body, reminding him of the injuries he sported.

“Is there something wrong, Mihyun?” Jaesuk asked with an arched eyebrow.

Mihyun’s eyes quickly scanned the room, and she let out a loud sigh of relief at the non-damaged state of the three boys. “It’s nothing,” Mihyun smiled as she quietly closed the door behind her. “I was just looking forward to seeing you all.”

Sehun flushed lightly under her words, but couldn’t help the small smile that threatened to spread across his face.

“Luhan!” Mihyun cried in delight once she noticed the other figure who was sitting upright in his bed. The boy offered her a small, tired smile and a small wave of his hand. She rushed to his side, and Sehun pouted at the loss of attention, but still smiled for he understood how happy she was to see Luhan awake.

“Are you feeling alright?” Mihyun asked as she cupped the boy’s face into the palms of her hands. She tilted his face from side to side to examine his features, and let out a sigh of relief when he nodded his head. His face scrunched up in pain when he tried to reach out for the girl, and she ruffled the front of his hair affectionately.

“It’s going to hurt for a while, so please bare with it, okay?” Mihyun smiled as she turned to the bedside table. She pulled out a marker and a white board before handing it over to Luhan. “I really don’t understand why I hadn’t given you this earlier, but this should be a much better alternative to writing in the dirt all the time.”

Luhan’s eyes lit up at the gift, and he offered the girl a small smile of gratitude. He uncapped the marker and wrote ‘Thank you’ in sloppy writing. He frowned at his shaky characters and let out a sigh of disappointment.

“You’re just going to have to get used to it,” Mihyun smiled as she patted his head. “It’ll get better over time.”

She got up from her seat and much to Sehun’s satisfaction, began to make her way over to the other. “Has your temperature improved?”

Sehun jutted out his bottom lip and folded his arms together, “No, I’m not better and it’s all your fault!”

Mihyun let out a light chuckle and arched an eyebrow at the childish other. “Why is that?”

“Because you weren’t here to take care of me!” Sehun whined as he outstretched an accusatory finger. “Since you were gone, you have to take care of me for the rest of the day without leaving my side,” he concluded happily.

Mihyun laughed as she ruffled the front of his hair, “I guess that’s fair.” She clasped her hands together as she looked at her bed-ridden Noyes. “Who’s hungry?” She frowned when she only received silence in response, and she crossed her arms in displeasure. “You guys have to eat, you know.”

“I’m not hungry,” Sehun shrugged as he leaned back against the bed frame, wincing at the pressure he unintentionally pressed into his wounds.

Luhan scribbled something quickly onto his whiteboard before holding it up to the girl. Me neither.

“Well I’m going to get you guys something to eat anyways, and if you don’t eat I’m not going to talk to you for the rest of the day,” Mihyun shrugged as she began to head out of the room.

“That’s not fair, Mihyun. You already promised to be by my side the entire day, and there are no take backs!” Sehun whined as he kicked his feet under the covers.

“Such a child,” Mihyun chuckled under her breath. “Alright, alright, just eat a little bit, okay?”

Sehun huffed out a reluctant, “Neh.”

Mihyun lifted her lips into a smile, and gestured for Jaesuk to follow her outside before she closed the bedroom door behind them. There was a pause of silence before a light thump caused Sehun to turn his head to Luhan.

The other was holding up his white board with an amused smirk stretched across his face. I thought your temperature already went back to normal?

Sehun’s face flushed a light red, and he jerked his head away from his Hyung before mumbling a soft, “Shut up” under his breath.

“Did he say anything to you?” Mihyun asked in a hushed tone as she and Jaesuk traveled downstairs to prepare the others a meal.

“No,” Jaesuk shooked his head. “Not anything that you’re thinking he did.” He glanced at her uneasily and slipped his hand into his pocket. “He… he wanted me to give you something.”

Mihyun furrowed her eyebrows and stared at the envelope the other withdrew from his pocket. “What is it?”

Jaesuk shook his head and handed the girl a small envelope, making sure she could see the contents of the front. “I don’t know what he intends to do, but…”

Mihyun froze once she processed the familiar writing on the front, “Is this…?”

Jaesuk nodded his head, watching the girl carefully as she stared down at the envelope in her hands. He patted the girl’s head, and pushed her gently back up the stairs. “Grab your coat, and then you can go to the green house, okay?”

Mihyun nodded her head speechlessly, continuing to stare down at the envelope that had her mother’s cursive handwriting inked across the front. She stumbled up the stairs and back into the room, still dazed and confused from the bit of paper in her hands.

“Where are you going?” Sehun asked, pushing himself into a sitting position when he saw Mihyun re-enter the room to grab her coat.

There was a pause of silence, and Sehun and Luhan furrowed their eyebrows at the lack of a response. “Mihyun?”

Mihyun snapped out of her trance and offered the two a small smile. “Jaesuk will be back up with your meals, okay? I’m just… I’m just going to go the green house in the back for a few minutes,” Mihyun explained as she the envelope between her fingers. “Just to look at something.”

Sehun frowned at the sound of her absence, and reluctantly settled back into his pillows. “Come back soon.”

“I will,” Mihyun promised as she wrapped a scarf around her neck. She paused for a second and glanced meaningfully at Sehun. She opened in hesitation, but finally asked in a small voice, “Would you like to come with me?”

Sehun’s eyes gleamed brightly at her invitation, and he quickly accepted.

Mihyun tucked the envelope into her coat’s pocket and frowned as she watched Sehun attempt to get out of bed. “Maybe you should just stay here?” she offered softly, wincing whenever the other would.

“No,” Sehun pouted as he leaned himself against the bed frame to help him stand upright. He tried to take a step forward, but would have nearly collapsed if Mihyun hadn’t rushed to his side.

“Thanks,” Sehun muttered with embarrassment as he wrapped his arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Shut up, Hyung,” Sehun growled lightly when Luhan’s body began to shake from silent laughter at how ridiculous the pair looked.

Luhan let out a grin and held his board up to the pair. You’re so big that you look like you could swallow her whole, Sehun. He only shook even harder when Sehun barred his teeth with a quiet snarl.

“You guys really couldn’t wait until I came back?” Jaesuk sighed as he stepped into the room. He relieved the tiny girl from Sehun’s large body, and easily helped the other out of the room. He exchanged a meaningful look with Mihyun, as if mentally asking her if she was really ready to allow Sehun to enter a place so precious to her.

The corners of Mihyun’s lips lifted into a rueful smile, and she gave him a small nod in response. “We’ll be back soon, okay Luhan? Jaesuk can keep you company while we’re gone.”

Luhan nodded his head and gave them a small wave goodbye.

“I’m going to check on you guys soon, so don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Jaesuk warned as he stopped at the front of the green house that was situated in the large backyard of the Han mansion. He eyed Sehun up and down before handing him over to Mihyun, “I don’t care if you’re in an injured state, I will leave you twice as worse off if you try anything.”

“Jaesuk,” Mihyun scoffed as she rolled her eyes. She waved him goodbye before she turned silently to the front door of the green house. Sehun glanced down at her with furrowed eyebrows, and softly called out her name, “Mihyun?”

Mihyun offered him a small smile and took a deep breath of air before she finally walked in.

“What is this place?” Sehun asked as the pair walked into the bright greenery. Plants and flowers of all colors were scattered all over the place, transforming the inside of the greenery into a tropical forest.

Mihyun paused for a few seconds before she responded with a small smile, “Some place really special to me.”

Sehun nodded his head, accepting the girl’s rather vague response. The two continued on into the middle of the greenery before she finally stopped, allowing Sehun to find a seat on the ground below.

“Why did you want to come here?” Sehun asked curiously as he settled himself on a flat rock, trying to disguise his grunt of pain as a random cough.

Mihyun withdrew the envelope Jaesuk had given her and held it up for the other to see. “To open this.”

“What is it?” Sehun asked with a cocked head as he stared at the yellowing edges of the parchment.

“It’s from my mother,” Mihyun smiled as she gently ran her fingers over the old paper.

Sehun’s eyes widened slightly at her words, and his jaw gaped open as he stared at the object that was in her hands. Never before had Mihyun mentioned her mother and Sehun hadn’t had the courage to bring up the topic.

A peaceful silence consumed the green house as each of the inhabitants became lost in their own thoughts. Mihyun finally let out a small breath of air, summing up enough courage to gently pry open the back of the envelope to empty it of its contents.

Mihyun held her breath as she watched a single photo graph fall to the ground. Sehun watched her carefully, and frowned at the stoic expression that stretched across her face. He leaned over and picked up the picture for her when she made no movement of reaching forward.

“Mihyun?” Sehun asked quietly as he handed the slip to her.

Mihyun took the photograph with shaking hands, and stared down at the familiar face.

“Is that you and your mom?” Sehun asked as he peered down at the two faces. He resisted the urge to croon at how cute the girl looked during her younger days and shifted his gaze over to her mother. “You don’t look alike,” Sehun commented as he examined the photograph.

“Yeah, we don’t,” Mihyun chuckled lightly as she brushed her mother’s face with her thumb. “I almost forgot what she looked like.” She didn’t understand her father’s motif for giving her such a photo after destroying all the evidence that her mother had ever existed. Perhaps he meant it as a warning, to warn her that she would end up like her mother if she were to disobey her father.

“There’s writing on the back,” Sehun pointed out as he turned the photograph to show her the inked letters.

Mihyun let out a choked chuckle as she read the words written in her mother’s beautiful handwriting. “Fight for what you believe in,” Mihyun whispered as she clenched her hand at her side.

“Your mother must have been really clever,” Sehun smiled as he tucked a strand of Mihyun’s stray hair behind her ear. “Can you… can you tell me what happened to her?”

Mihyun froze at her words, and Sehun bit down on his bottom lip when he noticed her rigid figure. “Sorry,” he mumbled under his breath. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” Mihyun responded dryly. She chuckled when Sehun winced at her cold tone, and turned to him with a light smile to show that she had been joking. “My father and mother were put together for an arranged marriage; basically to give both of their families’ companies the upper hand. It’s nothing rather surprising in the business world, for marriages are often arranged by the fathers of each side. The only flaw in this arrangement was that my mother was already in love with somebody else.”

“Why didn’t she just marry him then?” Sehun asked with furrowed eyebrows.

Mihyun smiled ruefully as she brushed her thumb against the photograph. “He was a noye.”

Sehun tensed, and Mihyun allowed her words to sink in for a few seconds before continuing. “After she got married to my father, the noye moved into this house with her seeing as how Noyes accompany you for the remainder of either your or their life. He wasn’t allowed to stay in her bedroom or travel alone with her any longer, though, but that didn’t affect how they felt about each other.”

She raised her arms and gestured to green house surrounding them. “So this is where they would secretly meet up.”

“Where is she now?” Sehun asked quietly, gauging Mihyun’s expression from the corner of his eye. “Your mother?”

Mihyun hummed before she stretched out a finger to point at the rock Sehun was resting on. “You’re sitting on her.”

Sehun stared at her a few seconds before processing what she had just said. He stared down at the rock he had been sitting on, and now noticed the Hangul that was engraved into the flat surface. His eyes widened in horror, and he nearly flung himself off of the rock, landing on the ground with a loud thump. “Mihyung!” he cried in horror, ignoring the pain that jolted up his spine when his roughly hit the hard ground. “How could you not have—!”

Sehun cut off his words mid sentence as he watched Mihyun engage in a round of intense laughter. It wasn’t like the quiet chuckles or small smiles Mihyun often had plastered across her face, but instead it was one that truly showed her happiness. He couldn’t help but stretch his lips into a similar state, happy to have gotten the other to laugh despite his physical sacrifice.

“I like it when you laugh like that,” Sehun grinned when Mihyun’s had finally concluded her fits of laughter. Mihyun gave him a shy smile and tucked a few strands of loose hair behind her ears.

The two stared at the tombstone Sehun had been sitting on earlier, and Sehun silently read the letters that had been carved into the rock.

“Their relationship was discovered a few months before I was born,” Mihyun continued as she brushed her fingers gently against the engraved letters. “My mother told him to run, but it was no good. My father and his brothers hunted him down and threw him into the river to drown.”

“My mother carved this stone as his momentum,” Mihyun spoke quietly after a brief pause of silence. “She would always take me here whenever my father was gone on business, and we would just sit by this stone for hours. She’d tell me a lot of stories about him – how he would protect her, how he would care for her, it made me love him a lot too. I was really thankful to him, for taking care of my mother as well as he had.”

There was another extensive pause of silence before Mihyun continued.

“She killed herself when I was seven,” Mihyun whispered quietly, her hand coming to a halt as she touched her mother’s name. “She asked me to bury her ashes here so she could be with him. Can you believe that? She asked me, a seven year old girl to bury her mother’s ashes so she could be together with a man other than her father,” Mihyun chuckled bitterly, her hand clenching into a tight fist. “But I did it anyways. I sat here for four hours when my father left to try to engrave my mother’s name into this stone. Such a foolish child.”

There was a brief period of silence, and Mihyun felt a warm, calloused hand press itself lightly on top of her own. She glanced at him and he offered her a small smile. “Not foolish, just brave;  a brave and compassionate child that fulfilled the dying wish of her mother despite being filled with pain. A child that grew up into an amazing woman.”

The two held eye contact for a few more seconds, silently exchanging unspoken words before Mihyun reluctantly broke it. She pulled her hand from underneath’s Sehun, and stared down at her palms that rested on her lap. “These relationships never work, Sehun. Everybody ends up getting hurt, and we have to learn from the mistakes of others.” A stinging pain shot through her chest at her words, and she mentally chuckled at her foolishness. How could she become hurt by words that came from her own mouth?

“No,” Sehun spoke up firmly. Mihyun glanced up in alarm when Sehun wrapped his hand tightly around the girl’s smaller one. He locked his gaze with Mihyun’s, and gave her hand a squeeze that contrasted his firm expression. “Who said we have to follow what happened before? We can create our own. We can compose our own story with our own ending.”

He offered the girl a shy smile that revealed his familiar boyish character. “So just, just write one with me. Okay?”