Chapter 2

The Circus

Behind the red door that Nana just opened, was not a dark tunnel that Krystal had expected it to be. There was a place bright –so bright that Krystal had to turn her face slightly away due to the sudden lights that reached her eyes. There was a yard seemingly acres and acres in width in front of her. A giant red-and-white striped tent was already built at the center of the yards, and around it were convoys of caravan trailers, booths and smaller tents. The brightness, Krystal realized, came not from the sunlight (it was night already, Krystal reminded herself), but from hundreds of pretty rainbow-colored lanterns hung crisscrossed through wires above them.

There was quite a commotion as well. People (all sporting weird looking costumes that made Nana's attire entirely normal and Krystal's not) were scattered around the tent. There were happy laughter here and there; some people were buying snacks and merchandise from the available booths; the others were playing darts or whatever games were provided in the other booths.

Nana whistled at the sight. "It's quite festive tonight. Guess I don't need to distribute any more flyers. I'll just change my clothes and –" she stopped her own mumbling upon noticing that Krystal did not move along with her. "What, Krissy?" Nana asked. "Never been to a circus before?"

Krystal blinked –not really realizing that she had just stood still there like a gawking blowfish – and stared back at Nana. "No, I... Well, once. I guess. When I was five? Yeah, I guess we did visit a traveling circus back then..." she trailed her words –trailed her mind to the memories she was sure she had. It was quite funny that all these weirdness around still seemed realer than her own memory.

There was once upon a time ago, when her family had still been alright: when her father was merely a low grade civil servant, when her mother still used cooked the family meal herself, when Yonghwa still chose to sleep at his own room instead of crashing on some strange girls' apartments, when Jessica was still wearing braces and would conspire with Yonghwa to trick her...

Was there even such time?

"Krissy, come on. I need to change my outfit," Nana called upon her. Without waiting for Krystal's retort of 'my name is not 'Krissy' to finish, Nana grabbed her wrist again. Silenced, the dark-haired girl was brought through the crowd towards one of the tents at the back side of the giant main tent. Nana pulled both herself and Krystal in and rolled down the small tent's folded cover.

Krystal stared at the inside of the small tent –which she immediately concluded as Nana's–judging by the numerous pictures of the blonde-haired girl herself placed all over the tent. Aside from the personal pictures of the girl, the tent was totally messy with lots of shiny dresses, accessories, hats, jewelry, everything that glittered, really. Seeing how Nana hardly kept her hair tidy (pity, Nana was a beautiful woman –Krystal honestly thought), Krystal was not surprised to discover the way her personal tent was kept. The only noticeable furniture in Nana's tent were only a small bed and a broken grooming table –and even that was buried beneath dozens of shoes and hair bands and necklace and other accessories.

"Let's go!" Nana announced happily.

Krystal turned around to face the messy girl, saw no changes, and frowned. "You said you needed to change?"

"Well, I have, duh!" she exclaimed as she pointed at the top of her head. Without her finger pointing at it, Krystal would not have realized that Nana had indeed changed the red apple hair ornament into a golden apple one. Deciding not to question Nana's oddity any further, Krystal just shrugged and was about to follow Nana out of the tent –when the girl in front of her suddenly shrieked.

"That !" Nana shrieked.

Surprised with the sudden cursing, Krystal immediately demanded, "What happened?"

Nana stopped just in front of her dressing table and grabbed a single earring on the top of a fedora hat laid there. "That is stealing my earring again!"

Krystal raised an eyebrow –quite amazed at how Nana could even realize a tiny piece of earring was missing from this wrecked room of hers. When Nana furiously stormed out of her tent, Krystal fought her usually apathetic self and followed Nana –who was marching towards another small tent built just beside her own tent.

Krystal chose to wait outside the other tent Nana was entering, but Nana flipped the tent's cover high enough so that Krystal could see what happened inside the neighbor's tent even without coming in.

It was a similar tent –only much tidier than Nana's. Inside, there was a pretty red-haired girl who was sitting in front of her organized grooming table. The red-haired girl widened her eyes upon the sudden intrusion but did not have much time to question anything because Nana immediately slapped the red-haired girl.

"Hyuna! You stole my earring again, didn't you?!"

The red-haired girl, equally as furious after the sudden slap, immediately rose from her seat and challenged Nana back. Krystal frowned a bit, because if Nana's short shorts had been vulgar enough, Hyuna's attire was even worse. The red-haired girl was practically only wearing sequined, golden bikinis.

"Stop accusing me, you envious, ugly !" Hyuna spat back.

Nana was not deterred. Grabbing a handful of Hyuna's red hair, Nana then pulled it hard so that Hyuna's ear was visible. A knowing glare made it to Nana's face as she pinched Hyuna's left ear. "Oh yeah? Then whose earring is this, then?! It's mine!" Nana screamed as she grabbed the earring and pulled it off –pulled it so hard that the earring tore the flesh of Hyuna's ear.

Hyuna screamed in pain; Krystal widened her eyes; and Nana calmly put the bloodied earring to her own ear. The blonde-haired girl then checked the reflection of herself on Hyuna's mirror. Satisfied with the presence of the earring on her ear, Nana was about to walk out of Hyuna's tent, when Hyuna suddenly grabbed a dagger from her grooming table and stabbed it deep onto Nana's bare thighs –

– and made a long tear from the top of Nana's thigh to her calf.

Nana screamed in pain in return; Krystal did not have the chance to narrow her eyes; and Hyuna took her turn to snicker upon twirling the blade on her finger.

"You !" Nana cursed again as she stumbled down to the ground. "Jaejoong just –"

Krystal suddenly felt her body was shoved aside and she nearly stumbled sideways. Looking up to her left, she saw a man (most likely the one who pushed her aside) was standing on the doorway of Hyuna's tent. Aside from his bright orange suit and strangely pretty face, the man looked normal.

But then normalcy did not always bring comfort.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?!" the man shouted. "The show is going to start very soon! Hyuna! You  haven't fed the lions! And Nana! What about the ticketing?! Are you two trying to make me bankrupt?!"

The shouting was unnecessary –Krystal had to take a step back, not wanting to be involved any further.

"Heechul..." Hyuna began with a begging voice that Krystal recognized as an attempt to seduce (Krystal saw her mother did that a lot of time). Nana scoffed.

"It's 'boss' for you two," Heechul reminded. "Hurry, I don't want any second to go –"

"But Nana hurt my ear!"

Like a quarrelling child, Nana followed up, "Hyuna tore my thigh!"

Heechul groaned and angrily invited himself into the tent. He then grabbed Hyuna's ear (earning a pained yelp from the red-haired girl) and checked the wound. "Not serious. Just ask Tiffany to do something about it," Heechul concluded. "Go feed the lions. I don't want them attacking our audience on the show again." The brown-haired man then turned to Nana who was lying on the floor. Kneeling, Heechul also checked on Nana's wound and grimaced in disgust. "Your wound won't do. Go to Jaejoong and ask for his help. I'll tell Sunny to take care of the ticketing. And Hyuna, what the hell are you doing here? Go feed the lions, now!" Heechul barked.

Scoffing and cursing under her breaths, Hyuna still obeyed her boss' order and exited the tent. Krystal took more steps back, though her eyes could not really leave the sight of blood trailing from Hyuna's hand on her ear.

"Hey you."

Krystal did not even realize that Heechul was talking to her until the man suddenly stood in front of her. She nearly stumbled. Wasn't Heechul kneeling beside Nana just a second ago?

"M-me?"

Heechul rolled his eyes. "No. That broken brick brain of yours. Geez, new girls are always stupid."

Krystal frowned upon such insult. "I'm not –"

"If you don't want me to extend your internship period, you go listen to me now. I don't have much time to deal with new girls now. So you have to help Nana to Jaejoong's workshop. After the show ends, you may come to me again to talk about the contract details."

"But I've never –" Krystal could not finish her sentence, because Heechul already took paced steps towards the big tent and disappeared behind it as fast as he appeared.

"Krissy?" Nana called out from the inside of the tent. "I'm sorry, but could you help me stand up?"

Krystal stared down at Nana and frowned.

She did not come here to be involved in any of these weirdness.

Shaking her head, Krystal declared, "I'm here for Jessica. I'm sorry, Nana. I really don't have much time."

"Jaejoong's workshop isn't that far," pled Nana. "And we're planning to go there anyway, aren't we?"

Krystal frowned. "Is Jessica there?"

Nana grimaced at her own wound before she made the reply. "Ouch. I don't know. But she was supposed to go to Jaejoong anyway, so at the very least, Jaejoong would know where your sister was going."

Exhaling a sigh, Krystal debated for a while and finally agreed to help Nana stand up and walked her to Jaejoong's place.

***

For someone whose legs had been deeply injured by a blade, Nana sure walked fast. In fact, Nana seemed to be able to walk without Krystal's help. Thus, after fifteen or twenty steps away from Hyuna's tent, Krystal experimentally let go of her grip around Nana's shoulders, and the blonde-haired girl indeed was able to walk just fine.

"Are you faking your injury?" Krystal questioned.

"God, no, Krissy!" Nana wept (Krystal vowed to leave Nana the next time she heard her name got changed to "Krissy" again). "Look at this hideous wound! Oh, and my legs are the prettiest around here..."

"But you are able to walk just fine," the dark-haired girl pointed out.

"My leg is fine yes, but my feature is definitely not –and isn't beauty everything? You can have hideous personality like Hyuna's but unfortunately, she's still pretty. Audience pays to see our beauties anyway," Nana explained. She then made a face and murmured to herself 'did I just call that pretty?' and cursed under her breath.

Krystal nodded out of reflex, although she did not exactly understand the notion. She could understand that in show business, looks held a major part, but around here, beauty seemed to be exaggerated.

It definitely did not pass her observation that the whole place had been weird anyway. Krystal might have just visited a circus once, but she was quite sure circus was not supposed to be like this. She did not recall any circus was ever built around the valley –and who would visit a circus in the middle of the forest again?

"What is this place actually?" Krystal softly asked as she gazed around. To her left was a giant movable aquarium and there was a man swimming in the aquarium –feeding what Krystal believed to be little sharks. Next to the giant aquarium were trains of tents again –in front of each tent, some people were practicing acrobats. To her right, there was a queue leading to the main tent –the ticketing had been opened, Krystal presumed.

"Just a circus," Nana answered.

"Are you all ghosts?" Krystal asked.

Nana laughed. "No. Well, it might have been weird for new girl like you, but we are not ghosts. Just some –"

" –freaks," Krystal finished, and Nana smiled –not looking insulted at all.

"Well, we're a different circus, true," Nana admitted. "Ah, we're here!" she announced as they stopped in front of another tent –this one was much bigger than Nana's or Hyuna's tents, but still smaller than the main tent. "Jaejoong!" Nana happily called out as she hopped inside the tent. Krystal nearly rolled her eyes, but still decided to follow Nana inside the tent.

Whoever this Jaejoong was, he must have disliked light to the extent on having only a small candle at the center of a table. The rest of the tent was dark and Krystal could hardly tell out what was really inside the tent.

Nana seemed to be a creature of the light as well (well, Krystal was not, but being unable to see nearly anything in such a foreign place also did not comfort her), because the girl already walked around the tent –knowing it well enough to find the lights. "Jaejoong, your place is still as dark as ever! I did give you those lamps, where did you put them?" Nana screeched as she e lamp to another and another until the inside of the tent was illuminated with yellowish light.

The owner of the tent was apparently lying on a long couch at the center of the tent. He groaned upon the sudden flicker of light and without lifting his head from the couch, he complained. "Goddamnit, Nana," he began. "Someone is trying to get some sleep here," the man, Jaejoong, sleepily commented as he rubbed his eyes –still refusing to get off from the couch.

Krystal invited herself more inside the tent and decided to look around. She was nearly expecting to see Jessica standing there at one of the corners of the room, but there was none. Jaejoong's tent was spacious, but in contrast to Nana's tent, his had much lesser objects. There was a long shelf behind Jaejoong's couch –dozens, if not hundreds, of glass bottles and tubes of various sizes were lined up neatly on each level of the shelf. Then there was this couch Jaejoong was using as a bed and a long table at the darker corner of the tent. A strong sterile stench invaded Krystal's nose and she had to breathe through , because smelling the scent any further could make her puke.

"Need your help, Doctor," Nana exclaimed, and with her still injured leg, she hopped on the couch Jaejoong was laying on –earning herself a scowl and an annoyed groan from the man whose thighs were used as a seating by the blonde-haired girl. Upon Nana's weight on Jaejoong's lap, the man finally got up. Krystal finally could see his feature: a pale, sickly-looking man with dark brown hair and dramatic, black eye make-up.

Jaejoong sighed and ruffled his already messy hair. "Get off me. Just get on the table," Jaejoong instructed.

Nana's only movement was to push her body to the other edge of the couch, yet still refusing to leave it.

Jaejoong looked like he was in the verge of being frustrated. "Nana."

Without the slightest remorse, Nana only lifted her injured leg so that it was on the same level with Jaejoong's chest. Her long, nearly bare thighs were invitingly extended in a certain angle that made Jaejoong immediately turned his face away. With a knowing smirk, the blonde-haired girl cooed, "You love my leg the most, don't you, Jaejoong? All yours to touch," she signaled.

"Get off me, Nana."

"If you want me to get off, you could just push me, but you don't," the girl boldly challenged. "I'll be free after the show, Jaejoong. My tent or yours? Last time was good."

"Last time was a mistake," the man stressed out –face still turned away.

"Still good," concluded Nana.

Krystal cleared . Jaejoong seemed to copy her action and only then that the guy seemed to realize Krystal's presence. Through his long lashes, Jaejoong stared at Krystal. A mild realization struck the man and he immediately turned his face to Nana –who was absentmindedly combing her extremely messy hair.

"What is that girl doing here?" he asked.

"Krissy is a new girl; looking for her sister," Nana answered. Her eyes then twinkled. "Oh, that reminds me. The latest new girl? Jessica? She came to your place, didn't she? This is her sister. Where is Jessica? Her poor sister has been through a long journey to –"

Jaejoong interrupted Nana's explanation.

"What the hell did you just do, Nana?"

Nana blinked, oblivious. "What?"

"This girl is–"

Jaejoong's word was further interrupted by a loud music coming from a distance. Realizing what it was, Nana immediately straightened her posture. "Oh, ! The show is starting! Heechul's going to kill me! Jaejoong, quick! Fix my leg!"

With a grunt, Jaejoong obliged to his comrade's wish. He gave up trying to make Nana move from his laps, so he grabbed a satchel bag he previously used as a pillow and opened it. From the brown satchel bag, he took out a big needle and a ball of thick threads. With skilled hands, Jaejoong quickly inserted the thread into the needle hole and tied it. Wasting not a moment, his hand then grabbed Nana's thigh and lifted it to his eye level before he started sewing the thread onto Nana's wound.

Krystal's face contorted in discomfort upon seeing the process. Nana did not look as if she was experiencing any pain, but the sound the needle made when it was entering and exiting Nana's flesh was audible in the still tent –Krystal groaned and after some moments observing the process, she finally decided to look away.

"Done," Jaejoong finally announced after some prolonged moments that Krystal wished could go faster. "Now, get off me, Nana."

The girl jumped off Jaejoong's lap and fondly patted the man's cheek. "Thanks, Jaejoong!" she said with a fond grin. She then looked at Krystal and upon seeing the other girl, Nana quickly turned around to face Jaejoong again. "So, have you seen Jessica?"

Jaejoong gave a long stare to Nana, but Krystal could have sworn that Jaejoong did steal a glance to her.

"...She was here. But I already took her to Heechul's place," answered Jaejoong finally.

"Ah, that won't be easy," commented Nana with a sad smile to Krystal. "But don't worry, Krissy. I will take you to Heechul's place," assured Nana. "But after the show, okay? If we want to bargain with that stingy Heechul, we would have to make his show successful first."

Krystal frowned some more, but did not refuse it when Nana linked her arm with hers again and dragged her out of Jaejoong's tent.

Before Nana closed the tent, Krystal knew that Jaejoong's haunting sight was still burning holes on her back.

***

Krystal followed Nana back to the main tent and the music grew louder and louder as they came closer to the tent. Loud clapping was heard from the inside of the tent –it seemed that the show had started.

Nana sneaked through the back side of the main tent –an entrance reserved to the performers and Krystal nearly did a double take when she was forced to enter the backstage; dozens of circus performers were creating a hectic sight together: a group of trapeze players were doing some stretch-ups, another group of belly dancers were putting on their attires –changing their clothes casually with the presence of the opposite genders–, three or four men, along with someone Krystal recognized as Hyuna, were pushing the steel cages with lions and other wild animals inside the backstage, and some other groups were nearly battling for the spot in front of the mirrors. The backstage was pretty spacious, but with the amount of people there and the almost literal war occurring inside made the place feel much more cramped.

Krystal never liked being in the crowd. She patted Nana's shoulders and had to shout so that Nana could hear her voice.

"I'd just wait at your tent!" she shouted.

"What?!" Nana shouted equally as loud. "Oh, no, no, Krissy. No one is allowed to leave the tent when the show is playing. Heechul won't like it!" she explained still by shouting.

"I don't have the obligation to stay here," Krystal insisted. "And Heechul or whoever will not know anyway!" she shouted, momentarily feeling stupid for shouting this statement out.

"No, no!" Nana persisted equally. "Heechul always knows. And with your sister at Heechul's place, you don't want to displease him. You don't want to displease him ever, actually."

"But where will I –"

"You can sit with Tiffany on the staffs' seats," offered Nana. The girl then looked around and spotted a certain girl with long, straight, red hair. "Tiffany!" she called out.

The girl Nana just called, Tiffany, spotted Nana and made her way through the crowd to approach Nana. It was somehow quite relieving to finally find someone looking actually normal. Tiffany was wearing normal white shirt and black skirt. She was, however, also wearing a pink apron with pockets. Krystal could see numerous make up brushes, combs, hair spray, and other make up on each pockets of the apron.

"You will perform after Kai and Taemin tonight," informed Tiffany first thing first upon seeing Nana. "And Heechul mentioned about covering leg or something? Did Jaejoong sew the wound already?"

"Yes, he did," told Nana and Tiffany, being quite an effective manager she was, quickly knelt down without a fear of being trampled by the sea of moving crowds around her. She took a bottle of concealer from her pocket, poured a generous amount of cream matching Nana's skin tone and applied it to Nana's leg. A few minutes after, Tiffany rose back to her feet again.

"Good to go," she told Nana.

"Lovely, thanks, Tiff!" Nana exclaimed as she lightly laid a kiss on Tiffany's lips. "Hey, could you also be a dear and take this girl," Nana paused to point at Krystal –who just had a firm belief that Nana was an actively aroused biual – and spoke again, "take Krissy to the staffs' seating?"

"No problem. I'm done here, anyway. Come on, Krissy," said Tiffany as she held Krystal's hand.

"It's Krystal," Krystal corrected, but decided to follow Tiffany anyway.

***

By the time Krystal reached the staffs' seating (located right next to the main stage and fortunately, only filled with three or four other people –including Jaejoong, who pretended not to know her), it was already the end of the second performance. Krystal sat down on her seat next to Tiffany as the hall erupted into applause. Krystal did not exactly know what was the performance about, but judging from the wet floor and the wet performer –she suspected it was some escaping trickery type of performance or at the very least, a performance that involved a lot of water.

After the second performer disappeared behind the red curtain, a man dressed in a flashy orange suit appeared on the stage again. Krystal thought that the sight of Heechul –riding a white horse as he made a clearly unnecessary display of himself circling the hall with his horse – was truly the funniest and most stupid sight she had ever seen that night. Heechul was clearly not a performer, and by the way everyone seemed to referred him as their boss, he must have been the Ring Master of some sort. Still, the idea of him trying to worship himself in some diva-ish sense as he announced the introduction for the third performers, made Krystal clapped her hand.

"I don't really like that man," Krystal admitted through her clapping.

"Well, nobody around here does," said Tiffany.

"Why don't you start a revolt against him then?"

"We would if we could, Hon," commented Tiffany. "But he keeps our souls."

"Funny ," tonelessly added Krystal, though she was quite amused with the idea. "Ah, finally," she noted as the white horse and its prince-wannabe rider finally disappeared behind the curtains. "What's next?"

Tiffany grabbed a binocular Krystal did not know she was holding and leaned forward on her seat. "Fangirls' treat. Kai and Taemin."

Two men calmly walked out from the red curtain. Upon the sight of them, it seemed that the hall exploded again with screams –coming from girls. Krystal looked around and tried to make sure that she was indeed in some circus performance, not a concert or something.

A soft music came from the speaker, but even that could not bury the screaming from the girls –and from Tiffany beside Krystal. Krystal peered out from her seat to look at the stage. The two men, looking more like two underage boys, really, began to dance. Both were dressed rather thinly and the movements involved a lot of touching each other's exposed skins. Krystal was not interested, and she slumped her body down on her seat.

She really did not remember the circus she visited as a kid was anything like this. Well, there were some rather performance, but back then her father would cover her eyes, while her mother would cover Jessica's. Krystal thought she remembered how her father would have trouble trying to take a hold on Yonghwa –a preteen boy at that time, full of curiosity. Then her mother would complain to her father 'we should not bring kids to this kind of show!' –to which his father would answer 'but I didn't know!'.

There had been quarrel even back then –but Krystal thought she liked it better back then. Nowadays, her parents never quarreled and always looked like the perfect politicians couple –taking politics back at home too, apparently.

She had been young, and she could not remember much. Maybe there was nothing much to remember –maybe her memory was just a product fabricated by her own mind, a minor reassurance that she, at least once, had a happy childhood.

Sometimes she wondered whether bringing Jessica back would help her mend her family.

Whether she actually wanted to mend her irreparable family?

The loud disappointed sighs coming from the girls and Tiffany beside her brought Krystal's attention back to the stage. It seemed that the dance performed by Kai and Taemin had ended.

Krystal straightened her posture again, but just when she was about to focus her sight on the stage again, the whole light in the tent was turned off. It was so dark and some audience gasped in surprise, while the other regular audience began to cheer loudly –knowing already what would be in store.

"What's this one?" Krystal asked Tiffany beside her –or at least, to the unidentified figure hidden by the darkness beside her.

"My second favorite performance," said Tiffany. "Look up," she told Krystal.

Krystal did. And at the same time that she did so, a solid spot light was shot high above, at the highest spot inside that tent.

There was a thin, brown board already propped high above the air –nothing was present below it. And on top of it, followed by the spot light, were pretty legs –walking barefoot on the brown board above. The spotlight shone upwards to the person's body. Short black shorts and puffy off-shoulders tunic, wildly tousled blonde hair.

Nana, Krystal recognized.

Except that it did not exactly seem like the bubbly, weirdo girl. The one walking barefoot on the board high above had a stern-looking face, almost dead, almost demonic. Krystal narrowed her eyes so that she could get a better view. The wounds on her leg was completely invisible, but even if the wound was still present, there was no doubting how graceful and beautiful Nana was –shone by the spotlight, stealing anyone's attention. The girl continued to walk until she reached the end of the board. She looked down without a fear of height below. Looking at Nana made something on Krystal's feet tingled.

"What's she going to do? Trapeze? Balancing act?"

"Shh," cued Tiffany.

The board shook, but still steady. Someone else was also stepping on the board. There were two spotlights now. Krystal saw the orange suit and nearly groaned when she saw Heechul –probably trying to ruin the show.

"Hmm, funny," commented Tiffany. "Usually Heechul won't be there."

Krystal looked at Tiffany for a moment, questioning the meaning behind her words. But it was still dark, so she then focused her attention back up to Nana –and Heechul, who apparently seemed to possess the same great balance, and was now already standing right behind Nana.

There was no music and Krystal somehow could feel that the air was out of her lung.

"What are they doing?" Krystal whispered to Tiffany after some moments of silence –nothing was happening, but no audience dared breaking the silence either.

"... I don't know," said Tiffany.

Tiffany did not need to tell Krystal, because what would happen seconds after gave away Heechul's plan anyway.

Heechul encircled a noose around Nana's neck, and without a second to waste, he pushed Nana's body down, down to the air –her body stopped only as the rope was strained and there was a horrifying sound of 'crack'.

Nobody dared to say a word –everyone was hypnotized by the pendulum-like movement of a body being swung –hung in her performance, beautiful in her death.

To be Continued