The next day was surprisingly too average and too normal when considering the drastic events that had taken place the night before. Nothing was different, aside from the fact that everyone wondered why the infamous trio of Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongin were all injured and divided (the Baekhyun and Jongin versus Chanyeol arrangement was not too difficult to notice). Nobody gave a second thought as to why Lee Jieun was absent; they simply did not care, and some event went on as to being glad that the hysterical girl that no one liked did not come to school.   Chanyeol was too afraid to contact her. So he didn’t. He decided to wait things out instead—it worked three years ago, so he figured it would work now, too. He assumed that she would show up once she calmed down and settled down a little.   His assumption lasted a full week.   For a full week, Jieun did not show up at school. Nothing was heard from her; at one point, her homeroom teacher had summoned Chanyeol out of class to ask if he knew anything. Clenching his fists, all he could tell in response was a “no.”   Chanyeol tried to ignore it. He kept telling himself that she’d be okay in a bit of time. He tried to suppress the guilt and the sense of unfulfilled responsibility, burying it deep inside. But soon enough, his heart began to leak, and it was only a matter of time before he was drowning.   The trigger to all things explosive happened to surface on the eighth day of Jieun’s disappearance during a family gathering. It was something Chanyeol’s household had once a month to “strengthen familial bonds,” but in reality, it did nothing more than confirm the icy gap between every member. On these nights, Chanyeol’s appetite was lowest—eating itself was a burden, as the silence made him choke and unable to swallow any food. That particular evening though, his cousin Junmyeon provided all the more reasons to have an unsettled stomach.   In the midst of cutting his piece of steak, Junmyeon jerked his head up to look at Chanyeol as if he had an epiphany. Letting the fork hang and dangle in between his fingers, the famous stocks broker of Kangnam (he’d taken after the profession of Chanyeol’s father, “continuing the legacy” that Chanyeol himself had refused to be a part of) flashed the other a mischievous grin. “Guess who I saw the other day,” he said through bits of meat in his mouth. Not giving enough time for his question to be answered, he continued, “Your friend! Uh… Jieun? Yeah, Lee Jieun. Her.”   Chanyeol’s heart dropped to the floor along with his silverware, in which he earned a cold grimace from his mother. “Where—no, did you talk to her? You didn’t, right? Did she see you?”   “Of course,” he replied casually, wiping the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. “We had a nice conversation, actually. I thought it was, at least, until she went ape on me and stormed off.”   Kim Junmyeon was impossible, unbelievable, ridiculous. It amazed Chanyeol that the other thought it would be even possible to have a “nice,” rational conversation with someone he gave scarred, a scar that wouldn’t be fully healed in her lifetime. “…and what exactly was the topic of that conversation?”   “Nothing too important.” Sighing, the elder leaned back into his seat. “She looked like a mess then, but she was still cute. So I just ended up asking if she’d hooked up with anyone after me.”   “You ing son of a .”   The words of profanity that Chanyeol blurted out startled everyone on the dinner table. Not once had he talked in such a manner, especially to his older cousin, especially in front of his parents.   “Park Chanyeol!” his father rebuked, his thick voice booming. “That is no way to speak to—”   Bursting up from his seat, Chanyeol slammed his fists on the table, shaking everything that was on it. He then pointed an accusatory finger towards Junmyeon. “ing hell! The real problem here should be what he said!”   Junmyeon rather calmly got up from his seat as well, arching his eyebrows questionably. “And what exactly did I say?”   “You—” His audacity was sickening; he was the dirtiest, filthiest person Chanyeol knew. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his flesh. “Don’t show your face to her ever again, er,” he growled in the most menacing way possible. “The day you do will be the day you and I both end up in hell, you get me?”   Without further ado, Chanyeol stormed out of his house, leaving everyone with their jaws hanging open; he needed to see Jieun immediately. Junmyeon had exacerbated the problem and most likely her state of being, too—as if things weren’t bad enough already, he just had to add fuel to the fire. He couldn’t help but be nervous the entire run there. What would he tell her? How should he behave? His mind was in knots, but he knew this was something that needed to be untied. He couldn’t let Jieun pick up the sharp shatters of herself on her own. Even if he would end up cut and bloody, he needed to be the o