Feeling undeniably at loss when he reached the house, Baekhyun unlocked the front doors with a heavy heart. Great job, now you have nothing. He pushed the door open still lamenting in his mind and stepped in, but nearly slipping on a few pieces of paper. He sighed as he bent down to pick them up. It had become a habit in him to pick up whatever had littered the floor ever since his father passed away, but this time he knew the misplaced papers were not because of incidence.

Sehun was feeling irritated again. Baekhyun then stood up and walked towards the table where the other male was busy drawing new designs. Placing them gently on the table, he tapped Sehun's shoulder lightly to tell him he had dropped them. Sehun looked up at him with an expected irritation and Baekhyun pointed to the papers on the table.

"Just throw them away. I don't need them," the male said bluntly before turning back to his work. Without another second of thought, Baekhyun picked up the papers again and walked off. However, as he turned the corner into the kitchen, he stopped before he threw the designs into the wastebin. Baekhyun sifted through them, hoping to find the reason why Sehun was suddenly being so motivated to create new designs.

Even he was not his blooded brother, Baekhyun wasn't stupid to not know that only an extreme hurt of pride could make the younger change. As he scanned through the papers, another question popped into his mind soon after. Why had Sehun bothered to fill in the colors? He had always left that to the other designers at the company.

Baekhyun shrugged as he balled up the papers and threw them into the wastebin. He then walked out of the kitchen to the staircase to go up to his room. Halfway through the steps, he remembered suddenly that Kyungsoo had visited the house earlier on. The old but familiar instinct to walk quietly and avoid Kyungsoo once again came back to him as he hurried along the corridors after stepping on the last step.

He was almost at his door when the old lady called out, "Baekhyun." Baekhyun drooped his shoulders upon seeing how close he was to his room but only to be stopped at the last minute. Nevertheless, he turned around and gave a small bow to the old lady. There was no warm smile on her face, but her voice was tender. She stood outside her door wearing a white frock, making her look like a skeleton of a ghost.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" she asked. Baekhyun simply nodded and trudged towards her. Once inside her room, Baekhyun kept his eyes to the floor, something he was so accustomed to seeing. The old lady then gestured for him to sit on a chair beside the wooden framed bed as she herself went to sit at the side of it. Through the whole proccess, Baekhyun was only wondering where Kyungsoo was. 

Quietly sitting down on the chair, he continued gazing downwards at the empty floor. For the first time, his heart beat with saddened emotion, only because of the missing music box. "Baekhyun look at me."

"Come now I won't scold you. Just look at me."

in a deep breath, Baekhyun lifted his gaze hesitantly. The old lady had grown old. White coloured the majority of her hair, with an occasional swathe of black. Her eyes had sunken in as if she had spent countless nights worrying about something. Wrinkles spread across her face like branches of a lethal poison.

As he held his gaze numbly, she said with a steady voice, scanning his face, "I haven't spoken to you in this manner before." There was a silence as Baekhyun simply looked at the old lady's face. She then continued with a significantly smaller voice, "You look like your mother. You have her eyes."

A tiny spark lit inside him after hearing her words, but not big enough to ignite a fire. His mother had been long dead. There was no need to talk about her. 

"You have the same strength in yours as she had in hers," the old lady said as she looked down onto her lap. Twisting a ring on her finger as if it calmed her down, she muttered, but loud enough so that Baekhyun could hear, "I wish I had the same strength."

Now that was something Baekhyun had never heard from the old lady. Although he clearly knew of what she had done to him, all Baekhyun saw even more clearly was just a woman trying to protect her children. If that wasn't strength, he didn't know what that was. He shook his head gently in reply to her words, but the old lady just quickly rebutted, "No, Baekhyun. I am a coward."

"I loved your father greatly, Baekhyun, don't get me wrong. The thing was, he married your mother. I was so hurt and saddened, then I grew jealous. Even after I had gotten married to my first husband, I still longed for your father. Then a few years later, she passed away, so did my husband a few months earlier. I took my chance and it worked. Walking down the aisle, I thought I had achieved what I had always wanted. I was wrong. Your father and I only married in name, his heart was still with your mother."

The old lady's voice was filled with so much anguish, Baekhyun felt sorry for her. He hesitated before reaching out and placed it over hers. The old lady seemed surprised when their skin touched. For the next minute they spent in silence, Baekhyun thought about why she was telling him all these. Was it to curry pity? Make him feel sorry? He could forgive easily, but he could not simply forget. 

After a while, the lady pulled her hands away gently as she leaned to her side to open her bedside drawer. Baekhyun watched as she came up with a package wrapped in yellowed paper. She then quickly discarded the wrappings and Baekhyun's breath caught when he saw the object. It was not in amazement, it was of pain. He had not felt the pain in so long, it felt as if the wound had been cut open wider than it had been.

The old lady managed a weak smile as she pressed the obsidian crystal ring into his palm, "I won't be greedy and ask for forgiveness, Baekhyun, nor do I want to displease your mother's spirit anymore. I'm letting you go."

------

Holding the ring between his fingers as he lay down on the bed, Baekhyun smiled bitterly at it, recalling all its hopes and promises. A better life- Gone. A love- Gone. A passion- Gone. He then curled his fingers over the ring before turning on his side. The white walls of his room glared at him and he tried to forget, but how can one forget when so much of your life was spent remembering it? But you are free, finally free... 

He then sniffed at his thoughts and closed his eyes. Is being free all that good in the end? He had ended up broken because of a free will to love.

The sun was shining its warm evening rays when Baekhyun woke up hours later. Sitting up, he combed through his hair and got out of the bed. He quickly changed into a fresh set of clothes in a solemn determination. If he was free, he might as well make the most out of it.

It was nearing dinner time by the time he had reached the bustling town center. It wasn't as impressive as the ones in Seoul, but it still managed to make him feel more alive. The wind was not biting, making it a perfect weather to take a stroll. The many flashing lights of roadside restaurants and eateries had begun to switch on to welcome the night and the traffic was clearing.

Unconsciously digging into the front pocket of his pants, Baekhyun felt for the music box, wanting to feel its comfort. With a disappointing chill, Baekhyun remembered the earlier incident and dropped his hand to his side. He felt unbearably insecure without it while walking in the middle of passing crowds. He then put his hand into the other pocket and came out with the black ring.

Its dark color had started to blend in with the fading sunlight and Baekhyun sighed silently. He then rolled it between his fingers hesitantly before placing the ring back into his pocket. Somehow or rather, Baekhyun strolled his way to the park with a blank mind. With the emptiness gnawing at his insides, he made his way to the lake where he had met the boy years ago.

The lake had grown smaller as some of its water had dried up during the drought the previous year. Baekhyun stood next to the edge of the lake in a trance, staring away into the gentle rolls of the water's surface. Sorry I lost your music box, he thought forlornly. Taking in deep breaths, he stood there, trying to enjoy the cooling breeze.

After who knows how long, a hand itself infront of him with something metallic shining between its fingers under the last rays of the sun. The person tossed it casually in his hand once before asking, "Did you happen to lose this?"

Baekhyun snapped out of his dream like state and immediately looked into the eyes of the other. They were unmistakably familiar as they stared warmly into his own. He blinked in numb shock as the man tossed the object up another time.

"We meet again, winter rose."

A/N:

Sorry for the delay in update! I got caught up in my other fic plus lots of school work T.T 
Anyway, there will be more chapters later on that will be written in Baekhyun's POV than
Kyungsoo's since I find Baek's character less static so he should be able to fill in
the storyline better. Don't worry, I will still include Kyungsoo although I don't know if you all
will still like Kyungsoo in the later chapters though. Read on and see guys!