Aerin turned her head at the sudden knock on her door. She didn’t think Chanyeol would come as he said that he’s going out with his family that day. She didn’t remember asking for the maid, and that left her wondering who was coming at this kind of hour. It was too early. “Come in,”

She answered, still leaning on the headboard while reading the last novel she had to finish. She already made Chanyeol promise to bring her to the bookstore the other day, but the boy wanted her to finish the pile of the unread books she had, as he knew that Aerin was a big fan of books but sometimes she didn’t bother to finish the book and bought a new one right away.

The door pushed open slightly, revealing a head peeking inside the room.

“Good morning, Princess.”

Aerin’s face lit up at the gentle voice coming from the door. “Oppa,”

He came inside with a smile plastered on his face. The girl squealed in joy when she saw a big bouquet of her favourite flower was on his hand—well there’s no way he could hide them because it was too big anyway. He climbed on the bed before pulling the younger to hug her tight. “Are you okay?” Clearly showing his concern with the way his eyebrows furrows as he asked her the question and pulled away from the hug.

She nodded with a smile. “Don’t worry. I’m already used to it.”

“What happened, Princess?” Again, he asked worriedly.

The girl just chuckled, “Junmyeon Oppa, did you fly here right away just because of me?” She asked teasingly.

“Of course.”

“Aw… how sweet of you, Oppa.”

“Aerin…”

The girl didn’t answer and just circled her hand around his waist. Junmyeon let her rest her head on his broad chest. “I’m okay, really. Thank you for worrying.” She murmured, but she was sure Junmyeon could hear her just fine. “Don’t worry too much, Oppa. You know even just a short call would already make me happy. You don’t need to fly all the way here just to make sure that I’m okay. I know you’re so busy.” Junmyeon caressed her hair in the gentlest way possible as he listened to her. “It will make me feel like I’m just a burden to you.”

Junmyeon kissed the top of her head before cradling her face on both his hands, making her look at him. “Hey, you are never a burden for me, Princess. You have to keep that in your mind. You are not, and never will be.”

She smiled. Aerin smiled as she felt the warmth creeping through her veins. Junmyeon has always been so sincere towards her. He was the one who would never miss any update about her. The older always made sure that she was safe and healthy. Ever since the tragedy, he became even more protective. He was the one the maids would reach out first when something happened to Aerin. And she couldn’t thank him enough, couldn’t even properly show him how grateful she was, for being the one whom always be there for her.

Even way more than her own brother ever did to her.

“So what brought you here?” She asked with a smile as she pulled away from the hug.

“It’s you. Aunt Jung called me, saying that you tried to hurt yourself again.” Junmyeon said as he narrowed his eyes on her, scolding her in a gentle way. “We know you’ve been doing well, Aerin.”

“I know… It was just…” She was silence, fingers fiddling with the blanket before finally sighing. “Can we just… let’s not talk about it, Oppa, hm?  I’m tired.”

Junmyeon saw her pleading eyes, and he couldn’t help but felt bad for asking. “Okay, I’m sorry.” The girl shook her head as an answer. “I want you to get ready then, we’re going to have some fun.” He pinched her cheeks, earning a squeal from the younger.

Kim Jongin had been checking the calendar and his email every single day in this week. In the morning, in the middle of the day, and of course late at night before he sleeps, to make sure that he didn’t miss anything. Jongin was sitting in his throne as usual today, but he didn’t go out for lunch. He silently kept refreshing the page, hoping something other than promotion and spam emails would pop out of nowhere. But this time, he scrolled down inside his bin. He deleted them all from the inbox with all hatred, but he never really deleted it from the bin.

Yes, it was three months ago. The last email came three months ago, and he never saw it coming again up until now.

The man buried his face on his palms and groaned, decided to ignore that strange feeling creeping up his veins. It did feel not so good, and he didn’t have any idea that he could feel even worse than that.

His thought suddenly interrupted by the ringing phone. His secretary, letting him knew that the guest whom supposed to come that day cancelled the meeting for some incredulous reasons. But Jongin was more than happy to know that he didn’t need to see anyone when his heart was in rage, when his heart was trying to betray him. As if being reminded of some other meetings, Jongin fished out his phone from his pocket, browsing through his contact because he apparently needed Junmyeon to come to the office tomorrow.

But then he felt like something stung his heart.

Jongin carefully tapped on the screen, enlarging the size of Junmyeon’s contact picture. He couldn’t help but noticed the uncomfortable skip of beat his heart was doing.

It was Junmyeon, with a girl, a smiling girl. He had his arm wrapped around her shoulder, protecting her like how a brother should do. She had a flower crown on her head, and had a smile plastered behind a big pink cotton candy she was holding.

But she looked… unhappy.

Although he could see the smile spreading on her lips, Jongin clearly saw her eyes. It wasn’t her bright and twinkling eyes he used to see before. It wasn’t the smile that reached up to turn her eyes into a crescent. The dark shade could clearly be seen under her eyes. Somehow, the girl looked unhealthy, and it surprisingly hurt him.

She was the girl who had stopped sending him emails.

The thought which has been bugging him these past days—weeks even, suddenly came back like an unexpected storm.

Is this it?

Is this the painful feeling of being forgotten?

Is this what she actually felt every day?

For the first time after years, he finally admitted. He missed being swamped with those emails. He missed being annoyed by those notification sounds that coming almost every day, every two days, then every three days, and he only realized that it had been gradually lessening, until it completely disappeared, unfortunately, three months ago.

For the first time after all this while, he admitted it with a heavy heart,

Jongin missed his sister.