The grey and dullness of her surroundings were surreal it was almost as if she was watching a black and white movie. The world was drained without colour, expressing the emptiness of the faint wind that was blowing, her hair flowing.

"Lia, help me."

Her eyes darted towards the figure in front of her. A painfully familiar figure she knew well, and it hurt to even stare into his eyes deeply. She could see everything through her eyes ; the past and what had happened, the hard times she went through.

"Lia, please," the voice pleaded, "help me."

She took a step forward but fell to her knees, eyes on her knees. She screams when she sees a hand pulling down her leg, sinking into an unknown darkness.

She looks up to see her father crying, begging her not to leave him alone. She was torn. There was no escape no matter how hard she tried to struggle from the unknown grip.

"Amelia, help!" Her father screams, a sudden appearance of a dagger in his hands. Lia knew something was going to happen, her father was going to die.

His hands were out of control, the dagger getting further and further away from him at first. He kept screaming and asking for help but Lia knew there was no way he could survive.

Lia could only stare in horror as the tip of the dagger points at her father's stomach, piercing through his flesh seconds later, creating a big, reddish brown stain on his clothes.

Soon enough, she realizes that her father was gone and the world ended up in darkness.

+++

The nightmare didn't effect her not one bit. Lia didn't wake up in a pool of sweat, neither did she wake up immediately after the blackness surrounded her, nor did she wet her pants (that was like ten years ago). Lia woke up as normal as she always did, although sensing a hint of grogginess today.

As usual, walking down the stairs and dumping some cereal and milk in a bowl for herself, and ate it silently on the table, ignoring for-some-reason-early-riser-today-Seungcheol and Jeong-pain-in-the-fucking-ass-Han.

Lia could just throw up at the two of them.

"Morning Lia," Seungcheol greets her from afar, and Lia just grumbles like how she usually would whenever her morning begins with a bad start. Well, maybe the nightmare did effect her after all.

"Where are you heading to today?" Seungcheol asks her.

Lia hadn't thought of going anywhere for a while. It's been pretty busy since Jisoo came, and she definitely needed to think of why Jeonghan was giving her doubts about his personality. 

"I think I'll go visit Hosh today," Lia responds, and Seungcheol felt a slight tinge of relief to see his sister going back to how she was. Or maybe he thought she would. 

Once Lia's finished eating, she dumped the bowl into the sink and jumped into the shower for a quick rinse, and sneaked into Jisoo's room to see what he was up to. She found out that he was still sleeping, apparently, buried under the covers and his breathing; slow and calm, and Lia couldn't help but smile.

She pulled the covers down, just enough to see Jisoo's forehead, and gave it a quick kiss before leaving, a smile tugging on her lips as she exited his room. Everything's alright. Now that Jisoo's here, she can stop thinking of the past. And she's definitely thankful for that.

Lia grabs her coat and closes the door to her room, quickly striding down the stairs to leave for Soonyoung's studio.

"Lia," Jeonghan suddenly calls her from behind, pulling her hand. The slight gesture did nothing but scare her, Lia jumping a bit and quickly pulling her hand away from his grasp.

"What do you want," she asks carefully.

"You left your phone." He hands the phone to her, Lia quickly taking it and shuffling away, mumbling a thanks under her cold breath. She knew Jeonghan's eyes were still on her even after she disappeared from the corner of the street and basically just vanished from his sight. It was creeping her out somehow.

Apparently, Lia got news that Soonyoung came back from the dance competition in Japan and got ranked #2, which is amazing, because Lia can never imagine how the 10:10 dude could come up with such amazing moves like that. And yes, they moved out of their house that was just a few blocks away from the Choi family. Jihoon discovered a penthouse that was big enough for Hoshi's dance studio and also his recording studio.

But Soonyoung also had another studio in the middle of Seoul, for his dance classes and when he's practicing with a team. Lia thought that guy must've been rich.

It was easy to find Soonyoung's studio, basically because the signboard was neon yellow and had his Coco on it, which Lia found amusing.

"Yo Soon!" Lia yells, entering the glass door, "ya pal's back!"

Soonyoung couldn't help but stumble once he saw Lia's appearance at his studio, the things he's been carrying rolling over to Lia's feet.

"What are these?" Lia picks up the small rubbery juggle balls, squeezing them and throwing them back into the box Soonyoung was carrying. Soonyoung, ignoring the question, attacked Lia with a hug and his smile that Lia hasn't seen in a long time.

"I haven't seen you in a long time!" Soonyoung lets go of her and pats her head, "what were you even doing, hibernating?"

Lia snorts, "More or less."

Soonyoung dusts his shorts and gets back to picking up the juggle balls, "Well you're not the one to be blamed, I never stick around to see people too. Got a lot of work these days."

"How long have you not seen Jihoon?"

"About...two months...I guess,"

Lia gapes at him. 

"Two months is nothing for us, really," Soonyoung waves his hand, "for two siblings who work our asses off twenty four seven, we haven't got the time to actually see each other."

"Either way, I miss my Jihoonie," Soonyoung pouts, but then leads Lia straight inside the studio to warm her up with some coffee. She just had some this morning, but she didn't want to refuse either.

"Oh yeah, and this might be a sensitive topic but I'm pretty sure you got over him already," Soonyoung talks with his back facing Lia, so he couldn't see the shocked expression that was on her face, "man, that news spread like fire."

"Jihoon must've told you." Lia says, and Soonyoung nods. She thought they never had the time to sit down and talk to each other?

"Thanks to your breakup I actually got inspiration to make a new dance based on your confused emotions," Soonyoung grins shamelessly, and Lia rolls her eyes but laughs at the same time. This boy really has no sense of pity for her.

"It's in the past now, so don't worry about it," He tells her, putting the mug of steamed coffee in front of her. Lia just nods silently, agreeing, yet at the same time reminding herself that Jeonghan's definitely got something going on with her family.

"Anyway, why'd you drop by here today?" Soonyoung asks. He's pretty shocked too. There was no news of Lia ever since she got into the hospital, and no news afterwards besides her breakup, and that was what Jihoon told him.

"I just came to relief stress," Lia shrugs. Soonyoung sat up quickly.

"You want me to be your punching bag?" He puffs out his chest and looks at her with eyes that were jokingly fierce, "come at me bro!"

"Stupid," Lia couldn't help but laugh. It took a while for her to actually realize that Soonyoung was serious.

"No really, punch me."

"You're joking."

"Nah man I'm definitely ready f-"

Her fist hits Soonyoung in the nose, and blood seeped out.

"Maybe we should take care of this bloody nose first."

+++

On the way home, Lia dropped by a dessert shop to get some donuts. Five hours ago Soonyoung was teaching her the dance he performed at a few places and Lia, being the fatass couch potato she was couldn't keep up with his energy and stamina, so she just went with it without complaints and eathing anything, since Soonyoung was fucking unstoppable when it comes to dancing passionately.

Lia bought a bagel and sat down to eat it since she was starving. It really, like seriously didn't take her that long to finish it, and she got up to buy another when she realized the person sitting at the table opposite of her was Jeonghan in spectacles, looking up from his book.

What on earth was he reading anyway?

They made eye contact for a few seconds, but Lia quickly ignored him and bought another bagel just like she wanted and the box of donuts she wanted to take home for her family and Jisoo. 

"Ready to go home?" Jeonghan startles the shit out of her once again, Lia huffing and just walking past him, striding towards the subway station, down the escalator.

"Stop following me," Lia retorts, glaring at Jeonghan who was standing quite close to her. 

"We're both going in the same direction anyway, so why bother." Jeonghan replies.

"You were in the city. Of course you wanted to go somewhere else."

"Changed my mind,"

Lia was furious. If it weren't for the public surroundings she would have yelled at him for being that annoying to her. Jeonghan knew her head was boiling, but that only amused him even more, trying to hide a smile.

In the cramped train it was even more awkward than ever, Lia finding somewhere to look when both of them were cramped into a corner, Jeonghan's body facing hers.

"So what were you doing?" Jeonghan strikes up a conversation, and Lia honestly felt like slapping him for not being able to read the mood around them. Jeonghan, seeing Lia's 'not responding' response just shrugs his own question off and opens up a new topic.

"You know, so I was reading this really interesting book a while ago," Jeonghan tells her, or maybe the crown of her head, because basically that was what he was talking to, Lia facing downwards, "I felt like you might love to read it."

Jeonghan babbled about the book even more, and Lia tried to hold her angry tears in the whole time they were on the train. Why was this man talking to her normally? Why was he being less dick-ish than he always would? Why is he not feeling guilty about anything?

Why doesn't he realize that he was the reason she's been a mess for so long?

Lia could finally breathe once she got off the train, Jeonghan trailing behind her.

"Hey, don't you ever feel like visiting your mom's grave back there in California?" Jeonghan asks, the question almost making her stop in tracks, but it just made her feel alarmed instead, the shocking question well, shocked her.

"Don't talk so lightly about my mother," Lia says firmly.

"I'm not insulting her, am I? I'm just talking about her death."

"Don't just talk about death so lightly! You think dying is funny? Maybe for someone like you, who hasn't experienced losing a family and parting ways with your siblings is nothing! My family's been through a lot already, and we don't need you to appear and just make us suffocate even more." Lia yells, actually turning back to look at him straight in the eye.

"Looks like that question finally made you look at me," Jeonghan laughs, "I guess I should talk more about it so that we could make eye contact."

Lia raises her hand to slap him. Jeonghan pulls her hand down.

"Tell me, Lia, what do you think of me?"

"I think you're a fucking nuisance. You don't know anything. You don't know how it feels."

Jeonghan laughs bitterly. Honestly, deep down, neither of them thought it was funny.

"So it seems as if I don't know anything," Jeonghan nods, hums at his own sentence in amusement, "what if I say that my parents were murdered too?"

Lia froze for a moment.

"And if I said that I was also parted from my family?"

"Jeonghan, this isn't funny-"

"What if I was seperated from my beloved brother?"

Lia sighs. Jeonghan was bringing this up on purpose. She turned away and walked normally, storming off and she wished she would just get back home quickly.

"Amelia, listen to me." Jeonghan grasps her wrist tightly, and hands her a black, leather book. Lia stares at it, then back at him.

"Found this. You might want to read that if you're trying to put the pieces together." Jeonghan smiles mockingly (that was what it looked like) and leaves, Lia dumbfounded at why Jeonghan left when he was the one who wanted to go home, and what the fucking hell this book was.

It took her a while to study the content and handwriting of the book, reading and skimming through the pages, making her more and even more confused. Lia knew what this was about, where this was from and who it belonged to.

She realized Jeonghan had been reading her father's journal.

---------------------------------------------

Hey guys!

oh god seriously it's been a while and holy shit 2000+ low quality writing im crying

i am up because of a presentation so looks like I'll be camping in the ict lab tonight

i really feel like my writing has downgraded after a hiatus for so long, so Im sorry if this chapter was really unamusing, but I feel hyped to write Lia piecing everything together

unfortunately i won't be writing that now hAh

I am currently think of how Jisoo and Lia's relationship will develop because for some reason it is so hard to write i dont know why

so that's all folks

gotta go to work

anyway hope you guys are having a great time, for those of you who are facing finals i wish y'all the best of luck!

and watch the Healing mv to brighten up your day!

- Cee