WORDS. |Kim Seungmin

Six.

"How was your day?" He asked.

"Just the same."

"Then, why do you look upset?"

"Do I?" She questioned.

"You do, Aria."

"I'm fine, Felix."

She wasn't really upset. It was just one of those days that she was feeling down. The whole way home she was walking silently, enjoying the late summer breeze while keeping her arm linked to her brother's tightly.

She looked up at him while walking and smiled to herself. Although he wasn't looking back at her to know how she was watching his face, he smiled back as if he sensed her eyes on him. She smiled even wider but that smile soon flattened and died into a broken one.

She just remembered how he used to be. She missed how his eyes looked beautiful and sparkling while smiling and how his freckles would flicker under the sunlight along with his dyed blonde hair that resembled hers. She missed his eyes a lot. Those eyes that hers had never met for years now. Those eyes that have been hiding behind the dark sunglasses for years, all day and night.

It was his punishment.

The cruel punishment that he got for being scared. It's not like he committed a crime, but he closed his eyes on one.

It was one of those nights when he had a late part-time shift. He was on his way home when he heard someone screaming and asking for help from a side alley. It took him a few seconds to realize that someone was being ambushed. It took him a few more seconds to run away once he found out that the kidnappers noticed his presence.

The last thing he saw was the eyes of the young man, locked on his, pleading for his life but he was too terrified to act rationally.

He could've called the police. He could've asked for help for the sake of the young man but his misjudgment led to how he's living now.

Punished.

That night he was crying his heart out on his way home while running and once he got in, he looked for his sister only to have her screaming once her eyes landed on his.

They were white. Completely clear with no trace of his dark brown pupils as if they were never there.

He wasn't blind, he could see in a mysterious way but the world in his eyes was all painted red. No one dared to look him in the eyes since that day cause he looked scary to Normals. He hated his own eyes because of how everything appeared in a bloody hue. At last, he decided to keep his black sunglasses on all day and night, inside and outside. And that's how she missed his eyes.

The two siblings arrived at the front door of their house without even realizing. Felix pulled out his keys to unlock the door, unaware of his sister who was standing right behind him, with her eyes lingering on the bedroom window of the house next to theirs.