KING

一 10

"Jaehyun's waiting for us at the toll gate to Mad City," Sicheng said, breaking the heavy silence in the car. "Why couldn't he come here?" Ten asked, Rina regretting sitting between Lucas and Ten, the tension seeming thicker than ever between the two. She wondered how Yuta was able to sit up front with th stifling atmosphere, and still smile.

He did have a nice smile, though.

"He has better things to do than worry about you." Sicheng shot.

"Rude." Ten raised his eyebrows as he gave Rina a look that said 'you see?'

"Let's just be civilized, it really isn't that hard." Yuta sighed, before gesturing for Sicheng to go on. "We can't take the direct route, though." He continued. "There would be many too many risks with that. We'll have to go through the forest. 

Time was ticking, but to Rina it didn't seem like they were making any progress to getting out of the forest.

The forest was a long stretch, circling almost half of the entire city's border, but although it was dense, it was not very wide. And for a while, Rina could tell that Sicheng had sensed they were lost, before finally admitting to it and stopping the car, getting out. 

She shivered. The forest always brought back a flurry of bad memories that she was working so hard to fight off. All she could hope for was that they were nowhere near the area where she had found her older brother, lifeless. But her luck seemed to have run out today. 

She looked out the window, and saw it. She recognized the bushes, the shrubs, the tree which had three horizontal lines carved on its trunk.

Rina flinched, images of a mangled body resurfacing, screams of horror and salty tears temporarily drowning out her sense of reality as she was thrown back in time momentarily. 

That was where Youngho had died.

"Youngho!" She had been screaming, because back then she had her voice. She was running, tripping over broken branches and entangled roots, stray junk and all sorts of things as her eyes turned from side to side frantically. 

"Youngho! Come back!" She screamed. 

Her father and several of his guards were there as well, all of them having the sense to leave her younger brother at home, in the care of maids. She'd never want a three year old to have to deal with a group of frantic adults as they searched fruitlessly for the missing teenager. "Youngho!" His name was called out by so many different people, she could no longer differentiate her voice from the rest. 

She was starting to cry, not wanting to be left alone again. He had run away once, but was caught by the border patrol and brought back. And here they were again, him running away for the second time. 

"Those friends of him were always a bad influence!" Her father cursed, twisting his hands angrily. "I told him to stop hanging out with such barbaric boys!" Rina turned around, clenching her fists. "They were nicer to him than you ever were!" She shouted furiously, angry tears falling. Her father looked down at her, and for a second she felt guilty for the expression of hurt he had across his face. She unclenched her fists, muttering an apology. 

He said nothing, merely patting her head softly and told her to go to Chittaphon, who was among the men searching for her brother, as if he understood the flurry of emotions she was feeling at the prospect of being left alone. He didn't. He never would, because it was him both her and Youngho was terrified of being left alone with. And although he always tried his best to protect her from the horrible things her family did, he couldn't always protect himself.