After Dusk || Im Changkyun

30. For Him

Chapter Thirty

Two weeks later

You shot up in bed, feeling the hot tears that were streaming down your face.
Another nightmare.
You slapped one hand over your heart, the other one over your mouth to keep yourself as quiet as you could because your eyes landed on Lila, who was still sleeping next to you in your childhood bedroom.
You'd spent the last two days here.
You continued to cry silently to yourself, roching yourself back and forth repeatedly on the bed, trying to calm yourself before you woke someone up from your cries. You reached out for your phone and looked at it, wiping the tears away so you could read the time on the top of the screen.
March 8th, 5:43 AM.
Happy Death Anniversary, Dad.
It's really been nine years, huh? It felt like just yesterday we were all in that hospital, hoping that your surgery went well.
It didn't.
But you're in a better place now. A much better place now.
You sighed to yourself, lifting yourself up but staggering back down due to how quickly you'd gotten up.
You hadn't been eating very well lately, even if Changkyun tried to urge you to eat like you were a baby, which you sure were acting like. He'd skipped work too many times just to make sure you didn't accidentally kill yourself and it made you feel bad that he was doing so much just to keep you from falling apart.
You hadn't cried yet though. Not in front of him.
He'd tried his best to keep you smiling throughout your days.
You loved him so much for that.
Any time Changkyun couldn't be around, Yuta would be the first to swoop in despite his hectic schedule. He was close to your dad too. He always treated him like the son he never had. June would pop in occasionally to give you some new food that she'd brought home from one of the the restaurants, even Suhyun would show up despite the fact that you hadn't seen her in ages. She was so busy.
You would soon though.
The drama was about to be released.
Your quiet days were going to be filled with constant work from now on.
You even had work to go to today. You couldn't get out of it no matter how hard you tried.
Something about the boss insisting on going somewhere with you, which was definitely new.
Jooheon would check on you when he could, most likely by Changkyun's orders. He had them all wrapped around his little finger. It's like each and every single one of them would drop anything at any request he'd throw at them.
They must really treasure him.
You finally managed to get yourself out of bed after struggling a bit more, looking out at the sun that was just barely peaking out of the red horizon. You tiptoed carefully, a skill you definitely had not mastered like Changkyun has and you slid out of your bedroom. You looked around your childhood home for a while, reminiscing all the good times before you headed towards the coat closet, grabbing a light winter jacket.
You know you'd just woken up but you needed a walk. Even if you look like the walking dead.
There was practically no one out anyways.
You slipped on the first pair of shoes you saw, slowly opening the front door, feeling the cool early spring breeze flow, rattling the leaves of the trees that were scattered around the area. You walked out into the little gated community of condos. You looked right at Yuta's childhood home, smiling as soon as you saw the pink Japanese paper lanterns that Yuta's mother had left up there for years. They had little intricate cherry blossom stems that she had hand painted herself when Yuta's first younger sister, Yumi, was born. You could never imagine that house without them.
You walked out into the sidewalk, humming along to the sound of shops beginning to open up and people beginning their morning commutes.
It was practically 6 AM after all.
A few people greeted you, being typical city goers after all and you greeted each and every single one of them with the best smile you could put on, hoping they wouldn't notice the occasional tears that would fall down your face.
You looked down at your phone, feeling the urge to text someone, just in case you randomly went missing. You'd been especially paranoid since your encounter with him at the mall. You'd felt his presence around you constantly whenever you were out alone but he was never there and it scared the living daylights out of you. Just the thought of him following you around like he used to was eating you up inside and driving you insane. And yet you hadn't even told a soul.
You didn't need them to have one more thing on their plate. After all, there was nothing you could prove. It was simply just your nerves.
You looked back down at your unlocked phone, smiling as soon as you saw the person at the top of your messages list.