That Monday, for the first time in twelve years, Kim Yeseul did not go to school.
In the space of the weekend, she got out of bed once.
Just once, because she realized she had left her friends at the Halloween dance with no way of getting home, and a surge of guilt overwhelmed any other feeling.
She had scrambled out of bed Saturday afternoon, and quickly dialled Saeron's number.
Once the other confirmed they'd all gotten various rides from Mark, Jaemin, and others, Yeseul relaxed.
She hung up the phone, knowing Saeron would have questions, and those were questions Yeseul didn't want to answer.
After that, she curled up on her mattress and pulled the blankets over her head. She didn't eat anything, spending the hours sleeping or thinking.
When she slept, her dreams were more like nightmares. She was a princess with glass slippers, on a ship with a pirate captain, and they were kissing; then a storm hit, and she was thrown overboard and drowned in the icy black waters.
Being awake wasn't much better. Instead of drowning she was suffocating in blankets, and her mind buzzed from lack of food and energy. Her thoughts tumbled around in a mix of self-pity and self-loathing.
She had been an idiot. Why did she ever think that it could work out? Yeseul wasn't a regular girl. She was practically a servant. A slave.
Jaewook, upon returning home, had not made a single notice of the clean house. He hadn't bothered to check on her.
She heard Hyunji's voice through the floorboards, as she fought and screamed with Hyuna. She came up to Yeseul's room once to ask about her homework.
Yeseul had been crying, and covered up her red eyes and stuffed nose by saying she was sick. Hyunji promptly left the attic and hadn't returned since.
Sunday evening, Yeseul pulled herself into a sitting position and curled her arms around her knees. "Is that how much my family cares for me?" She asked herself thickly.
Out of all the things she'd done the past weekend, talking to herself wasn't the craziest.
But calling them a family didn't seem right. Jaewook wasn't her father any more than Hyunji and Hyuna were her sisters.
In a sudden fit of emotion, Yeseul wondered if she should run away. All she needed to do was throw a few things in her suitcase.
Then she deflated. Running away wouldn't accomplish anything. If anything, it would only make things worse by hurting her chances of being accepted to ERICA.
Sighing, Yeseul buried her face into the University sweater. It smelled like a mix between cheap laundry detergent and stale bread.
Yeseul wondered if that was how bad she smelled. It was a miracle Fullsun wanted anything to do with her.
Fullsun.
Just thinking about him made a white-hot lump of pain appear in Yeseul chest. He had been so warm, so wonderful.
A little crazy, with a smile that could banish demons and a kiss that could melt the North Pole.
She hadn't been able to stop thinking about him, or how good it felt to be with him, and that only made the pain harder to bear.
