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ELEVEN ~ The Sudden Downfall

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!!!!!!
OH MY GOD
WE HIT OVER SIXTY VOTES
OVER FIVE HUNDRED READS
AND THE FIRST CHAPTER JUST GOT TO 102 READS
WTF?!!!!!!!
THANK YOU SO EFFING MUCH OH MY GOD.

"Hey, Kihyun," I breathed as I plopped on my bed and lay down.

"Hey fake girlfriend," he said, sounding mildly uninterested. "What's up?"

"Well, Jooheon and I met up today," I said. "We had coffee at a coffee shop, and we had a..." I was eager to tell Kihyun about what happened earlier, but now it seemed embarrassing. I looked at my closed bedroom door and decided that it was safe. "A moment."

"Define moment," he said suspiciously. I held the phone even closer to my ear so that I was sure that no one could hear.

"I touched his cheek, and he didn't push my hand away. And then my hands got in his hair and we just stared at each other forever, and..." I sighed at the memory. "It was amazing."

"I'm happy for you," Kihyun said with sarcasm. "Look, doesn't he have a girlfriend?"

"Not really," I said slowly. "Minhyuk told me that he only pretends to date Tina because he doesn't want to look like a total loner."

"I don't see why he should get a fake girlfriend when he can easily meet you and just get into a real relationship. You'd be better than Tina, don't you think?"

"He doesn't like me though," I reminded Kihyun. "He's a super cute guy who can get any girl he wants."

"That doesn't mean it's impossible for him to be infatuated with you," Kihyun said. I heard the frown in his voice. "I mean, I bet you a lot of people are secretly in love with you. Jooheon included."

"Kihyun, you obviously don't know me. Or Jooheon. I'm really - " Flora popped her head into the room.

"Hey, Summer," she said. "Can I talk to you for a while?"

"Hold on," I told Kihyun. "No. I'm talking to my boyfriend," I told Flora. But I felt bad because I wasn't on speaking terms with her for the past few days.

"Oh," she mumbled. Then her face lit up. "Is it Jooheon?"

"No. You know good and well that Jooheon's dating Tina. He has nothing to do with me. At all. So if you want a full run-down on how Jooheon is, please contact your other sister." The droop in Flora's face made my heart melt. "My boyfriend's a boy named Kihyun. He...he makes me happy. So don't worry, I don't need Jooheon."

"Is that the truth?" Kihyun asked quietly.

"You know it," I replied. "Flora, maybe we could talk after I said goodbye to Kihyun, okay? I'll be just a minute." Flora left my room and I said bye to Kihyun, where he became his cute and loudly funny self. He joked that he deserved a verbal kiss, being my fake boyfriend and all. When we finally hung up, I went to Flora's room.

"Hey. You wanted to talk to me, Flo?" Flora sat up straight when I said that.

"Yeah. Summer, do you not like Jooheon anymore?"

"I mean, I can't say I ever liked him at all. Why do you ask?" I said, acting natural. My heart was beating fast under my white shirt.

"Do you still go for dance class with him?" Flora asked in the smallest voice I've ever heard from her.

"Yeah," I said. "The day after tomorrow is a class. You're coming with me to that one."

"No," Flora said. "Mummy said that Jooheon cancelled that class. He said he had to attend something important, and that he couldn't make it."

"What?" I asked, puzzled. Jooheon had cancelled the class without telling me himself? I wasn't offended, more concerned.

"There isn't any class on Thursday," Flora repeated, her voice slow. She looked unhappy and a little worried. "Maybe he doesn't like us."

"No, no," I reassured her. "He definitely likes you. I think it's me he's trying to avoid."

"Summer," she said. "I don't care if he doesn't like me. Well, I care, of course, but I want him to love you. I don't mind if he treats me like that younger sister he thinks is annoying and pretends to dread having to greet at gatherings, as long as it's because I tease him too much. But I want him to really, really unbearably like you, to the point where he misses you even when you're in the same room. I want it to be Summer and Jooheon, not Tina and Jooheon. And Summer and Kihyone."

"Kihyun," I corrected her. "His name's actually Kihyun. My boyfriend."

"Yeah, whatever," Flora said. "Anyway, could you be with him? Friends at least?"

"We are friends, though," I said. "We talked and had coffee at a café today after school, to make a truce and be okay. Just barely two hours ago. And now he's cancelling the other plans we had later in the week."

"Maybe you should talk to him again," Flora suggested. She seemed tense as she said it.

"Flora, have you seen - " Mom came into Flora's room and spotted me. "Oh. Never mind, then. Summer, I need to talk to you. It's about your dad."

That woke me up. My dad and mom split up when I was seven, and mom remarried Michael when I was thirteen. So I'm used to seeing a lot more people in the house, as well as the obnoxious Tina. But I wasn't used to seeing my dad.

My dad's had financial problems ever since before mom left him. He couldn't keep up with the bills, and his job really didn't pay well. So mom left with me.

My dad was still struggling with keeping up with payments, and he had no custody of me at all. I lived with mom the entire time, and barely ever visited my dad. He didn't have a car anymore, so he couldn't visit me either. He lived on the other side of town, and was deep in debt to a lot of people. When he started borrowing money, mom told me I wasn't allowed to see him anymore and that he didn't deserve a family if he was that irresponsible.

But I loved dad. He was nice to everyone, even mom. And now I was dead worried about him and what happened. Could he have lost his house? Did he run out of money completely and didn't have enough to even keep himself alive?

Could he...could he be dead?

"What's wrong? Did dad do something illegal?"

"No, no," mom murmured. "I think that shouldn't come as a surprise, though. Look at that scruffy man. All he does is be useless. No, I'm afraid that what you're about to hear is a little more tragic than that."

"What happened?" I asked, a little bit more urgently. If I had to choose, I would have lived with dad. He didn't have anyone to be with, while mom had Michael, Tina, Flora, Jake and Charlie. And me.

"He's at the hospital right now," she said. She gulped, and looked me straight in the eye. Mom suddenly looked scared and concerned, and I wondered if it was for dad or for how I'd take the information she was going to lay me in on. She got my heart racing, too. And I was horrified of what would happen.

Dad was at the hospital often because he was sick more often than not. But now I knew this was more than just a little ill.

"Your dad has cancer."

A/N BUMBUMBUMMMMMM

This chapter was crap in the mud, I'm so so sorry.

Ever since I got into Kpop, I've suddenly found rappers extremely attractive. Like Jooheon(obviously), and Mingyu from Seventeen and Rocky from Astro, Jackson from Got7, Suga from BTS, Chanyeol from Exo... Seriously, rappers are just suddenly so much hotter than vocals. MY PERSONAL PREFERENCE. But vocals are so fricking adorable, i can't.

Have fun reading,

Hugs and Baked Potatoes,

ANTxx