father | jun | wen junhui

Chapter Fifteen

Junhui

Students I had never seen before were rushing in and out of my classroom as I walked in. Guys to be exact.

When I get to my desk, I see the piles of gifts, letters and food that had been left on Nabi's desk.

I sigh in realisation of what was happening. She's become the new school crush because of her sudden appearance change overnight.

The same thing happened to Joshua. And it's still happening.

"I guess I'm late on the trend." Jeonghan stands over her desk too. He was holding a bouquet of red flowers.

I raise my eyebrows at him.

He chuckles lightly. "It's just a gift for being a great MC partner."

"I see."

"What's your relationship?" He asks out of the blue. "I know she's not your girlfriend or anything like that."

I flinch at the word 'girlfriend.'

"Well?" He tilts his head slightly.

"She's a friend," I say bluntly.

He smiles. "You don't mind if I go for her then, do you?"

For some reason I wanted to get defensive. "I would mind actually, Jeonghan."

His smile is replaced with a smirk. "That's too bad. She agreed to go out with me when the talent show is over." He leaves without another word.

I pound my fists on the table causing everyone in the room to look my way for a second before going back to their conversations with each other. This feeling, whatever it was, is new to me. I don't know how to control it.

Nabi enters the room with all the eyes on her again. Today she wore a red top under her unbuttoned school shirt. Her wavy hair was up in a red hair tie, exposing her neck and dangly earrings. Her eyes widen at the sight of her desk.

Before she could get any closer, I stand, take her by the wrist and pulled her out of the room to a nearby storage closet.

"What's going on?" She asks calmly.

"How long have you known that I'm not your real brother?"

The question doesn't shock her.

"How long?!" I shout. I was suddenly very angry.

The door swings open and in comes her real brother. "Junhui, what are you doing?"

"Get in and shut the door." I mutter.

He does what I ask and makes his way to his sister.

"You've both been lying and pretending behind my back," I started. "You both know that you're each other's siblings."

They look at each other as if I was crazy.

"You're the one that lied first, Junhui." Nabi defends. "You told me, I was your sister! I believed you for the longest time and when I finally find out the truth, I was so scared to hurt your feelings that I had to pretend not to know. But what about you, huh? What's your selfish excuse?"

She didn't want to hurt my feelings? I roll my eyes. "You have no idea how much you hurt me for even existing."

"Junhui," Joshua steps in front of his sister. "You're taking this too far."

"If it weren't for her, my life at home wouldn't be such a mess, Joshua." My hatred for Nabi has come back. I suddenly realise why I lied to her in the first place. I hated her for being the child of the person my father had loved once.

"You know what your problem is man?" Joshua had never looked at me like this before. For the first time in our years of friendship, he was angry at me. "You're a liar. You lie to get things your way. You lie to manipulate people into thinking you're a good person. You lie to hide your feelings." He steps back by Nabi again. "Tell me, do you like my sister?"

"W-what?"

"You know what I think?" Nabi breaks her silence. "I think you're jealous of my brother. You're jealous that he leads a normal life. You're jealous that everything about him is so normal that you think he doesn't deal with any problems or issues at all. In fact, you're so jealous that you wanted to take the one thing he didn't have for yourself. A sister."

I started to laugh. "Me? Jealous of you," I point at Joshua. "Stop pretending like you know me, Nabi, it's hilarious."

"I know who you are, Junhui." She takes a step closer to me.

"Nabi don't-" Joshua tries to pull her back but she doesn't budge.

"You're from a family of criminals."

I step back.

She steps forward. "That's why you didn't grow up with your head screwed on properly."

"Shut up! You don't know anything!"

"I hate you, Junhui!" She yells. "You know why? Because your family killed my mother!"

"If anything, yours killed mine!" I shout back.

She starts shaking her head. "Here's one thing you don't know about your family." She takes another step forward towards me. "Your grandmother that hates me so much sent people herself to burn down the hospital my mother and I were in the night I was born."

I started to feel weak. "She wouldn't..."

"But she did," tears pooled up in her eyes. "My mother's friend was at her side that night, waiting. She knew it was going to happen."

"So there's a rat within the institute..." I wondered.

"You see," Nabi cries out. "You don't think the way a normal person should. Instead of showing sympathy, you worry about your stupid institute built of murderers!"

"It's the only thing I know Nabi!" I defended. "You didn't grow up the way I did! You think sympathy is something I got taught?! Fuck no! Instead of learning to spell words, I learned how to hold a gun! You think that that's not scarring?!"

"I-" Nabi walks back now. She looked like she wanted to say something else but thought to leave it. She just runs out of the closet instead.

Joshua steps up and puts a hand on my shoulder. "We care about you pal. If you need to talk about anything, we're here for you."

"So you can rat on my family and get us all arrested?" I was say bitterly.

"3 years ago you murdered a man at your bookshop."

I was taken aback. "How did you-"

"I was there, Junhui. If wanted you gone, you would be by now," he opens the door. "Work on that attitude of yours. You and Nabi won't be able to stand each other if you keep it up." He let's out a chuckle. "You both have really stepped out of your shells, huh?"

I was stunned. How could someone be so calm with what we had just talked about?

"I'll see you later man."

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A/N: Boring chapter uwu im sorry