bad alive {dong sicheng}

25

a month later.

"keni, you need to eat," a voice called to her softly and 23 pairs of eyes looked at her sympathetically.

he was gone, he left without a word to china, leaving her in a frantic state, until kun had told her he had gone on a solo mission. 

nct had gained two new wonderful members that keni had grown close with as they trained together. sungchan and shotaro were absolutely adorable and she had basically added them to her children along with jisung and chenle. 

but this didn't fill the void in her heart, knowing that winwin had purposefully left her. although the boys and ayeri kept assuring her that he would be back soon, she knew for a fact that she was part of the reason why he had left.

right after kissing ayeri in front of her, without a single apology, he just disappeared. 

keni remembered that day clearly. she had woken up as the light from lucas's window filtered in and lifted the tall boys arms off of her. 

she had walked quietly to knock on winwin's door only to receive no response. after five minutes of staring at his closed door, she finally let herself in to find the bed cold and the boy gone.

she had practically flown into kun's planning room, yelling that winwin was missing and that he had to be found immediately.

it had taken kun an hour to calm her down and finally tell her that winwin had left for china in the middle of the night. the worst part was that everyone knew and everyone had gotten to say goodbye to him, except for keni and lucas.

lucas had also been kept in the dark on purpose, because winwin knew that he would tell keni. 

"so he didn't want to see me? before he left?" keni remembered asking kun.

kun had hesitated to nod and keni had ran out out of the room and into lucas's waiting arms, bawling her eyes out.

it was now a month later, and keni barely left the room she shared with lucas. she only came out when lucas was home from missions and even then, he practically had to drag her out.

she hated the pity she saw in everyone's eyes and this resulted in her only talking to lucas and the new members

it was winwin's worst fear, for another girl that he loved to fall for another one of his friends, and that was what seemed to be happening to everyone else inside the house. 

nobody did anything though, it would be cruel to keni and they all knew that winwin had brought it on himself yet again. 

only lucas knew that keni didn't love him and that her heart belong only to winwin. he didnt mind though, he was content with being her best friend, if that was the only thing he could be for her. 

keni had been training hard everyday, even harder than sungchan and shotaro. it taxed her body, she was already not eating enough. she lost weight rapidly and the melanin in her skin gave way to a pale, sick look that did not complement to dark circles under her eyes.

nobody really knew why she was so affected, but to keni it was a feeling of abandonment. she laughed at herself everytime she saw herself in the mirror, the feeling of abandonment wasn't new to her. 

she never knew her parents and she had hopped around from orphanage to orphanage until none of them wanted her any more. 

that's how she had ended up in the abandoned house and she took up going to bars and clubs to steal from the tipsy men that wanted nothing but sex.

her strange relationship with winwin made her feel terrible if she was to be completely honest. he only wanted her around at certain times and when he didn't, he would toss her aside only to repeat the process again and again. 

she told herself that she was a fool for allowing herself to be abandoned by the same boy so many times, but she was still a fool for him. 

therefore she put all of her thoughts and energy into training and into missions. it was all to forget and to stop thinking so hard. 

she was afraid that if she allowed herself to think, she would do something terrible to herself.

therefore when taeyong offered to send her to china alone to her first orphanage, she agreed, nodding along when taeyong explained that she could find a few things about her past there. 

in reality, she wasn't all that interested in finding her identity, she just wanted an escape. maybe if she was lucky, she could cut off nct and never see winwin ever again.

lucas had protested the mission all the way to airport day. 

he had accompanied her to the airport, still pleading with her.

"keni, please, you don't have to go by yourself! at least let me come," lucas frowned.

keni noticed the duffel bag tht lucas had brought, in hopes that she would let him tag along, "absolutely not lucas. stay home. they need you."

"they have sungchan and shotaro!" he protested.

keni shook her head, "you are one of our best, xuxi."

he softened at her use of his real name, "come back safe," he stroked her hair and she smiled at him.

"of course."

she walked into the security gates, waving to lucas, who was still pouting. she was too busy trying to get lucas to stop frowning that she completely missed the familiar boy that walked past her, going out of the arrivals door. 

but lucas saw and his eyes widened for a fraction of a second before waving his arms really big to distract the girl. 

he cracked a smile a blew a kiss, making sure that keni didn't see winwin. 

as keni stepped away and the door closed, lucas let his smile falter as he glared at winwin.

"where is she going."

"none of your business," lucas shouldered him coldly, "i can't take you home. call a cab."