The Always Beating Heart

Chapter 1 - No Story Will Forever Remain Untold

I groan as I once again pick up the same pillow off of the same couch, hurling it to the hard-wood floor in defeat, before moving on to Appa's closet.

"Just where did he put that stupid phone?" I grumble under my breath, shifting my feet into and through, the mess that is my Appa's closet. I sigh as I look around the enclosed space. Clothes littered the floor in untidy piles, the rest half-folded or loosely draped on hangers. In other words, it was a disaster.

Any other day I would have helped clean up and do laundry for him. However, today is any other day. Yesterday my Appa caught me staying up late watching Stranger, and, as a result, he had taken my phone away for an entire day. Even while I assured him it was training for when I become a detective, he wouldn't listen. Instead, he gave me a frustrated look and left my room.

Appa's can be really stupid sometimes.

I continued my hunt through the closet, rolling up my sleeves as I begrudgingly lifted every piece of clothing off the carpet in search of my phone. My promise to text Yoonji so we can talk about the show lay heavy on my mind like a brick. I shivered, running my fingers along the top shelves of the closest in hopes of grabbing onto my phone. Yoonji is scary when she's mad, and she hates the liars. The memory of our five-year-old selves is still lucid in my mind. The pinky promise that we'd never lie to each other.

A vow I never intend to break.

Well, at least not on purpose, but it seemed almost impossible to find this damn phone! It had been hours since I started looking, and it's still nowhere to be seen. I was honestly beginning to lose heart as I left the closet and went past my Appa's room before flopping face-first onto the living room couch. I had spent the whole day looking for it without any luck.

"Where else could it be?" I ask myself with a sob of despair, my hands balling into fists and feet beating the couch in frustration, "Use your big, fat, brain Kokoro," I encouraged myself, "There's got to be someplace you missed..."

I roll onto my back, watching the ceiling fan overhead turn. Still trying to figure out where my Appa would have hidden my phone. My mind strayed to the one place I was warned never to go to, the attic.

.

Three Years Ago

.

I lifted the box off of the moving truck, struggling to read the label as I walked into the house. Appa chucked, "It says kitchen, shortie." I stuck my tongue out at him in a defiant manner, my grip on the box slipping because of its heavyweight. Appa and I continued to load the boxes off of the trunk until there was only one left. I go to pick it up, but Appa stops me.

"That one goes into the attic." He says slowly while staring at the box with a stoic expression. His playfully clumsy shifting into one I haven't seen in years.

"So? I'll take it up there."

"No, it's not safe the floorboards are loose up there and I don't want you getting hurt." He informed me, but I didn't miss the way his hands fidgeted and his eyes didn't quite meet my own.

Huh, maybe he's scared of the attic...?

"If it's not safe for me it's not safe for you. Let me do it." I laughed playfully hitting his shoulder. My hands wrap around the box, preparing myself to support the weight. However, instead of laughing back he gives me a soft smile, almost endearing, and takes the box from my hands.

"Ap-"

"Yoonji and Yoongi are coming over today to help us unpack."

"Huh? Really! Yess! I want to show Yoonie my new room!"

"Then you might want to go put away your underwear before she gets here." He laughed as my eyes widened and rushed upstairs into my room. The pitter-patter of my feet echoing in the hallway

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Present

.

"Was he lying?" I questioned.

If it was really dangerous he wouldn't have gone there at all.

I sat up, "He probably keeps all the things that he doesn't want me to have up there. Why else would he lie? Is there something he's not telling me...? No Appa tells me about everything."

Appa wouldn't lie. Would he? And if he did... what would he lie about?

I start walking on the top floor. Each step hardened my resolve as I reached the attic entrance. I slowly climbed the stairs and pushed the trapdoor open.