The next day, Mom collapses.

Dad carries her to the hospital— the entire ten miles— by hand. He tells me to stay home, but I follow anyway.

Stay home for what? So I could go crazy by myself, not knowing?

I trail behind him the entire way. And more than once, I see his legs tremble with Mom's limp body in his arms. She doesn't wake up.

None of us had ever visited the hospital before.

It's a huge, scary place. Everywhere there's white, and it smells like death inside. As I hide behind a vending machine, peeking out at Dad sitting with his head in his hands in the waiting room, I hear occasional screams from the hallway far down.

It echoes through the halls. Almost like they were meant to echo like that.

Eventually I have to show myself.

Dad is too tired to say anything. He just motions weakly for me to sit next to him, and puts his head back in his hands. And I sit, just feeling numb to it all.

It feels like my heart has just shut down. I'm just looking, my eyes fixed on the television hung in the corner of the silent room. It doesn't even work.

And maybe the numbness is actually a blessing.

It is a blessing.

Because when two men dressed in white come up to us and say that Mom is dead, I don't really feel anything. They say that she already had a cancer that had been developing in her heart, and hearing that Aemin had died had caused a seizure.

I don't really know. I can't really understand what they're saying, anyways.

Dad doubles down on the chair he's sitting on. Unlike Mom, he cries softly and quietly. But the weight of the grief is nothing less than Mom's yesterday.

I want to leave this place.

I need to take Dad out of here.

"Dad, come on." I say, grabbing hold of his arm and slinging it around my shoulder. "We need to get back. And it's a long walk."

He keeps crying, shaking against my smaller figure.

And I can't stand the looks the white-coated men are giving us. We didn't need their pity. We were going to do fine by ourselves.

Everything— Everything was going to be fine.

"Thanks. We'll be leaving now." I say to them, voice cold and eyes narrowed.

But somehow the bad things don't stop there.

They exchange looks with each other. And then one of them— the taller one with hair dyed blonde— speaks up hesitantly.

"The nurse will be here shortly with the total payment bills for the surgery."

...surgery? Bills?

And payment? For what?

For failing to save my Mom?

The nurse comes right after they leave. She's a short woman, a little taller than me. She gives me another sympathetic look, a paper between her fingertips.

That look.

I hate that look. I hate it.

"Here is the payment invoice." She says, and I snatch the paper from her. My eyes quickly scan down for the numbers. Dad wasn't in a state where he could read this right now.

There's only one number.

My head goes a little light. And my eyes search desperately, for any other number on the small piece of paper. But it's only that one, and I'd never seen that many digits before.

One. Two. Three.

Four, five.

Six.

________________________________

I'd hid the paper from Dad. Because I'd thought that once he saw the debt we were going to be in, he'd end up the same way as Mom.

And I'd lost too much already to lose him too.

I was going to lie to him when he woke up. That the hospital had been generous— that Mom had died before surgery could even start— whatever. Whatever to make him believe that we were okay. No debts.

I'd find a way.

Thoughts rush through my mind. I was thirteen, which meant most jobs here would be closed to me. But the underground—

The underground was a different story.

I could change my age. I could lie— I was good at that. And I'd make money, to pay off this debt. Dad could not know.

It was enough with Mom and Aemin.

__________________________________

In the middle of the night, I wake up to a loud crash out in the living room. My eyes instantly jerk open— and the feverish heat in my body turns to the coldest chill. I'd been feeling feverish all night.

I carefully move the blankets to the sides. Then I slowly climb out of bed, my heart rushing as I silently pick up a hardcover book from the edge of my desk.

The door is ajar. And I crabwalk past, out into the living room. Everything is dark, except for faint, blocky silhouettes of furniture.

"...hello?"

My voice is trembling. "Dad? Who is it?"

There's only silence. And I slowly make my way towards the light switch, groping at the walls with my hands. My face must be paler than snow.

I finally find it, and flick it on.

And my eyes find Dad, his body swinging two feet up in the air.

The book drops with a heavy thud on the floor.

I scream. Then I fall backwards, tripping over my own feet as I jerk my head away. Then I nearly crawl back up to my feet, tripping several more times while trying.

The rope attached to the ceiling.

He'd hung himself.

I finally get to my feet. And I don't turn back as I run, my breaths rough and full of sobs. I run straight out of the house.

I was never coming back here.

Never.

Just like how I would never forget the hollow, gaunt look in his eyes.

Never.

_______________________________

It's been a week, since her birthday.

And since then, I hadn't seen Aeri anywhere. Not at school— nor on the streets near the stores. I would know. I'd waited for her.

Every day. But now it was too much.

With my hands deep in my pockets, I make my way up to her house. The path up there is full of rocks and gravel, and I'm about to raise my hand to knock when my fist stops in midair.

The door's open.

Aeri.

I shove through the unlocked door. Something doesn't feel right the moment I step in the house, and it's only confirmed when I see the limp corpse of a man— clearly over days old— hanging from the ceiling.

Shit.

"Aeri!" I shout, my voice echoing through the empty house. "Shin Aeri!"

She's gone. All the rooms are empty— the kitchen, the dining room. There's no trace of life in the entire house.

This man.

I look closer. He was old enough to be her father, even though I couldn't guess why he would commit suicide like this. He had a damn child, who had just turned thirteen a week ago.

Unbelievable.

I slip my phone out from my pocket. Then I scroll down the list of my contacts, until I find who I'm looking for.

He answers within two rings.

"Tae!" He says, and I hear him yawn. "Are you down in the middle ground? Can you get me some food on the way back? I'm—"

"Jimin, I need you to look for someone."

His playful tone dies down from the tone of my voice. My eyes are still fixed on the lifeless expression of Aeri's father.

"What? Who? You know I already have enough work trying to cover for what happened at Seohan, right?"

"Push that aside for now. I need you to find this girl. Her name's Shin Aeri, and she—"

"A girl?!"

I hear him give a short hoot on the other side.

"You have a girl, Tae?"

"She's damn thirteen." I hiss, my jaw flexing at the thought of her defenseless figure out in the unforgiving streets. "Her father's killed himself. She must've run— considering he's still here."

"Please." I whisper.

There were more than a thousand ways that a small, pretty girl like Aeri could die in the streets of the middle ground. And when this area was so close to the underground as well.

"Jimin. Please find her."

He gives a soft sigh, followed by the distant clicking sounds of a computer keyboard.

"...I'll try, Tae. Shin Aeri, thirteen?"

"Yes."

"Alright, okay." He says, voice serious now. "But if it's a girl gone missing, you might want to get Jungkook too. He'll be more help than me. I can only do so much with a computer."

Jungkook.

He was my Father's favorite, just from how heartless he was. I knew I could trust him, but he was almost like a psychopath in his violence. Unpredictable and ruthless, in every way possible.

Dangerous.

But he was also someone who could pick out a person from the crowd like the devil himself.

I sigh quietly.

"I was planning to call him next, yeah."