Seconds ticked by as you and Jisung stared at each other; him with determination and you with anxiety. He was watching your every move, or at least it seemed like he was observing every churn of your muscles.

It almost felt as if he had already predicted your backup plans and was ready to strike out a solution at any given moment. And if he noticed the way your hands were trembling, he had chosen to give you the time to deal with it instead of butting in.

What could you do, [Name]? You have dealt with so many problems on your own before. You have managed to sneak out of your home and leave the city you once resided in without leaving a single trail. You have managed to create yourself a brand new identity and conceal your magic from plain sight. You have managed to go several years without shelter nor stability over your head.

You got over so many things, including letting the wrong people know your magic and the act of memory erasure, so why did your head suddenly start stumping just because this time, it involved Han Jisung? Why was it hard for you to wipe a small piece of memory this time?

You looked up at him, your eyes wide and glittery as though there were tears of concern withering underneath them. Jisung softened at your vulnerable state and it almost compelled him to drop the matter altogether. But you had thrown him over the edge of a gate and blasted him across his own bedroom, and you have dead parents and no home to go back to.

Nothing that has happened were ordinary things. None of what he heard about you was daily news to him. Not only did he deserve an explanation from you, he would also never forgive himself if he does not take the opportunity to get everything answered.

"I am your friend, [Name]," he whispered, his eyes wide with sincerity.

Right. He is your friend, and just that simple fact made everything so much harder for you to disclose. You were juggling this friendship at the tip of your fingers, uncertainty floating everywhere. The idea of him slipping away was haunting. The idea of your dropping back to where you begin was haunting.

"You can tell me," he persuaded, not stepping over to you yet but simply choosing to use verbal comfort. "I can help you. Let me help you."

You let out a strained noise at the back of your throat. He was talking like you have major problems going on in your life, which you certainly have! You just haven't gotten the time to realize it. As days go by, you have gotten used to how your life has turned out, and the bad became normal to you.

Your dead family, your empty home, the city council, the fear of authority, the pressure of early maturation, the loneliness—they all suddenly started to fill your head up like a storm; twisting and swirling to destroy all that was left inside of you. It was like everything was coming back to you at once, forcing you to remember and to reminisce.

Jisung held back a gasp when you glared at him. Your eyes were teary but no tears fell, and he somehow knew that the anger burning within was not directed at him. He was baffled, for sure. He had never seen you on the verge of tears before. But he was more empathetic than surprised. He wondered how much you have really been through in your past, how much you had to endure on your own and he never knew of.

"Jisung..." You voice was small as you finally spoke, but he heard you and he replied. When you looked at him, you gulped. "I don't know where to start."

Finding the right words to describe your childhood, from its timeline to its tragedies, should be easy since everything had happened for a reason, and one thing led to another. But you did not know where to begin, somehow. Going to the root of all things felt like you trying to make sense of your trauma, but there is never sense in those things. There is only a cause and an end, and you have yet to reach the end.

It was an organized mess with too many events and too many repressed emotions for you to explain it like a glorified story.

"That's fine, I got you," he said with a quick nod. Finally approaching you, he gently tugged at your hand and pulled you to the edge of his bed where you both sat down. He hummed for a little, having to gather his questions first before he asked, "Let us start easy. I don't need that much detail but can you tell me about the strings on your hands?"

"Yeah," you said after a sigh. "They are–"

"Magic?" Jisung looked at you, his tone was more serious than you have ever heard him. When you gave him a shocked expression, he shrugged. "I kind of figured. You threw me over the school gate, which is tall as hell. And you just sent me flying across the room in your sleep. I wouldn't believe you now if you try to tell me otherwise."

You pursed your lips together. The determination in his eyes was familiar to you, yet they felt so vague and confusing. You feared what the burning was for. Was it the intention to hate and expose you? Or was it to accept and understand you? The question lingered but you kept it inside.

"Yeah, they are magic," you muttered, rubbing your wrist in a circular motion. "I was born a magic-user. I used to live in a more magic-populated city–it's actually the one close to this city, hence why I escaped over here to Seoul. This is the fastest place I could run to and hide, and it is a bonus that this city is huge."

Jisung raised an eyebrow. He was hearing too many buzz words. "What are you escaping from?"

"Like I said, it is a very long story," you informed.

You were not holding out hope that Jisung would choose to back down and let the matter drop. It was more so to give him a fair warning that he was about to take a deep dive into your childhood and everything that led you up to this point. Glancing up at him, you took a deep breath to calm yourself too when you saw that he seemed ready and steady to listen.

"All magic cities have two councils, one for the magic users and the other for the ordinary people that lived in the city. The one we are focusing on is the one that pertains to people like us. I was never too sure what it is that they do, I just know that my family members have always held high power within the group because of the unique magic our family use," you explained, rubbing your hands to calm your nerves.

"A new batch of councilmen is selected whenever the current ones turn too old for the job. There isn't a set interval like the government system you guys have–things don't change every couple of years, things change when people die." You explained. " And, like I said, my family has a history of working with the council. They go through the elections and they tend to be chosen to be part of the group of councilmen. It has been like that for a long time."

Jisung was nodding along as you spoke. He listened carefully to everything you said, about how the last election was no different than the rest and how your father was supposed to be the next in line after your grandfather had passed away. Up until that point, a sense of dread had started to paint over his face gradually. He could almost predict how things would unfold for you and he was devastated.

"The election ceremony happened at night. I was not told any gory detail of what exactly went down. I just heard that there was a blackout and when the lights came back up, my entire family was gone. Dead, if not dead then injured," you said, your voice trembling and your brows furrowing as you tried to remember.

It felt like there was a knot clogging in your throat and it was taking you too much effort to speak "The injured ones were all rushed to the hospital, but only my uncle managed to come out alive. He has been in a coma ever since. I... I am not sure why, though. I can't wrap my head around why they decided to keep him alive."

Jisung wanted to comment on the event but he clasped his mouth shut instead. He didn't know what to say. Nothing felt appropriate at the moment, not even a simple 'I am sorry for what happened' because it did happen and it was terrible. An overused, sympathetic line would not suffice for anything.

"The family of each election candidate is supposed to attend that ceremony. You can imagine how big and glorified the process actually is–everyone is supposed to be there! But I couldn't because I got the flu that day." You glanced down at your hands, where you squeezed your nailed to the skin of your palm as a sore laugh left your throat. "People like to tell me I got lucky that I wasn't there. But you know... sometimes, I kind of wish I had been there."

What was it like? Hwondered. What was it like to receive that many death news in one goes? Were you too sick and too young to comprehend it at that time? Had you been sleeping the night away, only to wake up and find out you've been isolated from the world completely? Were you lucky to have slipped away from death's grip or were you unlucky to have lost everyone you've loved at such a young age?

"Since everyone was dead and the only person who could replace my father's place was stuck in a long coma that I am not smart enough to reverse, I thought they would elect someone else," you said, then you shook your head as a dissatisfied expression confused your face. "But they didn't. They waited a few years until I turned ten, then they started to force me to learn about everything the council stands for."

Jisung furrowed his brows. "What about that? Is that bad?"

"I didn't think so originally but I am slowly coming to an understanding now," you told him, your tone gradually lowering as you started to glare at the empty air. "My family has always done well in the council. It is so much easier for our family to gain trust from people because we rarely mess up. It is one of the reasons why one of us is always elected to be on the council."

"But, with this sudden mess, the other households finally saw a chance of breaking the pattern, and that was through me." You pointed at yourself. "Working with people so much older than me and who has more knowledge about the inner-workings of the council than I do, who is it to say that they won't fuck me over? And if they do successfully mess me up, my failure will inevitably lead to the downfall of my family's reputation, even though only two of us are left now."

Jisung's jaw dropped in thoughts. He was piecing the information together now and, thankfully, it was much easier to understand than he expected it to, albeit definitely much more dramatic.

"Besides, I don't even want to be in the council. The whole authority thing just doesn't sit well with me, even if I am the one having it." You shivered with a grimace. "But it doesn't seem like I've got a choice. I tried my best to give them shit for trying to teach me anything but that was proven to be unsuccessful."

It is for sure troublesome to have a child who is unwilling to obey, but it is even worse to have an adult who refuses to listen. Everything you did, including trying to straight-up ignore those who attempted to pamper you to be qualified enough, has gone completely unnoticed on purpose.

"Eventually, I decided to just pack my bags and leave for good," you sighed, a troublesome pout forming on your lips. "It is hard for me to visit my uncle now. I can't guarantee I won't get caught if I go back, so I haven't seen him for some time. I doubt that he had woken up, though. I am pretty sure people are pulling strings to make sure he never does."

Jisung clicked his tongue as if he was the one with an uncle laying on his almost death-bed. Just listening to the story was infuriating for him; if he had the power to beat those adults asses, he definitely would do it. Not just for you but for the greater good of the city those people have much control over as well.

You laughed at his scoff. "Yeah. me too. But it doesn't matter much now. I am here, he is there. There is almost nothing I can do about the situation, so I am focusing on laying low and making sure I won't have to run off somewhere else anytime sooner."

Jisung fiddled with his fingers. His head was hung low in thought, thinking about the possibility of you ever being discovered. He certainly wouldn't hope for you to leave. Mostly because he would want you to stay, that thought deriving from very friendly reasons. But also because he would love for you be to able to settle down somehow.

Find a home, perhaps. And find people who could and would take care of you; that was an important goal on the bucket list he made on your behalf. Frowning a little, Jisung's mind twinkled within the obscurity that if you permitted him, the boxes on the list would have long been checked off.

Not once did the thought crossed his mind that he may be put in harm's way simply by being your friend. Frankly, to calculate the harm a victim can do unto you immediately after they have told you their story was indecent to him. He was more humane than that. He has better morale than that.

Things were pretty much out and clear now. At the very least, he thought he knew what he should know. Not that he wouldn't dig deeper into your traumatic childhood experiences. He most definitely would like the share the burden a little if allowed, but the night felt too full already and he didn't feel like adding more pressure to it anymore.

"Okay," he responded quietly to accommodate the night time. "Thank you for telling me everything."

"You are welcome." You offered him a faint and unsure smile.

Jisung was taking things too well for your expectations, and you have told him a lot more than what you have told previous people. You only used to talk about your magic, never about your family. No one was ever interested in your family. Pursing your lips, there came a thought that maybe Jisung was different than everybody else. From the way he reacted to your story, to the way you always feel this strong magnetic pull towards him.

What was up with that? You still have not figured out why you felt so drawn toward him.

"[Name]?" Jisung called, tilting his head to the side questioningly. When you looked at him, he asked, "Are you feeling okay? Do you want to go to bed?"

"I'm fine, it's just... I didn't tell you anything about the strings, actually," you muttered. "Just thought you might want to know."

Jisung laughed after a moment, his eyes widening in realization. You had branched off from his initial question and he forgot what he asked because of the intensity of the information dump. Grinning at you, he shrugged with a dismissive wave, "You can tell me tomorrow! Just go to sleep, on the bed. Sleep on the bed."

You gave him a furrow of your brows as protest, and you tilted your head when he stubbornly held your gaze.

"Okay, fine." You rolled your eyes, turning around to adjust the pillow on the bed so you could lie down after Jisung left for his desk.

Covering yourself with the blanket, you felt a rush of fluff drowning down your chest. The warmth and the softness of this little cocoon you've created was none that you'd ever thought you could have again. You pulled at the hem until it reached your shoulders, and you peered over at Jisung slightly.

The lamp illuminated his back, almost as if casting a natural glow around his heavenly self. Your heart slowed down at the peaceful sight and you fidgeted with your mind to check whether you wanted to say something.

"Um... Jisung?"

He turned at your timid voice, brows raised in concern, "Yeah?"

"Thank you for not being weird about this," you said.

Jisung softened, his grip on the pencil lightening up and the eraser tip tapped against his textbook. Whatever has left you with the impression that you needed to thank people for not acting out on a life you didn't choose to live, he wished you had never needed to go through that again. And all that life has thrown at you by far, he wished you never had to go through that again either.

"Yeah, of course," he replied with a mutter.

You gave him faint snores as a response, and Jisung breathed out a short laugh of relief. He left the blessing of a good night's sleep for the dimming of his lamp and the fact that he would be just a few steps away if anything were to happen.