JAY JAY POV
After the doctor finished checking all my records and finally cleared me to leave, we made our way out of the hospital. Every step felt a little heavy, my body still protesting from the accident, but the prospect of going "home" felt like a lifeline I needed to grab onto.
Kuya Luan stepped aside to make a quick call, his tone low and authoritative. For a moment, I just watched him—the man who claimed to be my brother. I still didn't recognize his face, but there was a strange comfort in his presence that I couldn't explain.
He finished his call and walked back toward me with a soft expression.
"Shall we go home?" he asked, his voice gentle.
I nodded, a small smile tugging at my lips. Even if I didn't remember the house, I wanted to be somewhere that wasn't filled with the smell of medicine and white walls.
He reached out and ruffled my hair, a playful gesture that caught me off guard. I quickly batted his hand away and tried to smooth down the mess he'd made, pouting slightly as I fixed my hair.
He let out a genuine laugh at my reaction, the sound bright and warm. For a split second, the heavy cloud of my missing memories felt a little lighter.
We got into the car, and Kuya Luan started the engine. The smooth hum of the luxury vehicle filled the silence, and for a moment, I just stared out the window at the passing trees, trying to find something—anything—that looked familiar.
"Kuya," I called out, my voice small.
"Hmm?" he responded, keeping his eyes on the road.
"How old am I?" I asked. It was a basic question, but it felt like a massive piece of the puzzle I was missing.
He glanced at me, a mischievous glint dancing in his eyes as a smirk played on his lips.
"You're forty years old," he said, his tone perfectly serious.
"HUH?!" I shrieked, my heart nearly leaping out of my chest.
I scrambled to pull down the sun visor and stared at my reflection in the vanity mirror. I touched my face, looking for wrinkles or grey hairs, but all I saw was a young girl with smooth skin and wide, panicked eyes.
"I'm old! I'm ancient and I don't even remember anything!" I wailed, slumped back in the seat. "I've lived half a century and I've got nothing to show for it but a blank brain!"
Luan's shoulders shook as he tried to stifle a laugh, clearly enjoying the way I was losing my mind over his blatant lie.
"Relax, Jay," he managed to say between gasps of air. "You're only seventeen. You've still got plenty of time before you start worrying about being 'ancient.'"
I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as I glared at him. My heart was still hammering against my ribs from the sheer shock of his joke.
"That's not funny, Kuya! I almost had a mid-life crisis!" I grumbled, though a small part of me felt a wave of relief wash over. Seventeen. I was just a teenager.
"I couldn't help it. Your face was priceless," he said, still wearing that annoying, playful smirk. He reached over and ruffled my hair again, seemingly more relaxed now than he had been in the hospital.
I swatted his hand away and focused on fixing my hair for the second time. I looked back into the vanity mirror, searching the face staring back at me. Seventeen.
"Seventeen..." I whispered to myself, testing the weight of the number. It didn't bring back any memories—no birthdays, no school dances, no friends—but at least it felt right.
I leaned my head against the cool glass of the car window, watching the city blur past us. If I was seventeen, I should be in school. I should have a favorite color, a favorite song, and a million little secrets tucked away in my head. But instead, there was just... silence.
"Kuya," I said after a long moment, my voice much quieter this time. "What kind of person am I? Was I... a good sister?"
Luan's grip on the steering wheel tightened for a fraction of a second, his knuckles turning slightly white before he relaxed his hand. He didn't answer immediately, his gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead.
"You're the best sister I could ever ask for," he finally said, his voice dropping to a low, sincere tone that made my chest tighten. "And from now on, I'm going to make sure you stay safe. No one is ever going to hurt you again, Jay. I promise."
I didn't know why, but the way he said it felt like he was making a vow to himself more than to me. I reached out and gave his arm a small, reassuring squeeze. I didn't remember him, but in that moment, I felt like I could trust him with my life.
"I believe you, Kuya," I murmured, closing my eyes.
As the car sped toward a home I didn't recognize, I tried to push away the fear of the unknown. I had a name, an age, and a brother who promised to protect me. For a girl who had woken up with nothing, it felt like a start.
We finally pulled up to a house—or rather, a massive estate that looked more like a fortress than a home. I stepped inside, my eyes roaming over the high ceilings and the expensive, minimalist decor. It was beautiful, but it felt cold, like a museum where no one was allowed to touch anything.
"Kuya," I said, my voice echoing slightly in the grand hallway. "Where are our parents?"
Luan didn't even flinch. He tossed his keys onto a marble console table with a sharp clack.
"Dead," he said flatly.
The word hit me like a physical weight. "Oh," I breathed, a sudden hollow feeling opening up in my chest. Even if I didn't remember them, the finality of it stung. I waited for a wave of grief to follow, but my heart remained stubbornly still.
Luan must have noticed the flicker of distress on my face because he turned to me, his expression softening just a fraction.
"Don't worry, Jay. You hated them anyway," he added, his tone laced with a bitterness that told me there was a long, ugly history behind that statement.
I blinked, surprised by his bluntness. If I hated them, then maybe that was why I didn't feel the urge to cry. I took a deep breath and nodded slowly, accepting his words as my new reality. If Luan said I hated them, then I must have had a damn good reason.
"I guess that makes things simpler then," I murmured, looking around at the empty, silent house.
"Much simpler," Luan agreed, though his eyes remained dark with secrets I wasn't sure I was ready to hear. "Come on. I'll show you to your room. It's exactly how you left it."
I followed him up the grand staircase, wondering what kind of girl the 'old me' had been—the kind of girl who hated her own parents and lived in a house that felt like a beautiful cage.
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KEIFER POV
It's been almost one week since Jay disappeared. One week of living in a nightmare where the world feels as hollow as my chest.
We've checked everything—every corner, every lead, every possible witness—nothing. It's like she vanished into thin air the moment that car hit her.
Angelo has tried everything. As Jay-jay's older brother, he is the living embodiment of power and intimidation.
He is the scarier, more refined version of everything I strive to be. He is my ideal—the kind of man who commands a room without saying a word, whose presence alone is enough to make the most dangerous men bow their heads.
I watched him now, standing by the window of the room, his silhouette sharp against the city lights. He didn't need a keyboard to find her; he had connections that reached into the darkest corners of the country. If anyone could track her down through sheer force of will and authority, it was him.
"Keifer," Blaster said, his voice hesitant.
"What?" I snapped, not moving my eyes from the window.
"We think Jay..." Drew started, but he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
"Jay what? Spit it out!" I demanded, my patience thin as a wire.
"Dead," Yuri finished for him. His voice was hollow, but the word hit the room like a grenade.
The world went red. Before I even realized I was moving, my fist connected with Yuri's jaw, sending him stumbling back.
"DON'T YOU DARE FUCKING SAY IT!" I roared, my chest heaving. "Don't you ever say that word in the same breath as her name!"
I wanted to hit him again. I wanted to hit everyone in the room until they took it back, until they told me she was just hiding or playing some sick joke. But then, a voice from the shadows stopped me cold.
"They're right, Keifer," Angelo said.
I turned to him, expecting him to defend his sister, to tell them they were wrong. But Jay's own brother—the man who was supposed to be her ultimate shield—looked me dead in the eye with a gaze that was terrifyingly vacant.
"We can't find a trace of her, and we saw the blood on that pavement. At that speed, with that much impact..." Angelo paused, his jaw tightening so hard I thought it might shatter. "That's the only logical conclusion."
"No," I whispered, shaking my head. "Logical? Fuck logic! This is Jay-jay we're talking about! She doesn't just die!"
I looked around at Section E. They were all looking at the floor, their silence confirming the horror I refused to accept. Even Angelo, my ideal, the man who was supposed to have all the answers, was giving up.
"I'm not stopping," I growled, backing toward the door. "Search every hospital again. Check every private clinic. If she's dead, I want a body. If there's no body, then she's alive. Do you hear me?!"
No one answered. The silence was the loudest thing in the room, a suffocating shroud that told me the one person who kept us all together was truly gone.
Hours went by with no news, the silence in the room becoming a physical weight that made it hard to breathe. Every tick of the clock felt like a hammer blow against my chest.
"Keifer," Ci-N said, his voice small and trembling.
"What?" I snapped, my head whipping toward him. I was on edge, my nerves frayed to the point of snapping. One more look of pity, one more suggestion that she was gone, and I was going to lose it completely.
"Maybe... maybe she really is dead," Ci-N choked out, the tears finally spilling over. "The car hit her so hard, Keifer. We saw it. There was so much blood, and then she just... she wasn't there anymore. What if someone just took her body to—"
"SHUT UP!" I roared, the sound tearing through my throat. I lunged at him, but Felix and Rory caught my arms, holding me back with everything they had. "Don't you dare finish that sentence, Ci-N! Not you! You're the one who's always following her around like a puppy! How can you just give up on her?!"
Ci-N sobbed, hiding his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with a grief that felt like a physical weight in the room.
I looked at the rest of them. They were all broken. These sixteen boys, the rowdiest, most problematic class in HVIS, were reduced to nothing because our Mutya was gone. The girl who hit them, scolded them, and protected them was missing, and they were ready to bury her.
"She's not dead," I whispered, my voice cracking despite my efforts to stay strong. I looked at Angelo
. "Tell them, Angelo. Tell them she's too stubborn to die. Tell them Jay-jay doesn't follow the rules, not even the rules of life and death."
Angelo didn't look at me. He kept his gaze fixed on the city below, his reflection in the glass looking like a man who had already started mourning.
"The blood on the pavement matched her type, Keifer," Angelo said, his voice devoid of any emotion. "The impact speed was fatal for a girl her size. We've checked every surgical ward in a fifty-mile radius. No one admitted a girl matching her description."
He turned to me then, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of something human in his cold eyes. Pain.
"I'm her brother," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "If there was a heartbeat left in her, I would feel it. But all I feel right now is... nothing."
I ripped my arms away from Felix and Rory, backing toward the door. I couldn't breathe in here. The air was thick with their surrender, and it was suffocating me.
"Then you're all fools," I spat, my eyes stinging with a fire I refused to let turn into tears. "I don't care about logic. I don't care about blood types or impact speeds. Jay-jay is alive. I can feel it. And if none of you are going to find her, then I'll do it myself."
I turned and stormed out of the room, the sound of my own footsteps echoing like a hollow promise. I didn't care if the whole world thought she was a ghost. To me, she was still the girl who rolled her eyes at my possessiveness, the girl who craved samgyupsal even when her life was a mess, and the girl I had promised to come back for.
I'm coming, Jay. I don't care if I have to search every inch of this world. I'm not letting you go.
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