Because It's Love | EXO CHEN

24: Flower Way

In the same house that a complete family used to live in, Andy was the only one to witness a tragedy.

When my father's business failed terribly, he would go for drinks night after night. The cycle never ended, and as the day goes, he became more  out of control. The violent drunkard  would constantly mistreat his wife and his 4 little children. So, on one of those nights, he came back drunk as usual. But it was disastrous. It was the tragedy. Andy was alone, and he watched how our father strangled our mother to death.

Because he was drunk, it was his excuse.

Because she was helpless, it was her weakness.

The ending? My mother died from suffocation and thereafter, Dad was charged and sentenced to death.

Cruel or miserable?

It hurt to picture that these horrifying things had happened to me, but Andy had seen it alone. Since then, he was suffering from PTSD (Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder) and had been battling it for years.

So when news broke out that Celia had passed away, Andy gradually got out of his mind. He blamed anything that potentially caused her death and resorted to violence when he could no longer bear the mental torture.

EXO was the idol group that Celia always looked up to and Andy had himself convinced that Celia couldn't get over them, hence the depression and suicide act.

We saw it sometimes, Celia crying over EXO, which I assumed it was because of her severe mood swings. She was too deep into that kpop group. But Andy... he saw EXO as a cause of Celia's death and eventually wanted revenge. He was delusional.

Everything seemed stupid, but no one listened to me when I tried to speak out.

For a while, I was even mad at Minzi for stepping in that day, because, had Andy attacked and took his revenge, he wouldn't stay this obsessed with taking down the entire group, and he may not have to sit in a mental hospital today.

Andy's arrest during the fan sign event had doctors diagnose him with a mental illness (due to his accumulated problems), so they threw him into a mental hospital and kept him away because he was really unstable.

Day by day, I find myself shattering into pieces. My family has turned into a disaster. The family of four that I once recognized was disappearing. Celia was gone, Andy was locked in a mental hospital and Adam? As the eldest one, he blindly assumed he had the duty to fulfill his sibling's wishes - thinking that their wish was to ruin the ones who 'ruined them'.

He started believing that EXO was a bunch of fake guys who ruin the lives of fangirls. Unreasonable, but it meant a fact to him.

After all the sick things that have happened, he stayed silent but I knew he was fuming on the inside. He wouldn't talk about it, so I don't know what's on his mind.

One thing I know for sure is that he wanted revenge. I mostly couldn't understand why he still had to target Minzi. It's a big question mark for me.

"But Adam," I started.

He turned to me frowning.

"Why do you have to hurt Minzi? Jas told me about the night Minzi was ambushed, at the alley in the middle of the night."

I studied his expression carefully.

"I know it was you." I revealed.

Adam frowned deeper.

"You're a little too innocent for your good, Aaron. The world isn't a nice place. People are evil. Selfish..."