T H I E F || NCT ✔️

Chapter 09

~*~

I couldn't keep track of how much weird stuff has happened lately, but Victor saying that we are related... is beyond weird.

I broke the eye contact and laughed in a joking manner, "stop."

I stopped my laugh when I saw that he wasn't laughing with me.

He opened a drawer under the table and put a picture in front of me.

It was the funny-looking woman that Jennie and I saw in the main hall. I recognized her by her hairstyle and her pointy outfit which was now red. Standing next to her was a man with a similar pointy outfit. They both were wearing the same fire hairpins on their mini buns.

Sitting in front of them, were two children. They both seemed to be laughing out loud when they clicked the picture. They both looked at least between the ages of two to five. One was a girl who looked younger than the boy.

It was a portrait of an ordinary happy family.

"Why are you showing me this?" I asked as I was feeling a slight discomfort by looking at the picture.

Something didn't feel right. I just couldn't bear staring at it for more than three seconds, like as if I was cursed to get sick if I looked at it longer.

"I don't know how else I'm gonna tell you this, but I might as well get to the point." He said. "This is a portrait of your family, and I am your father's younger brother." Victor looked at me with pity eyes.

I was at a loss for words because I wasn't expecting that at all. I was about to ask him why he was looking at me with such pity in his eyes, until it struck me. "What happened to them?"

It took Victor a few seconds to answer, "they fought a war no one saw was coming. They defended the land of the Fire Nation—" he paused before continuing, "but unfortunately didn't win the battle."

I stared at the picture blankly, my eyes suddenly were feeling hotter and hotter. "And the boy in the picture?"

"That's your brother, older brother. He was a firebending prodigy even when he was still so young. He was the pride of the family."

Was?

There was chaos going on in my brain, there was no memory, not even a short moment of anything in my mind. I don't know who the people in this portrait are. This even is the first time seeing a picture of what my childhood me looks like.

Suddenly there was a stinging pain in my head, like a giant needle piercing through my skull, into my brain. I naturally held my brain in pain.

The pain won't stop.

"Juli, are you okay?"

I never had this kind of headache before. I grunted, "what is... happening... to me?"