Shades of Love

Prologue Part 2

Five years ago:

Lee Taemin was living a decent life. He had finished High School with flying colours and had since moved on to become one of the top students at the prestigious university he was now studying at. His graduation wasn't that far away anymore and the thought of seeing Naeun again after just a few more months gave him the necessary extra motivation to complete his degree.

Things would have been even better if his older brother, Kibum hadn't suddenly left the Kim family a little over a year ago. Taemin to a certain extend understood that Kibum didn't want to become his father's pawn - that he simply wanted to take another route and build his own path away from his family's influence. However, he really wondered why Kibum almost had to disappear from the earth's surface to achieve this goal.

Since the day Kibum broke with the family, Taemin and Jongin had not seen him again face to face, because the two of them were still staying in the States. Jisoo, the youngest Kim sibling had only told them about a huge fight between Kibum and their parents and that her eldest brother had said goodbye to her as if they would possibly never see each other again.

At the time Taemin had felt a weird knot in his stomach. However, he chose to disregard it. Jisoo was probably just startled by the grown ups' argument. They would make up soon. They always did, right?

But with time passing by, it seemed like they would not this time. Jongin and Taemin grew wary. They often talked about it when they were alone, wondering what Kibum was up to. They did receive messages from their older brother every now and then. However, they were all pretty vague. Their parents, on the other hand, had stopped mentioning Kibum altogether.

Mr. Kim was still very upset that his son had walked away from his position as the main successor of the Kim International Corp. He thought that it was ungrateful of his son who he had raised with so much care and by giving him the best possible education. His high hopes were crushed and so were the stocks when the news of Kibum's disappearance surfaced. It was so bad that even Mrs. Kim didn't dare to bring up Kibum's name again for the time being.

And then, out of the blue, the unimaginable happened. Taemin and Jongin had to read of their elder brother's car accident online just after their exam period was finally over. It seemed like a car had collided with Kibum's vehicle and caused it to fall off a bridge. The police and divers were searching the area but Kibum hadn't been found yet.

The both of them were immediately ordered to fly back home.

Taemin never thought that his early return to Korea would be due to such saddening and shocking news. Kibum and he only became brothers when Taemin was already eleven years old. However, his Hyung had always been friendly and generous towards him. Even though Jongin and Taemin were really close and like best friends now, especially because they had been staying in the States together for a long time, it was Kibum who originally helped him settle into his new family the most.

Taemin and Jongin felt like being caught in a surreal parallel world while they waited for their visa and then finally flew back. They couldn't believe Kibum was actually missing. It just didn't feel real to them.

After their arrival in South Korea, the both of them found out that their elder brother had already been declared dead. The authorities were not able to find him for three days. They believed that the body could have drifted further down the river due to the currency. In any case, it was unrealistic that Kibum could have survived the impact of the accident and then the 72 hours without medical support afterwards.

Taemin remembered his lungs collapsing, not giving him proper space to breathe, when he heard this. It felt like a dejavu, taking him back to the day his mom died.