Kim Mingyu stood still in front of his neighbor's gate, staring at the half-open door with a worry he could no longer hide. From inside, a muffled sobbing sound could be heard—faint, yet filled with sorrow. A sound that was no longer unfamiliar to him. That soft, broken cry belonged to the girl who lived in that house... the once cheerful neighbor who had now turned into a shadow of herself ever since the incident that stole a part of her soul.

Mingyu knew that everyone around her had begun to distance themselves, calling her broken, calling her a burden. But he never could. He had seen firsthand how the girl would hug her knees in the corner of the park, eyes vacant and her wrists wrapped in bandages. He had once chased after her in the middle of the night when she ran away from home, wandering through dark alleys with only his phone flashlight and a panicked prayer. He had also helped her mother clean up shards of glass when she shattered a picture frame while mumbling the name of the man who had betrayed her.

Not because Mingyu was some kind of hero. But because something inside him wouldn't let him walk away. There was a pain in her eyes that, for some reason, always managed to tighten his chest and choke up his throat.

And that night, Mingyu rushed out of his house the moment he heard the girl's name being called out loudly by her mother. And there... just not far from his own house, he saw her mother struggling to stop her daughter from running away. The older woman was begging at her daughter's feet under the light rain.

"Oh my God…"

**[ WELCOME TO AU SEVENTEEN! KIM MINGYU IS HERE! HAVE A GOOD TIME<3 ]**