When I wake up, Sungin is still wrapped around me. I’m curled inside his embrace, feeling the safest I’ve ever been in so long. Even my muscles, the ones that are always somehow aching, feel at rest. My shoulders aren’t holding on to any tension, and my neck doesn’t hurt. I’ve never woken up feeling this well-rested in months. His plaid shirt is soft on my cheek, and I breathe more of him in. Is that creepy? Is that creepier than watching him sleep?

“Hey.”

Oops.

I look up and he’s doing that half-smile thing he does. “Hi.”

He squints at me. “You mumble in your sleep.”

I groan, just a little bit. “Did I say anything weird?”

His half-smile grows into a smug smirk. “I think you were singing.”

I cover my face with my hands. “Was it terrible?”

“You sing very well, what are you talking about? I was asking you what you were singing, but you just shushed me and said to be quiet and listen well because you’re writing me a love song.”

“I said that? I did not say that!” Though, I have been thinking about love songs. More in the abstract sense of it. I don’t think it’s the kind of work I want to submit to Professor Park, at least not for this project, but I have been thinking about them. Thinking about how so many songs are about pain and heartbreak. How, when people are asked about their day, it’s always the worst things they remember. Someone could have told them then sun rises in their eyes, but all they’ll remember is that someone else said their ears are slightly crooked.

“You really did! I wish I took a video, but I was worried you’ll get mad.” He moved closer, the warmth of his body making me shiver in the best ways. Like this, his voice was a whisper in my ear. Hot breaths and sweet words.

I peek up at him. “Embarrassed, more like. I won’t get mad.” At least not at him, I think. “I was thinking of a song. I remember that. Or maybe I was dreaming.”

His fingers curl into my hair. “You dream about songs about me?”

“I dream about all sorts of things. Don’t feel too special.” Though he should. I don’t remember my last nightmare. In a way, I feel like this should worry me, depending on him like this. But maybe he really is the sun and as long as I’m with him, the shadows can’t get to me.

“You also told me to go walk the cactus or something.” Then he laughs and it fills the room.

“At least I don’t drool…do I?”

Sungjin pretends to think about it. "No. At least not yet.”

I kick at him with my legs, but he just tangles our limbs together, we knot and fit perfectly.

When I sink further into his chest, he tightens his arm around me. I hope the arm I’m using as a pillow isn’t going numb yet. Because I’d like to stay like this a little longer. When I saw him at the station this morning, he said he had something to say. We haven’t had that conversation yet. I asked him to take me back to the apartment, and then I asked him to stay, and now here we are one very good nap later.

I lift my head and wiggle around to create some space between us. Just a little bit. “I really hope you weren’t planning on saying something like you never want to see me again or something like it. But if you are, it’s okay. Please do it gently. I’ll take it. But I really hope not.”

Sungjin shifts a bit, and plants his elbow on his pillow and props his head over the heel of his palm. We stare at each other for a moment. “No,” he says softly. “I won’t do that. I came to apologize. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean to make you think that I was trying to fix you, or that I liked you because of what I thought you were, or what I thought you could be. I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. I’m sorry I made you say it.”

“I should have…I don’t know…I should have realized what was going on.”

Shaking my head, I say, “No! That’s not…you don’t have to do that. That’s not…You shouldn’t…I am responsible for myself and the things that go on in my head. That’s on me. I can’t always rely on people to adjust for me. I can’t do that. That’s not right. It’s no excuse for how terrible I’ve been to you.”

“You weren’t terrible to me.”

“I was, though. I could have been better to you.” Done more for him. Be there for him the way he was for me. But I was too locked up in my own tower, and who put me in there? I did. This broken brain did. “Even if I have this factory defect—“

“Hey, no.” He shushes me. “Don’t talk about yourself that way. You don’t have a factory defect.“

“I sort of do,” I say without a hint of shame. Sungjin has always known, though we never talked about it. Not like this. For the longest time I was so ashamed of it. Because how can I possibly explain to anyone and make sense of it? Because it doesn’t make sense. “You know I do."

Sungjin cups my face with his free hand. “I know. I know this is something you have to constantly carry, and I don’t know what it’s like. I’ll never know what you’re going through. But you’re not going through this alone. You never were. And you never will.”

“When it’s like this, I feel like it really will be okay but I know that it might not always be. My bad days will be back, and they might get worse. Because there will be bad days. And nobody deserves to be around me during the bad days. I’m very hard to love on those days. It’s not fair.”

“I get to decide what’s fair or not,” he says, “the person you become when it’s bad isn’t who you are. And even when it’s bad, just tell me. If it’s too loud, I’ll soundproof your