Mom had informed that a surge of patients came into the emergency room that night, requiring her to do an overtime. I heard that some sort of accident happened at a nearby highway and that caused the volume to rise. This also left Mr. Oh to stay in the hospital to look at extra patients even though he hadn’t had much sleep the day before. Truly, their profession required extra effort. Not just effort, but also dedication.

The fact that they were so busy made me feel quite lonelier than usual. It left me, Sehun and Joohyun the only people in the house—leaving me in the most awkward position, getting in between the lovers’ most private time. Yet, I understood why the adults had to be away and why I had to be left alone again; this made me truly admire them.

Thinking about what they did for a living made me dream of wanting to find my own dream soon. Should I be a nurse like my mother? A doctor like Mr. Oh? A teacher that nurtured little kids? A painter so I could draw how I envisioned the world as? A musician so I could put my feelings into meaningful writing? There were so many choices, but I still couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do in the future. That left me a bit miffed about myself—how unambitious, dreamless and clueless I was.

Yet, as I passed by the living room after getting out of my uniform, I stopped and stared at Sehun, making me think of something. His back was to me, hiding Joohyun from view. I could not see his face but I was sure he must have had one of the soundest sleep in days. And this was definitely because of that girl.

This made my drop mood. My heart fell.

How I wish I was that person.

Because everytime I saw Sehun, it made me want to be anything for him. His support. His pillow. His blanket. His shelter. His shield. I want to be everything to him. Not just his cousin. Not just his sister-to-be. Not just a stranger. I wanted to be the reason why he laughed and why he cried. To be honest, if I even saw the slightest bit of change in his emotions because of me, I was secretly happy inside already.

But I would not ever be bold in saying these things out loud. They were useless wishes after all. They would not ever happen in a million years. And who knew? Maybe they were just the petty wish of a child. I might think of them now but perhaps I’d forget about them afterwards.

Maybe this was just the result of being in the same house as Sehun for too long. Or being too near him. Or being able to relate with him. Because we were sort of similar to each other that I was mistaking my feelings to that that compared to someone who saw the other more than just a friend or a sibling. Right. After all, we were all young and confused. Perhaps I was confusing his kindness and affection and protection as to something different.

And this admiration? Perhaps out of respect.

This was how I always tried to convince myself to forget about Sehun and my feelings for him. I was so eager to quickly forget about those secret feelings so that he would not affect me so badly all the time he was around.

But then, the attempts always failed so far.

Because instead of forgetting, I knew—I had a very strong feeling—that it was doing the opposite to me.

A beep came to my phone, snapping me out of my misery. A text came from my mother, distracting me away from my thoughts about Sehun.

From: Mom

How are you guys doing alone? It’s already 6 in the evening. Have you already prepared dinner, Mijoo?

Seeing her message, my eyes widened. I quickly traipsed to the kitchen, even hurting my big toe in the process as my foot got caught on the steps. I groaned in pain, skipping on one foot as the stinging sensation radiating from my big toe continued to torture me. I cursed while trying not to cry and did my best to prepare the things I needed to cook dinner.

While boiling some water and getting down from the high of the pain, I leaned back on the kitchen counter and pulled out my phone again to text mom back.

To: Mom

We’re fine. I’m boiling some water now. Planning to cook some pollak soup, beef stew and side dishes for dinner. Joohyun’s over anyway.

I was just tapping away on the screen of my phone while humming a random tune when another beep resounded in the silence of the room. I looked down and saw mom’s immediate reply.

From: Mom

Joohyun? Isn’t it too late already? Why hasn’t Sehun sent her home yet?

I sighed, tapping on the screen as I messaged her back again.

To: Mom

I don’t know. It seems that something came up so she’s probably going to stay overnight. They are still sleeping right now. I better get dinner done before they wake up. Anyway, I’ll let her stay in my room for the night. Don’t worry about us. You know that you can always count on me.

I pocketed my phone and began the work in the kitchen. The delicious smell of soup and stew wafted in the air as I did my task. I was not as good as my mother in this department but I knew I was getting enough practice for my skills to be called decent. Sehun used to tease me about the food I cooked being either too salty or bland before that I really worked hard on my cooking skills. After a couple of months, the first time I heard him say how good my cooking was, it made me truly happy. I remembered it so well like it was just yesterday, making a small smile creep up on my lips.

Some time later, there were just a few minutes before I had to turn the stove off and go prepare the table when a small knock on the entrance to the kitchen caught my attention. I looked up, seeing a yawning Sehun interrupting my alone time. Automatically, a frown reached my lips. He surely noticed the change in my mood that he smirked, enjoying the sour expression on my face.

“You don’t look very pleased to see me, cousin,” he said, a playful smile on his lips.

I sighed, turning around, feeling quite miffed at the sudden use of that pet name. He often called me by my name. Why was he fooling with me by using that term? Cousin? Really?

“That’s because I am not really in the mood right now.”

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Sehun sit himself on the counter beside me. His legs dangled as he continued to smile. It seemed like the boy was not affected by how sour my mood turned because of him.

“You’re always not in the mood around me. Nothing new.”

My eyes widened a fraction. The thought that Sehun acknowledged this kind of thing out loud made me a bit guilty. It was an intentional façade, after all.

“That’s because you always annoy the hell out of me. Just like today. You promised you’ll be watching the match with us but you ditched us for your girlfriend,” It was just a petty excuse, but somehow I thought that the words that left my mouth and the bitterness that accompanied it were also true.

He sighed and I thought he felt annoyed I was stressing that to him even though he already apologized he could not come, but then Sehun didn’t meet my expectations. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry.”

I gripped on the edge of the counter tighter, narrowing my eyes at nothing at the view outside the small window I was facing. I could not say anything about that, that I remained silent.

Sehun felt like he needed to explain himself to me that I noticed, from the corner of my eye again, he made big gestures with his hands while frustratingly trying to reason out, “it’s just that Joohyun suddenly called me and she was crying. How do you expect me to react when I heard my girlfriend crying?”

I didn’t miss what he said. She was crying?, I thought, finding it a little weird that she was. Normally, Joohyun could hold herself together. The only and last time I saw her cry was when I returned to her that letter and we had that talk that didn’t end so well.

“Did she say why?” I gave in, wanting to pry even further though it was not my business whatever made Joohyun cry. I didn’t want to get concerned over her but I was curious. I couldn’t kill the feeling that something probably went wrong or someone had hurt her.

When I thought Sehun was not going to answer, I cocked my head to the side and saw him shaking his head. Joohyun didn’t tell him the reason either.

“When she called I was on my way to the baseball game and then she said over the phone that she was going to wait for me in front of our house. I heard her crying that was why my first instinct was to run back home and then when I found her she was sitting by the gate, hands over her face as she cried. I asked her why she was crying but she just shook her head. I pried her hands away from her face but she was reluctant to. However, when she gave in that’s when I noticed the painful redness on her right cheek…” his voice seemed to fade, as if he was trying to remember how she looked like this afternoon.

Sehun’s face contorted to that of anger and I could tell he was ready to punish whoever caused that red mark on Joohyun’s face.

“She got slapped,” I stated, figuring something out in the process.

Sehun turned his head in my direction, trying to gauge me. I tried my best to look as emotionless as possible to show no signs of recognition about what happened. But I had a really good hunch as to what really happened. The thought of it made me internally wince and pity Joohyun somehow.

He sighed for the umpteenth time and said miserably, “I don’t know.”

“Did you get anything as to what happened to her face?”

He shook his head. “She won’t tell me a thing. She just cried in my arms. But—“ he gulped, hurt crossing his face briefly before he continued, “in her sleep she still cried while as