[CONTENTID1]frozen[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]Chapter Thirty Seven[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

THIS IS CHAPTER 2/2 OF A DOUBLE UPDATE. GO BACK AND READ CH36 IF YOU HAVENT ALREADY.

Xiumin jolted awake as a heart-wrenching scream tore through the air. He would know that sound anywhere.

In no time, he was by her side. She was already sitting up, hands hugged around her knees, tears streaming down her face as she whimpered. She didn’t seem to notice that he was there, nor did she seem to notice where she was. He reached out to touch her hand, to tell her that things would be okay, but she flinched away.

“Jakyung, it’s just me, Xiumin,” he said softly. “It was just a nightmare. Please; don’t cry. It wasn’t real.” It occurred to him that she was alone, and he wondered where Kai was. He got his answer in the form of Kai bursting into the room with Suho hot on his heels, both men looking haggard and worn.

“It’s alright, Hyung. I can handle this,” Kai spoke softly, but urgently. Though he was speaking to Xiumin, his voice seemed to rouse Jakyung a little more and she turned her empty gaze on him. “Can you grab some water and hand me the white pillbox from the drawer over there?” Xiumin didn’t question much and just went along with what Kai said.

“Will she be alright?” Suho asked from his position at the doorway. Behind him, other doors started to open and heads poked out. Kai nodded and turned his attention back to Jakyung.

“Who am I?” He asked her softly. She didn’t answer, but her eyes began to fill up with more tears, and her breath came in short gasps. “Jakyung. Answer me. Who am I?”

“Kim Jongin.” Her voice was small and raspy and trembled with the effort. Kai opened the small pillbox of medication and placed two pills in her hand.

“Good. You’re safe Jakyung,” he told her. He lifted her hand to . “I should have been here with you, I’m so sorry. Go on, swallow.” He gave her the bottle of water and watched carefully as she downed half of it in one go. He sat on the bed and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her in a comforting hug. He held her as silent tears streamed down her face.

“Hand me those gloves please.” Xiumin passed the pair of blue gloves to him. Now that everyone was awake, they watched as Kai pulled them onto catatonic Jakyung’s hands. They watched as slowly she began to stop trembling and slowly her tears dried up. Finally, she spoke.

“He was there, Kai. He was there and he was going to kill me.”

The words were like ice down the spines of all those present. They didn’t need to ask who she spoke of; they already knew.

“You’re in my room Jakyung, on my bed, with me sitting next to you,” Kai assured her. He glanced at the others. “Everyone else is here, too.” As if seeing them for the first time, Jakyung looked at the eleven men gathered in the room. Her eyes passed over them, cold and unfeeling.

“So they are,” she said bluntly. “I don’t want to sleep again. I’m afraid.” She leaned back into Kai’s arms and her eyes seemed to focus on a point no one else could find.

“Go back to bed all of you,” Kai ordered, and after some hesitance, the audience of men shuffled away. “I’ll stay up with you. Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

For the next three hours, they watched reruns of old historical dramas. Kai was surprised to find that in the middle of hour three, Jakyung had fallen back to sleep. She seemed to be relatively peaceful this time around. Kai didn’t take any risks though, and stayed awake until the sun had fully risen and Baekhyun poked his head into the room.

“Go to my room to sleep, I’ll watch her.” He and Kai switched spots seamlessly, Kai warning him that Jakyung might hit him when she woke up and realized that they had switched. After instructing him to make Jakyung take another of the pills from the container on the nightstand as soon as she woke up, Kai shuffled out of the room and off to get some rest.

As Baekhyun was holding Jakyung, he couldn’t help but think she looked like a broken doll. She was frowning in her sleep and he could see the lines of worry at the corners of . The concealer under her eyes had worn a little and he could see the dark rings indicating a long while of sleepless nights. He held her tighter, feeling his own anger at her dissipate with every minute that passed.

He was angry that she had left so suddenly. Angry that she’d left him. He, who at the time, was just coming to terms with his feelings. He, who would search the entire country for any trace of her just to see her again and tell her those feelings. But now she was back. She was back and it wasn’t a dream. He was angry that he yelled at her without trying to understand her. He was angry that he continued to be an , even after she needlessly apologized for leaving. And now here, he was holding her in his arms, feeling her warm breath ghost along his arm as she nestled closer to him. And the anger was gone, just like that.

Her words had shaken him.

“He was there and he was going to kill me.”

She had been trembling so badly then, her eyes so vacant and haunting. He wanted to run and hide from those eyes. He was afraid that he would get into that despair and never find his way out. If he felt like that from only seeing her, he imagined that she would have it so much worse.

Jakyung began to stir and Baekhyun shifted to accommodate her. Slowly, she opened her eyes, but she didn’t say a word and he didn’t either. He felt her breathing quicken as reality caught up with her, and she lifted her head to see him staring down at her. Again, she said nothing.

They sat in silence, him staring down at her, and she staring up at him. What seemed like hours, was only minutes, and finally Jakyung broke her silence with a whispered sentence so quiet he had to strain to hear it.

“I missed you, Baekhyun.”

And then she was untangling herself from him and examining herself and clothes. Her warmth was gone, and the absence made him want to pull her back into his embrace and never let go. Yet there she now stood at Kai’s dresser, ruffling through the items and pulling out a shirt and pair of shorts.

“I missed you too, Jakyung,” he finally said back. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t look over at him or even acknowledge that he had spoken, and instead began to undress as if she was the only one in the room. Her sweat caked nightshirt came off with ease, then the underwear and then she was walking towards the bathroom and then she was hidden behind the closed door.

He let loose a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Baekhyun? Kris ordered—Oh? Where’d she go?” Kyungsoo said as he opened the door to the room. Baekhyun wordlessly pointed to the bathroom door. “Right, well, come down to the kitchen. Breakfast is here.”

Baekhyun walked down to the kitchen, the image Jakyung’s body burned into his mind.

A few minutes after she heard the door close, Jakyung let her tears fall. She the shower to mask her sobs, but they still came hard and fast and strong, and she wanted her whole body to melt under the near scalding water. She scrubbed herself until her skin was pink, scrubbed until her fingers began to turn red from areas where she had rubbed too hard and drawn blood.

When she finally cut off the water, it had run cold and she was feeling just about the same way. She mindless dressed herself and gathered her dirty things neatly in a pile by her shoes. She glanced at the container on the nightstand and took one of the pills, grimacing at the bitter taste as she swallowed it dry.

A glance at the clock told her it was reaching noon, and she made her way down to the kitchen. She may have been gone for seven months, but that didn’t mean she had forgotten the weekend habits of her hosts. As she expected, everyone save for Kai had gathered, feasting on a lavish spread of brunch foods. Conversation drew to a halt as she entered. She shuffled over to an empty stool and sat, staring at the array of edibles in front of her.

A sandwich was shoved into her line of sight.

“Eat. You look like Kate Moss, and I do not mean that in a good way.” Tao continued to put things in front of her. Luhan, from across the table stared at her until she finally picked up the initial sandwich and took a bite.

“Thata girl,” Luhan cooed as she finished the ham and cheese sandwich. “Keep going. I’ll keep these pretty little eyes on you the whole time if you don’t.” Jakyung let a ghost of a smile show as she picked up a bagel and began adding cream cheese to it.

Slowly, the conversation in the room picked back up, but it was clear that everyone was dancing around the topic of Jakyung’s nightmare. Halfway through her bagel, Kai burst into the kitchen, a frantic look on his face. When he spied Jakyung, he instantly relaxed. Ignoring everyone else, he walked over and put a hand to her forehead.

“You’ve not got a fever this time. And you’re eating; good,” He smiled softly at her and snatched a strawberry from the plate Tao had made her. “Did you take your meds?” Jakyung nodded, a blush rising to her cheeks.

The others watched the interaction with interest. If they didn’t know any better, than they would have thought that Kai was the older brother with the way he was so attentive to Jakyung. It was weird for them to see her so mellow. Even when she was sick, she was always witty and sharp tongued, but now it seemed like she’d lost her edge.

“I’ll be fine Kai. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll get reevaluated while I’m here, but I don’t think changing drugs is going to help much.”

“How long have you been having nightmares?” Yixing asked, his voice filled with concern. Jakyung gave a noncommittal wave of her hand.

“They’ve gotten worse since being on medication,” she told him. “Just makes me sleeping a bit of a nuisance.”

“You looked haunted, Jakyung,” Suho chided. “I would hardly call that a nuisance.”

“Well there isn’t much I can do about it,” she snapped back. She took a deep breath and sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Can we talk about something else?”

Conversation quickly changed after that.

After much protest, Jakyung found herself walking the familiar path to her brother’s office, Chen at her side. He initially didn’t want her to go, claiming that she would only get more stressed, but she reminded him that it was her brother, and the longer she left him in the dark, the bigger the issue later on. She was greeted with a wide smile by the secretary, who stood when he saw her walk in.

“Miss Jakyung. What a pleasure to see you after so long,” he said. She returned his smile.

“Good to see you as well, Dokyung. Is Taekyung in his office?”

“Yes, right this way. Will Mr. Kim Jongdae be accompanying you?” Dokyung bowed respectfully to Chen, who looked startled that the man even knew who he was.

“Yes, he will be.” Jakyung shot a grin over her shoulder at Chen, who had insisted on coming with her. He looked unnerved to be in the company of a man who was technically still the head of a rival gang, but the assured look Jakyung gave him settled his worries just a bit.

As usually, the elevator ride up to the 16th floor was quiet. When the doors opened, Dokyung escorted them out and gave a curt nod before returning to the elevator and back downstairs. Taekyung didn’t even look up from the papers on his desk.

“Whoever you are, I’m busy. Unless it has something to do with the up with the latest shipm