A weird habit had begun growing in Youngsaeng these days. He started to think too much about the things that he usually didn’t think and most likely feel the strange new feeling that he also usually didn’t feel.

Every time his apartment’s bell rang, he would start to get a little bit worried but also anticipating at the same time. Worried that it could be Jiyoung came up with another bunch of her crazy ideas and requests; while he was somewhat excitedly anticipating because it also could be Seungyeon standing in front of his door.

He seemed like didn’t care even if that girl turned up with another problem, with another trouble for him. He just wanted to see her again even though it was just yesterday morning since the last time he saw her with his very own eyes.

Putting aside the asking voice in his head that kept demanding him for a logical reason of his desire to see her again, he had been thinking hard on how to see her again. He really only wanted to see her, he needed to see her and making sure that she was alright or even if she wasn’t, as long as she was alive.

Those stuffs were totally-extremely weird because he never took a notice of any girl like that before.

That was why when he found that started-to-get-really-familiar face staring at him through the intercom that afternoon, his clueless heart jolted happily in joy. Needed some times for him to manage his expression before he could make his way to the doorway, so that when he opened the door and met her face to face, he already had his usual calm look.

“Oh, it’s you again.” He sounded so awkward when he said that, standing in between the little space that he made between the door and its threshold. He just got a sudden attack of nervousness.

And it sent him to a deeper trouble with his own self. Why? Why he was nervous? Why he only managed to say that much?

Usually when he met somebody and only said that least words, that meant just nothing but his usual self, his usual personality that never said much thing and always acted coolly. But at that time, he knew for some unidentified reasons that he only managed to say those words wasn’t because of his everyday behavior but...he felt that it was her presence that sent him speechless.

And that got him confused even more about his self. Is it because I didn’t get enough sleep last night? He thought.

“Can I come in?”

Seungyeon’s sentence flew through the air, crawling into the surface of Youngsaeng’s mind cutting its system before it wandered further away and giving him the chance to be more bemused about his self.

“Oh, yeah.”

He moved aside and opened the door a little bit more to give her a way in, and Seungyeon made her way entering the frequent place. It looked like as if she was entering her own house. She took of her shoes leaving the socks remained and moved to take Jiyoung’s slippers that was still placed on the corner and with that she walked away to the living room. Youngsaeng chuckled silently as he marched behind along her. Remembering her first time being there, she surely did look much more comfortable now.

Walking pass her, Youngsaeng made his way to the kitchen, composing himself and then went back to the living room with two mugs on his hands. He put one of it on the table, in front of Seungyeon who was already sitting on the couch while hugging her knees and put her forehead on top of it, making him couldn’t see her face.

Youngsaeng gulped down the liquid on his cup before placing himself right beside her on the couch.

“What is it this time?” he asked, pretending to be annoyed while the truth was that he was quite worried because every time that girl came to him it would always turned out to be a ‘bad news’.

Seungyeon sighed then lifted her head up and Youngsaeng took that opportunity to get a better sight of her face. She wasn’t pale at all any more. The slight crimson pink hue had found their way back to her face as the sign that she was alive, that her health condition had started to get better but there was something that made Youngsaeng felt that she was just as lifeless as before, or even worse.

“Are you sick? Do you need something?” He asked again, cautiously this time while pressuring his self to not uttering those sentences in an agitated and rush manner. He shouldn’t sound worried or anything, he couldn’t. It would be confusing for her, moreover for him.

“No, I’m practically alright.” Seungyeon gave him a plain answer. But again, he found it odd. Even though she said that she was alright, he sensed something else in her way of speaking. The atmosphere was like she carried something heavy with her. So he asked her again, unable to hold back his curiosity.  

“But you don’t sound alright to me. What is it then?” He said, making her surprised with his boldness. Well, he was kinda deadly curious and worried anyway. Seungyeon tilted her head taking a fleeting look of him in wonder, did he really know her that well or was it just her that was too easy to be read? She went back staring straight forward again afterward.

“I’m getting better I think, but…” She answered then stopped mid-sentence, seemed struggling hard to say the next words. “But…” She continued, “I did something bad, really bad, an unforgivable mistake.” Seungyeon breathed a heavy sigh and started to burry her face on the top of her knees again. She didn’t catch the change on Youngsaeng’s face, how his expression went from a tense to a softer one, a little bit relief that she wasn’t sick or hurt physically anywhere.

But it didn’t mean that all his concern had gone away. If it was Jiyoung, he would most likely had lost his patience and saying threatening words to make her spoke, to tell him what was happening and not leaving him hanging there. But she was not Jiyoung, she was Seungyeon and to his own amazement he had the thought that he could spend all his day waiting for her to be calm and ready to tell him the problem, if she really wanted to.

So he waited, letting himself fell into the same silence that she had been overwhelming with. How funny, to see how comfortable they were with each other while it was just a few days ago when they felt so awkward while being in the same kind of situation.

“Youngsaeng-ssi,”

It was about five minutes or so since the silence swirling around them when Seungyeon finally broke it after raising her head again from the top of her knees and replacing it with her chin. Her gaze focused to the point straight front of her, presumably focusing on nothing.

“Hmmm?” He murmured as an answer, turning his head to the left only to find her staring blankly at whatever it was.

“Do you know what he said to me?” Her eyes’ beads moved, changing her gaze downward toward the floor that was covered by the brown leather carpet. “He said…he’s tired of me… He said…he no longer wants me in his life anymore.” She smiled as soon as she finished her sentence, a bitter one, a painful one.

Seungyeon didn’t know the reason why she was telling it to him. It was like she did it unconsciously and when she came to her sense, she already said it all. Even though it made her remembered the painful incident again, but somehow it felt quite decent as if she was throwing really a little part of the heavy weight that she carried away for all this time. Maybe that was what she needed, she thought, someone to share all the pain but without making that person felt the same pain like the silly thing that she did to Gyuri.

“Kyujong?” Youngsaeng asked her, an unnecessary question. Of course he knew who she was talking about, but he couldn’t think of another response. She weakly nodded with understanding and then started to talk again.

“Do you know how do I feel when I heard him saying all those words to me? It was painful. It hurt.” She stopped for a while to manage her started-to-uneven breath. “It hurt until I thought that all I wanted to do was to vanish from this earth, better to be dead because people said that the soul won’t be able to feel anything, not the pain, not the anger, not the sorrow.” Again, she stopped. It was getting harder and harder for her to breathe as she continued to utter every single word.

Her gaze started to look out of its focus, b with the unshed tears that had appeared. It radiated her pain clearly and somewhat gave the impression of an emptiness and mostly guilty.

“But I couldn’t kill myself. One side of myself told me to do so, but the other side told me that I have to stay alive and show him that I will stay strong. That was why I was standing at your door that afternoon. I run away because I couldn’t face my sister, because I know that I couldn’t avoid but being weak in front of her.” Her voice had started to sound like a sobbing. The tears that were hanging in the corner of her eyes had ready to fall their selves down. She tried really hard to fight the urge to cry out.

“I know her really well. If someone hurt me she would also feel the same pain. And I don’t want it. I don’t want her to be worried over me. I don’t want to always trouble her. But in the end I was the one, who hurt her really bad, with my own mouth.”

She couldn’t hold her tears any longer, it slipped down from her eyes right at the end of her sentence. She still clearly could feel the pain as if she just heard those painful words a second ago. So she turned her head to the right, hiding her face from him, hiding her tears. Youngsaeng looked at her with a troubled heart, confused of what he was supposed to do.

In the end, he reached out to her. He wasn’t sure at first, but decided to finally make the move. Turning her body, pulling her hand as he slowly closed the distance between them and finally held her in his embrace. He placed her head on his shoulder and just in a moment he could feel it wet because of her flowing tears. Youngsaeng awkwardly placed his hand on her back, soothing her.

He wasn’t sure why he did it. It wasn’t likely his usual self. And she also didn’t know why she let him did it, or to be precise she wasn’t sure why she let her self being that weak again, crying in front of him, in his both arms. She was always feeling uncomfortable in front of any guy before that she had no or maybe not much guy friends and now, she just made Youngsaeng to be the first guy to hug her other than Kyujong.

Had the world turned upside down?

But she didn’t think much after that, because it felt just right. She felt so safe and calm. That was why when he whispered telling her to keep crying, to let it all out, she did so. She cried even harder, hands gripping on the fabric on his arms.

She instinctively asked him, “What should I do?” in her pain and guilty cry that she felt for Gyuri and he answered her with a calming, “Chill out,” “It’s gonna be alright,” and “Don’t worry.” whispering each of it two times as he gave small pats on her back. His mind wandered around, the same question that had been swirling on his mind found its way back again. Why did he care so much about her? Why did he treat her so differently from the other girls exist?

Maybe he had gone crazy for real.

*

They stayed like that for like they didn’t how long until she had done with all her crying and sobbing stuffs. It was like she just woke up from a dream then found herself in Youngsaeng’s embrace.

Oh my God! Silly Han Seungyeon, what are you doing?!  She mutely scolded her self as she rushed pulling her self to sit down properly again and moved away making a distance between her and that guy. Youngsaeng smiled on the sly, pretended to be looking away to the ceiling while once in a while throwing a small glance at her.

“I-I’m sorry.” She stuttered, still not be able to look at him. “S-seems like I d-didn’t think much b-ah…I’m-I’m sorry.” Seungyeon let out a sigh, furrowing her eyebrows making her head went lower then hit her forehead lightly for doing such an impractical thing. What? Letting him hugging her? Han Seungyeon, you are getting into a deeper trouble now!

“What are you doing?” Youngsaeng asked, hiding his smile, holding his chuckle. He had started to think that Seungyeon looked really cute when she was being shy. Wait, did he say cute? Yes! And it was the first time for him to think about a girl on that way. Before, he always found them annoying especially that bunch of girls who called their selves as his fans.

“N-n-n-no-nothing! A-Yes, nothing. I’m just--ah, jk, why is it so hot here? I-Is the air conditioner not working?” She said while fanning herself, suddenly feeling hot because of embarrassment.

Youngsaeng’s laughter exploded filling the whole room. Ah, this silly hamster.

“Excuse me, Han Seungyeon-ssi. Are you by the chance forgetting that it’s winter and it’s currently around -1^oC outside now? What kind of person would turn on the air conditioner in this kind of weather.”

“Ah…right.”

Seungyeon really felt like running away to hide somewhere. Drowning herself to the floor or maybe the couch where she sat could swallow her right away, she hoped. Where did her brain go?

Her gaze met with the cup that Youngsaeng put in the table in front of her earlier and she took it. Maybe getting some water could help to clear her mind. But the next thing that she said after finding out what the liquid inside the cup was, only made her became sillier and it gave Youngsaeng another chance to .

“Why is it always orange juice?”

“Why? A hamster doesn’t drink orange juice?” and he laughed, wholeheartedly, enjoying the moment.

*******************************************************************************

Author's note:

without me realizing, it's been 7 months already since I started writing this story. I'm really grateful that I got to learn much new things through the process, got to know about this and that and being taught on how to write properly.

If it likens as a school, 7 months time, hmmm, means that I probably have adapted quite well to the environtment. I must have adapted well in 7 months time. It also means that I've got to understand the lessons better than the first time and the teachers also. I maybe already have the vision on how I want to be in the future (how this story would be in the end), what kind of obstacle that I should go through (would I get writer block and how to make the storyline becomes more intersting) and also how's my mark in the teachers' eyes.

and in this case, the teachers are you, the precious readers of this story. That's why I always ask for comments and critiques. Even though this is just a fanfiction and aside the fact that I write this for the fun purpose, but still, I want to do it well, trying my best and become better and better in every update.

So, I hope you all will help me. If you find anything weird in the chapter or even just a small mistake, don't be afraid to tell me. I will take all the critique with a open heart and learn from it :) This is the update, enjoy it! :)

Thank you for reading! :)