The last time he touched her was just before she left for winter break.

The pair stood outside Mari’s car after loading her suitcases into the boot. Sehun tried to do all the heavy lifting, but was partially rejected by the girl. He took it in stride though as he knew that Mari had an independent streak a mile wide.

“I want you to text me while you are driving.” Sehun said reaching out for Mari’s hand after she closed the trunk.

Her responding look was nothing but incredulous. “Really? While I am driving? Isn’t that illegal?”

Sehun sighed at Mari’s teasing tone, but when she gave their entwined hands a squeeze, he couldn’t help but whine a little in response. “You know what I mean. Text me when you take breaks so I know you are safe.” His mouth dropped open as he thought of another worst case scenario, “And do take breaks. It may only be a few hours drive, but sitting still for so long, you are bound to get sleepy and bored, and that will make you pay less attention to the road, and…”

Mari’s hand covered Sehun’s lips, “Calm down Sehun. I will be safe while driving. And I will let you know that I am when I can. How is it that big strong Sehun becomes such a mother hen when looking after me?”

Mumbles came from behind Mari’s hand and she smiled at the feel of Sehun’s lips tickling her palm even as she pulled it away. “What was that?”

“I was trying to say,” Sehun said with a smile as the pulled Mari into a hug so he was looking directly into her eyes, “You don’t look after yourself since you are too busy looking at everything else. Plus, if not me, who should do it?”

Mari prodded the point of her chin into Sehun’s chest making him wince a little bit even as she giggled. “And why should you do it?”

“Because I am your boyfriend of course.”

Mari’s jaw dropped and she started to take a step back. That was the first time Sehun had said anything about being boyfriend and girlfriend, anything about formally dating at all. Mari knew they were friends. That had been established long ago. And she was even starting to be friends with some of the rest of Sehun’s group, but none of them compared to him in how much time they spent together or how well they understood her. There was still so much that Sehun didn’t know and Mari didn’t feel she could tell him, but if he decided that they were dating it would be harder to keep hidden. It would be safer for him if she lets go of him, but Mari wanted nothing more than to be selfish and hold him tighter in that very moment.

While Mari was going through her own inner turmoil, Sehun had the unfortunate opportunity to watch the girl he had been fascinated by all semester contemplate dumping him before they even formally started dating. His fascination had grown into a crush and that crush into a love, all the way up until the point that he kissed her in the library. He was encouraged that in the days following their first kiss, it was like nothing had changed. She didn’t pull away and avoid him. They still met up to study or hang out with his friends when someone had the bright idea to order dinner and mandate a study break. But maybe, that lack of change was a worse thing than Sehun had thought. Maybe she had friend-zoned him so strongly that he could never escape.

But Sehun was stubborn. And he was in love. He decided in that instant that he was not going to let Mari turn him away.

“Mari,” he said, tightening his arms around the younger girl, “I know we haven’t talked about it, but I like you. I like you a whole lot. Heck, I am pretty sure I love you. I am not going to force you into a relationship. I respect you far too much for that. But I needed to confess and let you know where I stand. You can make the decision if you want to date me or not. I am willing to wait until you decide.” As he spoke, he felt the tension in her arms and back slowly release. “You are different from every girl I have ever met.” Sehun felt Mari’s lips turn up from where he had her face pressed against his chest. “You have been my study buddy and my friend. You have called me out when I am dumb and encouraged me when I actually have a good idea. We haven’t know each other long, but I feel more complete with you.”

Sehun trailed off as he felt Mari tapping on his bicep. He leaned back to look down at her. This time, he was the shocked one seeing the smile on her face.

“Sehun,” she said with a smile that pressed her eyes into crescents with how genuine it was, “thank you for your confession. I didn’t expect it, but I understand. I think I like you a lot too, but this may just be too fast for me… and I am getting ready to leave town. Can we wait until after I get back and then discuss this again?” Seeing Sehun’s face start to steel over, she quickly continued, “I am not saying no. In fact, I am so tempted to say yes, but I need to get my life in order a bit more before I can really let you in. Please, just two weeks and then I will give you my answer.”

Though Sehun was tempted to pout, he felt he needed to be strong as a man. It was two weeks away from Mari, hoodie girl, the girl he had grown to love. He could take two weeks. He thought.

“Can we still text and facetime while you are gone?”

At that Mari laughed. Sehun had tried so hard to hold in his pout, but it was creeping out. When Mari head other girls on campus talking about Sehun as the ‘hot but cold upperclassmen’ she always had to laugh since they did not see the side of him that she did. “Of course we can talk. When I am with my family, texting may be easier since I will not be able to be on my phone all the time, but we can definitely stay in touch.”

“I am going to hold you to that.” Sehun said with a happy squint to his eye.

Mari snuggled back into his chest. “I expect you too.”

“I will miss holding you like this,” Sehun confessed.

“I will miss you holding me like this too,” Mari whispered in return. She was almost soft enough for Sehun to not hear, but he did. Her response was enough that he felt he could let her go for a few weeks. She liked him. She might even love him. Sehun was sure of it. She would return and then he could properly ask her to be his girlfriend. Instead of standing in the parking lot, next to a car stuffed with luggage as one half of the pair prepared to drive off.

He rubbed her arms as she stood within his hold and he could feel the fabric of her sweater shifting until she grabbed ahold of the ends. He thought to ask why she was always so covered up, but that made her special. Those hoodies made her his. And since she was his, would be his, he figured he had plenty of time to ask later. For now, he had to send off the hoodie girl, his girl, for winter break.

Sehun gently released one arm from Mari to open the driver’s door. “In you go.”

“Trying to get rid of me so soon?” Mari teasingly asked as Sehun covered her head for her to slide into her seat.

“Not in a million years. I was thinking more, the faster you go, the faster you will come back to me.” Sehun said squeezing her hand still trapped in his.

“Well in that case, I had better hit the road then.”

“Text me every time you stop and then when you get home too.” Sehun said stepping back from the door to close it.

“I will.” Mari smiled up at him just before the door closed. She started the car and slowly pulled out of her spot waving one last time to Sehun out of the window. He replied in kind and even had the audacity to blow a kiss at her.

She watched his figure in the rearview mirror as she drove down the line of cars, “I am sorry Sehun. I just need to be selfish for a little while longer.”

 

-----

 

The last time he heard her was the final Thursday of the winter break.

Mari and Sehun had spent the last week and a half texting randomly throughout the day. He would always reply immediately while she sometimes would. Other times, he was left waiting hours for a short apology and a continuation of their conversation. He never begrudged her time away from her phone though. Mari had gone home for the break. She should totally have time to spend with her family, just as Sehun was spending time with his, though apparently with more lax rules about cell phone use during family time.

As Sehun sat in his bed staring down his wardrobe door wishing everything would repack itself for the drive across town back to the dorms the next day, his phone began to ring. As soon as his saw Mari’s picture on the incoming call, he swiped to accept it. While they had texted all the time, he let her be the one to start any vocal conversations.

“Hey Mari. What’s up?” Sehun asked the phone, a smile playing on his lips as he thought of his girl on the other line. A moment passed with no response and Sehun began to think he had been dialed. “Mari, are you there? Can you hear me?”

This time, his question was greeted with a shuddering breath and a big sniff.

Sehun sprang upright from where he had been reclining on his bed. “Mari, are you okay? Can you talk to me?”

After another sniff came a soft, “Sehun. I am so sorry.”

“Mari, whatever it is, it is fine. Just tell me, are you okay?” Sehun didn’t want to have any kind of conversation until he knew Mari was safe. In his head, every kind of worst case scenario was playing out. She was lost. She had been kidnapped. She had been injured.

A sound that might have been a laugh, or maybe a sob, came through the line. “I am fine Sehun. I am not hurt. I am fine.”

Following Mari’s response, Sehun finally felt his heart rate decrease back to a normal pace and he leaned back on his headboard. “Dammit Mari, you scared me. I thought you were kidnapped or something.”

Mari made another noise on the line again, this time sounding more like laugh than a sob. “Or something… Sehun you are way too overprotective.”

“If not me, who else should be, Mari?” His own words made him smile having repeated what he said when he confessed and he hoped Mari would smile too.

“Oh, Sehun.” Yeah, he hoped she was smiling.

“So if you are safe, what made you so upset?”

There was a moment of silence on the line and Sehun sincerely hoped that his somewhat insensitive phrasing did not send the girl back into tears.

“Sehun?”

“Yeah.”

Mari took in a deep breath that could be heard through the phone before asking, “Do you remember when we talked about coffee cups in the library?”

“You mean the day I kissed you?”

Now there was a clear laugh, “Yeah that day. And do you remember how I said that there was something I could do that is a burden, but would help a lot of people?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Well, I had a conversation with my dad related to that and now I think I need to be selfish and follow through so I can help. It will hurt some people that I really do care about, but I don’t think that I cannot do this.”

Sehun sighed. It was something he did a lot in general, but now it had a lot of weight. This was always one topic where he wanted to respect Mari and not push her into giving him details of her situation, but his ability to support her and give advice to the girl he loved was inhibited by his lack of understanding. He hoped he was saying the right thing when he replied, “Mari, I don’t know everything about your situation, so I am going to say it again. You are a good person and have a good head on your shoulders. I love you and I trust you to do the right thing.”

Mari blushed at Sehun’s words. He sounded so confused yet sincere. Absolutely lovable. What did she do in her past life that let her meet someone like Sehun in this one, let alone be liked by someone like him. “Thanks Sehun. I really needed to hear that right now. Thanks for talking to me.”

“Of course. Anytime.”

“Uhm. Sehun, I am sorry to say this, but I need to run now.”

Sehun wished the call could be longer, but knew their time apart for school break was coming to a close and decided to let his girl go. He hummed on the line in response.

“Thanks Sehun. Bye bye.”

“Wait, Mari…”

“Yeah, Sehun.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The call ended and Sehun began to pack up his clothes to return to campus, but his smile never stopped. Mari said that she loved him. She said those exact words back.

 

-----

 

The last time he saw her was Friday.

It was about 11am when he arrived back at the dorm from his family’s house across town. About half of the guys were already back and he could hear them calling to one another from across the space. Sehun hauled his bag up to his room when he head Jongin yell his name from the living room.

“What?” Sehun yelled back, not in the mood to play with his friends. He was too eager for Mari to arrive back on campus so he could ask her out on a date and slightly nervous that he had not heard from her recently. She had texted early in the morning, before he was even awake, saying she was driving into the city, but he had not heard anything else from her since.

Sehun’s thoughts were broken by another yell, this time from Chanyeol, “Sehun, you need to see this, get down here now.”

“Why?” Sehun was the youngest and his friends, like Mari, knew how he could pout.

“It's about Mari.”

Like Joonmyun said the magic word, Sehun ran into the living room where the boys were huddled in front of the television.

“What about Mari?” Sehun asked breathlessly.

Chanyeol pointed at the television and Jongin turned up the volume.

“As I said previously, we are reporting live from the downtown police station. We received a tip that the younger daughter of the Lee Shipping Conglomerate CEO has been taken into custody as an informant in an ongoing investigation. Lee Shipping has long been suspected of having ties to the mafia, but have been cleared multiple times.”

The reporter continued speaking, but Sehun was too distracted by the pictures that appeared on the screen. One, captioned “Lee Jinyoung,” showed an older man, perhaps in his late-fifties with thinning hair and an expensive suit jacket. The second showed a girl that Sehun was all too familiar with. It was captioned “Lee Mari.”

Had he been paying attention, Sehun would have heard of the extortion and murder cases which fell through when witnesses disappeared or refused to testify. He would have learned how the eldest son of the Lee family was about to take over the business and it was suspected that the younger daughter would be given a ranking position in the company. Both of the children’s academic records were highlighted. Their homeschooling through highschool followed by their acceptance at high ranking universities. The eldest son had graduated with honors and worked at the company for years already, being nearly a decade older than his younger sister. The company that the two would stand to inherit was worth millions even though the money was tainted with suspected criminal ties. Had he been listening, he would have learned that Lee Shipping was approaching a monopoly in Korea as a distributor of weapons and diamonds. As it was though, Sehun would have to learn all of these details later as his friends recited them back, he was too distracted at action on the screen.

“It appears that Miss Lee is exiting the police station now. Camera, can you zoom in on her? It was announced by the police spokesperson upon our arrival at the station that she will be taken into protective custody until such a time that a trial is arranged based on the information she provides. This young woman may be able to bring down one of the biggest crime rings currently speculated to operate in Korea. And look at her, she is so pretty and yet so brave…”

At that instant, within the span of a heartbeat, several things happened. Mari happened to look directly into the camera lens of this particular news crew and give a smile. Her happy, eye crinkling smile. That smile that Sehun loved so much. Even though she was just an image on the screen he couldn’t help but feel a smile on his face in return. Seemingly simultaneously, there was a shove in the crowd around the police car that Mari was being escorted towards. This caused some of the crowd and the reporters to block their path, delaying the police team’s jog to the vehicle. The last thing that happened was the most important. There was a loud bang and an ensuing confusion. The camera crew and reporter dropped to the ground, but when they stood back up and refocused on the screen in front of them, they showed the one person in the crowd who didn’t. Even from a distance, the growing red stain on a grey hoodie could be seen. The police tried to stop it. Paramedics were called in. An ambulance rushed off.

Through all of this, Sehun sat in the living room in silence watching the television. His friends came and went. Sometimes wrapping an arm around their younger friend. Sometimes just holding his hand. A couple tried to talk to him, but he never responded.

The first reaction they saw from him that entire afternoon came around 4pm when the announcer on the news stated that Lee Mari, the younger daughter of the Lee family who had gone to testify to the police about her family’s criminal activities, was declared dead at the hospital from a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.

 

-----

 

The last time he kissed her was a week later.

Sehun’s life had been on autopilot since he returned to campus. Mari was gone but classes continued. His friends tried to cheer him up knowing how into Mari he was, but they could only do so much. The girl Sehun loved not only had criminal ties, but she was dead. Her killer had not been caught and it was suspected that any evidence that the police had to bring down the remaining Lee family would crumble without Mari’s testimony. Her last act, and Sehun saw it all for naught.

In his mimicry of normal daily life, Sehun stopped by the mailroom to grab his mail. Expecting party event fliers only, he was surprised to see a small blue envelope. It was postmarked from within town and his address was clearly hand written on the front, but lacked any form of identifying who it was from.

As he walked back to his dorm, he slipped a key into the envelope and pulled it open. When he saw the polaroid that dropped out, he had to take a seat on the curb.

It was a photo taken in November at a dinner party Joonmyun had hosted for the guys and their friends. Throughout the evening, many bottles of beer were consumed and eventually the night had dissolved into a game of truth or dare. This particular dare was for Sehun and Mari. He stood with his arm around her shoulders and they both pulled ugly faces at the camera so it could be posted to social media. The photo in his hand was not the one which ended up online though, it seemed to have been taken just after. Sehun still had his arm around Mari’s shoulders, but they instead were looking at each other with big smiles on their faces as they laughed at their own stupidity. There were multiple holes on the top corners of the photo like it had been pinned and repinned to a wall.

Sehun smoothed his thumb over the holes while biting back the tears that threatened to fall as he looked at Mari’s smile. Finally succeeding in preventing them, he looked back at the envelope, now wondering who it was from. The letter he found inside clarified that completely.

 

Sehun,

I am so sorry for keeping you in the dark. I just got off the phone with you and wish I could call you back and tell you everything, but it is for the best that I do not. Instead, I am writing you the truth here in case I do not get the chance to say it in person for a while. I love you. Me, the daughter of a ganglord, love you, one of the most gentle and kind humans I have ever met. You were under no obligation to keep talking to me in class the day that we met, but you did. And every subsequent day after that. My family background is what I hid from you, nothing more and nothing less. You saw a glimpse of it a couple of times, but I was able to hide away the scars so you wouldn’t ask. I wanted to protect you from this life I was born into and trained for. Tomorrow I am going to the police to turn myself and my family in. It is selfish because it will cause pain to my family and many others, including you, but I promise one day I will fulfill my promise and come back. I may not be able to come back as fast as you hoped, but one day we will see each other again. Until then, I hope you can think of us like in this picture. I got it after the party from Baekhyun and have treasured it because it shows the best of us: happy, smiling, silly. The us I wish we will become. Because the world is a mean, cruel place and joy is to be treasured. Please do not lose your smile before I see you again.

With as much love as I can possibly have,

Mari

 

By now, the tears that had threatened to fall were streaming down his cheeks. Mari, the hoodie girl, the girl who loved him, the girl who died trying to do the right thing, wanted him to be happy. She promised to see him again one day. With a final sigh for the girl he loved and never fully understood, Sehun wiped his face dry on his sleeve. He knew he may not be okay now, but he would fulfill one more promise for Mari. He would be smile. He would keep smiling until the day he saw her again.

With one last kiss for his mysterious hoodie girl, this time landing on her printed lips instead of her flesh ones, he slid the photo in his wallet and stood up to walk home. They may not have any more interactions, but Sehun would forever remember Mari. His love. His first true love, and perhaps his last.

 

 

---

Whew... so there it is. Sorry that got a bit dark and angsty. When I started writing I knew it would end up being a bit dark, but then it just kept getting worse and worse as I went. AKA, reasons I should plan plots ahead of time and not just free-write.

Also, I apologize for missing my own deadline for finishing this. BUT I have a couple of kind of good excuses:

1. I have been pretty sick since Friday.
2. I wrote a one shot and published it (whoops) Find "Accidental Pet" here.
3. I found a new story to read on AFF. It is called "Atlas of Dragons" and I totally recommend you check it out (here)

Hope you enjoyed "The First Time." I would love to get your feedback in the comments so I can improve as a writer :)

<3 Sisi