I stirred in my bed and looked over to my side to see that Suzy still hasn’t slept yet. I looked over the clock and saw that it was already eleven in the evening. I had been asleep for around an hour while Suzy was just lying beside me, staring at the ceiling.

“What’s the matter?” I asked and my voice turned out to be husky.

She looked over to my side, turning her body towards me, “I’ve been thinking.”

I supported my head with my hand while the other caressed Suzy’s face as I asked, “Thinking about what?’

“Everything that happened,” she replied.

“Why? You regret being with me now?” I teased.

“Of course not,” she beamed as well, but then her countenance changed into a questioning one as she asked, “I was just curious. When did you start loving me?”

I stared at her. As I tried to figure out the answer to the question, I needed to revisit some of my memories.

I remembered meeting Suzy in a bar on the night that Jongsuk hyung told me that he was going to propose to Joohyun noona. I went there to drink all my worries away, hoping that drowning myself in alcohol would ease all the pain that I was feeling.

I remember sitting beside a pretty girl in the bar. Despite how gorgeous she looked that night, I saw despair in the way she downed glass after glass of alcohol. Unknowingly, I started drinking with her for it was as if I was seeing my own pain in her.

I was expecting the night to go by smoothly; I knew that I’d forget the pain for a while, yet it’d greet me again as soon as the sun would wake me up the day after.

However, everything took a different turn when the girl beside me suddenly introduced me as her boyfriend.

I woke up alone in my room. I drew the curtains in order to see how the sun shone on the whole city. I sighed. I was at the top of the world, yet I couldn’t be happy for I knew I was alone.

Suddenly, a curse from the kitchen halted my trance.

I yawned as I started waking towards the kitchen and was surprised to see Suzy struggling to make my breakfast.

Ah. I almost forgot that I made her cook.

I found myself enjoying at how cute she worked with her hair tied up in a bun. The food she prepared was impressive too.

I already learned the basics from her with just reading the cards she carried with her, but that morning, I learned how she viewed a person.

I learned that ‘Jongin’ was not just the owner of the clothes I borrowed.

He was also the owner of her heart. He was both her happiest and saddest days.

I realized then that I was wrong for thinking that I was alone. For in Suzy, I found someone who shared the same pain with me.

Maybe it was the comfort that was given by the home-made food. Maybe it was the comfort she gave, herself. Maybe it was our conversation.

But at that moment, I knew I was willing to spend every cent for that comfort I felt to last.

“Sehun, I want you to tell me something honestly.”

I fought myself hard not to raise my brows at my own father. I rarely have this serious conversation with him unless I made such a big mistake in handling the company. For all I know, I was doing well so far.

“What is it, father?” I asked politely.

He took a deep breath, and I could see the hesitation in his face. Yet he carefully asked me, “A-Are you perhaps… gay?”

I almost dropped the drink that I was having as I burst, “What?!”

“I mean, there’s no need to be afraid,” father continued, “Your mother and I talked about it and we realized that your brother is getting married, but you’ve never had a relationship before. We feel like maybe you are gender-confused and we want to give you the freedom to choose – I mean, as long as you love each other, everything’s going to be okay – “

“Dad, no,” I immediately cut him off and I said, “I actually have a girlfriend.”

“You do?” my father’s face instantly lit up, “We were so worried that you’d grow old alone.”

“I won’t. My girlfriend and I are actually talking about marriage too, but we just don’t want to go ahead of hyung,” I lied.

“Can we meet her soon?”

“Sure,” I replied, while my mind is trying to solve the problem I had created.

When my father left my office, instead of burying myself with work, I was preoccupied with one question: Where the hell am I supposed to get a girlfriend?

However, the heavens above might have heard my pleas when Soojung called me using Suzy’s phone.

I then found the perfect opportunity to propose a plan.

Suzy needed someone to acoompany her in her most dreaded reunions while I need someone to prove to my family that my love-life is doing well.

We just have to pretend to be a couple and it’ll be a win-win situation.

Besides, I knew that there was no danger of us falling in love.

Not when I was dying during Sulli’s wedding, imagining that it was hyung’s and Joohyun’s.

Not when I caught Suzy and Jongin stealing meaningful glances of each other.

“I’m happy that you have a girlfriend, Sehun,” Jongsuk hyung once told me, “I thought you liked Joohyun.”

I didn’t know that my brother had suspicions of me liking Joohyun. But somehow, it made sense.

He asked me first before courting Joohyun. I was also the first person to know that he was going to propose. All this time, I didn’t know that Jongsuk hyung was gauging my reaction.

My brother had always considered my feelings first, so it was my turn to ensure his happiness, especially if that would make the woman I love happy too.

I’m relieved that I was doing a good job pretending that I am okay. But I had to step up my show. I asked Suzy to accompany us for a family dinner, and I was delighted that everyone liked her.

I knew I was good at pretending, but there are some days that I wanted to be true to myself – to accept the reality that I am indeed hurting.

Fortunately, Suzy was there for me during those days.

She was a good distraction. Her smiles and laughs were contagious. She allowed me to see a world I’ve never known.

Most of all, she allowed me to be vulnerable.

She allowed me to pour the emotions I’ve bottled for long.

I didn’t know when it started – but some emotions stirred in me.

I felt uncomfortable seeing Jongin around Suzy together. Those stares of longing that they were giving each other – I knew that sooner or later, it’d develop to something more. It’d rekindle the flames that they thought they had already completely extinguished.

He was a man who knew her for around ten years, while I was a person who was supposed to be by her side for only ten months.

It was futile to engage in this battle.

Yet I couldn’t