Chapter 10

Sehun

Seulgi was crying.

Sehun’s hands shook while he sloppily shoved the edges of a fitted sheet around the cushions of their new couch. He was trying his best, really trying his best not to be weird about this, because he remembered the look on his mother’s face when she told him how proud she was that he was going to use his career to help people. And more than that (and Goodness, Sehun was apparently the type to fall fast because putting someone else first like this couldn’t be natural), Sehun remembered the sound of Seulgi’s voice cracking when she told him why she was becoming an agent, pictured Seulgi as a teenager, young and afraid of herself and alone, and Sehun just. He couldn’t. He couldn’t tell Seulgi about his stupid crush. It wasn’t just his dream that it would ruin. He was not going to be responsible for Seulgi becoming scared and alone again.

He made a frustrated noise as he heard a stifled sob filter through the bedroom door. Maybe he was going to be responsible for that either way.

“S-Seulgi?” he asked, tapping a knuckle against the door. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Seulgi snapped, though she hardly sounded threatening through a stuffy nose. “I’m fine, Sehun. Not that you care.” The last part was quiet, muffled, like she was half-whispering it through her fingers, hands rubbing across her face. This was bad. Seulgi rarely called him Sehun. She called him Sehunnie or Chicken or Babe or whatever inane thing ran through her head. And Seulgi had accused him of a million things, true and untrue, things like stealing the covers and stretching her tshirts and forgetting to do the dishes, but never had she accused him of not caring.

Sehun wanted to run into the room and tackle her into a hug, wanted to pin her to the mattress and press kisses to the wrinkles she got in her forehead when she cried (like she did twice within the first ten minutes of Up ((disney movie :))), and to the corners of her eyes and her flushed cheeks.

Sehun had done that kind of thing a million times before. Seulgi would think nothing of it. But when Sehun inevitably got hard from pinning her against the mattress, or trailed his lips across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose and ended at her lips, or gripped her face between his hands and said “Don’t you dare say I don’t care about you. I care too much, idiot” before biting a bruise into her neck, he was pretty sure Seulgi would notice that something was different.

In fact, it should have been simple for Seulgi to figure it out. Sehun’s being obvious again.

Sehun had never been conflicted about using every part of himself to get what he needed.

Until now.

Until Seulgi was crying in the next room because she was confused and missing parts of Sehun no one else saw – pieces of himself he was afraid would die without Seulgi.

So.

So Sehun backed away from the door and went to make some of that lemonade, even though Seulgi didn’t want it. She probably would in a bit – crying always made her thirsty. And anyway, Sehun needed to do something with his hands, or he was afraid they would develop minds of their own and put themselves on Seulgi.

It was weird, he thought, how easily he had gotten used to casual touches with Seulgi, small presses of fingers against skin, arms wrapped around his waist or tickling his sides. Now, it felt unnatural to not be in constant contact with her, to try to avoid orbiting her like a planet around the sun. But Seulgi was light and warmth and Sehun would be lying if he said he didn’t miss her gravity.

Sehun sighed. The level of sap circulating through his brain was actually making him nauseous.

“SOS,” his fingers types into his phone without permission.

“Traitors.” Sehun glared at him, but they hit send anyway.

Within two minutes, Chanyeol was calling him.

“So you’re admitting it now?”

Sehun sighed. “What am I supposed to be admitting to you exactly, Chan?”

“Come on, Sehun. A blind man could see the way you look at her.”

“Chanyeol,” Sehun said, “I can’t look at her, anyway." His voice was thicker than he expected, his throat felt tight. Belatedly, he realized he was seconds from crying. “I’m not supposed to. . This is supposed to be my shot, Chanyeol. I’m supposed to be happy and it was fine when I didn’t know. It was fine and we were perfect and now I’m ruining everything.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true.”

“She’s crying. On the king-sized bed I told her we couldn’t share. After trying to feed her eggs benedict instead of talking to her.”

“Sehun,” Chanyeol breathed, “Tell me it hasn’t been like this since the club.”

“Well,” Sehun said, “Yesterday I made her quiche instead of eggs benedict. Turns out, she doesn’t like quiche. You live, you learn.”

Chanyeol sighed loudly, making the speaker crackle against Sehun’s ear. “If you hurt her, Sehun…”

Sehun groaned. “No one wants to see that girl hurt less than me. A