CHAPTER XII

Tender

Baekhyun had been inside his room for half of the day now. Mari had spent that same amount of time distracting herself away from him by cleaning up around his apartment. 

But by now, it was already 2PM and he had not came out to have lunch even if Mari had knocked on his door to tell him that there's food ready two hours ago. Plus, she was also running out of spaces to clean or countertops to wipe. 

She had not touched the silver chain wrapped around her wrist at all. It was too difficult to think of it and try to make sense of the situation; it left her too conflicted. 

She just truly did not want to deal with him right now. In the past, this method of ignoring her problems has worked before. When she hated her siblings, they somehow went abroad, only seldom to be seen again. When she hated her father, he would always be abroad and she would always have little reason to see him. 

But right now, she knew that Baekhyun wasn't going away anywhere. 

The image of him pleading to her with gleaming eyes kept flashing back to her mind. She would shake her head, as if to shoo the thought away but it just never worked. 

He would always come back appearing on her consciousness. Even the feeling of having his soft, slender fingers touching her wrist still lingered until now.

Throwing the dish towel on the counter angrily, she decided to confront him once and for all. 

Knocking heavily on his door, she swore she could have almost banged it down with the adrenaline that she was getting high on. "Open up, Baekhyun. Stop being a wuss and let's talk about it!" she shouted as she kept on pounding. 

It must have been the combination of the Matcha Milk Tea she had gulped one hour earlier and the confusion that she felt when he apologized, but she just did not want to deal with him any longer in her mind. 

It could have also been the fact that she felt emotionally conflicted when replaying his apology-confession because instead of feeling happy and proud of herself, she felt that tiny little bit of disgust mixed with a smothering desire to just hug him and admit all her wrongs. 

The door finally opened. 

And a meek Baekhyun hid behind the door, behind him was his room, as dark as the dawn Mari had woken up to earlier. The blinds were all drawn, as if to indulge himself in his sulking. 

"Let's talk about it?" he tried to repeat to her, with that same smart- wannabe tone and that upturned smirk. But it did not work. His puffy eyes and disheveled hair blew his cover. 

It was almost laughable how Baekhyun practically flew to his room as if he was a child locking himself in his room after being scolded by his parents. But Mari wasn't in the mood to laugh at him right now. If there was anyone to laugh at, it was her.

"Had he been crying?" she thought to herself in surprise. 

Baekhyun was intelligent. He was smart, there was no doubt about that. But his emotional intelligence was indirectly proportional to his intellectuality. He was a poor liar and he acted on his emotions easily. 

Mari had never been like this. 

She regarded herself as the master of her emotions — oftentimes able to conceal her feelings to manipulate the situation. But in the past, she has had two outbursts: one after he stole the top spot from her and now, when her manipulative self ended up backfiring on her — both were caused by him.

"Let's talk about it," Mari repeated herself firmly, holding out the door and entering his room. 

She was still high from the adrenaline rush of her emotional conflict and seeing him again in this vulnerable state made her just want to jump off a building. 

Successfully, she closed the door behind her and managed to trap him inside with her. She flicked off the lights to illuminate the room. Thankfully, there was a small air conditioned unit running so the room was pretty chilly. 

Mari sat herself down by the doorway, trying hard not to cross off much of his personal space. The room was actually pretty chic in style, less for the mess found all over the place — not to mention, some women's underwear thrown in the mix with his own black and white clothes, which, she found to be odd but she decided to ignore it for now. 

When she finally sat down and saw him sitting on the edge of his bed, it dawned on her that she really did not have any plan at all. The adrenaline rush was slowly wearing off now. 

Finding her words, she couldn't successfully think of anything to ask him. Everything would warrant to her admitting to her mistakes. And now that she was in a better functioning state of mind, she couldn't gather up the courage and tell him her lies and secrets. 

After a few minutes of silence that seemed like an eternity, Baekhyun spoke, finally being able to gather his thoughts.