Even with his back to her, Soojung could see the rage wash over Sehun. It was clear in the tense set of his shoulders, from how he'd planted his feet—and the balled, white-knuckled fist he'd made his with left hand was a dead giveaway about the fury coursing through him.

As she stared at his back, waiting for a reaction, for him to speak—for him to do something—she traded an anxious glance with Sam who, true to his born-rescuer instincts, ran a hand through his hair and took a cautious step toward Sehun's tense form.

"Look...Sehun..." he started, only to come up short when, finally, Sehun swung around, his burning golden gaze skidding across Sam, to land on Soojung, who felt pinned in place by his barely leashed temper.

"Leave," Sehun ground out, his unflinching gaze boring into Soojung, even though it was obvious he was talking to Sam.

Caught between them, Sam cast another worried look in Soojung's direction, then held up both hands toward Sehun in a placating gesture. "Look," he repeated, "I don't think this is the—"

"I don't give a  what you think," Sehun bit out, shifting his glittering eyes to Sam. "This is between me and Soojung, so get out of my face."

Sam stiffened. "You can go to hell. I'm not leaving."

Soojung could feel the tension in the hallway heighten as if it were a physical thing, pressing in against her chest, making it hard to breathe. For the second time tonight, she had the uneasy feeling that things were about to get ugly, and fast, if she didn't do something.

Edging in toward Sam, she placed a calming hand on his arm. "It's okay," she half-whispered. "Just go. I'll be fine."

A long moment passed as Sam and Sehun stared each other down, then, expelling a hard breath, Sam dug his hands into the pockets of his slacks, and shot Soojung a half-hearted smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Fine." He shifted his attention back to Sehun. "I would tell you not to be any more of an than you can help," he muttered, "but we all know I'd be wasting my breath."

Sehun didn't respond. Just glared at Sam with a cold, closed expression that made it clear that his patience was drawing dangerously thin.

Sighing, Sam shook his head and turned to leave. "Call me if you need me," he told Soojung, before retreating down the hallway. 

Then, too soon, she was alone with Sehun, feeling like her skin was about to burst into flames under his livid scrutiny. Already, she felt horrible about what she'd said; no matter how mad she was, she shouldn't have thrown his past in his face like that.

Sometimes, though, he just got to her and she lashed out, wanting to hurt him back in some way. It was an incredibly dysfunctional reaction, she knew, but when it came to dealing with Sehun's volatile temper...well, she could only turn the other cheek so many times before she snapped.

Still, even with regret making her feel almost ill, she couldn't get her mind, or , to form an explanation, or an apology, to try and set things right. And one look at his expression told her that it didn't even matter. She could see that he was beyond hearing her.

After a long stretch of tense silence, when she still hadn't spoken, Sehun cocked his head, a nasty smirk playing across his usually-attractive lips. "That's it, huh? You've got nothing to say now?" 

Soojung searched his face, trying to find some emotion, any emotion, besides anger, but there was nothing. 

She shrugged with a miserable shake of her head. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry I said what I did? Because I am. But you were acting like a crazy person upstairs, and Andreas—"

"Don't!" Sehun's long legs ate up the distance between them in a few angry strides until he stopped in front of her, shoving his face in close to hers. "Don't you ing mention him," he demanded, his golden eyes flashing. "You talked to that for, what? Five minutes, and now you think you know all about it? You don't know a goddamn thing. And the most ed up part about it is that I bet you honestly believed everything that piece of told you."

This close to him, the look in his eyes made Soojung sick to her stomach. He was pissed off, yes, and he'd been angry with her before, but this...this was fury mixed with betrayal. It killed her that she couldn't tell if that hurt was directed toward her, for talking to Andreas about him, or for bringing up his past, with Rachel.

And, ersely, she had to know. 

He was furious with her, she knew that, but if what Andreas had told her was true, she wanted to hear it from Sehun's own mouth, to watch his face while he said the words—while he, unknowingly, broke her stupid, masochistic heart yet again, by admitting that he'd been in love with someone else.

Someone that wasn't, and would never be, her.

"Then you tell me," she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, more as a protective gesture, than out of defensiveness.

He stared at her for a long moment, only to let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "Why should I tell you a damn thing? As far as I can tell, you already got the whole story from Andreas. I had a girlfriend. He ed her. Case closed, right?"

She flinched at his caustic tone, not knowing what to say, what to do to diffuse the situation. When he got like this, usually her best option was to wait for the storm to pass. But she couldn't do that this time. Instead, she took a cautious step toward him, tilting her head to get a better look at his face, which was drawn taut with anger. 

"No," she said, slowly, "I don't think it is case closed. If it were, you wouldn't be acting like this. And, what happened upstairs," she gestured over her shoulder, toward the now-quiet elevators, "wouldn't have happened. There's obviously more to this than an old fight over a girl, Sehun. I just wish you'd tell me."

He leaned in close then, coming down so his face was level with hers, his normally glowing golden eyes gone hard and flat, like a pair of worn pennies. "You wanna know what really happened?" he half-whispered, his voice vibrating with tension. "You wanna hear about how I dated that girl, the one who dumped me," he spat the word, "for almost six months, only to walk in on her ing Andreas in one of the bathrooms at the CIA? Is that what you wanna hear, Soojung?" 

He cocked his head to the side, the bunched muscles in his jaw working furiously as he gritted out his words through clenched teeth. "Or, how about the fact that when I found her with him, I got arrested because the lying, ing  told me he'd her—and I tried to kill him for it."

Horror roiled through Soojung's stomach and she found that she couldn't meet his eyes, knowing that if she did, she'd see the rawness beneath his anger and she wouldn't be able to hold back the tears. God, she hurt for him. She knew how hard it was for Sehun to trust, to trust anyone, so the fact that he'd been betrayed, and so horribly, tore at her heart.

With a helpless shrug, she stared down sightlessly at the carpet beneath her feet, knowing that if he saw the pity in her eyes, it would just enrage him even more. "I'm so...I'm so sorry," she managed to gasp out, biting the inside of her cheek to keep her voice steady. "I wish you'd told me."

He exhaled roughly, backing away from her with a careless shake of his head. "What the difference would it have made? Huh?" He flung his arms out, watching her with an expression of mocking inquiry. "Tell me something, though. When should I have told you? Should I have called you while I was sitting in jail for six goddamn hours, hating myself for letting what I thought happened, happen to someone I cared about?"

"But, no," he barreled on, "I guess I should've called you when the cops filled me in about that 's little side-job with A