The drive from the Big City back to your town was your favorite part of when you would come home from visiting your older sister and her family.

The town was basically a smaller version of the Big City with less skyscrapers and more land, separated from the latter by a body of water called Diamond Lake which earned its name from the locals by how it glistened even without much sun showing in the sky.

The expanse of the highway that led back to town gave the perfect view of it, matched with the landscape of The Ridges, the hills up north that were tall enough to be mountains but were still called otherwise.

It was a little over quarter to six, and at any moment, the sunset would begin painting the sky with pastel undertones with the lake reflecting the hues. It was the most magical time of the day.

You stopped your car at a red light in the large intersection just before the town’s border and you took a moment to look out your window and appreciate the golden hour before it slipped right through your fingers.

The honking of the vehicle behind you reeled you back into reality where the traffic light was green, so you drove forward and let the sunset go.

From your peripheral, you could make out an ominous shape coming towards the side of your car and the last things your senses registered were the deafening sound of a horn blaring, the taste of blood, the heady stench of gasoline, and shrapnel cutting through your skin before the world stopped spinning.

“You can stop now,” Junmyeon softly said as he rested his warm hand over your cold ones. “We can take a break for a while. You looked like you were uncomfortable.”

True enough, cold sweat was running down the side of your temples and your heart was beating violently against your chest. Your fingers had gone numb from the terror of revisiting the accident; pins and needles have seemingly replaced its nerves when you tried to flex them.

“I’m sorry, I thought… I thought I would be better at it by now.”

“It’s okay,” Junmyeon smiled sympathetically. “Actually, you’ve gotten better even if you don’t realize it. The first time we did this you couldn’t even get pass describing the scenery and now you’ve gotten to the most important part. You’re doing amazing.”

“Oh. I didn’t notice that.”

Junmyeon nodded. “Most people don’t, really. They never know that they’re doing better until someone tells them. And you don’t have to get better right away because we aren’t racing against anything or anyone. This is a long and tedious process, and we just have to trust it.”

When you first met him, Junmyeon promised you that he would be patient with you and he also made you promise that you would be patient with yourself because as with most mental illnesses, no cure exists for PTSD. The symptoms, however, can be effectively managed to restore a patient to normal functioning, but treatment will always be a work in progress.

“We’ll just go through the usual post-treatment routine and we’re done for the day,” Junmyeon said as he retrieved his notes from his desk. “Do you still have trouble sleeping?”

You shook your head.

“Do you still have nightmares?”

“Not that I remember,” you replied. “And I usually remember my nightmares.”

“Hmm,” Junmyeon paused, his brows arching in concentration. “Remember when you told me that your soulmate told you about his dream?”

“What about it?”

He took off his glasses and gave you a wide smile. “Well, according to my notes, you’ve been sleeping better and without nightmares, too, after that day. I guess things are going great between the two of you?”

As a matter of fact, yes.

Everything went back to normal after Baekhyun’s surprise visit with the addition of more coffee dates at Mrs. Song’s café, movie nights on Fridays, and long walks home.

You told Baekhyun that you still wanted to take it slow—he was still one of your students’ legal guardians, after all—and the guy took it gracefully and never went too far for your liking, adding to the extensive list of things that you loved about him, along with the way he scrunches his nose when he laughs, the sparkle in his eyes when he talked about music, and how he cutely held a pen like a five year old when he was writing.

You were disgustingly whipped and it had been barely a month.

Somewhere in between, you managed to tell Baekhyun the entirety of your condition, and he was one of the few people that didn’t look at you like it was a contagious disease or like you were bat crazy. He didn’t treat you any differently than how he had been with you before he knew and he had been so supportive about everything.

That was why he was waiting for you at the clinic’s lobby, chatting with Joohyun like the chatterbox he was.

Picking you up after therapy became a thing after you opened up to him. You remembered being surprised when you saw him waiting for you after one of your sessions and the next thing you knew he was there at every single one of them, not missing a day even when he was busy.

You often went for coffee at Mrs. Song’s after sessions but it was midterms week and you had a lot of test papers to grade so you asked Baekhyun to just walk you home, promising that you would make it up to him next week.

“How was therapy?” He asked as the two of you walked through the quiet streets of your neighborhood with the remnants of fall crunching under your shoes and the air just a little bit colder than it was a couple of nights ago.

“Same as the past few weeks,” you shrugged. “It’s still narration. Although Junmyeon said I was getting better at it.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Baekhyun smiled. “But I’m pretty sure it has something to do with me.”

“I take back all of the things I said about you being humble. You’re so full of yourself,” you rolled your eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Cocksure,” you said as the two of you arrive at your apartment’s front door.

Baekhyun laughed, the annoying kind that he does when you know he was about to say something stupid. “You said you want to take it slow and yet here you are, using the C-word.” And there it was.

“ off, Byun.” But you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling.

“What are you doing the night before your birthday?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Why are you asking?”

“Well…” Baekhyun began, his eyes gleaming with something you couldn’t put a finger on—maybe excitement? “You did say you would make it up to me.”

 

—

 

Baekhyun’s smile didn’t waver one bit since he showed up at your front door nearly two hours ago. It was getting creepy.

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Grinning like a madman,” you replied as you playfully hit his arm. “It’s like you’re planning something evil. It’s freaking me out. Wait, are you kidnapping me?”

“It’s not kidnapping if you’re coming with me on your own free will,” he countered as that stupid smirk remained on his face.

“Maybe if you told me where we’re going I wouldn’t be asking questions.”

“But that would ruin the whole thing!” He whined like a kid—as he always did—and it made you question if he truly was almost twenty-six years old. “That’s why it’s called a surprise, dummy.”

You didn’t know exactly where the two of you were headed, but based from the direction you have been walking for the past two hours, you were certain that you were going to The Ridges.

It wasn’t even that far from town, more or less forty-five minutes by car, but that was the problem—you couldn’t ride one. If Baekhyun was tired, it wasn’t obvious from the way he was acting all bubbly despite sweat beading on his forehead. He never once complained, but that only made you guiltier than you already were.

“We’re going camping, aren’t we?” You asked as the two of you stopped at a lone convenience store at the base of the hills, which you knew because you had been here before.

Baekhyun froze. “You’ve been to The Ridges before?”

“I’ve lived here longer than you so of course I’ve been there before,” you deadpanned. “Chanyeol and I also used to go hiking there, way back in college. Why didn’t you just tell me? We could’ve taken a car instead of walking all the way here.”

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he shrugged as he gulped down an entire bottle of water in one swing. “We’re almost there, anyway. No harm done. Why are you getting mad at me?”

“Baek, we could’ve driven here instead of walking,” you repeated.

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“I can handle being uncomfortable!” You argued, although you weren’t completely sure if you could’ve truly handled it. “You could’ve just told me. Now you’re all tired and sweaty and your feet are probably aching and I feel like it’s my entire fault.”

Baekhyun just laughed. The idiot probably thought you were joking. “Love, I’m not tired one bit,” he said, and he said a couple of things after that, but all you heard was one word.

Love.

It wasn’t even that much of an endearment—he had probably said that to a lot of other girls before he met you—but it was enough to occupy the entire space of your mind as the two of you made your way to the camping site, which, as you had predicted, was absolutely empty, save for the camp for two people that had been already set up, possibly by Baekhyun beforehand. December wasn’t the most opportune time to go camping, after all.

“So your surprise for my birthday is to go sleep in the woods in the brink of winter,” you said. “I’m starting to think this is more of a tactic to get me to die of hypothermia than a birthday gift.”

“It’s not even that cold,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, and right on time, a cold breeze blew through the clearing, making both of you shiver.

“You were saying?” You raised your brows in contempt. “Of all things, why camping? Couldn’t we have just eaten at someplace nice or something? I know a nice French restaurant downtown. It’s not too late to pack up.”

Baekhyun looked at his wristwatch and simply smiled. “You’ll see.”

 

After Baekhyun got a fire going and organized all your stuff—yes, you let him do everything because this was his idea, after all—the two of you sat in front of the fire as you ate hot gazpacho that suspiciously tasted like Kyungsoo’s cooking despite Baekhyun insisting that he prepared it.

“Okay, let’s just say Kyungsoo helped me with it,” he finally admitted after your adamant prying.

Even though you didn’t want to admit it, Baekhyun did an amazing job with planning the whole thing. You wondered how he found the time to organize everything despite how busy you knew he was, working at the radio station with a couple of other jobs at the side.

“Hey, Baek, you’re rich, right?” You asked out of the blue as you ate another spoonful of stew.

Baekhyun chuckled. “Depends on why you’re asking. You’re not a gold digger, are you?”

“What? No!” You rolled your eyes. “It’s just… Why do you work so much? I’m pretty sure you earned a lot from being a producer and you get paid well at the radio station, but why do you still do so many things at the same time?” You asked, swirling the soup in your bowl. “I just don’t want you to overwork yourself.”

He put away his now-empty dish and crossed his arms in front of him, shielding himself from the cold. “It’s not entirely for me,” Baekhyun said so softly that you barely heard him. “It’s for my brother. I just want to give Sehun some security.”

“Didn’t your parents leave something behind after they…”

“Well, yes,” he answered immediately, not allowing you to finish your sentence. Maybe it was still a topic too sensitive to touch, even for someone with a personality as bright as Baekhyun. “But it’s not going to be there forever, and I don’t want Sehun to be left to fend for himself. I mean, I make enough for myself but I want to make more for my little brother, um, even though he’s a little taller than me.”

“A little,” you snorted at his understatement. “It’s nice to see that you really love him even though he’s just your half-brother.”

Baekhyun and Sehun were only brothers through their mom, which is the reason why they didn’t have the same surname and therefore it wasn’t that obvious that they were related. They looked nothing alike, and to add to that, their personalities were a lot different as well. But despite that, they got along pretty well as you have observed from hanging around at their house too much.

“Well, he is the only family I have left,” Baekhyun said. “But now, I have you.”

“Okay, let’s not get too serious here,” you joked despite your face heating up and your heart jumping to your throat at Baekhyun’s words. “Remind me why we’re here again.”

Baekhyun laughed. “What time is it?”

“A little over eight. Why?”

Baekhyun said nothing and instead pointed at the sky, which was littered with more stars than you were used to seeing back in town. You couldn’t remember the last time you saw so many of them.

“They’re beautiful,” you gasped.

“Yes,” Baekhyun agreed. “But we’re not here to just stargaze.”

That was when you saw it: a string of light cutting through the night sky that disappeared as fast as it arrived, and just when you thought it was just a trick of the eye, more followed—stars falling from their place and scratching the heavens.

“The Geminids,” Baekhyun explained. “They happen every year around your birthday.”

To say that the meteor shower was breathtaking was an understatement. Every shooting star felt like the first all over again, the novelty seemingly never wearing off no matter how many stars followed.

They happen every year around your birthday, Baekhyun had said. You were well aware that you shared your birthday with millions of people, but still, the Geminids made you feel special, as if it was the universe’s way of greeting you happy birthday, like you were more than just an insignificant speck in its great expanse.

You put your hands together and closed your eyes.

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun asked.

“I’m making a wish,” you answered and Baekhyun’s silence followed. When you fluttered your eyes open, you looked at him and questioned, “Baek, do you know why people wish upon shooting stars?”

He shook his head.

“Well, people say that the reason why the stars are falling is because god, or whoever higher being is out there, is tipping the heavens as they look over Earth,” you expounded. “People believe that shooting stars indicate that god is being extra attentive, so we make a wish and hope he hears it and makes it come true.”

Baekhyun hummed as he nodded. “So… what did you wish for?”

“I wished for everyone that I love and care about becomes happy. You, especially,” you said, your face heating up at your confession. “Aren’t you going to wish for anything? Or maybe you don’t believe in wishing upon shooting stars because they’re childish?”

He laughed. “I’m the epitome of childish. You, of all people, should know that.”

“Then go wish for something.”

“I already got my wish,” Baekhyun softly said as his gentle eyes fell on you, and you somehow knew what he had meant by that.

 

—

 

It had been a while since you last picked up a brush and painted on canvas, so this session’s activity didn’t quite come off as easily as you had expected.

Almost four hours had passed since you started, but Junmyeon remained where he sat since the beginning, looking at you as you painted and observing attentively as he scribbled down on his notepad. Whenever you would turn around to face him as if to silently say that you couldn’t finish the painting, he coaxed you gently to continue and convinced you that you were doing great.

Eventually, you managed to convince yourself too, finishing the piece without a single untouched spot on the canvas.

Junmyeon exhaled as he stood up to examine your painting more closely. “It looks beautiful,” he complimented. “At first I thought you weren’t feeling good lately because you started off the painting with such dark colors. But then you started adding the stars.”

The exercise was trying to paint a vehicle. At first it was kind of challenging, but then you thought of the eve of your birthday. Painting a convertible parked in a field with a woman sitting inside and gazing at a meteor shower then came easy.

“It’s really beautiful,” Junmyeon repeated. “I knew you liked to paint but I had no idea you were this good.”

You smiled despite rolling your eyes. “You’re just saying that.”

“Am I?” He teased, letting out a small chuckle. “Anyway, this is interesting. The woman looks completely at peace… even happy, perhaps?” He asked and you nodded. “May I ask what the inspiration for this is, if it’s okay with you to share it with me?”

“Nothing special,” you tried to brush it off, but you could feel heat rising to your cheeks. “I just went to see the Geminids last week. I just found out that they occur annually around my birthday.”

“Ah. So you’re the woman inside the car?” Junmyeon asked as he stepped closer towards the canvas to look more at the details.

“Yeah.”

“Why are you alone, though? In the painting, I mean.”

You smiled. “I’m not,” you simply said while pointing towards the corner of the canvas where a silver moon was painted.

“Oh… Moonlight. Baekhyun’s there,” Junmyeon laughed. “Minseok wasn’t kidding when he said you were poetic.”

 

—

 

As much as you didn’t want to admit it, comfort was easy to find in Baekhyun. His presence—even just the scent of his perfume that you used to hate but somehow grew on you or the mere sound he creates when he hums was enough for you to settle, to calm your worries, and to make you feel at peace, like you were home.

It was because of this that you found yourself calling him at two in the morning before you could even realize what you were doing.

“Hey, are you okay?” Baekhyun’s voice echoed from the other line. It didn’t take him long to pick up, and you wondered what he was doing before you had called.

“Nothing, I…” You stammered, unsure why you called him in the first place.

The sound of his chuckle traveled through the speaker. “Miss me?”

“You wish.”

“Ah, it’s okay to tell me that you miss me. It’ll be our little secret,” Baekhyun said, and you could practically hear the conceit in his voice. This time, his tone turned softer. “Can’t sleep?”

You hummed in agreement.

“Want me to come over?”

“Baek, it’s literally the dead of the night,” you argued. “You can’t just ‘come over’.”

“Actually, I can, because I live like less than ten minutes away from you and I have a car,” he countered, and you heard the unmistakable sound of a car unlocking. “See you in a few,” and then he ended the call.

True enough, Baekhyun’s car rolled in front of your front door a few minutes later, the soft purring of its engine misplaced in the sleeping neighborhood. You rushed downstairs to greet him and as soon as you opened the door, he wrapped his arms around you.

It was always like this with him. Words were never required to explain what the other needed, like how Baekhyun knew how a simple phone call from you warranted a late night visit and a tight hug, and it was this kind of familiarity you never thought you’d have with someone, the kind that can only be found in cheesy chick flicks and romance novels and sappy love songs.

“Did I wake you?”

“No,” Baekhyun whispered in your ear as the two of you snuggled in your bed. “I couldn’t sleep too so I decided to do a little rendering on this project I’m working on.”

You looked up at him. “You shouldn’t have come over. Don’t you have work tomorrow, er, later?”

“I can call in sick for you,” he smiled. “Besides, it’s Valentine’s. We should spend the day together.”

“Valentine’s is just a made up holiday by the capitalist system to milk off money from the masses and…” You stopped. “Wait, is it really the fourteenth?” You sat up immediately and grabbed your phone from the nightstand.

Baekhyun chuckled. “You forgot?”

“I didn’t really pay attention to Valentine’s before so I don’t remember it unless someone reminds me.”

“Well now you have me to remind you,” Baekhyun said as he reached out his arms for you to join him back in bed. “I’ll remind you next year, and the year after that, and then the year after that, and the year after that…”

And just like that, you somehow fell asleep with Baekhyun’s warmth pressed against yours and his hand softly brushing your hair. You wished nights like this would come often, and maybe they would if you could finally have the courage to let yourself go and allow yourself to want Baekhyun without thinking of anything else.

 

—

 

The third phase of exposure therapy was especially challenging: sitting in Junmyeon’s office, literally doing nothing but watching TV.

For most people, it seemed like the easiest thing to do in the world—lazing around a velvet couch and gorging your eyes on show after show—but for you, it was the complete opposite as the predominant character on every picture flashed on screen was the one thing you have spent the past year actively trying to avoid: cars.

Sure, you have managed to orally recall the accident and have successfully painted a vehicle using oil on canvas, but there was something about the way they were projected on a monitor complete with the shrill sound of tires against tracks, feet against pedals, and cars against wind.

It made the fear more concrete than narrating and drawing ever will, and on the first day of phase three when Junmyeon made you watch a Formula 1 race, you didn’t even make it past the five-minute mark of the footage.

Fortunately, Junmyeon was never impatient with you just as he had promised, and by the fourth week of watching cars on TV, you could finish a Fast and the Furious movie without hitting the pause button even just once.

You confessed to Junmyeon that you felt pathetic that it took you a solid month to get over the fear of seeing vehicles in action even just through the TV, but he assured you for the nth time (you’ve lost count as he was not once uncomforting) that you were doing incredibly well.

It was also a bit pathetic to admit that you were managing to get by well because of Baekhyun, but it was nothing but the truth. It was Junmyeon who first noticed this before you did, and you disclosed that it shouldn’t be right that you were somehow depending on Baekhyun’s love for you to get past your condition.

“Yes, that does sound quite romanticizing it,” Junmyeon said. “But as far as I can see, it isn’t just Baekhyun’s affection that’s helping you. You don’t notice a lot of things, and you most certainly don’t notice that you, yourself, are helping you overcome your illness. Baekhyun’s just an accessory, but you’re doing most of the work.”

“I don’t get it,” you frowned.

Junmyeon smiled softly, patiently. “Even before you met him, you were already determined to get better. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have come to see me every week on your own free will. It’s just that… ah, how do I put this? Baekhyun was just that little push.” He patted your shoulder good-naturedly. “Sometimes we think a bit too independently that we immediately see support from someone as a weakness. But it’s not a weakness. Every so often, we need even just the minimum amount of dependency to get us going. We’re all dependent on something, some a little more than others, but it should never be seen as a flaw unless it’s unhealthy.”

You looked at him hopefully.

“And I think Baekhyun’s far from unhealthy for you,” Junmyeon added.

That was when all your doubts about yourself left you, causing Junmyeon to decide that you were ready for the one last activity of exposure therapy that you needed to accomplish.

It was the first time you were holding a session outside of his office. You followed him outside of the clinic, and when you thought he was going to make you ride the bus—an actual, moving vehicle that you weren’t certain you were already poised to handle even after gaining back your self-confidence—he brings out his car keys from his pocket and walked towards the small parking area enough for two cars just beside the building where his office was in.

“A—are we going for a drive?” You stammered as your heart crept up to your throat. An even worse idea barged into your brain, making bile threaten to spill out of your mouth. “Am I going to drive?”

Junmeyon held up his hands in front of him as if to say he came in peace, the silver keys with its ring looped around his index finger glinting under the spring sun. “Relax. We’re just going to desensitize you a bit further.”

“What do you mean?” You asked as you tilted your head to the side, anxiety finally lowering in your system.

Junmyeon just smiled and walked over to his black Bentley as you intently watched him. He drilled the key into the shotgun seat’s lock, opened the door wide, and gestured for you to come closer.

“The final part of exposure therapy is exposing you to the real thing,” he finally explained. “If you can get over this, I can call your treatment a success generally but the rest still depends on you.”

You knew what he wanted you to do.

Junmyeon wanted you to get in the car.

The last time you willingly got inside a vehicle was the day of the accident, but the real last time was when you were unconscious inside the ambulance that took you to the hospital. When you woke up after that, you had never climbed inside anything that either had wheels or moved—you didn’t even ride escalators and elevators—but now waiting in front of you was the final test of overcoming your phobia.

Mind fogging and palms sweating, you slowly walked towards Junmyeon and his car, aware of the sickly sound of your shoes’ soles scraping against the concrete and your breath hitching in your throat.

You stood just outside the Bentley, the familiar yet unwelcoming smell of leather and pine freshener wafting into your nose. How could something hit so close to home yet hurt at the same time? But then again, most things were like that.

Before fear could get the best of you, you climbed onto the passenger seat without thinking too much about it, closing your eyes as you gauged the foreign sensation of sitting inside a car for the first time in a really long while.

“Are you good?” Junmyeon asked, and when you didn’t answer, he added, “Try opening your eyes. Desensitizing works best when more of the five senses are exposed.”

Slowly but surely, you cracked your eyelids open, the grey interior of Junmyeon’s car filling the picture.

“How do you feel?”

“Weird,” you answered almost immediately. “I don’t feel bad… but I don’t think I’m particularly okay, either. I feel like I’m somewhere in the middle.”

From your side, you could make out a faint frown on Junmyeon’s face.

“Is that bad?”

He shook his head. “Not really bad. But not good enough.” Now it was your turn to frown. “Hey, it’s okay. No one’s expecting you to get it on the first try. We’ll try and try until you feel comfortable inside a car, and when you think you’re ready, you can take it further,” Junmyeon smiled.

 

Sessions were held inside the black Bentley the following weeks after that.

The second try was much like the first one, shaky and uncertain, but when Junmyeon found a way to make the desensitization a little more interesting—playing music and bringing in food, among others—the next sessions went smoothly.

Everything reminded you of the Friday afternoon drives you had with Chanyeol when you were in college, only this time, Junmyeon was in the driver’s seat.

He never drove the car. He just let it sit on the parking lot with the engine on so the two of you could use the air-conditioning, and it was almost incredulous of Junmyeon to waste so much gas just for the sake of your therapy when you remembered that it was literally part of his job: to help you get better to the best of his ability and resources.

So on the final day of therapy, you went out of your way to show him how much you appreciated all that he had done for you.

“I’m not sure if I should be doing this, but…” You said uncertainly before you took a huge step towards Junmyeon and wrapped your arms around him. He was taken aback at first, but when he finally hugged you back, you said, “Thank you, Junmyeon. For helping me. For making me believe in myself again. For everything.”

“It’s nothing—”

“And don’t say that it was your job,” you cut him off. “I already know that, but still. Thank you. You’re the best doctor anyone could ever have, and I’m sure you’ll be helping a lot of other people.”

You pulled away, and if you weren’t mistaken, you could see a hint of color in Junmyeon’s cheeks.

“What, don’t I get a hug too?” A voice from behind you echoed, earning a laugh from Junmyeon. You turned around and saw Minseok, the other Dr. Kim, walking towards the two of you. “I mean, I know we only saw each other once but I know I helped you somehow,” he scrunched his brows in pretense.

“No.”

Minseok only rolled his eyes. “Fine. But let me tell you something, at least,” he said, gesturing you to come closer so he could whisper something in your ear. When you do, however, you just end up getting confused at his words. “Baekhyun’s more special than you think he is.”

“How would you know that? Are you a god or something?”

A smile is the only response you could solicit from him.

 

—

 

“Baek.”

Baekhyun hummed distractedly as he looked up from the book he was reading. “What?”

“What do you want for your birthday?” You asked, rolling on your bed so that you were now on your stomach. “I still haven’t got anything and it’s already tomorrow.”

Baekhyun didn’t sleep over at your apartment often, but when he did, it was usually to make up for something. This time, it was for not being able to pick you up after therapy because Bo-ah, the owner of The Constrictor and a friend of Baekhyun’s, asked him to perform a couple of songs at the bar.

“Aren’t birthday gifts supposed to be surprises?”

“Yeah, but… It’s easier to get something when I know what you want.”

Baekhyun put down his book and leaned closer, your faces just barely inches away from each other. If you said you didn’t think about kissing him at least once a day would be a lie, especially during moments like this when the two of you defied personal space.

But the two of you never kissed, even after five months of seeing each other, mostly because you were too afraid of taking it too fast. You never said this explicitly to Baekhyun, but he somehow understood, pulling away when he saw you were uncomfortable.

“I don’t want anything,” Baekhyun said as he kissed your forehead before leaning back against the headboard. “I already got everything I wanted.”

You smiled despite rolling your eyes. “When will you ever not be cheesy?”

“Probably never,” he laughed. “It’s funny seeing you blush despite acting all tough.”

“I hate you. I hope you know that,” you said, scooting closer to him so that you were now resting your chin on his chest. He placed his hand on your back and began caressing your hair, a habit he had acquired whenever the two of you snugged together in bed.

“How was therapy?” He asked. “I’m free next week. I can pick you up then.”

“Actually…” You began, a smile beginning to form on your lips. “Today was the last day.”

“What?”

“Junmyeon let me off the hook,” you explained. “He thinks I’m better enough not to attend therapy anymore. Although I have to continue taking my meds for another six months just to be safe from a relapse. After that, I’m good. But he told me to go to him if I ever—”

You didn’t get the chance to finish what you were saying before Baekhyun pulled you into a tight embrace. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, a comfortable silence filling your room.

“I’m so proud of you.”

Tears stung your eyes and it took every ounce of your self-control not to let them spill. “Thank you,” you managed to say. “You helped a lot, Baek. You have no idea. I wouldn’t have done it without you.”

Baekhyun broke the hug, his hands firmly on your shoulder. He looked at you with such love that it was hard not to melt at his gaze.

“I didn’t do anything. This was all you.”