“Just a little more,” I kept telling myself.

I panted continuously as I walked, and as soon as my feet touched SM building I had never felt happier.

But my thoughts were right. My legs had clearly turned to jelly.

I had tried searching for Krystal again, but not a sign of her at all, so I headed back to the building in case she’d finally returned. I needed to tell Sica the good news about my beautiful new room also.

“If I can find her,” I whispered through the never-ending pants.

Just a little bit more and—

“Warghh!”

I was directly pulled to the floor by gravity when my feet gave in at last. I was lying down at the lobby and I couldn’t even make my way to the couch. I lay breathlessly as my ankles continued to ache.

I stretched out my hand for the couch. “Just…a bit…further—”

“What are you doing?”

There was laughter behind me, but it wasn’t a mocking one, and I looked up from my pathetic pose to see Henry smiling down at me.

“Howdy,” I said, waving one hand weakly. All energy had practically been out of me. I knew there was no way I was going to be wearing those heels anymore. Nu-uh. Perhaps I could borrow one of Krystal’s flip-flops or sneakers.

But of course, first things first I needed to find her and settle whatever that was going on.

“Are you okay there?” Henry quickly stooped down to my level, and he didn’t waver to extend his hand out to me.

I was about to grab his hand when someone shouted, “Henry!” and he immediately turned and my grip slipped and I slumped back down to the floor.

Eunhyuk was coming over, and to my horror Kyuhyun was, too.

“Yo, we’ve been looking all over for you,” Eunhyuk said. “Come on, the recording’s starting soon.”

Henry nodded. “Right.”

From behind Eunhyuk, Kyuhyun peeked down at me.

“What’s wrong with you?” he casually asked despite seeing me on the floor.

“Oh, I was just checking to see if the janitor had already waxed the floor,” I plainly said with full sarcasm in my voice.

Henry stooped back down and quickly noticed my already-swollen ankles.

When he picked up my leg I flinched and bit my tongue hard trying to suppress the awful pain that overflowed inside my veins.

And I guess he saw the look on my face. He quickly placed my leg back down.

“Maybe you should get it checked.” It was the only advice he could give me.

I whimpered with my face buried on the floor as the pain kept on coming every time I planned to move.

“Where’ve you been?” Henry asked me. “Did you go on a hike or something?”

I whimpered some more.

“Just— Just go and get some rest, then,” he told me.

Good plan. If only I could first move over to the couch, which I couldn’t even do.

“Maybe you could ice it?” he said, not sounding the bit confident with his suggestion. Obviously his nursing skills weren’t as good as his dancing.

As I tried to stand for the seventh time, a pair of arms scooped me from the floor. My eyes were fully closed, but as soon as I reopened them I spotted familiar dark eyes staring into mine.

“K-Kyuhyun—” I struggled within his grasp.

He turned his head to the other two.

“You guys go on ahead first,” he said. “I’ll catch up later.”

I flinched. “C-Cho Kyuhyun!” I hollered. My voice thundered within the lobby. “I demand you to p-put me d-down!”

I was flinging my arms about when he started to walk, and automatically I pulled myself closer.

“Put me down!” I ordered. I quickly buried my face in his chest, because I just knew how red my face was becoming within the seconds.

He remained silent for the rest of the time, which made it all worse.

“L-Listen,” I said. “I have to find Krystal. So it’s either you put me down o-or—”

Finally, he stopped his pace and I was placed perfectly on the couch.

He stared at my feet.

“Put those away,” he said, pointing at my heels.

“Gladly,” I murmured as I began to pull the straps.

As I tossed the shoes aside, he asked, “Where the heck have you been the entire day to get your feet looking like that?”

It was sort of an insult, but I shrugged.

“I was looking for Krystal,” I told him. “Yoona said she had a shoot in Gangnam so I was going to follow her—”

“Gangnam?” His brow rose. “Rika. The shoot’s right here in Seoul.”

My jaw fell and I groaned, one for the false information I’d gotten and one for the pain that was welling up by the minute.

Being very careful he lifted my right foot, so gently, that I hardly felt a single sharp jolt run through my veins. But one thing that I couldn’t deny was that I flinched at his touch. Secretly I peeked at his face that was looking down and inspecting my ankle.

And for no reason at all my heart skipped.

Kyuhyun was saying a few words, but all I could hear were my own thoughts echoing inside my cloudy brain.

And in one breath I muttered silently, “Why am I like this…?”

I didn’t expect for those words to slip out, and he instantly shot his head up to meet my eyes. I couldn’t pay attention to anything anymore. It was as if everything was blocked out, and all the things in the world were too far to reach, including my diminishing heart.

It was as if there were invisible tears falling from inside of me, and it took me so long to realize that I had been staring at Kyuhyun for more than one minute with a miserable shadow falling over my face.

“You look sick,” he told me. “Do you want to go to the doctor or something?”

Probably, I thought inside. If that could help.

When I didn’t properly answer, he carried on.

“Ri