Returning to the times of studying meant many things: a messy table. Piles of notes. A pyramid of stacked pencils.

It was just like old times.

Although, now I had a whole different motivation that sent me spiraling into the necessity to perform well in school. Not that it changed how determined I was; but maybe now that I had a renewed incentive, I could bring up those upsetting grades of mine.

It was a funny thought. Maybe I could bring up my grades? More like if I didn’t, I’d get kicked out of school and receive zero blessings from my boyfriend’s mother. ‘Incentive’.

The sole noise in the room was the sound of me flipping pages and the graphite of the pencil dragging along paper. They provided the exact environment that always succeeded in putting me into a focused trance. It was the world of words and knowledge, and me.

A pair of arms made their way around my shoulders. I didn’t realize it until I could feel Eric’s chest pressed against my back. I drove the tip of my pencil nearly through the paper.

“Wh-what?” I asked, having lost every bit of concentration.

“Can’t I hug you once in a while?” he replied, sounding a lot more contained than usual. His chin rested on the top of my head and I heard him sigh.

I held my breath. He rocked the two of us from side-to-side in such a gentle manner that it was almost nonexistent. It was lulling me nearly to sleep.

Deciding that since I would have no chance at successful studying if I didn’t ask, I said, “What’s wrong?”

Eric didn’t say anything. His hands remained clasped in front of me.

“I’m going to see Minwoo’s parents tomorrow,” he finally told me. He tightened his embrace. “And I need some charging up.”

Minwoo’s parents? My knuckles whitened as I made a fist around my pencil. In this case, they were more of Hyori’s parents. What kind of great news could that possibly be?

“Maybe I should go with you,” I offered, almost laughing at my own forwardness.

“No.” His voice sounded strained, like he had to exert himself to say it. “Don’t. This shouldn’t involve you any more than it has to.”

I wanted to be able to do something for him when he went there. There was no doubt that for him, it’d be equivalent to heading into a war zone. And he would likely be completely alone against someone that controlled his father’s career.

“Okay, I won’t go,” I agreed. He was totally right. Even if I wanted to accompany him, there was no telling how much more trouble it would bring if I did.

“But…do your best, okay?”

I jolted awake to a door slamming. I stared at the wall, my neck aching as I lifted my head. Sleep clasped at my eyes and I tugged at my unruly hair. Confusedly, I looked down at the work in front of me. Some of the papers were folded and wrinkled at the edges, undoubtedly because I had collapsed right on top of them while I was studying.

I leaned back in my chair and looked aimlessly ahead. That’s right…Eric had already left to make for Minwoo’s house when I woke up that morning. I spent the whole day burying myself in work to make sure that I thought nothing of it.

So much for that, I thought. The fact that I had fallen asleep in the middle of studying clearly said something about my mental state.

My brain gradually started to operate after shaking off the drowsiness. A door had closed and made the noise that woke me up. Door? A door slamming?

I banged my knee against the desk in my rush to get up. Fiercely ignoring the pain, I hobbled over to the door and fumbled to open it. The moment I did, I heard conversation in the main room.

“What happened?” Minwoo was saying urgently. “What did my father tell you?”

He could only be talking to Eric. I stuck my head past the door frame to look down the hall. Eric was standing at the building entrance, taking his shoes off with his eyes downcast. I realized with a creeping feeling of dread that things had not gone according to plan – at all.

“Well?” Minwoo asked insistently. “Are you going to tell me or what?”

Still no response. Minwoo exchanged looks with Dongwan, and Dongwan shrugged worriedly. Neither of them made a peep as Eric went around them and headed towards me.

“Hi,” he said. A whisper.

He walked past me, not uttering a word as he sat on the edge of his bed, clinging to its frame from underneath the mattress. I watched him, inwardly screaming at myself to ask him what happened.

The problem being that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Did it not go well?” I asked, already knowing the answer. He didn’t say anything.

I went over, planting myself right in his view. “You have to tell me what happened,” I said firmly.

I just finished talking when he extended his hands and clung to my forearms. His fingers constricted my flesh with so much strength that I winced.

“I don’t know,” he said, striking fear through me with an unstable and trembling voice. “I don’t know.”

I had never seen or heard him be helpless to such an extent. It scared me and my heart shook. I twisted my wrists to touch the base of his palms.

“Talk,” I said. “Talk.”

He lifted his head. His eyes were distraughtly shifting with hopelessness and denial. Still, pushing aside his obvious distress, he whispered, “Okay.”

--

“Welcome, welcome!” Minwoo’s father held the same tone as his son – pepped and excited for life. It only made Eric feel worse. He stepped to the side to let Eric inside. “What brings you to the house on such a beautiful day? Shouldn’t you be at school and enjoying the day with your friends?”

“I have something to talk to you about,” Eric said gravely. It didn’t elude him that the only reason he was receiving such a warm welcome was because of the supposed relationship with Hyori.

“Come in first; why such a rush?” The obliviousness in the man’s expression made Eric’s pulse stutter. He wouldn’t call himself nervous, since he was clinging to the possibility that he would be forgiven. But, of course…

“I don’t think that would be necessary,” he quickly said, not willing to place a single foot in the house. “Has your daughter talked to you recently?”

“Talked to me? Not of anything urgent. Why do you ask?”

Eric nodded slightly. Of course…if Hyori had said anything, it would’ve been obvious from the moment his face was seen.

“I heard about your plans to set up a marriage between us,” Eric said. “And I apologize, but I can’t go along with it.”

In a hushed instant, the grin was swept away from the other’s face. An upper lip began to twitch in response.

“No need to be shy, Eric,” Minwoo’s father said, his bright disposition returning as he thought that Eric must have only felt embarrassed. “I know to you, it might seem a little rushed, but – ”

“I don’t plan to ever marry your daughter,” Eric interrupted. He hesitated before bowing his head. “I’m sorry.”

An angry and dejected frown befell the father’s face. “What is wrong with my daughter? Have you two fought?”

Eric shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong. And we haven’t fought…persay. She’s wonderful; otherwise I wouldn’t have dated her at all. But we’ve already broken up.”

“You broke up with my daughter?”

He sounded infuriated. If only he knew that the whole thing was nothing but a mere setup in the first place. That, and Eric was already seeing someone else.

“We tried dating,” Eric said, controlling his voice to secure the lie. “We really did. But our feelings didn’t match, so we both felt that it was only right to leave one another.”

“You are a liar.” It was more of a growl. “You are a liar! Just like your father!”

“Dad, stop!”

Hyori came storming down the stairs, her face panicked. She gave but a momentary glance to Eric before rushing to her father’s side and clinging to his arm.

“It’s not his fault,” she said, fabricating her tone to make it sound reasonable. “We agreed on it.”

Her words went unheard in her father’s ears. “What happened to you?” he continued to Eric. His face turned a furious red. “When you were little you were such a perfect kid. Such a perfect boy!”

Frustrated, Hyori activated her whining side. “Dad, are you really going to be like this? We both agreed on it! Why are you getting mad at him? He even came all this way just to apologize and you –”

“Did your father put you up to this? Did he want revenge for how I may have treated him the other day? Is that why he told you to toy with my daughter and then call it off?”

Hyori, frantic, shouted, “Dad!”

He didn’t turn to look at her. His eyes continued to take in the sight that was the presumably ‘changed’ Eric. “Fine. Fine, then; we will see. Tell your father that he can prepare for the worst!”

He turned and walked away, ignoring his daughter as she followed him to the stairs. Nonstop, she talked to deaf ears.  She stopped at the base of the staircase, holding onto the baluster, and watched him go up the steps. As soon as he disappeared behind a door, she turned to look at Eric.

They stared at each other, not speaking what they knew the other was thinking: it was a disaster.

“I’ll try to talk to him,” Hyori said, her voice low. “But you know that I can’t guarantee anything.”

Eric kept his mouth shut and simply nodded. Hyori pressed her glossed lips together in displeasure before following her father’s path up to the second floor.

I stood unmoving after Eric stopped talking. We said nothing for a long time. Then I slunk around him onto his bed, lying down to make it easier to think.

A disaster, huh? Definitely was.

“Is your dad going to get fired?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

Pause. “Is your dad going to get angry at you?”

He chuckled heartlessly. “Probably. Breaking up with her is one thing, but when he finds out from Mom that I broke up with her because I like someone else…”

“Won’t he listen to your mother?” I reasoned.

“I don’t know. He’s the one who’s directly involved in this, not her. She can only do so much. Just like the limits of effect I can have on her, she’ll only have input this time around.”

He covered his face with his palms, his spine hunched over. His exasperated breath escaped through the gaps of his fingers. My hand twitched. I wanted to reach out to him; comfort him somehow.

“I don’t know what to do,” he breathed.

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do right now.”

“I shouldn’t have seen him. I shouldn’t have gone to see him.”

“No; visiting him was right.”

I pulled once at the hem of his shirt to get his attention. He looked at me sadly and I hit the empty space next to me on the bed with the back of my hand.

“Lie down,” I said, drawing my arm back. “Let’s talk.”

Eric did as I instructed, resting his head down right next to mine and shifting a bit. I let my fingers glide along the sheets until I found his hand. I rested my palm on top of his.

“You know,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “If you don’t have any hope in the situation, you’re expecting me to compensate for that.”

He snorted. “You?”

I turned my head towards him, staring at his profile. He seemed less tense than before.

“Why?” I sneered. “Can’t depend on me?”

“…You got a point. You were the one who basically challenged my mother to a duel.”

I scoffed. “You’re still hanging onto that?”

“Of course!” The smile could be heard within his voice, and I liked that. “I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. So then I’ll always have something to brag about.”

He was such a fool. My lips spread and I gazed back up at the ceiling. “I think we’ll have to leave Hyori to deal with this,” I said honestly. “On her side, I mean. But if your dad protests, then I’ll be with you.”

“I don’t know about that. My dad’s pretty scary.”

His voice was smothered with mockery. As if. His father could be scary, but if I had survived Mrs. Mun I was sure that the husband couldn’t be nearly as bad.

“When you think about it, angry parents aren’t too bad comparatively,” I continued. “If this were a book or a drama, people would be trying to kill us. Or blackmail us into breaking up with each other.”

Eric snuggled his head in the crook of my neck and shoulder. His hair tickled my skin. “True enough,” he admitted, exhaling against the base of my neck. “But I think our problems are big enough. I might get disowned.”

Disowned? By his father…possibly, but I didn’t think his mother would hear of it. And either way, there was no way a father would ever hate his own son forever over this.

“You’re paranoid,” I commented. “I thought I was the only one between the two of us.”

He threw an arm across my chest. “Can I touch you?” he asked as he poked my bicep.

I gave him a disdainful glare. “Don’t ask for permission after you’ve already done it.”

One corner of his lips lifted. “Oh; so I can just go ahead, then?”

I hated him. But it wasn’t like I disliked it, so I couldn’t bring myself to say anything against it. I’d just have to make a getaway.

“I’m going to sleep,” I said, tossing his arm aside, sitting up and slinking away.

“You ,” he replied. “I’m depressed here. Shouldn’t you do something more to make me feel better than talk to me? What is that phrase…? Oh; ‘actions speak louder than words’.”

“I hardly think you’re depressed,” I told him. “You sound perfectly normal.”

“Yeah. Because I talked to you and released all my worries. And you let me snuggle a little. The snuggling part was good. I’ll be so much happier if you sleep next to me tonight.”

I turned back to see him grinning so widely that his face might be permanently deformed. “You look capable of falling asleep all by yourself.”

“But it’s different if you’re there!”

I was sure it would be, but I didn’t have any mental preparation for anything. Anything. If there was any time that I had to put up all resistance against his desires, it would be right then.

“And is this the time to be fretting about sleeping arrangements?” I snapped. “Your family is in turmoil! You could wake up in the morning and find that everything has fallen apart!”

That didn’t change his expression. “Yeah, but for now there’s nothing I can do. Except make sleeping arrangements. So I will make sleeping arrangements.”

He rolled over on the bed toward the wall, nearly crashing into it after underestimating the distance. Quickly recovering, he faced me with his head on the pillow and used a single finger to poke at the unoccupied space formed next to him.

“Please? I won’t do anything. I swear.”

My eyes moved to that space, beckoning to me. My common sense bid me goodbye as I leaped onto his bed, the mattress wobbling from the additional weight. I should’ve known better than think that Eric would get anything but victory.

Eric slid his arms around my head and pulled me to his chest contently. It was nice and warm.

“That’s better,” he said.

what do I do when I have to study for finals? gif things and update fanfiction, of course! ヽ(*≧ω≦)ﾉ

And I feel like these chapters are only getting shorter u-u