DongHae POV

Bright rays of sun shone directly on my face, which prompted me to turn around onto the other side of my bed to avoid the unbearable brightness. I pulled the thick blanket up to my neck and snuggled into the comfortable warmth. In this moment, the world seemed perfect. Everything was as it should be. The happenings of the last few days seemed like an evil dream. A dream that I had finally managed to escape from.

After a while, my tired limbs longed for movement. I stretched myself luxuriously and my left hand hit against something positioned near my head. The thing seemed to start swaying because of the hit, because soon after that, I heard a loud clang. Something broke. I immediately tore my eyes open.

I instantly recognized the room that I found myself in. I wasn’t lying in my little studio apartment. I was in the room that I had hoped to never to see again. My heart sank. So the nightmare continued.

I turned my head towards the floor, where I now recognized a broken ceramic bowl. Cold noodles were now lying under a white-blue pile of shards and the still remaining soup searched its way across the bright parquet floor. I slightly bit my lip and eavesdropped. Did he hear it?

He did hear it. Only a few seconds later I heard how he slightly knocked against the white door and asked if everything was alright. I didn’t answer. Only stared at the door opposite to the bed.

He knocked again.
“DongHae-yah? If everything’s alright, please answer me. I can hear that you’re awake”, said Lee HyukJae on the other side of the door, with concern in his voice.
Again, I stayed silent. I didn’t want to answer him nor did I want to see him. He should go away and leave me alone.

“If you don’t answer me, I’ll come in. You’d have to get up soon anyway. Breakfast is nearly done”, he now called, but I wasn’t thinking of complying with this order.

When Lee HyukJae noticed that I wouldn’t be complying with his demand, he tried to put his threat into action. With wide eyes, I observed the door latch that slowly wandered down, but got interrupted mid-way by the upper end of the backrest of an office chair.

I started grinning widely. Luckily, I had, for my own safety, stuck the office chair under the latch the night before. He wasn’t going to overcome this obstacle that quickly.

“Open the door immediately, Lee DongHae. I’m warning you”, he threatened.
Lee HyukJae didn’t sound angry when he spoke the last sentence, but that didn’t have to mean anything. I didn’t know him after all. Maybe he's one of those people you can’t hear these feelings out of his voice. There were people like that. At least I think so.

What the treat was concerned, I didn’t know how to deal with it. What would he do, when he did make it into the room after all? Would he hit me, or even...

At the thought of the things he could do to me, I shuddered. He had said several times on the day before that he wouldn’t hurt me, but wouldn’t a murderer say the same thing before striking, to get easier access to his
victims? I was helplessly exposed to him. To be fair, I wasn’t what would generally be termed as weak, but I was alone. He wasn’t.

I heard how Lee HyukJae knocked against the door a few more times and said something, but the content of his sentences didn’t penetrate through to my mind. Spellbound, I stared at the door. When the knocking and his calls fell silent, a queasy feeling started to spread in the area of my stomach. Would he really let me off this easily? Most probably not.

My gaze, even after silence returned, never strayed away from the door for even a second. Fear spread inside of me. What was going to happen now? I couldn’t imagine him waiting for me to come out of my room on my own. He could wait a long time for that to happen.

A shadow that suddenly wandered over the floor of the room tore me from my thoughts and brought me to focus my gaze from the door to the window. My breath caught.

There he stood. His arms were crossed and his facial expression appeared, like the evening before, emotionless. In his eyes I could recognize the same expression that was still strange to me. But I was sure that this expression wasn’t an angry one.

His gaze was focused on me. When he noticed that I was now looking to him as well, he started to smile lightly. He loosened his arms from their entanglement and motioned to the chair hindering him from entering. With a simple gesture, he hinted for me to take away the chair and leave the room. I didn’t react to that.

Defiantly, I pulled my blanket closer to me again and turned away from the window, so I wouldn’t have to look at him any longer. Another knocking was heard, only that this time, the sound was louder and clearer. I didn’t even have to turn around to know that he was the one making the noises. I lay back down and pulled the blanket over my head to dim the sound around me.

As soon as I had again buried my head in the big mass of cloth and feathers, there was no more knocking. I didn’t know if he gave up or if my blanket was an unbelievably good sound absorber. It didn’t concern me. All I wanted was to be alone again. To belong to myself again.

I hear a dull crash. Was he trying to enter through the door again?

As soon as the sound faded, it was silent again. I took a breath, relieved. He seemed to finally have decided to leave me alone. I smiled lightly. One to zero for me. I wasn’t going to back down this quickly.

A sudden tug snatched the blanket out of my grasp. Coldness enveloped my body and made me tremble slightly. I slowly turned around and directly looked into the face of Lee HyukJae. His exes slowly wandered across my body. In his examining eyes, I could recognize another expression that I couldn’t correlate. Was it greed or even lust? Hopefully not!

Even though I couldn’t classify his expression clearly, he made me shudder with it. Blood shot into my cheeks. I was uncomfortable to be watched by him in this manner.

I hastily tried to move as far away from him as possible. Due to the fact that the wall was stretching out behind me, I very soon couldn’t put anymore distance between us. The fear inside me got stronger. I didn’t want him to come any closer. Not with that look in his eyes. I now stared at him undeviatingly. Observed his every move. Inwardly, I was getting ready to defend myself at even the slightest wrong move from him.

Lee HyukJae noticed my behavior and loudly swallowed once. His eyes slowly wandered towards the floor. I heard a quiet murmur, but his words didn’t reach my ears. After a while, he looked up again. The expression in his eyes was now a different one. Still, I’d rather stay clear off him for the time being. You could never know if...

Neither of us said a word. Eventually, Lee HyukJae sighed and bent forward. He slowly outstretched his arms towards me. My eyes widened in shock. I felt paralyzed. Where was the will to defend myself that had been screaming inside my chest only a few seconds before?

His hand came closer. The closer it came, the faster my thoughts raced. Only a few centimeters separated his hand from my shoulder, and that’s where my brain started functioning properly again. With all the vehemence that I was able to summon in this instant, I slapped his hand away.

There was silence once more. Neither of us said a word. There was no need to say anything. Our gazes said more than a thousand words. His glance emanated a mixture of astonishment and a hint of grief while I tried to look at him as threateningly as possible. Let him noticed that his presence held no value to me.

Lee HyukJae sighed, finally turned away from me and approached the door. Reaching it, he pulled the chair away from under the latch and opened the door. The smell of freshly cooked rice and something salty tasting immediately reached my nose. Breakfast!

My stomach started to growl loudly and an uncomfortable feeling spread inside me. I was hungry. I hoped imploringly that he hadn’t heard that sound. But my hopes were shattered immediately when I noticed the light smile on his face.

“Come on now. You have to be nearly starving. Breakfast will surely do you some good“ he said with an unbelievably calm voice and waited in the door frame for me to get up and move in the direction of the kitchen as well.

I actually wanted to refuse to follow his command again, but my empty stomach had now taken control over my body. I slowly got up from the bed and hesitantly moved towards him. He waited for me in the door frame, with the same smile on his face as before. A smile that slightly subsided when I stopped a few steps away from him and waited for him to continue, in order to keep a certain distance from him.

He seemed to understand my gesture immediately. He seemingly wanted to speak again, but quickly decided otherwise and left without another word. For a long time, I stared at the spot where he had just stood before. Should I really follow him?

My stomach answered me this question immediately. Anoth