There is an unavoidable relationship between Sehun and Chaeri that cannot be severed. Despite a loss of importance and place in each other’s life, they can neither forget nor rid of the fact that they are connected by a transaction of blood. Their past as a couple is unrelated to their subconscious connection. The reason one exists is due to the other’s lack of direction.

It is because of this relationship that one has made the decision to acknowledge, and the other, to act passive.

Chaeri fiddles with the ring on her finger. She hadn’t expected to come across Sehun here. She hadn’t expected to cross him, ever. A sliver of guilt drips into her conscience, but then it is gone like a tide that falls from the shore.

“I came to visit a friend,” she continues.

The half-blood, Sehun thinks.

“I hope you’ve been well.”

A lie. Or at least, a careless truth.

Chaeri bows deeply. “I have to go. If you need to talk to me in the future, you can always find me.” She leans her head to the side and smiles. “I think I’ll be here often.”

As she walks past Sehun, she hopes that he will stop her, if only to tell her how much he deplores her. But he doesn’t. Just like he resolved to do, he stays quiet, and she leaves with the embarrassing memory of a one-sided conversation.

When he is sure she is gone, Sehun looks toward the closed doors of the elevator. Had he met her years earlier, he would have been rattled and speechless for the reason that he was afraid or angry. Instead, he is plainly unconcerned.

Returning to his room, Sehun shuts the door and locks it. These past few nights have been too eventful. Perhaps he will go on a jaunt another time.

The Tender massages his temples as he listens to the girl’s spiel. She has spent the past thirty minutes telling him her ‘life-changing’ story. “I owe him,” she has said multiple times. The Tender can sense interest in her voice. He can also sense honesty.

As a woman who feels a debt must be paid to a man, he understands her plight. But as a woman whose attraction is towards something more than a man (or perhaps less of, depending on one’s perspective), he cannot overlook his duty. He has to keep her away from that world – for her safety, and for Sehun’s.

“You’re good friends with him,” Nana observes. “Can’t you help me?”

“I can’t do that,” the Tender says as he takes a rag and pretends to be enraptured by a stain on the counter.

“I have to thank him again. Properly, this time.” She shakes her head. “I want to apologize correctly, and thank him correctly. He has done so much for me already. All I’ve done in return is present myself as a lousy girl. Not a woman, but a girl!” She groans. “I can’t imagine what he thinks of me.”

“I assure you.” The Tender coughs. “He doesn’t.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” she replies. “I just want to talk to him. One last time, over a cup of coffee. Could you help me with that?”

“I can’t.”

“He’s an enigma. I need your help to figure him out.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I have to.”

“He doesn’t want to be figured out.” The Tender lazily sets the rag on his shoulder. “Even I don’t know what he thinks, most of the time.”

“You’re both evasive,” she responds. “This is why you give people self-esteem issues. You’re difficult to approach.”

“Did it give you self-esteem issues when I saved you from his apartment?”

“I wasn’t in danger,” she retorts. “I don’t even remember how I left his apartment. I just remember … talking. And then you were there, and you were bringing me home. I must have been so drunk.” She bangs her head on the counter, and then winces, as if she were surprised at the pain such an action would cause. “I’m never drunk.”

Sehun can do that. He changes people, just like he changed himself. The Tender can attest to that; he was a victim to his subtle spins of alteration.

“Go home,” he advises. “Forget the boy. Forget what you’ve seen or heard. What’s best for you is to live life without any lingering thought. If you do that, you don’t have to worry. You don’t have to be concerned about him.”

Nana has no argument to this. She knows she sounds like a meddling child. But as an adult, she sincerely wants to apologize to him. More than that, she wants to know him - as a woman, and as a friend. 

“All right. I won’t seek him out. This will probably be the last time you’ll hear me talk about him. I’m sorry to bother you.” She grabs her coat. “I’ll go home now.”

The Tender watches her slump her way out of the door. Although she seems dejected, he can’t help but empathize. Despite the Tender’s attempts, he knows they will meet again. He could see it in Sehun’s eyes as he took her away from his apartment. He wanted her, and he didn’t even know how to acknowledge it.

With a grocery basket swinging below his arm, Himchan scales the aisles of organic food. As a man who is conscious of his health, Himchan steers away from any food that will provide him with unnecessary satisfaction and instead focuses on what will complete his daily quota of nutrients. His basket is filled within an hour. He carries his findings to the cash register, waits to be checked out, and then drives his car back to the apartment.

It is rather unusual for Himchan to use his car because every place he ever goes is within walking distance. Although there is a grocery store near his home, he wanted to go to a farther one because he wanted to ensure that he wouldn’t run into anyone familiar.

He especially didn’t want to run into Chaeri. Truthfully, she irritated him the other night. She always plays such elusive games. He didn’t like that he didn’t know what to do when he was around her. He didn’t like that his words came out more stirring than smooth. He felt as if he were always seeking an uprising, when all he wanted was peace. His mind didn’t seem to match his goal.

He doesn’t like that she seems to know too much about him. He doesn’t like that she forces him to face his other half without straightforwardly suggesting it. He doesn’t like that she is so much like him, and yet she is completely the opposite, as if, with a snap of his fingers, she would become his kindred spirit or an adversary.

Because of this mental struggle of judgmental decisions, Himchan does not see the traffic light turn red. He drives down the road like any other rare day, oblivious to the fact that a car has sped through the intersection.

In seconds, the cars collide; and Himchan’s expensive, all-natural food tumbles to the windows.

He doubted that anyone saw

A speckle of dirt

Like him

Because he was only a man

With a desire to begin

The inevitable.

The other cars screech to a stop. A pedestrian who was about to cross the street is caught between a pandemonium of frightened screams, unrelenting horns, and the crunch, the curl, the breaking of metal and bone. With trembling fingers, the man dials the emergency number and watches as a handful of strangers with fingers just like his pick up their phones and helplessly watch the wreck toss and turn before them.

It was like watching someone rewind an appalling scene of a movie only to play it over and over again.

Himchan gasps as the car’s violent thrashing comes to an eerie halt. The machine groans as if having lost a terrible battle. Too afraid to open his eyes, Himchan cannot tell what he is – whether he is sitting, or bending, or broken, or laying on the road with a bleeding body. All sense of direction and identification was somehow lost in the tumult of arms and steel. There is no such thing as clear eyes or mind in Himchan’s discolored body. There is only heat crawling up his skin like a thousand hungry fire ants and unrivalled agony twisting his bones.

“Get out!”

Someone shakes him. It’s his right shoulder, he thinks.

“Someone help me get this man out!”

Is it a person? He can’t tell. It sounds as if he were in a barn full of raving animals. Or perhaps it is an asylum.

Wherever he is, he can feel his body being pulled by several arms. He senses a heavy pressure on his knees and tries to wriggle away, but he can’t move. In a chorus of grunts the pressure is lifted, and Himchan is saved from a catastrophe waiting to implode.

“How is he?”

“Check his pulse. Is he alive?”

Something cold is pressed to his neck.

“He’s alive, thank God.”

“What about the other car?”

“Stay with him. We’ll check to see if they’ve been saved.”

What had he done? Had he hurt someone? Had he hurt people? How many? Two? More?

“Oh my gosh.” The same voice, once concerned, had become petrified. “Oh my go – “

“Excuse me.”

“Do you see that? Look at him! His leg, his face are heal - ”

“I need to borrow him. Actually, I need to steal him. I won’t be giving him back.”

“What are you saying?”

“He’s new. He doesn’t quite know what his body can do. If I kept him here, you’d be surprised how much more trouble he would cause.” The voice clicks its tongue. “He’s lost a lot of blood. I need to take him before he gets hungry.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Thank you.” Respectfully, the Tender bows his head. “Let’s pretend we didn’t see each other.”

So still did he breathe

So long did he walk

That people began to whisper

And their whispers burned his ears

And ate his heart

Until blood

Was an imagination

Of the future.

Was that a knock? Sehun pauses in his writing to listen, but when the sound doesn’t return, he writes again.

So he -

That was surely a knock. Angry to be disturbed in the midst of inscribing his thoughts, Sehun slams the pen on the table and tramps through the living room to open the door.

“Hello Sehun,” the Tender greets. Sehun stares at the body whose only support is the Tender’s broad shoulder. “My friend and I came to visit.”