Here in this room, the smell of eternal melancholy squanders itself in, releasing a putrid scent that can never be faded.

I emit this scent, and so does my brother—we reek of it so much.

This is the room that I will spend my life regretting my past—and feel a different kind of unresolvable confusion that haunts forever. This is the place where my true self is seen; this is where I belong. A prison created by the impurities of the damned. All it took was one day—the day I finally found my long lost half-brother, and lost my long found lover.

---

“It’s nice to see you again, Yunji,” said Hara in a sweet-sounding voice, getting ready for me to fix her hair and makeup. The photo shoot’s theme was an editorial bridal concept, and how I wished that I could be pretty enough to model. I always wanted to look Korean, but the German half of myself overpowered the Korean side so I look for like a foreigner despite being fluent in the language.

“Nice to see you too, Hara. Can’t wait to make you gorgeous again.”

I fixed out all of my tools and palettes and quickly got to work with her eye makeup as delicately as possible. Beautifying others was not just a way of living for me, but a way of breathing. I was never confident with my own skin so I always let out my passion into the models I style. No matter how much I tried, I could never look like them. I’d rather just make something pretty than to remain an ugly being with no purpose. I loved beauty; always had, and always will.

As I was doing her makeup, Heechul, her secret boyfriend and coincidentally, her acting husband for the shoot came by and spoke in such a way that it almost gave off a bit too much of their intimacy, “Hey there, you’re looking very beautiful already.”

From my two years of being Hara’s stylist, I was able to ascertain that her love for Heechul was irreplaceable; I felt that he was the one for her and he reciprocated the feeling strongly, too. Of course, I too had my significant other. In fact, he was assuming the role of the best man of the shoot and briefly passed by us and shot me a half-second wink. Donghae was the only person that made me felt a little less ugly; he would always tell me that my big eyes were entrancing and kept nagging at me for putting too much makeup. My bare face was all he appreciated, but all that was just a delusion. Some things never lasted; damnation was my destiny.

“You’re very handsome as well,” she said and discretely held his hand. I covered them as I pinned some flowers on her head. Heechul took one of them and twirled it in his hand, smiling ever so slightly yet with much tender on his lips.

 “How could someone possibly look as gentle as this flower?”

Hara blushed and meekly covered her face.

I finished with Hara’s lip color the moment the staff had called for them. The two nodded at each other, headed over to the set filled with faux shrubbery and plants, and did a shower of fluid poses that inspired the photographer even more. They’d do all the intimate poses a married couple would do and more; at some point, their lips almost touched mid-embrace with their hands delicately laced together. Donghae did his role so perfectly. He was clearly like a heartbroken best man standing on the side wearing a blank expression on his face; his body language reeked of a somber kind of feeling which made the frame all the more real. He was handsome, admittedly. But what he failed to admit to me was that his expressions weren’t merely for the sake of art.

Because that midnight, all hell broke loose as a painstakingly devastating headline swept across the news sites. While doing Heechul’s hair for his filming, a received a text from a stylist friend of mine telling me to look at the news sites.

Donghae and Hara were spotted going out on a date together.

With every article I clicked, my heart sank deeper and deeper. I couldn’t fathom the situation and all I could remember were the tears that blurred my vision whilst finding any evidence to prove the news as false. But I couldn’t do anything; it was all true from back to cover. When I gave up, I let my phone slide out of my weakened hand and started crying.

My face filled with tears, I left the set and ran across the street to the only place where he could be hiding from all the reporters: it was a house he bought in a rich neighborhood to escape his idol life once in a while. I ran and ran until I got there only to see him locking lips with Hara on the couch. It was disgusting; they looked like monsters devouring each other—there was no love… only the lust of two double-crossers.

“What. The. .” I said.

The two pulled away and without an inch of embarrassment, Hara asked, “What the hell are you doing here?” After that, she got the memo; she never knew that I was his girlfriend. The cheater got cheated by another cheater. Whenever I looked back to it, they were meant for each other for that simple reason.

“What the hell am I doing here?” I lashed back in a psychotic chuckle. “I come here with my shirt soaked in tears and you dare ask me why the hell am I doing here?!”

Unable to control myself, I lost all my sanity and flung a vase at them. Donghae was able to evade it with his hand although it bled from the impact; I didn’t care. Call me sadistic but at the time I was so pissed I enjoyed seeing that big red streak cut across his hand, dripping down to the couch.

I dropped down to the floor, sobbing in grotesque-sounding moans and shrieks, my face cupped by my hands. All they did was watch me. I looked up at Hara in a twisted face of anger; my already large eyes grew bigger and my snarl was filled with distortion. “Are you even a bit disturbed that Donghae had cheated on you?”

 “No, not really. He knew I was a cheater, so we’re fair.”

She said it as if it was something she did as naturally as breathing. What a .

I slowly got up and walked toward them; my hair was so wet that when it brushed my face, I felt my cold tears against my cheeks.

“You…” I slapped him so hard my hand was red, and so was his cheek. “I thought you were the one… I thought you were mine to keep. But you were just an right from the start.” I bit my lip. “I have no idea how long you have been keeping this from me and I don’t care. What concerns me is that the only person that gave me self-esteem will be the very person that will shatter it for all eternity.”

They kept silent, staring at me with forced ignorance, not wanting to be swayed by my words.

“This is…” I clenched my fists hard. “This is…”

“A whole lot of bull.”

Heechul came into the room, his anger very evident in his eyes that thirsted for bloodshed. His gaze pierced through every person like a deadly needle pricking against our limbs. He then clapped slowly and chuckled with the same psychotic aura as I had.

“The moment I saw the article on Yunji’s phone, I unprofessionally skipped my schedule and followed after her to this place. I let her do all the yelling for me and purposely came in later to see this bull. I applaud you guys, really. This is the best pathetic show I’ve ever seen.” He flipped his phone out and took a picture of the two. “Now this is a good picture for the headlines tomorrow, yes?”

It was then that Hara wavered; it was her career at steak at that point. “No, you can’t do this.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t you see what’ll happen if you do this?!”

He smirked. “I can see exactly what will happen to you and more.” He kept his phone on his pocket, dug his fingers deep into her cheeks, and lifted her face up to meet with his deadly eyes. “I won’t mince words by giving a long monologue of how much I used to love you; I won’t drop on the floor and cry about how wrecked I am inside because my rage overpowers that all. Love isn’t something you buy from a store; it is an emotion earned by loyalty and sincerity. To love isn’t easy; it is to have the compassion to look at only one person and eradicate all selfish desires within the self. Honey, you failed in acquiring such a make-or-break emotion. You cannot love; you only can only gain lust. I will take my revenge and watch you die just as much as I will suffer from my newfound fear of love.”

He then turned to Donghae and simply gave him a scoff. “And as for you, you’re a douchebag, you know that? You made an extremely insecure girl believe in your façade and just throw her away like a used doll. Aside from your , there’s nothing man about you. You’re selfish and vain; a cocky bastard with two faces, and neither one of them is real. You have no identity; you have no feelings. You only have want.”

As Heechul made his exit, he grabbed my arm and took me along with him. When we reached the end of the hallway, he released me.

“As for you, you dropped your phone.” He got my phone from his pocket, showed me the picture of me and my family, and asked with much anxiety. “I reckon this is you in the center, am I right?”

I nodded.

He pressed his hands against my shoulders and hugged me tight. That time, he showed a different side to himself; a vulnerable one compared to how he treated Hara. Of course, I was taken aback, but what he said next caught me even more.

“Lil ‘sis, it’s me.”

I couldn’t believe it at the time, but it was all real; it was all true. The half-brother I’ve been looking for had been so close to me for a very long time. When my mother abandoned me, I flew to Korea and had been funded by my father who did nothing but ignore me. True, he paid for my education, but that was just about it; he didn’t like to see me because I looked so much like my mother whom he detested so much. Around three years ago though, he died of illness. I was forbidden to go to the hospital and even to attend his funeral. Since then I had to fend for myself and later found out from a relative that I happened to have half-brother. I was determined to find him; he was my only hope to have a feeling of family. And there he was, standing in front of me, completely accepting me.

We reunited half-siblings had the same fate upon us; we were both cheated on, had our hearts up and stomped into bits.

When we let go of the embrace, he handed me his phone with the picture he took of Donghae and Hara and said, “Should we?”

I nodded. “Definitely.”

That was the biggest mistake of our lives.

With that one tap of the send button, the media swarmed around both DSP Media and SM Entertainment, anti-fans were emerging like wildfire, and other fans left their fan cafes. The news articles had claimed that Hara and Donghae were dating, but little did they know about the deeper hurt within. While both companies tried to let it die down, they couldn’t. Hara and Donghae had to pursue fake-dating each other so as to not raise suspicion, but that led them to be mentally hurt. Hara claimed to be more emotional while Donghae had become more rigid and stiff—that was to be said lightly. But they never felt truly at ease since then.

---

Whenever I think of those moments, I can’t help but feel so much turmoil within me; it is something I can’t turn back or heal. I am forever cursed by guilt and stained by remorse. That day, I had to make one decision. And that day, I ed up.

After some time, it's out!

Your request challenged me since there were a lot of ideas to be put in but I tried to mash all of those together to make a story, you know? :)) I apologize for the lateness and if the one-shot seems to be inconsistent in certain aspects. >.< Still, I hope that it is presentable.

Thank you for requesting~! :)