“I really miss you, you idiot… how could you leave so easily?” wiping away her tears and mucus with the back of her hand, HyunA sniffled and took another mouthful of soju straight from the bottle. “I’m such an idiot… why do I still think about him when he left so easily… he didn’t even stop to reconsider… didn’t even put up a fight. He just left… am I not important to him too?” her head had started to feel heavy and she rested her forehead against the edge of the table. Blinking her eyes hard, she was struggling to keep her blurry vision from worsening the pounding in her head. She felt a pressure on her arms and her body being dragged off her seat, but she was too wasted to make out any of the person’s features. “What is a girl like you doing drinking alone? Are you in the right mind?” his voice was heavily accented and it was difficult to make out his words clearly. All she knew was that his chest was warm and inviting and it felt like a good place to snuggle against.

If drinking had temporarily taken away her troubles, the aftermath wasn’t nearly as sweet. Groaning as her head knocked against the hard surface of the ground, HyunA thrashed her hands about to grab hold of something that could support her as she attempted to hoist herself up. Throwing her body back on the couch, she massaged her temples with her eyes squeezed shut. A man’s voice reverberated in her mind, setting the sirens in her ringing as her eyes fluttered open. “Is this the life that you want? You look disgusting. Would your loved ones be proud of how you look like right now?”

It finally occurred to her that this wasn’t her place and she had most likely followed the stranger home. Gasping, she looked at her body and widened her eyes in horror when she realized that in place of her own clothes was an oversized shirt. Looking around frantically, she pushed away the throbbing of her headache and concentrated on locating her clothes. When she finally found it hanging on a line beside some boxers and more t-shirts, she didn’t even spend another second to reconsider before ripping her still slightly damp clothes off the line and changed in the first room she saw. The night had been a mistake, but it had finally set her life back on track.

Springing upright with her pajamas clad to her skin from all the perspiring, HyunA took a quick scan across her room to make sure that she wasn’t still dreaming. Assured that she was in the safety of her own bedroom, she heaved a sigh of relief and finally felt the excruciating pain from her hangover hit her on the head. Wrapping her hands around her head, she whimpered as she rolled back and forth in bed, wishing she hadn’t drunk so much last night. The door to her room opened with a click and immediately she felt a smack landing on her bum. “Stupid girl, do you know what you’ve done to Kris? Why did you get so drunk?”
“Umma!” she cried, whining at her mother’s lack of sympathy. And then it hit her that the last thing she remembered was falling asleep on the swing at the party. “How did I get home last night?”
“Kris was kind enough to carry you all the way home and place Your Royal Highness safely onto your bed despite you throwing up all over the front of his shirt. I couldn’t even offer him a change of clothes!”
The Krisus h