“Are you going to be ok with going inside, Myung?” Sungyeol asked.

            The raven-haired man nodded, holding onto Sungyeol’s hand just a little more tightly. He bit his lip, glancing back between the door and his boyfriend. He didn’t think that he had ever had as many butterflies in his stomach than he had at that moment (he didn’t even have these many butterflies when he had first asked Sungyeol out at that café, back when he was all dripping in rain water with his horrid wet hair).

            Myungsoo gulped, “I’m s-sure that I’ll be ok. D-Do you think you can come with me? You know what happened to me, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish telling the doctor my story without, you know, breaking down.”

            He gripped the younger’s hand as firmly as Myungsoo was holding his hand, and he led his nervous boyfriend into the psychologist’s office.

“Don’t worry, Myungsoo. Of course I’ll be there for you,” he reassured him.

            After explaining to the doctor why Myungsoo was in his office in the first place (it was easy for the psychologist to understand though after seeing the bruises on Sungyeol’s face), Myungsoo suddenly clammed up, knowing that the next part would be difficult to say. Looking back up at the psychologist, he wondered what was going through the doctor’s head.

            Was she judging him for his violent outbreaks? Does she think that he’s a terrible boyfriend, too?

            Sungyeol’s friends all hate me; I wouldn’t be surprised if she hates me, too.

            In contrast to his thoughts, the psychologist didn’t appear to be angry with Myungsoo at all. In fact, the only emotion he could capture from her visage was worry. She was (or at least she seemed to be) genuinely worried about Myungsoo and his relationship with Sungyeol. She looked worried about Myungsoo’s state of mind, rather than worried that Myungsoo wanted to hurt Sungyeol (that was the last thing he wanted).

            After a little silence, the doctor cleared and sat back in her chair, looking at little more curious now that she was able to observe Myungsoo and Sungyeol and their little protective glances at each other.

            “So, how was your life before you met Sungyeol over here, Myungsoo?”

            The young man looked down immediately, avoiding the doctor’s eyes and holding onto Sungyeol’s hand even more tightly. The elder caught the nervous look on Myungsoo’s face and squeezed his hand, telling him that everything was going to be ok.

            “I-I was abused as a child,” Myungsoo began, “My brother and I—his name was Sungjong—we were both beaten really heavily as kids, a-and one day, my father just snapped. He started yelling at Sungjong, telling him that he was worthless and that he would never amount to anything but a useless little boy. He ended up making my little brother kill himself later that night. He was already depressed because of how the kids made fun of him at school, but my parents didn’t do anything but make h-his condition worse.”

            Feeling Myungsoo’s hand grip his tighter, Sungyeol peeked over and saw that the younger’s other hand was clenched into a fist. Myungsoo started to tremble, and he glanced over at him, shaking his head, telling Sungyeol that he didn’t think he’d be able to continue anymore. Understanding the younger’s efforts, Sungyeol put Myungsoo’s hand on his knee, rubbing the hand with his own back and forth in hopes to calm him down. He looked up at the doctor, who was nodding diligently and taking down notes every once in a while.

            “What happened after that, Myungsoo?” the psychologist inquired.

            Sungyeol raised his hand a bit, catching the attention of the doctor in front of them, and started to speak, “Um, I don’t think Myungsoo’s really in the condition to finish telling you what had happened with him. He’s told me before; I can go from where he left off.”

            The doctor simple nodded and gestured for him to go ahead.

            The maroon-haired man felt Myungsoo start to play with his fingers before continuing the session, a little happy that the younger was starting to calm down.

            “Myungsoo had barely managed to survive that incident. His parents had been able to escape jail and they practically threw him to his aunt and uncle. They weren’t that much better as guardians, but they never physically hurt Myungsoo. He was just alone most of the time. Because of that, he never really learned how to, you know, love someone, and sometimes, when he’s with me, he’d just suddenly get enraged and…violent.”

            Sungyeol saw the psychologist peer over at the yellowing splotches on his arms, and he unconsciously pulled his sleeves down, only stopping when he felt Myungsoo hold his hands back.

            ‘It’s ok’, he mouthed.

            Myungsoo tried to give Sungyeol a reassuring smile before he turned back to the doctor, continuing.

            “That’s why we came to you. I don’t need you to put my parents in jail or anything—I’m sure that they won’t learn their lesson by being in there, they know people that would get them out—but I’m just asking if there is possibly a way for me to, you know, get better? Is there something I can take or do so that I don’t hurt Sungyeol—or anyone for that matter—anymore?” he requested.

            The doctor looked at the couple with an interested look before she nodded slowly. She leaned forward from her chair and clasped her hands together on her desk. She smiled a little and put her hands under her chin.

            “I think I know of a therapy treatment that could help you. Depending on how willing you are, it could take just a little more than two weeks.”

            Upon hearing this, Myungsoo’s eyes lighted up and he beamed. The raven-haired man glanced back at his lover and grinned.

            “We’re going to be ok,” he whispered.

            Due to Myungsoo’s enthusiasm and determination during the first few days of the therapy, he had actually finished in a little less than two weeks.

            The couple didn’t want to tell anyone about it though, because that would mean that Myungsoo had to explain what had happened to him as a child, and the doctor said that he’d have to choose between accepting what happened or forgetting what happened. Knowing Myungsoo, of course the young man had chosen to forget what had happened. It wasn’t like Sungyeol’s friends liked him that much anyway. The younger knew that the others had judged him for the bruises that Sungyeol had, but he also knew that he probably hated himself more than they hated him for hurting the tall, gummy man.

            The only thing he focused on during those two weeks was the future—his future—with Sungyeol.

            The last day of treatment that he had, the psychologist had congratulated him, and Myungsoo had immediately gotten a taxi to the city. He had looked into every single store in the area since the day he had talked to the doctor with Sungyeol, and now that his therapy was finished, he was able to purchase those rings that he had been looking for. He left the city with two golden rings in his pocket, and that night, he had asked Sungyeol to marry him.

            Of course, Sungyeol had said yes during dinner. He had felt like he was on cloud nine since he was so happy. Myungsoo was all dressed up in a suit and had practically called in a whole orchestra to come play for them during their celebration dinner. They had decided to hide the fact that they were getting married from their friends, though. They wanted to get everything planned first before they started to tell Sungyeol’s friends that they were going to be getting married. It was going to be a big announcement, and Sungyeol could almost hear their disapproving lectures. Sungyeol wasn’t honestly even sure if he wanted to tell them that they were going to get married. He loved his brother more than anything, but Sunggyu hadn’t even tried to listen to him when he had told him that there was a reason that Myungsoo did what he did to him. All his older brother had cared about was the cut on his lip, and the two had always ended up in an argument about his and Myungsoo’s relationship. It had bothered him enough to the extent that he had left to go live with Myungsoo.

            The newly engaged couple also had a little debate on whether or not to tell Myungsoo’s parents. They weren’t good people of course, but wouldn’t they at least be a little happy to hear that their lovely son was going to get married? They were still related by blood, and maybe Myungsoo had wanted to gloat that his life wasn’t ruined by them (or maybe he just wanted to hear one, single praise from his parents). Either way, his parents were never good people to start with. They asked who person was, and when Myungsoo told them that it was Lee Sungyeol, they had immediately screeched at him through the phone to try and get some money out of his parents, who were known to have quite a bit of it. Myungsoo, of course, had told them no, and regretted even telling his parents about Sungyeol, because afterwards, they wouldn’t stop calling. They kept calling, wondering how much money Sungyeol would be giving them for their son’s hand in marriage (treating him more like their property again instead of their son) and they even showed up at their shared apartment one day.

            When Myungsoo saw them with their fake smiles, trying to talk Sungyeol about who was going to pay for the wedding and the honeymoon and who was going to support Myungsoo and how as his future in-laws, he should come every month with loads of gifts, Myungsoo was so afraid that he’d snap back into his old violent ways. He was just so disappointed in his parents and he wanted to even hurt himself for even thinking that it was ok for him to call them. However, one look at Sungyeol’s face and all of his bad thoughts went away. He was reminded of why he had finally asked Sungyeol to marry him, and he suddenly reminded of why he loved the younger in the first place.

            Sungyeol was a pretty feisty person and he certainly knew how to fend for himself, promptly kicking his so called “in-laws” out of their apartment.

            However, his parents kept demanding to be invited to the wedding so often that even Sungyeol’s parents had found out about it. Sungyeol’s parents were understanding about their situation though. They knew what had happened to Myungsoo, and even though they really wanted to just put Myungsoo’s parents into jail, they had agreed to let Myungsoo and Sungyeol go to America to get married and live there from then on to take care of the American branch of their company (they owned a coffee franchise, which explained why Sungyeol was obsessed with the stuff).

            Unfortunately, Myungsoo’s parents weren’t going to let that happen.

            A week after they had decided to pack up their things and move to America, Myungsoo got a call from Sungyeol in the middle of work. They were going to go to the café later to finally tell Sungyeol’s friends that they were going to get married, and he was suddenly afraid that Sungyeol was going to back out of it.

            But that wasn’t why he had called. When Myungsoo picked up the phone, he hadn’t heard anything but crashes and screams for the first minute. The black-haired man had dropped his pen and stood up away from his desk.

            “Sungyeol, what’s going on?”

            He heard another crash before he finally heard the elder’s voice.

            “M-Myung, h-help.”

            Myungsoo had dropped everything and rushed back into their apartment, only to find everything on the floor, dirty and broken. He found Sungyeol covered in blood, cuts, and bruises, and all he could do was cry when all Sungyeol did was look at Myungsoo and smile—smile like he was so used to being beat up.

            He found a letter next to the bleeding elder that let him know that this was all his parents doing, and that if they weren’t going to get some of Sungyeol’s riches, neither should he. Myungsoo was their “son” after all. The words on the letter made a bitter taste crawl up Myungsoo’s throat. Crumpling up the letter and throwing it to the other side of the room, he crawled up towards Sungyeol, kicking away at the glass on the ground.

            The only thing Sungyeol did though was weakly smile at him again with his bloody mouth and black eye and whispered, “Don’t worry, Myung, we leave to America on Friday. Just hold on.”

            That was when he fainted, and after that Myungsoo had immediately taken the elder to the hospital, only to later find out that Sungyeol’s friends blamed him for the whole incident, since they didn’t know that Myungsoo had gotten therapy and that he had actually gotten better.

            They all said that this was the last straw. This was the first time that Sungyeol ended up unconscious, and Sunggyu had told Myungsoo that he really shouldn’t see Sungyeol anymore.

            ‘This is all your fault. You just couldn’t stop yourself could you? You’re sick, Kim Myungsoo. You’re freaking sick to do this to someone you love.’

            Later on, when Myungsoo heard that Sungyeol had woken up he was so excited that he ran over to his room, no longer caring whether Sunggyu and the rest of that “I-Hate-Myungsoo” group was there, but he stopped at the door, only to hear that Sungyeol had lost his memory.

            So, Myungsoo left the hospital, knowing that it would be better if Sungyeol forgot that he ever knew him. Sungyeol wouldn’t have ever gotten hurt if he had never met him, anyway.