I stared at her, unflinchingly. It was evident in her gaze, in every inch of her expression. For years she'd been deliberately putting her walls up. And now, just as intentionally, she had battered them all down.

She was expressing herself fully. She was making them known, her affections. She was showing me. She loved me.

And yet it was breaking my heart. Because she loved me but she didn't want to entertain it.

The sentiment in her eyes was as captivating as it was enchanting. It was plain and clear. I had never before felt both love and dread emanate from a person's eyes, much less of them being channeled towards me.

"Sojin.." The electrifying current coursing through me with my hand in contact with her face intensified a hundredfold. My lungs had ceased functioning. "Sojin.." It was a strain to even mention her name.

She loved me.

"Please leave," she whispered, one eye giving way for a tear to escape. "Please."

But you love me. "Why?"

"Luhan, please.." She didn't avert her loving gaze. She didn't allow it. Her walls were not coming back. They were not going to rise again. She was not going to let them sheath her emotions again.

I knew, not because of conceit this time, but because she was showing me. It was as simple as that: Sojin expressing herself at last. No pretenses. No façades. Just her and everything about her that she wanted to reveal.

She loved me.

It was too overwhelming to grasp at the moment.

She loved me.

Since when? How? Why? Did I deserve it? Did she think I deserved it? When? How?

She loved me.

So why was she pushing me away?

"I can't leave you," I said as I held her steady gaze. "I will not leave you. Why are you pushing me away?"

"Because I hate myself. And I hate you. Now leave."

"You don't hate me and you know that."

"Well, maybe you're right, but.. oh, Luhan, can't you see what you're putting me through?" She was crying now, too, but her voice remained steady. The way her tears streamed down on either side of her face was alarming. It crushed my heart and tormented my soul. "I'm tired and I'm.. I can't.. I can't.. not when.."

"What are you talking about?"

She shook her head and leaned away from my touch, her gaze dropping to her lap. "Just please leave."

"I told you, I am not going anywhere! Why can't you understand that?"

She didn't reply. For minutes the room was drowned in her hiccups and repressed sobbing.

Slowly, I took her free hand in both of mine, laced them together and drew the knot closer to my chest. "Sojin.. please don't cry.."

I could not fathom why she wanted so badly to push me away. No, it wasn't because she'd been disabled. That fact had been pretty much cleared up with her unspoken confession. And we both knew how little she regarded of her own safety and condition. She was that selfless.

"Sojin -"

"Luhan," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry.. so sorry.."

"Stop, Sojin. You've no fault -"

"No, Luhan -"

"Sojin -"

"Listen to me!" She snapped, raising her tear-streaked face up at me. I could not hold back the urge to wipe her cheeks dry, so I did, and she didn't stop me. "It wasn't you, okay? It never was - heck, it never was about you. How could I be so stupid?"

"Sojin, stop. I don't understand you. And I can't help you if I don't understand you." She was becoming frantic and I needed to hush her. Despite the unending tears, I didn't cease wiping her cheek. Unwinding my other hand free of hers, I raised it to wipe the opposite cheek. I was holding her face with both of my hands now. "Take it slow, okay? You don't have to push me away. I'll be right here, do you hear me, Sojin?"

She pinched her eyes shut, heaving long, deep breaths before nodding. "Okay," she huffed, slowly opening her eyes. I panicked a little. What if she decided to mask them again?

But then she cracked a small, resigned smile and she regarded me with the same unfabricated eyes. The joy springing out from within the deepest chambers of my soul was unexplainable.

"Okay," she said again. "I'm sorry, Luhan."

"Don't apologize, Sojin. There's nothing to apologize."

"Don't make statements before you even hear me out. You might change your mind later on. I don't want that." She motioned to avert but I beckoned her to look at me. She obliged willingly. She was altogether yielding herself to me; it was overwhelming. "I'd rather you don't speak than do so but decide otherwise afterwards."

"All right," I agreed, though my mind was in chaos.

She took a moment to gather her thoughts, taking one of my hands into her uninjured one and locked them together. Her fingers were cold and trembling. She was dead nervous. I was itching for her to speak but I didn't press it.

At last she sighed and looked at me. How very different she seemed with everything about her laid out in the open. She was still stunningly pretty, smart-looking, and lethargic. But her unfeigned eyes conveyed so much of her innermost sentiments. Beneath her outward strength was an extremely fragile girl whose uncertainty - though I didn't know for what - was b over.

"You were wrong, Luhan," she began, her voice small. "It was never about you. The planted ID, the phenol snare, the lost costumes, everything... even Yixing's illness during the Founding Anniversary wasn't just coincidence. And my brother... his rivals... ah, they were rivals, I remember now..." She was gripping too tightly my hand, her knuckles almost translucent at the force she was exerting.

I waited patiently. If it hadn't been about me, then who was it about?

"As you've said so yourself," she said, her brows knitting closer, "I have a serious lack of self-regard. So nobody can actually hurt me if they're only hurting me."

"What do you mean hurt you? Who's been hurting you..?"

She was shaking her head. "Nobody's literally hurting me, Luhan. And that's exactly the point. Because they're hurting the people I care about instead."

I gaped, uncomprehending. She wasn't making any sense.

"Do you remember what I said to Hyukshin? About having granted only one person a chance to woo me?" I nodded slowly. "And do you recall my cancelled marriage dinner with Jongdae?" I nodded again.

The lines of worry marring her face was heart-wrenching. If she were fretful of me changing my mind about her after she had divulged whatever it was she wanted to, then she was very wrong. Her fears were simply groundless.

I scooted closer so I could plant a kiss on her forehead. "Just tell me, Sojin. I promise I'll listen and try my best to understand. Just keep talking, deal?"

She rested her forehead against mine - to the havoc of all my internal organs - and closed her eyes. "Okay, deal." When she opened her lids again, she was better. "It was during tenth grade when Jongdae and I had been arranged for a marriage dinner. I don't know if he had known it was me he'd been arranged to meet that time, but he knows now because I told him about it before the party. I needed to tell him to solidify my assumptions about his brother. Kim Jongdeok, you remember him, right?"

Of course I did. Kim Jongdeok. How could I not?

"Of course you do," Sojin voiced out my thoughts, chuckling a little. "Well, the dinner with Jongdae never happened because... his brother took his place. Jongdeok. He appeared in Jongdae's stead." She took a brief pause to study my face. She pursed her lips before resuming. "I don't think my family knew of the changes; it was I who received the proposal letter from Jongdae's mother, and I only told my parents we were meeting one of the sons of one of their most prominent business partners. I hadn't told them it was Jongdae's name his mother had written, and nobody during the dinner, not even Jongdae's mother, made mention of the change.

"I simply brushed it off, but I was honestly disappointed because I'd been really looking forward to meeting Jongdae since the musical - don't frown, Luhan. I already told you, I only viewed him as a friend."

I didn't realize I was already scowling. I cleared my throat.

"You are one jealous guy, aren't you?" she said suddenly. "I'm not even your girlfriend."

"No," I affirmed. "You're n