A/N: This is actually a flashback to when Nichkhun and Tiffany broke up in case any of you get confused.

Words cut deep, deeper than any physical wound. Nichkhun knew this well, had experienced it himself like any other public figure whose life is dictated by words and opinions. But still, he lost his self control and the scathing words and hurtful names he calls Tiffany pour out of his mouth unchecked in a stream of vitriol, wanting to cut, to wound, to hurt.

“What?” she whispered, looking like Nichkhun had just forced her rib cage open to rip her heart out before tearing it apart slowly.

Tiffany's voice was faint; softer than Nichkhun has ever heard it.

“What?”

“You heard me the first time,” Nichkhun said mercilessly despite the hurt that fills Tiffany’s eyes and blocks out the light in them. “I meant exactly what I said.”

Tiffany reels back like he hit her as her face pales.

“Lee Joon is a friend, Nichkhun,” she says quietly. “As are all the other men you are so jealous of. I have never been unfaithful to you, Khun. Can’t you even trust me?”

“How can I trust you when all you do gives me reason not to?” Nichkhun shot back, regretting the words even as they leave his mouth.

Tiffany opened her own, about to say something equally heated back but her beautiful eyes filled with tears instead and Nichkhun’s jaw hardened even as regret clutched at him and something clenched in his chest to know it was because of him.

All because of his words.

Tiffany just shook her head, backing away slowly as the tears fall before turned up in an unhappy smile that had none of the usual radiance or sweet kindness in it.

“So this is what you thought of me all along,” she said, voice surprisingly steady except for a slight break at the end. “I never knew you thought of me that way. I never knew you believed what other people had to say about me.”

“Well, now you do,” Nichkhun said coldly, ruthlessly because he wanted to hurt her rather than be hurt himself, be hurt by all the words and comments and opinions that say he and Tiffany don’t belong together, that he doesn’t deserve her which he well knows and often resents, that all he would ever do would be bring her down–

He pushed all of that hurt and pain onto her instead and added heartbreak to it.

Tiffany’s eyes were dark and resigned when Nichkhun just met hers coolly, without speaking the apology he can already feel rising up in his throat, even as an insidious little voice whispers all his doubts and fears and pushes the reconciliatory words back down.

“I see,” her voice was scarily soft, weariness apparent. “I see.”

“Do you?”

Wound, maim, hurt.

He’s accomplished all that, but all he felt was a hollowness in the vicinity of his chest at the pain that crosses her face and he didn’t feel any pride or sense of achievement.

He had wanted to hurt her, because he felt hurt, but all he felt after the dark satisfaction that came from speaking venomous words he had heard and read so many times that they seemed to become his own, was regret and stubborn anger.

“You know what, Nichkhun?” she starts, her voice very calm and empty even as the life and spark he so loved about Tiffany drained out of her eyes. They were two bottomless pools of black liquid, something weary and aged about them despite her youthful face.

“I always loved you, more than anything in the world, and maybe that love blinded me from seeing what you really were. But now I see,” she lifted her eyes to his, clear and devoid of tears now. “That you are exactly what other people say about you too.”

His jaw hardened at her words, and he turned to leave, the door slamming hard behind him even as the faint scent of her perfume followed him.

He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand the reminder of the wounds he inflicted and the memory of her hurt eyes, and he hurried away.

He never called and neither did she.

Looking back, he railed at his own goddamned ego and foolish sense of entitlement that had been cultivated by Tiffany’s loving, forgiving personality, that had always made her the first to come back and initiate reconciliation.

Until now.

Then he saw her at the broadcast station, and she had looked at him with those big, dark, weary eyes of hers and he had ignored her. Tiffany had faltered, looking distinctly hurt as Nichkhun looked away, not wanting to see the moisture in her eyes or feel the guilt he tried to surpress.

It happened the second time, the third, the fourth, and went on and on and even though s talked to him about it and the rest of SNSD always glared at him subtly and Taecyeon even fought with him about it because Tiffany was his friend, Nichkhun’s heart stayed hardened against the fallout of his own mistakes.

Then Tiffany stopped trying. When he passed by her in the corridors of broadcast stations and checked her reaction, she only smiled politely. Once, she even congratulated him on an award 2PM had recently received, with nothing but cool detachment in her tone even as her eyes stayed on his, hopeful, pleading.

Nichkhun had said nothing. Nichkhun had also tried to tell himself that it was alright but it wasn’t.

He regretted it but didn’t do a thing about it either, being too proud to ask for her forgiveness.

He was just like that: proud. Selfish.

Months passed, and he heard about Tiffany’s new projects: her musical, her movie debut with Lee Joon and T.O.P. and the new SNSD album that had spawned record sales despite their status as veterans in the industry and he debated picking up the phone to call her and congratulate her like nothing had happened.

But he didn’t, even though the regret was setting in and he missed her. By the time he actually mustered up enough courage to apologize, it was too late, and she had already moved on.

“Let’s be friends,” she smiled.

Tiffany had come up to him after a music show broadcast, her face open and relaxed with no hint of the anger he’d have expected and even thought he deserved. He had hardly exchanged more than two sentences with her the past few months, and during that time he had realized how much he missed her – how much he needed and loved her.

“What?” he said dumbly, surprised.

“Let’s be friends, oppa,” she repeated, and he stared at her.

Oppa. Oppa. She never called him oppa.

“I’m sick of being angry at you,” she continued, as cheerfully as if they were discussing the weather or her new hairstyle. “So let’s be friends instead.”

Nichkhun had only nodded silently, dumbfounded, before he hesitated, an ocean of half-formed words waiting on his tongue. 

"Tiffany–"

A tall figure materialized behind Tiffany then.

“Oh, Seunghyun sshi!”

“Miyoung sshi.” T.O.P. smiled at her affectionately before glancing at Nichkhun. “I’m sorry, was I interrupting?”

“No, not at all.” Nichkhun smiled coolly even when he internally disagreed with his own words.

“Just a minute, oppa,” Tiffany said to him before turning to the Big Bang member, her face brightening almost instantly.

Nichkhun fell back as he watched them talk: the tall man with dark, intense eyes that stayed on Tiffany’s face as she lit up effortlessly, moving as she spoke earnestly with the small gestures that Nichkhun knew so well.

He saw how T.O.P. looked at Tiffany, and he saw how Tiffany looked back at him. She seemed unaware of how her eyes sparkled, and how curved so innocently and sweetly, but Nichkhun saw. 

It was too late after all. 

Nichkhun smiled humourlessly to himself and left. 

By the time Tiffany finally bid goodbye to T.O.P., Nichkhun was gone.

He didn't bother trying then and he was regretting it now.