“Really? You’re writing in your diary on duty?”

I didn’t even have to look up to see who was talking to me. I just rolled my eyes and closed my diary placing it under the counter. “Want the usual? Or are you just here to annoy me?”

Sehun shrugged. “Actually, I’m here to take you out.” He took the open/close sign from the counter and put it on the counter with the “Closed” side showing. Once he had done that, he placed a shopping bag on the counter. “Change.”

“Now wait a second, I can’t just leave an hour early.” Regardless of my words, I peeked inside the bag to see what he had in store for me: White button down, high waisted jeans, and reasonable looking heels. “I can get fired for doing that.”

“Not if I approve it.” Sehun took a pen from his pocket and took the sticky note from the register. He signed his signature and then stuck the piece of paper on the sign itself. “There. Approved…” He pushed the bag towards me a bit more forcefully. “Now change. Or do you need my help to do that?”

“I need no help from you, thank you very much.” I picked up the bag as if it was the most delicate thing on earth. “I am very much capable of putting on my own clothes.” I turned around to walk towards the employees lounge.

“Really? Your own clothes? From what I see, you enjoy wearing MY clothes in my home more than your own” Sehun chuckled. I quickened my pace into the break room, and once behind the closed door I tossed the bag onto the table.

“So what if I borrow his clothes?” I asked as I started to take the apron off my waist. “I mean, they’re comfortable and sensible. At least I’m not borrowing his underwear…” I lifted my shirt over my head and started to fold it neatly. “I mean, why would I borrow his underwear in the first place? I know boyshorts are comfortable but—“

Out of nowhere I heard quick footsteps and a thud indicating that the door to the break room had opened. I looked over my shoulder and saw Sehun coming towards me. Yes, coming right towards me as I was half .

“THE FU—“ My mouth was suddenly covered by his hand as he pulled my body towards him. I felt his arm snake around my bare waist and I tried to squirm my way out but he kept shushing me.

“Shhhh! They're coming out of the elevator!” Sehun whispered into my ear. He lifted me off the floor, and walked towards the door. He laid his back against the wall then leaned forward to look out the circular window. My body was going through the motions, but my mind was stuck on the important things like: THE HELL?? SUITS IS HOLDING ME IN HIS ARMS AND I’M HALF . I couldn’t even grab my t-shirt to cover myself. No, I just had to use my arms to cover the important parts.

I leaned forward along with him and looked out the window. It was Mr and Mrs. Oh with Victoria. Why would Sehun run from his own family?

“I don’t know…Something is fishy about that girl” Mrs. Oh pointed out as she paused to find something in her purse. Mr. Oh looked up from his cell phone.

“I have to agree with you. My team tried to do a background check on her, but couldn’t find the exact Krystal Jung that matches the description she tells us about.” Mr. Oh looked at Victoria. “What do her parents do again?”

Victoria shrugged. “Uhm, I think her parents are in the jewelry design business.” Victoria looked a bit worried as she saw the doubt in her parent’s faces. I looked up at Sehun, but just like his mother, his face was stone cold. No emotion whatsoever.

“Nonetheless, I liked the other woman he had before…What was her name again, dear?” Mrs. Oh pointed at Mr. Oh with her sunglasses.

“Daeun dear…. Her name was Daeun.” Mr. Oh put his phone away in his pocket shaking his head. “Lost out on that one I tell you.”

“Why? Because you couldn’t get the merger to work?” Victoria shook her head looking furious. “So what’s wrong if this girl doesn’t have a title to her name? Sehun seems to really like her—“

“We have a name to protect Victoria. A reputation” Mrs. Oh interrupted her daughter, putting her foot down. Mr. Oh nodded his head.

“You should know that we could fall just as easily as we rose up in this industry. In order for us to keep our spot, we must do what’s best for the future for this company.” Mr. Oh straightened his tie.

“Sehun is doing the best he can to fulfill both of your wishes. You know how much he has sacrificed to make YOU TWO happy?” Victoria crossed her arms across her chest. “For once, you can allow HIM, his own happiness.”

“He was happy with Daeun!” Mrs. Oh burst out with her waving her hand. “I saw that!” She pointed at Mr. Oh. “You saw that too, right!?”

“Yes, but she got married to another boy remember. And HE didn’t have a well known name either” Victoria pointed out. Daeun? Who is this Daeun? Did he really—I looked slightly up at him, and though at first glance it looked as if nothing changed about him…But his eyes told a different story. It was as if he wasn’t even looking at the scene outside anymore. It was as if his mind was someplace else…Thinking of HER.

“Look, whatever happens I will NOT let Sehun marry that Krystal girl” Mrs. Oh began to walk and the other two followed.

“So what is the deal with this big wedding in California then?” Victoria asked in a worried tone.

“Who knows if there’s even going to be a wedding?” Mrs. Oh’s heels clapped louder against the floor in combination with Mr. Oh and Victoria’s steps as well. I saw them leave through the revolving doors, I let out a sigh of relief. I felt Sehun’s hand slip off my mouth allowing me to breathe a bit easier. The arm around my waist was still attached though. But, at that moment I didn’t care…I just turned around facing him who was still looking out the window. Yupp, he was really out of it now.

“Hey…” I softly said to try and get his attention. He didn’t respond. “Heyyy…” I waved my hand in front of his face. Nothing again. I rolled my eyes. “HEY.” Without a second thought, I put my hands on his cheek and turned his face towards me. For the first time tonight, I saw his face show a clear expression of shock.

“W-What??” He asked a bit shaken up.

“Are you okay?” I lifted his head in different angles to view. “You were out of it for a while…”

Sehun placed his hands on mine, taking it off his face. “Yeah. I-I’ll be fine…” He gently placed my hands down by my side. “Sorry, about that I just—“

“Do you want to talk about it?” For some reason, I felt that what I just witnessed was NOT something that I could just pass off. This was an opportunity for Sehun to open up to me. An opportunity to see if he actually saw me more than just a…a friend. Cause that’s what were now up at this point, right? Friends? Because…I trust him…

“We’ll obviously have to talk about it.” Sehun took off the jacket of his suit and then placed it around my bare shoulders. I closed it tight around me, forgetting that I was even half in front of Suits. “I mean, she’s onto us. And Noona can only cover for us for so long…“ His voice faltered out as my thoughts took over. So he DIDN’T want to talk about THAT with me…

“Oh, yeah of course we do.” I looked down at my feet. Why did it hurt to hear those simple words? I turned around to walk towards my clothes again to change. I guess its fine. I shouldn’t push him to open his feelings towards me if he isn’t comfortable talking to me about it. As a friend, that’s my responsibility. Even if he might not see me as one…

“I’ll wait for you outside in the front with car, all right?” I heard the door open and his footsteps. Without wasting another minute in my pity party, I changed in a reasonable amount of time. I gathered all my things from my locker, and walked out of the break room. Grabbing my diary from under the counter I placed that in my backpack, I started to follow the same footsteps that the four before me had taken out to the front.

Once I got into the car, I put my stuff down at my feet and secured my seat belt. I felt the car move without another word and we were off. Silence. The only thing playing in the background was a bit of music, but even that wasn’t registering in my mind. What was in my mind was a cloud of this sadness I was feeling… Why was I even sad? Because Sehun won’t tell me a little bit of himself? Psshht, Soo Jung. Get it together… You don’t need to know that…

“We were friends in high school. Daeun and I” Sehun’s voice finally broke the silence. I turned my head to look at Sehun. “Her mother and father own the eyewear brand 2EYES. Appa and Omma wanted us to marry so we could merge companies. So that Oh! Fashion Industries could easily jumpstart a sunglasses/fashionable eyewear line.” He kept his eyes straight on the road, his face slightly crestfallen. As if it was hurting him to talk about this, but Sehun was forcing himself to say all this.

“Sehun you don’t have to talk about this—“ I began to say, but he just continued on, ignoring my words.

“I was happy when I heard that I was allowed to marry her after we graduated high school. I couldn’t WAIT to graduate…Attend a university together. Travel the world, start a life…together. But then a few days before graduation, she came up crying to me.” I saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel. “She told me she had a boyfriend overseas, though her parents were telling her she was to be in an arranged marriage. At that time, she didn’t know that I was the one she was going to marry. Daeun begged me to help her to keep this marriage from happening.”

“And you know what? I did exactly that. I helped her escape our OWN marriage.” Sehun shook his head, smiling. It wasn’t happy though, more of a “recalling my mistakes” kind of smile. “The day of graduation when I was supposed to propose to her, I didn’t show up to the ceremony. I took the first flight to Paris that day, and left her without saying goodbye.” I felt the car come to a complete stop and I looked around. We were in front of a familiar convenience store. Suits immediately got out of the car, and I followed him out quickly.

Once inside the store, I looked over at the cashier and as expected it was Sulli. Her eyes beamed at me as she gave me a wild wave and I returned the same expression to her.

“Hey Sulli! Long time no see, how are you??” I beamed. Sulli gave me an “ok” sign with her fingers. She suddenly bent her body to the right, and angled her head. I followed her vision; she was looking at Sehun who was holding two bowls of Ramen in his arms, looking in the condiments section. Sulli pointed at him then looked at me. Her other finger pointed at one of the gossip magazines she was reading.

I leaned forward realizing that it was an article announcing Sehun and Krystal’s engagement. “Oh! That’s us, yeah…” I laughed pointing between Sehun and I. Sulli's mouth fell agape as if she was star struck. She stood that way until Sehun walked up to her placing everything in his arms on the counter.

“I’ll pay for these. Krystal, why don’t you go sit by the window and wait for me?” Sehun didn’t even look at me while saying that. Sulli looked at me with wide eyes and I gave her a reassuring smile that I was okay. I followed his orders and sat in the same exact spot I sat in when I spotted Suits in the restaurant across. How long had it been since I first saw him here at this place, huh? Almost two months? A little more? Huh, have Sehun and I really known each other for THAT long now?

“Here.” He placed the steaming hot bowl clipped with chopsticks in front of me. He sat beside me placing his own bowl in front of him.

“So, is this you’re idea of taking me out?” I tried to joke. I pointed to the restaurant across from us. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking me there?”

Sehun shrugged. “I was in the mood for something more…down to earth…” He took an impatient peek in his ramen bowl. I could tell that he wanted to say something more about our conversation earlier in the car, but a certain pair of ears and eyes was watching us. I could see Sulli past Sehun’s head looking un-slyly up and down from the magazine she was now pretending to read. Once we made eye contact, I kind of gave her the international girl signal of “can we have some privacy please?” formed into an “O” and she gave me the thumbs up.

Sulli stepped away from her counter and immediately walked out the front door of the store. Passing the both of us, she made charade gestures telling us to “Watch the store; call her if anything happens.” Once done with her hand motions, she powerwalked away, causing the both of us to laugh.

Though Sulli had left us alone, Sehun and I had now returned to the awkward silence from before. I knew better then to open my mouth  because Sehun had said enough back there. I knew he wanted to say something, but whether it be about our situation or his past—It was up to him to choose. I’m just glad that he opened up to me a little bit.

“Well…” Sehun opened his now cooked noodles up and broke the chopsticks into two.

“Well…” I did the same thing as Suits. Peaking into my cup of noodles, I was surprised that he put everything in it that I would put for myself. Looking over at Sehun’s bowl, we both had the same taste in condiments for our noodles.

“Are you not going to say anything?” Sehun stirred his noodles.

“Uhm…Thank you?” Was that what I was supposed to say?

“Not that pabo. I mean…Are you still curious about what happened between Daeun and I?” Oh, so he wanted to still talk about THAT. Somehow, I had a feeling that the noodles weren’t the only cause of this warm feeling inside of me.

“Have you seen her since then?” I asked as I took a slurp from my bowl.

Sehun shook his head. “I was invited to her wedding. I just couldn’t go.” He spun his chopsticks around in his bowl.

“You ‘couldn’t’ go? Or you ‘didn’t’ want to go?” I took a sip of soup from my cup.

“Both.” Sehun wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You wouldn’t want to watch someone you loved get married to somebody else now, would you?”

“I mean, why not? The past is the past. Besides, if you REALLY loved her, you would be happy that she’s happy you know?” I started gathering noodles onto my chopstick. “It’s like those sappy love stories where their all like ‘well, my happiness is your happiness’ da da da da da.” I waved my hand away the Hollywood theory.

“What? You don’t seriously believe in that right?” Sehun asked as he gathered his chopsticks in his hand again.

“To be honest I just say that just because it sounded right for this moment. But, reality check…Ehhh…” I wavered my hand from side to side. “Honestly, I think the only person that can make you truly happy is yourself, you know? Like, the thing about ‘my happiness is your happiness’ is that you’ve completely sacrificed yourself to someone else’s wishes; as if you’re blinded by love.”

“So if loves not about sacrifice, then what do you think it’s about?” Sehun asked putting his cup down, interested in what I had to say.

“Okay, so there are levels of sacrifice for different types of love… For example—“

“You sacrificing your teenage years to work and study so you can support your family?” Sehun pointed out. I snapped my fingers and pointed at him.

“Bingo. That’s family love.” I looked at my bowl then took the last sips of soup from it. Once finished, I placed the bowl next to his. “Another example could be about Amber and I. I sacrifice my love of Spam when she forgets to bring her lunch to school—“

“What about us?” Sehun suddenly leaned forward, causing me to lean a bit back. Holy crap his face…

“Us?” He took my chin in one hand and then wiped my soup dripping mouth with a clean napkin. 

“What kind of sacrificial love do we have?” He took his hand off my chin, but he stayed in close proximity to my face. Did he just say the “L” word?? I mean not alone…but he said it, right?!

“I mean—we’re complicated to categorize” I turned away from him to gather our trash in one bowl. I saw Sehun raise a brow.

“How so?”

“Well, I mean both of us are sacrificing something for each other, right? Like, your name…my future (kind of)… So I mean—“

“So what you’re saying is…” Sehun placed his hand on the back of my seat creating a little prison between his arm and the table. “We each sacrifice one thing for ourself to keep the other standing, at all times.”

“Yes. Sure. We've both got the point, so whatever you say…” I tried to move my chair from side to side to escape this situation but it was no use. My heart was pounding like no other, and I couldn’t exactly look him straight in the eye. “If you want to categorize this…we’re like. Uhm, friends with benefits… WITHOUT THE ACTUAL BENEFITS THAT ONE USUALLY THINKS OF WHEN I SAY THAT.” Pabo Soo Jung. Really now, Pabo…Now he’s going to be thinking it and think I’m a ert and—

“Are you sure about that?” Sehun leaned in and without warning he placed his lips against mine. Once I felt his lips make contact, that warm feeling in my stomach from before exploded. Was this what it was like to have…fireworks in your head? Butterflies in your stomach? Drummers beating to your heart? Oh my god…I really had it bad for Sehun now.

I pulled away from the kiss first. “Sehun—“

“Look, I’m not going to completely taint you…” Sehun placed one or two smaller pecks on my lips. “Just, a little here and there every once in a while, okay?”  I bit my lip from grinning, and balled my hands into fists playfully hitting him for his suggestion and actions.

“You said it first not me!” I pointed out. Sehun captured my hands in his to defend himself doubling as a move.

“If we want to make this relationship seem real in front of my parents, then we have to umph the PDA…” Sehun connected his forehead with mine. “Thankfully, you’re pretty enough to be beneficial to me not only for this concept but for my own interests as well.”

'Interests'. There was that word again…God, how much I just wanted to scream and ask if he just LIKED me for me or—My thought faltered as he once again, went in for a deeper kiss than before. Okay, so as long as he’s interested and I get kisses like this…I guess I don’t mind being friends with “benefits”…

Neither did I mind categorizing this more then a “friendship” kind of sacrificial love…

Author's Note

So first off, that was a long chapter...If you didn't think so then you must enjoy reading this huh? Time flies when you're having fun kind of thing. Second off, the Daeun thing in REAL life though...I was just trying to find another random kpop ship with Sehun & their names popped up automatically in the search bar. So, I read the history behind them & was liek "Oh, 2EYES? That sounds a eyewear brand" so I kind of just ran with it... Sorry if I brought up some "bad memories" OTL 

Thank you for taking the time to read my story! ♡(˃͈ દ ˂͈ ༶ )