I had wanted to ask you once if we could go somewhere together.

It was at a party that half the school attended even if it was a Sunday. There was alcohol, and drugs floating around, girls scantily clad in over revealing clothes. Girls with too much hairspray and cleavage but not enough brains. Girls with shorts that weren't even shorts, too short to be shorts, and shoes that seemed impossible to wear.

But you were in the most dazzling blue dress, a modest one. A boy tried to offer you a drink and you politely declined. Good thing too because I saw the guy put something into it beforehand. You were smart, not dumb like the other party goers. I remember seeing you through the crowd of grinding bodies and never looking away.

You had deep black hair that flowed effortless into a braid composed of little flower clips, colored pinks and reds and blues. They bounced in your curls to the beat of the horrendous music shaking the house. Your skin was pale, tender looking, like you'd bruise like a peach. Smooth, so smooth, were your legs. The legs that led to tennis shoes not heels like the others.

You and your friend, just another barely dressed teenager, laughed and I watched. I watched unassuming from the dark corner closest to the kitchen because I needed constant refills on my drink. You shone so bright under the flashing lights, I wondered if you were wearing glitter or if you were an angel.

Another guy was heading for you, drink in hand, his lips like you were prey, and he the hunter. I lunged into action quickly to save you from the drunken fiend. I cut him off and got to you in time to sling an arm around you, you yelped.

"She's not interested." I had said and waved his hand away, knocking the drink back onto his shirt. He just shrugged, deemed you not worthy, and walked away. I thought you were worthy of everything in the world, anything you wanted.

"Thanks." Your voice was soft and I strained to hear it. I watched your lips move and your eyes crinkle when you smiled, eyes disappearing. You slipped out of my arm but you were still smiling when you outstretched your hand.

"I'm Luhan." You had said and we shook hands. I knew your name already, seen you around school. But I didn't let you know.

"Sehun." And then you turned back to your friend and it was like nothing ever happened. The thought of just asking you out seemed fruitless now, the bounty spoiled.

So I had walked away to get more alcohol and your laugh was ringing in my ears even after I passed out.

------

You were popular and I was not. You got attention from everyone, even teachers. I couldn't hold someone's attention for more than a few minutes.

That day you were wearing a light pink dress with white flowers on it, matching flats. You looked so radiant and pure, innocent still in your untainted youth. You had yet to be defiled by unclean hands or the reality of the harsh world. You were to be protected at all costs, even if not by me.

I saw you sitting outside during lunch, not eating. I had stumbled over to your bench and quietly sat next to you with my mediocre lunch. You were shining again in the sun but you were crying. I saw the tears, the quivering lip, the desperation in your eyes.

I hadn't known you. We weren't friends and from different ends of the food chain. But I put my arm around you and you accepted it. You accepted the half-hug, even gripped my thigh through my skirt. Your pale hands looked out of place on the black material, fingers a vibrant pink.

"What's wrong?" It's the first thing I thought of and I never expected you to answer. But when you did I felt my heart ache in my chest and my stomach fall into fits of despair.

"My father died." It was so quiet, your voice so small. You looked exhausted behind the fake smiles and fabricated laughter. You looked beaten and raw and it hurt me. All I knew was your name, but so much more, and I wanted to cry with you.

"He just," You had started hiccuping and I gently patted your back. "died. I don't understand." It was hard for you to speak, I could tell. So I told you it'd be okay and to save your voice. I told you maybe not today or tomorrow but eventually it'll be okay.

And you believed me. You believed me and thanked me again when the bell rang. And you left to catch up to your friends waiting for you inside. Fake smile back on your face but pure devastation in your eyes.

------

I finally got around to asking you to the dance after the Spring Festival. It was ladies' choice and there was a line of guys waiting for you to accept them. They adorned you with flowers and promises of a good time, one propositioning getting a hotel room afterwards.

Again I saved you. 

I walked up casually and put my arm around your shoulders again. Again you yelped and I laughed, the boys scowling. "Sorry, she's already got a date." I pulled you closer, you stiffened but didn't pull away. 

The boys eventually dispersed to go care for their wounds and toss the flowers in the trash bin. You slipped away from me again but you were still smiling.

"I never agreed to go with you." Your voice spoke of calm, but tiredness. Your eyes were duller than before and skin a deeper hue under your eyes. I slipped my hand around your wrist gently, fingers almost touching around the thin bone.

"Now you have no choice." I smirked the smirk everyone hated. The boys would never agree to go with you now, even if you asked, because the rumor was already starting to spread. 

"I guess not." You laughed and it felt genuine. I dropped your hand and you readjusted the flyers in your arms. The pile looked too big for you to carry alone and I wondered why someone so small would do this by themselves.

So I grabbed half the pile and you scoffed. "I'll help you." And you didn't fight me on it.

I spent the afternoon escorting you around, handing you tape as we went. I'd help hang the higher up flyers, because I towered over you. You were so small between me and the locker when I reached to put a flyer above the office.

You talked the whole time, I only listened. Your voice embedding itself in my memory for later use. 

-----

I picked you up for the dance in my brother's car, it being much nicer than mine. Your house looked more expensive than anything I'd ever owned. Your yard was evenly mowed with the neighbors, not a weed in sight. A lovely little flower garden off to the side of the driveway.

When I knocked on your door an older man opened it. I told him I was here for you and he invited me in. We sat on the couch and he introduced himself as your uncle. Your mother was away dealing with her grief with her family.

He told me your curfew and to make sure there was no alcohol consumption. I assured him everything would be fine, that I wouldn't let anything happen to you. You were my princess and I your female knight, to protect you from anything and everything.

I remember being breathless at the site of you when you met us by the door. Your dress barely floated over the ground, a pale yellow against your skin. Your dark hair was swept back with a butterfly clip of the same color, lips glossy and pink. Pink to match your cheeks.

I felt lackluster compared. In my dark purple dress, low heels and loose hanging hair. I voiced my opinion as a joke, commenting on how clashing we were. But I couldn't help but notice how bad we looked together that night.

Everyone stared when we entered the gymnasium blasting with music. They stared at the beautiful woman with the pale yellow dress, practically floating on air. And they glared at the dullness that accompanied her, with an arm in hers.

I saw your friends approaching, felt you slipping away from my arm. You put distance between us, not a lot but enough. I noticed. And I should have expected as much, seeing as you were the life of the party. And I was a fly on the wall.

Your friends asked why were you with me. You said because you were forced into coming with me, made me out to be the bad guy. And it had stung. It hurt to see you laugh when your friends did as they turned to me and pointed.

"Why are you even here?" "What made you think she'd actually give you a chance?" "You're really just embarrassing her by staying." 

And you were laughing with them. But your smile faltered when I stepped back. And looking at your beautiful dress and hair then looking at mine, I realized they were right.

They'd been right all along and you thought this was all so funny. A big joke.

I guess you didn't see me start to cry when I turned to leave. I covered my face but didn't run, that'd be more embarrassing.

And I forgot to tell you that I thought you looked really nice tonight.

-----

It didn't seem like anything had happened the next day at school, everything the same. You with your friends and me by myself. Except now people knew my name around campus. I was the weird girl who got laughed out of the dance. Oh Sehun, the stupidest girl in the world.

We had a class together because your teacher was sick so classes merged. You were crowded into your friends' table, I was in the back, alone. We were given free time before having to go outside for sports.

You were laughing with your friends over a magazine. Your eyes were crinkled up, almost disappearing, and lips as pink as ever. Your hair was away from your face, tucked into a neat bow. 

While you were looking at your gossip magazines, I was writing. Writing about the girl I met at a party that took my breath away. A girl with so much light, so much beauty that it haunted me. In my dreams she'd be there, smiling with me, laughing with me. The dreams usually turned into nightmares, her laughing at me this time.

I wrote about a girl who had lost her father too soon and unexpectedly. I wrote about a girl with nearly black hair, deep brown eyes and pink lips. A girl with soft skin and small wrists and crinkly eyes when she smiled.

And while you laughed, my heart was breaking. Words pouring out onto the page like the tears from the night before.

Words you'd never see because you'd think they were funny.

-----

A week later, your friends got a hold of my journal. I had searched everywhere for it, frustrated tears building behind my eyelids. When I couldn't find it, I gave up. Hoping it was at home somewhere. Had accidentally gotten kicked under my bed.

During lunch, it was raining so were all forced into the cafeteria. Your friends were sharing laughs when you sat down with them. I sat alone across the cafeteria, beating myself up over being so dumb and forgetful.

And then your friend stood up on her chair, cleared and began. 

"Luhan. If I could count the stars in the sky they wouldn't add up to the amount of stars in your eyes." Her voice was loud and the room fell silent. In her hands was my journal. You looked surprised and my heart was silently shattering.

"Luhan. I would protect you from the world, if you needed me too. I'd protect you with my everything, because you are my everything."

And it cut deep, her reading my feelings to the entirety of the school. I couldn't move because I was scared people would know it was my thoughts, feelings. My journal.

You reached up to stop her but she shook you off and continued.

"Luhan. With hair as dark as night and skin as light as the moon, you shine brighter than the stars. You shine brighter than you're willing to admit, so I'll admit it for you."

"Luhan. My dearest Lu. I wish you'd love me like I love you." And everyone laughed.

You looked at me but I stood to look away. I ran this time, journal forgotten, feelings left for everyone to see. To hear my feelings being broadcasted like that was humiliating at best. God only knew what else they were reading out loud, even after I left.

I ran outside and to the bench where I held you while you cried for your father. The sky was dark, the wind was whipping the trees and the bench was wet. But it was covered and safe. Safer than the cafeteria or going back to class would be.

I had put my face in my hands and cried. When I pulled them away to look at them, my makeup had rubbed off. Dark hues of purple and black swirled in my tears in my palms. No doubt washing down my face too.

Inside I could still hear the laughing. I heard a door slam and figured someone had come to taunt me. Or a teacher to pull me inside and scold me for being out in this weather.

But it was you. It was you when I looked up. It was you who sat down in front of me, the front of your dress getting soaked, shoes squelching in the water. It was you who tore my hands away from my face and into yours. My makeup smearing over your porcelain skin.

"Sehun." My name sounded foreign with the way you spoke so softly. "That was all really nice, what you said about me." You weren't smiling but the hint of a smile was there in your eyes.

You had pulled me into a hug and I wanted to cry harder. Your hair was getting wet from the shift in the rain but you didn't seem to mind. My makeup was surely bleeding onto the pristine, white, shoulder of your dress. But you didn't seem to mind.

"It was all so sweet of you to say. She had no right to do that. I promise I didn't know." You pulled away with your hands still in mine. There were tears in your eyes and I reached up to stop them. To stop them from tainting your perfection.

You gathered me up and helped me inside. We went to the nurses office for towels and she never asked why we weren't back in class yet. She left us in silence to go check on another student who had gotten hurt in class.

You sat me on one of the cots and wrapped a towel around my shoulders. You helped dry my hair off and pat my face to remove the excess makeup. And then we sat together in the quiet.

"I'm sorry about what happened at the dance." You apologized but I had already forgiven you. You were too nice and perfect to say angry at.

I leaned in and you didn't pull away this time. When I laid my lips on yours you reciprocated. You leaned into me and I wrapped the towel around you too, dragged you in. Sparks went off in my stomach and when we pulled apart, you looked pleased.

You swore to get my journal back for me. You swore to ditch your friends in favor of me because I was 'better company anyways'. I said you didn't have to, I'd be fine otherwise. But you insisted and we kissed again.

When the nurse came in again it was with the dean in tow. We got in trouble for skipping class but you just laughed when we left the office.

 

Together. Hand in hand.