Ryeowook's pov:

I didn't know whether to worry about how much being kissed by Kyuhyun made me feel trapped in my own hurt emotions, or that Zhou Mi was literally trotting around me as we entered my home. He had never ceased once to give me the concerned look since when I looked for his hug and we eventually left aboard his car.

He had not asked me one question about my behavior...not yet...but that was just because we were still stuck into traffic, and that wasn't the right place to talk. I was already sensing a suffocating fear creeping on my body and getting inside my heart, as I anticipated the moment when we had to step in.

I just wanted to be by myself and try, once and forever, to work on my delicate nerves and mentally send Kyuhyun to hell for doing what he did. I needed time and silence, and, despite my great affection for Zhou Mi, I didn't need him to inquire on what had happened, resulting in me exposing raw details that might have only worsened my state. I just needed myself. I needed to look for my lost strenght and be brave while recollecting thoughts and emotions in order to kill that memory...and getting rid of whatever modicum of love I still harbored for Kyuhyun somewhere in my heart.

I heard Zhou Mi closing the door behind me and I walked to the living room, carelessly throwing my bag on to the sofa and fiddling with my fingers on the shirt buttons right under my chin.

"So...what happened?" Zhou Mi asked, quite uncertain, I noticed.

I sighed, and automatically felt a sharp spear-like pain sinking deep in my chest, as if my flesh had been really torn: "Nothing..." I mumbled and while I was unbottoning my shirt, I realized I still had on the jacket. I took it off and threw that on the sofa first.

"That's not like you..."

Zhou Mi took a chair from under the dining table and sat there, crossing arms and folding legs, I felt his inquisitory gaze on my back: "What's not like me?" I asked, feeling much more tired. His attempts of making me speak had already started...

"Throwing clothes around, for example..." he said. Right, because I was the neat one, the guy overly obsessed with fixing things, taking care of even the smallest detail and so on...but that night I didn't feel like having time to fold clothes and perfectly put them away: I had to think about my shattered soul first.

And, while I was at it, I really wanted to grab those clothes and burn them until nothing was left but dark thin ashes. That was Kyuhyun's party, with Kyuhyun's guests and friends...and those were the clothes he had wanted us to wear...it was useless keeping them, unless I wanted to keep on hurting myself. And I surely didn't want it. "...I'm just too tired and I want to rush to bed" I answered, this time I was about to let the shirt slide down from my bare shoulders and along my arms. I walked across the room and casually threw a glance at my reflection in a round mirror hung on the wall opposite to the kitchen; then I suddenly remembered about those red marks Kyuhyun had left on my neck with his lips. I gulped and tried to lift it back on, but Zhou Mi was faster. He hopped in my direction and strongly grabbed my arm, so that he could turn me to face him. 

"What's that?" he frowned, suspicious.

"Nothing..." I stuttered then, scared for being on the fragile verge to give him all sort of explanations. I grabbed the collar of the shirt and held it firmly with my fingers, so I could cover my collarbone line "...I just...you know, I felt itchy and scratched a little bit...that's normal..." I lied.

"You cannot lie, Ryeowook. And this is too perfectly round for being the result of scratching hands!" he was still pulling the shirt, until I couldn't take it anymore and let the fabric slip from my fingers, so he could expose the red marks and take a better look. I even bothered to tilt my head, so he could carefully examine my neck and drew his final conclusions: "What really happened?" Zhou Mi stressed those three words, letting me no other choice than thinking of how to reply. He resumed: "At first I thought that the party might have not been of your liking, but still...I couldn't really explain your tears after coming out of the place. Now, I really think that something more awful than that has occured...and maybe I also know because of whom..."

I stood there. My friend, my clever friend, was now slowly hitting the point. How fast of Zhou Mi! Honestly I had thought he might have guessed this even earlier, though. He let me go and stood there, slightly frowning and waiting for my reply. I could just then put on a quite distressed grimace on my face and sadly pouted, while looking for his arms again: "Why? Why must I love him? Between all people...why does it have to be him!" I lamented, diving my face on his chest. 

Zhou Mi closed his arms around me and patted my back. His touch was soft, yet definite. That wasn't the first time he had to comfort me that way. I cried and cried then, getting his t-shirt wet with my tears. He didn't care.

"So, I was right...it was Kyuhyun...again..." he sighed, almost imperceptibly, chin up in the air, wanting that sentence to sound more like a note to himself that a true observation.

Those red marks were the result of the mean prank he played on me, exploiting the fact that I was perfectly unaware of his identity. But why, if he hated me that much, was he having fun with showing me those multiple, incomprehensible sides of him, which made me so uncertainly weaver. He tortured me first of all showing his rage soon after our first unwanted meeting at Eunhyuk and Donghae's place, then he pretended to be worried for my health and he even came all the way here; he did fast to avoid me again, but in the end he looked for me and...

...Kyuhyun had probably imagined that I was a sort of lifeless and emotionless wooden piece, with which he could have freely toyed until he got fed up...well, it was the exact opposite instead!

The truth was that I was way too much full of various emotions that I couldn't keep it up with his sudden moves. I hated him for having abandoned me, for having denied his so-told-sincere feelings for me, I got depressed and struggled a lot trying to forget him: his soft touch whenever he caressed me, those arms that wound me against his body, his dorky smile, his deep dark eyes that I loved so much to gaze into, his lips that gently pecked on mine...we were young and free...we were about to take on the greatest challenge life could have pushed towards us: the thrilling feeling of first love. Right, first love is hard to forget...it never dies...but now, my soul felt deprived of anything joyful I could have possibly hoped to feel, if I ever managed to get back to my old self. I felt dry inside...I was living with my body literally aching because I materialized those mental symptoms...I despised him for playing with the memory of us...I was disgusted by the way he carelessly thought of having fun with that kiss...

...but more than anything else...I was disgusted that I could have thought of wanting him back so bad...did I really lack of self-esteem and love for myself to the point that I couldn't consider the huge danger that this hypnotic feeling was causing me? I was slowly destroying myself...I was guilty of loving a person more than my own self and I didn't cherish me in any way. I wanted him back and I wanted to be fully loved by him, I wanted to share everything with him, but that unreachable sadistic thought was like consciously willingly giving up on my own life. I told myself to forget him, but the only thing I could do was the opposite, and I ended up daydreaming to find Kyuhyun behind the stranger's mask. I guess it would have been pretty exciting...and I was, when I dared to desperately kiss him back, probably reaching the intent of making him have fun of my own despair.

Because that's what I might have probably looked like: a fool. Whoever had got a bit of sense in his mind would have never reacted the way I did. I wanted love. I wanted what was missing in the ghost of my life so bad. And I gave up my pride on the same moment I decided to press my lips with his. It wasn't as strong an impression as literally selling my body to him, but I guess that's it. It's the imagination the gets closer to what I had thought soon after realizing that he was looking at me with his evil grin...I felt ashamed of myself, but what did Kyuhyun earn by winning that kiss? 

While playing the piano at that stupid party, I looked at him, I looked at his lips curved into a seemingly happy smile and I knew that was a first signal of alarm. I couldn't fail at recognizing him, even behind that mask, I knew it when I first suspected of his identity, which I pushed away from my mind then. I had asked myself how I'd have reacted in the case I knew that was Kyuhyun, and I lied to myself, telling me that I didn't have an answer for that question. Well, I was wrong...I did have one, however I didn't want to listen to it, as my heart was sorely screaming, for trying to push me to stand up from the stool and walk to him, in order to ask for another chance together...I was willing to walk towards him and beg him to take me back! I was...I really, truly was...

How stupid...and delusional of myself...and if I became that kind of man...it was because of Kyuhyun...if my certainties had completely turned to ashes...it was because of him...and the sufferings I had to silently bear...

I didn't even notice that Zhou Mi had taken me by the hand and accompanied me to the bathroom, where he was asking me to clean up my makeup and change into my pajama. As far as I understood his intentions, he said he wouldn't have let me to sleep alone that night.

And I curled myself under bed covers, lying on my hip and sliding both my hands under my pillow. I had my back on Zhou Mi, who had already fallen asleep and lied some inches away from me with his back on the mattress, one hand stretched to reach my hip, as if that could have protected me from my nightmares. It wasn't the first time for him to stay over for the night and help me with my sleep...but once again it wasn't as efficient and sweet as Kyuhyun's past effect would have worked on me...I ended up comparing everything from my actual life as a loner to what it might have looked if I were to share myself with him...and that night, more than the others, there was Kyuhyun before my open eyes...I couldn't dare to let myself fall asleep: closing eyes would mean meeting Kyuhyun either in bad or good times, while, having them forcingly open, helped me stuck to the material reality the surrounded me: a cold reality without him, which I had better to get used to as soon as possible... 

...a new day was about to rise anyway, and I had to learn from it...I had to learn how to rise like a phoenix and leave Kyuhyun behind in the old burnt ashes...

---ooo---

Kyuhyun's pov:

The persistent sound of flushing water woke me up, and, as I slowly got back my consciousness and opened eyes, frowning for adjusting my sight to the soft morning light, I slowly realized where I was. I had spent the night in an unfamiliar bedroom, but I couldn't tell much more...I was suffering from a pretty heavy headache and didn't remember quite a thing about what happened the day before.

I rolled on the side and lied in bed on my hip, facing the curtain-closed window enlighted by the rays of sun, which strongly wanted to peek inside, but failed at it. 

It was difficult for my mind to start running thoughts or whatever...I needed help to understand the environment that surrounded me.

Luckily, someone willingly showed up and stretched a helpful hand in my direction...quite literally.

The side of the bed on my left flexed a little bit and I felt someone moving, a hand gently caressing my bare shoulder and moving fingers on the curve of my neck, untile some lips pecked right there on my skin, causing me umperceptible shivers.

"Slept well?" a feminine soft voice asked me.

Then I remembered. My mind slowly cleard up and I figured out where I was. I had spent the night in a luxurious hotel room, exploiting my secretary's company all night long.

I didn't move at all at first. I wanted to speak and answer, but I had just woken up and my throat wasn't warmed up yet enough to pronounce even the most basic of the words. I let out a pretty low mutter then, and the girl behind me lied there, stretching her arms covered in a soft white cotton bath gown until she could hug me. Her hands were so warm at the contact with my chest. They were ligering on the small scars I displayed on my skin, the painful memory of an almost deadly accident.

"I'd like to know how you got these..." she kept on talking; my skin repetitively brushed under her small fingertips. I firmly shut my eyes then, extremely pissed off by that question. After what seemed to me as the longest of that morning's minutes, I took a deep sigh and turned over to her, pulling the sheets on my stomach while I sat up, revealing my upper half body.

"I thought we agreed not to go into personal details..." I got surprised by how steady my voice sounded then, even though a bit hoarse still.

I looked into my secretary's eyes and noticed that she got pretty much amused by my reply. What was funny? I didn't want to tell her everything about my life...she was only an employee who worked at my office...we were nothing one for the other...

"I perfectly know..." she answered, smiling and untiying her hair, flipping the longest locks so that they could get back on their rightful place on her shoulders.

"Then, if you know, mind your business...what there was between us yesterday evening was only ...that's all..." I sounded a bit too rude, I knew, but she didn't mind. She was truly perfectly aware of that, because she laughed and gave me the 'ok' sign with a hand, before standing up and going back to the bathroom, where she began to get dressed.

I sighed again and crossed my legs under the bed sheets, I ran my fingers through my messy hair and yawned, blinking fast to get rid of the sleepy feeling. What had happened between us was only , moreover it was one of those had by mistake...I began drinking a little heavier from midnight onwards and, despite I could usually well endure the state, I eventually found myself being driven by such wild instincts I didn't even know to hide within me! I really didn't want to end up with her, but I couldn't help...she didn't do much to stop me either...

And that's what made me think that she did want this from the very beginning; ever since she made that look change and tried to stand up to me, doing it her way. She didn't seem to ask for more though, and as long as it meant nothing to each other, I could have probably allowed future meetings...just to relieve my stress...being alone didn't help at all...

...and worst, keeping on meeting my first ever love around didn't help...

Kim Ryeowook. 

I was at my office party and I was apparently having lot of fun, more fun than what I had expected. It was usually just too boring to hold contacts with commercial partners and investors the classic way, and many of them were much older than me, even though in my field age doesn't forcefully mean experience. Therefore a concept-changing party every year somehow lifted my mood. But, I had to thank him for making me enjoy this year's one though.

Again, Kim Ryeowook.

I showed up at the party a bit later, when all my employees and some of the guests had already got there, but Ryeowook was the first person my eyes eagerly went to find right after entering the place. I knew he was sitting at the piano, perfectly focused into skillfully pressing his fingers on the keys, and I must admit that his presence made me kind of uneasy, yet at the same time excited. He wore the costume I had sent him in such a graceful way...it suited him exceptionally well, enhancing his petite body, and his figure was the only thing I couldn't take my eyes off from for the entire evening. I wanted to , since he didn't know a thing about me being the organizer of the party, and that alone was a too thrilling sensation that couldn't prevent me from my unexpected following boldness.

I simply didn't know why...I guess I did it for fun, purely fun...but I don't regret it for sure...

I looked for him and kissed him. I kissed him and tasted his lips after long time. They were the same, and I had apparently forgotten it. My heart then fluttered, sensing him kissing me back, something I wouldn't even have thought possible...I can now consider that as the best kiss I'd ever had the pleasure to give someone, however I honestly didn't think Ryeowook could have responded the way he did...it was such a big surprise for me...it was like adding an even naughty and spicier sensation to what I was feeling when first locking the door of that small room, separating us from the rest of the world...I started the game for fun, and I did like it very much. I liked the idea that he ignored who I was, I liked the sensation of trapping him against the wall, totally defenseless, I liked my own boldness: it was as if I could take a little personal revenge on him, because I had already figured how he would have reacted. However, why did I like the fact of having him back in my arms that much?

I had already erased our precious moments together, I had already thrown away that strong feeling that I cherished in my heart whenever thinking of him, but his fragilty, his longing for protection in order not to end up hurt...those features of him never failed to break into my soul and no matter how much he hid it, I knew I could feel his desperate efforts to look for a bit of human warmth through his kiss. He didn't know I was the one holding onto him, but still he seemed more than willing to let a stranger take a look into his depths, as if to sell himself to the best offerer.

What if he exposed himself to a true stranger? What if he ended up being more hurt by someone he didn't know? I couldn't allow him! I didn't want him to do so!

Kim Ryeowook.

Ryeowook had been my first ever love, someone I even thought of giving up my life to, if necessary. I still felt that way whenever thinking of him, in truth, and that's probably the reason why I wanted to play a little bit, just a little bit. I missed his brightness shining up in my life, I really awfully missed him...but he changed and...

...however there was still the regret of Ahra's death that I had to deal with...and despite the big love I still felt for my sister, I couldn't deny the fact that her ghost was haunting whatever aspect of my life...Yesung was right, but I never dared to think about it straight, not even once...for fear to discover my deeper hidden self...

And no matter how much of that new, grown up Ryeowook I could understand through our kiss, it extremely bothered me that he had such a big effect on me even after all those years. If I got involved into that damn car accident, five years before, it was because of my careless wandering mind which, while driving, brought me to think about him to the extent that I didn't pay attention to the heavily pouring rain and crashed off road.

I couldn't help but blaming him every single day of my life. It wasn't probably enough for him having provided death to Ahra, but he also engraved my emotional pain into physical scars...

I hated him, yet I felt that longing sensation for his smile, for his touch, for his whole self that knew so well how to make me feel safe, that I fell into my own obsession for him and looked for him, right when I had sworn never to meet him again.

That kiss...it was meant to be a prank, but...why did it awake in me long forgotten feelings? Why? Why must it be Ryeowook? Why I ended up completely drunk to the point that, I had to sleep with my secretary, to keep away the strong impulse of wanting to own him instead. I was sharing that night with my secretary out of fun, but why, closing eyes, I wanted to imagine that the smooth skin I was touching was Ryeowook's instead? Even her perfume was identical to Ryeowook's...I couldn't have easily forgotten the well balanced notes of wild white musk on his neck skin, while I kissed him and bit every possible exposed inch of flesh under his chin...

I realized I was weavering in front of those I had always thought as my steady convictions: it was all about whether to delete him from my mind forever, or falling for him again...neither of the two options would have brought me any happiness though...

I stood up then and gathered my clothes scattered pretty much all around. After quickly dressing up, I grabbed my things and left the room without saying much to the girl who was thouroughly getting ready. I reached the parking lot with the only intention of driving back home to find my natural environment. 

I guess I had got quite used to all that stream of thoughts and comparisons at the point, because I couldn't feel that stinging pain in my chest pouding at the same speed of my heart...I only knew how to picture Ryeowook's face in my mind...and I understood I was slowly getting obsessed by his newly-come-back presence in my life. The only thing I couldn't say to distinguish was that...I didn't know if my obesession could be said positive or not...