Yuri had been in the Biology lab with Yoona since the two of them weren't able to attend their lessons last week; now they were forced into being tested differently from other students. She hated school already and now that Taeyeon wasn't in school with her at the moment, it was making things worse for Yuri. She could hardly concentrate and she just wanted this whole morning to be over as fast as possible. Yoona, on the other hand, didn’t want to say anything lest she pissed her cousin off so she tried her best to focus on her own experiment while Yuri focused on hers. 

“Psst!”

Yoona thought she had heard wrongly so she continued pouring the iodine solution into a beaker, though she did realise it when a piece of potato peel hit her head.

“Ow! What is it!”

Yuri grinned sheepishly and clasped her fingers together in a praying motion… Yoona groaned at once. She knew exactly what her cousin was asking for by now – Yuri was going to sneak out of class to spend time with her girlfriend. Yoona was about to deny her cousin of that favour when Yuri simply packed her bag and sneaked out of the classroom, taking advantage of the situation since their teacher was asleep anyway. She didn't even give Yoona a chance to retort before leaving; geez, how impulsive could Yuri be? 

Although she had just left her cousin in their science lab, Yuri was unbelievably carefree about the whole thing. She only remembered about her phone when it started vibrating in her tote bag.

“Hello?”

“Miss Kwon Yuri?”

If Yuri had been smiling throughout the whole time as she thought of her plan, she wasn't now... 

Taeyeon couldn’t feel her body at all.

It was as if she was floating in mid-air and all she could feel was the emptiness of the sky but she obviously wasn’t. She had been trying to talk and even tried to let out a mere whisper for the last few minutes but nothing was coming out of . Her eyes were still blurry from the neverending onslaught of tears that kept gathering in her eyes without control. She couldn't even push herself up to sit against the headboard because there was literally zero strength in her body right now, probably due to the impact from the explosion.

She couldn't feel her left arm; thankfully, her right arm was still okay, with the exception that she couldn't lift it up for too long.

Flashback.

“O-Oh my God…”

It was a time bomb, and it started ticking when Taeyeon had opened the package. She ran to the kitchen holding it and placed it into the sink, turning on the water to its maximum power; perhaps it could buy her some time into warning the people living above her. Taeyeon, however, couldn't even make it out of the door before the bomb exploded and she flew to the floor with her head knocking the back of the door. Her head bled profusely and she tried to crawl out of the door but she was starting to lose consciousness at the same time.

And before she knew it... 

Taeyeon was down.

Flashback end.

“TAEYEON!”

The door banged open right after that shout, revealing her teary-eyed girlfriend. Although Taeyeon might not have said anything, or couldn't say anything for that matter, the look in her eyes showed only relief and content the moment she spotted Yuri. She could see the pain and heartache in Yuri’s eyes as the tanned girl started approaching her bedside slowly. Taeyeon automatically reached out for her girlfriend and tried her best to smile; Yuri had so much on her plate already - the least Taeyeon could do was try and minimize her worries by pretending everything was alright.

Yuri felt her knees go weak and she would have collapsed if it wasn’t for Taeyeon holding tightly onto her arm; she had already shed a huge amount of tears from school all the way here and she was running out.

“B-Baby…”

Before Taeyeon could try and even respond, Yuri took out her phone so the woman could type a message to her instead of even trying to talk.

[You know about it?]

Yuri didn’t respond yet but she moved the chair closer to the bed so she could sit and be close to Taeyeon at the same time. She tightened her grip on Taeyeon’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, not wanting to hurt her girlfriend anymore. Yuri brought Taeyeon's free hand to her lips and nodded, willing herself to hold back her tears. She pressed tender kisses upon Taeyeon's bruised knuckles, shaking her head guiltily. If she had remained at home and skipped the test like originally planned, perhaps Taeyeon wouldn't be the injured one in the first place.

[It's not your fault, baby. Stop blaming yourself. I'm actually happy that you went to school instead of skipping your test.] 

Taeyeon couldn't do much to whisk Yuri's worry and anger to herself so she simply rubbed the back of Yuri's palm soothingly, hoping it'd at least get worried of some conflicting emotions her girlfriend was feeling. Yuri hadn’t anything wrong and this was an accident caused by other people who obviously wanted to harm the both of them; Taeyeon was not going to throw the blame on anyone else but the culprits when she found who they were… in fact, she already had an idea of who caused this. 

“What are you thinking about?” Yuri asked softly. She didn’t like the dispirited look on her girlfriend’s face; Taeyeon didn’t deserve to be hurt even more than she already was. “If it’s about being discharged, don’t even think about it for the time being. I want you to stay here until the police investigate the whole thing.”

[I don’t want you to go back to your apartment alone. Stay here with me. We can ask for another bed or a mattress or something; just don’t go home on your own.]

Taeyeon was absolutely puzzled when she saw the smile on Yuri’s face broaden; she only got the idea once Yur