Rain always felt like my closest friend. It always came at the most appropriate times, always when I felt the most down. It rained on the day of my parent’s funeral. It rained when I needed to mask the sounds of every single fiber of Sehun’s moving body.

I kept a slow and hopeful pace walking back to my house, a stab in my own foot really. The longer I took to get back the more it reaffirmed that there hadn’t been anyone following behind me since I began walking.

My fingertips were numb, my shoes were heavy and soaking with water, and I’m pretty sure my camera was getting close to being damage. My fingers could barely wrap around the cold metal of my key, but somehow I was able to make it inside without shriveling up into a prune.

Woohyun, who also got caught in the rain, stared at me with both a look of concern and disdain. As if my matters were trivial, as if I was just being silly over a matter like love. At that moment it could have been my emotions taking over the interpretations I had of my brother and they were let out in a cruel and unfair way to him.

“Don’t talk to me, Woohyun.” I stomped upstairs and slammed the door to my room shut. Even though I was fully aware that he didn’t deserve that I made it to my room without turning back or apologizing.

The rain was softly pattering against my window. I strode over and opened it up, letting the fresh dirt and grass smell enter my room, secretly hoping that another scent would fill my nose. It was wishful thinking.

I went over to my closet and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around my shoulders rather than just taking off my soaking clothes. I dragged my desk chair over to the window and hopefully…hopelessly, stupidly waiting for him to come. Fresh warm tears fell down my face as my mind developed a rising fear. If Sehun were to refuse me, it would have been my fault entirely.

I could have avoided the self-blame if I avoided getting myself into this. I could have avoided falling in love but at this point it was probably absolutely impossible for me to forget about my feelings for him. At least I was able to say it out loud.

My body was weakened by the cold temperatures of the rain and on top of that I felt my head getting heavier through a developing headache. Even though I felt physically strong I couldn’t ignore the fact that rain always had the possibility of making me sick.

I sniffled and brushed the tears away from my eyes like it would make them stop coming out. My eyes burned and I’m sure I looked like a mess. But although the rain was loud, the weather was depressing, and I felt like there was something I heard that I knew I hadn’t had the privilege of in years.

At first the sound was faint, barely over the rain but as Woohyun gained his confidence, his voice was the only thing I heard. Above the rain, he was singing. I turned my head away from the window to make sure I was hearing things right.

My brother gave up singing. Our parents weren’t too fond of it so not many people were able to hear his voice in the first place, but he always had the talent for it. When we were kids and actually got along with each other he used to sing just for me. One of my first memories was Woohyun singing me to sleep, in attempts to comfort me after a nightmare.

I greatly underestimated the level of care my brother had for me. There was only one real reason that he would be singing now and both he and I knew that. I had never heard the song before. It was new, which meant he was actually serious about getting back into this hobby.

I sat on my chair, now facing the door of my room to listen to my brother’s voice. It was so different from what I was used to. Soft yet strong, passionate and soothing. I never thought Woohyun would be able to lift my spirits up with just his voice. Just temporarily, I felt like I was able to get up and actually do something.

The more time that had passed, the easier it got for me to distract myself with busy work. I went downstairs and asked if Myungsoo needed any help with making dinner. He knew clearly that I was numbing my mind but at least I was doing something productive at the same time, right?

I ate dinner downstairs, slowly. Each bite taken was never registered with my body. It’s not that Myungsoo’s cooking was bad, it was just I couldn’t taste, couldn’t feel. My mind went pathetically blank.

I threw my dishes in the sink and retired to my sad looking room. Sitting on my computer and editing pictures wasn’t enough for me because I would have just been sitting there completely still. I needed to move around, and I couldn’t go running in the rain.

I started by moving my bookshelf from one corner to the center of the room, out of the way. My desk, originally on the wall where my door was ended up right in front of the window for me to look out of.

I struggled pushing things around as if I lost my supernatural strength. My jumbled up emotions affect every single part of my body, including my power. My bed was pushed into the corner of the room instead of smack in the center. My bookshelves were lined up against the area where my bed used to be.

Furniture was scraping through the carpet. I may have accidentally made some tears in my carpet but I covered them up easily with furniture. I grabbed my chair and started taking down the photos on my ceiling and rearranging them in place of where I moved my bed.

After being satisfied enough I jumped down off my bed and pushed my chair back, feeling fulfilled enough to move on to changing something else in my room. That is, until I was rudely interrupted.

“You know, it’s 3 in the morning right?” Woohyun, disheveled hair and pajamas, didn’t look happy with all of the noise I was making. Even if I were quiet, he’d hear it because of the whole super sensitive ears thing.

“Sorry…” I mumbled, fixing one of my displayed cameras. Important fact: bookshelves are for cameras, not books.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek; never in my entire life had I asked Woohyun anything about us being werewolves. Our relationship was never good enough for that. I admitted to myself that for once, I needed help; more specifically, I needed my brother’s help and he was able to see that.

He opened my door a little wider and leaned against the frame, simply waiting for me to ask what needed to be asked.

“Why do we have mates?” There was so much behind my question it probably couldn’t be answered in entirety.

Woohyun folded his arms and shifted on his feet. “I think you misunderstand the concept, In Hye.”

I scrunched up my face. Personally, I felt like I did understand mates. They were unfair, unreasonable, and heartbreaking all at the same time. I felt just the tiniest bit offended because he didn’t think I had knowledge of the topic, even when I found my own mate before he did.

He began explaining himself further. “Despite what you think, mates are a good thing.”

“They haven’t exactly proven to be a good thing to me.” I mumbled. Great, I really was turning into Sehun.

“You’re stubborn. That’s why.” He retorted, rolling his eyes at me. I raised my eyebrow at him. If I am stubborn then he is a million times worse. Maybe asking my big brother was a mistake after all.

“That’s not what I meant. You love him, In Hye. Having a mate just means your entire soul is just too stubborn to let him go.” He said that it hurt me because I didn’t want to let go. Having a mate meant that my soul knew better than I did. I fought so hard against having a mate because I thought it was unfair to Sehun to drag him down with me, but a greater desire in me wanted him all the more.

“Get some sleep, okay?” With that, he just left my room. I couldn’t fully comprehend what had just happened, but all my mind was telling me was to say ‘thank you’. Even though he wasn’t in the room he would have heard me say it.

The ‘thank you’ wasn’t enough to express my gratitude. I think it was the most helpful thing anyone had ever said to me, and it came from my brother. As rocky as our relationship had been before, there was a stability there that could not break anymore.

A lone tear fell down my face but I don’t think it was because I felt sad. Woohyun gave me hope that things would turn out better, and even if I didn’t quite believe him it still meant the world that he tried to help. His words were the only reason I was able to sleep.

I woke up to utter darkness and the sound of rain pounding against my window; thunder so loud that it began to shake the house. I went downstairs to check the weather reports on the television to see that it was supposed to last all week.

Days went by and the gloomy weather wasn’t making me feel any better. On top of that, I finally began to legitimatize why I didn’t have a cell phone before. It was beginning to give me anxiety after not having any contact whatsoever from Sehun. Not that he would really contact me anyways, but it was still a stab to my heart nonetheless.

I got lost in editing again, sitting at my desk and being able to watch the rain at the same time. I filed through pictures that matched my mood: deep dark shadows, contrasts between light and dark, or anything that I felt looked mysterious. My eyes were starting to become fried from the screen, so I laid down my head to rest on my desk.

After a week of rain, it was easy to drown out the noise of the rain and thunder and pretty much any sound that came my way. Not the person scaling the outside of my wall, not the person taking off my window screen and throwing down to the ground. As soon as his head popped up in the corner of my eye, it was too late.

This is why distractions were so bad for me. Whenever I actually needed to be aware, I was always snuck up on. In this instance, it was Sehun being able to walk up to my house, see that I was in my room on the second story and then proceeded to skillfully climb up to my window and make his way inside.

The rain masked his scent and the thunder clouded the noise he made to get up to my room. Once it was too late, I was already standing up in total shock as a very drenched Sehun was now standing in my room.

He looked just as angry as when I left before. The only difference was that he was dripping with water, making puddles on my carpet. His jet-black hair stuck to his neck and his denim jacket probably did nothing but make him uncomfortable and wet.

Sehun charged towards me without hesitation and I had no time to react. He pressed himself against me and smashed his lips so hard against my own I thought his goal was to bite me. I was frozen out of mere shock at the fact that Sehun forced a kiss on me and I hated every single moment. Every touch felt so wrong.

Even all of my supernatural strength had difficulties pushing him off because my body was acting so differently from my mind. I didn’t want that desire to control my every thought.

I finally gathered enough control over myself to push him off. He stumbled back in both shock and anger as his face tore away from mine. I was more than disappointed. When I had worked so hard with myself to make everything about us a choice, here he does this and forces himself on me.

“Stop it!” I cried.

“It’s what you want isn’t it?!” He shouted back. Guess he wasn’t scared of Woohyun or Myungsoo marching in here to kill him. I mean…they probably would if they knew what he just pulled.

“What, you forcing yourself onto me? Yeah, that’s exactly what I want.” I surprised myself by not crying. Within the past week I felt like I had done enough of that. Still, my eyes prepared for even more tears.

“I’m your mate!” No matter how much Sehun actually acknowledged himself being my mate, I realized hearing him say that wasn’t what I needed or wanted. Admitting that we were mates was much different than actually wanting to be mates, and judging by his anger he wasn’t there at all.

“And you’re only doing this because you know that! Why else would you have waited this long? It’s because you found out that we were mates!” I took a step back and brushed off the water that was on me because of Sehun’s rashness to suddenly embrace me.

“That’s not true…” His voice wavered only slightly.

“I highly doubt that.”

“It’s not. I fell in love with you first, In Hye!” As he said that, I could have sworn my heart skipped a beat. First it was me confessing feelings…but now him?

“Again, I don’t believe you.”

“Fine, fine! I’ll prove it to you! You want to know why I waited this long? Because I was ing nervous! Sera was the only other person I had dated, and it started out of a dare! I screwed up when I asked Sera out, you’re no different! All I did was ask her to go to get bubble tea with me! You? I can’t even think about where to start because my palms get all sweaty and I feel like I’m going to throw up!”

He took a step closer to me, but I retreated and backed up. Through his rant/confession he continued spewing words. “All I can think about is you! How I can make you smile, rare as they are. Or…all of your stupid quirks that make me happy. How you wear your hair down and it’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Your ability to capture everything you see with your camera is amazing. And—God this is not how I wanted to do things!”

His throat closed up on him, choking his words back. The slightest glisten in his eyes was enough for my emotions to go haywire. He was on the brink of tears. I could tell it took a lot for him to look me in the eyes, but once he did all other distractions disappeared, just so I could focus on what he was going to say next.

“Don’t doubt me, In Hye. Please. I—I just want to kiss you.”

I shook my head. I was so scared that whatever he was saying was…temporary. The feelings couldn’t have been that deep. I doubted myself so much and it was hurting him in return.

Falling in love with him is one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through. Forget my parents’ death or the fact that I hate the relationship I have with my brother. Even his bullying wasn’t as bad as falling in love. You know why?

Because at least with those situations I knew eventually I could get over it. But there is no getting over him and he doesn’t know that. It’s torn my entire being apart and yet I still want it anyways.

Without saying anything, he knew what I was thinking. We weren’t even mated yet and he was able to see straight through me. “You’re wrong. In Hye you’re so ing wrong. I feel that way because I’m in love with you! I feel that way because after all of that torment I put you through you still completely accept the person that I am. Because after everything you actually made me feel like I matter, unlike anyone else in my entire life.”

He was begging me not to doubt anymore. I couldn’t tell if it was becoming easier or harder, my emotions were just that scrambled. I wanted to believe him; I wanted to be happy with him. But there was always a “what if…”

He reached out his arms towards me and pulled me closer to him. He took my silence as the time to try again, to redo it.

And he did it again, like he was testing the waters. Soft, that’s how it felt. And warm. And wonderful. All of those things weren’t enough to describe this though. Because Oh Sehun kissing me was something I couldn’t tell you exactly.

Something about the way his hands were pulling me closer to him, or the tingling feeling of his lips over mine, indescribably wonderful. But despite that, my whole body started to tremble because I still felt insecure about everything.

No matter how much he professed his feelings, there was still the ever lingering doubt that brought tears to my eyes, because I didn’t deserve this. Oh Sehun has seen me in my weakest moments, and this was another one.

“In Hye?” His thumb gently wiped across my cheek to stop the overflow of tears, yet my body still shook in his arms.

“Hye, please stop crying…” He whispered. I tucked my head under his chin, muffling my cries into his chest. He could beg all he wanted, he didn’t realize just how much he meant to me just yet.

Despite him being soaking wet and his temperatures cold, he still felt warm to embrace. He cradled me into his chest for the longest time and there was nothing more to do than to tightly hug him back.

Both of us were sniffling and refusing to let go of each other. Being pressed so close to Sehun’s body, I felt his heart beat…perfectly syncing up with my own. I didn’t know if he was aware of it, but I felt it and was completely amazed.

It took five minutes for us to realize that Sehun was still soaked through and now shivering from the cold. His body shook uncontrollably, enough for me to finally pull away and look up at him. He was pale as ice, body profusely shaking and trembling.

I left his embrace and went to my closet to get him a towel, blankets, anything that would keep him warm. He threw those aside when I tried handing them to him and pulled me back into his embrace, kissing me once again.

I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t the expert here, he was and I was just a puddle of goo at that point. I felt myself lightly kissing him back, while he was giving me everything he could ever offer in a single gesture.

Somehow I was able to pull him away and make him dry off. Somehow I ended up curled in his arms and relaxing on my own bed as he started to warm up. Sehun was wrapped up in so many more blankets than I was, but both of us were tucked under my own comforter. Sehun had no plans of leaving.

My bed wasn’t long enough for Sehun’s legs but he made due because he wasn’t going to have any less than this. He made sure to keep me close and wrapped up. With a sneaky hand he reached up to the top of my hair and started tugging on the hair tie holding up my bun. My hair fell down past my shoulders, sprawling over his arm as well.

“You should wear your hair down more.” He murmured, lips against my hair.

“I’ll try to.” My eyes may have been drifting but I never got time like this with Sehun, and any situation just couldn’t compare to this one. For the first time, we felt things on the same emotional level. If I fell asleep, I could have just mistaken it all for a dream. “Just to let you know…all barriers come down now. I’ve been holding back for a while now.” He shifted so that I was even closer to him, if at all possible.

I turned my head and looked into his eyes. It really did feel like an impossible dream, even being so close to him like this. “So…what does that mean?”

He smirked and pulled my head to lay on his shoulder. “Oh, you know, just a lot of kissing.”

Good thing I wasn’t looking at him because he would have seen me madly blushing. Neither of us wanted to sleep. We talked throughout the night, unlike any other times that we had talked before. It felt so much…better.

With the shouting from before, there was no doubt in my mind Woohyun and Myungsoo already knew that Sehun was in our house. It made me hesitant in letting Sehun stay, although I wasn’t planning on him staying the entire night. I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen ever.

There wasn’t one conversation that I could single out through the night. There were basic things that we didn’t know about each other that were said throughout the night. Some little things like favorite colors, some big things like our birthdays.

It was kind of amazing to me that we knew bigger things about each other before, yet the simple things were just being revealed now. Our whole…”relationship” may have had a strange timeline but Sehun reminded me that neither of us was normal in the first place. But of course, he said this with a joking tone.

He brought up one of his concerns as we talked about what it meant to us about being together. “I…haven’t done anything for you.”

He says that no one could have made him a better person like I had. Initially I had disagreed with him. At one point in time there was bound to be a person to change Sehun. However, that person wouldn’t have helped him change his views towards me and I could see where he was going with this.

I shook my head, because he wasn’t seeing all the things I was also able to overcome because of him. “You taught me that what you are doesn’t matter. Not even my own family could do that.”

He stared at me with those dark brown eyes and pulled my face into his chest once again. Sehun dried off and was a lot warmer. The time read 4am; there wasn’t a single time that I had stayed up this late, even for school purposes. My eyes began to drift into the most comfortable slumber of my entire life.

I only got two hours of sleep but it was well worth it. My head was resting on Sehun’s arm and his head was on my pillow. We were both tucked under the warmth of 5 or 6 blankets, which seemed a little crazy for summer.

I stared at the seemingly innocent face, assuming that him sleeping would be something quite peaceful but I was dead wrong. Breathe in, noise, breathe out, noise. He grumbled a little and his eyes finally peaked open.

“A ert was watching me sleep.” He mumbled.

“More like listening to you sleep.” He didn’t seem to like the sound of that. I didn’t like the sound of him either.

“And what’s that supposed to mean, little wolf?”

“You snore.” I so blatantly put. Myungsoo doesn’t snore. Woohyun doesn’t snore. My father never snored. First time for everything I suppose.

“And?”

“And this little wolf has hyper sensitive hearing.”

He rolled over and stretched his legs out, his feet barely hanging over the edge of my bed. “Oh well, I guess it’s not going to work out between us. I snore, you don’t. Oh the horror!”

I pulled the covers over my face to hide my small giggles. Sehun pulled the comforter away from my face and smiled back at me. His large hand cupped my entire face, gently moving his thumb across my cheek.

“I should probably leave before your brother kills me.”

I clearly and unmistakably pouted right in front of Oh Sehun. Leaving was the last thing I wanted him to do. I told him to stay put while I went downstairs. Myungsoo always woke up first and I felt like I could get a little more approval starting with him.

I got out of my blanket cocoon and made my way downstairs. Sure enough, Myungsoo was setting the table for breakfast. I thought of how to bring up such a strange request like letting Sehun stay at our house for a little while. But Myungsoo was two steps ahead of me, as set four plates at the table for breakfast.

Yes the title of the chapter was intended to freak everyone out \^.^/

All I can say is after taking a whole year of writing 30 chapters is FINALLY!