"I wish we would just give up

'Cause the best part is falling

Call it anything but love

And I will make sure to keep my distance"

Distance by Christina Perri

Andy jerked awake. A mass of fur had been smothering her, but as soon as she moved so did the mass. She opened her eyes to see what had tried to kill her in her sleep, but had to immediately close them again as the room seemed too bright for a moment. When she reopened them it still seemed too bright, but she realized it was just the sunlight coming in through the window. She wondered briefly if this and her head ache were caused by her new pillow, then she realized she was not laying on a pillow; she was curled up against Yixing’s side, who was laying on his back with his arms thrown out, her head nestled on his shoulder.

Andy sat up as quickly as she could in her groggy and foggy state, which wasn’t very fast at all. It was so slow, in fact, that instead of scaring Peeves so he shot off the bed, he walked over to Andy and meowed at her. She stared at him for a second, realizing she had woken up because he had laid on her face so she couldn’t breathe. Peeves has only ever done that a few times before and it was always when she had accidentally locked him away from his litter box. She noticed that the bathroom door had been shut, which was the room she left his litter box in. Andy vaguely remembered shutting it last night after she had shut her bedroom door to keep Yixing out because, apparently, drunk Andy believed Yixing could still get in through the bathroom since he couldn’t come in through the living room door.

Drunk Andy was, unsurprisingly, not very smart.

She knew she needed to get up and open the bathroom door so both Peeves and she could do their business, but she was having trouble making herself move at the moment. Still half asleep she turned to look at Yixing again, trying to remember why exactly he was in her bed. Her brain was moving slowly as it generally did in the morning, so she stared at him for a moment unable to recall anything. Then it all came back to her.

She grimaced hard, closing her eyes in shame and groaning her frustration at herself. Andy couldn't believe she had done half of what she had last night. It was so out of character for her, so completely against who she was as a person and the type of things she ever did or ever wanted to do. She never wanted to be someone who tried to find comfort in alcohol, and she had never tried to before. Even though she knew the reason she had decided to try anyway last night was because her nerves were still so rattled after the incident that she was mostly just trying to calm down, she still couldn't believe she had decided it was a good idea. Granted, it was very much an impulse decision that if she had given more than two seconds to she would not have gone through with it, but it's still weird that she didn't try to give it more thought since Andy was not a person to act on impulse. At least not normally, anyway.

Andy rubbed her face before moving to get off the bed, but before she could get very far she felt something pulling on her shirt. She turned and saw Yixing was now awake though still laying down. He was looking up at her, his eyes only half open, with the hem of her shirt balled into his fist. When she looked at him a lazy smile spread across his face, one that felt infinitely more intimate than any smile directed towards her had been. It made her stop, forget what she was doing. As she looked at him spread out on her bed, holding onto her shirt and smiling like that, she remembered what he did for her last night. She remembered how he came to get her from work after her melt down, how he hadn't pressured her for answers, how he let her drink a little (though he failed at keeping it to just a little, but Andy knew she was a hard person to stop once she had set her mind to something and honestly neither of them knew she would become as unhinged as she did after chugging as much rum as she had), and then he had taken care of her after she got herself drunk, helped calm her down after she started breaking down again, and then finally held her until she fell asleep.

So much. He had done so much for her last night.

As she looked down at him, she felt her heart thumping in her chest and heat seep into her cheeks. She wanted to lay back down next to him; to fall into him. She wanted to curl up against his chest, tuck her head beneath his chin, let his arms wrap around her. She wanted to be encased in his warmth, in his safety, and never leave.

Like a thunderbolt striking her heart she remembered that, to her, he was truly none of those things. His warmth, his safety, his affection was all an illusion created by magic, by Nilah, because of that stupid wish that Andy had made. Nothing about last night was real, and neither was this morning.

She turned away from Yixing and stood up so forcefully she practically ripped her shirt from his hand. Andy's throat was beginning to close up and pressure was building behind her eyes but she wasn't entirely sure why, but she wasn't about to let Yixing see her cry. Again.

She rolled her eyes at herself and almost let out another frustrated groan for letting herself cry in front of someone.

"Andy? Are you okay?"

"Fine. Um . . ." She made sure to school her features and get her emotions in check before turning around to face Yixing who was now sitting up. "I'm sorry about last night and thanks—"

"You don't need to apologize." He had scooted over so he was now sitting at the edge of the bed, his feet planted on the floor. He reached out and grabbed Andy's wrist, gently tugging on it to pull her closer. Without even thinking about it she moved to stand right in front of him, where he wanted her, and he placed his hands on her hips before speaking again. "I just wanted to make sure you're alright. Are you really feeling better? Do you need anything else?"

Andy wondered briefly why he suddenly felt all this physical contact would be allowed, never mind why she was allowing it. Then she remembered last night and felt stupid for being surprised by this. She grabbed his hands, pulling them a little away from her and lowering them. Yixing frowned, eyebrows crinkling together in concern. Andy smiled at him, hoping to ease any concern or hurt or anything else he might possibly take from that, before releasing his hands and taking a step back away from him.

"I'm really okay now. I just need to go to the bathroom."

She managed to get to the bathroom without Yixing stopping her again and she took the time while she was physically separated from him, albeit only by a door and a wall, to collect herself. She had flipped out last night, and unfortunately Yixing got to witness that and had to take care of her as she had basically incapacitated herself through the alcohol. It was incredibly embarrassing and Andy really just wanted to pretend like it never happened. She would legitimately try this, basically just not bring it up ever again and dodge around talking about it if he brought it up, if it weren't for the fact that she was so grateful for what he had done last night. True, he only felt compelled to take care of her because he was being magically compelled to care about her, but even so it really reflects well on him. Yixing is the kind of person who would take care of someone he cares about while they're having a break down due to something he doesn't know anything about nor understand the full implications of.

Regardless of anything else, it was a wonderful thing to do and Andy wanted to show some sort of appreciation for it. For now, the appreciation would just be that she doesn't completely ignore what happened last night. Seemed like a good trade.

After she, and Peeves, finished up in the bathroom she walked out and had every intention of thanking Yixing, but he had been waiting outside the door and grabbed her wrist as soon as she emerged, completely throwing her off balance. Instinctively she remembered a website that had explained how to break free of a wrist grab like this, having watched enough Korean dramas to be so sick of the idea of a man grabbing onto a woman and forcing her to stay and talk and listen or do whatever it is that he wanted to do but she didn’t and determining to never let something like that happen to herself. The website said to, instead of pulling your wrist back, jerk it in the direction where his fingers are because you would be able to force his fingers open, which sounded simple enough. However, before Andy could do anything, she realized there was a few flaws in this plan; she was weak, Yixing was strong, and her wrist was so slim that he was able to wrap his fingers very securely around it.

“Andy, please,” he said. “Please look me in the eye and tell me you’re all right.”

Her anger at being handled this way dissipated with that. Remembering last night, she understood why he might feel the need to hold onto her and make sure she was in a good enough state not to repeat what she had done last night. She forced herself to meet his eyes and came up short from the intensity in them. She wasn’t quite sure what was holding her in place anymore. She nodded, and then felt his thumb rub against her wrist. She looked away, and then noticed the time.

"I over slept," she said, her voice not quite lowed enough to be a yell but close enough. She rushed around her room grabbing clothes and almost started changing while she was still grabbing stuff but remembered before it got that far that there was someone else in the apartment and ran back into the bathroom. Less than a minute later she was out the door.

~

Yixing hated to see her go without eating breakfast, and it was strange to see her break routine on top of it. While she was trying to get ready he had looked through all her food in the fridge and the pantry despite knowing there was nothing in either that she could take with her to eat quickly, no snacks of any kind whether healthy or not. He told himself that there were probably vending machines around campus that she could get food out of it nothing else. It wouldn’t hurt to skip breakfast every once in a while. He did it a lot, more often than he probably should, but he couldn’t hardly stand the idea of Andy doing it, of her going hungry for more than a second.

After she was already out the door and the sound of her car engine faded Yixing remembered something; he had a motorcycle now. He could go up to her school like he did when he first met her. He could bring her food.

He rushed over to his suitcase which was kept neatly stored in a corner on the other side of the couch—it had to have a space of its own, according to Andy, and Yixing understood that she didn’t want it anywhere else because in her mind his stay here was going to be very temporary and putting his luggage in her room or closet would make it feel very permanent.

He stopped rummaging through his bag for a moment and allowed himself to think about that, about sharing an apartment with Andy, sharing a closet, sharing a room. He thought about last night and being able to wrap his arms around her and hold onto her so tight and so close to himself. How warm she was, how he could feel her breathing. This girl that he had left so much for, felt so much for, nestled in his chest, hair in his face. His eyes had closed, and he could almost feel her again, smell her hair again.

Peeves decided at that moment to rub his body against Yixing’s leg, suddenly wanting to be pet. Yixing, who had been crouched down balancing on his toes, had not been prepared for a cat to basically through its body against his legs, and Peeves, when in need of attention, had learned to be very forceful in getting noticed.

Yixing tipped over and slammed against the couch. This wouldn’t have been so terrible if the couch hadn’t had a wood frame around the base and leading up to the arms. Yixing was definitely irritated from the pain of hitting the couch and being, quite literally, knocked out of his memory and turned to give Peeves a look to show this, but the cat had been so scared by the sudden movement from the fall and Yixing’s loud yelling from surprise that he had skidded off, terrified, and had probably taken refuge under Andy’s bed.

Yixing was irritated enough that he didn’t feel all that bad for the cat.

Still, it was probably for the best. He realized that rushing up to campus to take food to Andy was probably not the best idea. She’d probably get angry at him for coming up there again. She had allowed him to get closer to her last night than she ever had before, but he knew better than to think it was an actual step forward for them. With how upset she had been, and how much alcohol she had drunk, there was no doubt in his mind that it wasn’t something that really meant anything on that front.

He sighed and settled down on the floor. As excited as he was to get here and make Andy fall in love with him, he had forgotten how much he hated this process. Now that he had finally come down from the high of falling in love and flying halfway across the world for that love, he remembered how much he hated liking someone who didn’t like him back and working hard to try and make them see that they should. He hated the constant pain of knowing that person didn’t return your feelings, he hated the constant rejection, he hated the uncertainty that the other person’s feelings could ever be changed, no matter how convinced he was that they would be great together.

As wonderful as last night had been, it almost made things harder on him. He knew how amazing it was to get that close to her, but he wasn’t allowed to do that again. Thinking back to last night was also a painful reminder that, even intoxicated, Andy had remained largely closed off to him. He still didn’t fully understand why she had freaked out so much after being fake-locked in a walk-in. Yes, it would have been scary at first, but it shouldn’t have been enough to have triggered that kind of reaction in her. There was something more about it that she just wasn’t telling him. She had come close to telling him something when they were in bed with her face hidden against his chest and her hands clutching onto his shirt as if one of them might slip away at any second, but she had held herself back.

Yixing sighed again as Peeves walked out of Andy’s bedroom staring boldly at Yixing as if he hadn’t just knocked Yixing over and ran away in fear. Yixing reached out his hand almost instinctually to scratch the base of the back of the cat’s ears, a spot that the cat loved to get scratched so much that he almost twisted his body over on itself to push against Yixing’s hand.

Yixing almost wished it were that easy to win over Andy; her being a little stand-offish at first but then all he had to do was scratch behind her ears and she wouldn’t be able to get enough of him. Even while he thought it, though, he knew that wasn’t entirely true. Andy was a reserved, controlled person; it only took about a day, maybe two for it to fully set in, for Yixing to understand that about her. Normally he wouldn’t mind having to work to get close to someone, but he was impatient with Andy, there was a drive in him to be as close to her as was possible to be with someone, but also because between Andy’s own insistence that he return to China, everyone else’s insistence that he return home, and his own desire to get back to working as well, he knew he was running out of time. He still stuck firmly to his claims that he wouldn’t be going anywhere until Andy returned his feelings for her, but he couldn’t deny to himself that being away from work for too long would hurt him in the long run, nor how much it bothered him to not be working. Writing music helped, but it wasn’t enough anymore just to write and not be able to share any of it.

Feeling antsy now, Yixing stood up and decided to change out of his clothes from yesterday into some workout clothes. Another thing he could do for his career, and something that could help him calm down now, is to make sure to remain physically fit, and he was sure it wouldn’t hurt him in winning Andy over