Victoria stirred from sleep slowly, her mind shrouded in a hazy dreamlike state. At first, she thought she was in the midst of a dream, snuggling with something cozy and warm. In her half-conscious state, she imagined herself in dreamland, cuddling with a giant, adorable panda, one of her favorite animals. It was cute, and she embraced the plush creature, relishing the warmth and comfort.

She nuzzled her face into the "panda," and her fingers traced over something surprisingly hard and smooth. Perplexed, she realized this wasn't the texture she had expected from a cuddly panda. A chuckle rumbled through her dream, and she dismissed it as her mind playing tricks on her.

But then, the "panda" shifted beside her, and she felt a strong grip around her waist. It wasn't a panda she was cuddling; it was something very human.

Panic set in as her mind struggled to make sense of the situation. She tried to move away, but the grip around her waist tightened, and she heard a soft groan from above her head. Fear and realization dawned simultaneously, and she froze in place.

It couldn't be… it wasn't possible… but when she dared to open her eyes and tilted her head a bit to look, her heart nearly stopped.

It was no panda, and it was definitely no dream. The man she was entwined with, her face pressed to his bare chest, was Nichkhun.

Chunks of memories from the previous night flashed back in her mind, though they were vague and fragmented. But they confirmed something had happened - to which extent, she wasn't yet entirely sure of, although the soreness "there" that she was now conscious enough to feel, somewhat gave a nagging clue - and why she was in this compromising position, with a man she never even thought she would meet just a few months ago, let alone wake up cuddling in bed with!

She couldn't contain the sheer shock and embarrassment that surged through her. Her eyes widened, and her breath caught in as she realized the gravity of the situation. She had to get out of there, away from Nichkhun, and away from...from whatever this is! With a surge of adrenaline, she pushed herself away from him, scrambling to sit upright, the sheets tangled around her.

Her heart raced as she realized the full extent of her vulnerability - she was completely under the sheets. So, without thinking, she let out a scream that echoed through the room, her voice a mix of shock, embarrassment, and fear.

Nichkhun was jolted awake by the piercing scream, his eyes flying open in alarm. Confusion washed over him as he registered the chaotic scene before him—Victoria, disheveled and wide-eyed, the sheets twisted around her. He saw her reluctantly and briefly scan him "down there" and by instinct his eyes followed hers and saw his own "family jewels" bare in plain sight - he covered himself and glanced back up at Victoria who had already averted her head, eyes closed, apparently wincing and reprimanding her own self but he couldn't understand what she was saying (it was in Chinese hehehe).

In his groggy state, he couldn't immediately grasp what had happened. But as the fog of sleep lifted and he became aware of his own state of undress, the memories of the previous night crashed down on him, and he felt his face flush with a mix of embarrassment and awe. He felt like he was a teenager getting his first kiss.

"Qian...?" he began, his voice trailing off, his own simultaneous shock and relief that everything was actually real and not a dream.

Victoria, not missing the fact Nickhun used her real name, clutched the sheets tighter to fully cover herself and finally asked: "Nichkhun! What... what happened?" It was more of an expression of exasperation than a question. The moment she saw he was stark as she was, brief but vivid flashbacks of exactly what they did last night that caused her own soreness "down there" and in general all over her body in general, played at the back of her mind to her mortification.

But her questions seemed to fall on deaf ears as Nichkhun's focus remained fixated on her, his thoughts consumed by her presence. Even in this bewildering moment, he couldn't help but be captivated. "God, she's so beautiful..." Nichkhun thought, his heart racing, a smile curling up on his lips. It was a smile he couldn't suppress, a smile of pure joy, despite the awkwardness of the situation. Last night's memories were still hazy, but he knew that something extraordinary had happened.

As Nichkhun smiled like an infatuated fool, Victoria's baffled expression deepened and her concern and confusion grew as she watched him. "Earth to Nichkhun-ssi?!?" She waved a hand over his face to snap him out of whatever was possessing him. "Did his brain completely get addled because of what happened? Maybe he's more shocked than I am!?!?" She thought.

Being the ever pragmatic person that she was, she did a mental step back to asses what they should do for, given that Nickhun appeared to have lost his all his faculties at the moment, it was all on her now to try to solve the problem. But all she could come up with was suggest that they pretend nothing happened, as if the memories of the previous night were nothing more than a fleeting dream.

But deep down, Victoria was afraid. Afraid of what this meant for their new friendship which was still fragile, the emotional whirlwind she had found herself caught in, their careers; his career specially. Wasn't that one of the major concerns that factored into their falling out years ago as their respective companies then implied? And Nichkhun did nothing to refute it. He could have said something empty like "Of course our connection is important as well" and even if it was just lip-service, she would have happily taken that and moved on more smoothly after. His cold demeanor towards her during their reunion in Radio Star in 2012 drove the final nails in the coffin of whatever it was they shared that died before they could even define it.

She couldn't deny the connection between them now, but she also couldn't ignore the complexities that came with it.

"No, Qian," Nichkhun finally said, his smile fading as he came back to reality. "We can't just pretend that nothing happened. I can't."

"He called me 'Qian' again." Victoria noted to herself. She felt it disconcerting that Nichkhun didn't call her 'Victoria'. While she was in Korea and in those confusing time during their stint in that reality show, that name was like a protective shield. They could say and do anything to 'Victoria' because 'Qian' would remain unreachable - safely closed off within her. Hearing Nichkhun call her Qian made her feel exposed and vulnerable. She sighed, her own fears and anxieties bubbling to the surface. "Nichkhun-ssi, but it's complicated...Last night...it can be just a mistake, a moment of weakness?"

"A mistake...So that's what she thinks last night was." He thought to himself, evidently frustrated at Victoria, and he looked away, his mind a turbulent storm of emotions. Why was she playing dense again, why couldn't she just outright reject him? He felt like the rug underneath him was pulled; like he had finally gotten into heaven, and now it felt like he was being kicked out and shipped back to hell.

Victoria couldn't bear his silence, she was on the verge of crying but held it back. She was a grown up woman for heaven's sake, not a teenager. She groomed her expression and even tried to make light of the situation: "This is crazy right? Even an impromptu Gayo Daejeon stage right now would be peanuts compared to this. Let's just bring this behind us and not let this happen again."

Nichkhun let out a heavy sigh, reluctantly accepting the harsh reality and feeling defeated. He still didn't look at her but his mind almost seething with this blow to his ego. Again. "She's putting on this barrier betweem us again. Why should I even bother? It's like talking to a brick wall." He thought.

"I know," was all he said in the end, his voice almost cracking and his expression one of resignation. "I know, Qi--Victoria, I understand." Somehow he felt that calling her by her real name was a privilege that being kicked out of heaven also stripped him of.

The room was filled with an unspoken tension, a sense of vulnerability that neither of them could fully express.