Heechul reached over to the nightstand to grab his glasses.  It didn’t actually do him a bit of good this time, since he read the same passage of his book another three times without absorbing any of it.  The problem wasn’t his eyes but his ability to concentrate.  Nothing was going to help him with that. 

            There was a light knock at the door and Heechul looked over at it from his spot, lying on top of his bed.  “Come in.”

            Ahra walked in and shut the door behind her.  “I just heard Kyuhyun’s car pull into the drive and looked out my window to take a peak and guess what I saw?”

            Heechul smiled at her.  “What?”

            “Ryeowook got out of the driver’s side.  He drove Kyuhyun home and was helping him into the house until I lost sight of them,” she informed him, walking over to the bed and sitting down on the other side, removing her slippers before she brought her legs up and laid down facing him.  “They must have run into each other in town or something.”

            “I think they gravitate towards one another,” he said, his eyes glued to Ahra.  She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt he recognized from Paris that fell halfway down her thighs and nothing else as far as he could tell.  He’d recognize it anywhere.  It belonged to him, after all, and she looked damn hot in it too.

            “I think you made it sound worse than it is over the phone,” she said.  “He doesn’t just let anyone drive his car.”

            “He doesn’t even let me drive it,” he smirked.

            “It’s so obvious that he likes Wookie and I think there’s a good chance that he feels the same, don’t you?  I didn’t get to observe him for long but he seemed to genuinely like my brother.”

            Heechul tossed his book onto the floor.  “I agree,” he said, his voice growing husky as he let his eyes gaze down her long legs until they reached the tips of her bright red toes.

            “Are you even listening to me?”

            “Enough to understand what you’re talking about,” he said, slowly bringing his eyes back up to her face.  “You really know better than to come into a man’s room in the middle of the night dressed in nothing but an oversized shirt.  Mine, no less.  There’s a primal reaction that happens to a man in such situations and I’m suppressing it and trying my very hardest to listen to you, I promise, but it’s far from easy.”

            “Perhaps you should quit fighting human nature,” she suggested.

            Heechul rested his head on his pillow and watched her.

            “Don’t be mad about me keeping your shirt.  If you liked it, you shouldn’t have left it behind,” she pointed out.

            “You were wearing it at the time and I knew if I woke you, you’d never let me leave.”

            “Coward.”

            “You’re right, just this once,” he admitted, reaching across the bed and tucking her hair behind her ear.  “I can’t regret it because I know I don’t have the willpower to walk away when you ask me to stay but there isn’t a day that I haven’t thought about it with an equal share of guilt.  It’s so hard for me to stay away.”

            “You seem to think that you’re the only one suffering but up until Paris, I used to see you all the time and we were constantly together.  I miss being with you,” she complained. 

            “I’m sorry.”

            It was the only thing he could say but it seemed meaningless.  Sorry didn’t begin to cover the pain of walking away from someone you were so close to, even if it was for their own benefit.  Sorry didn’t erase the past or brighten the future.  It was a useless word that was only said when nothing else could be said or done to fix the problem.

            “I have a question for you and, no matter what the answer is, I want you to say it.”

            “What?” she asked, giving him an apprehensive look.

            “Did you really hook up with a bullfighter in Spain?”

            “No.  I only said that to piss you off.”

            “Okay.”

            “Did it work?”

            Heechul pointed to the corner of the room where there was a pile of stuffed animals sitting in a mound.  “I had a rather violent reaction to it and a lot of innocent balloons were hurt in the process.”

            Ahra’s smile turned into a big yawn.

            “Although I was just as upset about you refusing to tell me where you were and accusing me of not caring about you.  You know that’s not true.”

            Heechul sat up and then stood up for a moment before bringing down the covers of the bed and getting back in.  He then waved her to sit up and began to pull down the covers for her side. 

            “Get in, you can stay here for a while and sleep.”

            Ahra scooted back toward the headboard and then slipped into the bed until she was lying down again on her side.  Heechul patted the spot next to him and she moved closer until her head was resting on his arm and he pulled her against his chest. 

            “Is that better?”

            Ahra nodded and yawned.

            “You’re so complacent when you’re overtired,” he quietly laughed, wrapping his free arm around her. 

            He rested his chin on the top of her head and his thoughts were heavy as he held her, considering all that had already happened in Paris and all that never could.  This was all his fault and he knew it, all her pain and his tortured desires.  Even if she wasn’t a blood relative, she was still his cousin and had been since they were very young.  Perhaps if she’d been around with Kyuhyun at their grandfather’s house when they were little, he would have associated with her more as a sister, but her mother always kept her close and signed her daughter up for special classes or trips abroad.  He barely