(seventeen.)

“So you and Sehun,” Minho says, brows arched, flinging a single rose onto her neatly made bed.

She jerks out of her reverie and spins in her desk hair, watching the flower bleed its colourful touch onto her plain bedspread. Minho doesn’t leave, choosing to linger by her doorway, observing his little sister with an intentness that he has had ever since he was a child.

“How did you find that?”

“It wasn’t hard,” her brother says, strolling into the room and perching himself at the edge of a spare chair. “You left it in kitchen, next to an empty mug.”

Gaeul kneads her temples. “I got an urgent call at that time. Must have missed it.”

Minho smiles, if only a tiny crack. “So, what happened?”

Gaeul leans against her chair, staring at the wall above his head. “He loves me.”

It has already been two months since he’d confessed, and several weeks since she’d started to  tentatively letting him treat her as something more. He’d kept a safe distance the first few weeks, paling whenever he sees her and avoiding her eyes as much as he could; clearly the bravado was a spur-of-a-moment thing.

“I can’t see how that would pose much of a problem.” Minho is picking through the piles of books on the floor, reading their titles idly.

“It does complicate things.”

He looks at her from beneath shortened bangs. Ever since he’d gone to college, he’d reverted the colour palate into simple, modest black, shorter at the back and longer in front. Any awkwardness induced by puberty has been chiselled away into finer features, sophisticated and handsome. If he was merely good-looking back then, now he’s exquisite and daunting, with all of their mother’s beauty and their father’s presence.

“The friendship you mean? Confessions tend to do that, unfortunately, but only if the person confessed to doesn’t harbour the same brand of affection for the confessor.” He gently replaces the mark she’d placed into the book. “Is that your problem? You don’t love Sehun?”

“I do,” she replies, quickly. “He’s the kindest person I’ve ever meet. Sweet. Gallant. Handsome too, if we’re going to superficial levels.”

“Then how’s it complicated?”

“Jongin.” She smiles, bitter. “What will happen to him if Sehun and I were to ever start seeing each other that way?”

“If Jongin’s a friend, he’ll understand. He’ll make way. I don’t know the boy as well as you do, but from what I’ve seen, I can tell that that’s what he’d do.”

She bites her lip and stares at the rose again. It’s a pretty thing and it would have sat better in a vase. Sehun had given it to her that evening, slipping it with the books he’d helped her carry.

“Why so glum? From my experience, when I confessed to a girl, she’d be up in the clouds.”

Despite her mood, she scoffs softly at him. “Must be great to be born so blessed.”

“Hey, we’re fruits from the same tree,” he reminds her. “Look, is there something else that’s bothering you?” He observes her closely. “Second thoughts maybe?”

“No, no,” she says, shaking her head vigorously. “Of course not. I’d never break Sehun’s heart.”

“I hope that’s not the only reason why you took it in the first place.”

“No,” she says, firm. “Oh Sehun is kind and caring and I missed him so much when he was gone from my life. I don’t even deserve him.”

“Gaeul,” Minho says. He wants to say something, she knows it. Despite their violent childhood, he’d come to understand her better than anyone. He knows her heart and her head and all her secrets simply by looking at her.

However, all of it never passes his lips and he just looks at her and smiles. “He’s a great guy.”

He stands, but before he leaves, a crucial thought jumps at her and she whips around again. “Wait! How did you know it was from Sehun?”

The way he looks at her bespeaks nothing but amusement. “You’re not the only confidant of those two boys.”

She gasps. “Sehun told you?!”

At this, her brother laughs, clutching the doorframe. He doesn’t answer the question, but it’s as plain as day anyway that its --

“Jongin?”

“You really don’t have to worry about the boy feeling any hostility towards the two of you. He just called me, told me that Sehun had told you he liked you and asked if I would give my blessing. I told him…” He seems to catch himself, as though just realising he’s getting carried away, and smiles to cover it up. “Well, that part’s not important.”

Gaeul can’t think properly to even demand him to finish that sentence.

“The point is that he did it for Sehun. He knows that the boy won’t have the guts to face me.” He smiles in thoughtful amusement. “Though I suspect Jongin would receive a gutting when Sehun finds out. Well, goodnight then.”

Gaeul only blinks at the door closing behind him.

 

***

 

“Hey,” she greets Jongin, sliding onto the seat beside him.

Jongin opens his eyes a crack and smiles lazily at her. He pushes himself into a proper seating position, brushing damp hair out of his eyes. His clothes are thin, ringed with sweat on the neck, pushed up sleeves revealing taut biceps, a glitter of bronze in the sun.

“Hey yourself.”

“Are you doing track this year?” she asks, curious. Jongin’s presence on the track field has been increasing as of late, though he was always alone when he runs, usually after the bell had long rung.

“Nah. This is just for fun. Gives me something to do.” He stares at his nails for a while, long fingers clasped. “Gives me room to think.”

“I’m worried about you,” she says, honest.

His lips quirk into a half smile. “Really now?”

“Of course. This,” she jerks her finger towards the track, looping around the soccer field and mowed grass, “seems to me like an obsession.”

“Are hobbies a sin now?” he asks, more amused than anything.

“No.” She sighs, caught. Jongin always does that to her; he parries words excellently, corners her with logic and truth and a light shade of woefulness, and she almost never wins. “I just miss having you around.”

He lifts a brow up high. “Hey now, you make it seem as if I’ve abandoned you. I still walk with you to school. We go to the movies sometimes...”

“During which you’d bring along Chorong,” she says. She can’t help the splinter of sourness crossing her tone.

Jongin regards her patiently. “That was once. And I only did because we were studying together before you surprised me with your agenda midway. It seems terribly ill-mannered of me to not invite her.”

“Well, she doesn’t necessarily have to know your plans,” she points out, sulking.

Jongin sighs. “Gaeul, be fair with me. I asked her to come along because it seemed awkward watching a romantic comedy while you’re alone and two of your best friends are dating. I’d like someone to talk to and you can’t divide your attention, which by right of code, is primarily Sehun’s claim.”

She rubs her temples. “Please don’t say that. You know how much you both mean to me. I can’t neglect one because of the other.”

“Gaeul,” Jongin says, gentle. Shadows chase the planes of his features. Slanted light from the sun glides over each elegant bone, each hollow curve, yet somehow it leaves his eyes untouched. “I know we’re both your best friends, but Sehun is your boyfriend. It’s alright if you prioritize him.”

It’s not that simple, she thinks. In fact, none of this is.

The desperate feel to touch his hand overwhelms her. She looks into the far distance. All she’d ever done for the past few weeks was hold Sehun’s. Was it stupid that she missed holding Jongin’s?

“Come on.” Jongin bumps her lightly on the shoulder. “Let’s get you back home. Why aren’t you with him, anyway? You two lovebirds should be halfway there already.”

“Because she’s worried about you,” a new voice says, stepping onto the uneven planks. Sehun’s hair look like honey in the sun in the glaring light, his skin brushed gold. He’s holding a bottle, which he tosses at Jongin with one hand while the other reaches instinctively to wrap around Gaeul’s shoulder. “And to be honest, so am I.”

Jongin smiles comfortably at him, twisting the cap. “You two will grow gray at the same time if you keep this up.”

“And you’ll die sprawling on the track field if you keep this up.” Sehun eyes his form disapprovingly.

“Death by exercise,” Jongin muses, chucking away the empty bottle. “An interesting way to go.”

“Jongin!” they say at the same time.

“The way you two are so in sync is absolutely adorable,” he teases, playful smile fixed in place. “Relax, I’m not suicidal yet.”

 

***

 

“Is it just me, or does Chorong seem especially attached to him lately?” Gaeul grumbles on her perch on the school steps the minute he’s safely out of their earshot. “It’s always Chorong this, Chorong that. He barely does anything with us anymore.”

Sehun, standing by the stone banister, merely looks on with troubled eyes. He seems as discomforted as she is when Jongin once again refused an outing in lieu of ‘study sessions’, especially when the destination they promised is the lonely cliff he’d discovered and loved more than anything. He had never refused a hike there before.

“I’ll go convince him,” Sehun says, placating. “We have a friendly basketball game this evening and I’ll try to catch up with him.”

She frowns, unappeased. Jongin has long gone, having stayed only long enough to politely refuse their invite, but somehow he manages to leave behind his lingering presence. There’s an empty hole where he once stood but it’s infused with all the sweetness of his scent and aura; she smells rain and dewdrops and hears a bit of his voice in the wind.

Sehun scratches the back of his head. “I’ll do my best to get him to come with us.”

“What’s the use anyway? He already made it clear that he’d planned a date with her,” she grumbles, knocking the heel of shoe against the hard stone. It’s unfair to be so upset; Jongin deserves to have what she does. But at the same time, it’s hard not to.

Sehun looks torn, running his fingers into his hair back and forth, tufts sticking out in between, spiked.

“Maybe he’ll come with us another day.” He gazes at her pityingly. “I understand why you’re upset. He’s my best friend too, but he’s been yours for much longer. I’ll try to talk to him. I’ll try and get him back to you.”

It’s times like this that she feels her heart twisting. With Jongin, Sehun has never been selfish. He’s back to being the lonely little boy with the Game Boy, looking for a friend to play it with, willing to share.

“It’s okay,” she says, standing. “I think it’s time we leave him be. Jongin has never been the type to be forced into anything anyway.”

“Hmm,” Sehun hums into her hair, an arm around her shoulder. “That’s a good girl. Give him time. He’ll come around.”

She hopes he does.

 

***

 

It’s not really much of a surprise when she caught wind of it next week, tangled in the school’s gossip pool amongst other rumours.

“So,” she says, cornering Jongin before class. He looks flustered but somehow still manages to smile, though his dark eyes remain as indecipherable as ever. “You and Chorong.”

“Yes,” he says simply. Jongin has never been one to mince words, especially when he thinks a situation not worth the lie.

A moment of tension passes between them, during which Gaeul fixes an unreadable gaze at him and he tries to hold his smile. Finally, she reaches out, takes his limp hands hanging by his sides. She ignores the various shades of pain shooting past her as she curls her fingers into his, summoning up a smile as bright as she can manage as she says, “I’m happy for you.”

Jongin’s shoulders seem to sag. With relief, she thinks, but also with something else. Something that flickers in the embers of his eyes for half a second before being stamped out just as fast.

“Thanks.”

Jongin squeezes her hands; his are larger, warm, and for a while, she foolishly thinks of how well they seem to fit. But he pulls away before she can dwell on the thought much longer, tucking them into his pockets before he bids her goodbye.

High school is a riot alright, and a complete, chaotic mess.

 

***

 

A little over a month passes without much excitement, and during that month she learns to understand why Jongin needs Chorong. As symbiotic a relationship their has, there’s no denying that now she and Sehun travel in a different frequency. She remembers what he said when they sat on the bleachers that day, the implications behind his words coming together like pieces of a puzzle, into the inevitable conclusion that Jongin, while pleasant and outgoing and sociable, is just lonely.

It’s been too long, she thinks as wistfulness creep its tendrils into her heart. The handsome boy she knows now, with the mysterious eyes and the smirkish smile, isn’t the mischievous little boy from before, the boy who destroyed her painting and pouted when she tried to befriend someone else. But he’s still the boy who went with her to the DBSK concert, still the boy who’d put her and Sehun above anything else.

He never said it, but Gaeul has understood Jongin long before anyone else, and dating Chorong, while the feelings may have been pure between them, must have been a way to appease her and Sehun as well. He knows they’ve bent over backwards to not make him feel excluded; this is his way of gracefully drawing up their attempts.

It’s noble and tactful and thoughtful, and she can never think about it without feeling sad.

 

---

 

(eighteen.)

At some point in the comings and goings of the months, the complications in their relationship faded, calling their friendship back into a tentative return. A good more than half a year’s worth of dating has successfully detached Jongin’s girlfriend as permanent fixture at his side, and she’s taken to making time with her friends instead of insisting it all be spent with Jongin. Jongin, while he hasn’t quite said it out loud, seems wholeheartedly relieved.

Their comes together again, playful and laughing. It’s a slow process, like piecing together broken china, but at some point she forgets the drama and Jongin fits into their puzzle again. Gaeul never tells anyone about how thankful she is that he’s back at her side.

It was somewhere in the middle of the first semester that they announced a field trip for the entire grade, which, naturally, Jongin sweeps her and Sehun into joining. They end up dropped off somewhere in a forest at the edges of a rustic town, armed with little more than sleeping bags and a bug spray.

“Whose idea was this anyway?” Gaeul mutters. Once again, she’s losing to an uneven terrain, though the defeat is certainly worse, given that she’s completely unfamiliar with this forest, whilst the path to their cliff she had memorised almost completely to be able to emerge relatively unscathed.

“This is all we had budget for,” Haera, being part of the student council, says. After Gaeul had insisted that neither Sehun nor Jongin was to stay back for her sake, Haera took on the task of accompanying her, and she doesn’t make bad company, really. Easy to talk to and easy to get along with.

“Our seniors got to go to an island.”

“It was one of those nature-preserved ones,” Haera says, “I don’t think the activities differed much from this.”

“At least they get a beach.” Gaeul sidesteps a puddle of slush.

“True that, but I don’t look forward to being splashed by a bunch of boys,” Haera says, grimacing. “You have your knights in shining armour. I don’t. In no way is the situation advantageous from my vantage point.”

“I can lend you one,” Gaeul jokes.

Haera grins. “Thanks, but I’d hate to share a man with Chorong.”

“Right,” Gaeul laughs. It’s safe talking about Jongin’s girlfriend now since she despises anything woodsy and swore on her life that she’d never make the trip.

“Speaking of,” Haera gestures vaguely towards the rest of the group, where Jongin and Sehun march somewhere in the front lines.

“Leave them,” Gaeul says. “I don’t want to hold them back with the girls. I’ve made enough of a show of myself already.”

“Right. And leave me to fend for you instead.” Haera jokes as she offers a hand to help pull her over a little hill.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Gaeul winces as something sharp scrapes her on the knee.

“Nah, you’re not all that bad. And they,” she jerks her finger towards the rest of the girls, “are not really the cliques I can immediately integrate myself into, so I guess we’re stuck with each other.”

They make camp sometime during dusk. Gaeul and Haera are one of the last ones to arrive at the campsite, and by then most were already at work pitching the tents, two of which being Jongin and Sehun. Both boys’ heads jerk up to look at her when they crash into the clearing and, upon finding her relatively unharmed, smile in relief at her. They look honestly worried.

“It must be great having two guardian angels,” Haera teases her, and Gaeul only snipes at her half-heartedly before they’re given buckets and instructions to retrieve water and the directions to the nearest river.

They try to dally as much as they can, neither one wishing to be forced into tent pitching or things that don’t look as pleasurable as a stroll in the forest. Haera snaps aside a branch and brandishes a gushing river for them to marvel at. It’s a thrilling secret that the forest keeps, the thick, pulsing vein of water that batters against smooth stones and jagged rocks. At this point of the day, the water moves leisurely, enough to carry twigs but not a whole person.

Haera leaps like a gazelle onto a protruding rock and lowers her bucket. Gaeul finds a similar spot and squats, watching light sparkling of rocks in the river bed.

“Hey,” Haera calls. When Gaeul looks up she jerks her chin towards Gaeul’s side. “Your phone is slipping.”

Gaeul glances down and mutters a brief curse, catching the metal body falling out of her pocket and pulling it out. “I’d cry enough tears to fill the river if I lose this.”

“You’re in for a challenge. That is a lot of water.”

Gaeul laughs and dunks her bucket, collecting what they needed to clean their hands and dishes. Buckets full and the sweet rush of the river bubbling in the edges of a photographed memory, they make their way back. Gaeul just manages to not let too much water slop out of the bucket as they plonk it onto campgrounds.

Sometime after the third trip, an accompanying ranger took pity on them and assigned another pair to water duty. Boys this time. Baekhyun looks like a disheveled boy scout and Ilhoon is just plainly hot and bothered, but they submitted the job with the efficiency of two irritated guys desperate to have this nightmare done and over with.

They had to cook next (though Gaeul thinks the more appropriate term would be something in the lines of unboxing instant dining solutions) while the rest dealt with shelter and security measures. Someone brought over a large pot for them to fill with canned beans.

Jongin comes by and squats next to them in one of his stolen breaks, shoulders hunched and head bowed low, as though he hopes to blend in. He shoots her a pretty smirk as she tosses a can at him, stating that, if he’s going to hang around there he might as well put himself to good use.

“I think that I can proudly say I’d survive if I were thrown into the heart of the woods by a cruel twist of fate,” he declares as he fans himself with an oversized leaf (God knows where he found it, but Gaeul trusts Jongin just enough to not have picked something poisonous to let into such close proximity with his face). “At least I can build a shelter. The ache in my arms and back are testament to that claim.”

“How well would you fare alone?” she wonders aloud, thinking with fond amusement of a half-delirious Jongin waving a gigantic branch to fend off spiders and snakes and harmless squirrels that come his way.

“Well enough.”

“To burn down the camp, maybe.”

“Forest,” Haera jokes, and Jongin flicks a detached tab at her.

“You wouldn’t survive in the wild,” Gaeul adds, laughing. “You even whine to me when your mom didn’t cook dinner.”

“That’s because cooking dinner on my own means I have to work a stove,” Jongin says. “You do know how complicated those things are. And not to mention the utensils. I don’t understand why I can’t just use a spoon to stir the soup instead of a ladle. We are going to use it to eat anyway. That’s one thing less to wash.”

Gaeul rolls her eyes. “You think you can do better cooking with a campfire?”

“Why yes.”

Haera tosses him the flint. “Then light it up.”

Jongin picks it up, flashes her a smooth smile, and tries.

Sehun finds him about half an hour later, sweat pouring down his brow and swearing like a sailor. Gaeul and Haera happily sit and watch; a frustrated Jongin makes for an interesting distraction.

“Jongin.”

“I’m busy.”

“Well so am I, so get your over here and pick up your share of the weight.”

“I am currently in the midst of a crucial enterprise, one that requires great care and concentration and absolute coordination. And preferably,” he shoots Sehun a brief look, “without intervention.”

Sehun raises a brow, squats beside him and pulls out a box of matches from his front pocket. Split second and he has the tinder sparking and a steady rise of smoke as the wood catches. Jongin only gawks.

“That’s cheating.”

“No,” Sehun says, calmly standing and storing the matches away. “That’s being intelligent. Now get up and help with the supplies.” He catches Jongin by the collar and hauls him up despite his protests.

“Thanks Sehun,” Haera laughs, and Jongin frowns in his friend’s death grip.

“Only he gets the credit?” Jongin looks slightly indignant.

“Thank you, Jongin,” Gaeul says, amused. Jongin had never been able to sit well whenever he had his pride wounded, and he deserved it anyway, for all his efforts, however fruitless they ended up being.

“We’ll catch you later,” Sehun says, and then drags Jongin over to his station.

“They’re cute,” Haera says when they’re too far to hear. “Silly, but cute.”

 

***

 

Gaeul scours through her bag frantically, then mutters vehement curses, digging deeper. She straightens and searches her pockets, flipping them out.

“Something the matter?” Haera asks, peering out of her sleeping bag. Little can be seen of her face in the dim light of Gaeul’s lit torch, save for eyes, blinking at Gaeul with an expression of worry.

“My bracelet.”

“Please tell me you didn’t lose it.”

“I think it’s clasp broke when we were by the river.”

She hears the thump of Haera letting her head fall back onto her pillow, the quiet sigh that follows. “That’s really far from camp, you know.”

“You stay here, then. I’ll go.”

“What?” A scuffle of plastic. Haera springs up from her sleeping bag to gape at Gaeul. Her hair’s a mess, her face a little red from the stale air, but the horror on her face is plain.

“I need someone to cover for me.” Gaeul pulls on a jacket and brushes her hair out of her eyes, securing it into a tight, practical ponytail.

“It’s completely dark out there!”

“It’s almost dawn. There’ll be light soon and the advisors will be up to wake everyone. I’ll just have enough time to dash down there, get it, and be back before they do.”

“Here’s a better idea. Why don’t we just wait for the sun to completely go up and get your bracelet then?” Haera sounds almost exasperated, panicked even.

Gaeul glances at her. “They’re monkeys here.”

“Then pray they didn’t get their paws on that bracelet.”

“It’s a birthday present from my brother, Haera,” Gaeul says, smiling apologetically. “I can’t risk that.”

She hears Haera scramble up, saying something within the lines of “if it has been there since this evening, then chances are the monkeys already got it, anyway” and “Gaeul, for goodness sake, wait!”

She doesn’t. The bracelet is too precious for her, something that she ties to her brother, his heart and soul. Her birthday had fallen on the same day as his then-girlfriend’s, and while threw her the best of surprise parties, he’d given Gaeul the most precious of the two gifts he’d bought.

“I might not be around as we both grow older,” he’d said as he fixed the clasp on her wrist, “but I’ll always be here, no matter what you need.”

She tears through the undergrowth. Thankfully, the chosen campsite is surrounded by a thinner foliage than the rest of the forest. The flashlight shines too little light to see by and the ground sinks under her shoes, but she manages anyway, thankful for the flat plane and all those trips she had to make to get the buckets of water.

When she meets the river, it’s a roaring rush of water.

Gaeul blinks. On the other side of it, sprawling darkness lie in wait, a frame of vines and trees and crushed, dead leaves. Something flickers at the back of her mind, a movie Jongin had dragged her along to see, where the premise had revolved around mass murder and the setting a forest as foreboding as this. She tries not to think about it.

She shines her light over the rocks, the juts that cut through the river, whereon water crashes. Sprays of water brush her like kisses as she walks close to each, trying to find a silver sparkle of a chain and charm. She wonders sullenly why her brother had chosen such a fragile gift; while it is delicate to be worn, something larger would have been easier to search for.

She combs through every rock, even going as far as the edge when she gets too adventurous. Droplets soak her face every time she leans in too close, but she can’t stop --wouldn’t stop actually, because it has to be here somewhere (anywhere) if it hadn’t fallen in the water.

If it had. Well. Just be optimistic, Gaeul.

Optimism, did, in the end, reward her, but at the same time, fate chose to wind her through a cruel course.

She gasps when she finally sees it. Partly, her reaction had been in ecstasy; mostly, it was due to petrifying horror.

Her bracelet waves at her from a branch lodged between two rocks, caught in its fork.

Gaeul closes her eyes and forces herself to think clearly.

She needs something to grab it, so she retreats her steps and finds a fallen branch she remembers kicking away in her haste to reach the river. Next, she needs a stepping stone. Gaeul carefully places a foot on a smooth stone nearest to where the branch juts. It’s surface is smooth and treacherous, but she grits her teeth and goes further to extend her reach.

Now, stretch!

She does, holding onto the stone tight. On the first try, she missed by mere inches. She adjusts her position and tries again, this time just barely sliding the branch to catch the chain dangling underwater.

She just manages to pull it back to her before she slips, screaming, knees scraped bloody as the stone drops her into the river. The water rushes to meet her, freezing. She hears herself scream, then her voice wobble, water bubbling into . Thoughts of her brother and her parents flash. Thoughts of Sehun, the sound of his voice screaming her name. Thoughts of Jongin, his fathomless eyes and that beautiful smile, everything she missed, burnt at the back of her eyelids like a dream. And then it all goes black.

 

***

 

She remembers a similar incident involving falling happening, long ago, back when she was eleven.

Back then, Minho was still a cruel older brother, his word put forward as law, and everything he wants, he demands. It had been difficult to cross him back then, given that he was three years her senior and several inches taller. Minho hadn’t liked the idea of a younger sister, one that toddles behind his steps and begged him to play. She’d heard him say, more than once, that she would have been better off born as a boy. Less fragile.

One of her brother’s greatest shortcomings before he came of age was his inability to share.

That was the main cause of the entire incident: Minho, refusing to let her hold his Game Boy, even though he’d hardly touched it ever since he’d turned thirteen and gotten bored of it. Gaeul had just learned a few tricks from Sehun and was merely itching to try them at home, and her brother’s blatant refusal to let her have something that their mother specifically told him to share had ticked her off more than ever.

“It’s just for a while!” she had argued, dogging him as he attempted to sidestep her.

“No. I want to play with it later.”

Their parents weren’t home, and both of them had been left together for too long to be able to feign their usual civility. By evening, both siblings were prowling like caged panthers, irritable and hostile.

“I’ll give it back to you later. I want to play with it now,” she emphasised, darting for the console he’d shoved into his pocket when he caught her trying to retrieve it from his shelf.

Minho’s hand clamped hard over her wrist. “No.”

“I said give it to me!” She tried to claw his hand off, but her brother was strong, and he kept her in a firm grip. He glared at her beneath a curtain of dark hair and attempted to shove her away as he lifted the Game Boy up high.

She tried to climb over him.

Minho roared in outrage and attempted to shake her off. He dug an elbow to her side, peeled off her arms, and tried to shake her off. She held on, stubborn, raking nails into his soft arms because he deserved it. Furious beyond reason, Minho finally shoved her off hard, not realising that during the chaos of their tousle, they’d ended up teetering at the edge of the stairs, and it was down there that Gaeul ended up falling.

She remembers little of what happened after that, just the alarm in Minho’s voice when he realised what he’d done. The pain. The sound of the door crashing open. More voices. A siren. Warm hands cupping hers and warmer tears that aren’t hers brushing her skin with a voice pleading, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Gaeul-ah, please wake up. I’m sorry!”

She’d woken up to the sight of her mother, dry-eyed but worried. She’d sighed in relief when Gaeul blinked, reached to brush her daughter’s hair out of her eyes and murmured softly in answer to her questions. Then, she rushed off to find the doctor, during which Gaeul realised that there was another figure in the room.

Her brother stepped out of the shadows, dishevelled and red-eyed. Nothing about him recalled the angelic, beautiful boy everyone loved; his hair all over the place, falling in disarray over soft round cheeks, his face completely pale and his nose glowing as red as a clown’s. He tentatively stepped forward, hesitant in his movements.

“I’m alive,” she said, more of a statement to comfort him than to mock.

To her surprise, he’d rushed forward and gathered her into his arms. It was an awkward hug, with both of them unused to receiving such affection from the other and his lanky limbs a little too long to be able to accommodate her much smaller frame properly, but he managed regardless, tucking her under his chin.

“Gaeul, I’m sorry. I promise I’ll never do that again. I --” his arms tightened around her, and she feels him choke against her --“I thought you died. Oh God, Gaeul, I’m so so sorry. I’ll share next time. You can have the stupid video game. You can have all of my toys…”

She listened to him babble, his rapid heartbeat, felt the tremors racking his entire body, and decided, in that short moment, to be a charitable sister and forgive him.

Their mother returned with the doctor and their father in tow to the sight of a guilt-ridden brother in a wreck of sobs and the younger, injured sister comforting him, murmuring softly into his hair. It took a while to get Minho out of the room, but their mother had been beaming.

 

***

 

In the blur of darkness, the memory is the only thing she clings to. Everything is hazy, even Minho’s face, round and full, as opposed to the chiselled, older version of present times, seems to be a blur.

Her body feels light, as though floating. Somewhere in the haze, she remembers water, taking her whole, filling her lungs, taking her away. Everything past that is a mixture of obscurity and clarity, spots dancing past her eyes --just so hard to breathe, even when every limb screamed at her.

At some point, she manages to find a break in the darkness. A thread to hold on to. A chain to pull her up. She breaks the surface of her consciousness, eyes fluttering weakly, to a sterilised room of white and grey and aqua. Something uncomfortable is fitted onto her nose, and there’s someone beside her: a hunched, miserable figure, grasping her hand as how she’d grasped the line that pulled her.

The figure senses her movement. Dark, obsidian eyes meet hers underneath charcoal bangs. She remembers those eyes being fathomlessly beautiful; now, they just look endlessly sorrowful, though at the sight of her moving, part of that sorrow begins to ebb to accommodate relief.

“Gaeul,” Jongin says, voice rough, scratchy. He grips her hand tighter. “Thank God, you’re okay.”

He darts up from his chair, brushing her hair out of her eyes, almost sagging in relief. “It’s okay now. It’s okay.”

“Jongin, where…” the darkness pulls again. Her limbs feel heavy; she feels incredibly tired.

“Hush, you’re safe,” he mutters. She feels his warm hands lightly brush her hair, as tenderly as her mother did when she was little. “You’re safe and it’s okay.”

She drifts away.

 

***

 

She hears voices, occasionally, as she drifts in and out of consciousness; her parents somewhere in the tangled mess, doctors and nurses. Minho, too, lends his deep baritone in the mesh of thoughts and questions, less hysteric however, more stern. Then, winding it all together, the frantic, despairing tone of Sehun’s, explaining. Haera’s in there too, higher pitched than the rest, worried and panicky, not saying much but saying just enough. Finally, underneath it all, like a distant whisper echoing from the deep blues, she hears Jongin’s voice, calling out her name.

She doesn’t know how long she slept, but when she wakes again, someone’s beside her. Everything hurts, her head more than anything, and when she manages to turn it, she finds him on her bedside.

Sehun is leaning forwards, hunched on a plastic chair that didn’t look all that comfortable. His head is bent, his hands clasping hers, mouth pressed against the back of their entwined fingers. His hair flops over half his face, but she can still see his eyes, shiny and watery.

“Jongin is right,” he says quietly, relieved. “You did wake.”

“Where is he?” feels dry and parched. Sehun is quick to snatch up the glass by her bedside to hand it to her, helping her up.

“Sent home by your mom,” Sehun replies once the glass is emptied. “Not in a bad way; she was getting worried over the fact that he’d barely gotten any sleep. They’re here too, your parents. Just getting something to drink.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days.” Sehun’s lips are pressed tight. Then suddenly, without warning, he wraps his arms around her and draws her to him. She finds her face mashed against his collar, breathing in his scent of musk and fresh air.

“Thank God you’re alright,” he murmurs into her hair. “We were all so worried. If Jongin hadn’t pulled you out in time…”

“Jongin pulled me out?” she asks, voice muffled against his shoulder.

“Yes,” Sehun says, “And I owe him my life for that.”

She closes her eyes and for the first time, lets her tears leak.

 

***

 

Despite his efforts to hide, Sehun ends up finding him anyway. Jongin turns to the sound of his voice with an amused smile, because of course Sehun would know; he is one of the two people who know Jongin and his weaknesses, the secrets he keeps even from Chorong.

The town sprawls like a carpet at his feet where the land breaks into cliff, worn by rain and footsteps and time. Today is such a day where the sun hides behind clouds and everything is filtered into grey. Though to be truthful, Jongin’s eyes hadn’t been able to see much colour and beauty in anything since he’d held her next to that river, her eyes closed, her body limp in his arms, as he cried and begged her to wake.

“She’s awake again,” is the first thing Sehun tells him, and it works, lightens his heart a little that he can hear the soft song of the birds watching them.

Jongin sags against the rock. The relief is so overwhelming that his legs are weak, and the cogs in his brain turn in haphazard revolutions to process everything Sehun had said. “That’s good,” he manages to say, his thudding heart in loud in his ears.

“She asked for you.” Sehun comes nearer.

Jongin notices the rumpled shirt, the faded words stamped in the front. His jeans are old, its hem dusted with stains from the soil and underbrush. He looks unhealthily gaunt, and Jongin almost laughs, because he probably looks the same. Worse even.

“I told her that her mother sent you home.” His gaze slides over Jongin, the cliff, the trees that make their surroundings. “I’m assuming you got lost on the way?”

Jongin laughs, his voice light, as he runs his fingers through his hair. It feels sticky to the touch, uncombed and unwashed. His sister would throw a fit seeing him so unkempt; Areum made for a very finicky, image-oriented sister. In his defence though, his body had hardly felt like his own these past few days, his mind a scattered, unrestorable mess. He couldn’t think without chancing upon the image of Gaeul, lips blue and cheeks pale, a broken doll in his arms.

“I came here to think. I don’t get to do that at home, you know that.” He tries to invoke the reckless, carefree Jongin and attempt his smile. “My nephews always get their hands on anything and everything.”

Sehun nods quietly and joins Jongin on the rock. The forest has no mirrors, but Jongin can already imagine how they must look. All black and white. One fair and the other tanned. A mild tempered, seraphic prince and a careless, wayward knight --because that’s what he imagines them being. Sehun has all the attributes of a prince, likeable for his personality and admired for his good looks; Jongin himself can only be a knight, for he is everything Sehun is not, brave and adventurous and reckless where Sehun is careful and fiercely protective of everyone he loves.

It’s the very reason Sehun’s the only person who he’ll trust with Gaeul (even more than himself).

“When is your sister going back, actually?” Sehun asks casually.

“She has another few days into her stay.” Jongin sticks out his tongue. “Honestly, I love her and her boys, but they can so destructive sometimes if you don’t keep an eye on them. Even Areum-noona agrees.”

“Poor her,” Sehun chuckles. “She must feel like she’s handling two mini yous.”

Jongin punches him lightly on the arm. “Hey! I resent that.”

Sehun grins. It’s one of his rare, playful ones.

“You should go back to the hospital,” Jongin says. His heart feels a little too heavy to allow a smile, but he manages. “She’d want you there.”

“Her brother’s with her. She’ll be fine.” Sehun pauses for a while, head bent, expression inscrutable. “Jongin?”

“Yeah?”

“How long have you been in love with her?”

The question takes Jongin completely off guard. He feels the world quake underneath him, the mirrors cracking, shattering. He hears nothing over his heart, pounding, a drum, one that beats against his ribs as though it could hammer its way out of his chest. Everything spins; only Sehun remains still, his expression unreadable, but not hard. Patient.  

He knows it’s useless, but he tries anyway. “Looks like I’m not the only one who needs sleep that badly.” He forces out a laugh.

“I did sleep. In the waiting room,” Sehun says. “It’s not much, but it’s certainly more than you ever did. You stayed up pacing the first night and zoning off in the second. God knows what you did on the third.”

Jongin bites his lip, slides his gaze away towards the trees. “Sehun, it’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it? Jongin, I saw your face when she fell into the water. You dove in without even taking off your shirt. You didn’t even think. And when you pulled her to the bank, calling her name begging her to wake, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so destroyed before.”

Jongin wrings his hands. He looks for a rebuttal, but only comes out blank.

“I’m not angry, Jongin,” Sehun says in that soft voice he used to speak in when he was a child. “But I’d like the truth.”

Jongin closes his eyes. “I don’t know when, Sehun. Truly, I don’t know.”

“But have you always known what it all meant?”

“Yes,” Jongin exhales. He feels empty. “I’ve always known what they meant.”

“Then why didn’t you do something?” To his surprise, Sehun sounds angry. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Jongin looks at him sadly. “Sehun, she doesn’t love me. And I couldn’t do that to you. Not when I know that you love her.”

“But you let me do that to you.” Sehun is frowning deeply.

“Sehun.” Jongin tries to smile again. “You didn’t know about my feelings for her. I’ve known yours even before you confessed. It’s different.”

Any irritability that had been on Sehun’s face disappears into surprise. “What? How?”

Jongin snorts. “You’re not exactly a closed book. I saw how stunned you looked when she hugged you goodbye. How happy you were in general, whenever you get to hold her hand or make her laugh.”

“You could’ve --”

“Said something?” Jongin raises his brows. “If it had been me, would you?”

Sehun is motionless. Jongin glances at him and finds him staring off into space, his eyes glazed. Guilt sparks in him towards Sehun, a flame, but Jongin can say find no words, so he sits quietly like a reprimanded child awaiting the final verdict.

He straightens when he hears Sehun take a deep breath.

“Jongin, I --”

“Don’t break up with her,” Jongin cuts in. He hears the pain in his own voice, but also certainty. “Please. Don’t.”

Sehun’s brows furrow. “Jongin --”

“Look, you can just forget what I said.” Jongin is leaping to his feet, brushing off the dust from his pants. “I have a girlfriend anyway, so it should be alright, given time. I’ll be alright.”

He’d rarely seen Sehun angry, so he’d forgotten the terrifying change of his visage, the dark storm clouds rolling into the horizon and settling into his eyes.

“You expect me to completely disregard --”

“Yes!” Jongin yells, because he has to convince Sehun not to. Because he can’t take two broken hearts just to mend his own. “I want you to disregard them, because they mean nothing.” He’s lying at this point, spinning wild tales he hopes Sehun will believe. “We’re teenagers right? We fall in love just as easily we fall out. So don’t worry about me.”

As he speaks, he backs away. Sehun watches him, his expression unreadable, but he does not object to Jongin’s swift exit. As soon as he reaches the treeline, he turns and quickly slips into the forest, praying that Sehun won’t follow him.

He doesn’t.

 

***

 

It’s stupid, she thinks, to feel a rush of disappointment when she looks up and doesn’t find the person she hopes for at the door.

Gaeul manages a smile anyway and puts down the book as Haera shuffles into the hospital room. She’s still in her school uniform, ribbon looped beneath her collar, her hair tugged into a ponytail. In her hands is a box of chocolates which she gently sets on Gaeul’s bedside, her smile apologetic.

“I hope they let you take chocolate.”

“I’m sure they would. It is the best medicine,” Gaeul says, smiling at her. It’s not fair for her to let her disappointment manifest into something visibly obvious, especially when said disappointment is over something as petty as an unfulfilled wish for Jongin to come back.

“Are you feeling well?” the girl asks, looking truly concerned as she sits on the plastic chair by Gaeul’s bedside.

“Yeah. As great as anyone could feel wasting away a good day with four walls and sterilized equipment.”

Haera grins. “You’re back alright.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a stack of books and papers. “I brought your homework for you, if you feel up to it.”

Gaeul looks at it all with distaste, groaning and sinking deeper into her bed. “I don’t, actually.”

Haera chuckles. “I’ll tell them a stray dog stole my bag.”

“That is a terrible excuse,” Gaeul deadpans, and gestures to her bedside. “Just leave it all there.”

Haera does, then returns to perch on the chair again. She arranges her skirt for a while, then says, in a composed and casual voice, “I bumped into your brother several times when I was here.” A grin threatens the edge of her lips, but she strives for a straight face. “You never told me that he was that hot.”

Gaeul swipes a pillow at her. “My brother is off limits.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know the code,” Haera laughs. “Just thought to let you know, I wouldn’t set him loose anywhere near our school anytime sooner if I were you.” She thinks for a while, then adds, “Wait, he didn’t go to our school, did he?”

“He’s in college.” Gaeul leans back against her pillow. The hospital has a sanitised scent to it that it dulls all her senses, besides making her more than just a little desperate for fresh air. “He’s an alumni at our school, but with three years between us, our paths didn’t cross all that often.”

“Does he play a sport?”

Gaeul cracks open an eye and gives her a look. “You’re not stalking him.”

“I won’t,” Haera assures her. “Well, not physically anyway. You wouldn't happen to be generous enough to give me his ID for any and every social networking site that he uses, would you?”

Gaeul slides further down her pillow with a groan. Haera cackles, clearly enjoying the look on her face.

“On a more serious note,” Haera starts, and Gaeul peeks at her from underneath a curtain of soft hair only because she really does sound serious, “he was honestly worried about you. I saw how he hovers over you. Like he’ll do anything to protect you.”

“He’s overbearing sometimes.” Gaeul shifts, twiddles with her fingers. “But I know he has a good heart. He didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”

Haera blinks at her in surprise. “How’d you know he spoke to me?”

“He’s my brother. I know what goes on in his mind most times.” She bends a concerned gaze at the dark-haired girl. “I know how stern he can seem sometimes and how unfriendly.”

Haera twists her hair, chasing a lock with her finger. “He just questioned me --us --in detail. I can’t say the interrogation was casual in any sense.”

“Us?”

“Jongin and Sehun,” Haera says, in a matter-of-fact manner. “It’s you whom the entire catastrophe revolved around; of course he’d go to them.”

“He wasn’t hard on them, was he?” Gaeul feels going slightly dry. Jongin and Sehun aren’t the ones to blame; if anything, they’re the ones who deserved an apology. “They weren’t even supposed to be there.” Realisation dawns and she pins Haera with a curious look. “Did you…”

“Guilty as charged.” Haera lifts her lips in a tired smile. “When you left camp without thinking your whole stupid plan through, I stormed their tent. Gave a few shirtless boys quite a scare in the process too.” She chuckles. “They were after you as fast as lightning. And, in answer to your question: no, he wasn’t hard on them. Not when Sehun was in that much of a wreck and Jongin looked like his soul had been out by one of those Dementors from Harry Potter.”

The guilt consumes her instantly and she hangs her head. “I should apologise to them for making them worry.”

Haera snorts. “‘Worry’ doesn’t even describe their emotional state at the moment. You have no idea how restless Sehun was, asking if you were going to be okay every few minutes. Jongin…” Haera hesitates.

“What about Jongin?” Gaeul asks, eyeing her carefully.

“That boy looked so lost and… hollow.” Haera twists the loose strand around her finger again and finally tucks it behind her ear. “You really scared us, Gaeul.”

“I’m alive now. It should be alright.” She reaches out and gently slips her palm into Haera, smiling. “So don’t worry.”

“I’m past worrying,” Haera says. “Now I’m just plainly mad at you. What were you thinking?!”

Gaeul smiles weakly and sinks down her pillow again, letting Haera berate. After all, she figures she deserves it anyway.

 

***

 

It’s late in the evening when Haera finally leaves Gaeul’s bedside, considerably more light-hearted after finally seeing her friend well and conscious. She never admitted it to Gaeul, but the incident had scarred her, more deeply than she lets on to anybody.

She remembers the fabric of the tent against her fingers, her voice scream-whispering Jongin and Sehun’s names. Fast forward and they were pounding through the forest, Sehun just a few feet ahead of her and Jongin too far, a wraith of long limbs and shadows darting between the trees. Then Gaeul falling, dropping in the cesspool below. Sehun beside her, gasping, screaming Gaeul’s name with such heartbreaking fervour, darting forwards the same time Jongin was already splashing into the water and cutting through the ripples and eddies.

Their heads were lost for a while, snatched by the spiteful river, and somewhere in between her hysterics and the frantic calls and Sehun darting back and forth to track their figures, Jongin emerged, his arms looped around a limp Gaeul, hauling her back to the river bank.

A tall figure looms by the door when she turns. Thoroughly startled out of that disturbing memory, she jumps a few feet, gasping out his name.

Sehun tilts his head down at her and smiles. Something dull strikes her heart when she sees how exhausted he looks, how incredibly woebegone. He’s thinner, more sickly, his pallor deathly. His eyes, by contrast, are smudged with dark rings, bruised.

She makes sure the door is completely shut behind her before saying, “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” A one word answer. That was all she seemed to be getting these days. To be honest, she would have hoped for a little more.

“What are still doing here? Go. She’d want to see you.”

She’s surprised, considering how fraught Sehun had been over the past few days waiting for his girlfriend to wake up, that he’s hesitating now.

“Maybe not.”

“Why?”

“Haera…” He scratches the back of his head after he sighs out her name, looking like a torn man. “Is she alright?”

“Why don’t you go in and find out?”

Something indistinguishable flickers in his eyes. “I can’t. Just not now.” He straightens, shrugs his shoulders. It strikes her that he might have been standing there for the whole hour she’d spent on Gaeul’s bedside.

“You look terrible, Sehun,” she says quietly. “You should get some sleep.”

He rubs his dark eyes, smiles tiredly. “I know.”

She waits. He doesn’t move, but with every second, his eyes seem to grow more lost, falling someplace where no one could follow. It breaks her heart a little to see him like this.

She reaches out and gently places a hand on his shoulder. “Come on.”

He blinks at her, back to reality again. “Where?”

“Ice cream. My treat. You need it.”

Sehun hesitates, glances at the door.

“If you’re not going to go in but will be planning to stand here for the whole day, I’m sure it’ll raise a lot of questions with the nurses.”

He chuckles, runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re right.”

Pleased, she tugs him lightly on the arm. “Come on then. Let’s get out of here. I know a great place down the street.”

 

***

 

It takes a few days more than initially planned, but eventually she does get well. Throughout her indisposition, Minho had helped her with her homework and snuck in bars of chocolate and candy to cheer her up every time he came to see her after his classes. Their mother fussed over her more than usual while their father gave her an extensive lecture, though in the end he did let her have a little extra when it came time to receive her allowance.

She ends up spending the night the day before school in her brother’s room armed with snacks and a movie while he pores over his books, studying for an upcoming test. She doesn’t know how she’d ended up knocking on his door with a laptop and large puppy eyes; only that she realises that lately she’d grown to become more and more dependent on her brother to be there in situations where Jongin and Sehun could not.

She’s balancing her laptop on her toes and munching on a cookie when she looks up from the screen, towards his hunched figure, the mop of copper hair. Minho inherited their mother’s genes when it came to hair and its texture, as did she, but she always thought that her brother has the better end of the stick; no matter how dishevelled it becomes, no matter how many time he neglects to shampoo, it still remains soft and fine and unfairly shiny.

She stares at him, pondering, the dialogue in the movie, the voices filtering through the her headphones in a mesh of different timbres (deep and throaty for the male lead; heavy and doleful for his father; beautiful and silvery for the girl he quietly pines for), swimming together in a complicated web of detached emotion.

Finally, the words push against her lips and spill out into the space between them, unbidden:

“Oppa?”

He hums, though he doesn’t look up. She pauses the movie and hears the scratch of his pen and imagines picking up too, the creak of the cogs of his brain turning.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Is this about Jongin or Sehun?”

“Both,” she admits, pushing the laptop away and wriggling her toes. “How’d you know it’s about them?”

“It’s always about them.” His tone is wry, though she catches the affection he swirls into the mild exasperation.

“I think there’s something wrong with them, something going on that they won’t tell me about.” She fingers the bedspread. It’s tiresomely monochromatic, but it seems to fit with her brother’s austere personality, his single-minded determination for anything he wants to have. “Sehun is gentle to me, but he is distant. Jongin smiles and jokes as usual, but there’s always something sad about his eyes if you bother to look closely.”

Minho looks thoughtful for a while, then smiles. “Everyone has conflicts in their life. Maybe they have one that they don’t want you to worry about. If anything, I’m sure it’ll blow over. You three are practically inseparable. I’m sure it will all work out.”

“So think they fought too?” she asks quietly.

Minho sighs. “I’m just guessing from the facts you’ve given me. It might not be the absolute truth of what had happened.”

“It feels right, though.”

Minho shakes his head, pushes his chair back to stand. He joins her on the bed and peers at the laptop, dipping a hand into the bag of cookies by her feet.

“What’re we watching?” he asks.

“You’re trying to distract me,” she frowns.

“Just trust me, Gaeul,” he says, patting her on the head. “Be patient and wait for them to come to you. Sehun always will, and Jongin, no matter what, will never let go of you.” He shrugs. “I’ve had that puzzle figured out years ago.”

She makes a face, pushing his hand away. “You’re dropping crumbs in my hair!”

Minho scoffs then flicks more onto her face. “Then stop whining and play the movie.”

 

***

 

Haera has been seeing Sehun more and more frequently lately, huddled on one of the steps of the winding fire escape staircase, eyes as blank as voids, studying his thin, bony (beautiful) hands.

She knows this because she’s taken to habit following him whenever he disappears, in part out of curiosity, predominantly out of worry. Today, he’s sitting on his usual step, wrapped in its soundless sphere, pensive and brooding as though beset by a world’s worth of troubles. He would run his fingers through his hair occasionally, parting it and putting it back together with seamless ease.

She leans a little further down the banister, trying, very hard, not to breathe too loudly. She had always wanted to say something to him, to join him, perhaps even coax him to return to civilisation, but his despair has such a poetic measure to it that she finds herself hesitating, torn between the need to help and the selfish desire to admire.

She’d been doing it for days, really, watching him. There’s something fascinating about Oh Sehun; the boy is simple by nature yet an intricate character. His presence doesn’t hit you like a train wreck like that of Kim Jongin, whose charisma is easy to see and charm even easier to fall into. Sehun draws people less like a vortex and more like a song, one that threads its rhythm into the fabric of your unconscious, the sweet beauty and depth of its lyrics apparent the longer you listen.

In her quiet musings, she accidentally kicks a detached piece of the floor and it bounces off her shoe, drops off the edge. The sound it makes when it lands is mortifyingly jarring, and Haera is just about to flee in horror when Sehun looks up, startled.

She clenches the banister between her fingers, tight.

“Haera?” he calls, squinting. “What are you doing here?”

She coughs a little, wears down the embarrassment into a light, curious tone. “I could ask you the same thing. It’s a pretty lonely place for such a popular guy to be in.”

He smiles. It’s not bright, but it’s not forced either. “It’s either here or the rooftop. I prefer here.”

“Why?”

“It’s quieter. Less wind. But sound does have a tendency to funnel.”

She flushes slightly at that.  “A teacher sent me to look for you,” she lies. “I think she saw you disappearing all the time and is starting to get concerned about you.”

“Really, now?” He leans back comfortably.

“Gaeul too,” Haera admits, half-glad for not having to lie this time. “She’s sad and worried about you.”

“Tell her not to be. Tell her I’m fine.”

“Tell her yourself,” she says, “and no, you’re not.”

He winces. “Nothing escapes you, huh?”

“No guy hides in the stairwell in his free time unless he smokes something. I really hope that’s not the case for you.”

He chuckles slightly. “I’m not stupid.”

“You know, Sehun,” she leans uncomfortably against the banister, curling her fingers tighter, “if you need to talk, I can always listen.”

She realises how that sounds and finds herself blushing, grasping desperately at imaginary lines to backtrack. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to. I know I’m not Jongin or Gaeul --”

“No, you’re not,” he says softly, surprising her enough that she cuts herself off mid sentence. He smiles that sad smile again. “But I guess it’s a good thing.”

He looks up at her. Suddenly, she feels her world tilting.

“You have to swear to secrecy, though.”

“I promise,” she says.