It hurts.

I couldn’t stand this kind of pain the most.

The kind where it wasn’t as hurting as a knife cut but as dragging as a paper cut.

My eyes felt heavy.

It took everything in me to open my eyelids, but I still couldn’t.

What’s wrong with me?

I wanted to rub my eyes, but I couldn’t move my hands. Weird. I tried to move it again but it wouldn’t work. The more I did it, the more it itched. My wrists, specifically. I tried again, and instead of having my hands moved, I’ve got additional pain.

It was painful enough to make my eyes opened on their own.

I blinked my heavy eyes to adjust to the bright room. I saw a silhouette standing in front of me, although I mustn’t have worn my glasses because one, I couldn’t see clearly and two, there was no additional weight on the bridge of my noise.

“xfdghhjtkmk…mmph?”

I couldn’t speak. There was something blocking my mouth. It felt sticky…and was it ties on my wrists?

I took a look at my surrounding and trying not to panic. Very. Much.

My hands were tied and I couldn’t speak since I saw a green duct tape covering my mouth. This was not how I envisioned my life would turn out to be.

.

I WAS BEING KIDNAPPED.

My thoughts ran a mile a minute. What should I do? How did I get kidnapped? What was the kidnapper would do to me? Are they male or female? , am I going to get ?

The last thought made me squirmed on the seat. I really couldn’t do anything except-

Wait.

Is that-NO!

Don’t even hallucinate. What would Joon Myeon do here? It was not like he was the one who kidnapped me right?

“You must be awake.”

I was hallucinating. There was no other way for sure. I was too stressed to hear the kidnapper’s voice as Joon Myeon’s voice.

I WAS hallucinating.

Why? Because now it was not a faceless man in front of me. It was the face of the man I had unknowingly fell in love with for the past few months.

--

(Apalah Gue noona’s excerpt starts here ^^)

He smiled at me, sickeningly sweet as those candies I disliked with passion but couldn’t help to like at times in need. Like my current situation.

Anything, to take off the pain I felt on my wrists. The headache that suddenly announced its existence after I spotted doubt in his eyes.

How much of an actor he was, able to fool even those that stayed close around him. His butler, included.

His burden, the silent solemnity he had to endure throughout his life.

My eyes hurt after a while, and only then that I realized I was crying. Crying for him, because of him.  A slight sound escaped my covered mouth. Inaudible as it was, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to keep him safe, to make him felt secure on others.

Not on his own weary shoulders.

“Do you know…” He started speaking.

“I used to envy you. Every time you speak of your family in slight disdain, I envy you. You had a place to return. You have a family you can mock on others’ presence.”

He rolled the walking stick he had on his hand. Where did he get it, I didn’t know. I could care less, to say the least.

“You have people calling you out of worries, out of affection because they wanted to know where you were out of curiosity, not because of obligations. You don’t have to worry about them stabbing you on your back.”

He circled my chair. God, Joon Myeon, have you gone mad?

‘Or did you watch too many dramas?’ my other side, the slightly sarcastic and bitter side, chimed in.

“My own parents, damn it, they didn’t even care that I was born in the first place. They only gave birth to me…I was raised by helpers…How pathetic was that?!”

I was scared, but the psychologist in me knew that if I interrupted his rant, he would have gone madder than he was and that wouldn’t do any good to both of us.

A sudden pain interrupted my own musings, a combination of adrenaline-fueled logic and emotional love, as he ripped off the tape covering my mouth.

“Aaack!” My voice sounded hoarse in my own ears.

I felt the pain almost immediately, the skin suddenly exposed to the air after being covered. I cringed at the pain, my mouth distorted to the left as I tried to reign in from showing the pain to the person in front of me. He might be unstable, but he was full of pain. I didn’t want to inflict more pain on him.

A touch made me opened my eyes that were closed due to the pain-induced cringes. Joon Myeon touched my lips, which I was sure had gone red from the quick tape ripping, and rubbed it softly. The gentleness he possessed was shocking after the rant he went on earlier.

“I am sorry…”

He looked at me in the eyes, shaking his head which made his teary eyes shook even more. He didn’t cry, not yet, but I could see the tear ducts were almost full on their capacities.

“But I was your friend…” I let out a sentence.

“Friend?”

(Apalah Gue noona’s excerpt ends here ^^)

He looked at me in a while, a long while after that. The silence was suffocating, but it was full of pregnant meanings and unspoken confessions.

I wanted more than to be your friend.

I don’t know if I can be more than just a friend for you.

But you are my doctor.

But you are my patient.

I was too broken to be with you.

You were way out of my league. Out of my reach.

I am sorry.

I am sorry, too.

He freed me after that. He untied the rope around my wrists that held me to the chair. Without it, I slid helplessly to the floor. My energy was drained and I couldn’t imagine what a mess I turned out to be. I didn’t want him to see me helpless, I wanted to be the one to help him. Not even after he attempted to put our relation to jeopardy by his kidnapping act.

Keyword being attempted.

I was way too deep inside this. Be it his doctor, or his friend, or his whatever, I wouldn’t leave him. As long as he would stay within my reach, I would be happy.

I didn’t realize it, but while my mind was whirling at an alarming speed, my body was spent on the same speed, too. I could see the vaulted ceiling slowly moving and later fast as I felt my body collapsed on the floor.

A hand stopped my head from hitting the floor completely and I was submerged in the sea of musky scent, of sandalwood and mints. Mints, my favorite.

“I am sorry…I am sorry…”

Wet things seeped through my clothes, onto my right shoulder, and the last thing I remembered was the strong hold I had on him.

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