~ Baekhuyn's POV

I place a few gentle knocks on Chanyeol's room door and close my eyes tightly. My head is aching again, and my knees feel weak as I stand in the cold hallway with a huge t-shirt and a pair of shorts. I comb my hair back, tug at the bandages on my wrists, and whisper Chanyeol's name when I hear shuffling from behind the door. Chanyeol opens up the door, looking sleepy in his messy hair and light gray t-shirt with a puppy print on the chest. He leans on the door while trying to open up his eyes enough to look at me. ”Baek? It's... What is it?” he mumbles with a low, gruff voice and looks at me, the sleepiness soon turning to worry when he notices the slight shaking of my body. ”The nightmare. It's back”, I say quickly.

It's been three (or four, I think it's past midnight) days since I got back from the hospital, after the longest and the most boring six days in my entire lifetime, at least that's what it felt like. The nightmare I had had been gone for a while and I was feeling positive. But tonight it came back and I followed the doctors' advice – don't go off alone and talk to someone. They even gave me a list of things to chant, like ”It's a nightmare. It's not real. I'm not scared.” Bullcrap.

”Would you like a glass of water or...?” Chanyeol asks carefully and I nod to him a couple of times, what I need right now is something to take my mind off nightmares, sleeping in general. I play with the hem of my shirt when Chanyeol takes my hand and walks me to the kitchen, sits me down by the kitchen counters and pours me a big glass of cold water. ”I'll make some tea for us”, he says and smiles a little drowsily. ”I'm sorry I woke you up”, I say to him before taking a sip. Chanyeol's brows furrow. ”Don't be sorry. I'm sorry you have nightmares, it must be terrible. This is nothing, don't worry”, he says and smiles again before turning away to get tea supplies.

My mind drifts off to Sehun and Jongin. They don't know anything about what Taeyeon does to me behind closed doors. I know Taeyeon wouldn't do anything like that to them, she wouldn't want anyone else but me, Sehun and Jongin are mentally and physically stronger than I am. But she has a way of getting what she wants and what she might want is for them to suffer because of me, how they let me get away. I knew they would never force me to come back to Taeyeon, they care about me too much. I can only hope that they're doing alright.

~ Sehun's POV

I grab another lollipop from the rack while the old lady behind the cash register isn't looking. She's the most clueless person I have ever met, and even though I feel pretty ty for stealing something from someone like her, I can't do anything about who I am. ”Okay, I'm sorry, I need to go now. But I'll come back later to check again!” I say with a fake smile and strut out the front door. This place is tiny, so it doesn't have any alarms, thank god for that. I turn around to walk away when I bump into someone.

”... I'm...”

”Sehun?!”

”Yeah, sorry...”

”Sehun!”

”Luhan!” I gasp and look at the small boy with wide eyes. The look on his face makes my heart twitch. He looks so adorable with a small smile peeking from underneath a red scarf and joy gleaming in his eyes. ”I thought for sure you had moved or something! Where have you been!” he asks and throws himself to me, holding me tightly and frowning when he lets go. ”I swear, you feel smaller and smaller everytime we meet”, he sighs and looks up at my eyes again. I smile a little. ”I'm fine. Really. I just... Uhh. I work out so much, I barely have enough time to eat with you know... Work and stuff.” I'm not actually even lying, I do work out, and then I'm just too tired to do pretty much anything else. Which is why I should be stealing better food than lollipops.

”Oh. Make sure you eat enough”, he mumbles when a lightbulb seems to go off and his expression brightens. ”You should come over for dinner, right now! I live alone less than a mile away from here and it gets kind of lonely sometimes, it'd be fun to eat with someone”, he says and jumps up and down on the balls of his feet.

Dinner... With Lulu? My little precious baby Lulu? My heart likes the idea (well so does something else in my body, but that thing's stupid anyway), but my brain knows I wouldn't be able to return the favor in any way.

”I'm sorry. I have other plans.”

I don't think I've ever seen someone's face go straight from ”happier than a kid in a candy store” to ”more broken than the vases in a store full of angry bulls”. But that's what I now witnessed. Luhan looks like he's about to cry. What is he...

”You have another date?” he asks with a cracked voice and starts crying, covering his face and sobbing into his gloves. My eyes widen. What? No! No I don't... What the hell is he... Ooohh.

”Luhan, no I don't have someone else! Don't cry, please”, I ask and hug Luhan awkwardly. He sniffles against my thin shirt and grabs onto it. ”You could've told me if you had someone else you liked, I mean you're so handsome anyways why would you settle for me?” he asks and I pet his hair with my right hand. ”No no no... You got it all wrong. I'd be eating alone tonight if you hadn't asked”, I assure him and smile a little when he looks up at me with curious eyes. ”So... You're free to come over, then!” he asks and pushes away with a wide smile on his lips. What the is this, why do I love him so damn much? I chuckle a little and sigh in defeat. ”Okay, yes, I'm coming over”, I say and lean in to kiss Luhan. I quickly take domimance in the kiss and deepen it for a few seconds before breaking it and holding on to Luhan's hand tightly. ”Let's go then!” he squeals with the excitement of a five-year-old, and starts dragging me down the street.

I've been way too scared to tell Luhan about my... Interesting habits. I struggle to keep all the candy bars and lollipops in my pockets, and luckily, he doesn't seem to notice on the way to his place.

Stepping inside Luhan's apartment is like walking into a huge pile of teddy bears. The furniture is made of light wood and there are lots of beanbag chairs and pillows and blankets. There's a brick texture on the front of the fireplace and two doors in the far left corner, one of them an archway into the kitchen. I remove my shoes and watch as Luhan slips his feet into a pair of slippers. ”It's cold, I have an extra pair in the bedroom if you'd like”, he offers and looks at me with a smile. ”No, I'm okay”, I say quickly and look around the living room for a moment before Luhan drags me to the kitchen.

We start cooking. Or, perhaps more accurately, Luhan starts cooking while I stand around and occasionally admire Luhan's features or kiss him to taste the food in his mouth after he tried a spoonful. I smile a little after the latest kiss. ”Perfect. And the food tastes delicious”, I say and laugh at my own joke. Luhan's laugh reaches my ears, and it is the sweetest mixture of baby laughter, rainbows and sunshine in the world. I smile and kiss him again.

”Okay the food's gonna burn soon so... Sehun... No hickies, I... Aaahh”, he says and giggles softly again when I press my lips on his neck.

~ Jongin's POV

I take a deep breath and let Taemin fall on top of me. His bare chest feels warm against mine as I wrap my arms around him and he places his underneath my shoulders. I smile and close my eyes when Taemin gently rubs my shoulders.

We're lying down on Taemin's bed. He has a big house with a couple of roommates, but Taemin tells me they're used to having people... Sleeping over. There's four bedrooms, and two of them have bunk beds. Taemin has his own room, and a queen-sized bed, which has colorful sheets that are now slightly stained. I smile with my teeth showing and Taemin shuffles a little to look up at me with his legs on either side of my hips. He's smiling too, and he reaches forward to kiss me. The kiss is rough, just like Taemin is in bed, even when he's the bottom.

”I love you.” His quiet voice flows straight into my heart and makes it skip a beat.

”I love you too. So very much”, I whisper and place a kiss on the tip of his nose. He places the side of his face on my chest and takes a deep breath. I throw a bright blue blanket over the both of us.

Taemin looks so innocent when he's asleep, I think to myself as I rub his scalp softly (he told me it makes him fall asleep). Generally he just seems so amazingly innocent, happy, full of life, and it makes my own heart fill with joy and wakes up some butterflies in my stomach. But that's the problem of the whole thing.

He doesn't know anything about the real me. About my illness, about what I do, about where I live – and with whom. He's never asked that much, but earlier today he asked me about the bruise on my chin. I lied, obviously, and told him that I hurt myself while playing basketball. Most of all, he doesn't know that I've murdered a man because he refused to love me or kiss me. I know for sure that if Taemin knew, he'd be afraid and probably too scared to dump me so he'd disappear into ing Romania or anywhere else where I couldn't find him for the rest of my life. Knowing that it might actually happen makes my heart throb.

I know myself and I know what I did. Falling in love again, this deeply, it is the scariest experience I've had in a long time, because what if he leaves me and I end up hurting him even though I love him so ing much? A small sob escapes my lips and Taemin hears it.

”Is everything okay?” he asks with concern and looks up at me, almost asleep. ”Yeah, yeah. I just... Thought about something sad”, I mumble and keep rubbing his scalp gently. ”Okay... Well... If you need to talk about...” he whispers and falls asleep mid-sentence. I smile a little and use my free hand to rub my eyes a little before wrapping them both around Taemin and closing my eyes to try and get some sleep. I hope Sehun finds his way home okay, he's still so young (not really but I'm still older) and I want to keep him safe. Luckily he can fight back or at least run if someone tries to mess with him.

I start drifting off slowly, listening to Taemin's calming breaths and feeling his soft skin against mine.

~ Luhan's POV

Sehun's face is red and I can see some veins on his arms as he hovers above me before pushing up and plopping down on the narrow couch that we're lying on. He was too eager to even wait until we could go to the bedroom. I grab one of the blankets and wrap it around me as Sehun holds me tight, he can barely stay on the couch without falling of the edge.

”We should've just gone to bed”, I mumble and smile a little when Sehun kisses my forehead as an answer to my complaints. He's really cute. At first I thought he was kind of... Weird. A little creepy. But the thrill I got from meeting someone like that after my entire life of being protected and cared for was too attracting and here I am. ”Where did you work again?” I ask softly and look at his closed eyes. He waits a moment before answering: ”I'm between jobs.” I frown a little and pet his hair. ”That's sad. What would you want to do? I mean, you have to have dreams or something like that.”

Sehun opens his eyes and looks at mine. He drills straight through, deep into my soul, and I feel exposed to him. His own face is stoic, difficult to read. What is going on inside his head? What does he feel when he's around me? Does he feel the butterflies too?
”I don't want to work at all”, he whispers and closes his eyes again. I look at him with questioning eyes. ”I want to move to Bali. And live in a big house and own a motorcycle. Maybe own a dog and run on the beach”, he whispers and a tiny smile curves up the corners of his mouth. ”All alone? Wouldn't it get lonely?” I ask and look at him with curiousity. He seems to be opening up to me, even just a little. ”You see, I wouldn't be alone”, he whispers and opens his eyes. For a second we just stare at each other before he leans in to kiss me. I close my eyes and smile into the warm mouth pressed against mine.

”What about you?”

The whisper and the movement of a warm pair of lips against my ear sends a shiver down my spine. I hold Sehun tight and sigh deeply. ”My dad is a CEO at this... Record company. And he wants me to take his place”, I mumble and look away. ”You don't sound very excited about it, if you ask me”, Sehun says. ”You're right, I hate the job and I'd rather be... Something a little different, but my dad is stubborn, maybe even more so than me”, I explain and look at Sehun's eyes. ”What would you rather be?” he asks and smiles. I can feel blood rushing to my cheeks and I blush a little when I mumble against the blanket. ”A singer.”

”I'm sorry, I didn't hear that?”

”A singer, okay?” I hiss. ”It's stupid, I know...”

”No it's not stupid, don't say that! Could you sing for me?”

Sehun's eyes are now the ones filled with curiousity and excitement. I take a deep breath and close my eyes so I wouldn't have to see Sehun laugh at my voice. I start singing really quietly. It's a pop ballad I heard on the radio a while back, I fell in love with it and I've memorized the words down to every breath the singer takes in between lines.

It's a long song, but Sehun doesn't interrupt, so I keep singing with the slow beat while playing the melody in my head. By now, after singing it thousands of times alone in my kitchen, the notes and words roll out naturally, and this feeling that fills my body right now is why I want to be a singer. Music, it's fused into my blood, it's carved into my bones, it's buried deep into my heart. And I hope everyone listening can hear that, too.

The song ends in a long, fading syllable. I open my eyes and look at Sehun. His eyes are almost closed and he smiles kindly. ”Your voice is so beautiful. Sing louder. Everyone needs to hear you”, he whispers and presses a kiss on my neck. I smile and blush from the sheer joy that he enjoyed it. ”Your vocal cords need to be protected at all costs. I can wrap my thighs around them, if you'd like that”, Sehun whispers seductively and I laugh at the dirty joke. Sehun has a high-pitched laughter when he giggles and kisses my lips.

A cellphone rings on the table next to us. I curse under my breath at the ringtone interrupting this beautiful moment, but after Sehun lifts us both up to a sitting position I reach out to grab the thing and answer it with an annoyed ”What?!”. One of my friends is ing drunk-dialing me in need of a ride, now of all times? I end the call and toss the phone back to the table. ”One of my friends is drunk and they need to get back home. I have to go”, I mumble and kiss Sehun again. He lifts me up to his lap and I slide my legs to both sides of his thighs. I smile a little and lean on his chest gently.

”I really don't want to leave, but I have to. Promise me to meet again”, I whisper and Sehun kisses my nose. ”Of course, Lulu. Can you give me your number? I promise I'll call”, he whispers and places his lips on my neck. I giggle before tearing myself away from Sehun, wrapping the blanket around myself like a king's cape when I get a piece of paper and a pen. I jot down my number and return to find Sehun with his pants on, lowering his shirt to cover his stomach. I sneak the paper into the back pocket of his jeans while kissing him once more. The taste in his mouth is of the food we made and ended up not even finishing because we got busy with other just as important errands.

”See you soon. Don't keep me waiting”, I whisper. ”Promise. I'll be back before you know it, eating your food and loving you like no one else”, he whispers and smirks a little before tugging on his jacket and heading to the door. He slips into his shoes and I walk over to him slowly, still only wearing the blanket around my shoulders.

One more kiss before he's out the door, leaving me alone to get dressed and cleaned up to go help my friend out.

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A/N: Aaahhhh happy 10th chapter and happy white day (two days late) :D ♥