shownu enjoys her company albeit it being mostly ensnared in silence. they don’t talk much, having little to talk about but there just sit across each other, having dinner. sometimes they sit beside each other, as if they were rest stops for the other. 

shownu has becomes used to the brothel. he doesn’t just visit this one, sometimes he is required to visit the other brothels cities away and in time he knows his place. she sits across him, having dinner and he thinks of the first time he met her. how her stone-wash denim jeans are darker than they seem and he smiled a little. 

time is a concept that had always fascinated him. what could seem to be infinity to him, could be absolute nothing to another. shownu raised his head and watched her in front of him. he had always been pliant, always listening, always doing without question. he never rebelled, never quite as much as say anything against his father. but he watched her in front of him and it would be a lie if he said his heart doesn’t ache.

time is funny - time makes shownu fall in love with a woman that can never be his. time makes shownu lay in his bed contemplating if he wants to give it all up for a girl who sits with him in silence. time makes shownu drink alone in frustration telling himself how he needs to toughen up, how he needs to fight for what he wants… for who he wants. time makes shownu sit in front of her wondering, thinking if there was anyway he could become a lion for a rose like her alone in a field where wolves walk.

“what are you thinking about, shownu?” she asks and he always wonder how is it that his heart jumps when she calls his name. he shakes his head.

“you know… I’ve been thinking, you always spend your time with me even when you really don’t have to and i’m flattered really,” she started, her chin now resting on her hands, “but if you’d like to sleep with me, it’s on the house, i don’t mind.”

shownu watches how careful her lips are when she talks. he hated what she just said. he had always hated the thought of how the men touch her when her clothes are off. he hates how sometimes the men who comes along are old enough to be her father and she doesn’t get the least bit flustered, knowing well that she’d have to do her best. he hates how most of the time when he sees her, she greets him with a smile and eyes swollen, drained of all tears her small body could muster.

“don’t say that.” 

shownu looks her in the eyes and he noticed the tears pooling, he wanted to reach out and wipe it away for her but before he could, she turned away. and she laughs. she always laughs when she’s about to cry and he hates how he could do nothing about it.

shownu stands up, closes the door and he sits beside her, on her bed. shownu takes a breath, faces her and he looks at her. the way she shines, so brightly in front of him. he hates how he sees her light and how nobody feels the way he does for this amazing woman. 

“i want to sleep with you.” shownu confessed.

“i want to sleep with you. i want to hold your hand. i want to buy you nice things. i want to bring you to the beach. i want to show you my art. i want to treat you to a really good warm dinner.” he continued.

“i don’t want you to be here.” shownu finally looks up and he finds the two brown eyes he had learn to love looking right back at him. “i hate that you’re here.”

when he think of her, he thinks of her eating dinner at 2 in the morning. he thinks of her beautiful eyes, and her glorious smile. how she is like the sun and the star all at once and his heart breaks.

“this is my place, shownu, there’s nowhere else left for me.” she replies, the smile he is so used to, again gracing him.

“if you want me, shownu, take me. i’m yours. all of us in this brothel are. you and me, we’re different, not made for each other.” she continues, standing to go have a seat at her vanity.

“i’ll sleep with you, it’s what i always do. but-“

“i’ll take care of you, i’ll take you out of here.”

shownu doesn’t quite know what made him say it. of course he wanted her out, of course he had been talking about it to his father, about taking one of the best girls out of the brothel because his son is so deeply infatuated with her. how he is losing his ing mind just thinking about her having to take anything that walks through her doors. how ing miserable it makes him feel when he sees her hides her tears from him as if it doesn’t hurt, as if she wants to be where she is at. how his father had been against it, how disappointed the older man had been. how his father had warned if anything of the sort ever comes to his knowledge again, hell will rise.

“you’re not the first man to promise me something like that, shownu,” she started, looking at him from the mirror in front of her.

frustrated, shownu stood up, rushed towards her, plunging lips first for the woman in front of him. he feels her skin like oceans cradling him and he softens. he feels her hands, her fingers, the flutter of her eyelashes and he pulls back. inches away, he looks her in the eyes. there was a soft defiance, a woman standing with a sign overhead telling him that she isn’t here to be saved.

“i’ll take care of me the way i’ve always taken care of myself, shownu, you don’t have to take care of me.”