The secretary was in Sehun’s room, collecting the invitations from the table and tapped them on the surface to shuffle them straight. 

Sehun sighed, relaxing his shoulders, not quite focusing. “Can’t it wait?” he scowled.

“Miss Irene wants to know your pick by today,”

Sehun blanched, his eyes finally scanned across the samples at the mention of her name. “What’s this?” he asked, a vicious scowl, contempt settling on his face.

“I think its fairly obvious. These are a few wedding invitation your fiancée chose,” Mr Han commented absently. “She wants you to pick one from her selection,”

Sehun’s mouth went a little dry. “I told her that I’m not doing this,” he muttered sourly.

“Maybe she didn’t take it seriously,”

Insufferable, he thought. He made a frustrated noise, sat down his bed, his finger roughly ranked through his hair.

“Father?” he asked, dully, although he already knew the answer.

“He’s genuinely stoked about the wedding preparations,” Mr Han assured him. “He had managed to shave the list of attendees to a paltry four hundred,”

//

Sehun stopped his car outside the restaurant, millions thoughts ran through his mind. For a minute, he just stared into it, thinking. Finally, after heavily considering the consequences that he might endure if he didn’t meet her, he got out of his car, annoyed.

10 minutes later, he was meeting Irene at the restaurant. The woman seems to have a plenty of time in her hands.

 When she walked in, a bright smile appeared on her face. "Hi! Sorry for being late," she said, approaching him with a bit of a bounce to her step. Surprised or not, she looked positively excited to have been called upon to hang out - especially without her asking him first.

“Sorry for the last minute arrangements,” Sehun said abruptly, but Irene shook her head, looking positively beamed for being there. “No, it’s fine. I wasn’t doing anything anyways,”

“It’s about the marriage,” he said, sharply. Perhaps a little too sharply, to mask the fact that while he knew what she was doing, it was still sort of working: he’d felt the tiniest twinge of guilt. “I think your father didn’t get the note,”

She was staring at the menu, ignoring him as he spoke. When she finally responded, it was in an absent tone. “Let’s have lunch together. I’m starving.”

Sehun glared at her but he wasn't going to give in, but neither was he going to keep tipping his hand by speaking. Irene was the sort of person that used silence as a weapon, counting on others to fill in the noiseless voids.

He pursed his lips shut and didn't utter a word as she ordered her lunch and coffee.

The menus got taken away, and then they were just staring at each other, waging a war of silence. 

She finally issued a nasal sigh. “Sehun,”

“Did you or did you not tell your father that we are not getting married?”

She chewed the insides of for a few seconds. “You look good in black,” she said, smugly, folding her arms as she settled back into her chair, completely ignoring his question. “I was thinking of a white tuxedo for you, but a black one will do,”

His eyes closed, and she saw the corners of his lips tense. He couldn't help but to scowl as he opened his eyes to look at her, speaking again. “You didn’t.”

She sits in seize position almost the whole time she was here, never relaxing. She sits bone straight as she replied him. “I didn’t,” she admitted. “This marriage is strictly business and we're only going through with it because we have no choice. I don’t believe mixing personal life into business,” she said, shrugging a bit. “I have the clear idea, so why not play along?”

Starting to grow irritated, Sehun shot her an annoyed look.

Feeling herself soften a bit, she said, “I didn’t ask you to stay faithful to me. I don’t mind you pursuing a relationship with someone else,” she said coolly. “As long as you’re married to me, I don’t care about anything else.”

He felt his spine stiffen as fury slowly starting to suffused him, “Marriage isn’t a two way door,”

“It is,”

He looked at her as if he sensed the real her. The one without the attitude, without the façade.

He let out a mocking laugh, and Irene grinds her teeth, “What’s so funny?”

“It’s funny because you’re willingly wanting to walk into a mess,” The cynical set of his mouth makes him seem meaner. “A tragedy of staying in unhappy marriage,”

“This isn’t,”

“Let me tell you what is,” Sehun goes on, less heated. He speaks in a slow, condescending tone. “Being together with a person who doesn’t love you. Crawling into someone’s life when you know you’re not wanted. Knowing getting a divorce is just a matter of time,” his mouth tightly shut before opening, ‘That’s a real tragedy,”

She said nothing but tears pricked her eyes as she continued to stare at him. “You’re an idiot,” she cursed him, her fingers digging deep into her palms. Irene was seriously  torn between punching him and more feminine indignation, like  slapping  him. “You only see things that mattered to you,” she looked at him, her black mascara slightly smudged, “It might not end well,”

"I'm willing to take that chance," The space between his eyebrows creased before he got up and left the place.

//

She debated long and hard about going to her and Sehun’s cafe. She hadn't missed a morning with him there yet, and she knew if she didn't go, he'd just sit there waiting for her. She wasn't sure if she could handle the guilt of doing that.

Even though she'd only slept a few hours, she felt wired as she went to the coffee

shop. She saw the familiar head shape, and chewed on the insides of her lips as she watched his back from the door. Steeling herself, she sat across from him, feeling her heart thump painfully as she met his stormy black eyes. She realized that deep down, she really, really missed seeing him in person, "Good morning," she said, politely.

"Morning," he said, his voice still cool. 

They sat in silence for a few moments, neither speaking as the waitress in tight black dress dropped off the coffee and croissant with a very cheery greeting that they returned with a cordial nod. 

Haru didn't touch the croissant, having no appetite. She watched him put sugar and cream into his coffee, and then watched him put sugar into hers. 

“Thank you,” she said, breaking the silence. It had been a long time since she’d thanked him for putting sugar in her coffee, and he shot her an annoyed look.

“You don’t have to thank me for this,” he said, agitated.

The waitress passed them again, eyeing Sehun and walking entirely too slowly. "Do you need something else?" she asked, and he shaked his head at her but didn't reply.

Knew it, Haru thought.

“Honestly," she said.

“What?"

“Come on. You have to admit, it's sort of ridiculous."

“What is?"

Now that she had to define it, Haru found herself struggling for the right words. “The girl is eyeing you a lot. Give her your number or something,”

He was quiet a beat. He said nothing, but glared daggers, his eyes low, dark and furious.

“Too early for jokes?” Haru mumbled, “Sorry,”

She grit her teeth a bit as the silence stretched again, becoming awkward. “Did you come here this morning just to glare at me?” she finally asked, cocking her head a bit.

“I can’t very well show you how annoying I find you from my house, now, can I?”

Haru shot him a guarded look. “You think I’m annoying?”

“Impossibly so. It’s like you’ve made it your life’s mission to be the world’s most annoying person,” he snapped. “It shouldn’t be possible for a single person to be this aggravating. But then, you always were a little overachiever.”

 She scowled at him and he returned her glare for a few tense moments, and then softened a bit. "Alright," he muttered. "Fine. I'm sorry." Then, more quietly. "I'm sorry I stayed over when I could tell it was bothering you. And I’m sorry for bringing up the marriage talk even when I know you’re not ready,”

"So you did know," she accused, mouth falling open in outrage.

"Yes, alright? I'm pathetic, not stupid," he snapped, and that shut her up, especially when he snapped his own teeth together with an audible click and flushed a bit, eyes dropping to the table. He chewed on nothing for a second, his jaw working as his eyes bored into the table.

Haru settled her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers together. She knew she should say something, but she wasn't sure how to start. “I’m sorry too,” she finally admitted. “I suppose I was rude to you and I said a few things that offended you.”

“You did,” he said, lips thinning a bit as he recalled.

She swallowed. “Sorry if what I said was ill-tempered. I was upset.”

“Me too,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have push things too far,” He released a shuddering breath. "I have a lot of things running in my mind," he said, a little bitterly, “Sorry,”

After a few seconds, his repentant expression morphed into something else entirely, as if it’s possible for one to change their emotion swiftly as a chameleon, he asked her, almost in disbelief, “But you didn’t have to go that far. How could you shut me down completely for the past 6 days?”

Haru looked like a deer caught in headlights. She blinked rapidly at him, confused.

“What are you-." Haru sputtered a bit.

“Did you miss me?” he cut her off, and he asked it in such a way that Haru could instantly tell that this question had been gnawing at him ever since their confrontation that night. “Did I cross your mind even at least for a few seconds?” he asked, his voice sounding strangely raw.

She hesitated. Her mind was running a million miles a minute, and her churning emotions were not helping any. She didn't know what to say to him.

“You crossed mine at least a hundred times a day. When you're not by my side, the loss is unimaginable. I was a wreck,” he trailed off, and Haru watched him in shock at his honesty.

For a moment, a certain pall hung over the both of them. The air between them felt heavy, and tense, riddled with more emotions than Haru knew how to sort through properly.

Eyebrows drawing together, she stared at her coffee.

"I don't mean to be difficult and pushy, you know," he ventured slowly, clearing his throat. " Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around,” he continued, obviously uncomfortable with what he was saying but refusing to be deterred now that he'd begun.“ I want to tell you things that I’ve never shared with another soul. When something wonderful happens, I can’t wait to tell you about it, Laughter seems part of my daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. My life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile because of you,”

Haru stared at him, and released a shuttering breath. His words soaked and she wasn’t prepared. Her mind sought the knowledge of everything she'd ever read, and she came up empty-handed. She was flying blind, and it was terrifying.

“Haru?” he asked, staring down at her with a slight frown. “Haru, you are breathing, aren't you? What’s wrong--”

 She watched his eyes widen a fraction as she threw herself at him, pulling him down. She pressed into him as she yanked him down, meeting his lips with hers. He froze for a moment because they'd never kissed in public, and then he sag against her as all the tension left him in a rush. He was hyper-aware that the Dispatch team would make great headlines about this, but none of that mattered at that time.

She heard a few shutter-clicks as the people around them whispered, but his hands were cradled around her head like she was the most precious thing to have ever existed, so she didn't care.

///

She was in the convenience store, checking the coffees, when she felt someone’s presence over her shoulder. She turned, slowly, and met the stares of Baekhyun, and he was holding up Friday's paper. The front page was a picture of her and Sehun kissing, both of their faces completely blurred out, and the headline screamed:

Zeus’s heir falls in love!

Haru frowned at the headline, catching something else about how she was just a commoner and had quite a disadvantaged past. Then her eyes were drawn to the vague picture. She was thankful when she looked almost unrecognizable, no one could’ve guessed that that it was her.

Slowly, her gaze drifted from the picture to his stare.

“You have a rather bad  habit of behaving unexpectedly.”

 “Baekhyun,” she muttered, frowning.

“Do you want to sit for a moment?”

“Not particularly.”

 “I suppose I could walk you home, ” he said, thoughtfully. His smile widened when he saw she crinkled her nose at that thought.

Grumbling, she plopped into the chair opposite, glaring at him. “Don’t you have anything else to do?”

“Men are never too busy to get what they want,”

She frowned at him silently. She refused to play along in his game.

“Care to explain?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up a bit.

She crossed her arms defensively and his smile faded. He tapped his fingers on the table, regarding her with half-lidded eyes. Then, he tapped the paper. “Fine. So, what happened, here?”

“What does it look like?”

“Do you fancy yourself in love with him?” he asked, as he regarded the picture again, and then flipped the newspaper over so that it was face-down. “You do realize what going to happen after this? His father will know and he’ll send you away again, running from his responsibilities instead if facing them,”

“I know what I’m getting myself into,” she snapped, shutting him up. He fell silent after her proclamation, and they just stared at each other for a few minutes.

“How can you do this?” he asked, softly. “I declared that I have feelings for you. How can you do this to me?” he asked, with discernible disdain.

 She avoided looking at him and said, "You should forget about me,"

"Forget?" he thundered, “Everything reminds me of you,"

She lifted her head to confront him, "That's not my doing," she countered, "That's your doing and you are the only one who can control it.”

He stare at her as she stood up, “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” she said apologetically.

He didn't call out to her as she left, for which she was glad.