Soft snores, a few quick inhales due to the injuries and a bruising body; Kai was laying on his bed sleeping. 

There was a clean streak of a fresh wooden floor that showed where the line used to be, clothes piling with scattered shoes on one side while the other side stayed bare of any dirt. Even without my things there, it felt as though I was still here with all that space dedicated to a clean emptiness. 

Kai's face didn't have his usual glow instead, his unshaven face was scruffy, eyes slightly puffy even without Baekhyun's punches, and he had lost noticeable weight. When I tried to pull my hand away from his own, he tightened his fingers around mine, raising my suspicions that maybe he wasn't really asleep. 

But I let him do it anyway.

I watched him breathe awkwardly, trying to balance the pain between his ribs and his mouth with deep exhales, my name slipping past his lips every now and then. 

"Sehun?"

He was probably sleep talking but I answered anyway, reminding him that I was here and I had not left.

How ironic. It used to be me that was begging for him to stay, asking if he was still next to me between sleep and waking, trying to glue my hand and my heart onto his. 

The pounding in my head worsened, a tight clench and release between my skull against its chambers almost made me dizzy. I needed water or pain-relieving medication. I slowly tugged my fingers free from his hold, pulling away to grab something to ease the stress.

Kai eyes stayed closed and he slept peacefully without my hand wrapped around his. 

Quiet steps to the door and a gentle close separated Kai and I once more.

As I went to buy a packet of pain-relief, I wondered if I was trying to do what Kai couldn't do for me and be who I had wanted him to be. In the quick trance of picking him up and aiding him in the room, I had momentarily returned to being the boy who was too enthralled and in love with him to overlook the mistakes and cruelness of his treatment. 

The pain he gave me had pushed me away from not just him, but others and myself, I wanted to hide and run away from everything and start over where no one knew of him and no one knew of me. I was so gone into losing myself that if it wasn't for Baekhyun, I could have been gone entirely. 

So, what should I do now?

Forgive him and try to help him get out of the black hole I know too well? Or really become who he was to me... the worse decision and encounter.