NOTE/TRIGGER WARNING: there is a scene described below alluding to what could have been a possible ual assault. It is very brief and not described at length but I would like to disclose this as it is part of the chapter/storyline. 

Age 19, a chilling winter’s night.

You shut the door, breathing heavily, trying to regain control of your emotions. Looking into the mirror, the smudged eyeliner and smudged lipstick revealed how disheveled you had left yourself, and how disheveled you had probably left the scene.

You bit your lip in an effort not to cry. You couldn’t wrap your mind around what the last few hours had been. You heard a knock on the other side of the door, disrupting your train of thought and causing your heart to jump.

“Y-yes…?” Your voice tried to sound steady, but even you weren’t convinced.

“Are you okay?” The voice gently asked on the other side.

Taking a deep breath, you stepped back, opening the door a crack. The figure in front of you, with their eyes full of concern, gazed back into your eyes. Your heart felt an instant pang of shock.

“Do you want to come in?” Your voice came out in a whisper.

“Are you okay with me coming in? We can talk in the lounge too, if that’s more comfortable,” he offered gently.

You nodded slowly. “I, I trust you.” You backed away slowly, opening the door to let him in.

He came in, gently closing the door behind him, and you gestured to the little chair on the side, while you made your way to sitting in the bean bag chair. You held your knees close to you, unsure of what to say. He got up and grabbed a tissue, offering it to you.

“In case you wanted to wipe off the makeup, I wasn’t sure,” his voice was still gentle. You took the tissue, wiping the streaked eyeliner and smudged lipstick. You saw him get up again.

"Um, I'm guessing you might have something more efficient in here for it?" He scratched his head, as he always did when he was unsure of something. 

"The top drawer in the desk to the right." You managed to say. He opened the drawer, finding the makeup remover wipes you kept. He noticed your contact lenses case sitting with your glasses. Picking them up, he brought them all over to you.

You smiled gratefully, taking off the lenses first. 

As you wiped off the makeup slowly, you exhaled deeply. "So..."

He sat down on the floor across from you, on the rug. You wiped off the smudged eyeshadow and eyeliner from both eyes, continuing.

"Um...I was at this guy's place. And...he's floormates with Jiya's boyfriend....um, you remember Jiya right? She's almost always with me..."

"She's pretty hard to forget," he offered a small smile. You smiled back. 

"Yeah...that's true." You remembered, recalling last week, when she had drunkenly mistaken Himchan in the dark lighting at the party and tried to run off with him before realizing her actual boyfriend was still at the party, wondering where she had gone. You both laughed lightly, remembering the incident.

"Well, that party, so...the guy asked about me when he saw me and Jiya on the floor that night when I came to pick her up from her bf's. And, we were chatting earlier this week, we met up for lunch too. Well, we got dinner earlier today too...but, um..."

You gulped, feeling the previous events of the day all come crashing back...

Dinner had been so nice, you'd been talking about seeing the movie that had just been featuring in the student union, wondering how you went from such an easygoing conversation to...

"So...uh..." you cleared your throat.

He extended his hand, letting you place the wipe, now covered in eyeliner and lipstick in his palm. You took another wipe, quickly wiping the remnants of any makeup that was there, and placed it there as well. He tossed them both out, sitting down again, this time side by side with you, close enough within arm's reach but not touching you. He leaned his head back against the side of the dresser that was under your bed. You shifted the bean bag so you could lean back against the dresser now too, slightly turning your head towards him, but not able to look at him in the eyes just yet.

"We were talking about catching the movie at the theater, but we were pretty early...so we decided to take a walk outside, and we came around to where he's staying, and he said he was gonna get something from his room, and I had a weird feeling about it at first, but he said I could come up, and I just ignored my gut instinct, and I went up with him to his room, and he said he was gonna come back from the bathroom and to wait for him, so I did...he came back and then I got up...and..."

You bit your lip, swallowing and unsure of how to finish.

"He asked me where I was going..." You spoke barely above a whisper.

"If you want, you can hold my hand...if it helps..." He spoke gently.

"Thank you, Himchan." Your voice was still barely audible. You held the hand that was extended towards you, the softness of his fingers easing your tension for a brief moment.

"He pulled me back towards him...and I wasn't expecting that, so I fell back on him, and..." you had to shut your eyes, exhaling deeply again. "he started to kiss my neck, and I...I was caught off guard, and I turned quickly, asking what he's doing, and he said "I thought you liked me..." and I didn't know what to say...but he came closer, and I felt like he was backing me into his bed, and he started kissing me forcefully, and I had to push him off..." the tears started flowing from your eyes. "And, I just started hitting his chest because he wasn't listening. He finally fell, and he pushed me out of his room...and he said he didn't want me anyways, that it was just a dare to see if I was playing hard to get with him...and if he could sleep with me..." You couldn't hold it in, the tears overwhelmed you, as you broke down, still squeezing Himchan's hand, eventually releasing his hand and covering your own face as you cried.

You felt a gentle hand come to rest on your shoulder, and you turned to look at Himchan's face, his eyes were angry, hurt and tears were on the edge of his eyelids. As if almost by reflex, you turned, at first, letting your head just fall upon his shoulder, then, hugging him hard, unable to hold in the tears. You felt his arms embrace you back, as if trying to protect you from anyone else's touch. 

"I'm...I'm so sorry..." you heard his deep voice shake. He sounded so hurt, so angry, but he still held you as your tears started to slow down, and you regained your control over your shaky sobs.

You felt your chest just shake, the tears were almost all out and you felt slightly dizzy. You tried to sit up and straighten yourself a bit, pulling back, looking into Himchan's eyes now, which simply reflected his sympathy tinged with sadness.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything before to prevent this." He spoke as calmly as possible, his voice shaking.

"It's not your responsibility. I found out the truth regardless...though I do wish under better circumstances." You sniffed, wiping your eyes on your sleeve.

You sighed. "Though, I guess it's better I found out now...at least maybe at the end of it all, things will work out..."

Himchan looked confused. "What do you mean? You're not going back to him...at least I would hope not..." 

"No...I mean...I guess it's better that I know now...that promise wasn't so bad after all..." your mind started to drift. "Oh...I...I guess I'll have to tell you..." You weren't sure how to bring this up.

"Is everything else okay?" He furrowed an eyebrow in concern. "You don't have to tell me everything of course, but I just hope that you're alright."

You mustered a small smile.

"It's gonna sound weird but...I've been promised to marry someone else. So, even with this guy, at least, I'm not completely in the dark..I guess." It sounded so weird to say out loud.

"Promised...to marry someone else?" He still didn't look convinced. "Like...does that mean you're getting married against your will or set up before?"

"I'll have to tell you about it sometime...but, I don't have to say yes...it's just, sometimes I just think this might be easier...at least we both know, we'll end up with someone though."

"So...that's why, you thought you'd try to meet with someone outside of it..." he muttered.

"Well, I mean...at least I would know...before I missed out on anyone important." you spoke off-handedly, not focusing.

You blinked again, realizing you'd been staring into Himchan's face. Looking away quickly, you felt embarrassment creep in.

He gently touched your shoulder.

"Thank you...for trusting me, to tell me."

You looked up at him again.

"Thank you, for listening."