Looong Chapter ahead XD

She flinched at the sudden knocking of her door even though she was waiting for someone to finally notice her absence and come wonder about it, but the knocks came in a moment of distraction, where she was momentarily wondering if what she was thinking about was the right thing to do or not.

Even so, she found her eyes widen, especially when the knocker opened her door without waiting for a reply – not like she was waiting for one either. These werewolves were so used to barging through each other’s doors that the rule simply applied to her as well — and she glanced at Yixing with clammy hands she so discreetly tried to rub together without catching his attention, but Yixing’s brown, delicate, and all too knowing eyes will not simply glimpse over her hands without suspicion. He and her both knew she was dripping with nerves from head to toe, and while Yixing didn’t know why she was so anxious, he didn’t find it in him to ask.

He was afraid she’d simply crumble if he did.

So he just asked her the same question everyone were wondering about:

“Why didn’t you come downstairs for dinner?”

Truthfully, she didn’t want to answer his question, for that answer of hers would only arise another question from the boy, and she knew Yixing wasn’t someone to take lightly. He was wiser and older than her, he’d simply feel obligated to correct her decision if he found a flaw in it; and that was why she didn’t want to tell him, for flaws she didn’t want to acknowledge. However, found a way to say what she didn’t want to say.

“I’m waiting for Minseok.”

Just as she expected, Yixing looked suspicious, however; he didn’t really question her as she thought he’d.

“You should still eat,” He murmured, almost half-heartedly; while leaning against the frame of her door. There was a curiosity she didn’t really affirm Yixing with before in his eyes, a dim sort of curiosity, softer than most, and almost fading. Surprisingly, that look of his made her feel comfortable. “It’ll take Minseok half an hour more before he comes home.” He completed with the same softness in his tone that was Yixing-like.

“I don’t really feel like eating.” She truthfully answered, scratching one of her eyebrows self-consciously. Yixing pinned her with her stares, his eyes slowly losing their focus the longer he stared at her, almost like he was falling into the pits of his thoughts. This loss of focus of his suddenly disappeared, and he sighed through his nose.

“Kyungsoo wouldn’t like his food getting wasted.”

For a long minute, none of the two talked, both of their eyes looking at one another and talking volumes; saying all of the things the two of them weren’t able to say through their mouth. She fiddled with her fingers, her hands still clammy and sweaty out of her anxiety that refused to disappear, the beats of her heart turning irregular.

“.. I..” she started, gulping; “I just really want to talk to Minseok.”

“I can see it is important.” And Yixing truly did see the importance of her thoughts flashing in her eyes, and he wondered just what was it that she so desperately wanted to get out of her chest that was as terrifying as the look flashing in her eyes. Yixing though, he didn’t have it in him to ask her about it. “What is it? Can’t it wait for tomorrow?”

“.. No, I would lose courage tomorrow.” She murmured softly, and her voice came out small, almost unheard; but Yixing’s high hearing made him aware of the small static noise she released. She curled around herself in the tips of her bed, and she resembled a small wolf cub that was searching for warmth. She looked absolutely adorable, and Yixing felt a burning sensation down his spine at the way she was sitting, radiating insecurities and nerves he didn’t know how to deal with. So with a sigh; he decided he should just.. leave.

“Okay. But you still need to eat, after you finish with Minseok, eat, alright?”

She didn’t reply nor move around, and Yixing thought it was his cue to leave entirely. However, her small soothing voice called for him just when he turned around the door, and he found himself looking back at her with a look of wonder.

“Yes?”

“You can hear everything in this house, right?”

The look that flashed in her face at that question of hers was a look of determination, a look of bravery; and it suddenly dawned on Yixing just what she was going to do that made her so utterly uncomfortable. Although, that realization of his didn’t settle quite yet in Yixing’s roaring chest, and he didn’t know how to feel at what he just knew from her – he was definitely sure of what she wanted to do right now — he just.. didn’t know what to feel about it.

“Yes.” He opted to answer her inquiry without another sound, and he noticed the gulp that fell down .

“Please tell the others to stay awake when I talk to Minseok.”

-

It was even harder for her to move now that Minseok was actually home, and that the boys were actually downstairs waiting, awake at her request to stay up while she talked to Minseok.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t sure with what she’d say to the boy; more like she wasn’t sure she’d say it in the same order that she constantly organized in her head over and over again in the passing two days that she spent just thinking about it, and now that she actually was ready to confront the boy, she found herself relenting.

She could hear the soft noises Minseok was making in his room. Soft tapping of his footsteps, and crunching noises of his suit blazer getting removed from his body. She reveled in these sounds she always found herself focusing on whenever she was awake to catch him coming home. Momentarily, these noises made her forget what she initially wanted to do; but the minute those noises stopped occurring, the anxiety returned; and she started biting on her fingernails.

For a long thirty seconds; she didn’t move at all, focusing on stabilizing her breathing and hoping her heartbeats would stop pounding in her chest so violently. She realized after nothing of her irritation passed away that she wasn’t going to get the comfort she wanted, and she’d just have to do it while she was still bristling with high degrees of worry.

The walk to Minseok’s room seemed to stretch too far for her hazy, panicking mind, and her hands felt way too heavy beside her when she wanted to raise one of her fists to knock on the already ajar door of his room – because unlike them, she was polite enough to knock even when the doors were opened — Why was she so nervous even though whatever she intended to do was the right thing she should have done ages ago?

Maybe because she was scared of rejection.

“Minseok.”

She didn’t realize when exactly she opened to call for the male, her feet already few steps inside the glamours, wide room of his, watching his back as he rummaged through the office desk he had had installed in his room in the corner two months ago. There was also a large wall mirror right beside it, making Minseok look exceptionally tiny in comparison.

“Yeah?” His gruffly voice replied, and he didn’t turn around to acknowledge her, too busy picking up the buttons of his inner white shirt and moving around his room to get rid of the cause of his annoyance.

“I.. I..” she fiddled with her fingers, gulping continuously as she tried to force down her saliva and gobble her anxiety away. She knew that for her, the beginning of her words was the most difficult thing she needed to go through, since the remaining words would flow out of her effortlessly then. She just needed a push of courage to urge herself to open first. She wasn’t too worried about what she’d say next as much as she was worried about how she’d start saying it.

Sensing her disheartening, Minseok paused with what he was doing and turned around to face her, his eyebrows flying up to his forehead at noticing the state she was in. Fidgety, anxious, and absolutely not like her.

“Yes? Do you want to say something to me?” He couldn’t help it, this sharpness to his voice; he could never help it, not when it came to her, even when he genuinely was worried about her and the reason she was acting out of character.

Seeing his unamused, slightly irritated expression, made her falter, and she ended up blurting something completely different than what she wanted to say.

“Kris.. Kris has been texting me nonstop for a few days.”

Really, she wanted to face-palm.

“What does that er wants? Did you reply?” Minseok conversationally said, turning around to face the mirror and finish ing his shirt, even though he was quite annoyed with Kris. After so many days trying to evoke something out of the girl, he was glad to hear the reason of her uncooperative personality, yet he didn’t like she had gone through all of that all by herself. Her story – coming from her own mouth, surprisingly — made him understand her more, and why she acted in the way she did when they have found her first; but still, he thought her telling him her story was a big step to mend their relationship. But.. she just.. didn’t seem like she wanted to, but eventually; they managed to crack some of her walls, until they reached the point where they could talk to each other civilly, without throwing things at each other, and now Kris was actually requesting to see her? Did he totally lose his mind?

“I.. didn’t want to.” She replied timidly, fiddling again with her fingers and focusing on the lush black rug of his luxurious room, trying to force her shyness away.

“Good; ignore him,” Minseok said, giving her a piercing look that oddly made her feel safe. She knew it wasn’t exactly for her, that look, but for Kris. “Don’t give him any more attention than what you have already gave him. He doesn’t deserve any of it.”

“He..” She gulped, taking few more steps forward until she was properly facing him. Minseok crossed his arms, listening to her and looking down at her like she was a fray prey, her squirming under him wasn’t helping his imagination either. “He.. said.. my parents want to meet me.”

“More like he forced them to talk to you,” Minseok snorted, extremely disgusted with the schemes Kris was pulling just to get her to meet him, after everything they’ve done for her. “If they really wanted to meet you, they’d have called you. I’m sure Kris would have given them your number.”

And then Minseok forced his arms away from his chest, turning around to face the mirror again to continue taking off whatever he needs to take off so that he’d go to sleep all comfortable. It was his routine to do that, and having his mate in his room wasn’t going to stop him from doing that — even when his heart was reacting to her presence close to him, harshly bouncing on the walls of his chest in an irritating way, since Minseok wasn’t exactly fond with the fact he constantly had his emotions on loose because of her.

Suddenly, the violating gestures of his heart increased even more (if that was possible, he just felt his heart close-by to his throat, suffocating him) when she circled her arms around his waist, her soft arms laying on his hard and muscular chest where she intertwined her fingers there so she wouldn’t have to let him go. She leaned her cheek on his back, taking in the warmth that was simply his, and feeling immensely better, even though her body was reacting to the proximity in an uncomfortable way.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

Minseok heard her beautiful, beautiful voice murmur in his back, in a soft degree he felt before he could hear in his ears, and he turned absolutely still, shoulders rigid, because he subconsciously liked the way she was hugging him from the back, and thanking him for being there for her – something he had always wanted her to be brave enough to do even while he was so unapproachable himself — now that she was doing what he always wanted her to do, Minseok didn’t know what to feel.

“Minseok, I..” she struggled to force the words out of yet again, and her grip around him tightened, and Minseok felt her, felt her struggle, felt her strength around him, yet, he didn’t say anything, his toes itching beneath him, wanting her to say just what he, and everyone else, were sure she wanted to say.

“Minseok.. I.. I.” She tried again, pathetically, and Minseok finally broke her fingers apart from his chest so that he’d turn to look at her, studying her troubled eyes and curled mouth. She didn’t deny him eye-contact, even when she was shriveling under him at the intensity of his eyes; and Minseok was thankful, for he wanted to look at her and gauge her reaction while she spoke.

“Say it.” Minseok encouraged her to speak, one of his hands awkwardly falling on one of her shoulders, and she gave an involuntary flinch at the sudden heat.

Gulping, she raised her fingers to brush the hair that fell over her eyebrows aside, looking away from Minseok. Immediately, Minseok took her chin in his fingers and pulled her head up, so that she’d look in his eyes, and so that he could watch her emotions flash in her face.

“I.. I’m sorry.” She managed to say, Minseok’s piercing eyes were – weirdly – the key she needed to force her words out.

“For everything I have done, and for every bad thing that I have made you go through because of me.”

Minseok didn’t reply, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t listening, or that he wasn’t growing even more overwhelmed than what he was two seconds ago. Her eyes, he realized with dismay, were actually a big cause of his discomfort, as in he couldn’t simply swallow the large amount of feelings swimming in them.

“I’m so incredibly, deeply sorry,” She murmured again, eyes on his, and she felt the fingers he had on her chin starting to slip. That gesture made the dam she had had on her eyes break, and slowly, tears started to grow. “I didn’t want to say it so pathetically like this, because I don’t think saying sorry in this way would actually explain how horribly apologetic I’m feeling right now.”

She let out a deep, shaky sigh; trying to collect her feelings, and Minseok watched her. He watched her lips tremble, and how she bit on them so they’d either stop trembling, or she’d obscure his eyes from them. He watched her pupils shake, and she blinked her eyes in a desperate attempt to stop herself from shedding tears she didn’t want him to see. He knew she didn’t like to show weakness, but something in him wanted to see her break, right in front of him, so that he’d know she trusted him enough to show that weakness of hers without fear he’d use it against her.

“I have always felt sorry, actually,” She wiped her eyes roughly in another failed attempt to push her tears away. It didn’t work, and the tears stained her sleeves instead. “And I feel sick for saying it after everything that you went through because of me. Every curse that came out of my mouth for you, every bowl of food I had thrown on either one of you, and every single pain I had caused you. I have always felt sorry, like a piece of me was being ripped from my heart, because from inside, I knew I was causing you pain.”

Minseok listened carefully, and tried to stop his own growing feelings. She was really saying this to him, wasn’t she?

“But I always separated that feeling of mine with my mate side, thinking that I was only feeling like that because I was initially your mate, and would always feel like utter when you’re hurting because that was how things were supposed to be,” She gave him a look with such utterly weak eyes, tears staining her round cheeks in a way that was almost magical; and he didn’t like how this, her pain, was magically beautiful. It was unfair. “I guess.. I wanted to believe that as well, so hardly. I wanted to think I wanted to hurt you, the real me wanted to hurt you; wanted you to feel as much pain as I felt my entire life; and that whatever pity, remorse, and guilt I had had was solely stemming from my mate part. That is what I always believed, what I wanted to believe.”

Minseok never interrupted, and she was thankful he didn’t, because maybe if he did say something; she’d not have the courage to continue anymore, especially since she was crying and tears were never a part of the plan.

“Through a period of time, maybe I had really believed it,” she sniffed, trying to swallow the next wave of tears that spilled all over her cheeks, along with her emotions. “Really embraced I was only doing what’s right for me, and.. that you deserved pain, that you deserved anguish, that you deserved.. hate,” This last word came out of her like a breathless whisper, and her eyes became unfocused, even while she was staring at him; and he believed that she was reliving all of these emotions she no longer could connect with and felt absolutely revolting. Minseok knew all of that.

“I truly wanted to believe that until I fell for my own trap, the trap I had set for myself because I was too foolish, believing I deserved a place in the human world to the grieving point I was ready to tarnish my place between you – the supernaturals – for childish dreams that weren’t ever going to be real.”

Her expression, right now, was an expression of a broken glass, Minseok’s mind provided, and the glistening tears were just amplifying that feeling Minseok had within him at the view of her face.

Her unfocused eyes focused again, right on Minseok’s face, and the eye-lock felt like a punch to his stomach. He suddenly felt breathless, un-living, like time had stopped for him, and all he could see was her, and the broken shards of glass she was resembling.

“I’m sorry the first thing I caused you when I met you was pain, Minseok, and the thing I mostly, sincere