Lonely and in love are two words that should not belong in the same sentence.

That’s what I like to believe, anyway.

But what I believe doesn’t always mean what happens in my life. Not when it’s almost midnight and there are no signs of my boyfriend in this huge penthouse he bought us for our one-year anniversary.

My eyes are fluttering shut when the soft vibration of my phone jolts me back awake. I blindly shove my hand inside my handbag to reach for my phone with my eyes still shut, wishing that it’s only a random spam e-mail, and not what I think it is.

[23:53] Oh Sehun

I’m going to be late. Don’t wait up.

All at once, I feel the sleepiness leave my system.

“That cut looks like it’s going to scar,” I comment as Sehun grabs a carton of milk from the fridge, staring at a new gash alongside his arm that looks painfully fresh with spots of darkened blood oozing through the white bandage.

“No , sherlock,” he scoffs, and pours the milk into a bowl of cereal I’ve provided on the kitchen counter. I sigh.

“How deep is it? Does it need stitches, or did Yixing already stitch that up for you? Have you changed the bandage yet?” I try to even out the level of my voice as I ask the questions, trying to make myself sound less annoying and more nonchalant.

But I know I’ve failed when I see Sehun’s face scrunch up at my questions, clearly annoyed to be hearing so much already when he’s just woken up a few minutes ago.

“Actually, the guys didn’t know about the cut so I bandaged it myself last night,” he answers anyway, shoving a spoonful of cereal into his mouth casually. I feel my heart sinking to my stomach.

“Sehun!” I shriek immediately, feeling the panic finally settling in, dropping my phone from my hold. I grab the first aid kit I always have ready placed on the coffee table, and sprint towards where he is seated. If the wound hasn’t been disinfected for hours, I don’t even want to begin thinking of all the possible after effects.

Sehun doesn’t say anything as I unwrap his bandage, eyes trained on my face and only my face as I work to clean up his cut. It’s deep and it’s nasty, but it’s not something that Sehun cannot handle. I just wish that Yixing is here or that I’m better equipped so I can stitch the wound up. My heart clenches at the sight of his ripped skin.

“When you meet the boys later, tell Yixing that your wound needs some stitching, okay?” my voice is small, afraid that if it’s any decibel louder it would annoy Sehun with my overprotective tendencies he despises so much. I look down, pretending to be adjusting the position of the bandage against his skin, eyes glazed with hot tears that I’m desperately trying to blink away.

“Okay,” he obeys. Patting his hand softly, I make a mistake by blinking and letting a tear drop onto his freshly wrapped wound. I curse myself silently, and brave myself to look up and face him like it’s nothing.

“I’m sorry.” I force myself to sound brave, but it comes out like a sniffle and the flicker of emotion that washes over Sehun disappears as fast as it had appeared. I wipe my tears away foolishly, mentally preparing myself for the day of work that I’m going to sit through instead.

Sehun presses a ginger kiss on the temple of my head as he slides of his seat, brushing the tips of his fingers against my hair as he walks away.

“I’m going back to sleep,” his announcement is followed by the soft click of the bedroom door closing.

Once again, I’m all alone.

[00:32] Baek oppa

he’s going to be fine, xing hyung treated his stab wounds alr and he’s on his way home to you. just take a few days off work to help him do chores and

[00.32]

if hes fine he wouldnt need me to babysit him around. tell him hes on house arrest thats the only thing thatll make him stay home

[00.34] Baek oppa

you should tell him that yourself, because sehun’s stubborn only listens to you.

The warm feeling that spreads through my insides doesn’t appease to the cold sting in my heart as Sehun heads straight for the shower the moment he steps foot into our home, and falls asleep before I get to register the fact that he’s alive and breathing.

The dim sunlight filters through the windows of my lonely apartment, making Sehun’s face glow in angelic lighting as I watch him sleep.

He needs a haircut so bad, but at the same time I don’t mind carding my hands through his locks of black hair at all. He looks peaceful nuzzled against the pillow that is my thighs, his breathing soft and stable.

Even when the perimeter of his face is peppered with tiny scratches and yellowing bruise, Sehun looks absolutely beautiful.

Moments like this are the moments I find myself living for. Moments like these when we spend the whole day lazing around, pretending to watch old movies as an excuse just to stare at each other’s faces, taking naps like the normal couple we are not supposed to be.

Sometimes, I even dare to delude myself with the illusion of having a normal future with Sehun, one where it doesn’t include the fact that he’s a loyal member of the mobster and the fact that I’m a pawn he uses to play in a game to deceive the rest of the underworld.

One where we have kids and send them to college, and even after we do he still tells me that he loves me before we go to sleep every night.

But then Sehun’s eyes open slowly, and reality comes knocking into my ridiculous daydream. I look at him and he blinks.

“What time is it?” he asks immediately, and even when his voice is thickly laced with sleep, there is an urgency and sprightliness etched in his words.

“A little past six,” I answer softly. He springs up from his sleep immediately looking effectively more awake, stretching his hands upwards and towards every other angle too. I place a gentle hand on his bicep as a reminder that his movements are harmful towards his injuries, yet he shakes my hand off gruffly.

“I have to go to the port,” he declares but more like as a reminder for himself, and detaches himself from the sofa. I try not to shiver from the loss of his body warmth, and stop myself from asking: What for? Because with a life like this, I’m better off not knowing what he does. It’s also clearly implied from everyone else with the same line of work like his for me to never know what he might be up to—it’s just too dangerous.

“But I thought you were on house arrest,” I say instead, trailing behind him as he enters the bedroom, “your wound is not even fully healed yet.”

“It’s just a small drop off I have to look over, nothing major,” he takes his shirt off as he replies, and I hand him new ones for him to change to even though I despise the idea of him going out in a terrible condition. Sehun accepts it wordlessly, and I can’t help but bite my lip in worry. Nothing is ever small with the things he does, nothing is ever truly safe.

“Hey, I’m going to be fine, alright? If it makes you feel better, I’ll wear my bulletproof vest.” his voice softens, reading the worry that is seeping into my facial expressions, and a little bit of weight gets lift off my shoulders when he actually puts on the said material over his body.

“A bulletproof vest? Why would you even need a bulletproof vest? You said that this was supposed to be a small drop off.” I can’t stop myself from blabbering, my anxiety coming back full force as I imagine all kinds of situation he has to be involved to even imagine him wearing a bulletproof vest. All hopes of Sehun answering my question goes down the drain as his expression hardens, and I know better than to keep asking when his mood turns sour as fast as it did just now.

I follow him quietly as he puts on his shoes and walks to exit the apartment, because that’s all I can do. All I’m allowed to do. Keeping my silence, staying quiet like an obedient dog.

Before he opens the door, he turns around abruptly, looking down at me with his half lidded eyes and a gentle look on his face. My heart leaps to my throat. I expect a peck of kiss like he usually drops before he heads out the door, but he takes me by surprise when his left hand wraps around my waist. His right hand cups my cheek gently.

He kisses me softly, tenderly, like he’s holding himself back. I hum in pleasure when he parts his lips and drags his tongue over my bottom lip painfully slowly, his thumb drawing circles against my cheek. I tilt my head for better access, letting us both have a better taste of each other. My hand cups the his jaw, bringing his face closer to mine as I feel the heat rising between us.

When his finger grazes over a small part of my skin under my shirt, though, he detaches it like it’s burned. I find myself whining at the loss of contact when he separates the kiss, placing one last tender kiss on my cheeks before sending me a warm smile that would have me falling off my chair if I am sitting on one.

Sehun doesn’t say anything else and opens the door to leave, walking down the hallway with the usual confidence and poise in his steps.

“Sehun,” I call, and he stops.

“Promise me you won’t get hurt?” my voice is small, but the way his body freezes for a split of second makes it known to me that he’s heard me the first time.

“I promise.” he says after a beat, and although he doesn’t turn around to face me when he says it, my heartbeat still picks up its’ speed.

When Sehun asked me to be his girlfriend, it was nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary.

His eyes were unblinking when he told me that he liked me two years ago, and that he liked me enough to scare himself whenever I’m not within arm’s reach from him. Factoring in the fact that he is a member of a notorious crime gang and he’s got enemies waiting for his next big mistake.

Even when he blatantly told me that it would benefit him more than it would benefit me when we step into the dangerous relationship, I found myself swooning and throwing everything I’ve worked so hard for just to stay by his side.

“Publicizing our relationship would make people think that I’ve gone soft, when in reality I’m just the same old me. It’s a win-win situation,” he’d said it in the most enthusiastic way I had ever hear him speak, so I didn’t let myself have the luxury of being hurt by his insensitive choice of words.

On the first day of spring, I quit my job as a surgical nurse, moved into his company and worked right under his faux position as the CEO. I don’t know what made me do it—I’d like to think that the adrenaline rush and the luxury is what made me say yes, but deep down I know it’s something else altogether.

I’ve never looked back since.

“You promised me!” I’m screaming, angry tears streaming down my face. My voice is cracked and hoarse, and I’ve never heard my voice sound so broken before.

Sehun’s sleeping face looks completely calm and innocent despite having tiny spots of fresh blood peppered all over the perimeter of his face. The rest of the room though, in total contrast, is in total chaos.

Everyone is running around either trying to push the hospital bed along with me, or trying to stop me from doing so. But my mind is set, and my grip on the hospital bed’s handle is vice like. No one can stop me from getting into the room with Sehun.

There is a lot of yelling, and I can’t pinpoint who’s saying what and what is happening. It’s as if my mind is covered with a thick fog, and the only thing I can feel is the anger towards Sehun who didn’t keep his ing promise.

He promised me not to get hurt! He said it’s nothing I should be worried about!

“Why can’t we just get him into a ing hospital? A real ing hospital?” my voice sounds ugly and out of pitch, and no one answers the question I already know the answer to. Mobsters would rather die than have their identities exposed, yet I still feel the need to express my frustration as my eyes lie upon Sehun’s unconscious figure once again.

Then everything stops.

My whole word literally stops to a halt when the men surrounding Sehun on his bed enters the so-called operating room, because my body is physically strained from being able to take another step. More than one person is holding me back from doing so.

“Let me go!” I shriek, scratching and kicking whoever has their hold on me. “Sehun’s a ing liar!” I seethe, feeling myself slowing down to a stop.

“I hate him,” I cry now, falling onto the floor with a thud. Someone tries to hoist me up and I end up burying my face into their chest, recognizing the smell that belongs to Junmyeon after a few heartbeats. I clutch on to his shirt, in anger and desperation and all other kind of ugly emotions mixed together.

“They have to pump the blood out of him, oppa, he needs a real doctor,” I mindlessly say. “He’s going to choke if they don’t, and if he chokes he’s going to die. My Sehun is going to die!” I whimper, feeling a fresh batch of tears escape from my eyes.

“He’s going to make it, he’s strong,” Junmyeon assures me, but he’s stupid if he thinks he can because I know I’m a nurse and I know better than him. Even though he tries to sound composed and leveled like the head of the mob he is supposed to be, I hear the cracking of his voice at the end of his sentence. It seems like I’m not the only one trying to convince myself that Sehun will be all right.

“I know.” I choose to reply, because maybe we all need the comfort of someone knowing that Sehun is going to be fine.

When Junmyeon releases me from his hold, I finally see the rest of the boys and they’re all wearing the same grim expressions on their faces. It must be the guilt—none of them knew that Sehun was going to pull a James Bond by himself tonight and get himself hurt like this.

Hours pass by and not a single word is exchanged between the eight of us. Only when Chanyeol realizes that I’ve been sitting on the floor for more than what’s necessary, he hoists me up to sit on the chair wordlessly, and I still can’t bring myself to open my mouth just to say anything.

When the sun rises and sun light starts to filter through the room, the door finally opens and Yixing comes out looking the most ed up he’s been in years. Everyone is up and alert, shoulders tensed, waiting for Yixing to say anything.

Time seems to have slowed down. But when Yixing smiles, a series of relieved sighs echo throughout the room, and I can hear Baekhyun sniffing back tears of relief from the other end of the room. I let go of my clenched fists and realize I’ve dug my own fingernails against the palms of my hands and it’s bleeding, but I don’t mind as long as Sehun is okay.

“If he didn’t wear that bulletproof vest last night, I don’t think he would have made it.” Yixing states.

Even though the rest of the room erupts in nervous laughter and oozes with joy, it doesn’t make me feel better at all.

I drive myself back home the moment Yixing finishes announcing Sehun’s current state.

Sehun gets “discharged” on a rainy summer night two weeks later.

I didn’t visit him much when he was strictly on bed rest at the basecamp for the two weeks, using his absence in the company as an excuse for not stopping by. “I have a lot of paperwork,” I lied to Baekhyun over the phone when he asked, and ever since then he never bothered to question anymore.

I didn’t know what I feel, and how I was supposed to feel. I was a mix of relieved and angry, the former because Sehun obviously didn’t die, but the latter because he had broken the one serious promise I’ve ever asked from him. I never asked for anything, grateful enough that Sehun had taken me under his wings and supported me financially with things I’ve never even dreamt of having, always thinking that one day I might run out of his affection for me if I pushed his buttons a little too hard.

So, I did what I can do best—avoid him. I’m not a good actress by any means, so any plans of acting like I don’t feel any disappointment towards him went down the drain. I wanted to have a little time to think for myself, too, because all the Sehun in my life had worn me down more than just a little bit.

Half of the drive back home is spent in silence. That is, until Sehun decides to speak up for whatever reason he has in mind.

“Are we heading home right away?” he asks, and somehow his voice is small, lacking confidence like a little child asking his mother is he allowed to have sweets before bed.

“With your state of being, do you think you’re fit for a stop at the gym?” I try to keep the hostility out of my remark, but by the way Sehun’s face fell, I know he got my message.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks again, with the same timid voice he used to ask the previous question. Something inside of me softens, but I don’t let it get into my head.

“Why would I be?”

“Because I broke my promise,” he replies quietly. My heart skips a couple of beats, because for the first time ever, Sehun remembers. My tongue feels dry inside my mouth, and I don’t react.

I step on the gas a little bit harder to speed up the process of getting home, feeling stuffy and suffocated with Sehun staring at me the whole time I’m trying to focus on the road in front of us. I don’t know how I’m supposed to react, what kind of feelings I should be experiencing, what—

“Say something, please?” Sehun sounds desperate, and it takes everything in me not to explode right here and now. Do I even have the right to be mad in the first place?

“I don’t know what to say, Sehun,” I really don’t. Sehun sighs, and leans back into his chair defeatedly, his hands intertwined together on top of his lap. It’s a move he pulls when he has a lot to think about. It makes me wish forgiving him comes to me as easily as he breaks his promises.

When I finish parking the car though, Sehun goes out of his way to get out of the car first and open the door for me like we’re courting all over again. It’s nothing extravagant, but it ends up slowly taking away the anger left in my bones, replacing it with a feeling of warmth only Sehun has ever given to me.

He takes my hand and intertwines it with his as we walk to our floor wordlessly, hesitant to let go when we enter our home.

“Sehun,” I chide, although I couldn’t resist the smile blooming on my face. This is the exact same reason why I didn’t visit him too much when he was bedridden, because seeing his face might shake my feelings. I didn’t want to be an easy person, and it makes it so hard when my feelings for Sehun are so strong.

Sehun makes a noise of complaint from the back of his throat. Somehow it sets ablaze a fire burning within me and I find myself attacking his lips in a feverish kiss blindly, which he reciprocates in no time.

It’s a kiss of anger, bitterness, longing, and desire all at once. He kisses me like he has something to prove, that he can make up for all the wasted time between us, and I can’t get enough of it.

We part when we realize that we’re still in the entrance hall of the penthouse, and that I couldn’t jump to wrap my legs around his waist like I always do because he has his stupid life-threatening injury stopping me from doing so. He places a soft final peck on my lips before finally taking off his shoes, and waits for me to finish taking off mine when he’s finished with his.

Like a lost puppy, he follows me around the house for the rest of the night as I go around the house to clean a little bit of this and that, touching me every chance he gets to. Before we sleep, we end the night with kisses that drives me crazy with want and desire, the kind of want and desire we cannot consummate due to his stupid post-surgery state of health.

Dizzied with a pleasant buzz thrumming under my skin, Sehun nuzzles his head into my chest and stifles a yawn stipulating that he’s tired and it’s time to sleep. I stare at him for what it feels like an eternity until his breathing becomes slower and steadier, indicating that he’s finally asleep.

“Sehun?” I call for a good measure. He doesn’t reply, yet a light snore escapes from him as if answering me that he’s really asleep.

I’ve told myself many times that the reason I’m willing to put with Sehun is because of his handsome face—an ordinary girl like me would never in another million years have the luck to end up with someone who looks as good as he does. But tonight, I don’t know what to make of my own feelings.

If just seeing him breathe like this, knowing that he’s alive and well makes me so happy beyond words, I know it’s more than just the physical attraction. Maybe it’s his childlike laugh that keeps me hooked—maybe it’s his undying, quiet love for his hyungs that I find so endearing. Maybe it’s the little precious things he does in silence, hoping that nobody notices, like writing himself a post it of Baekhyun’s favorite shoe brand and taping it against the kitchen fridge to remind himself for Christmas.

“I love you.”

I find myself saying. Maybe it’s love. I used to be scared of the idea of falling in love with Sehun, because I know that it will make things more complicated than it already is. But I realize, that only after getting those words of my mouth, is when I can fall peacefully asleep.

The framed pictures all over the living room seems like a perfect rendition of the life I want to live with the person I love.

All the pictures are taken from a second of our lives, our faces aligned perfectly with the beautiful backgrounds and huge smiles on our silly faces portraying the happiness felt in that exact moment. My life and Sehun’s.

Sehun doesn’t smile much, but when he does it’s painfully beautiful you can’t help but stop and stare, stare, stare. Take a picture, make it last.

His laughter starts from the back of his throat and his eyes crinkle into tiny crescent moons, wrinkles forming around the outer edges of his eyes and before you know it you’re already staring. You notice it’s high-pitched and not so masculine, but then the warmth settles inside of your stomach, an addicting sensation you’d grow to miss when he stops smiling.

A sensation I haven’t felt in a long while. So I keep staring at the pictures, until it feels like he’s really smiling at me and I smile too. Sometimes it helps with the dull ache on my chest I’ve grown accustomed to.

“What are you looking at, sweetheart?” Sehun asks, snapping me out of my reverie. He’s already dressed in his most expensive suit, a suit I’ve grown to realize that he only wears on occasions when he’s going to cut a dangerous deal. To show the enemy that I have the power and money to destroy them, it’s simple power play, he would always say.

It hasn’t even gotten to the two-week mark since he’s discharged, yet he’s already gearing up for work.

I’m looking at the life I want.

“Nothing.” I send him a tight smile. For a moment he looks troubled, so I stand up and approach him to make himself feel better.

“Come back alive, okay?” I plant a soft kiss on his jaw. He melts under my touch, and cards his hand through my tangled hair.

“Of course,” he smiles, but I don’t let it spark a hope inside of me.

“Don’t worry, Sehun. I’m not making you promise this time.”

Sehun doesn’t make a single noise when he enters the apartment half past three, face barely visible under the dim apartment lighting.

I shoot up from the couch immediately, eyes heavy with sleep and every single muscle in my body protesting with the sudden move I choose to pull. I walk towards him wordlessly, and scan his body for any kind of wounds, only to find not a single part of his suit even wrinkled.

“Thank—” Sehun pushes past me and bumps his shoulder against mine silently, stopping me short from sighing in relief. I whip my head around to see what’s wrong with him, but he’s already opening the door to the bathroom with an unreadable look on his face.

When he gets in, he slams the door shut.

Sehun is angry, and for the first time in a long while he’s angry at me.

I try to relax my tensed muscles when Sehun steps out of the shower, an angry steam of hot water following right behind him.

“What happened?” I try to keep my voice leveled, giving myself the benefit of doubt.

He doesn’t reply and walks towards the kitchen instead, grabbing a cold bottle of water from the fridge with unnecessary hostility.

“If something went wrong with the deal, it’s their loss anyway,” I continue, hoping to get any kind of response from him. He remains mum.

“Why are you mad at me, Sehun?” I finally ask, my impatience getting the best of me. A lot of things piss Sehun off, but it’s not likely for him to ignore me unless I am the cause of his foul mood. I can’t even remember when was the last time he’d ever been mad at me, and it scares me to think that I’ve done something to piss him off because he’s as patient as an ox.

When it comes to me, that is.

“I’m not mad at you, sweetheart,” he says it like he’s annoyed, words dragged slowly and spoken through his gritted teeth. I’d believe him when he pulls out the sweetheart card on me any other day, but not when he can’t even talk to me without looking at me straight in the eye.

“Sehun, look at me in the eye and tell me that you’re not mad at me,” I push, cutting him short by standing in front of him before he can go to our room and pretend to sleep to avoid my stubborn .

A few seconds pass by in agonizing silence, and Sehun finally looks at me straight in the eye.

“I’m not mad at you.” he finally says, tone avid of any emotion, his eyes blank. For some reason though, his answer triggers me instead of providing the calm I’m supposed to get from his assurance, my eyes watering on cue.

“,” I blink my hot tears away, my heart skipping a beat—I’ve never sworn in front of Sehun. “It’s so easy for you to lie to me like this,” it comes out like word vomit, my lips moving on its own to announce my unfiltered thoughts to the world.

“Easy?” Sehun’s voice raises a couple of notes higher, “You’re telling me that you know how I feel without even ever thinking of what I’m going through when I’m with you?”

I take a step back in shock, unable to say anything. My tears are streaming down full force now, even though I had tried so hard to hold it back. I’m no longer able to hide the crushed feeling that blooms from inside of me, and I know Sehun can see it on my face. But he doesn’t make a move to calm me down.

“You ask me questions you don’t want to hear the answer to, Sokyung, and you have the audacity to tell me how I feel?” I can see the lines where his veins are on his neck, his body tense and poised like it usually is when he’s ready for a fight. He no longer tries to hide the anger and irritation from his voice.

“Then why don’t you just tell me what the truth is?” I reply purely from the spark of anger I get from his painful words, knowing fully well I will regret asking the question I don’t want to hear the answer to. Sehun is always right, but I guess I’m growing tired of always living in the dark.

Maybe I’m running thin on resources of the price I have to pay to be with Sehun.

Sehun throws me a look that basically screams “are you crazy?”, and kicks the innocent table perched against the wall I use to prop all our pictures together on a bunch of frames he picked himself after seeing that I’m not backing down from my expectation of the truth.

All the picture frames come falling off the table with a loud a crash, and my heart shatters along with the shards of glass that gets shattered from the impact.

What has gotten into him? As mad as he’s ever gotten, he’s never resorted to doing physical things to suppress his anger in front of me. To say I am shocked would be an understatement.

“Sehun!” I shriek immediately, my body going into autopilot as I run towards where the pictures are scattered, kneeling and desperately trying to salvage all the pictures from getting scratched from the shards of glass. Sehun doesn’t like having his personal pictures taken for various reasons including security, especially pictures with me, so every digital copy of his face gets erased as soon as the pictures actually gets printed out.

So it’s not out of the ordinary for me to cherish the pictures very dearly. Anything, anything but the pictures would be fine.

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” he actually screams before my fingers touch one of the broken shards of glass, causing my hand and I to recoil in shock at the volume of his voice.

“You’re going to get yourself hurt!” his voice is desperate yet harsh at the same time, and I find it difficult to focus with everything happening around me all at once. The actual severity of the situation that it must be to have Sehun yelling at me like this is hard to understand, and the tears that just won’t stop streaming down my face even though I’m positive I’m void of any emotions the moment Sehun yelled at me just doesn’t seem to help at all.

Crying is supposed to help, right?

I end up reaching for the pictures anyway, because all I can think of is how hard it is to get any pictures of us taken together. To me, they’re more precious than anything in the world but Sehun himself.

Yet when I do, Sehun’s strong grip on both of my wrists shakes me out of my daze and stops me from doing so.

“Let me go, Sehun, if you’re not going to tell me about what happened then at least let me salvage our pictures together…” I say tiredly, eyes trained at a picture of us together, Sehun’s arms around my shoulder with the both of us smiling somewhere in Hongkong I can’t remember.

“It’s Baekhyun hyung,” Sehun starts, his voice stern and flat, the kind of voice I recognize he uses for business—never around me—until now, that is. My heart skips a beat, suddenly wracked with fear of what had happened with Baekhyun, frozen in my own body.

“Junmyeon hyung went out to cut a dangerous deal today, and all of us was there to join as back-up,” he continues, pulling me up as he speaks still in his strictly for business voice.

“But they didn’t want me to join in on any physical activities because they were worried of you,” he says it in an accusatory voice, as if it’s my fault that he isn’t allowed to do any physical work, and then he throws away my wrists from his grip like burned. I bite the insides of my cheeks to stop my tears from falling.

“So I waited in the car like the mum idiot I am, only to find out a few seconds too late that the car was rigged with bombs. I should have known, but then again I didn’t, so my sorry had to be saved by Baekhyun hyung,” his voice cracks.

“Who very unfortunately suffered the casualties of the bomb and is now lying in the basecamp in a state of comatose, and!” he takes a deep breath with his eyes closed, “And there’s nothing I can do about it even though it’s because of me!”

He blames himself but looks at me straight in the eye like he’s blaming me instead. I urge myself to say something, anything, but my brain is in overdrive and I can’t even feel my legs.

Propping myself with my hands placed at the backrest of the couch I’m kneeling behind, my vision blurs again, clouded with tears that can’t seem to ever stop.

“Oh God, Baekhyun oppa…” I cry, the guilt eating me up alive as I remember the things he had done for me ever since I’ve gotten myself a seat in the underworld.

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” I ask to nobody in particular, only to hear the sound of my own wracked sobs as a pathetic reply to confirm that it really is because of me. I wipe the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hands sloppily, looking at Sehun who is still rooted on the same spot he was standing before, expression hard—yet his shoulders are deflated as an indication that the fight has went out of him.

“I’m sorry, Sehun, this is all my fault,” I apologize, vision blurring again from a fresh batch of tears that threatens to spill. I wipe it away hastily yet again, because I know how much Sehun hates to see someone cry. He has always seen it as a sign of weakness.

“Let’s just go to sleep, okay? We’ll talk about this again tomorrow,” he says quietly, tiredly, and softly. He turns his face away before I can say anything else, and enters the bedroom before holding up the door for me to enter like he usually does before we go to bed on the rare chances we get to go at the same time.

When the door shuts, I make my decision final. It isn’t fair to Sehun. It isn’t fair for him to make him keep up with someone who loves him more than he tolerates.

If I knew Sehun like I claim to know him, then he isn’t asleep the moment I enter the bedroom, even when his face is turned away from me and his back is facing me with an unwelcome aura.

His breathing is still labored, and his shoulders are tense, the two signs I’ve learned to file under the “Sehun is Awake” drawer. I also know this, because he doesn’t usually go to bed without me around when he knows I’m home because he likes to have the sense of security knowing that I’m not abducted somewhere in the house when he’s asleep.

So I get into our bed anyway, tuck myself under the covers, and repeat my usual night routine of telling him good night before I go to sleep.

“Good night, Sehun,” I say softly, running my hand through his tensed shoulders to relax them, and he does, most probably as a pretense of being asleep to avoid talking to me altogether.

“I’m sorry,” I continue.

“And I love you, always,” I finish, before shutting my eyes to fall into a dreamless sleep.

This time, I’m not scared of being rejected anymore. Because when he wakes up, I’ll be gone anyway.

Sehun,

I didn’t have the cheese inside of me to write “Dear Sehun,” if you mind my abrupt addressing of your name at the beginning of this letter. There is nothing I want to say in this letter other than that I’m sorry for everything I’ve done.

If I wasn’t around, you wouldn’t have to spend the extra time and money to protect and take care of me, your damsel in distress. You wouldn’t have to tire yourself out every day going home into the condo you hate but bought for me any way instead of just sleeping at the base camp with the rest of the boys. You wouldn’t have to eat my mediocre cooking you’ve always said never resembled your mom’s cooking in any way.

I’m sorry, because I had to be included in every plan you partake in as an option of casualty you have to take care of. Because you had to waste your precious time to entertain me with trivial things like anniversaries and what not I know you were never particularly fond of. Because you were forced to take pictures with me even though you so obviously despised having any of it taken due to reasons I choose to neglect again and again.

I’m sorry, for being a hindrance to your work I know you love more than anything in the world. For crying at the stupidest things, even though I know you hate people who cry. For nagging and annoying you, even when I know the naggings are about things you and I both can’t change. For being a burden to you.

I’m sorry for falling in love with you. I knew that falling in love with you come with the consequences the moment I met you, but I was a stubborn little anyway and went out of my way to pursue you. If I never forced myself onto you, then you wouldn’t have been forced to ask me out in the end.

I’m sorry that I choose to write you a letter instead of saying this to your face because I know I don’t have the guts to say it to you and I’m bad with words.

But most of all, I’m sorry that I never told you that I love you. I do. I didn’t say it out of selfishness of not wanting you to leave me.

I know I’m undeserving of your forgiveness or any of the others’ forgiveness, but I hope that with this letter at least my name doesn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I’ll be good. I won’t tell. I will bring my memories of us together and everyone I know from you to my grave. Please trust me, for this first and last time.

Love,

Sokyung