The air inside this practice room cleared the moment his face left your field of vision.

As if a tulle veil had been lifted from over your face you could suddenly see the room clearly. You could make out the curiously confused faces of the members of EXO who milled around you in a half circle with a suspiciously vacant Do Kyungsoo shaped gap in that circle of people opposite of where you stood, still clinging like a frightened child to Sehun’s hand.

With the clarity of your vision came the lucidity of your mind and you relaxed the grip of your hand, using the distraction on his face to pull your hand free from Sehun’s. What had you done just now? How tense and distressed had the expression your face been as you soaked in the ache that sat deep inside his dark brown eyes.

You inhaled a breath and your lungs expanded despite the soreness you felt inside of your chest. Another breath stretched the connecting tissues that kept your rib cage together and your heart drummed on, tender with a fever, yet stubborn and unyielding.

If your heart refused to give in, then goddammit, neither could you. If your body would live through this then who were you to argue with it? Didn’t you just have to play along?

Interest in the spectacle was waning quickly, save for a single pair of impassively composed brown eyes that watched your face much longer than any of the others did.

“Have you been well?” The soft-spoken question from Baekhyun pulled you out of it, “you look well,” he added under his breath, but something in his tone made the compliment feel just a touch forced and you composed what was left of your pride to thoroughly cleanse the emotion he might have caught in your eyes.

“She does look well, doesn’t she?” Sehun chimed in from beside you where the warmth of his arm rested against your own and you looked away from Baekhyun’s eyes.

Baekhyun had been the only one to know anything about the attraction you and Kyungsoo had given in to. Although you had no way of knowing how much he knew. For all you knew, he could have just believed it was just . Just two humans losing the fight against the loneliness of the tour.

“You know,” Baekhyun’s focus had shifted to the taller man at your side, “Junmyeon says you are dumb, and I thought he was just being mean, but now... I just don't know.”

“What?” Sehun’s response was genuine in surprise and hurt at Baekhyun’s flippant comment, yet there wasn’t time for anyone’s ego to be before a clamor behind you pulled your attention.

“Oh, he’s back.” Sehun’s attention had been grabbed as well and you spun on your heels to see black hair and deep brown eyes bounding on quick moving legs, having just moved through the open doorway through which he had left moments earlier, Kyungsoo was moving quickly with a placid smile glued to his face. His eyes were on you as he walked and you blinked away your surprise to see him back so soon. Your stupid heart leapt wildly inside your chest, the same stupid heart that stubbornly held onto useless things like the smell of his skin along the nape of his neck, and the sleepy groan that echoed through is chest cavity when you ran your fingernails lazily through his hair, scraping lightly against his scalp as he buried his face in the softness of your s.

“Sorry,” that smile was pulled taught and his breathing was controlled and even as he moved lightly on his feet and held his shoulders just so, just upright enough to keep from sinking right into the quicksand of practice room flooring, “I had to use the restroom.” Kyungsoo sniffled lightly through the lie and you lowered your eyes down and away. Anywhere but in his eyes. You looked down at his chin, focusing on the three or four hair follicles that pushed out the minuscule excuse for a beard that grew there. He hadn’t shaved in three or four days it seemed. All practice, no time for much else. You longed to run your thumb over the stubble and make a comment about Do Kyungsoo slacking off on his personal care.

There was a pause in the delivery of his alibi and your curiosity flared. Had he forgotten the next line he had carefully prepared?

“You,” You looked up from his chin and there was a waver there as his eyes seemed to flutter half closed, blinking quickly and shallowly and the smile on his lips pulled even wider, even less believable to you as he oversold it. This was desperate and you were suddenly aware of your own face; your own expression that sat there, wounded. A shattered crystal champagne flute that had been hastily taped together with cellophane tape. “-you,” he repeated again before finding the line he had been searching for. “Have you been well?”

“Kyungsoo,” you found your voice worked just well enough for this play, although you couldn't bring the smile to your lips as easily as he could, “It’s been a long time.”

“So, you’ll be working with us again?” A significance sat inside that question. It was loaded with it and the sour taste bubbled up the back of your throat and coated over your taste buds, making you want to swallow it away, you wanted to push it back down inside your belly where it couldn't affect you so. What was that? Was that hope? You had none of that left. What a stupid useless ing idea, that you had anything hopeful to feel about this situation. No. No, you weren’t working with him again. You weren’t repeating the mistakes of last year. Weak. You had been so ing weak then. And boy, had you paid the price for that weakness.

“No, I’m not going to be working with Exo this time.” The denial, or refusal as it felt, came out more forcefully than you initially set out for. There was absolutely no reaction on his face. He was over the initial shock of seeing you so suddenly and his emotions would be well controlled from this point forward. Nothing you could say or do would affect him.

“Well, you might,” Sehun spoke up beside you, his voice irritatingly light for this situation that he had absolutely no idea was happening before him and for the third or fourth time today you felt like locking him in a hallway closet and swallowing the key, “You’re part of the translation team for the company, I mean, you might get to work with us again.”

“Don't get your hopes up, Sehun. I work in the office. I’m not sent out on translating assignments or anything like that. It’s not like it was in Europe.”

The back and forth between yourself and the taller man who angled his whole body toward you as he spoke, who stood too close and leaned down with his words as if he and you were the only two who occupied this space and there wasn’t a whole other person with big brown eyes that bounced between your faces as if he was watching a tennis match.

“There you go again,” Sehun said, “I’m saying, you just gotta give it a chance for a little while. Things will change and get better once they see what you can really do.” Sehun’s words might as well have been shouted in a language you didn’t speak with as little impact as you felt from them. You didn't even mind the office work. You just wanted to get out of this ing practice room and hide away for long enough to settle the wild beating of your heart. Sehun’s fingers had slipped down to grip tightly around the palm of your hand as he voiced his little words of encouragement for you and you let him push and pull your arm around all the while avoiding the gaze of the man who watched you.

“You two seem close.”

His comment wasn’t in the script and Kyungsoo zipped his lips up tight as soon as the words left his mouth. The detached smile had fallen out of place and Sehun looked up from your face just in time to see it creep back into place.

“We are very close,” Sehun said with conviction and you could feel heat running along the back of your neck like a spreading illness through your system, “she just doesn't know it yet.” He was laughing at his own lame joke, two big chesty guffaws that slapped like wet towels against your skin and Kyungsoo’s counterfeit smile pulled even tighter as if he had any right to have any sort of opinion on the topic of who you kept as friends. Or fictional friends at least. Sehun could be your good friend if you wanted. Did you want that? Probably not. All you wanted right now was your shared office downstairs that had a door that could close and a stress ball on the desk that was primed for the squeezing.

“No we aren’t and I have to get back to work.”

You were done. You wouldn’t entertain this any longer and as far as appearances went, well, you had done your part. You had played your role as well as you could. You pulled your hand free of Sehun’s grip easily enough and spun on your heels, waving a hand in the air at the shouted farewells that echoed out behind you from nearly every voice in the practice room. Nearly every one that told you to come see them again. Nearly every person who wished you well in your new position and nearly every one of them who seemed to genuinely want to see you again.

Your office downstairs was not as empty as you had hoped and prayed it would be as you walked up to the door. Your officemate, the young woman named Jinee who you knew only bits and pieces about, typed furiously on her computer as she usually did; working through the stacks and stacks of documents that filtered through the lower level translators on the team. Her desk was hidden around the corner from the door. You couldn't really see her from your own desk, but you definitely heard the constant typing that only quieted down for a half an hour during lunch and picked back up again after she ate quietly at her desk.

From what you gathered on your first day. The second the coveted hidden spot in the office had been vacated, she had moved out of the line of sight of the door and left you to deal with the constant interruptions and new assignments that came through that door while she worked in blissful peace.

She was your superior here and you honestly didn’t mind the extra workload that much. You did sometimes wish she would be the first to answer the phone once in a while.

“The phone was ringing while you were gone,” Jinee spoke from her desk without even leaning back in her chair to be able to look into your eyes as she talked. “It rang like four times.” Her tone sounded annoyed that you would dare be absent from your post long enough for her precious focus to be interrupted and you hummed out a disinterested response, acknowledging that yes, you had heard her, and no you didn’t give a goddamn about the phone ringing. The majority of your calls were looking for someone who used to work at your position. Calls you merely turned away without any insight about where your predecessor went or why they left.

You could set your clock to Jinee. As if on cue, the typing ceased and you heard the telltale sounds of an electric kettle bubbling up as the water inside heated to boiling. You smelled the instant noodles and heard the scrape of the wooden chopsticks against the cardboard container and you wondered if you would be able to eat lunch today without seeing that unnatural smile atop those cold, departed eyes of his that hid any genuine emotion that might take unwelcome purchase on his face.

Coffee. You could stomach a cup of coffee from the cafe down the block and maybe filling your stomach a little bit would at least keep your body occupied during your lunch break. Even if your mind would surely be occupied with other things.

You’d made it into a standing position behind your desk when two swift knocks against the hardwood office door startled you enough for a small jump. The bright green stress ball you had been squeezing for a solid hour since arriving back at your desk jumped as well and rolled off the desk onto the floor and you called out a quick word for the visitor to enter as you ducked down to retrieve the ball.

It would be some errand. Copies or a coffee run for the meeting after lunch. Perhaps someone wanted you to sit in on an international phone call and whisper translations to executives in fancy suits.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The voice that sounded out at the door hit you hard and the green ball that had rolled below the desk was almost out of your reach. Not that it mattered, someone was here, someone with a low voice and so full of significance and with a force that kicked against your heart and you straightened your posture too fast, before you had cleared the desk above your head. You felt the impact and felt the blow on the crown of your skull and the dull thud echoed noisily as the pain surged through your head.

“Ow,” you winced into it, closing your eyes tight as you rubbed your head roughly with the palm of your hand to rid yourself of the pain as quickly as possible, “,” you cursed to yourself and stood up tall. Ready now, mind dulled with the recent pain that was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the aches and the misery that had been plaguing your chest all morning.

Do Kyungsoo had taken three long steps toward you, his hands had been outstretched to reach for you where you stood on the other side of this desk with that green ball clutched securely within your closed fist and his hands slowly dropped as the misplaced look of concern faded from his face.

You didn’t need it. You didn’t need that look on his face and you certainly didn't owe him any explanations for why you hadn’t given him proper notice that you had taken a transfer to this city.

The look on your face as you quit rubbing the spot on top of your head must have been enough to stop his motion. Must have been enough for him to drop his eyes from yours and wring his own hands together roughly in front of his waist. You could feel the glare in your own eyes and yet something inside of you kept your hand closed, kept the ball from flying across the room to bounce atop of his head.

“Is that why you called?” His next words were a whisper and you heard a quiet squeak of a rolling chair from around the corner where you were suddenly flooded with an ice cold bucket of water. Jinee was still here, finishing up her noodles no doubt and scrolling through her phone as she waited for exactly 30 minutes to be up so she could resume her relentless typing.

Jinee was listening now, you could tell with the way the seat back in your line of sight sat in an upright, perfect 90-degree angle as the back of her head was tilted in just the perfect way for eavesdropping.

“Yes, actually Mr. Do, I was meaning to discuss it with you. This uhh-” a panic was bubbling up inside of your chest as you searched for a way to answer him, to have a conversation with the man without giving anything away that could jeopardize your career...or his. His career, his well-being, his life, still...the impulse to protect was so strong you didn’t dare risk anything. You had come here after all. This was your doing. You weren’t out to ruin anyone. You weren’t out for revenge.

You loved him too much for any of that.

“—this assignment is extremely important to me. As you recall from our work together on the European Tour, I have been looking for such an opportunity for advancement. When the chance to break into the East Asian sector was presented to me, I felt obliged to take it.”

This was going well. This was believable as the kind of conversation one would have with a previous client. You could already see the sag in Jinee’s posture as she scooted closer to her desk and lost interested in whatever professional relations you were nurturing.

“Mr. Do?” His question left his lips parted open and his eyes watched your face for any signs of truth in your words, “are you serious?”

“Absolutely, Sir. This is a tremendous opportunity for my career. I wanted to thank you for your utmost professionalism and support throughout the tour last year and I simply ask that you keep that mentality in mind with the possibility that we might work together again in the future, however unlikely that may be. I also hope to uphold the requirements of my job according to this company’s expectations and to my clients’ satisfaction.”

You weren’t sure how your words kept coming. Inside, you were in shambles with the genuine confusion and hurt you saw on his face.

And that hurt flowed through him like a sound wave, it traveled down his face where the muscles took his lips down into a frown over his shoulders that sagged and his arms rippled with tension as he lifted a single hand to rub roughly over his face, blocking out the light, and any sight of you who stood, a fake and a liar, before him, putting on the greatest show of your entire life.

Your eyes burned where you forced them to remain open. Your hand sagged and the green ball slipped from your grip and bounced once against your shoes before rolling back under the desk and Do Kyungsoo inhaled a deep breath on the other side of your little wooden barrier that kept his physical body separate from your physical body so effectively. As if you couldn't still feel every deep breath of his lungs mirrored back in your own ragged breathing. As if you couldn’t feel the tremble you saw in his hands dancing within your own fingertips.

With the breath of air, he stilled his movement. With the brief closing out of light from his hand, you saw the slow and careful nod of his head. Silent and affirming.

This...what it had been, this was over. It was done. It would never repeat. He knew it and he understood it. He accepted it and he would not torture you with reminders of the past.

He would play his role as you had just so clearly and carefully defined and take whatever lingering feelings or emotions he might have still left inside of himself for you, put them into a stout box made of heavy gauge steel, lock it up well, and never again open it.

“I understand,” he said and you almost believed him.

“I won’t interrupt your work any further, Miss.”

Oh...

So that’s what it felt like.

Like your hand was being burned with hot coals as you stood there and let it happen. As the singe and the hiss; the sounds of your cooking flesh filtered through your eardrums and the putrid smell filled your nostrils and you just let it happen. Opting to turn off the part of your brain that felt pain rather than pull your hand away. Rather than reach for him, grab his hand, grab his arm, grab his face and pull him into your arms with a desperate plea. Don't leave. Don't go. I don't mean any of this. I just want you to be safe and happy.

Of course, you did not say any of that. You had worked so hard to sell this so Jinee would not have any ideas at all about the level of professionalism in your relationship with Do Kyungsoo. This was to keep his good name out of the mouths of gossip spreaders around the office.

All you could do was keep your hands at your side and keep your head steady as he turned and left.

All you could do was stare at the empty spot on the floor where he once stood and try not to feel the burn that wept, blistered, and bled.

You saw no sign of any of the members of EXO for the next few days. Your work continued in much of the same way as it had before the run-in with Sehun in the elevator. Before your secret relocation was discovered and you were forced to look into the face of your ex-boyfriend and discover just how completely over him you weren’t. While you liked to tell yourself, again and again, you could stand this, you could work side by side with him again if need be, you could even stand the close contact and hushed whispers into his ear that translation required, your subconscious had other ideas.

You dreamt of him every night since you saw him and each morning you awoke alone in your single bed that sat in your single studio apartment with the alarm ringing out its lonely song that told you it was time to let go of those useless fantasies and get back to the real world.

It was only four days later when you could finally feel the dust settling around you and you began to relax at work again. You had quit taking elevators entirely; even when they seemed empty you still opted for the stairwell at the end of the hallway which was must less risky. Elevators were too easy anyway. This was a conscious decision you should have made for your own health long ago, long before you were caught in a filthy web of lies and deception that caused that look to appear in his eyes, that look of pain, confusion, hurt. No, you were taking the stairs because it was good exercise and by day 4 of this new health regime, you found th