Your POV

After hours of tossing and turning, you gave up the fight.  Just as you sat up amid the twisted covers, the doorbell rang, scaring the dickens out of you.  You laughed shakily, and struggled from the vice-like grip of the sheets.  You stumbled from your room, cursing as you jammed a toe on the door frame.  You hopped crazily down the hall, in your breath between clenched teeth. 

As you entered the living room, a long arm hooked your waist while a hand clamped over your mouth. It muffled the shocked yelp as you were clamped to a tall body.   

And cue FLIPPING OUT!!!!

"Shhh... It's just me.  Someone is at the door.  I'll be right behind you.  Be careful, but act natural.  I need to get a look at whoever it is before I can move."   

He whispered urgently in your ear, and for a second you weren't sure if your heart was racing from being grabbed, the possible threat at the door, or from the feel of his body pressed to yours. 

No.  I'm not attracted to him. This is all just a game while I'm protecting Jinki. 

You nodded and the arms loosened.  You hobbled on towards the front door, the adrenaline rush fading enough to feel that throbbing toe again. 

The tiles of the entryway felt cold on your feet, and you peered through the peephole only to see the back of a man shrouded in a dark hoody. 

With caution, you flicked the bolt open and cracked the door. 

"Can I help y-"

There was no way to stop the gasp that flew from your mouth as the stranger spun toward you.  The sudden movement had your heart jumping again before you recognized the shadowed face.  

"Onew!  What in the world?  It's like 3am! What are you doing here?"

A horrible thought occurred to you and you flung the door wide to clutch at his arms.  

"Did something happen?  Is everyone okay?"

You were freaking out all over again, but his face was dead still.

He pushed your hands off his arms, slowly meeting your frantic gaze with the most serious expression you had ever seen on his face.

“What’s wrong, Onew?”

His mouth opened and closed before his tongue swiped over his bottom lips.  His voice held a cracked edge.

“I received some horrible news today…”

You grabbed his arm again and tugged him inside the house, bumping the door closed with your hip as you guided him to sit down on the sofa in the living room.  He moved slowly, like his bones would shatter under the slightest pressure.

He wasn’t meeting your eyes, you noticed, only shifting his stare around the room or down to the floor.

Your breathing sounded loud, and the house creaked quietly in counterpoint.  Onew stayed silent, his mind obviously fighting with something terrible, trying to find a way to tell you about whatever this “horrible news” was….

Finally, you couldn’t take the tension any longer.

“What’s WRONG?  Seriously, you’re killing me here!  Just tell me what’s going on- please!”

You flinched as his head snapped in your direction, his eyes suddenly burning with some emotion you couldn’t name.  Your eyes flicked back and forth rapidly, trying to define this new feeling roiling around him.   It was almost as if…. 

He pulled away from you slightly, leaning back almost infinitesimally in a way that conveyed….what?

As his lip curled, your mind flashed with recognition.  

Revulsion…something is going on that has him so disgusted that his body is reflecting it,

so disgusted that he can’t hide it behind his polite manners…

“I will tell you exactly what’s wrong with me.”  His voice was all off, the consonants clipped and the usual silky tone raspy.  It was if his throat was filled with glass and each word was forced through it, jagged and bleeding.

“I was informed by someone I trust that you were seeing another man.” 

Your heart faltered in your chest.  He knew.  Even knowing the plan that you and Daniel had decided upon, even knowing that it was all to protect the precious man in front of you, your heart still died at the betrayal in his eyes.   You were numb, and although you wanted nothing more than to explain everything, to scream and cry and beg his forgiveness, you were locked in ice. 

It hit you like a hammer.  The revulsion in his attitude.  He was revolted….by you.  You felt the blow like a physical punch to the stomach.  You hunched over with your hands clutching at your stomach, bowed beneath the accusation pouring from the man you loved. 

His voice was cold.

“I defended you.  I was certain you were meeting for business.  You loved me, you said.  So I knew it couldn’t be what that person thought.  It had to be a misunderstanding.”

There was nothing you could say.  You had seen another man, met with him alone.

His voice grew venomous, even as his eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

“But then…,” he wavered then hardened, “but then….you kissed him.  You were seen kissing another man.”  

And still there was nothing you could say to defend yourself.  It was true.  You had kissed Daniel outside the café. 

A distant corner of your mind wondered who had seen you,  but the rest was busy dying by inches.

A/N:  So short chapter is short, and sad chapter is sad, but I figured you guys deserved something for all the patience you'd displayed waiting for me to update.  I swear I have some more written, but its really not good, so I'm actually going back and rewriting the rest of the plot remaining for this story.  Mostly because I do want a happy ending, but I've got to find that magic author mojo to make sure all my little plot twists and characters are wrapped up in some kind of logical yet satisfying way.   I keep starting off okay, but then these bossy little characters keeping running off to do their own crazy things, totally messing up the direction of the story.

START A PETITION! TELL MY CHARACTERS TO OBEY ME!  ARRRRRRGGGGGG!

/end rant

Seriously, for all my subbers out there... I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!  If all of you were actually legal, and I wasn't broke, I would totally buy you all margaritas and cookies until we were either completely smashed, on a major sugar rush, or both.  That's how much I <3 U!