Is this real? Am I still alive????

YES I AM

AHAHA

HERE’S AN UPDATE SWEETHEARTSSSS

UPVOTE BECAUSE I AM PITIFUL AND LIFE IS

ESPECIALLY COLLEGE

AHAHA *mad laughter*

I’m sitting on my couch in my living room, doing nothing of purpose aside from staring into space and thinking about Baekhyun’s—Mr. Byun’s words of before. Did I ever stand a chance of ever being in a relationship that isn’t connected to Sehun? Maybe it’s not about the chances, since I don’t have any and I know that I own none, but maybe it’s about the possibilities. Am I willing to take one? The tingling sensation that soon swallows my heart and body at the mere idea becomes an enough answer to my overheating thoughts. I shake my head, or try to, so I don’t think about anything regarding Baekhyun, and my eyes come across Sehun, who’s walking out of his room to head, possibly, toward the front door so he can leave for work. I stop him right away.

“Sehun, can I talk to you?”

“I can’t, I’m busy.” He grumbles distractedly, his arms held at his chest length and his face lowered down, staring at his wrist. I begin to frown.

“Doing what?”

“Getting ready to work, as you can see.” It’s rare of Sehun to show any sort of mock or sarcasm in his words, or voice, since he considers aloofness as a best trait for a business man. He isn’t wrong precisely, since business is all about deceit and marketing, which means faces are a default in the work space. However, he is so adamant on closing off his feelings he forgets he has them, until they unconsciously leave him. I can already feel myself start to fiercely glower, but I take a deep breath to still myself from such uproarious tension.

“We can talk while you’re getting ready for work.” I roll my eyes though, because I just can’t help not rolling them.

“Is it important? Because I'd rather not get distracted.”

“You’re literally strapping a watch on your wrist, how can anything distract you from that?” My voice, even in my own ears, is ringing with tension, and I’m not so ignorant not to realize Sehun noticing that too. He pauses in whatever business with his watch that ceased his concentration to zero, and pulls his face off of his hands to look at me questioningly. There’s a simple, minuscule tick to his brows that could have easily gone unnoticed, had I not been so used to Sehun’s sudden bursts of emotions, being a master in reading them. I purse my lips, rising from my position — from the couch — to walk toward him. He watches me silently as I stop in front of him and reach to fiddle with strapping his watch for him. He lets me, keeping mum in order to give me space so I can say what I want to say.

Slowly, I open my mouth. “Did you ever date anyone?”

“Date...” Sehun slowly blinks his eyes, and I never witness such haziness in someone’s eyes before now. “..anyone?”

“Yes?” I murmur unsurely, as if I should rephrase my question so he’d understand it. “Since we told each other we can date whoever we want in spite of our marriage, did you ever do it?”

Sehun and I’s marriage is not obtained from love or anything. We didn’t fall in love, get married and then fall out of love. It’s simply a marriage of convenience, of business, of enlarging both our family’s empires. Every one of my siblings went through it with different businesses partners, and everyone in Sehun’s family did the same too. It’s just convenient that the two of us came to be together. I heard from my sisters that it’s only right to feel like they want to experience a true relationship outside of marriage, but mostly, they all ended up in failure because eventually they all had to come back to the relationship they already have, love existent or not.

It’s only fair Sehun and I pose the same terms to each other. To have new experiences whenever we can.

Sehun stays silent, which shouldn’t have bothered me since he stays silent a lot, sometimes even in important discussions. Normally, Sehun isn’t talkative, he never is, even when the two of us were really small and were forced to become friends. I’ve always grown accustomed to his silence. It’s a breath of fresh air in a contaminated world of too much nonsense to say (and stench). It’s almost like a breeze that saves you after a week of burning sun. However, this type of silence that has befallen on him is different. He’s almost tense, superfluously focusing his eyes on a corner of the wall across him with a sort of leverage over his shoulders, weighing him down. It seems like my question brought a taboo sense of realization that I shouldn’t have been presented with over him, so when he shakes his head and answers with a tender No, dismantling his suddenly quivering iris', I realize he’s lying.

Sehun’s lying to me.

He’s never lied to me before.

“Who is it?” I say, I can’t help myself, in spite of his blatant no, and he forces his eyes off of the wall to look at me with surprisingly, a glare.

“I just said no, Jangmi, what the hell?”

Sehun never really curses, or sounds so upset when speaking (even if his words are directed to me) or even look so troubled and dejected with the mere subject of ever being in a relationship. I’m aware of the lie lacing his tone, the shiver going up his arms, and I’m certain of the dwindling sparkle in his dulled eyes taking over. I feel like I want to sew my lips shut so I don’t ask more, especially when he turns around and starts to walk away, but the curiosity building up within me is unquenchable. I reach over for his bicep to stop him, and he twists to face me with another glare.

“You’ve really been in a relationship?”

He glares more, maybe because of the breathlessness in my voice from disbelief, or maybe because of the tiny, small hope blossoming in my heart, hope that I too, could fall in love and have a relationship, with or without being wedded.

He’s not special, right?

“It doesn’t matter, Jangmi, it doesn’t matter whether I’ve been in a relationship or anything. We’re married on paper only anyway, it’s nothing special,” he sighs deeply when he sees my frown, because even if we truly married for business purposes, this relationship doesn’t exactly mean nothing. “Look, you can date whoever you want, it’s fine with me. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve done it too. We’re not in love, and my relationships shouldn’t make yours any less acceptable.”

What?

“Sorry, it came out wrong,” Sehun sighs again, so slowly, so lowly, and removes my tight hand from his arm. The move feels forceful, like doing such a minimal thing requires a lot of power and strength he doesn’t possess, not at that moment. “We’re married by contract, which doesn’t make it any less legal, but we shouldn’t care about that, since our hearts are not twined together. Your relationship, if you want to have one, may be wrong, but it shouldn’t really concern you. Do you really want to date someone?”

I know that his last question is his way of changing the subject subtly because he doesn’t want to discuss it or tell me of it, and I know that I loathe this about him, his way of changing subjects that shouldn’t be so easily swayed, but this time, only this time, I allow him to do what he likes.

“I don’t know.” I shrug.

“Maybe you should,” Sehun shrugs back, and the move is awkward through his tight and broad shoulders. “A little bit of experience might bring some life into you.”

“It didn’t work for you, it seems. You have almost little to no life in you.” I say without any filtering to my words, and if I should feel a bit of remorse by the surprised, wide eyes of his, I don’t, I only feel slightly like I’m treading on dangerous ground. But then Sehun’s horror fades away.

He gives me a smile, the first one in a long while, and it’s so sad it makes my knees buckle.

“No, it outrightly away whatever remains of it.”

-

I look at the blue dress lying over my bed with silky creases with a mind traveling far away from my head, eyes wide open but thoughts completely non-existing. Should I truly wear the blue dress so he’ll match his tie with it? Am I in favor of him doing such a thing? I find that these answers are very easy to answer; it’s the absolute easiness in doing such that terrifies me.

What makes him so different? I’ve had a lot of shameless men - and younger boys - trying to court me out of my wedded-self, but none of them succeeded for I’m not always so ready to accept them like how I turn out to be with Baekhyun. What makes him so different? Is it the way he makes my body react to him? Is it the way his eyes glitch a little red, no doubt because of his excessive emotions, whenever he sees me? Is it the traveling shivers springing up my body at his presence? Or is it the massive warmth on his smile that resembles a stone from hell, solidly dangerous but just as equally as charming? What makes that man so different?

“That’s a nice choice,” I hear a mumble across my room, coming from my door, and I turn around quickly with a gasp of surprise, finding Sehun leaning on the doorframe of my bedroom, eyeing my gown with a blank eyes. “It matches with my tie.” Sehun continues.

“Your tie?” I ask, looking up to see his own tie, and Sehun walks further inside, closing the door behind him with a swift gesture of his hands, leaving a small space open.

“It’s silk.” Sehun says, running his hand over his own tie.

“Oh.”

“What’s on your mind?” Sehun asks himself, his voice low and gruff. I hear the tread of his feet getting even closer, and his scent of tender musk attacks my nose when he’s behind me, leaning over my smaller frame to look at the dress himself. I run my hands over the silk fabric of my own piece, my eyes settled on it but my mind driftwd away away, wandering to the conversation we had before this morning.

“What was she like?”

“Who?” Sehun feigns innocence at my question, and I hear it in his voice before seeing it in his face. I roll my eyes, turning around to face him. I miscalculate his closeness to me, since I never thought he’d stand so close to me when he'd never done it before. The closeness seems to surprise him as well as he takes a few steps apart from me. I do the same, the smell of musk slowly beginning to dissipate.

“Sehun, the girl that took your love away?” Again, I roll my eyes, and I never really counted how many times I rolled my eyes around him at his ignorance. It’s the first trait that’s truly mine which I showed him, a trait that everyone hissed at me not to dare do. Sehun himself was shocked when I first began doing it, but quickly got over it when he realized I got over a lot of his shortcomings.

“Does it hurt to speak of her?” I ask again, when silence stretched for a longer time than necessary from his part. And Sehun releases a deep sigh that resembled an anguished cry.

“No, not that,” he sits down on my bed, beside my dress, and I understand that he can’t speak of something requiring such massive feelings while his legs carried his weight. He needed to be in absolute balance. It makes me a bit sad to see him so dejected. “It doesn’t hurt. Actually, I don’t feel anything at all, not even remorse, which is why it’s scary to think of her.”

“How is it possible that mentioning her brings you no feelings?” I murmur unsurely, wrapping my arms around myself. “Did she take them all with her?”

“I believed so at one point,” he answers, looking across him at the wall ahead with eyes reminiscing. “She left me so empty, but when I think about it when I’m sober, it feels more like I gave them all away willingly.”

“You’re nothing without her.” I whisper my thoughts out loud, and when I realize what I said, I purse my lips in remorse. Sehun, however, doesn’t look very angry with my non-too-filtered nonsense as he looks extremely amused, the twinkling of pain shifting into a twinkle of fragile joy.

“Are you always this... curious?”

“Maybe. I haven’t always been too honest about that around you.” I smile at him because there’s a small, tender but obvious glimpse of curiosity in his eyes himself, his eyes which are usually dead full of nothing, are now full of emotions.

“Are you wearing the blue dress?” His voice is a little more comfortable than usual and I realize, with an obvious startle and a blink to my eyes, that the conversation between us made him feel tremendously closer to me than before. It took an exchange of few words between us to close a gap an entire year of silence couldn’t subdue. I guess silence is not entirely always the correct answer.

“Yes, I think.”

“Why are you hesitating? It’s pretty.”

-

Baekhyun ends up truly matching his tie with my dress, I realize, when Sehun and I enter the ball, but since Baekhyun’s not totally aware of what shade of blue I’ll end up wearing, his blue turns out to be a little darker than the soft baby blue shade of mine. My eyes seem to have an electrical field of their owns that attracted to the magnetic aura that surrounds him, as they immediately fell toward him, standing a few bodies away from me and watching me as well, a small tick to his lips, showing his vampiric fangs.

Pretty. He’s so pretty.

He’s wearing a white suit, which I never really liked on guys, but he’s making it look like the color is made solely for him. The tailored edges of the fabric stretches across his chest, his shoulders, and I shudder in a pleasant way at the beautiful glitter of feelings in his pretty eyes. He’s smiling now, fully at me, and he’s ticking the glass of champagne he’s holding downward in a greeting sign. I smile, shy under his scrutinizing stare and whole aura.

“I’ll go find Mr. Kim before he does that and harasses you again,” Sehun, whose arm I'm wrapped around, leans over to whisper in my ear, and I turn away from Baekhyun’s night-resembling eyes to watch my husband. Sehun isn’t looking at me, his own face shifted toward Mr. Kim, who is across us. I notice Sehun’s scowl and try and suppress my smile. “You can go and do.. whatever. Maybe you should go eat, we didn’t get a chance to eat dinner before coming here.”

He drops my arm and leaves before I can say a word, not like I’m planning to, and I don’t even think about Baekhyun coming closer, as he’s already next to me, a sleek hand falling on the hip of mine close to him, his fingers spreading apart as his hand traces upper planes of my back. I shiver as I turn to him.

“We should have discussed the shades,” Baekhyun whispers in my left ear that’s next to his mouth, his warm breath falling down my earlobe and neck. I shiver. “Now we don’t exactly look that much like we came together.”

“Everyone here knows I’m Sehun’s wife.” I whisper back in the same degree of gentleness his voice always seems to drop into when regarding me, and I swivel around him a little bit so my shoulder blade brushes against his chest, my body aching to be intwined with his hear even more. Baekhyun leans against my ear closely, and I feel his lips tickle my ear when he whispers again.

“So what is this about Mr. Kim harassing you?”

I turn fully now, so that I’m facing him, and he doesn’t drop his hand from my exposed back even though half of me wishes he would. He brings me closer, until I’m aligned with his face, my nose moments away from brushing his. His eyes and I are falling into a deep pool of intimate intertwine. I don’t seem to regard the agenda I’m in, since a married woman should not be in such close contact to a man whose not her husband. But the haze of being around him dulls my senses, and I don’t think about it.

“He’s a man.” I whisper, or mumble. I don’t know, my voice is so small, ringing between us two like I’m sharing a secret. Baekhyun’s lips continue to curl so mysteriously. “He doesn’t differentiate when to stop touching a woman who is not available. Or willing.”

Baekhyun’s smile becomes a lot more soft after that, less indifferent and mysterious, and more tender like white dandelion.

“Should I fire him for you, my sweetheart?” Baekhyun continues to whisper secretly between the two of us, and I raise a scandalized eyebrow up, a bit of surprise painting my face.

“Fire him? He works under you?”

“Everyone here works under me, love. Even your husband.”

“I thought it’s a partnership,” I murmur in confusion. What‘s he talking about? “What’s between you and him.”

“Sure it is,” Baekhyun shrugs casually, like the matter didn’t interest him and he’s only doing so for my sake. “Until I bought seventy percent of his company for a good price.”

“Sehun would never agree to selling the company.” I retaliate, a little anger lacing my voice at my ignorance. Why didn’t Sehun tell me of that? Is Baekhyun really telling the truth?

“Of course, sweetheart; his father did.”

I breathe a little loudly then, turning my head away from Baekhyun’s vision to search for Sehun as if seeing him right now would tell