Sakura hasn’t been out of her room for the whole day and Eunbi knows because she has been in the mansion the whole time. Right now it is midnight as the long day comes to a close. Eunbi rests her tired body on the single bed, staring up at the plain white ceilings of her private dorm room. She had spent the whole day on her task, motivated not just because it is her job but because of someone more. That very someone was in the back of her mind the entire time; Eunbi kept checking her comms to see if it was faulty due to the lack of alerts. Absolute radio silence and any details about how Sakura is doing is through word of mouth. Ground agents said her mother had dropped by, staying in Sakura’s room for about an hour before leaving. Kitchen staff mentioned that they were only asked once to send a bowl of ramyun up and no other requests since then. 

Eunbi can leave for her actual bed at home but she doesn't want to. Perhaps it is because she heard about Sakura’s last minute request to head out which eventually was carried out with Chaewon’s protection. Eunbi sighs because it seems like her mind isn’t ready to rest yet. She stretches for her phone by the bedside table and clicks into the web. A whole day has passed and news about Sakura are still trending at the top even after the clarification. She tosses her phone on the mattress in frustration.

Eunbi’s job is to protect her but there’s nothing she can do about emotional ones - especially when she is also guilty for causing her some. The girl has been so brave with her feelings and despite knowing how genuine they are, Eunbi is the monster who looked away.

How she finds herself standing outside Sakura’s room again tonight, instead of her usual suit but in a black hoodie and track pants, is beyond Eunbi’s comprehension. She is worried and it is a cowardly act but the best she can settle with. She is nothing compared to Sakura.

I hope she is sleeping or gaming or just doing something so she doesn’t think about those ugly headlines. Eunbi looks pensively at the door she has long familiarised and is going to conclude with just that when she hears the scream coming from inside.

Eunbi bursts into the room, ready to tackle somebody. Her eyes assess the surroundings fast but all she sees is closed windows and no movements other than the figure sitting on the bed. The moonlight that shines into the room forms the silhouette Eunbi can easily recognise as the figure is seemingly panting. 

“Is everything okay!” Eunbi rushes over to Sakura and the girl who has her head down keeps it there as her body doesn’t stop heaving. With her body already half seated on the bed, Eunbi moves even closer. She is too anxious and she needs to know so she reaches out for Sakura’s face and tilts it to face her.

Sakura, she is crying... and badly too. 

The tear streaks are evident as they run down Sakura’s porcelain white skin. The unmistakable pull at the ends of her lips while Sakura squeezes her eyes close in avoidance. Sakura inhales and the sound of her blocked nose is audible to the agent. 

Just like that time at the movie theatre… when everything changed for Eunbi.

But they are different this time around. They aren’t the quarrelling principal-agent, where one was determined to solve an injustice, another the cause of it. Months later, they are two people who see something more in each other, their pain has evolved. Her want to keep Sakura happy has not wavered since then, it only grew more but it seems like she is failing. Looking at the girl who is weakly trying to avoid Eunbi’s determined pull, Eunbi is pained seeing Sakura ache.

“Tell me.” Eunbi asks softly. She rubs the tear droplet that escapes through Sakura’s closed eyes. “I am here…”

“... I’ll be here.”

“Even when I can’t show it…”

“... I will always…”

For the particularly fragile Sakura, Eunbi’s husky voice brings comfort. Yet it is in what she said that really takes Sakura’s mind off her frightful episode. Slowly, she opens her eyes and with her face still in Eunbi’s hold, she looks into the agent’s concerned ones. 

Looking into the tearful eyes of Sakura now, Eunbi aches even more. “What happened?”

She would answer but Sakura can instead only focus on one thing and that is the obvious expression on Eunbi. The woman before her is not the Captain whose second nature is to hide herself, but a person who is troubled by someone she cares incredibly for. Eunbi isn’t even making an effort to conceal the anguish she is feeling.

“The way you are looking at me now…” Sakura voices out her thought, wanting to address that but instead decides on leaving it incomplete because really, what’s the point? She forces herself to move on but it does not stray far from the defeated theme because it is everything in her life now. Processing everything since she arrived in this new life and she can only come up with a condensed fact. 

“My life is truly complicated.” 

She chuckles sarcastically. Eunbi and her hiding her feelings for a reason Sakura has yet to know, Sakura being under attack by a nation for her country of birth where she has no control of - where is the life she had where everything was just fighting for computing gaming time with her mother, struggling with high school life with her friends?

“This is something I have to accept right?” Sakura says softly, conceding to her new life’s mess. She gently pulls Eunbi’s palms off her face so she can move to reach for the tissues by the bedside table. 

Eunbi understands fully the insinuations behind Sakura’s words and Eunbi should put her supposed self back on: the one determined to keep professional, the one ignoring Sakura’s feelings and her own. Yet her real self is stubborn in the face of a Sakura troubled by the stress of everything. Is it also the guilt of pushing Sakura away that is finally weighing on her? She knows what she should do but it is frustrating because Eunbi doesn’t know what she can do.

Sakura meant for the question to be rhetorical, but blame her stupid heart for wanting more, even as she has given up. Anyhow, Eunbi is in her room, looking genuinely concerned and Sakura probably is not going to sleep again anytime soon, she figures she should just answer Eunbi’s question.

“I had a nightmare. There were people chasing me. I-it was like the night of the gala dinner… but wide in the open. In p-public. Everybody… was just chasing me… screaming at me… t-telling me to get lost. I-” She chokes up again at the vivid nightmare. The headlines are obviously taking its effect on her even as she has been chanting to herself to ignore these blatant lies she is not guilty of. Her mother has also comforted her but it is still hard for her to have never experienced so much hatred before. People behind the keyboards are more malicious because there isn’t a face to them; she will never know if they appear right beside her. Sakura feels , vulnerable and weak to the danger that lurks.

She is scared and the tears that stopped comes back again. Sakura is ashamed to be this weak so she cowers her head in her palms. Sakura hears rustle of her sheets, sensing that Eunbi has moved and suddenly… warm. 

Now standing right in front of Sakura by the side of the bed, Eunbi has brought Sakura in for a tight hug. She buries herself in Sakura’s shoulder because actually hearing the girl saying the news today affected her - to the point she is having a nightmare so vivid it made her scream and wake up - Eunbi feels thoroughly incapable. Not only she can’t fix the problem, she is the cause of another… but it will be that no more.

“You don’t have to accept anything.” Eunbi whispers, barely lifting herself off Sakura’s shoulder. “Tell me what you need.”

Sakura unravels her palms off her face and uses them to push herself back slightly. The movement forces Eunbi to remove herself from Sakura’s shoulder but they are still within Eunbi’s hold - faces inches away from each other.

Sakura wants to see if Eunbi was joking because how can Eunbi be giving her an opening when she has been so guarded the entire time? Yet the look in her eyes are telling, they have been the entire time she’s been here, only now unquestionably so. 

This is what’s going to get Sakura to try. 

“I need you to tell me why.” She pleads. “At least why are you pushing me away all while looking at me like that. Make this one part of my life less complicated because I don’t think I can deal with so much for so long. If you are forcing yourself to not acknowledge your feelings for me, tell me why so we don’t dance around like idiots, having feelings for each other, without a reason not to act.”

Slowly, Eunbi loosens her hold around Sakura, pulling away for real. She doesn’t go far in fact settling right beside Sakura, eyes looking up front. Sakura does the same. The both of them stare longingly out the window - one giving the other time to answer, and the other getting herself ready to open up. 

“I don’t know if you know but I used to work at NIS. It’s similar to KIS, there’s always competition on who's the best and it’s a really close fight. The main difference is who we are protecting, the nation or the nation’s family really… so people don’t really move between agencies because you know if you want to move up the ranks, history... relationships, they all matter. But I did.”

The expression on Eunbi darkens as she starts reminiscing. Sakura notices it because she was naturally drawn to look over as the agent was speaking. She sees as the agent gulps, sensing nervousness but Eunbi continues.

“I moved over slightly after Mi