“And you’re mine.”

Naturally, sleeping so late in the night yesterday would make them wake up late. Except that Soyeon’s body was programmed to wake up so early in the morning. Her parents had jobs that required them to be awake at seven-thirty and so she had to wake up even earlier to prepare their breakfast with her body trembling forcefully at the idea of being late even for ten minutes. This would explain why she was rising awake at seven, blinking blearily at her surroundings.

She feels a tight and secure hold around her body with a soft inhale and exhale of a human body right across hers, leaning against her with such intensity their bodies printed into one. She looks down at the small boy wrapped around her and her heartbeats begin to pace almost right away, reacting to his presence and the tight grip he has on her.

Baekhyun’s pouting in his sleep, his lips resembling an angry duck. There are tear trails around his eyelashes and looking exceptionally dark as they flutter innocently over his cheeks. His arms are still wrapped around her waist and his face is still against her chest, their legs intertwined. He doesn’t seem like he moved an inch from her in his sleep and she remembers a distant memory of him turning into an unmoved block of wood when sleep. She smiles.

He begins to stir a little and she instantly widens her eyes, not wanting to wake him up. He releases an inaudible sound from his lips that resemble a puppy and her lips curl into another smile. He’s practically the epitome of adorableness.

“Hey,” she places a warm hand over his shoulder. “You awake?”

He mumbles stuff incoherently in response, his eyes still sealed shut. There’s a noticeable change in his grip around her as he tightens his arms, and she realizes that he’s just halfway into dreamland.

“Baekhyun,” she pokes his shoulder this time, “Wanna wake up?”

She doesn’t really wish to wake him up. She’d have let him sleep as long as he wants if he wasn’t holding her so tightly. She needs to wake him up just a little so she can move. However, he simply shoos her away with a whine. Thankfully though, his grip softens around her, and she’s able to escape his arm sneakily.

Once outside, she bumps into Suho walking upstairs to his room. His eyes are half shut and his hair is ruffled in all directions. He looks worse for wear and his clothes stink of alcohol and some girl’s acrid perfume. She scrunches her nose at him.

“You look like a cow had ted on your face.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” he murmurs in annoyance, waving his hand through his hair and trying to soften the atrocious mane. “You’re a comedian.”

“Seriously,” she crosses her arms over her chest with a clearly judging look. “You look awful, how much alcohol did you drink yesterday?”

“I don’t knowwwwww,” he whines out loud, throwing his arms around. His eyes are still half-lidded, almost shut. “Do you think a face like this belongs to someone who counts his drinks?”

“Right. You’re right,” she walks ahead, meeting his strides and passing by him. “Maybe you should go back to sleep. Or do you want me to make you a hangover soup?”

“That would be so, so awesome but actually I’m just going to sleep,” he waves her away, yawning. “Finding the soup after I wake up would be awesome though.”

“Okay. Have a nice sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She heads to the kitchen and washes her face from the faucet, opting to prepare food for Baekhyun, knowing that he likes her homely food more than he’d like to admit. Half an hour after she’s cooking and preparing some of the side dishes from the fridge; Baekhyun’s poking his head inside the kitchen, his hair positively ruffled and his eyes scrunched. He looks exactly how Suho has looked earlier but a hundred times cuter. She shoots him a smile.

“Hey, breakfast’s ready.” She tells him, giving him her back and mixing the kimchi with her hands. She hears the sound of his sluggish footsteps getting close, followed by a massive yawn, and turns back to see him getting himself on one of the stools.

“Soyeon?” He calls her name confusedly as if he’s not sure he’s seeing the same person his eyes are seeing.

“Yeah?” She turns her head towards him once again, her voice positively layered with tons of softness and tenderness.

“What the heck happened yesterday?” He asks, getting one of his hands inside his hair to scratch on his head confusedly. There’s hesitation glinting in his eyes before it disappears completely, and he shoots her a scowl as if she’s responsible for his bleariness.

Her smile falls. “Oh. You don’t remember.”

“Remember what?” Then, as if hesitating, he asks. “Why am I in Suho’s house?”

There’s some sort of an emotion that brims inside of her, building up so massively it almost makes her slip the kimchi she’s holding in her hands. Disappointed is an understatement. She’s not just feeling that, she’s also glowering with huge, unadulterated anger. But she’s trying to soothe herself and remind herself that it isn’t his fault he doesn’t remember. That he must’ve drank so much it flooded his body with unnecessary memories he’d flush down the drain. She turns back towards the kimchi and gives him his back, biting her lower lip harshly.

“You were drunk yesterday.” She forces out between her lips.

“I kind of guessed that,” he looks annoyed and irritated but there’s a tinge of awkward guilt there in his eyes, and when he talks next, his voice come out nervous. “Uh, what happened exactly?”

She looks back at him and wonders if she should tell him all about it, her eyes looking sad and vulnerable.

“Nothing,” her tone comes out glum, almost morose. She strengthens her tone and repeats the notion with a lot more intensity than before. “Absolutely nothing.”

Baekhyun’s eyes flash with something she couldn’t quite name once again, but it oddly resembles guilt, and she wonders if he really forgot everything or he’s simply messing with her. “Nothing?” He sounds annoyed.

“Nothing.” She puts the kimchi in the table in front of them and then heads for the stool next to him. She pats the chair next to her, trying to muffle the emotions that overcame her. “Come, I made you breakfast.”

He stands up from the stool he’s sitting on, feeling like he owes her for the food she made, and sits next to her instead. He looks around at the various choices of food and his eyes practically sparkle at the variety. He’s always liked the way she made food and put them in plates as if she’s working to feed an army, and being the food fatty that he is, he always finds it quite endearing.

He picks up his chopsticks and begins to stuff his face, silently eating and trying to pretend her quiet presence next to him is nonexistent. She watches him as he eats, eyes incredibly dull and a heart full with an ache only he can replace. Noticing him watching him, he couldn’t help but apologize.

“Sorry.”

“For what?” She murmurs, finally picking up her chopsticks to eat.

“I don’t know, you look upset.”

“Never mind it,” she takes some part of her food and places it on his rice. “Eat your food.”

He hesitates, and she sees him, but he settles on saying nothing and she settles on that, too. He continues to eat his food with only silence dwelling between them.

-

“Trust me, he’s lying.”

“Excuse me?”

She’s sitting with Suho, five hours after Baekhyun left their house, and having tea. She’s not a tea person but Suho’s head is still pounding after his hungover self with her soup (which he drank like a starved monkey) and with her food, too. He told her that his headaches rarely go with soups but he wanted to eat a bowl anyway. Right now, he had made them green tea and he has been shuffling at cup after cup.

“I swear,” he says, confirming his earlier statement. “Baekhyun is never the type to forget things when he’s drunk and hungover. He has a memory made of steel.”

She had, mistakingly, told him what had happened with Baekhyun and her after waking up to see him eating his food. And regrettably, she told him everything. Right now he insists that Baekhyun’s lying to her, that him forgetting about what happened is a part of a charade he’s playing.

“Why would he lie about what happened?” She blinks her eyes in confusion, drinking her tea. “We came into an agreement, a sort of common ground. Why would he pretend it didn’t happen?”

“He’s in denial?” Suho stares at her in disappointment at not guessing Byun Baekhyun’s intentions. “Because he’s scared? Or my absolute favorite, he’s a jerk. Why didn’t you tell him exactly what happened?”

“Because there’s no point!” She exclaims, placing her teacup on the table in front just so she can throw her hands around. “He doesn’t remember it and I don’t want to put him in a position where he has to choose something he doesn’t want to choose because he’s sober.”

“Didn’t he tell you to ask him when he’s sober?” Suho gives her an entirely too dissatisfied look.

“That’s about a completely different subject, Suho.” She blushes a little remembering how forward she was, and how Baekhyun’s response has been.

“So you have the guts to ask him for kisses but you have no guts in asking him to remember it? Damn, didn’t expect you for a quitter.”

“This is already hard for me as it is,” Soyeon groaned, putting her face on the table and hiding from the world. “Please refrain from any side comments.”

For a moment there, she looks clearly upset and so he stops commenting about her misery and about how much of a coward she is. She thought she’s already done with being the fearful person that she is, that she’s going to be courageous, that she’s going to hold bravery in her hands and squish it into liquid. She thought a lot about the kind of person she wants to become, and now the first obstacles have made her regress right into the terrified little cat that she is.

“We’re all meeting for lunch today,” Suho places a comforting hand over her shoulder. “You’re coming too, right?”

“Right.” She raises her head from the table, staring blankly ahead. “I’ll go get ready.”

“Hey, wait,” he grabs her wrist before she can even stand, and when she turns to him questioningly, his eyes are a soft shade of honey. “Everything will be okay, alright?”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “hopefully.”

-

It’s safe to say that lunch has become a huge mess. Suho told them all that he’s paying for their food and they can order what they want; but he only really was doing so to cheer her up. Everyone got so excited except for her, and she sent the older guy a pout. Nonetheless, everyone is currently shooting their orders at Suho and completely overwhelming the boy.

“I want a hamburger! Double cheese and double lettuce and double everything!” Sehun exclaims, practically throwing his menu away and bouncing in his seat like a child. He’s back to being the childish person he is, her mind provided.

“We’re not in an American fast food restaurant, Sehun, stop acting like an idiot.” Suho rolls his eyes from his seat across him.

“Can I order the oysters?” Kyungsoo politely requests, even raising his hand like a kindergartner. He shoots her a smirk when he notices her watching him, and she shrivels back against her chair while avoiding his eyes.

Ever since they arrived at the restaurant