“You know what’s the best cure for a broken heart?” Seulgi asks through a mouthful of ice cream.

Joohyun wrinkles her face in disgust, tossing her a box of tissues. Kyungha is buried under a mound of blankets. “Hello? Are you still alive under there?”

Kyungha doesn’t answer, and then she finally says, “I miss him,” after a long beat.

Seulgi adds, “but you’re also the one who broke up with him?” She grunts, ignoring Seulgi. “Hey, I’m just saying.”

Joohyun swats at Seulgi with one of Kyungha’s pillow. “Stop eating her damn ice cream and stop making her feel bad!”

Seulgi gasps, holding her hands up to her chest in defense. “No, I’m not! Ugh, I’m just tired of her moping all the time. She mopes at work. She mopes at home. When was the last time she actually listened to anything we talked about? She never answers her text messages. It’s terrible.”

“I’m currently dying here,” she snaps in return.

Joohyun pulls the blankets off of her. “Listen, I support whatever decision you make, But Kyungie, you need to stop being a sad little . I will tear my hair out if I have to listen to Seul whine about how you won’t do this or that.”

“Let me live, goddamn it,” she growls, sitting up. “I feel…empty,” she sniffles.

Seulgi groans, “oh my god, here we go again. Yes, yes. This isn’t the millionth time that you’ve told us that you don’t have a heart anymore, but since I’m Mother Theresa, I will listen as many times as you want me to—“

Joohyun smacks her with a pillow, and she shrieks, jumping at the latter. Kyungha sighs, pinching her temples. “Don’t kill her, Joo-Joo.”

Seulgi whines, “oh come on! Why am I the bad guy?”

“Because you’re not helping the situation,” Joohyun hisses.

Kyungha rolls her eyes. “I’m not that broken. We can talk about him, you know?” Then, she shakes her head frivolously. “Nope, just kidding. On second thought, I can’t.”

Seulgi tackles the younger girl. “When will you talk about it then? Oh my god, I am dying here. Give me something to chew on. All you’ve said is that you guys are done. I’m going to drown in suspense.”

Joohyun shakes her head. “Ignore her. She’s being an idiot.”

“Oh shut up, don’t tell me I’m the only one curious.”

Kyungha rakes a hand in her hair. Then, she leans back against her headboard and begins to lay out the entire story.

She tells them about her walking in on them four years ago. Then, she tells them about seeing Minjung at Sehun’s apartment. Seulgi breaks the wooden spoon in her hand.

She painstakingly recounts their fight and her confrontation. And then, silence. Joohyun doesn’t say anything as Seulgi begins to chant death threats toward her ex-boyfriend.

“I swear the next time I see him at work I’m going to—“

Joohyun holds out a hand and pinches Seulgi’s mouth closed. “Seul, shut up for a second. I have something to say.” Then, she turns to Kyungha with a serious expression. “What do you really think about all of this?”

Kyungha’s mouth dries. “I don’t think he cheated on me,” she whispers, covering her face. “I’m upset that he won’t tell me what’s going on. I don’t know why he’s protecting her.”

Seulgi snarks, “because he’s a damn coward.”

Joohyun smacks her again, ignoring Seulgi’s curses. “I think that there’s definitely something going on under the surface. I don’t want to on your choices, but I don’t think he was lying when he said that he loved you.” Then, she reaches out to caress Kyungha’s head. “And you feel the same way about him, don’t you?”

Kyungha bites her trembling lips. “I can only imagine that’s why everything hurts like a ,” she replies.

Seulgi groans. “Damn it. Now it got all complicated again. Well, do you doubt his feelings for you?”

“No,” she answers, toying with her necklace. “I think he loves me, but he didn’t fight for me. He’d never fought for me. I don’t know if I can trust him intimately.”

Joohyun hangs her head. “I wish there was some easy way for you to pry everything out of him. We’ve only heard Minjung’s perspective, but I don’t know if I can trust her. You’ve said it yourself. She’s a terrible person. Kyungha, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re in the dark, and you’re anxious. It must feel crappy.”

Kyungha lays her head on Joohyun’s shoulder. “Very.”

Seulgi snorts. “This is why I suggested we go clubbing, but did you listen to me? No, I think not and look where we’re now—ow! Okay, I’ll stop talking.”

Kyungha and Joohyun laugh, shaking their heads. “Let’s get wasted,” Kyungha suggests.

Seulgi’s eyes twinkle. “ing finally!”

It was a terrible idea. It was probably the worst idea she’d ever had in ages. Other than Sehun, but that was another issue.

Kyungha cracks an eye open, and the sunlight is blinding. She winces, touching her head to make she was still in one piece. She groans, rolling off her bed. But it wasn’t her bed. She sat up, eyes wide. Where the hell was she?

She trips off of the bed. The moment she tries to stand, rolling nausea hits her like a storm. Kyungha bends over, dry heaving.

Nothing came out. Of course, she drank a ton of booze on an empty stomach. There was a reason why she never drank. For ’s sakes. Every part of her body was shaking from the exhaustion of standing.

Eventually, she lets herself sink to the floor, crawling to get out of the room whilst clutching her head. “Water,” she moans, particularly to no one.

Someone stands over her. Kyungha doesn’t even attempt to look up. She was already at her limit, crawling out here. This person bends down beside her, putting his arms around her to help her up.

She sighs in relief, leaning her weight against him. Yes, him. Strong, broad chest. Soft skin. Wait. What? Kyungha jerks back.

Sehun stares at her with an unreadable expression. “Good morning. And here I thought you were dead. You were definitely sleeping like one.”

Kyungha looks away. She wasn’t used to seeing him again. At the hospital, she was good at avoiding him since it was a big place. Which was why Kyungha couldn’t fathom what the hell she was doing, waking up in his bed. She whips her head around, scanning her surrounding.

“She’s not here. If you’re looking for her,” he confirms. “Minjung.”

Kyungha narrows her eyes, and then she speaks after taking whatever the hell this was in. “Why am I here?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me that?”

It’s only been three weeks. Three weeks since she’d last caught sight of him. The pain was still raw, but at least she could breathe.

She rolls her eyes, trying to detach herself from him. He smells good. And she’d missed everything about him. His fingers. His lips. His shoulders. His—. Kyungha quickly tells her mind to shut up. When he lets her go, she almost falls face-first into the floor. “Whoa there,” he frets, catching her by the waist. “I know you hate my existence, but let’s get you back to being human, and then you can hate me all you want again.”

He sounds so casual about it. Like he was familiar with this. It’d made Kyungha feel weird. Her stomach does cartwheels. Why did this feel weird to her? She was supposed to hate him, but she didn’t. She’d just wanted him to be honest.

He sits her down on the barstool. Kyungha places an elbow on the counter, holding her head because it was simply too heavy for her neck. “Why are you acting so normal?” She asks.

Sehun flicks his eyes to her, lifting his brows. “Why? Did you want to see me curled up on the floor, perhaps crying my eyes out?”

“Yes,” she says disdainfully.

He snorts. “You’re two weeks too late.”

Kyungha sits back, lifting her head to see Sehun look at her. “Stop looking at me like that,” she barks, grabbing the glass of water out of his hand. Then, she proceeds to chug it, ignoring his searching eyes. She’d drained the whole glass, but no amount of liquid was going to get her back to normal again. Her head still hurt like a , and her tongue felt like she’d spent the night chewing on sandpaper.

“Looking at you like what?” He finally asks after a long silence.

“Like you’re trying to read into my soul. Cut it out. It’s creepy.”

“Right, a force of habit.” But he still doesn’t look away.

“We broke up,” she states, crossing her arms.

He hums, “I figured.”

Kyungha squints her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be more affected? I don’t know—more awkward?”

Sehun leans onto the marble, with his chin propped up with his elbow. “Appearances can be deceiving, Kyungha.”

Yeah, no. She wasn’t ready to hear him use her actual name. Not like that. The memories of being together seemed so fleeting. Like a distant dream that she had last night. She didn’t want to believe it, and she was the one who ended it.

It was strange, seeing him so normal.

“I don’t know what the hell to feel right now,” she confesses, rubbing her eyes.

“I made some porridge. Can you eat?” He places down a bowl in front of her. She picks up the spoon beside it.

Kyungha gags when she places the spoon inside . There’s her answer. She clutches her stomach and trips off the stool. “Bathroom,” she moans.

Sehun points to the door down the hall. She stumbles her way, playing pinball with the walls until she’s leaning over his pristine toilet and emptying her contents.

But there wasn’t very much content other than water and bile. You could imagine how pleasant that’d felt.

She feels him crouching beside her, gathering the loose strands of hair that was on its way into the mix of vomit. Why did he still care? How was she supposed to get over him if he’d treated her like this?

Kyungha continues to vomit, but he’s right there, rubbing her back. She feels the tears prick at her eyes. When she finishes, he reaches for a tissue and hands her one. She wipes , attempting to stand on her own. She tries to play off her tears as tears that were vomit induced.

Thankfully, he doesn’t ask her because she didn’t know if she could open to lie again. He helps her to the sink and stands by as she rinses and face. “Why does it look like a bachelor pad in here? Don’t you live with her?” Kyungha asks after she wipes her face off with the towel he handed her.

“I live alone,” he murmurs, putting space between them again. Her stomach falls a little. No, no, no. This was bad. She’d needed to get out now. Oh god. She was going crazy from missing him too much.

When she returns to the bar counter, she plops back down, grabbing the spoon again. She attempts to eat, and to her surprise, it goes down better this time. In between bites, she falters. “Did you love me?”

Sehun is silent as he slides her refilled glass of water and drops some painkillers in a tiny dosage cup. Then, he’s looking at her again. But Kyungha isn’t used to this Sehun. The serious, non-joking Oh Sehun. He seems so distant, but it didn’t look like he was doing it on purpose. Or maybe he was. Kyungha couldn’t tell anymore. Not with her brain melting inside her skull, and her conflicted heart screaming at her.

“I wouldn’t lie about that,” he finally answers.

Kyungha isn’t satisfied. She’s between wanting to punch him in the face and kissing him until she suffocates. “Oh.”

Sehun elaborates, “and just so you know, I don’t mean past tense. I do love you still. Very much so.” But he says it in such a lighthearted, easy way that it all it does is confuse Kyungha even more. This was a strange situation. Were conversations between newly exes usually this pleasant? No, she’d thought not. They were the weird ones.

“Are you okay?” She ends up blurting. Why the hell was she worried about him when she should be worried about her own beat-up heart?

“No,” he replies. And for the first time today, he’s not saying it while holding eye contact. “I’m not, but I’ll be fine. How about you? Are you doing okay?” His gaze is back on her, and she feels the need to inhale more air.

Kyungha swallows. “No,” she admits, appreciating his small truth. Even if it wasn’t everything she’d wanted to hear from him. At least, he’d maintained respect for her even after all of their shortcomings. “I missed you. Everyday.” The words had come out before she could stop them. She was going to shave her head off if she drank another drop of alcohol.

Sehun purses his lips, conflict falling over his features. “Don’t say things like that. You broke up with me.”

She clenches her jaw, knowing that he was right. But still, she’d felt a surge of anger. “I did break up with you, but you’re so ing off-putting right now that I’m confused.”

“I thought you knew me well. I guess not so much anymore, huh?”

“ off, you don’t get to turn this around on me.”

Well, there goes all the pleasantries.

He furrows his forehead, but before she can catch the anger in his eyes, he turns away.

Kyungha stands, pushing up against him. “Stop hiding your emotions from me. You don’t ever learn, do you?”

When he looks at her, his anger seizes her. “Stop it. I can’t do this with you. Don’t tell me it’s over, and then the next minute, you’re acting as you care about me again. I can’t ing go back and forth with you.”

“I was only telling the truth! Something you’d be familiar with if you’d tried it sometime.”

Sehun pushes back against her. “I never lied to you, you ing know that. I hid things from you, but that was because it wasn’t your business—“

The audacity he had. Kyungha shoves her palms into his chest, knocking him backward. “I was your girlfriend! You said you loved me!”

“But you didn’t even trust me!”

“Because I thought you were cheating on me, you er!”

She’s breathing hard, and he’s breathing hard. They’re nose to nose, glaring at each other. And Kyungha does the opposite of what she should be doing. She leans in, capturing his lips roughly. But he kisses her back, tangling his fingers in her hair.

She moans when he bites down on her lip. Anger. Rage. Irritation. All of the sorts. She’d felt them from his kiss. He’d felt so good. So good that she’d almost forgot why they were fighting in the first place. And as much as she’d wanted to rip his heart out and spoon feed it to him, she was mesmerized by his anger.

With his hand under her , she jumps, letting him catch her. Kyungha twists her fingers into his locks, pulling. She wasn’t being gentle. She’d wanted to hurt him, and he wasn’t being kind either. Kyungha’s eyes flutter closed, mouth ajar when he pushes his against her.

“Stop,” she mutters, her fingers sliding down onto his chest. She pushes her palm against him.

Sehun stiffens. His lips stop moving on her skin. No more butterfly kisses. No more wandering hands. He drops her onto the bar counter. Kyungha and Sehun remain flushed together. He clutches onto the marble on her respective sides, pressing his forehead in the space between her neck and shoulder.

His body quivers against hers. He in a breath, his crying muffled against her skin. Kyungha wraps both of her arms around his neck, holding him tightly. He was right. Appearances were deceiving.

Sehun and Kyungha were so ed.

“Go away,” she shouts miserably. “Kyungsoo, I told you. I’m not ing hungry.”

The knocking resumes, and Kyungha finally throws off her blanket in rage. She pulls open her door, preparing to mouth off whoever this person was.

What she didn’t expect to see was Haeeun standing there with a sheepish smile. Kyungha sighs. Great. Her brother was switching it up on her. “Sorry, I’ve been temperamental lately,” she apologizes to the older woman.

Haeeun pats her lightly. “It’s okay. I understand. I’m here to talk to you.”

“My brother called you, didn’t he?”

She laughs lightly. “He’s just worried about you, Kyungie. We all are.” Kyungha backs away from the door to let her in. Haeeun follows Kyungha, plopping beside her on her bed. “How are you doing?”

“I’m coping as well as I can,” she answers.

Haeeun nods. “By not eating?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“By not sleeping?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“And by—“

Kyungha groans, “if you’re here to lecture me, the door is that way.”

Haeeun and Kyungha have never been close, not in the way she’s close to her older brother. Kyungsoo, Jongin, Sehun, and Haeeun had shared a bond that she couldn’t get past. It was similar to what she had with her friends, so she wasn’t bothered by it. But because of their distance, Kyungha didn’t know Haeeun very well.

She’d known a few things, but that was only because her brother had told her. So she didn’t expect Haeeun to remain calm. She knew that the older had a temper since she wasn’t afraid to go off on her husband.

“Kyungha, I know how you feel. Believe it or not. I went through something very similar, but in my case, my husband actually abandoned me,” she recalls bitterly.

Kyungha stills. “What do you mean?”

Haeeun continues, “hm, well. As you know, he was my teacher, and I was his student. Completely illegal. We screwed around during my senior year, and he’d ended up quitting because of me. I had a situation with someone—my . And he promised me that he’d be there for me, but surprise, surprise, he left me for three months.

And it was the longest, most miserable three months of my life. I stopped eating, sleeping, school work—I stopped taking care of myself. I was hung up on him, and I felt betrayed. I thought I would kill him the first chance I got to see him again.”

Kyungha comments, “but he’s still somewhat alive.”

Haeeun’s lip twitches. “I dumped his , but the universe was set on putting both of us through tragedies. Believe me, I healed myself. I got my together eventually, and I knew I could live without him. But, Kyungha, after everything I went through—after everything he’d gone through—I chose him again. He was worth the fight, and I will never regret it.

So my point is that you have to choose. Either you get back together with Sehun or you get up and start living your life again, without him. Choose. You can’t do this forever. It’s not healthy. I would know. I almost flunked high school,” she adds a tasteful joke that makes Kyungha crack a smile.

“What made you ultimately get back with him?” Kyungha asks, her voice small.

Haeeun hums, thinking. “My intuition.”

“That’s…” Kyungha trails off, not knowing what to say.

The girl beside her chuckles. “Vague. Yeah, it is. But, honey, I can’t make the decision for you. You’ll have to come to the realization on your own. I can tell you one thing though. I’ve never seen Sehun love anyone—truly love anyone before. Not until you came along. I don’t know how you feel, but time’s a ticking. Don’t live with regrets, Kyungha.

I’d known Baekhyun two years prior before I met him again as his student. And we had a falling out, and my regret toward my actions during that time will never stop haunting me. I may be happy now, but it took a lot of convincing for my younger self. I don’t want you to have to go through that.

Sehun’s my best friend too, and you already know how that’s going for me. But it’s not just him. It’s miserable seeing how sad Kyungsoo is because he’s constantly worried about you. You’re like my little sister, and I truly want the best for you. You can choose to heed my words or hell—you can even ignore me. I probably don’t know .

At least try to take care of yourself, okay? Sehun won’t stop asking us if you’re doing okay. I will end up in jail with a murder charge on my hands if this doesn’t stop.”

Kyungha bites back a grin. Haeeun’s sense of humor was killer. She could see why everyone was so drawn to the woman. “Thank you,” she says, pulling Haeeun into a hug.