The rain continued to fall, and with every crystal drop, it seemed to only hit harder onto the soft surfaces of her chaste skin. Sparks of electricity lit the sky as opposed to the usual flittering down of snowflakes, but Taegi wasn’t scared. If you thought about it, it was like the heavens were crying for her. She felt herself go numb against the biting elements of the night, and for the last fifteen minutes she hadn’t cared in the slightest what was going to happen to her next, when suddenly she felt the water stop. Looking up through the drenched locks of her hair, Taegi was not greeted by the night sky like how she anticipated, but rather she discerned a familiar awning– no, wait, an umbrella, and an extended arm that had been helping to support it from dropping onto her crouching figure.

Taegi followed along the metal handle of the shielding, and, as though magically, there he was. His hair was up tonight and slightly gelled forward in a stylish appeal, making his forehead bare, which didn’t match at all the expression, which had turned stern, plastered onto his face. Taegi suddenly felt comfortable, but at the same time uncomfortable; comfortable because she knew that there was still someone she could rely on, and uncomfortable because he just so happened to be the last person on Earth she had wanted to see her in such a ruined state. For many seconds, the drumming of the rain against the umbrella and his heavy breathing were the only things she could hear.

His shoulders were damp in the weather and he was puffing, like he had just run a whole city through the storm searching for her.

Mouthing barely, only one name could escape her lips.

“Myungsoo oppa... How did you…”

And with that name, came also a series of thoughts.

Kim Myungsoo.

The guy who lived next door.

The guy who was the closest she had to a family member.

The guy who once told her he liked her, and probably still did.

For as long as Taegi had known him, she knew he had had the biggest crush on her. She’d kindly rejected him a few times, and since those days, he had not bugged her with his confessions; but nothing was ever enough to convince her that he’d really ever stopped liking her. Taegi’s reason had not always been Sungyeol, but now that her reason was invalid, she was even more afraid than before. How could she continue to put up such a facade in front of Myungsoo when the reason behind it had crumbled?

It was like they had known each other since childhood, but technically, they hadn’t met until their later years in high school. Myungsoo was a traveller, someone who didn't like to get too touchy with anyone, and even now, although he was enrolled into the photography department at the university, he wasn’t a frequent attendee. Unless it was with Taegi, he enjoyed it away from others and seemed to have preferred his cinematography lessons home schooled. Apparently, once you were labeled a bad student at the school, that was what you were for the rest of your time there. That much Taegi learned.

Yet even so, for all these years, he and his parents were her only guardians. They were even on nice enough terms that they rented out the whole rooftop duplex next door to theirs to her. After the death of her parents, Myungsoo's family checked her out of the hospital and took her in. They must have felt really bad for witnessing the car crash and not being able to do anything to save her parents in time. They always wanted a daughter anyway, was what they would tell her every single time Taegi wanted to refuse the offer. In the end, she withdrew her pride, and for as long as she could remember, she'd been staying with the Kim's.

Along with everything else they had arranged for her, Taegi understood this as Myungsoo’s parents already having agreed on her and their son’s being together. They would always joke at the dinner table about how they spent half their lives worrying that their son would never find a good match, given his stubborn behaviour and lack of work ethic in such a hierarchy strict society.

But Taegi didn't think Myungsoo was a bad kid at all. Yes, he was frustrating to talk to sometimes, but he was still worth being around. It probably took a genius to be able to live up to such an icy facade for so long. Unless a person warmed up against it, they would never realise just how fragile of a person he was. That was what Taegi discovered - perhaps they got along so well because they were ultimately of the same boat. His parents still wouldn't even believe her if she told them how clingy he had become over the years. Of course, she didn’t mean to take advantage of their good intentions, but Taegi just didn’t see Myungsoo that way. If anything, he was like an older brother, someone more than she could ever ask for.

Someone she would always love dearly regardless.

But everything crashed down to square one again once Taegi remembered that, from the weekend after this, Myungsoo was going to be gone.

Distant.

Just like how she and Sungyeol were becoming.

It was then that realisation had struck her that after Myungsoo had left, too, she was truly going to have no one. Like they had with her, his parents had always wanted to keep their son under their wing. But now he was old enough to run away, Myungsoo didn’t hesitate to embrace the opportunity. It had always been his dream to travel the world, so that he could further his interests in the field of photography. It was a beautiful career, really, and Taegi thought it matched his reserved personality perfectly. She had no right to stop him, but her intentions always seemed to have on him the opposite effect, until recently. In fact, for the past few months, ever since he had gotten a request letter from a photography studio in Paris, Myungsoo never ceased bugging her to leave the country with him.

It was only now that, for the first time, Taegi was actually seriously considering the offer the older boy had to make. Myungsoo obviously didn’t like Sungyeol because he saw him as his love rival, and for having to endure with someone you hated for the girl you liked was pretty courageous, quoth Taegi in her mental book of people who mattered in her life.

Maybe she really did need a break, away from everything.

Taegi was going to say, when the time came for her to give Myungsoo her answer, if Sungyeol had told her to stay, then she was going to reject the former however unfair and stay with the boy she liked, here, in Korea. But there was no need for that now. Taegi already knew Sungyeol’s answer.

Taegi was no longer able to hide her tears in the rain.

“Myungsoo…”

“Are you hurt anywhere!?”

Yes, everywhere.

“I think I want… to leave this place… with you…”

Startled by her sudden words, Myungsoo thought he heard wrong.

Had the girl he had been trying to persuade for the past three years really just agreed to leaving the country with him? As headstrong as Myungsoo seemed, he was actually growing tired of playing chase lately. He told himself not to have any regrets leaving, if alone was what Taegi had wanted. But why did her words just now make him feel like he had been lying to himself all along? Why did she bring this up now of all times? Why was it that when he was ready to fly, she was deciding to hold onto him? Myungsoo's next words came out with a ring of guilt and uncertainty.

“Taegi-ah, if you're only saying that because you think it's what I want to hear, then...” He bit back on his tongue when he realised how recklessly he had spoken and cussed. Of course she would say that. Myungsoo just saw everything; she must have been heartbroken. Without a doubt, he was afraid of getting hurt by her words again, but he would rather that than see her unhappy. It reminded him of the weak, little girl he found crying on the road that night her parents died, and he hated it. He didn't like seeing the girl he wanted to protect cry. Myungsoo couldn't deny it anymore. Taegi needed him now, and he couldn't not be there.

Then, he realised. She was choosing him.

Myungsoo didn't know whether to be mad at Sungyeol, or thankful to him.

"I'm sorry."

But she shook her head lightly, and that was all it took for him to soften. So his heart was right; he never truly stopped loving her.

"You know, if you want to cry, you can."

Taegi continued to watch him through her sad eyes, and immediately, it was like he clicked with her. She waddled weak and pallid into his embrace, and for a minute, she was glad that he had appeared next to her for her to snuggle up against because the wind was actually starting to feel cold. Taegi couldn't remember the last time she felt his warmth like this. Feeling her tears seep into the layers clinging onto his torso, which he was sure had not been rain because they were still warm, he bubbled with jealousy knowing how much Lee Sungyeol meant to Taegi.

He wondered if she would ever weep the same for him.

Making the most of a rare moment, Myungsoo touched her forehead and the traces of hope on his face disappeared when he felt a fever coming on. Wrapping her closer and tighter with his free firm arm now, he didn’t hesitate to support her body weight onto his before opening his mouth to say the words she had wanted to hear. He wiped away her tears.

“Arasseo. We’ll leave as soon as you want to. I won’t ask anymore.” It was a wonder what she did to deserve someone like him. He always knew when to come at the right time.

Myungsoo patted her back lovingly, and Taegi responded to it by burying closer into his chest. The gentle rapping of his heartbeat against her ears and the lull in his voice never sounded so euphonious. “But first, come on, let’s get you out of the rain.”

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a/n: because this is the last update for the week, I made it slightly longer! huhruhr, enjoy~