It’s been years since you last set foot in your family’s beach house in Marbella. It’s this white Roman villa built along the coast facing the Mediterranean, a good distance away from the busy nightlife of Costa del Sol’s resorts. The villa is perfect: luxurious, quiet, filled to the brim with everything you could ever need or want.

And you hate it.

You hate it because every square inch of the place reminds you of your parents — their grandiosity, their disapproving stares, their expectations of you that you know you can never live up to.

Like all the other times when you wanted to be left alone during your family vacations here, you make your way down the beach in your swimsuit, spread a blanket over the sand, and just lie there with the warmth of the Spanish sun on your skin and the scent of salt hanging in the air.

The soft sound of waves washing over the shore and then rolling back into the sea used to calm you down, but not this time around, not with everything that has happened.

How’s Junmyeon doing? Is he okay? Does he hate me?

These kinds of questions can’t seem to find their way out of your subconscious, the guilt gnawing at the back of your mind, so close to consuming you whole that you’re on the verge of doing something stupid, like picking up your phone right now and threatening Dr. Lee to take Junmyeon back now that you’re out of the university.

But what does that make you?

All your life you’ve never played the nepotism card, never used your surname to get your way simply because you want to live outside of your father and family’s shadow. You want them to be involved as little as possible in your life because you want to feel like you’ve earned things because you deserved them, not because you were born into a family with the right surname.

You’d be betraying yourself if you go with your worst impulse right now.

Then again, Junmyeon has nothing to blame but you. It seems only fair to him that you be the one to clean up this whole mess, even if that means swallowing your pride and going against the rules you’ve made for yourself.

“Mom made churros,” your brother’s voice comes out of nowhere and interrupts your debate with yourself. He plops down onto the sand right next to your blanket, not caring if he ruins his shorts.

“You mean she had the cook make churros.” You roll and lie on your stomach, looking the other way as to avoid your brother’s eyes. “Leave me alone, Baek. I want to be alone right now.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Baekhyun replies. “You only ever go to the beach when you’re avoiding everyone in the house.”

“Then what are you still doing here? Unless it’s about a flight back home, leave me alone,” you say.

For the past few days, you’ve been bugging your family to let you fly back home. You understand that this is supposed to be a family vacation to celebrate you finally graduating, but you’ve been in Marbella for nearly a month now and you’re far too distant from your family to understand that no amount of vacations in beach houses can mend years of estrangement.

This vacation is nothing but an illusion, a front that your parents like to put up to support their narrative that yours is the most perfect family in the world.

“I already told you. We can’t go home yet,” your brother says. “Dad’s got business in the city for a couple more days.”

The scoff escapes your lips before you can stop it. “So this whole ‘family vacation’ isn’t about my graduation, then. It’s about dad. As usual.”

“Don’t be like that,” Baekhyun chides you. “It’s probably just a coincidence that he has a meeting while we’re in town. You know him. He always likes to hit more than one bird with every stone he throws.”

“Nothing’s ever a coincidence with him.”

Baekhyun doesn’t reply, because he knows that it’s true. He knows your dad better than anyone, probably even better than your dad even knows himself, and it’s all because Baekhyun has been preparing for one thing all his life: to replace your dad when the time came. Since childhood, your brother’s been groomed to think, act, and be like your father.

You’ve always known that the pressure your father had mounted on you is nothing compared to the one Baekhyun’s holding up on his back, and you’ve always wondered how your brother has managed to stay sane all these years. Perhaps he’s lost his sanity all those years ago and is just hiding it well.

“He’s going to ask you soon, you know,” Baekhyun breaks the silence, “about what you plan on doing next. We all know you want to take a year or two off, but we also know that dad’s never going to let that happen. He’s probably going to force you to take up post-grad, twist your arm into being a professor until you have enough experience to be president of one of the university’s satellite campuses.”

“Or marry me off to someone I barely know,” you suggest unhelpfully. You sit back up, stretching your body as you do, and finally look your brother in the eye. “How’s Hye-ran?”

Baekhyun stares at the ocean, his expression unreadable. “She’s good. We’re good,” he assures you. “We’re just… trying to figure things out. We can’t really hate each other since we both just got dragged into this… ” your brother trails off, but you know that he’s avoiding to say mess. “Anyway, she’s actually very nice. It’s better than I expected.”

The sadness in Baekhyun’s tone is unmistakable. You remember it like it was yesterday, how your dad dropped the bomb out of nowhere. Baekhyun was with someone else then. Taeyeon, if you remember correctly. Baekhyun had to make a choice, and it just wasn’t possible for him to turn his back on your father, even if it cost him his happiness. That’s how deep your father had sunk his claws into your brother.

You’d never admit this out loud, but you’re luckier than Baekhyun. As far as you know, your parents haven’t arranged any engagements for you, probably because you can’t pass down the family name even if you wanted to.

Baekhyun can, though. And there was no way in hell your dad was going to let his first-born and only son to be married into the wrong family — wrong in his opinion, at least.

“You still talk to her?”

Baekhyun doesn’t even need to clarify who you’re pertaining to. “No. I haven’t talked to Taeyeon since we broke up. It would be unfair to her if I just pop out of nowhere and talk to her like nothing happened. It’d be unfair to Hye-ran, too.” Baekhyun scoops a handful of sand and slowly lets it spill from his grip, like granules slipping through the crevice of an hourglass.

“But… you’re not happy.”

Baekhyun shrugs. “That doesn’t mean everyone else around me has to be unhappy too,” he says. When you raise an eyebrow at him, he continues: “You see, baby sister, this is one of the times you must put everybody else first before yourself. Because, sometimes, that’s the only way to save yourself from more heartbreak than the one you’re feeling right now.”

You let Baekhyun’s words sink in for a while.

“Would it be so wrong if I were to be selfish once in a while?” you ask softly.

“No,” your brother answers without thinking much about it. “It’s actually pretty healthy to be selfish sometimes. The trick is in knowing when you should stop.”

“This vacation just got even more depressing.”

Baekhyun laughs — the first genuine laugh you’ve heard from anyone during the entirety of this vacation — and it’s a nice sound to listen to.

“Come on,” he says as he stands up and offers his hand to you, “let’s ditch the churros and head into Old Town.”

* * *

After a quick plate or two at Casanis Bistrot, you and Baekhyun stroll along the cobbled streets of Marbella’s Old Town. As you walk hand-in-hand between whitewashed B&Bs and artisan shops draped in bougainvillea, it almost feels as if everything’s normal, almost makes you forget the ache that your last meeting with Junmyeon left in your chest.

But you’re grateful that even just for tonight, even just for a few short hours, you get to enjoy the city with your brother and distract yourself from the fact that there’s going to be heartbreak waiting for you wherever you go after tonight.

You’ve missed Baekhyun. You have barely seen each other ever since he entered college and moved into his own place nine years ago, just like you did when you were a freshman, and everything that came after that — grad school, working under your dad, getting married — made it nearly impossible for him to be a brother to you.

You often find yourself wondering what would’ve happened if your dad just let Baekhyun grow up on his own: no pressures, no expectations, no arranged marriages. Would he have been a better brother to you? Would the two of you have been closer? Would this have happened often, the two of you walking around town at night and having fun together like normal siblings?

You wonder if you would’ve been happier if your parents just let you and your brother grow up and learn about the world at your own pace.

Baekhyun squeezes your hand, reeling you back to Earth. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing. What are you talking about?”

Your brother looks at you with an eyebrow arched and the corner of his lips curled into a smile that screams I don’t believe you, just like he did whenever he caught you in a lie back when you were kids. “Trouble in paradise?”

“No,” you lie. “Chanyeol and I… we’re not a thing anymore.” That, at least, is true.

“Yeah, I know.” Before you can ask how he knew that, he says, “I talk to Kyungsoo sometimes. I probably talk to the little twerp more than I talk to you.”

“Okay, I’ll just pretend that isn’t weird at—”

“I wasn’t talking about Chanyeol, though.”

You stop in your tracks and drop your hand from your brother’s grip. “I’m not sure if—”

“It’s okay,” Baekhyun cuts you off before another lie slips from your tongue. “I’m not gonna tell dad. When have I ever snitched on my baby sister?”

“How?”

Baekhyun takes your hand again and leads you through the tangled streets of Old Town. “Yeong Hoon is an old friend, is all. I told him to keep an eye on you, especially when you shocked us all and decided you wanted to major in literature.”

“Yeong Hoon? Who’s—” And then you remember the signature on the e-mail you received on the last day you’d seen Junmyeon. “Dr. Lee. Oh my god. Did you—”

“Take the photo?” Baekhyun finishes your question for you, then shakes his head. “No. I don’t have a knack for stalking, sis. Besides, I’m too busy to meddle in your love life. I don’t feel comfortable doing that, either. You’d never do that to me.”

The two of you follow the cobbled streets until it opens up to a rotunda of some sort with a big water fountain right in the middle. Baekhyun sits on the fountain’s ledge, tapping the space beside him to urge you to do the same.

You should be frightened. If Baekhyun knows about the photo, then he already probably knows who’s the guy on it is. He knows about Junmyeon.

But your brother’s eyes are soft as they’re looking at you now, just like how they’ve been looking at you your whole life. That’s when you come to your senses — Baekhyun will never do anything to hurt you.

You’re too embarrassed to say anything, so Baekhyun breaks the ice. “I never would’ve guessed that you had a thing for older men.”

“Okay.” You let out a nervous chuckle. “We are not talking about this.”

Baekhyun laughs, probably because of how flushed your cheeks are. “I’m not judging you. Junmyeon — can I call him Junmyeon?” You nod. “He seems nice. I looked him up. Wasn’t that hard. An accomplished man, according to my research.”

“Yeah. He’s nice,” you agree. “But I wouldn’t blame him if he hates me now, though. I got him fired. Probably ruined his life. If dad finds out, he’ll never work in any university again. No one would take him in.”

“Well… To be fair, what he did was unethical…”

“You’re not helping.”

Baekhyun chuckles. “I’m sorry. You know that already. I’m guessing that’s why you’ve been sulking since I hung your medal around you on your graduation.”

“I think I have the opposite of Midas touch,” you sigh. That’s when you feel the sting in your eyes, and you try your damn best not to cry in front of your brother. “I ruin everything. Everyone. First Chanyeol, then this. Maybe I should just be alone.”

“Okay, I think you’re giving yourself too much credit,” Baekhyun says in jest. The tears manage to break through from your self-control (or lack thereof), but the fact that Baekhyun’s still trying to make you smile despite what he knows about you makes the ache in your heart somewhat bearable.

You swat your brother playfully on the arm. “I hate you,” you joke. “It’s true though, isn’t it? I owe him. And I’m not sure if I can pay him back.”

Baekhyun heaves a deep sigh. He gingerly takes your hand from your lap and holds it, brushing your knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “I can’t speak for Junmyeon. And neither can you. I guess the only way to find out how to make it up to him is to ask him yourself.”

The tears keep coming, and you’re too tired to even try and hold them back. “I don’t know what to say to him. I think I’ll just burst into tears when I see him. That’s how sorry I am for… for all of this. It was all me, Baek. I did this. I wasn’t thinking, I was too—”

“Shhh. Stop,” your brother hushes you. He drapes his arm around you and you cry on his shoulder, staining his shirt with your tears. “It is what it is. You know better now, but you can’t go back in time. None of us can, so stop beating yourself up. At least you know that you were in the wrong. That’s more than most people can say for themselves.”

The two of you stay like that for a while: you burying your tears in your brother’s chest, him soothing your back. It feels nice to have Baekhyun here with you now, comforting you when you need a brother the most. If only you had this a couple of years ago. Maybe that would’ve eased the loneliness, even just for a bit.

“Dad’s going to find out one way or another, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun whispers. “But he won’t find out from me. Or from Yeong Hoon. I promise.”

Your brother kisses the top of your head, and you’ve never felt safer in your life.

* * *

The second your plane touches down, you already know what you’re going to do as soon as you leave the airport.

You’re going to call Junmyeon and ask him to meet.

It’s a leap of faith — that, you’re sure of. You don’t even know if Junmyeon will have you, much less agree to talk to you, but you have to do it anyway. He needs to hear how sorry you are. That’s the least you can do for him after all the you’ve put him through.

He’s risked his career, his passion for teaching, all because you couldn’t help yourself on that night and kissed him. And even if he told you that he wasn’t sorry for it, that doesn’t excuse your carelessness.

And if Junmyeon still doesn’t want anything to do with you after you say your piece, you can’t hold that against him, even if it’ll break your heart into a million tiny pieces.

What had Baekhyun said?

This is one of the times you must put everybody else first before yourself. Because, sometimes, that’s the only way to save yourself from more heartbreak than the one you’re feeling right now.

You have to put Junmyeon, not your feelings, first. You owe this to him.

As the taxi inches closer and closer to your apartment, the drumming of your heart gets faster and faster, thrashing against your chest so hard that it almost feels as if it’s bruising you from the inside.

No doubt that you’ll feel a whole lot worse if Junmyeon decides to walk away from you, but that’s the price you have to pay for acting on your worst instincts. You’ve made your own bed with this one, and if it comes to the worst, you’ll have to make peace with the consequences of your actions.

You couldn’t even force yourself to smile at Mr. Bong when you enter the lobby. He just nods at you as you walk by, and the concern in his eyes tells you that he knows you’re having a bad day. He’s been your doorman for four long years, and he’s definitely seen his fair share of your bad days.

When you step into the elevator, your anxiety has turned into numbness. You feel weightless, like you’ve lost all feeling in your body, but you manage to fish your phone out of your pocket before the elevator stops on your floor.

Ding.

The doors slide open. You pad through the hallway slowly as you stare at the contacts on your phone, your thumb hovering over the name that hasn’t left your mind for the past half a year.

Kim Junmyeon.

Before your nerves get the better of you, you finally tap on it. You bring your phone to your ear, every ring tying your stomach in knots.

That’s when you hear another phone ring in front you.

You look up. In front of your apartment sits a man clad in black jeans, a white shirt, and a faded denim jacket. He has his back against your front door, his black Converse high tops sticking out under his crossed legs.

His hair is longer than how you’d seen it last. It’s greased back with some strands falling over his forehead and the sides of his face, framing his sharp yet soft features in a dark mop. He looks up.

“Hey,” Junmyeon says like he’s been waiting for you for a long time. “Can we talk?”

“Here.” You hand him a cup of coffee as he sits on your couch, steam still rising from the mug. You’d figured he’d want something to warm his stomach after sitting on the cold floor outside your apartment.

Junmyeon had told you that he’s been coming here for the past month, waiting for you to come back. He initially thought that you’d been avoiding him this whole time, but Mr. Bong found him on the floor one afternoon and told him that you were actually out of the country. As you hadn’t told Mr. Bong when you’d be back, Junmyeon just kept coming here every day until you did.

Until today.

“I’m sorry for missing your graduation,” Junmyeon says after a while. He hasn’t taken a sip of the coffee. He’s just cupping the mug in his hands, warming his fingertips with the hot drink.

You carefully sit right next to him, making sure that there’s enough space between the two of you in case he’s uncomfortable with you sitting so close to him.

“It’s okay,” you say. “You didn’t have to go if you didn’t want to.”

“But I wanted to. I just… I wasn’t allowed to go. I don’t think I can step foot on campus, either. Yeong Hoon — Dr. Lee didn’t tell me that explicitly, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant in his e-mail after the, um…” he trails off. He doesn’t have to finish for you to know that he’s talking about the day he was fired.

He finally takes a sip from the cup, but when he sets the drink down on the coffee table it still looks just as full as when you first handed it to him.

“Listen, Junmyeon,” you softly say, “I’m… I’m really sorry for what I did to you. About getting you fired. About the photo. About that night… It was really stupid of me to think that this wouldn’t catch up to us. At that moment, I thought, ‘What harm could one small kiss do?’ And now look where we are. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

You feel tears streaming down your cheeks before you could even realize that you were crying.

Junmyeon doesn’t say anything for a few heartbeats. That’s when you thought, Well, this is it. He’s going to walk out your door and never come back, and you deserve it.

But Junmyeon does the opposite.

He takes you in his arms, enveloping you in a warm embrace. He still doesn’t say anything and just sits there with you crying against him, his heartbeat drumming through his shirt. He still smells like lavender like the last time you hugged him, and as soon as the scent hits you, you begin to take slower breaths.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

You break away from the hug. “But I have to. This is my fault. I’ll talk to Dr. Lee. Hell, I’ll talk to my dad. You don’t deserve to be punished for what I did. And I—”

“Stop.” Junmyeon brushes his thumb on your lower lip to stop it from quivering. “Really, I’m fine. I don’t care about getting fired. I told you, I’m not sorry about that night. I wanted that to happen. I wanted to do that. You just beat me to it.”

“But—”

Junmyeon shakes his head, wiping away your tears with his fingers. “Listen. I’m here now. You’re here now. Nothing else matters. Remember what I told you before?” You shake your head, unsure about what he means. “I said we’ll talk after graduation. If our feelings haven’t changed. I waited for you. That means I still feel the same way.”

“Junmyeon…”

He smiles at you. God, how you’ve missed seeing that. “I guess what I’m asking is, do you still want this?”

You can hear your heart drumming in your ears. You look straight into his eyes and see nothing but your reflection: someone trembling, their cheeks stained with tears. But you also see your answer to his question.

“Yes,” you say, your voice barely audible. “Yes, I want you.”

Before you can say anything else, Junmyeon pulls you in for a kiss.