There were only a few days left until our contract with Johnny would be done and completed and I would have to go back to WayV street. I had to hold out until then. I had to keep ignoring him until he got the idea and I found myself creeping out of my room over and over again to avoid running into Johnny. I had claimed his bedroom as my own and Johnny didn’t seem to mind.

He was confused but beyond that, I bet he wondered why I suddenly seemed like I hated him.

It was harder than I thought. Other than the fact that I was cooped up in my apartment bedroom and all I had were my case studies and my phone. I couldn’t even look out of the bedroom in fear that I would see Johnny standing there and my heart would pound rapidly in my ribcage.

I remember waking up one fine morning to a knock on the door, Johnny pounding against the wood. When I stood up and sat by the side of the bed, I asked out timidly what he wanted.

“Chenle is gone with Renjun. Open the door, Shanghai,” Johnny said and I took a deep breath.

He sounded just as frustrated as I was but I wasn’t ready to face him.

“Open the door,” he repeated but I didn’t move when I heard a jingle and my eyes widened. “You know I have the keys, right?”

“Johnny—”

And with that, the door was pushed open and I stood there, Johnny by the doorway as he stared at me.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” he said and I shook my head, waving a hand in the air and telling him that nothing was happening. I couldn’t say anything, not when Johnny was the problem.

“I’m just tired,” I told him, mumbling under my breath and grabbing the yoga mat. “I’m tired and it’s the time of the month and I need my alone time.”

I hoped he understood and wouldn’t push it. I looked at where he was standing, Johnny leaning against the doorframe and I tried to walk past him, Johnny reaching out to grab the top of my arm. I froze for a second, Johnny’s eyes flickering over my features when his hand tightened.

“You promise?”

His words held power because I couldn’t promise.

That was the only thing I couldn’t do.

So, I shook him off with a small smile.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After trying to ignore Johnny as much as possible, trying to focus on doing sit-ups, I found myself struggling to even do the most basic exercises. Did I lose all my willpower? I groaned, slapping the ground when I looked up to see Johnny stand by the kitchen island, sipping on his coffee. He looked amused and that pissed me off even more.

“You need to stop moving your feet,” he told me, placing the coffee on the table and rubbing his hands together. Before I could sit up, Johnny had already leaned down and grabbed my two feet. “You need to level your whole body, Shanghai. Then control the muscles on your lower back.”

He shifted and I felt him press down on my ankles, Johnny humming to himself before urging me to try it. I took a deep breath, telling myself that after two or three times of getting it, he’d get off my back. With one swift motion, I had pushed myself up, my face stopping right where my knees were.

For a second there, I felt his breath against my cheek and I gulped, Johnny’s face propped on my knees. I tensed up and I swallowed, my heart hammering when I decided that I held the sit up a bit too long. I was about to fall back when I felt one of his hands reach out to grab the small of my back, holding me upright and stopping me from going back down.

I forced my bodyweight down, Johnny refusing to let me budge and his biceps bulged underneath his black T-shirt.

“I’m not letting you go until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Shanghai, don’t lie to me.”

His words made me blink and I drew a shaky breath, his eyes boring into mine and I had to remind myself that I was never this vulnerable. That I knew how to stand up for myself. Johnny Suh shouldn’t be able to take that away from me.

I brought my face closer and cocked up an eyebrow, Johnny’s expression unchanging.

“And if I am, what are you going to do about it?”

“They say liar, liar pants on fire but what if it were your lips instead?” he asked back, his gaze falling on my lips and it took me a while to register what he meant when my eyes widened and I wrenched my body away from his grip, rolling to the side. “I thought so.”

“Johnny, not fair!”

“You know what’s not fair? You acting like this when we’ve been nothing but fine the past few days.” He finally stood up, Johnny crossing his arms across his chest. “Is it that bad being in love with me?”

My jaw dropped and I quickly stood up, shaking my head at him. How did he know? Did Jeno tell him? Holy , that traitor of a psychologist. Johnny must have read my expression, the policeman shaking his head.

“I heard it, okay? Chenle went to his room and Liz started crying so I was about to call for Jeno and you were right by the door. You weren’t even that quiet about it, telling him that it was impossible.” Johnny ran a hand through his hair. “I heard it all, Shanghai.”

“I—” I struggled to stand up.

For the first time in my life, I had no idea how to handle the situation. Do I accept it? Do I lie to him some more? Do I do what I usually do and run away?

The latter seemed like the only solution. It was the only way I wouldn’t have to answer his questions.

I squealed, jumping over the couch to rush into the bedroom just to hear Johnny behind me.

“Stop right there—”

Right when I was about to enter the bedroom, I felt his hands on my wrists and I spun around, my back hitting the wall with Johnny right in front of me. His other hand had wrapped around my waist and he pushed against the wall, trapping me right where I was, his body pressed against mine.

“Shanghai,” his voice dropped an octave and I placed my hands on his chest, giving it a push when he hissed. His eyes were no longer soft, Johnny glaring at me. “Look at me.”

I gulped, lifting my head slightly to look at him. Maybe it was the way he was staring at me and maybe it was how my body flushed with heat, but I couldn’t look away.

“You are not going to run away,” the statement was simple and it made me nod slowly. Refusing to look away, Johnny continued to speak as I cowered. “I will bring you to the bed and lay you down and we are going to talk about what is happening, understand?”

I blinked.

“Words.”

“Yes.”

He nodded, Johnny bringing me closer to him before he lifted me up. My legs wrapped around his waist and he effortlessly brought me into the bedroom. His legs kicked the door closed, Johnny locking it with one hand before he lay me down on the mattress and I lay there, my eyes strained on the ceiling.

Johnny then moved away, standing in front of me.

“What is the problem?” he asked and I sighed, knowing that all I could do was just tell him the truth.

“You, Johnny,” I found myself saying. “The problem is you.”

I seemed to have hurt him but Johnny didn’t say anything, his gaze on me as if he was urging me to continue talking.

“You don’t understand, Johnny. I’ve spent all these past years hating you and then suddenly there is a transition.” I let out a breath. “And it’s not a “hey, we’re back to being friends!”. It’s “I may be in love with you and I don’t know what to do about it.”

He didn’t say anything and I frowned.

“Because this does not change the fact of what you did years ago, Johnny. I’m better off hating you. That’s what I’m used to.”

“Why….” Johnny’s tongue poked the side of his cheek and I saw him try to keep his anger down. “Why do you keep bringing up the past? You’re always so self-absorbed, Shanghai.”

Self-absorbed?

“I know you hold grudges because it’s easier to be angry than sad but I should be the one holding a grudge.” Johnny paused. “You keep blaming me but have you ever thought about the fact that maybe I was mad, too? That may be the reason why we stopped being friends was because of you and you alone?”

“What are you talking about—”

“I wanted you to understand but you made up your mind and if you knew you wouldn’t be acting this way. I thought you knew me enough to know that I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t logical.”

I frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“If only you knew, Shanghai. You know that night… If you could have just accepted that there are things people do not want you to know and we could have saved whatever we had left? We wouldn’t hate each other the same way we did the past few years.”

“What are you talking about? What do people not want me to know?”

“It’s not my place to say anything, Shanghai. Just sleep on it,” Johnny snapped and I saw him turn his back to me. “I’m going to get something to drink.”

The door slammed and I jumped at the sound, my hand going to search the bed when I grabbed my phone to go through my contacts. When I reached Lucas’ number, I pressed on the screen and dialed his number.

It didn’t take long for him to answer my phone call, Lucas greeting me.

“Jiejie,” His words were clipped and I could feel how tense he was every time he talked to me. “Anything you need?”

“Yukhei.”

I could hear him breathe and it was like he knew I wanted an answer. I know Lucas respected me but because of that, he was always very distant.

“I need to know,” I finally said and I heard the creak of the bed. “I need to know what happened with you and Johnny back in high school.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Lucas asked and I gave out a hum, telling him that Johnny always said that it wasn’t his place. “Jiejie, it was my fault—”

“I just need to know, Lucas.”

“It was my mother,” Lucas finally said and I could hear him clear his throat. “You know about how she remarried and had a new family?”

“I know. I know how her new family treated you, Lucas.” I was brought back to the memories of Lucas always being mistreated by his mother’s new family. How his stepfather would beat him up and he would come back, battered up and I would always tell him to leave that house.

That he should just stay with us.

“I… She was sick. At that time,” Lucas finally said. I knew nothing of this. “She was going to go through surgery and insurance couldn’t cover it because she wasn’t Korean and I needed cash.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“Because I know how you were, Jiejie. You would have told me to leave the family but I can’t. I know she mistreated me but she’s still my mother.” He stopped talking and I wanted to cry. “And you wouldn’t have understood. You would have gotten mad and asked why I still went back. It’s… It’s the way you are.”

That hurt.

“I needed cash so I joined the Fight Club. I fought for money and I know Johnny hyung didn’t like me going into these things alone so he joined in with me. We did it together and we made a pact. Once we got a certain amount of money, we’d both leave,” he sounded stressed even telling me about it. “and I blamed myself for you hating Johnny hyung but he told me that it was fine. That I should focus on what mattered and that was my mother’s surgery.”

“Yukhei.”

“If I told you about the surgery, you would have given me the money and made me promise not to see them again. You would have wanted me to cut all ties with them because of how horrible they were to me. I didn’t want to lose them and I didn’t want to lose you so Johnny hyung took the fall.”

Silence.

“Jiejie, you might not know this but you can be overbearing sometimes,” he whispered and I rubbed a hand over my eyes, feeling myself tear up. “You think that if someone hurts you, the best way for you to handle the situation is to turn your back on them so you won’t get hurt anymore.”

“Yukhei, I blamed Johnny—”

“No one asked you to, though,” Lucas pointed out and I blinked. “You could have just trusted him. You could have thought to yourself that he knew what he was doing and that one day, you’d know what happened but you decided to hate him.”

He sounded worried about how I would take it but Lucas being straightforward was the best thing he could have done.

“You could have taken it another way and you could have just… Let it be.”

“I see.”

“Jiejie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to tell you the truth. I just… I just thought that if I lost you, I’d lose the rest of them, too.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I felt my heart constrict. Is this what I have put people through? “I’m sorry you thought you couldn’t tell me the truth, Lucas. It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”

“Where are you? Can I go see you?” Lucas asked and I shook my head, telling him that I was fine. “Are you sure? Do you need hugs?”

“I’m fine, Yukhei.” I smiled when he asked me if I needed hugs. In the end, he was just like a little brother. “I’m going back to WayV street in a day or two. Just ask Kun to head over to my place and fix my bedroom, okay?”

“Okay, Jiejie. I’ll take a day off from work to see you.”

“Yukhei, it’s fine.” I chuckled. “Focus on work and visit when you have time. Thank you for talking to me.”

“Okay, Jiejie,” Lucas sounded uneasy. “I’ll hang up now, Jiejie. I love you.”

The last part was hopeful and I smiled, telling him I loved him too.

Once the phone call ended, I burst into te