04.

"You're expanding and taking up place in my heart."

note: this chapter is kinda sad by the end

 Heewon's room was not similar to anyone else's in the campus. At least, Baekhyun's room wasn't as extra as hers. Heewon pulled him inside, gesturing him towards the baby pink couch in front of the large TV.

 He sat down, emitting a big yawn. "Did you lose followers again? Is that why?" He ask her, moving towards the side so that she could sit with him. Heewon sat on the floor instead, with a hmph. That meant that his assumption was correct. Why else would Lee Heewon be crying? What mattered to Heewon the most in the world if not for her precious follower count? 

 "Are you laughing?" Her sharp tone cut the still air of the room. Baekhyun nodded with a teasing smirk. "Why? What's so funny?"

 "Is there anything else you know except for Linstagram?"

 "Nothing else matters," she muttered a reply.

 Baekhyun noticed the half-eaten pizza before reaching out to take a piece. Heewon grew alert and seized the packet from his reach. "I bought that," Baekhyun pointed at it, "With my own money."

 "With my money. I pay you," Heewon retorted. "I'm keeping it for later. When I'm in the mood for eating," she continued. Baekhyun rolled his eyes and turned back to the TV. Grabbing the remote, he raised the volume. Heewon stared at him with a pout on her lips. It was so foreign, to have a guy in her room flipping through channels as if they have known each other for a decade now. His handsome face brightened at the girl group on the TV. His eyes danced with them. Heewon was discouraged by the loneliness that creeped back in her heart.

 "Baekhyun..." softly, she called his name. "Baekhyun?"

 "Hm?"

 "Do you...have siblings? What is your favorite color? Do you have a mom?"

 Baekhyun chuckled, "What are you up to? I told you I won't share anything personal with you. Especially you."

 "Why?"

 The guy was forced to look at her. It seemed like he had offended her somehow. With her sparkling puppy eyes directed at him, Heewon pursed her lips together. "I'm just bored," she sniffled and then all of a sudden gigantic tears began to make their way down her smooth cheeks. "You're sitting right next to me but I feel so lonely."

 Her sudden confession mixed in salty tears and snot took him by surprise. Baekhyun found a certain panic in his veins, the urgent need to do something. Heewon stopped for a while before turning her back against him to cry more while a very loud saljjak seollessoe nan rang in the background. The more she wiped at her tears, the more they clouded her vision. She cried more thinking how stupid she was to cry in front of a person like Baekhyun. She really had no friends and while trying to make him her one friend, she had been refused harshly. Maybe she should've applied for a friend instead but it was too late now. 

 Out of the blue, a cold hand landed on her shoulder. She glanced sideways to see Baekhyun who was now crossing his legs on the floor. "I'm the only child and my favorite color is yellow. My mom lives in Muju," sweetly and calmly, he answered the questions she had asked him. Heewon couldn't help but stare at him. Baekhyun smiled at her, reaching out to wipe a tear. Heewon began to ugly-cry again. But this time, the guy opened his arms for her and even though a little confused, she lunged right in. "How about you?" He asked in between caressing her messy hair. "Oh, Heewon, you're actually a baby," Baekhyun chuckled to himself while holding her little body.

 She cried some more in his arms. Baekhyun noticed how she tried to completely hide her face from him using his shirt. It was clear she was so afraid of showing her teary face to him but was failing each time. Through this, Baekhyun didn't understand a lot of things but one thing was for sure, she wasn't lying when she said she was lonely. It must have been a difficult decision to confess that to him.

 It was bad when she pulled away and Baekhyun realized she was having hiccups. He hastily left her side to bring her a glass of water. "Heewon," his heart jumped with a sudden surge of worry. He placed the glass beside the pizza and brushed the hair out of her face. Heewon kept her head low, letting him make a loose knot out of her un-combed hair. Now that all her hair was out of her eyes, Heewon heaved a sigh.

 "Here," he held the glass to her lips. "Hold your breath and gulp all of this down, okay?"

 "I have a brother--" she tried to say but another hiccup interrupted her. Baekhyun touched the back of her head and urged her to drink the water first. Heewon's little hands climbed up to hold the glass but Baekhyun's hands got sandwiched between hers and the glass. The more he looked at Heewon, the more the baby in her came out. "And I like pink--" another hiccup. Heewon pouted because it was just not going away.

 "It's gross but...hold your breath and...continuously swallow your saliva," Baekhyun took the empty glass from her, watching her scowl at what he had just said. "Come on, it's not dirty. Don't you know that when you're eating a lollipop, you're just swallowing your saliva too?"

 "Ew, what did you have to mention that," Heewon's ew-face deepened.

 Baekhyun rolled his eyes, "Just try it. I swear it works." Heewon sighed but couldn't complete the whole process of emiting that noise because another hitch interrupted her. Two fingers pinched on the bridge of her nose. Heewon was a little startled by the action but then her eyes met Baekhyun's encouraging ones. He really was asking her to swallow her own spit. Even though she was still caught up on how gross the whole idea was...and how did he even discover this method? But she listened to his instructions, begining to swallow her saliva without a break.

  When the breathlessness began to choke her, she pushed Baekhyun's hand away quickly and took large gulps of air. Like a woman giving birth. Baekhyun patted her back gently and steadily but her eyes grew red. Anxiously, he tried to take a better look at her face. "Heewon? Heewon...what's wrong?"

 The girl shook her head side to side, as if she was trying to deny something. With her two hands she stifled . The wildness of it all left Baekhyun stunned. Have I done something wrong? He asked himself the more he watched her. "Heewon...?"

 Heewon's face was growing pale by the seconds. Baekhyun held her shoulder, wide eyes digging holes into hers. "Heewon! Did I...did I do something wrong? What's happening to you?"

 Hot tears touched his fingers when he cupped her cheek. "Heewon, please tell me...d-doctor...you need hospital--" panic bled into his guts. Baekhyun rushed towards his phone. However, the moment he left her side, Heewon dashed out of the living room into her own room. She stunned Baekhyun. He was torn between what to do. Go after her or call an ambulance. He couldn't afford to let something happen to his client while she was in his company. 

 Baekhyun trusted his guts and stormed into her room. While the decor of the room remained blurry in his perpheral vision, he could definitely see that her favorite color was pink. Heewon was crouched beside her bed, still breathing heavily. Baekhyun really couldn't guess what was wrong with her. Was she hiding here? It was so childish, what was she even hiding from? 

 "...Heewon?" 

 She gasped. Shoved something under her bed. The look in her eyes was as if she had seen a ghost. "G-go..." she whispered, barely audible to his ears.

 "Heewon."

 Baekhyun cemented himself onto her fluffy carpet, catching on to the seams of what was actually going on. Heewon's eyes screamed chaos and her breaths became heavier. That was why Baekhyun walked himself out. Because he knew what was happening. He knew that him being there would be fruitless. More than the breathlessness, Heewon was choking on her pride. There was nothing he could do about that. 

 He waited in the living room, eyes unmoving from the TV in front of him where his favorite girl group performed but he couldn't see any of that. The scene wasn't leaving his vision no matter where he looked. Those wide eyes that had screamed alarm and fear and frustration all at the same time...Heewon was scared he would discover that she has asthma. Her inhaler was probably so deep under her bed that she was having trouble finding it. It left him dumbfounded how Heewon was such a different person, so obsessed with what others would think about her, so much that she'll even risk her life to prove to others her false perfection. 

 What a silly human, in war with herself and the rest of the world.

 The girl emerged from her room some minutes later, turning the lights off on her way. By then, Oh my girl's performance had ended. She had wiped her face, her nose so red that it looked as if she had bumped into something. Baekhyun didn't know what to say to her. What will comfort her more, an apology or saying that he hasn't seen anything at all?

 "I should go--"

 It was very unlucky timing because the calling bell rang. Fiercely. Twice. Their eyes met. Heewon seemed so exhausted after the whole day that Baekhyun jumped to his feet and made her seat down on the couch first. While making his way towards the door, he pulled out his wallet, thinking it was the second pizza of the night for Heewon. But to his greatest surprise, a little dismay, a little relief, there was a whole Oh Sehun standing before him. Both men were equally stunned to see each other on either side of the door. 

 But Sehun seemed visibly anxious, suspicious of Baekhyun and worried about what was happening inside. 

 "Uh, it's probably not a good time--" but Sehun shoved him and entered the apartment anyway. Baekhyun sighed to himself. These kids. No one liked doing school all over again. No one liked the drama that came with it. But Baekhyun was doing it all. The least he could expect was some nice sleep at night. But it seemed like in the mixture of the sad linstagram queen Lee Heewon, her I'm-still-not-over-her-so-don't-you-dare-lay-a-ing-finger-on-her ex-boyfriend Oh Sehun and the evil I've-been-waiting-for-this-my-whole-life ex-bestfriend Lisa Manoban, peace wasn't an option. It was either fight-fight-fight or join-hands-with-the-villains. Kids, he thought, ing kids.

 When Sehun first entered her line of vision, Heewon was violently pulled out of the show that had commenced on the TV. Her heart began to beat abnormally again as Sehun's wide eyes met hers. She threw a look at Baekhyun who shrugged. "Sehun, you're probably the last person she wants to see right now," he drawled to himself. 

 It only fired the angry spark behind Sehun's orbs. Heewon nodded at Baekhyun's words but it seemed like Sehun had something to say. Really urgent. Heewon could see he had just showered. Probably for the third time after their childish fight on the mud. Black hair spiked up unevenly, half-dried half dripping with water. Heewon stared at him for a good second before opening to say, "What?"

 And it came out so weak, like she was losing her voice.

 Sehun clicked his tongue before pushing up the sleeves of his sweater, folding the arms against his chest. "About time he went home. Oi, I asked you to bring her home. I didn't mean stay the night," His eyes dug into the back of Baekhyun's neck like hot poker.

 Heewon blinked at the revelation. "You...asked him to bring me home?" Sehun's silence was more than enough. Heewon had mixed feeling about what she had just learned. So...Baekhyun did it because Sehun asked him to do it? "Well," clearing , she rolled her eyes, "Might I know what right you have to barge into my place in the middle of the ing night?"

 It began calmly, but around the middle, Heewon's voice boomed into the whole apartment. Baekhyun thought it would be better to pretend he wasn't here so he took painfully long to pour himself a glass of water.

 "Heewon..." Oh Sehun's voice got lost as he tried to give her a reason. Baekhyun watched him suffer. Again, stupid kids. They can end it here and now. This silly charade. Heewon and Sehun...they can just kiss and get back together. Because it was the way they were staring at each other which confused Baekhyun whether they wanted to tear eachother apart or kiss the daylights out of eachother.

 "I wanted to tell you something but...I don't know...anymore." Sehun's gaze dropped to his feet. Baekhyun sipped on the water, catching the boy's eyes for a split second. The suspicion flitted across Sehun's eyes. "About Lisa and I...Baekhyun, can you please go somewhere else?"

 Heewon scoffed, "No, Baekhyun. You stay right there." Her voice was stone cold, daggers directed at the Sehun who showed up uninvited. "What can you have anymore? Why are you here?!"

 Sehun touched her shoulder, swallowing visibly as he knelt to her eye -level. But Heewon was having none of it. She threw him off herself with what little strength she had. "Why? Aren't you happy with side you've switched to? Huh?" Cold tone cut the tense air of the room. Baekhyun couldn't even blink but Heewon whad already smacked Sehun across his chest real hard. "What more do you want to tell me?"

 "Stop! Stop..." Sehun tried to hold her down, capture her little wild body in his arms but Heewon's puffy eyes began to produce more hot tears. And while a little taken aback, Sehun lost balance and his back landed on the floor. Baekhyun groaned at the scene. NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN he screamed in his head as he ran towards the two of them. "It's not what it seems like--I swear to god--Heewon--"  

 Poor Sehun could even stop her. Heewon's craziness took over her body. Blood boiled under the skin. She couldn't finish with him earlier that day so right now, Sehun would be done for. He shouldn't have made the misjudgement a