I was nervous. In the sense that I couldn’t stop fidgeting. I picked at the callous on my middle finger until it bled. Baekhyun had to hold my shoulders to stop me from pacing the length of his living room.

“Cerise,” he calls for me, trying to get through the thick cloud of anxiety fogging up my mind.

I don’t register his words until he’s grasping my chin, and I have no choice but to look straight at him.

“I need you to listen. Can you do that?” Baekhyun articulates. He sounds like my boss. It would be so hot for roleplaying, except I was far away from that mood. I was way in over my head with chaos and nerves.

I nod, teeth chattering.

He’s probably never seen me this nervous. I tried my hardest to not let my OCD affect my life. I didn’t want people to look at me on first impression and believe that I was unwell.

Sometimes, I couldn’t help it. Just like now. We were an hour away from the dinner plans with Chanyeol.

The clock seems to be ticking away too quickly. So far that I couldn’t even chase the fumes if I tried.

Chanyeol had been the first to insist on having dinner because, as fate would have it, he wanted to meet my boyfriend. The boyfriend that I’d been so deliberately against letting him meet in fear that said boyfriend would meet his death.

Baekhyun readily agreed. He said, quote if we were friends once, we can be on amicable terms again no matter how bat things went, end quote.

I’m worried that he’s too naive. I’m so worried that I’m close to chewing off my hair. God. I’m sure Baekhyun would run out the other direction if he saw me gnawing on my hair like a cow would do with grass.

“We’ll be fine. I won’t let it escalate. If things go south, I’ll allow him one punch.”

I sigh, trying to break out of his hold. “Not funny, . I’m stressing, and you’re here making a joke about my brother punching you? He’ll knock you out.”

Baekhyun snorts. “He can try.”

“He’s taller than you.”

“His legs have nothing against my fighting spirit.”

“Should I call the morgue ahead of schedule?” I deadpan. The joke is somewhere in there. Coping with humor is my specialty, yet I can’t even find the energy to fake a smile.

Baekhyun laughs good-humoredly, petting my hair like I’m a cute, little puppy. “While you do that, I’ll be sure to die with my face untouched. Bruising and bloating isn’t y when you’re blue in the face.”

I roll my eyes. “You do that, Baekhyun.”

He checks his phone for the time, and my heart does a jog. “If we’re going to make it on time, we’ll have to head out. Chanyeol’s a stickler for punctuality.”

Baekhyun walks ahead of me, and I stare at his back, contemplating. Punctuality was definitely the least of his concerns.

Google tells us that our ETA is twenty minutes. The drive is silent other than the sound of pop music playing in the back and the low hum of the engine and wind blowing outside the vehicle.

I swallow, trying to focus on anything but the inevitable. God. I hate it. I really hate this.

“Once upon a time,” Baekhyun announces out of nowhere. I startle, my attention turning to him. “A little boy was born out of wedlock. He had no idea who his father was. His mother was responsible and dutiful, and his sister was awful. He grew up with all the riches he could ask for. He had chests full of gold and a ton of girls who would love to be at his beck and call. He had no responsibilities. His mother let him get away with everything. She doted on him until his sister ended her life on a fateful night. She blamed him. Cursed him for being born. For ruining her life.

“The little boy didn’t know how to deal with these emotions. Suddenly, happiness felt like such a stretch. He began to wonder whether his life had been nothing but complacency. Not happiness. But contentment. The materialism in his life did nothing to soothe the guilt of her death. So, he thought he could solve his problems with a bottle of alcohol. That bottle became two. Two became three. And that boy suddenly didn’t know how to live his life without beginning his morning with a drink.

“But, then, on another fateful day, he met this tall, lanky boy who cared too much. This boy had compassion. The latter had more goodness than the boy could ever fathom. This boy made sure the little boy had food in his stomach. He cleaned up the little boy’s vomit. He never complained when the little boy told him to get lost. Or when the little boy cried about his life while he sat on a pile of money. This boy told him that it was okay to grieve over loss. Didn’t matter if the boy was born with a silver spoon. He was different from people who previously told the little boy that money would solve all his problems. That he could just buy his way out of his unhappiness. And so, for the moral of the story, what do you reckon it is?”

I stare at his side profile. Never. I thought that this was a topic he would never breach. But again, I’ve been proven wrong.

“That tall, lanky boy…” I whisper. “It was Chanyeol, wasn’t it?”

“You know how stubborn your brother is. I know he won’t just get over what I did to you—to all of us in the past. But I can only hope that we take one step forward after tonight, can’t I?”

I nod, exhaling sharply. This is when I realize that I’ve long stopped fidgeting. I’ve gone still thanks to his story, and there wasn’t anything in the world—no medicine—better than him trusting me with pieces of himself. The pieces that he probably thinks no one wants.

Before I’ve processed any of our surroundings, we’ve arrived at the restaurant Chanyeol texted me. We’re a couple of minutes earlier than the meeting time, but I assume that Chanyeol already arrived half an hour ago.

Baekhyun wasn’t the only person aware of my brother’s punctuality. He may have been a ball of chaos, but he was never late to anything.

When I enter the restaurant together with Baekhyun beside me—his comforting arm slung around my back soothing my frayed nerves—the hostess leads us to our table, and that’s when the polite smile immediately falls off of my face.

Chanyeol’s amicable smile is also gone when he sees Baekhyun beside me.

I stare at the older woman sitting beside him. Her hair is blown back like in a nineties movie. The frown of contempt was deeply ingrained in the crinkle of her eyes.

I would recognize her anywhere.

Baekhyun’s eyes train onto the person I’m currently fixated on. He doesn’t know who she is. After all, he’s never met her.

“Mother,” I acknowledge as calmly as I can. My steady voice is unlike the thrashing storm building inside of me. A rage that I’d closed the door on when she left. It was unnecessary to dwell on it, so I let it go. Or so I thought. Because now? I felt that familiar anger and betrayal flowing through my veins.

Her smile is cold when she acknowledges me, “Yun. It’s been a while.”

A while?

I hadn’t seen her since I was thirteen. For ’s sakes, I was already in my twenties. This woman was acting like she did no wrong. Like she didn’t commit an atrocity and ruined our lives.

Chanyeol keeps his cool. I suspect that he’s clearly utilizing the skills he’s attained as a lawyer. “Take a seat. Both of you.” He points to the seat in front of them.

I sit down, and so does Baekhyun. The table is silent once again. Any conversation that Chanyeol and our mother harbored is now long forgotten.

Baekhyun leans into my ear, reminding me, “cool it, cerise. You look like you’re going to decapitate your mother’s head with that meat knife.”

I stiffen, dropping my hand limb beside me. Baekhyun doesn’t let it fly by, and instead, takes my hand and interlaces our fingers. He squeezes, and the comfort of his hand is like a bandaid to a gun wound.

But I guess that it’s better than stabbing a certain somebody with silverware.

Chanyeol notices and grits his teeth. I don’t need words to know how he feels. He’s my twin after all.

“I thought it was just the three of us,” I contest.

My mother chimes in, “I was under the impression that it would be just the three of us as well.”

I almost snarl, but I control it by taking a deep breath before responding icily, “I didn’t mean you. I meant the other person sitting beside me. You know. The one you’re actively ignoring.”

My mother’s mouth twists with vexation. “You’ve always been a mouthy one. I can see you haven’t changed one bit.”

Chanyeol coughs, interrupting us from a verbal catfight. Except what he’s done only prolonged the inevitable. “Baekhyun,” he addresses, looking to his old friend. “How have you been?”

Baekhyun is surprisingly keeping his cool. Then again, he’s been through hell and back. I’m not sure if there was anything out there that could possibly faze him. “Better. I’m sober.”

My mother opens to say, “an alcoholic? I guess we’re alike in some way, Yun. Who would’ve thought? Your father was the same way.” As soon as the words leave , I want to smack her across the face.

Baekhyun grimaces from her harsh words. It’s even worse because he knows that I’ve never mentioned my mother once. He must’ve made his own conclusions. The fact that she doesn’t even try to speak to him pisses me off. Her superiority complex was the one thing I’m glad I didn’t inherit.

“Huh,” I deadpan, forcing a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Though, I’m glad I didn’t get the spread-my-legs-for-another-man-other-than-my-husband trait from you.”

“Yun,” Chanyeol reprimands with the furrow of his forehead.

My mother maintains her coolness and shrugs like she’s resigned to the fact that I’m somehow the most insufferable person she’s met. Unironically, I say that like she hadn’t been the one to raise me. “Don’t worry about it, honey.”

“Mom—“

“Mom?” I echo under the pretense that Chanyeol has been hiding his rekindling with our mother for quite a while. “When did this development occur? Was I going to be in the dark this entire time?”

Chanyeol glares. “Don’t be a hypocrite. You’re clearly fine, seeing that I also wasn’t informed about your sickening choice.”

“Really? Could’ve sworn you were talking about the family reunification bull I see in front of me,” I say unabashedly.

“He leaked your nudes when we were children,” Chanyeol argues.

“Well, it turns out that he didn’t. If you want to point fingers at someone, that’ll be my ex-boyfriend, Will.”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Oh? Is that supposed to make everything okay again? So he did the bare minimum. Am I supposed to do a standing ovation?”

I clench my jaw. “I’m not here to listen to you talk my boyfriend who was also your former friend, FYI. But, please, go ahead and talk about him like he’s not a human with feelings.”

“This is ridiculous. I didn’t come here to be embarrassed by the both of you. I would’ve thought that being in your twenties and maturing was part of the same package,” my mother interrupts, slamming her glass of wine down.

I ignore her, focusing on Chanyeol. “You just want someone to blame, and you’ve decided to make Baekhyun your living target. How about we blame the person beside us for ing everything up? Did we both decide to forget what she did to Dad? How she just abandoned her marriage because she couldn’t cope with poverty? Doesn’t that tell you how shallow of a person she is? How can you sit there without feeling nauseous? I’m going to throw up all over you if you continue this charade.”

“Her relationship with Dad has nothing to do with us. They are adults with their own problems to sort out. She wants to genuinely build a relationship with us, and you’re being a ing brat right now, refusing to see her efforts.”

I stand, knocking over the wine glass in front of me. I watch as the red wine seeps into the white table cloth, much like a crime scene.

Baekhyun shakes his head, squeezing our intertwined hands. He expects me to be a bigger person, but I can’t do that. I can’t just sit there and swallow this bull.

“There is no us.” My breath catches, and my lips tremble. Because, frankly, fighting with your twin feels a lot like losing a vital organ. “She doesn’t want to build a relationship with me. In fact, she could care less about me. Chanyeol, can’t you see that all she cares about is her trophy son? Her accomplished lawyer son. You weren’t there when she told me to my face that I would never amount to anything or that my only worth came out of remaining under your shadow.”

I shake my head. “You may not approve of Baekhyun, but he was the only one who acknowledged me. We may have hated each other then, but at least to him, I wasn’t the daughter of a celebrity or the sister of—“ I swallow before I say something that I truly regret. “I was just Yun. The stupidly competitive Yun who was meant for more than prep school popularity. He saw that Yun before anyone else did. Maybe he wasn’t the most gentle with that information, but that doesn’t mean I was ignored. I know you have your own way of showing me affection, but you never asked what was best for me, Chanyeol. You fit me into this narrative that you’ve created in order to satisfy your brotherly ego. I’m done, okay? I’m done being that girl who you try so hard to shelter the harsh world from. Because by bringing mother here and expecting me to smile and welcome her back into my arms—you’re nothing more but a stranger to me right now.”

He opens his mouth to protest but pauses to reconsider before he forms his next words. “Fine,” Chanyeol bites out. “I ed up. I did. But did you think bringing Baekhyun here and telling me that he did the bare minimum would make me forget about the past transgressions? I was friends with him, Yun. I know him better than you do. What he did with our other classmates was unforgivable. He didn’t remember half of the names he slept with. Responsibility? Forget it. Because he was my friend, I turned a blind eye. Then, he decided that the other girls weren’t enough, so he went after you. Doing the same disgusting that I watched to my sister. Do you know how ing angry that makes me? I will never accept him. Get the out of here if you expect anything but indifference.”

My steps are quick as I do whatever it takes to escape the situation behind me. I forget about Baekhyun who is still here apparently.

My boyfriend ends up following behind closely until we’re in his car. “Hey,” he breathes out. Funnily, it sounds like the first breath he’s taken in ages.

“Dinner was the equivalent of sitting on a fire as someone continued to add gasoline to it,” I joke, trying to put it off as nothing serious.

“Can you look at me?”

When I don’t answer him, he brushes a thumb under my eye. His thumb shines under the light. I’m crying? But why? I had an entire dramatic monologue that would’ve empowered anyone, but I feel so empty and I can’t even fathom why.

Baekhyun continues, “what are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

Surprisingly, I wasn’t lying. There hadn’t been a single thought running through my mind. It was like being thrown in a vacuum. Absolutely nothing was happening; yet at the same time, the turbid feeling of helplessness threatened to crack the calmness on the surface.

He pulls me into him, hugging me so tightly that I can feel my bones creak. The pain pulls me back, and my chest rattles as I cry.

When I quiet down, my chest feels like a vacant lot. It’s a ghost town. I’ve never felt so hollow even when I’d reached rock bottom.

“Do you feel better now?” Baekhyun asks.

For once, I couldn’t lie. I wasn’t sure how to make it sound convincing. Truthfully, I’m not sure how to feel okay again. The emptiness in my chest is frightening. He takes us to his place, orders takeout, and after a silent dinner, we get ready for bed.

By then, it’d been an hour or two since he’d fallen asleep. Baekhyun didn’t ask me a single thing about my mother. It was like he knew I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t sleep. My mind was so awfully awake despite the exhaustion of having a spontaneous panic attack.

Was I ever going to talk about it? Probably not. I didn’t want to revisit these feelings. Definitely not when they made me feel so out of control.

I peel the sheets off of me and move Baekhyun’s arm from my waist. Then, I get up, heading to the first place in mind.