“Great job people!” Woonha calls out, applauding the crew for the day’s work.

You applauded along, bowing at the cameramen and photographers, the stylists and the other staffs on duty. 

Everybody returns to the van to take the team back to Eunbok, the ride mostly silent due to the fatigue from the day.

“That was a good shoot,” Lay says quietly beside you.

“Indeed,” You smile at him.  “Not for the picture though,”

He chuckles at that and glances at the sleeping Luhan.  “I really sent him the picture, you know,”

“God,” You slap your forehead.  “I thought you were less evil than that,”

The two of you quietly laugh and smile at each other, finding comfort in each other’s company. 

“Worry not, though,” Lay takes out his phone and shows you your own picture once more.  “You don’t look so bad in there.  Instead, you look kind of cute,”

Trying to avoid self-consciousness, you take out your phone, too, and show him his own picture in exchange.  “You........well, duh, you totally look good here Lay,” You frown at the picture and at the real person beside you, both as statuesque as you could imagine.  “Your face has a really nice shape,” You trace his jaw on the picture with your finger and sigh, locking your screen as it goes black.

“Anyways,” Lay avoids the topic, putting up a thin smile on your face.  “I look forward to the film and the pictures.  We three kind of work well together,”

“Me too, and yes, we do,” You smile, resting your head on the window for a bit of sleep before getting back to the shop.

The road wasn’t exactly smooth, so it isn’t rare that you’re woken up by the sound of your own head meeting the window with a very loud ‘Bonk’, but you go back to sleep anyways.  Somewhere in the middle of the way, the bonks stopped, replaced by a comfortable place to lean on as you sleep without further disturbance.

Finally, you’re completely awoken by the van’s honk, and Woonha silently announces that you’ve arrived in Eunbok.  You sit up straight and rub your eyes, glancing to your left to see that Lay is asleep with his arms crossed and his head lowered.  The crew are also mostly asleep, along with Luhan amidst them.  You throw a grateful smile at Woonha and left a note for Lay, one you stuck on his phone’s screen. 

“Thank you everybody, let’s work together for as long as we can!” You whisper as you exit the van, and wave as it drives away.

Slightly, you stumble as it gets dark and you had to blink a few times to clear your vision.  The headbumps on the window you had on the car probably caused this; a slight dizziness and the lack of vision clarity.  Locking up shop and saying thank you to the team, you drive home, barely keeping up your conscience and barely conscious of your heavy trudge up the stairs of your house and to your room, dropping dead on the bed without a change of clothes.

“So.  Tired,” You sigh as you drift off to the night’s sleep.

***

“Ugh,” I groan as I rest my back on my chair, exhausted from all the day’s work.

I hear Chanyeol chuckle from my office’s sofa and I fling a ball of crumpled paper at his head.

“Hey!” He protests, throwing it back, but missing me by a lot.

“You’re my assistant, Chanyeol.  You help me, you don’t laugh at me,” I say quietly, covering my eyes with my arm. 

“I help you, Chen.  Like a lot,” He says, and I can practically see him rolling his eyes.  “Why did I end up being your assistant, anyways.  We’re best friends back in Europe.  You’re supposed to make me the vice or something,”

I drop my arm and meet his eyes, and at that moment, we both laugh.  “Good idea, why didn’t I think of that,” I say between my laughter.

“I’m not that much of an idiot, anyways,” He stands up and goes to my desk, breaking a piece from the cookie I bought just this afternoon.  “Saw you wander off across the street back then, by the way.  Something caught your eye?”

I grab the rest of the cookie away from his reach and narrow my eyes at him.  “You spy,”

“Hey, it was done without purpose,” He shrugs dismissively.  “So.  Tell me about it,”

I lower the cookie and take a bite myself.  “There was a shooting period,”

“Mm hmm,”

“And it was Samsung’s,”

Silence.

“It was cold,”

Silence.

“The models were practically all ulzzangs straight to their core,”

Silence.

“I knew exactly 5 of them,”

“And between them is your Lady,” Chanyeol finally speaks up, too much to the point that you slightly cough on your cookie.

“I told you not to mention her, Park Chanyeol,” I look at him with slight distaste.

“For how long, Chen?” He asks me.  “For how long do you want me not to mention her? For how long do you want to hide behind these stupid concrete walls, behind this wooden desk, how long?”

“Park Chanyeol, don’t piss me off,”

“I will.  Right now, I’ll make you lose your temper and all the control you’ve ever mustered and I’ll kick you out these windows if I need to.  Haven’t you seen how much she—“

“I HAVE! AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I CAN’T FACE HER!”

I blew my own top and I slam my palms on the table, fuming, looking square into Chanyeol’s big eyes. 

Instead of stepping back, Chanyeol laughs.

“What the heck—“ I go around the table and grab his collar.

“You’re an idiot,” He chuckles, letting me grab his collar.  “You’re even more stupid than me, right now,”

“You—what—“

“Did you forget why you left? What was it? What was the reason? Didn’t you write her a letter? Didn’t you leave her only with that piece of paper with your stupid writing on it? Did all this really wiped that off of your mind? If it did, then you’d be the most heartless person I’ve known, and the stupidest one I’ve ever befriended,”

I slowly let go of him as his words rang in me.  Chanyeol tidies himself up irritatedly and grabs my collar in exchange.  “Snap out of it, Kim Jongdae,”

He lets go of me so quickly I stumble back and leaves the office, leaving me alone.

I lose the strength in my legs and I sit down, cross-legged on the carpeted floor, grabbing my own hair as I pressed the heel of my hand onto my eyebrow.  Stupid Chanyeol.  He’s good at these things.  So good I didn’t even have the time to process the things that happened and the words he threw like a knife at me.

But he wasn’t thoroughly correct.

I saw her.  In such pain, in so much hurt that I felt like I could kill myself from the guilt I felt.  I wanted to run to her, I wanted to take her into my arms.

But I didn’t.

Because I thought she could handle it, just a little bit longer.  Until I was sure of myself.  

And then I found out; she couldn’t.

She was so used to the pain I gave her she turned numb, locking me inside a box that she buried so deep in her heart nobody could ever lay a finger on it. 

And then I came to regret my actions.

I was scared, so scared, that she would hate me.  For all the treatment I gave her, for all the ignorance I paid her. 

So scared I couldn’t face her.

Everything; it happened all at once.

 “I told you.  I didn’t forget,”

And now, someone else was there for her in my place.

Am I even needed in her life anymore?

Do I have the right, to truly ask for her hand?

Do I have the right to even love her?