The look on Sehun's eyes is painfully tormenting.

Our eyes lock. He is heaving ragged breaths, and I feel a twinge in my heart. I drown in his sorrowful gaze and I can’t save myself. By a sudden haze, Sehun desperately dashes toward me and smashes me in a suffocating hug. I feel like I was blown, as if I was shot by a gun, and my rationality's immobilized.

"Why are you hiding from me?" Sehun's voice is fervent and shaking. I am wordless. I can’t understand myself. Sehun presses me tighter and I hitch up, seeing Jaera standing silently behind him. Her eyes are wide, baffled into tears that I can only decipher as hurt. Eaten by confusion and fear, I push Sehun off and he stumble backwards. I am off to approach my sister but she spins and races away, sniffling before slamming her room’s door.

I run to follow her but Sehun grabs my arm and restrains me from moving farther. My head oscillates between him and my sister, caught-up greatly in a state of bemusement. But then Sehun squeezes my wrist and I finally surrender with a sigh.

"Let's not talk here." I tremble.

We trudge outside and stop by the path-blocks from the gate. I keep on sighing. I cant look at him in the eye. All this time, Sehun has been protecting me. I still can’t understand why, but I realize that the situation has been really unfair for him. This is why I’m not good for him. I hurt him all the time, I inflict him with maddening emotions, and I know that Sehun could've been better if he hadn’t met me at all.

"You shouldn’t have come here." I say as I avoid his eyes.

"If I didn’t come here I'll never ever see you." He asserts with bitterness in his tone.

"Sehun," I sigh heavily. "This isn’t part of the plan. Now that Jaera's back, everything's going to be like the way it was before."

Sehun throws me a disbelieving look. "And what do you expect me to do? Just forget you? Just forget you like you never happened?"

"I never happened Sehun! I wasn’t supposed to happen!"

"But you did!"

"Sehun please! Don’t make this harder for me!" I exclaim as I try to contain the despair in my heart. "Please… stop.. liking me."

"Do you think that's easy? Do you think I want to feel this?" He shouts as he punches his chest with every word he says.

I hurry towards him and grab his arm to prevent him from hurting himself. The tears I've been fighting starts to flow down my face. Seeing him like this breaks my heart and I know this is my fault. If I can just erase the pain that bleeds inside of him, I'd really do. But what can I do?

"Sehun please! Stop!" I sob uncontrollably as I fight against his anguish. "What do you want me to do?!"

"I want you to love me!"

I freeze from his words. I tremble as his gaze tortures every strength that I have left. We stare at each other with struggled breaths, but Sehun is slowly sinking from my silence. He convulses from the inside. His face clenches.

"I love you.." I say with my weak voice.

Sehun scoffs, "Define that love."

"Sehun,"

"Answer me."

I choke on a breath and I stare hopelessly at him.

"I love you like if you fall from a cliff I’ll never let go of your hand until I save you, even if I’ll fall, myself.”

He gives out a ridiculously painful laugh. He gulps heavily. "What if Kai and I both fell at the same time, will you still choose to save me?" His voice cracks, but he lifts a hard face up.

I got shot deep. I swallow the lump in my throat but I lose the ability to speak. Sehun takes my stupefaction as an answer and he nods with mouth agape.

"Sehun—"

"You love him more than you love me." His tone is affirmative, and he isn’t asking a question. He nods again and again to himself, but he’s still struggling not to break it all out.

"I knew it ever since the pictorial. But I was hoping.. I was hoping that you'll see me too.. that you will love me eventually.."

Tears flood down my face all the more. The pain in my heart is too much. Even if I cry blood the pain will still stay in the deepest depths of me and there's no way for release. Sehun is trapped in this unworthy love but he still wants me. I don’t know which way to go, but right now Sehun is all I care for.

"I will, Sehun. I'll try."

He smiles a sufferable smile, but shakes his head just after.

"I know you will say that." He squeezes his lips. "But you cant force your heart to feel something it won’t."

"Just give me some time,"

"Don’t make promises just because you feel bad for me Jaemi," He walks to me and cups my face, tilting it up to link our eyes. "I'm really, really crazy about you, so don’t give me these hopes because I swear I'll never ever let you go."

*

As I close the door behind me, Jaera is standing at front, waiting, with bloodshot eyes. I shiver from the boundless affliction in her gaze. Her beautiful face is tainted with crystal tears. I stumble to a stop. I can’t move. I know she'll be mad at me, but why is she looking so deeply hurt instead? I've never seen her as brokenly hurt as this, and it scares me more, more than the guilt that I kept.

"I-Is Sehun in love with you?" Her cracking voice comes out like a trembling lavish of pain. Her face constricts, still so beautifully, yet filled with turmoil. I quiver all the same, but this isn’t the question I expected to fire from her.

I fail to answer, but she understands my silence. With this, she combusts to a harder weep. I am greatly appalled that I lose myself into the confusion that surrounds us.

"How?! Why?! What did he see in you? What do you have that I don’t?!" She shouts helplessly and she cries as harder tha