I turned around as soon as I felt a hand stopping me from walking any further, I slightly turned my head to the side and saw how Jonghyun stared at me, a serious look was on his face, a look that I wasn’t used to see. There was an odd silence that made the whole room awkward, his hand wouldn’t move from my arm, he seemed to want to keep it there until I said something, but I didn’t know what he wanted to hear exactly.

“I’ll go check” he repeated, walking past Yonghwa and me on the way to her room. I really tried my best not to let it bother me, but it was useless –apparently he had the right to go wake her up, I guess those times came back to him and he still believed it was possible for him to act the same way around her.

I couldn’t really believe that when we arrived at her flat, he showed off all of his anger and talked to her in that way in front of everyone but now was going in order to check whether she was up or not. There was something about everything that I didn’t understand, and it was frustrating. It was getting me frustrated because there wasn’t a thing I could do or say because I had no right to, I wasn’t her boyfriend, I was just her best friend and Jonghyun was my longtime friend as well, I couldn’t really say anything.

In all of the past years, I never said anything; I sighed and tried not to mind it.

“Is there something wrong, Minhyuk?” Yonghwa hyung suddenly asked me, catching me off guard. Wrong –there were so many things that were wrong, probably starting by the fact that perhaps, I should have never set foot in this flat, my head since yesterday night was a mess, and I bet Jonghyun was in the same state as I was. However, it’s even more frustrating when you are quiet about things and try to hide your own feelings. I shook my head no though and smiled at Yonghwa.

“Nope, nothing’s wrong!” I replied in a cheerful tone.

“It’s weird you are not nagging today” he pointed out.

“Ah –no, I’m alright, I promise I am” I then went to bring other things from inside the kitchen, I was sure she wouldn’t mind. There was something about Yonghwa though, that made me feel uneasy, being the oldest among us he could understand more of the atmosphere that was on the room, I also remembered when he mentioned about me and her being couple –it was like he could read how I felt and that made me worry.

I started chopping some meat on the kitchen as I tried to get my thoughts straight when a sudden scream coming from the hallway startled me, “GO AWAY LEE JONGHYUN!”

Her voice resonated in all the apartment and it gave me such a scare that I accidentally ended up cutting my finger with the knife I was cutting the meat with, I placed it on the chopping table, I had to quickly wash my hands and I rushed past Yonghwa hyung without uttering a single word, I somehow was scared of what had happened, and why she had suddenly screamed like that.

I reached the door to her room, it was closed and as I got closer to it I could hear their voices, apparently arguing.

“I hate you so much! Don’t you ever come close to me!” she yelled at him. A hit against something that sounded like wood followed her shouts, it wasn’t her though.

“Alright, it’s not like I want to come close to you anyway” I could hear Jonghyun replying in a tone which seemed to be mixed with anger and hurt. The door opened wide in front of me and Jonghyun avoided meeting his eyes with me, he walked past me without saying a single word. I knew it was wise not to mention anything, but starting the day fighting…at least that gave me the idea that they weren’t really getting on well.

I fixed my eyes on her; she was sitting at the edge of her bed and had wrapped her arms around her knees, burying her face on them.

“May I come in?” I asked, I wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk to me –or to anyone.

She nodded in reply and I took a step inside, my fingers ran down the door and stopped at the doorknob, I slowly pushed it back until I heard it click, my steps took me to her bed and I sat next to her.

“I don’t want to see Jonghyun again…” she suddenly mentioned, I saw how she grabbed the sheets of her bed as her breathing started going fast, as though she was really mad, I quietly placed my hand over hers, trying to give her strength and support without actually saying a thing, her eyes looked up and met mine, it felt as though my heart skipped a beat when she did that because I felt like I had stopped breathing for a second.

“Minhyuk oppa…” she said, her voice was breaking down each passing second, I linked my fingers with hers and brought my free hand to her face.

“Yes? What’s wrong?”

“Tell Jonghyun to stay away from me” I nodded in response, a reassuring smile on my face to let her know that I would do as she wanted me to.

“I will, don’t worry…” she looked at me and a small smile was drawn on her face, she lifted one of her hands and placed it over mine.

“Thank you…” she softly said as she caressed my hand, I was at a loss of words, but I knew in my mind that I was just being there to support her, and that actually Jonghyun was on her mind at that moment, even if he was bothering her, he was occupying her thoughts.

“Is there something that I’m missing” she tilted her head to the side and stared at me with puppy dog eyes, “I guess not…”

“Oppa…just do me that favor, please”

She then suddenly took a look at her hand and her eyes were opened big with worry, “Minhyuk oppa! What happened to your hand?!”

“Eh? What do you mean?” I asked, totally clueless.

“It’s bleeding! Did you cut yourself? How? Does it hurt?” she started panicking and quickly jumped out of bed and went to a shelf to look for something.

She startled me, but then I looked at my finger and remembered that I had in fact cut myself before rushing to her bedroom, “I’m sorry, did I get to stain your face?”

“No, and even if you had, that wouldn’t matter” she turned around and I saw some alcohol, cotton and band aids on her hands.

“Not alcohol, that would hurt more, and it’s not like it’s bleeding a lot” I moved aside but she placed her hands on my shoulders and without prior notice she pushed me to the bed, I landed on her soft pillows, I looked up and I didn’t know how or when exactly but I saw her sitting over me with the bottle of alcohol in one hand and a piece of cotton on the other one.

“What do you think you are doing?” I nervously asked, not because of the alcohol now…but because she was sitting over me and I couldn’t really assimilate the fact that she was so calm about it while I was about to pass out just because of seeing her above me. I gulped and tried to calm myself down. She always used to do things that would be totally misunderstood by others but that it was natural for us.

Although I would have been all cool about it when I was younger…now it was different, but this only reassured me that she could only see me as her long time best friend, if she could do something like this without hesitation and without feeling nervous –then