After school, Sehun accompanied Eunsung back to her house which had now become a regular routine for the two of them. Their late afternoons would usually consist of them completing their homework together, making dinner and then cuddling while watching a movie. It was a simple lifestyle but that was what they preferred - besides they weren't so fussed about the things they did because at the end of the day, they just wanted to spend time together. Being in each other's presence was more than enough.

On this particular day, after Sehun finished the last set of maths questions, he looked over to the girl who had her eyebrows furrowed as she was concentrating on her work. Smiling at the sight, he slipped out of the room quietly so that he didn't disturb her. The house was generally quiet as Eunsung's parents were never there (minus the one time he saw them of course), which was a major difference to the life Sehun had been living for the past 18 years - living in a house filled with his friends guaranteed noise 24/7.

Looking in the fridge, Sehun is greeted with two tomatoes, a plastic container with kimchi and half a bottle of milk causing him to frown. It's just past 6 o'clock and he's feeling rather hungry. He checks the drawers and cupboards too but to no avail - there's only a small can of sweetcorn left. Almost as if she read his thoughts, Eunsung wandered into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water.

"Did you finish your work?" Sehun asked, holding the water jug over the girl's empty cup.

Eunsung nodded and watched the cup fill with water, "I swear maths uses so much energy. I'm so hungry now, what are we eating tonight?" She pulled open the fridge only to find it empty just as Sehun had.

"Ah, I forgot to mention - there's no food left in the house," Sehun belatedly mentions causing Eunsung to scrunch up her nose. He smiles at the action, "Let's go out."

*    *    *

At the local supermarket, Eunsung weighs a bunch of vegetables while Sehun mumbles something along the lines of 'there's far too much green' behind her which makes the corner of her lips lift upwards. During the time they had spent together, Eunsung had noticed that Sehun disliked eating broccoli, spinach, peas (basically anything green) and she took it in herself to encourage him to eat more. However, Sehun was oblivious to this but hey, there's no harm in eating more greens.

When the girl's done with the weighing, she looks around for the other but he's not beside her. Instead, she finds him standing in front of a middle aged woman who's giving out samples of beef, chicken and pork. When Sehun's finished trying each of the different types of meat, he frowns and glares at the other customers who are happily enjoying their samples. Eunsung can't stop herself laughing at the sight. Oh, Sehun.

Sensing someone watching him, Sehun spots Eunsung and jogs up to her then proceeds to tell her about how tasty the meat is. She tries some of the samples Sehun has dragged her over to and she shares the rest of it with him, knowing how much he likes it. They end up buying both the beef and pork packs when Sehun argues that it's only fair since they have so much vegetables and they need a 'balance' (Eunsung stares at him in disbelief because two large packs of meat and a small portion of veg is hardly a balance!)

After paying for all the food they buy, the pair exit the store and walk along the pavement to return home. It's quite warm outside so the girl rummages through her bags to look for the strawberry milk she bought but she can't find it anywhere.

"Looking for this?" Sehun smirks as he shakes the carton in his hand and the girl reaches out to grab it from his hands but the latter dodges her. The girl looks at him for a second before a small 'tch' leaves her lips which sounded rather like a laugh and then reaches out to grab it once more but Sehun runs away this time. The two end up chasing each other down the street while holding shopping bags which probably looked ridiculous to others but it managed to make their journey home a little less tiring and more joyful.

When Eunsung does catch up to Sehun, the two are panting with their hands on their knees and then exchange looks before breaking out in laughter. Their playfulness continues, resulting in a small foot fight on the way to opening the door. But once inside, they cease their playing to set the bags on the countertops.

"What should we eat today?" Eunsung murmurs to herself as she unpacks the shopping bags. Sehun looks at the ingredients and a thought pops into his mind, "Hey why don't you let me cook for tonight?"

The girl stops unpacking and raises an eyebrow, "Didn't you cook yesterday?"

"I mean everything," Sehun explains, enjoying the way the girl reacted gradually. It started with a slow nod, the widening of her eyes and then a small 'o' formed on her lips. He wanted to laugh at her confused expression. Why did he find everything she did so... endearing?

"But-" the girl started to protest only to be cut off by Sehun, "Let me do everything today and if you don't like it, we can go back to cooking together tomorrow, how does that sound?" He knew that the girl felt as if she had to do something to contribute - she never liked to sit back and watch others do things by themselves because that just wasn't in her nature. But for once, he wanted the girl to rely on another person: him.

Reluctantly the girl agreed but insisted that the least she could do was to finish unpacking - Sehun couldn't deny her doing that. Sitting on a stool, Eunsung watched Sehun busy himself with washing the vegetables. At first she felt kind of stiff not doing anything to help but with Sehun's constant questions ('why do we need to use all these vegetables? do we have to have this much? can we exclude the broccoli?') she found herself relaxing and slowly enjoying just watching him.

Having thrown the pork into the wok fifteen minutes earlier, Sehun takes out a piece which is now a golden brown and holds it out to Eunsung to give her the first taste, "How is it?" To Eunsung, she recalls the memory of the time in China when Sehun grilled the meat and she's still surprised at how he manages to cook so well. She hums in approval and holds up her thumb, "But Sehun-ah, why did you give me the first plate that time?"

"What time?" Sehun asks half distracted as he's keeping a eye on all the pots and pans on the stove.

"You know, that time in China when the guys were grilling meat."

Sehun stops his actions for a second before he continues to shuffle the vegetables in the pot, "Because I love you, okay?" The kitchen fell silent except for the sizzling and bubbling and before Sehun could look up for the girl's reaction, a pair of slender arms had wrapped themselves around his torso. Although the two of them had been together for a few weeks by now, they hadn't said that word yet because they were unsure of whether the other would feel comfortable with it and also because they didn't want to feel so vulnerable if they loved another person (Sehun lost the two people he loved while Eunsung was unable to see the two people she loved).

"Eunsung?" Sehun calls out softly when he hears a small sniffle come behind him. When he attempts to turn around, the grip on his torso tightens and the girl shakes her head but Sehun is stronger and untangles her from himself, "Hey... what's wrong?"

The girl shakes her head, feeling silly all of a sudden, "I just... I love you so much Sehun-ah." The boy smiles softly, lifts the girl's chin so that he can see her eyes and then leans in for a small kiss. It's a touching moment for the both of them - they have never admitted to each other just how much they love each other and to have it out in the open is, to say the least, relieving. They rest their foreheads against each other for a brief while so that they can catch back their breaths and take in what's just happened.

Following that, their dinner is lighthearted; when they're not eating, they're making small jokes to each other and asking about each other's days. Sehun feels the need to balance out the atmosphere earlier with something much lighter - he knows that Eunsung said she was crying because she loved him but Sehun never wants her to cry because of him ever again.

Later when Sehun's washing up the dishes along with Eunsung drying them with a towel, Eunsung's phone vibrates so she wipes down her hands and picks up her phone to answer the call but before she can answer it, the call disconnects. She sees a new notification pop up to see she's received a new message from Zelo.

Come outside. I'll be waiting.

Eunsung furrows her eyebrows and glances at the front door briefly. She then returns her attention to Sehun who's busy cleaning the remaining plates with his back facing her and decides to slip outside for a short while just to see what's wrong. The girl shivers slightly when she steps outside as the temperature has dropped a little since it's late and she's only wearing a thin jumper.

"Zelo," she calls and surely enough, the said person appears on her right. Zelo hadn't come to her house intentionally - it just so happened that he was having a stroll and he passed by. Then something, perhaps a force, pushed him towards it. He'd watched the girl return home on several occasions before (in the period of time he was avoiding her) which was why he knew where she lived. Standing outside for ten minutes, he decided to see her; maybe that would help clear his confused thoughts.

"Hey," he greets her with a smile, "Did I disturb you?"

"No..." she shakes her head, "I was just- how... why did you come here? Did something happen?" She searches his eyes for a giveaway but the latter remains still. All he can think about is how she still cares for him and in his delusional mind, he believes it could be due to something else other than friendship. He's so caught up in just staring at her that he doesn't hear the girl calling his name a few times. Instead, he notices how she's shivering from the cold and longs to pull her close and wrap his arms around her. On the other hand, Eunsung's worried so decides to bring him inside where it's much warmer so that they can talk. Just when the girl turns around to open the door, Zelo suddenly grabs her wrist and pulls her into his embrace. Startled, she stands there stiffly not quite sure how to react.

"Zelo...?" she murmurs, attempting to break the hug to look at the other's expression but Zelo prevents this by hugging her tighter. In this position, he can finally smell the strawberry scent on her hair, feel the girl's warmth and lastly, feel how perfect she felt in his embrace. This all felt so right to him.

"I'm..." Zelo started, looking up when he felt someone watching them both to see Sehun standing by the front door with a blank expression. What perfect timing. He returned a cold, fierce stare back as he finished, "...never giving up." He wanted to smirk at Sehun's surprised expression but before he could, any trace of surprise was replaced with blankness. Sehun let the door fall shut again and walked back into the living room. Whatever happened out there was none of his business yet somehow, he couldn't bring himself to ignore it. Zelo was clearly giving Sehun a message when he said 'I'm never giving up' with so much determination and Sehun could only hope that the horrible feeling of doubt would soon disappear.

It didn't.

The next day at lunch time, Sehun was let out of class late because his teacher's presentation took longer than expected so by the time he reached Eunsung's classroom, he found the majority of the students had already left. The first thing he did was pull out his phone to call her but strangely, it went straight to voicemail. Letting out a heavy sigh, he made his way to the cafeteria and immediately spotted his friends. But unfortunately, none of them had seen the girl.

He left the table and tried to look for her again. Just as he was about to call her another time, he heard his name being called. Haera tilted her head in greeting, "Are you looking for Eunsung by any chance?" He was about to reply when she continued, "She's in the library with Zelo." Sehun thanked her and hurried to the said place. An awful twisting was felt at the bottom of his stomach and he didn't like it at all.

Upon entering the library, his eyes quickly scanned past the rows of students as he walked past several tables. Although he felt increasingly discouraged the more tables he passed, he continued walking until he caught sight of Eunsung's brown hair gleaming in the sunlight. He smiled at the sight - her cheek rested on her homework as she was sleeping and she was facing the window. Shaking his head in amusement, he was about to walk over and wake her up when he noticed Zelo was sitting beside her. And again that uncomfortable coiling was felt. It was even more prominent when Zelo reached his hand out to brush a strand away from the girl's face. Initially Sehun wanted to know what Zelo intended to do but he couldn't just stand by and watch.

Walking over to the pair, he took Eunsung's bag and began packing all her belongings. Zelo looked surprised at his presence but didn't comment and Sehun hoped he would remain quiet because he honestly didn't want to be reminded about what he just saw.

"Eunsung-ah," Sehun murmured softly patting the girl's cheek. It took a few seconds for the girl to adjust to the sudden brightness and blinking a few times, she realised it was her boyfriend who had woken her up. Her lips curved into a smile, "Sehun-ah."

The boy smiled back, "Yes it's me. Come on, let's go. I'll buy you something to eat." Eunsung nodded and slid the remaining sheets of paper into her plastic folder. With one hand, Sehun was holding the girl's bag and the other, he was holding onto the girl's hand.

"Do you want to join us for lunch Zelo?" Eunsung asked remembering the latter hadn't eaten either. Zelo shook his head with a smile and waved his hand dismissively, "You guys go ahead. I'm not so hungry today."

As the two made their way to the cafeteria, Sehun couldn't stop thinking about what was bothering him. Yesterday had been a warning and today had been an eyeopener - Zelo was still trying to pursue his girlfriend and he wasn't afraid to start crossing any boundaries. Sehun couldn't possibly imagine how far Zelo intended to go because there was only so far he could go. But whatever happened, he hoped he didn't hurt Eunsung in the process because then Sehun wouldn't be afraid to step in.

♥ AUTHOR'S NOTE;

Yesssss I'm back! :D I've missed writing so much omg, apologies for the messiness of this chapter, it's a little difficult for me to return to the flow of things since I've had a two month hiatus but please do bare with me guys! A little heads up, I'm thinking of finishing TNOLY within around four more chapters fingers crossed in the next few weeks now that my exams are out of the way.