In most movies and probably books too, there’s always some sort of chemistry between the main characters. Well, I couldn’t deny the chemistry I had with the young man named Lee Donghae. Just, redefine what that word actually means.

“C’mon, you can do it.”

I gasped, choking and spitting. The next second, I was plunging back into the ice water. Fingers dug into my scalp, another hand closed around my throat.

When I next came up for air, I swallowed the instinct to breathe and sputtered, “Daylight!”

Donghae jerked me back, water splashing across the bathroom floor. His hands fell away and I gingerly inspected my throbbing neck. Cold tendrils coiled and dripped from the ends of my hair.

“Three minutes and seven seconds,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes, trying to stop the shivers raking my body. “Dammit.”

“We aren’t stopping until you hit five minutes,” Donghae stated, sounding like he was laughing.

Yes, we had chemistry, so long as chemistry was defined as a predator and its prey. We were ordered by Siwon and Yesung to train together and thus far it had been more of a bullying session than anything else.

He enjoyed seeing me legitimately struggle.

“How long have we been doing this?” I breathed shakily.

“Two hours,” he responded, “you’re increased stamina by a minute. Two more and then we’re done for the night.”

“We?” I couldn’t help retort.

Donghae’s mouth twitched. “I’m here helping you through it. If you could’ve lasted longer the first time, we wouldn’t be in this situation.” His fingers tangled in my hair again and his hand closed around my throat. “Let’s get back to it.”

***

“Daylight!”

I clicked my tongue, glowering at his apparent inability to cut vegetables. “Why are you using the safe word? I’m not even teaching you something difficult,” I snapped.

Donghae flashed that innocent little grin of his. “We can use that word whenever we want out when we’re uncomfortable. I am extremely uncomfortable right now.”

“Just cut the vegetables,” I sighed, bringing the knife down on a slab of meat.

It had been a two weeks since we were forced to move in together. In the beginning, we had simply been kept in the same hotel suites while travelling to the new headquarters in another city. Siwon and Yesung had rarely shown their faces, only doing so when they wanted to check on our progress or give us a special training assignment.

We had been tasked with a variety of things ranging anywhere from weapons assembly to cooking dinner. There was an endless list of hobbies and talents we were expected to learn. The worst ones though had to be the torture lessons. Donghae had taken the liberty of personally teaching me about how to keep calm under torture, even going as far as to establish a safe word: Daylight.

Most of the time, I was the only one using it, but sometimes he would as well when there was a talent I had to teach him. As for why he would ever need a safe word when it came to my hobbies, I didn’t know. It wasn’t as if I had him bent over a bathtub drowning him.

“You never spoke to Kyuhyun like this.”

My knife slipped, nearly slicing through a finger. Cursing under my breath, I looked over my shoulder to see Donghae fully facing me, hips leaned back against the counter. His arms were crossed laxly. “What do you mean?” I mumbled.

Donghae nodded his chin at me absently. “I’ve seen how you two interact. I’ve heard about it too. This is the first time you’ve spoken so outrageously to anyone, isn’t it?” His smile was all-knowing and just seeing it made me want to tear my own hair out.

“You don’t know anything about that,” I replied simply.

“Yesung is my mentor,” he pushed off from the counter, “I was taught to learn everything I can about the people I associate with.” Donghae kept coming forward. “The moment I learned of you, I went in search of information about you. What I found was Kyuhyun. You two have been in love since the first time you met, but neither of you seemed to notice until the night you decided to leave.” He was right in front of me then, so close that I could feel his breath on my skin. “It must have been a sign.”

A sign, I was sure, that meant we weren’t supposed to be together. From the look in Donghae’s eyes, he had been thinking the same thing.

“Here,” he lifted up a phone, that challenging glint in his eyes again, “I met Kyuhyun a while back and I promised to contact him with any information about you.” I refused to admit that that made me happy. It was more of a bother than anything. “I think it’s about time I do that.” Donghae s an arm around my body, gripping me tightly against him.

I forced myself to not push him away with eyes lowered to the minimal space – if any – existed between us. “Why would you tell me this?”

“Another trial,” he answered simply, the phone’s speaker belting out dial tones. His lips pressed against the side of my neck and jolts tingled my spine. “If you can’t handle it, just shout ‘daylight’ like you always do.”

“Hello?” an irritated voice replaced the droning mechanics.

My body stiffened and Donghae laughed in my ear. Shutting my mouth, I tried not to focus on Kyuhyun’s familiar voice. It had been so long and I was beginning to remember what I had given up. That person with his arrogance and silent concern and our special, if not screwed up, friendship.

“Hey Kyuhyun,” Donghae greeted casually, his long fingers finding their way underneath the back of my shirt. Jerking my head away, I bite down on my lip. “So I looked into it for you. A report of a teenager involved in a car accident popped up. Ryeowook didn’t have any identification with him, so they took a blood sample from the body they—”

My hand slammed over his mouth before I could comprehend what I had just done. Staring up at him, I could already see the smugness of victory in his eyes. “I…,” I whispered, feeling my arm slump back down. Dropping my head to his shoulder, I gripped the sleeve of his t-shirt, breathing slowly.

Donghae’s hand pulled back from my skin, trailing up to run through my hair. “You still there, Kyuhyun?”

“Yeah, I am,” he responded softly.

“Well, as I was saying, they took a blood sample and compared it to the police database’s records of his father. It was a match.”

I wanted to shoot this man. I loathed him. I would shove him over a ledge. He found pleasure in anything and everything that made me break. Worst of all, he had to be my most important person. I couldn’t understand his merit. We had nothing in common. It was like an animal being raised up for slaughter. Why had Siwon considered Donghae to be a good partner in any sense?

“…shouldn’t Yesung’s be better at data collection?” Kyuhyun finally sighed.

My eyes flickered up to see Donghae grinning.

“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. You can go verify it yourself,” he murmured, blowing cool air across my ear.

I flinched, scooting as much as I could away from him. Donghae’s fingers simply tightened around my hair, tugging me back roughly. His teeth dragged across the crook of my neck. I muffled a gasp into his chest, digging nails into his shirt sleeve. The muscles beneath soft fabric tensed. It was only a small victory to make him uncomfortable.

“And what happens when I find out that you’re a liar?” Kyuhyun scoffed.

It seemed like he had picked up a couple more vulgar sayings since I last saw him.

“I bet you’ll be even angrier,” Donghae answered mildly. Suddenly, he shoved me back against the counter edge, pushing forward until our hips were flush and my shoulder blades grazed the smooth surface. “But you’re gonna be even more upset when you find out I didn’t get my facts wrong.” Donghae grasped my throat, fingertips pressing into the sides of my neck.

I gritted teeth, ignoring the rising panic.

“Your Kim Ryeowook is dead,” he his lips, leaning over and speaking in hushed tones against the side of my jaw. “Got that?” his whisper sliced through my ear drum, stinging in all the right – wrong – places. Pushing up on his elbow, Donghae lifted the phone up again, “My condolences. If you ever need anything—” A dial tone surged through the device.

Blinking a few times, Donghae stared at the phone perplexed. A smile graced his features and he tucked it into his back pocket. “Whoops,” he mumbled, hovering over me, elbows pinning me in on either side.

“Why…no, no I know why,” I fumbled for words, “but…why?”

His expression didn’t soften or mock. “You’re in or you’re out. There’s no in between. Whoever you used to be is no longer a valid option.” Donghae let his head fall to one side, eyes dark and deep. “So long as you hold onto hope for Kyuhyun, you will keep on calling ‘daylight’ and wavering. Think of this as a favor for him and you.”

“Being tortured and never seeing Kyuhyun again are completely different,” I said voice quieter than I wanted it to be.

“Then tell me: which one is worse?”

I couldn’t say.

Donghae pushed off of me, rolling his neck as he walked back over to his vegetables. “You don’t have a decision anymore, Ryeowook,” he said calmly, flatly, “jump ship and drown.”

“In the bathtub?” I let slip.  

He peered back at me, a playful light entering his eyes. Without saying a thing, he turned back and continued preparing the vegetables.

Sighing, I went back to my own task for cooking. If Kyuhyun thought I was dead, then so be it. Donghae was right. I had no choice anymore. I wasn’t going to curl up in a ball and cry over the decision I had made.