Narrator's POV

The car tires rolled noisily over the gravel, causing Mina's head to suddenly jerk upward from where she was sitting, curled up like a ball on the cold porch steps. She let her head fall forward once again after the man left the driver's seat and left the vehicle. "Doctor, I need more antidepressants," she muttered monotonously as soon as the man came to a halt in his tracks in front of her.

"What for?" Donghae asked, as if the answer wasn't obvious enough. But even so, Mina responded, "They haven't taken effect on me yet." She looked up and saw him looking down on her. He fumbled for his keys and with a click, his front door was unlocked. "What do you want them to do exactly?" Donghae pressed, twisting the door knob and inviting her in.

He set the keys on the table and walked to his kitchen. "They haven't made me smile, for one." Mina stood in the middle of the living room. It wasn't that she felt uncomfortable being inside her psychologist's house. She had been there many times before and always for the same reason. She needed more antidepressants because the normal dose he gives her just isn't enough.

"Well, you haven't smiled since we first met two months ago," Donghae stated as-a-matter-of-factly while pouring some water into a glass. "How long have you been sitting outside, anyway?" he asked, advancing back to the living room and handing her the glass. She sipped not even a mouthful. "Not very long." She shrugged. "I just really need some more pills."

"You always need more," Donghae commented, disappearing for a while into a room and reappearing now with a new bottle of antidepressants in his hand. "How's Mrs. Young?" he asked, buying himself some time while scribbling messily on a piece of paper. "She told me she and the others flew into Hong Kong and would probably stay there for a week at most," Mina replied.

Donghae knew quite well that by 'the others', Mina meant her mother's other family – her stepfather and her two half siblings. "And how did that make you feel?" he pressed, being the good doctor he was. It was his duty to know everything that goes through her mind at that moment. "Oh, I feel superb, doctor. I've never felt so ecstatic in my life," she exclaimed sarcastically.

"Mina..."

She rolled her eyes. She hated that tone of his. "What, Donghae?" Mina groaned. The man's mind out, his senses incapacitated for a moment. Never had he once heard her call him by his name. "Okay, I know I asked the wrong question and I'm sorry." His defenses snapped back in place and he maintained an air of professionalism that was always there. He cleared his throat. "And your father?"

"Same old, same old. Didn't you just ask me that during my last appointment? Do you really expect people to change in just two weeks, doctor?" Mina asked, meeting his gaze. She remained uprightly standing in the middle of the living room somehow out of place. She sighed. "But if you're curious, then my supposedly half sister is still the best offspring he has ever had."

"But do you still get those nightmares?" Donghae strolled with an effortless grace that she had envied since her mother had sent her to his clinic for a cure – as if her depression was somehow infectious. She held her hand out and he placed the container in her hand. His touch was wrong, she thought. And for a moment there, Mina watched as he slowly retracted his arm.

Snapping back to reality, Mina shook her head no and fished her pockets out for her wallet. "I don't know how much that would cost me..." she muttered, but Donghae had already cut her off before she could finish.”You could smile for me instead," he said, a smile slowly spreading across his lips. The woman just blinked back at him, not clearly knowing if she should smile back or say something. But in the end, she decided to do neither.

"Would you stay for dinner?" Now, Donghae had unknowingly breached his limits by placing his warm hand on her arm, as if restricting her from leaving. Why was he touching her when of all the days they would meet, she would lie down on his couch and tell him how she feels? "Why?" she finally asked.

"I..." The man thought for a moment. "I have food."

Her eyes crinkled at the corners, hinting that he may have had earned himself the first smile he would see from her in the two months she had been going in and out of his office. But that was all there was to it. The phantom of the soon-to-be grin was the only thing left after half a heartbeat. "These pills are the only reason why I came around so..." She looked down at her feet, embarrassed.

Insistently, Donghae grabbed her wrists and pulled her to his kitchen. "No, someone has to know how much of a good cook I am~" He stomped his feet on the way and as he did so, Mina's forehead creased in wonder. "You must have soaked up one of your patients' bipolar disorder, doctor?" she asked, amused. There was a hint of smile in her voice, but when he turned to look at her, was set on a grim line.

He released her hand from his grip and pushed a chair back, inviting her to sit. "Tell me something," Donghae started, opening his fridge and taking plastic containers out. "Did you finish college?" he asked without looking at her and instead facing the stove. "Does that have anything to do with my being severely depressed?" Mina asked back.

Donghae shrugged. "Not really." He set a pan on the stove. Once again, Mina envied how he does everything with an air of confidence even if no one else but her was watching. "I did, actually." She stretched her arms out in front of her and yawned. "I went eenie meenie on the list of degrees and then my finger ended up on Mathematics."

"You must be really smart," he said, glancing behind him to look at her. "Bet you don't know what 369 plus 271 minus 301 multiplied to 2 and divided by 3 is." Donghae laughed, obviously teasing her. As he let the cooking oil heat on the pan, he leaned against the counter and stared at her. "Nice try." Mina rubbed her eyes sleepily. "But it's 12 point 66 and 26 more sixes and then 7."

"You're really something, aren't you?" he blurted out all of a sudden. Before he could apologize for his careless words and take them back, Mina had already helped herself to opening his fridge and pouring a glass of water. Popping an antidepressant in and gulping a mouthful of water, "Please don't be like that," she told him.

The awkward silence ensued, with the occasional sizzling of whatever Donghae was cooking. Mina, on the meanwhile, let her eyes scan her surroundings. It wasn't her first time going inside her psychologist's house, but this was a first for her to take a closer look on his living environment. Ignoring the initial nauseous effect caused by her medication, she shifted more comfortably in her seat.

There were framed pictures of Donghae and his family, Donghae and his older brother, and Donghae with his parents back when he was younger – all neatly aligned atop a closed and seemingly unused piano. Adjacent to the living room was a closed door, which she figured was his bedroom. For a bachelor, she didn't expect his house to be unbelievably tidy.

He immediately ran to the living room, suddenly feeling the urge to arrange a stack of books neatly on a shelf. "Sorry~ I know my house looks really messy right now because I haven't had time to fix since I didn't know you were coming and I live alone so..." He took a deep breath before resuming his cooking. "Okay, I'm figuring you're hungry already."

"You live alone?" Mina inquired so suddenly that Donghae touched the wrong side of the frying pan. Like a child, he immediately stuck the burned finger in his mouth, as if his saliva would soothe the pain away. He pushed the burning sensation to the back of his mind and put two plates on the table. "Hmm?" He was so busy that he didn't realize she had just asked him a question.

As soon as the pan of fried noodles was set on the table, Mina put an average amount of portion on her plate. "I mean, you don't live alone, right? You must be living with someone. You must have someone to take care of you," Mina mumbled, mostly to herself. She looked down at her plate after realizing that Donghae was intently watching her. "I mean...you know."

Donghae let out an amused laugh, his mouth already overflowing with food. "You're funny," he commented, and began to realize how much he aches and yearns for a companion. "But you're right. I've been getting lonely a lot lately." He had finished chewing his food and his words made more sense now without the food getting in the way.

Mina didn't know how to respond to his statement, so she focused on dinner instead. By the time she was finished, he was, too. She tried snatching his plate from him, but he inched further. "I'll clean it. Don't worry," he assured her and dumped the used plates by the sink. Mina walked briskly to the door, not sure if she should thank him, but she worried if he would get irritated with her voice just like she herself was irritated by it.

She popped open the container and downed another pill, this time without drinking water. For a while, the woman just stood in the middle of the house and concentrated on the chemicals inside her struggling for equilibrium. "Should I take you home?" Donghae reappeared beside her.

"Don't feel sorry for me, please," Mina nearly pleaded. "Not you, too."

"Let me get you a cab, then," Donghae offered insistently. He was somehow convinced that he was solely concerned for the woman's wellbeing, attesting to the fact that he was her psychologist. "People might see you with me, so..." Mina bit her lip and looked up at him. "No thanks. You should scrub that off with soap and water, though."

Donghae scanned his surroundings awkwardly, searching for the possible flaws in his living environment that she had mentioned. But as everything looked in place in his sight, he turned back to her. "What should I clean?" His eyes widened. Maybe she could see something he could not. But then again, women were naturally quipped with an eye for detail.

"Your hand," Mina finally said. "Thoroughly clean it twice, thrice, four times if you must. You should scrub off my stench from wherever you touched me. Times are getting hard so..." She trailed off, looking at something far off in the distance before disappearing in front of him. As of now, he knew why she was that way or how she got to be stuck in a pitiful situation. But the cure for it was yet to be known to him.

A/N: First chapter! I know it's short lol but summer vacation would be 9 days from now!! I miss updating as much as I used to T_T tell me what you guys think okay :D