You didn’t think very much of Hyerin after that night. Ever since Yongguk’s confession of his true feelings, you’d been walking around as if you were floating on clouds, and everyone could tell there was a difference. For a while, you’d been trying to write a light-hearted summer love song for Secret’s next album, but were struggling with the task. After that night, the words seemed to flow much easier, and even your mentors were surprised by the change in you. It felt as if a hurricane had passed and your world was right again.

Yongguk didn’t spend that much time with you, since the boys were busy preparing for their comeback and their first concert after that, but just seeing him around made you happy now. While passing him in the hallways used to fill you with angst and frustration, it now put a smile on your face for the rest of the day. You meant what you said. You’d always been an independent girl and you didn’t need your boyfriend to spend a lot of time with you. You were comfortable leading your own life, as long as you knew that he’d be there when you needed him. Since most of your interactions with each other took place within the office or your apartment building, you didn’t have to worry about being caught by prying cameras. You didn’t really mind that those were the only places you could hang out, since your relationship had advanced beyond the point of needing romantic events or dates. You felt perfectly comfortable with the occasional meal together in your apartment or lunch in the recording studio, for now. The future was still uncertain, but you’d promised Yongguk to trust that things would work themselves out, rather than stress yourself out trying to plan everything.

You trusted him so much that you’d forgotten the little problem of his girlfriend, until she showed up again a week later.

You were bent over your work as usual when your brother barged into your office, looking troubled. “Hana ah. Daebaksageon.”

You looked up at him, and he strode over to you, grabbing your arm with his good hand. “Yongguk’s girlfriend is here screaming at him for cheating on her. You said you didn’t do anything, did you?”

You stood up, but guiltily avoided his eyes, hesitating for a moment before speaking. “Oppa, actually…”

Himchan let out a long and loud sigh, perplexed. “How many times did I tell you to think of the consequences of your actions?”

“Oppa, my over-thinking was the reason why we even spent so much time apart,” you argued. “Didn’t you all want me to get back together with him?”

“Yes, but not while this other girl is still in the picture,” Himchan pointed out, running his hand through his hair, which you knew was what he did when he felt frustrated. “You said you weren’t going to be the third party…”

“But we never broke up!” you interrupted him. “You said it, and Yongguk oppa said it too. Technically, she’s the third party.” Even as you said it, you knew how flimsy of an excuse it sounded like. You knew that she was innocent in this whole messed up situation. “I shouldn’t have listened to you guys.”

“I thought you’d be wiser in dealing with this,” Himchan argued, running his hand through his hair again.

“Oppa, keep doing that and you’ll go bald before you’re thirty.”

He put his hand down. “It’s because of you that my life is full of stress! What do we do now?”

“Why are you stressed when I’m the one who should be stressed?” you pointed out, biting your lower lip as you thought about it for a moment. “Should I go over? Would that make things worse?”

Himchan looked at you with a completely bewildered look. “How should I know?”

“Let’s go,” you decided, grabbing your brother’s hand and pulling him out of the room. You didn’t know what you could do, but you knew you couldn’t just sit there and do nothing about it. Himchan followed you, equally confounded. A small crowd had already gathered around the door of the studio, and they were all peeking in through the glass panel on the wooden door. They dispersed, giving you awkward looks, when you and Himchan arrived. Only Daehyun remained, smiling sympathetically at you. You raised a hand to open the door, but he stopped you. “Noona, don’t.” You didn’t know what it was about the younger man’s tone that made you trust him, but you withdrew your hand. “Give them a moment.”

You looked in through the window. From the outside, you couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you could see Hyerin crying and yelling at a visibly distraught Yongguk while he stood before her with his head down, not looking at her. You felt your stomach churning as you watched. From a distance, just watching their mouths move, you felt detached, as if you were watching a scene from a drama. Yet, at the same time, you knew you were partly responsible for the pain you saw on their faces. Your fingers curled around the handle of the door and it took of all your restraint not to just push it open and run in apologizing.

The three of you watched as Hyerin pushed Yongguk, yelling at him. He didn’t retaliate, but said something in response without looking at her. Then, she started pointing at the wall above his workstation and your stomach did a back flip when you saw what she was pointing at. Tacked on the wall were photos of your foster children, and in the middle, a drawing stood out prominently. It was the picture of you that he had sketched a year ago, when you were sleeping. You watched in horror as Hyerin lunged, sweeping things off the table and tearing the pictures off the wall hysterically. Yongguk was startled by her sudden movement, but he quickly threw himself before her, trying to hold onto her arms to stop her. You instinctively pressed down on the handle of the door, but Daehyun gripped your forearm, preventing you from pushing the door open.

However, the click of the door opening had alerted Hyerin and she caught sight of you in the glass panel of the door. Furious, she strode across the room and pulled the door open, causing you to stumble in. For a moment, all three of you stood gaping at Hyerin, her chest heaving as she screamed tearfully at you. “You liar! You said you weren’t going to take him from me! Why did you go back on your word?”

“I…” You couldn’t find the words to defend yourself and stood there floundering like a goldfish out of water, unable to do anything other than gape helplessly at her.

“How could you sleep with someone else’s boyfriend?” she went on raving at you. “Have you no shame, Hana-ssi?”

You stood frozen in your spot, feeling as if she’d just slapped you. You felt your brother step forward to defend you, but you couldn’t register a word he said. That was what you’d done, haven’t you? You’d slept with her boyfriend. Hearing it in those exact words was sobering. You could barely hear anything with your heart pounding in your ears as the scene turned into an argument between Hyerin, Himchan and Daehyun. You knew the two boys were defending you because of your relationship with them, but Hyerin was right. There was no excuse for what you did. You were just about to break down and apologize when Yongguk finally spoke up. His words were soft, but chilling.

“Have you had enough?”

Everyone fell silent at once, and the air was still except for the sound of Hyerin’s occasional sob.

“You can scream at me and hate me all you want. It’s my fault for leading you on. But you really don’t know me if you think I’m going to stand here and let you talk like that to the people I love.”

The tension in the air was so palpable you could feel it pressing against your skin, making it hard to breathe. Yongguk was staring right at Hyerin now, his face cold and unreadable.

“Get out.”

All five of you were standing so still that a passerby could have mistaken the scene as a painting or a photograph, but at that statement, Hyerin crumbled. Turning away from you, Daehyun and Himchan, she grabbed Yongguk’s arm, her tone suddenly pleading. “Oppa…” He was hostile as he shook his arm free from her grip and turned away, calmly crouching to pick up the pieces of paper that Hyerin had swept onto the floor in her earlier fit of anger. She stood there in shock, watching him slowly smooth out his sketch of you, which had been crumpled in the tussle.

“If you have any self-respect left, now would be the perfect time to leave,” Himchan said frostily.

Hyerin’s eyes darted from Yongguk to Himchan, and then back to Yongguk again. Realizing that he wasn’t going to say anything to defend her, she trained her gaze on you instead, giving you a glare filled with hurt and anger. You couldn’t stop yourself from opening your mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

The moment you said it, you felt Himchan grab your forearm. “Ya, Hana…” he hissed, but it was too late. You’d said it, and she’d heard it. As much as you knew Himchan didn’t want you to give her the satisfaction of winning, you felt that you had to say it. You and Yongguk had a relationship that was fraught with drama, and it wasn’t fair that she had been caught up in all of that and gotten her heart broken. It wasn’t fair to her that she had been into the whole debacle, and that your happiness came at the expense of her misery. No matter how irrational she was being, she was just a victim in the game of spite that you and Yongguk had been playing with each other. You had to apologize.

Hyerin continued to glare at you for a long moment, before she let out a short, bitter laugh. Then, snatching up her bag from the couch, she stalked out of the room.

After she left, the four of you remained in that awkward tableau for a long while, Yongguk still quietly on the floor, picking up his things. Then Himchan let out a loud sigh and patted you on the back before gesturing with a tilt of his head to Daehyun to leave the room. As the two boys exited, you crossed the room and sat down beside Yongguk. He turned to you, smiling sadly. “That didn’t go as well as I’d planned.”

“Break ups are never easy.”

He put down the things he was holding and reached out to take your hand, squeezing tightly. “I’m sorry.”

You squeezed back reassuringly, knowing he felt bad that he’d put you through all that unnecessary drama. The whole scene was crazy, but the worst was over. You felt certain that in the wake of the storm, you’d finally see a hint of the rainbow that you’d waited a long time for. A comfortable silence passed between the two of you before you spoke again. “How did she know?”

“She made friends with our neighbors, apparently,” he said with a sigh. “And let’s just say the walls are way too thin. The sounds… travelled.”

“Oh God.” You felt your cheeks coloring. How were you ever going to face your neighbors again?

Yongguk chuckled at your response. “I guess you’re going to have to learn how to keep it down next time,” he teased, earning from you a smack to his arm. He laughed some more before holding up his drawing. “Do you remember this?”

“How can I forget?” you asked, smiling. “You kept this on your wall the whole time?”

He nodded. “How else can I remind myself to keep the faith that you’d return to me eventually?”

You felt yourself tear up. No matter how many times you doubted him and hurt him, he’d always believed that you were the one for him. He’d never let you go, and was always there waiting for you to discover yourself, waiting for you to eventually come back. No matter how many things he did to spite you, he did it with the belief that you would see sense and return to him. As much as he was responsible for the whirlwind that was your life, he was the constant that you could count on to be there whenever. He was like the eye of the hurricane.

“Besides, you’re the most beautiful when you’re asleep and not talking.”

You hit him again as you laughed through your tears. He was a man of paradoxes, and he made you feel the extremes of your emotional spectrum, but he was your man. You couldn’t imagine loving anyone else.

You prayed with all your heart that things would stay the way they were.