Mari tried again in vain to open the door behind her, rattling the doorknob around in hope that the lock would somehow pop open from the outside or something. Though she know the attempt was pretty useless with the door being bolt locked and all.

The deafening sound of her heartbeat was drowning out everything else around her. The heavy beats were resounding in her ears, making her completely deaf to the other noises around her. It was beginning to hurt.

She completely missed the sound of Sehun calling her name numerous times until he showed up next to her, placing a hand on the door and ceasing her nervous rattling’s of the doorknob.

“Mari, it’s pointless to keep trying,” he said right next to her ear, causing her to gasp and whirl around in surprise, but jump backwards because of their close proximity.

Sehun backed off a little, rubbing the back of his head while muttering his words of apology. He had to turn away to make sure that the girl couldn’t see how his cheeks were flushed in embarrassment.

Mari seriously wanted to cry. Not only because Sehun was right, but because she couldn’t imagine herself being in a worse kind of situation. She dropped her head into her hands, sliding slowly down the door behind her until she was safely seated on the ground.

With the rate that her heart was going, she was afraid that she was going to keel over at any moment.

“Hey,” Sehun said softly, making a move to take a step towards her, “are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said softly, but curtly. She couldn’t afford having Sehun be worried abut her. That would just make avoiding him even harder.

Sehun blinked a few times before his eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Okay then…” he muttered, mainly to himself, though he couldn’t help but still stare at the girl in uncertainty because of her odd reaction.

After a moment of contemplation, he decided he wasn’t having it.

“Mari,” he said, waiting to see if he got any reaction. She flinched, but that was pretty much it. She still refused to look at him.

“Mari,” he said again with more of a firm tone, “what’s wrong?”

There was still little to no reaction. But he could tell by the way that she was clenching her fingers in her hair to the point that they were turning white from the intensity that there was definitely something she wasn’t telling him. He hands had moved back to cover her ears at some point, and she looked as if she were desperately trying to block Sehun’s voice from her mind.

He clenched his jaw in frustration, before trying to take another step towards her since her responses were really starting to drive him insane.

She finally reacted, but not in the way that he would’ve liked her to.

“Please,” she sniffed, holding a hand up in protest, “please don’t come any closer right now.”

Sehin could only stare at the girl with teary eyes in disdain, at a complete loss since he couldn’t even figure out what it was he had done to spark such a reaction.

Mari didn’t even understand why she was starting to cry herself. The overwhelming mix of emotions currently residing inside her heart was finally taking its toll. And the fact that Sehun had to be here to witness it was just making things that much worse.

Eventually Sehun sighed in defeat, and he sat down in the spot where he was previously standing, pulling his knees up to rest his arms on them as he sat across the room from her.

Every time he tried to analyze this girl, she always threw him off. He never had that hard of a time analyzing someone before, but something about Mari in particular was different.

She always made things difficult for him.

Analyzing.

Thinking clearly.

Her mere presence at the moment was driving him insane.

The girl drove him all kinds of crazy and nothing was making sense in his head.

Everything hurt.

It hurt that he didn’t know the situation like Luhan did.

It hurt that he couldn’t fix the situation for the life of him.

But most of all,

It hurt to see her cry.

It pained him to think that he was probably the cause of her tears. There was a tug pulling at his heart that was begging him to go to her and do something to make things better. It was urging him, pleading with him to just go and help her.

He had never had a weakness towards girl’s tears before, but it seemed that Mari was becoming his first for many things lately.

And as much as it pained him to do so,

He kept his distance.

Mari felt like she was suffocating.

Being in the same space with Sehun had never felt so tense before.

Now that her newfound realizations towards her feelings were constantly nagging at her to make a move and forget about any regrets that she would have doing so, so was adamantly refusing.

Was it because she was afraid of getting caught by Sun Hee?

No. Not at all.

She could care less about the girl who bullied the people who had the things she wanted.

Mari was afraid of getting hurt. As to be expected when she fell for one of the most sought after guys at her school. Sure, the male to female student ratio was significantly less, but there were still so many opportunities for Mari to fall for someone else. Anyone else. Yet why hadn’t she?

Because Sehun was the only one she knew so much about.

She was starting to become more aware of his little quirks that she never noticed about another boy before. She noticed the way he would absentmindedly his lips on multiple occasions, and the way he would only smile when he was around his friends. That alone was a rare occasion, but they were beautiful nonetheless, regardless of the fact that they were usually hid behind the back of his hand.

She mentally kicked herself for wishing one of those smiles could be directed at her.

She winced at the feeling of a dull pain beginning in her forehead. The combination of tears and overthinking was causing a headache to show up uninvited. Not only that, but she was suddenly aware of just how exhausted she felt.

After nights of barely sleeping because there was a constant thought of Sehun nagging at her thoughts combined with the exhaustion that came with crying, she could feel herself fading fast.

Nestling her head on her folded forearms that were propped up on her knees, she could feel the familiar waves of unconsciousness pulling at her eyes. Overwhelming exhaustion pulling her under almost immediately. Though through the entirety of it all, one thing till remained the same.

Her exhaustion did nothing to deter her heartbeat from still stuttering a bit fast because she was in the same space as Sehun.

Not at all.

Sehun watched as Mari’s breathing started to even out until she was definitely in the early stages of sleep. She looked to be in such an uncomfortable position.

He was surprised at the sudden impulse for her to use his shoulder as her pillow. But he immediately stifled that thought as it surfaced.

But he was glad, in a sense, that she was able to give her body a rest. Though it didn’t help the immense guilt that he still felt knowing that he did or didn’t do something to her.

He sighed, blowing at his hair in frustration before tearing his fingers through it.

His mind was reeling, trying to fill itself with multiple instances where Mari could easily come to hate him. Yet nothing came up.

It was times like these that it pained him to know that his best friend was more well-informed about the girl than he was at the moment.

It was incredibly frustrating.

But something clicked in Sehun’s mind.

Getting up as quietly as he in order to not disturb Mari, he made his way back over to the sofa in the corner of the room, grabbing his cellphone that somehow edged itself partially in between the cushions of the couch.

He held the power button until it sparked to life. And once it went through the extensive start up process, he was immediately met with 2 unanswered texts, both from Luhan. The first one had simply held the words Good luck :). The older male even had the audacity to put a smiley face at the end of his words. Sehun could only imagine the smug grin he was wearing when he sent that text.

The second one was from a few minutes ago, probably from when Luhan had been leaving school.

How’d it go? It asked.

Instead of replying to the message, Sehun immediately typed a new statement.

I need you to do me a favor.

He waited a few moments for Luhan to reply, and the response was pretty instant.

What is it?

Sehun contemplated his words a bit before he sent them.

I need you to tell my parents that I’m sleeping over at your house tonight.

…why? Luhan responded

Hyung just…please, I need you to do this for me.

The next few moments when Sehun waited for a response were torture. He was gripping his phone so tightly that his knuckles were beginning to turn white. The buzzing nearly made his heart leap to his throat.

Fine. But you owe me, on behalf of Mari.

Sehun made a tch! sound with his tongue, fairly impressed at Luhan’s observations. His friend was sometimes to smart for his own good.

Okay.

And with that one word answer, Sehun shut off his phone again. If it happened to ring at any time during the night, he would be screwed.

For now, he was going to cut off his connections with the outside world.

Because as of right now it was just him, and Mari.

And nothing else really seemed to matter to him at the moment. 

.......................

A/N: Okay so...I intended to give you guys a really long chapter as an apology (again) because I'm lazy and the worst person to commit to things, but this chapter was getting waaaay too long, so I had to cut it. The next chapter will continue from this point though :)

I also needed to post SOMETHING. I feel so at a loss when I don't post a chapter for a while because I feel like I know I'm leaving you guys hanging, and you don't know how sorry I am about that, but thanks for still being so supportive T^T.

BTW: If you didn't see my wall post, I do have school again right now, unfortunately, so my time has been cut short...but yeah. 

Wanna make my day or tell me to get off my bum and start writing more? You can comment if you'd like, or spam my tumblr, or just stay awesome tbh lol.

I WILL GET TO FINISHING THIS STORY THOUGH (eventually)!!

As always, thanks for reading~ :D