Because the emotion called love is so foreign to him, Minhyun has never spared a second thought for such feelings; all Victoria wants in life is to live peacefully, happily, until there comes a day when she can no longer breathe through her lungs.

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s not that I don’t love you, I just don’t know how to love you.”

 

“What do you mean you don’t know how to love me?” The girl scoffs, her cheeks red in fury. “That’s the saddest excuse I have ever heard from any guy, Minhyun!”

 

Victoria crosses her arms over her chest, listening to the couple fight in minimal amusement. She tilts her head to one side, assessing the situation.

 

“I don’t know what to do to make you happy.” He tells her, hands shoved into his front pockets. “Nothing I ever do makes you happy.”

 

His girlfriend narrows her eyes, stepping forward to shove him at his chest. He stumbles backwards a few steps but there’s no real response from him—his eyes are still dull and unreadable. “Love isn’t a lesson you can take in class, Minhyun. It’s something that you feel from the heart and express through your actions and words.”

 

“I’m not good at expressing myself.” Minhyun replies bluntly. “You should have known that from the start.”

 

The girl bites down on her lips, huffing as tears form in her doll-like round eyes. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

 

“Let’s break up then.”

 

“Hwang Minhyun!”

 

He stares her dead in the eyes, anger stemming from the core of his pupils. “What’s the point of staying together if you don’t even want to talk to me?” He asks calmly.

 

She gives him one last good shove before shouting into his face. “Fine then! Let’s break up! Who cares about you anyways? There are plenty of other guys out there waiting for me to look their way!”

 

Minhyun sighs as his now ex-girlfriend stalks away from him, dusting off his shirt as he begins preparing to walk the other way. When he raises his eyes from his shoes, he catches Victoria staring in his direction with interest in her eyes.

 

“Did you enjoy watching the show?” He asks.

 

Victoria offers a little smile. “Are you asking me?”

 

“Is there anyone else around here?” Minhyun retorts, catching the hint of an accent in her speaking.

 

Slowly, Victoria pushes herself off of the wall and turns her head to both her left and her right. Minhyun furrows his eyebrows, finding her actions odd. “No, I don’t suppose there is. Sorry, I didn’t mean to impose, I’m just… I’m waiting for someone and couldn’t help my curiosity.”

 

It all makes sense when she pulls out and assembles a stick to help her close the far distance between them. She taps it on the ground several times before taking her first step, and he can’t take his eyes off of the red streaks running down the rod of her walking instrument.

 

“She didn’t sound like she really wanted to break up,” Victoria comments off-handedly. “Maybe you should apologize.”

 

When Victoria stops just a couple of feet away from him, Minhyun feels a bit of guilt crawl over his skin. “It’s none of your business, really.”

 

“Sorry,” Victoria apologizes with no true sense of repentance in her tone. “It was out of my place to say anything.”

 

Minhyun is about to make another comment when he’s interrupted by a deep voice.

 

“Victoria!”

 

A smile lights up her face and she turns towards the direction of the caller. “Oppa! I’m over here.”

 

A man runs up to her, taking her hand and linking it around his arm. “What are you doing?” He asks her, glancing at Minhyun cautiously.

 

Victoria shrugs at him and motions for him to move. “You were taking too long.”

 

The man guides Victoria away from Minhyun and he watches as the two of them leave; for whatever reason, he can’t take his eyes off of Victoria. It might have been curiosity, it might have been sympathy, but a part of him wanted to see her again.

 

And what Minhyun wants, Minhyun realizes he eventually gets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Victoria is in the solace of her own room, doors closed and everything standing still—as though time has stopped—that is when she can breathe easiest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They run into each other again at the mall.

 

Minhyun is casually hanging out with a group of his friends when a familiar face catches his eyes. She’s not alone, another young girl walking closely beside her, but Minhyun can’t fight the urge to watch her as she passes by.

 

“What are you looking at?” Aron asks, leaning against Minhyun and trying to follow his line of sight.

 

The younger boy shoves him away and clears his throat. “Nothing.”

 

In the blink of an eye, Victoria is gone again. Minhyun glances at his friends and excuses himself before running off in her direction, trying to find her. Somewhere along the way he runs into her, literally.

 

“Sorry.”

 

Her head is hung low, preventing him from seeing her face in its entirety, but he knows it’s her.

 

“Are you okay, Vic?” The girl asks Victoria.

 

Victoria then raises her face and nods at the girl. “I’m fine, Luna.”

 

“Sorry,” Minhyun apologizes again. “I should have been watching where I was going but—“

 

A smile finds its way to Victoria’s face and, though her cheeks are pale and her lips are red, she looks somewhat like an angel. “It seems like sorry isn’t such a hard thing for you to say.”

 

“You remember me?” Minhyun asks.

 

Victoria chuckles and clears before saying, “Hwang Minhyun!” The way she forces his name past her lips is not unlike the way his ex-girlfriend had shouted at him.

 

Minhyun laughs but tries to cover it up with the back of his hand.

 

 “Vic?” Luna whispers, pressing at Victoria’s elbow.

 

Gently, Victoria squeezes Luna’s wrist and smiles. “It’s okay, he’s a friend.”

 

Luna visually relaxes then and releases her grip on Victoria’s arm. She bows slightly at Minhyun and glances around; the crowd of people keeps growing, the whole setting becoming more dangerous of a place for Victoria.

 

“How about you wait here with him while I go pick up my dress then? I’ll be right back.” Luna says. She takes Victoria’s hand and guides her to stand beside Minhyuk, offering Victoria’s hand to the boy.

 

Minhyun kind of has this what am I supposed to do with her hand? look on his face, but he takes it anyways and links it around his arm like he remembered the other guy did before.

 

“Be quick, Luna.” Victoria says when she hears Luna scurrying away. The girl shouts in reply and waves at Minhyun. He waves back with his free hand.

 

“Shouldn’t friends have each other’s number?” Minhyun asks.

 

The music in the mall is loud, there is too much noise coming from all directions, and Victoria’s face only grows paler by the minute. “Hm?” She hums.

 

He can tell she’s feeling unwell. “Let’s find a place for you to sit down,” Minhyun suggests, “there are too many people around here.”

 

“I’m okay,” Victoria insists. “Luna won’t be able to find us if we move.”

 

“We won’t go far,” Minhyun promises. “Don’t be stubborn; you’re as pale as a sheet of paper.”

 

Without another word, Minhyun begins dragging her in a direction Victoria cannot decipher. All she knows is that the boy, whom she has only spoken to once before, is holding her hand tightly, guiding her through crowd after crowd of people, yet, she somehow feels safe.

 

And she can hear her own heartbeat in her ears, anxiety thrumming through her veins.

 

“I can walk on my own,” Victoria declares weakly.

 

Minhyun only clasps tighter onto her hand when she tries to pull away. No words exchanged; no sense of retreat. It was going to go his way, Victoria could tell that much.

 

His hand was warm, heat stemming from his palm into hers. They were also soft, she notices—definitely softer than hands of her own. “Are you sympathizing with me?” Victoria can’t help but ask when he helps her down onto the bench.

 

“I don’t know how to sympathize,” Minhyun admits to her. “I like you. That’s all.”

 

Although Victoria cannot see, Minhyun still tries to hide the small hint of a blush that invades him. He awkwardly sweeps his hair from his eyes and then leans forward, elbows on his knees. Victoria sits there, still and quiet.

 

Her breaths are even, slow.

 

“I don’t regret not being able to see,” she suddenly says. “One who has never seen before won’t envy those who can see; those who have seen before but lose their sight will envy those who can still see, but only if they enjoyed all the things their sight used to bring, because it is a world they will never have again. I have seen before and there were many things I wish I hadn’t seen.”

 

Minhyun turns to look at her. “You weren’t born blind?”

 

Victoria laughs. “I was. My parents decided to let me have surgery in my younger years and it succeeded, but the after-effects were not as kind as the doctors had expected them to be. Eventually, my sight drew out again.”

 

“Oh.” Minhyun replies, not knowing what else to say.

 

“You really don’t know how to be sympathetic, do you?” Victoria laughs.

 

The moment Minhyun looks up at her again, her smile is so natural and sweet that Minhyun can’t help but stare. There’s something about the way she smiles—the way her cherry lips curve, the way her cheeks crinkle, the shape of her eyes… it makes his heart skip a beat.

 

Even though sometimes he sees the flaws in her, they pale in comparison to the rest of her perfection.

 

“Do you have your phone on you?”

 

Victoria is surprised by his sudden question. “Why?”

 

“Give it to me.”  Minhyun insists. After pushing and pulling for a while, Victoria eventually relents and pulls her mobile from her purse and hands it to him with a small pout. “Here, now you have my number and I have yours.” He declares with a grin.

 

She doesn’t say anything.

 

“Your friend is back. I need to get back to my friends, too. If I don’t hear from you within a week, I’ll call you.” He tells her. “I’ll be waiting.”

 

“Vic! I almost thought I lost you guys!” Luna pants. “Where do you want to go now?”

 

Victoria smiles at Luna. “Is the dress pretty?”

 

“It is!” Luna replies excitedly. “It fits perfectly, too.”

 

Minhyun waits for there to be a pause before excusing himself. Luna and Victoria wave him goodbye and he’s on his feet again, heading back to the food court. When he turns around, he catches one last glimpse of Victoria before the two disappear into one of the shops in the mall.

 

“Who was that?”

 

An arm finds its way around Minhyun’s neck and he’s pulled into thick arms. “Let go, Baekho.”

 

“You were holding her hand for quite a while,” Aron teases. “New girlfriend?”

 

When he finally breaks free from Baekho, he fixes his shirt and glares at them. “No. Not yet, at least. And I was holding her hand because I was helping her, okay?”

 

“Sure,” Baekho laughs. “You blushed when you were talking to her, Minhyun. You hardly ever blush.”

 

“I have thin skin,” Minhyun defends himself. “Can’t help it.”

 

His friends keep teasing him, not letting the matter rest even when they part ways to head home. Minhyun willfully stares at the cell phone that he grips in his palm, hoping he wouldn’t really have to wait a week to hear from Victoria.

 

Fortunately, what Minhyun wants, Minhyun eventually gets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

His voice is soothing and the touch of his hand against her skin feels good. Sometimes, Victoria likes to remember what it was like to be beside Minhyun—a man who was willing to take care of her and not be bothered to feel sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

His phone rings in the middle of class and when he sees the caller identification, he springs from his seat and runs out the door.

 

“Hello?”

 

Over the line, he can hear Victoria clearing . “Are you busy?”

 

Minhyun glances towards his classroom and decides skipping a class or two won’t kill him. “Nope, not at all. Why?”

 

“Do you know what direction the wind blows today?”

 

-----

 

A/N: I know this is really horrible, but I can't remember who it is that requested a Minhyun/Victoria from me for the life of me... ;____; I'm such a bad person, but it must have been almost a year ago that I received the request and I have really bad memory... So, this is dedicated to the requestor! Come claim your story~ ^_^ To everyone else, I hope you enjoyed this first part! ♥Xue