“Hello?”

“Hey,” Kyuhyun replied from the other line, “Are you busy right now?”

“I won’t be after a few more minutes,” Yoona said while fixing up the music shop –one of her other jobs besides the cafe- to prepare for its closing but stopped when she heard a brief pause of silence on the other line which was unusual because Kyuhyun would usually never stop blabbering. “Hey, are you okay?” She asked before resuming closing up the shop with her phone placed stuck between her shoulder blade and neck.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” his voice held a minor amount of uncertainty, minor enough to go unnoticed by Yoona since she was preoccupied at the moment. “Why?”

“Are you sure?” Yoona asked and held the phone up to her ear with her hand after finishing everything up. “You just seem so quiet.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he chuckled. “Are you heading home now? Do you want to somehow... meet up somewhere?”

“Now? At this time?”

“Yeah, its fine if you don’t want to though. I mean, I understand. You’re probably tired from work. You know what, I’m sorry for asking. Um, goodnight.”

Kyuhyun was about to hang up when Yoona chuckled, “Kyuhyun, it’s fine. Where do you want to meet up?”

“Your place?”

“Alright, see you there.”

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Yoona snorted back at Kyuhyun who was walking around aimlessly under her apartment building before she showed up. “So tell me, what prompted you to want to meet up with me at this late hour?”

“No reason,” he replied and began walking, “I just wanted to see you.”

“Stalker,” she teased.

Kyuhyun replied back with a light shove to her side, making her stumble for a moment but said nothing else. Yoona let out a light scoff and rushed to catch up to him, she turned her head to look at him when he was eerily silent. Although she wished many times for him to shut up before, she felt strange at his rare moment of silence.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Yoona asked, “You seemed so silent on the phone earlier and you’re being quiet right now.”

“You complain when I’m noisy, you complain when I’m quiet. Nothing ever pleases you, does it?”

“It’s just weird, you being like this.”

“Everything’s weird for you.”

They exchanged a few laughs and glances before another moment silence enveloped over them. This time, it was Kyuhyun who broke the silence when he caught Yoona gazing thoughtfully at the sky.

“The stars are beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they are,” she said, a smile gracing her lips. “They always seem to have this calming effect on me.”

Kyuhyun let his gaze linger on her a little longer, his eyes tracing the outline of her face. “Do you like the stars?”

“They’re one of my favorite things in this world. When I was in the orphanage and couldn’t sleep, I would look out the window and stare at the stars for hours, it made me feel at peace, you know? Also, there were times where Jinho would sometimes look at them with me and point out clusters of stars that would look like animals to him. I still look at them every now and then. Although there are lots of bad things in this world, stars make up for some of them.”

“You really love them, don’t you?” Kyuhyun quickly tore his gaze away from Yoona when she stopped gazing at the sky. “I could get a star for you, you know. Just ask for it and I’ll grab one for you.”

“Get me one then.”

“What –right now?”

Yoona hummed, a sly smirk playing on her lips.

“Actually, I’m a bit tired right now and it’s pretty late maybe next time.”

Yoona let out a light laugh and turned her head sideways to face Kyuhyun.

“Why are you wearing a jacket?” Yoona asked, her hand reaching up to take the hood that was covering his face off. “It’s summer right now. Don’t you feel suffocated under that thick layer?”

“No!” Kyuhyun frantically raised his hand to put his hood back on and protectively held it there to prevent Yoona from pulling it back down again. He lowered his head to the ground and quickened his pace.

“Hey, what’s the big deal?” Yoona asked, furrowing her eyebrows at his frantic behavior. Weren’t they just having a normal conversation earlier? Why did he seem so intent on keeping his hood up? His hands still held his hood over his head protectively even when Yoona already let her hands drop to her side.

“Let’s sit down,” he muttered and walked away, heading to a bench in front of them.

Yoona sharpened her eyes at him before looking around and was surprised to see where she was. They walked quite a distance, she noted after seeing that they were at a park. Perhaps because it was dark that she didn’t realize where she was or perhaps it was because she was too preoccupied with trying to figure out what was wrong with Kyuhyun earlier and staring at the sky that she didn’t even realize where she was going.

She let her curious gaze wander around the vast landscape and felt a sense of peace in her after glancing at the old shaggy trees and perfectly aligned and trimmed bushes. It was night time, so nobody was really around. She felt calm, the street lamp standing proudly beside her glowing softly at the rough pavement. Out of the corner of her eye, she could spot a few moths and butterflies flying around the tall green grasses.

Oh how she wished she could have brought Jinho here. She was sure he would have a great time here. He always showed great interest with nature. She was about to wander around the park and explore more when she remembered the reason how she got here in the first place.

Right, Kyuhyun.

She dejectedly dragged her feet to the bench, slightly disappointed that she couldn’t walk around the park but decided that she could stroll around another time and sat beside him, her bright eyes still wandering around the park, trying to take in every single detail of her surroundings.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said with his back hunched over, his eyes glued to the ground and his fingers crossed over each other. “Just peachy.”

“Kyuhyun?” Yoona placed her hands on his shoulder and received a shock when Kyuhyun faced her. “Holy crap, what happened to your face?” Yoona pulled his hood down that was overshadowing his face the whole time and grabbed his chin, edging his bruised face closer to her to inspect it.

He had a black eye on the right side of his face and his lips were split and slightly bleeding, there were bruises on his jaw and there were bits of dried blood near his lip. Kyuhyun winced at how hard she tugged at his face. He tried to pull himself away, only to be harshly pulled back by Yoona.

“What happened?” Yoona questioned worriedly and held his face with both of her hands, checking every bruise and cut he had. “Who did this to you? No wonder you didn’t want to pull your hood down.”

Kyuhyun stared blankly at Yoona while she checked his injuries, his heart pounding when he saw the amount of worry she held in her eyes. He smiled at the feeling of her warm hands that were holding his face with a tight hold and placed his large ones over hers, holding them there.

Yoona sighed when he didn’t answer her question and pulled her hand away from his, checking his arms for any sign of minor injury. “Did you get hurt anywhere else?”

Kyuhyun shook his head no, but the way his body flinched to Yoona’s touch said otherwise.

Yoona raised her eyebrow, “Oh really?” she asked, and purposely hit Kyuhyun’s torso and arms with more force, but not enough to make him feel immense pain. She smirked when his face turned red and contorted into one filled with affliction.

“No,” he wheezed out. “Ah! Okay that hurts, Yoong. Stop it.” He surrendered and clutched his stomache, closing his eyes in pain.

“Sorry,” Yoona apologized. “C-can I see how bad it is?”

Yoona air through her teeth and hesitantly raised her fingers to touch the cut and large bruise forming on Kyuhyun’s tummy but immediately retracted her hand and backed away when he closed his eyes and let out a shaky breathe filled with pain as he tried to suppress the sting he felt.

“I’m so sorry,” Yoona apologized and looped Kyuhyun’s arm around her neck to help him get up. “We need to get you to the hospital. You can’t just leave that and your wounds untreated.”

“No.”

“Kyuhyun, just listen to me this once.”

“Yoong, no,” he shook his head. “Please, I don’t want to go there.”

“Kyu-“

“It’s not even a major injury, I don’t need to get myself treated.”

“But we need to clean up your wounds,” she stubbornly insisted and gently grabbed his arm and put it over her neck for support. “Come on.”

“I said I didn’t wan-“ Kyuhyun resisted when Yoona stood up, forcing him to stand up with her.

“-I’m not taking you to the hospital, I’m taking you to my place.”

With that, Kyuhyun stopped all forms of resistance and allowed himself to lean onto Yoona for help in walking although he didn’t need it since it was just his face and his ribs that were hurt, he still did because he liked the way Yoona’s hair smelled when he slightly leaned against her. He liked the way she fit snugly under his arms, the way he was slightly hugging her as they walked, the warmth radiating off of her.

He liked everything about her.

“Be gentle, Yoong.” Kyuhyun whimpered as Yoona dabbed the alcohol on his face. It stung.

“I’m trying to,” she said, and held his chin to keep him from moving. “Just stay still, will you?”

Kyuhyun peeked at her fingers treating the cuts on his face, her delicate fingers cleaning them with great care. His eyes travelled from her calloused fingers to her frail wrist to her slender arms that seemed so fragile to her prominent collarbones that led him to her untainted neck and finally stopped at her face.

Her beautiful face.

He stared at her, he stared at the way her eyebrows furrowed, the way her tongue slightly stuck out to the corner of her lips as she concentrated, the way she seemed so concentrated on taking care of him right now. He felt his face heat up when Yoona suddenly looked at him and averted his gaze back to the floor.

“Uh,” It was Yoona’s turn to feel her face get heated up now. “I’m going to need you to lift up your shirt.”

“Wow, are we going to second base already?” he joked, trying to make himself seem like he didn’t just completely flush red at her sentence.

“Just shut up and strip.”

“Feisty,” Kyuhyun laughed but followed Yoona’s orders nevertheless. “I like it.”

Kyuhyun felt himself grow self-conscious of his body now, the laughter leaving him like a gust of wind. He wished he took up his colleague’s advice to go to work out at the gym together, maybe then he would feel less embarrassed if he ever lifted his shirt up in front of Yoona again.

Yoona on the other hand didn’t even give a second glance to his body, she’d seen it before. She was solely focused on cleaning up all his wounds.

“This is going to sting a bit.”

With that said, Yoona pressed the cotton bud against his cut for a while. A string of profanities left Kyuhyun’s lips as he closed his eyes in pain.

“A bit?!” Kyuhyun hissed through his teeth, in a sharp breathe afterwards. “What is your definition of ‘a bit’?”

Yoona just shrugged. “Okay, I’m just going to bandage it up and don’t move around so much so that the wound doesn’t open back up again.”

“Mind telling me how all this happened?”

“A ninja jumped out of nowhere and kung fu kicked me.”

Kyuhyun glanced at her, she did not look amused. “I was walking through an alley and a robber tried to mug me.”

“Really?” Yoona asked, her voice full of doubt. “Then why is it that you still have your phone, your watch, and your bracelet with you?”

“I kicked his and left him there so he didn’t get a chance to take anything from me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s true.”

“We both know that’s impossible, Kyu.” Yoona laughed. “So what really happened?”

 “I saw my mom with another man again.”

Kyuhyun let out a sigh of relief, it felt good to let that off his chest. That was the first time he’s ever told that to anyone.

“What?”

“I saw my mom kissing another man,” he repeated. “I first saw them when I was a kid. I think I was around ten at that time. I was heading from school since they let us out early and I guess my mom didn’t think I would be home by then because I saw her face with another man. I pretended as if nothing happened because I didn’t want my dad to know. I imagined how devastated he would be, and how broken our family would be. I caught them a few times again after that, and sometimes I would be just too mad to walk away and walk in like I hadn’t seen anything.

“I caught them again, today. I was on my way to visit my parents when I saw them behind our house, face again, just like the first time I saw them. And I don’t know what happened. I just felt anger bubble up inside of me. I mean, I’ve always felt angry whenever I saw them but I was just so angry at him for being with my mom, for stealing her from dad, for everything. The next thing I remembered is seeing black spots as I lunged at him and tried to get as much punches as I could get in. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know who I was and just punched me back because I basically came out of nowhere, and tried to get me off him. I didn’t even call my parents to tell them I was coming beforehand so I bet my mom didn’t know that was me either. When I came to my senses, I just got off him and ran away.”

Yoona listened intently, taking in every word he said just like how he did with her the other day. He talked about the other man with so much hate and distaste that she almost flinched at his harsh tone.

He must’ve had a rough childhood, Yona thought. Knowing that his mother was seeing someone else other than this father, having to keep it all to himself at such a young age, it must’ve been rough.

Yoona didn’t say anything, she just looked at him, because what else could she say?

I’m sorry? Was that what she should say? Although she felt apologetic, Yoona felt that Kyuhyun would pass it off as pity and she sure as hell knew that that was not what he would want. Pity.

Or should she tell him how she knows what she’s going through when in reality she doesn’t. No, she couldn’t say that. That would be insensitive of her.

And so Yoona said nothing. Moments passed with nothing but silent glances exchanged between them.

“I’m sorry,” Kyuhyun cleared his throat. “For sharing that with you. You probably don’t care about that. I probably bothered you so, yeah, thanks for fixing me up and meeting me at this time. I think I’m going to go now, it’s getting late.”

“Yeah,” Yoona said, making Kyuhyun’s heart drop a little.

So I really did bother her by sharing my story.

“You should go, it’s late and we have work tomorrow. Although right now I’m starting to highly doubt that you’re working because you always seem to have some spare time when it comes to bothering me.” Yoona chuckled.

Do I really bother you that much?

Kyuhyun let out a light chuckle and a smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “Haha, yeah.”

“And Kyuhyun?” Yoona called before he stepped out of her door. “You didn’t bother me by telling about your mom. Thank you, for sharing that with me. It makes me happy, knowing that you trust me with enough. And although I know I’d probably regret saying this in the future, but feel free to bother me anytime you want.”

“Really? You said it, right? No take backs. I get to disturb you whenever I want now.”

Yoona chuckled deep inside when Kyuhyun’s sad eyes transformed into a bright one at her words and nodded, a smile spreading across Kyuhyun’s face. Yoona decided that he looked better wearing that smile than the frown he sported earlier.

“Bye, Yoong!” he grinned and waved a goodbye before shutting the door.

Yoona smiled and whispered a small, “Bye.”