You rolled sideways on your bed trying to get some sleep but every time you closed your eyes Kris’ face appeared to haunt your conscience, the way his lips parted slightly and his shoulder dropped as if they had lost all strength was something you had never seen before. He was so powerless and yet managed to made you feel like the worst person in the world.

“You disgust me” he uttered, clenching his teeth before walking away and disappearing into the crowd of students and professors.

Your world collapsed right in front of your eyes.

The sound of your phone vibrating on the night stand took you out of your torture; you hesitated before grabbing it and unlock the screen. There were several inbox notifications, and even one friend request from a user called Hack-yeon; you decided to ask Leo about him before accepting.

User9011: where are you? – it had been sent at noon

User9011: I saw your friend just now at the conference, are you going with him or do you want to go eat something?

You sighed and ignored everything, even turned off the device and tossed on the table again. Thank goodness your roommate had going clubbing that night.

The tires of Kris’ car screeched on the dark, empty road. He stared out the window in a daze, the anger he had been feeling a while ago turned into a comfortably numbing pain. In the past he would have punch the steering wheel and maybe broke a window but not this time.

He covered his face with his forearm and sighed deeply; sigh after sight until they became sobs and tears rolled down his cheek.

“Why did you do it?” he asked to the air

The image of Leo holding you at the parking lot and saying he was going to take you away from him alongside with your face on the moment he announced his engagement to Charlotte and how your face lost every color when he said he disgusted you, slashed the last bit of sanity left on him.

Leo looked like caged lion, walking in circles in his room with his phone against his ear.

“She is not accepting my request” Hakyeon said from the other side of the line “Why don’t you go to her room maybe her phone ran out of battery”

“I’m not a stalker” he sighed “but what If she did something outrageous like last night and is frozen in the woods”

“just go to her room” Leo could picture Hakyeon rolling his eyes back “I have to go”

A door slamming loudly was heard on Hakyeon’s side.

“Is that bastard, right?” leo roared “Get out of there, you don’t have to endure his frustrations on you”

There wasn’t a reply, only the sound of an ended call and leo cursed under his breath for not being able to protect his friend from his step-father.

He remembered the day he found that man hitting a helpless Hakyeon on the floor, the way his blood boiled and he saw all red before charging against him without a second thought. How could Hakyeon be able to smile brightly all the time when his family’s life was almost hell?.

Leo slammed the door behind him and stomped throught the hall.

User9011: Come out.

“We already know each other, so there’s nothing wrong with this right?” Leo repeated to convince himself. He accepted just to please Hakyeon’s wish since there was nothing else he could do for him at the moment.

You heard someone knocking on your door once.

“Who is it?” you rose up your voice from under the sheets of your bed.

“It’s me, taek…Leo” an almost inaudible voice spoke from behind the door. It took you a few second to recognize the owner of such soft voice.

You opened the door and saw him balancing himself from on his toes, it caught him of guard the way you looked like ghost but your appearance was the last thing you worried about.

“uhm… ehh. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, at least I’m not almost frozen” you attempted to make a joke, geeting a half smile from him.

“That’s good”

There was a moment of awkward silent since there was no subject to talk about, or at least nothing came to your mind.

“So how was the conference for you?” he finally asked.

“it was great, really…uhm… educational”

“Indeed. I met these managers from the design department of a famous corporation and they told me to submit my resume” he smiled widely (or at least as much as his shyness allowed him to) breaking the awkward mood between you two.

“are you bragging about it?” you teased, narrowing your eyes and nudged him with your elbow before realizing you had invaded his personal space. He looked a bit thrown back but didn’t seem to care for he admitted proudly.

You both kept exchanging stares for a brief moment until he scratched the back of his head franctically.

“Are you sure you are not disappointed it’s me?” he spoke all of a sudden.

“Positive” you nodded “Why would I be?”

“Because of what people talk about me?” he looked away.

“No, I’m not. Actually I’m quite glad it was you because we had met a few times before so it’s not that awkward around us”

“Well, they weren’t pleasant meetings” he snorted and you laughed, both remembering those times.

“You should have told me earlier it was you” you nagged.

“It’s not good to be around me, people will isolate you” concern was liquid clear in his voice.

“I don’t have many friends but I would have introduced you to Kri…”you stopped your tongue. It was just that his presence was so familiar to you that it was going to take some time to get used to him not being around.

“Well, I don’t think we could get along” he snorted “but I have a friend, Hakyeon, I’m sure you two can become close”

“Hakyeon? I think he sent me a friend request” you turned back and gestured for Leo to follow you inside the room. You retrieved the phone and turned it on before showing the request to him.

“Yeah, it’s him” he sighed and made a mental note to scold his friend about it “you can ignore him you really don’t have to accept him if you don’t want” the edge on his voice made you think that for some unknown reason he didn’t want you to add his friend “it’s a group for school related things only, remember?”

Little did you know that Leo liked the privacy you two had, since he assumed he was your only face on that account, without the gossiping and all that being in an SNS includes.

“Ok, I won’t add him but I’ll keep the request just in case”

Leo just limited to nod and look around your room. It was a mess: you roommate had left her curlying iron and styling products all scattered over the table, her clothes were all over her bed and to make it worse you had been eating chocolates and left all the packages on the floor.

“Are you sure you are alright?” he asked without making eye contact.

“Yes, just going through the 6 degrees of girl’s depression” you brushed the subject off.

“okay” rose his arms up in surrender, before taking a seat next to the table “ do you have any chocolates left?”

“yes, I have…”

The doorknob turned around several times without unlocking and you heard your roommate cursing about leaving the key in the room from the other side of the door.

“You have to hide” you looked at Leo with widen eyes; he was already rushing towards the bathroom.

“Just lock her out” he grinned with malice before closing the door.

You breathed in and out and went to open the door for her, who pushed away and ran to the rest room. You blood rushed to your feet and you waited for her to say some annoying comment about having a guy hiding in there.

The sounds of her throwing up stopped just when you were about to feel nauseous, she stumbled out and without saying a word threw herself on the bed passing out immediately.

Now you were worried about Leo.

“Are you okay?” you quietly asked not daring to get closer to that place.

He stepped out with a pale face but busted into laughter after glancing at you. It was a very pleasant sound that calmed all the buzz going on your ears since last night.

“You should look at your face, like a ghost and you weren’t even there” he had to bed to prevent his stomach from hurting out of so much laughing.

“I…I’m so sorry you had to see that”

“Stop apologizing and I didn’t see it I hide behind the curtain shower. It was fun”

He finally returned to his room after a short talk about school, Hakyeon being annoying and friendship. Both agreed that it’s better to have just one best friend than a hundred acquaintances.

“see you tomorrow”

Your roommates phone startled you but ignored it a few times since it was an unknown number and why would you even pick a call for a girl that has being nothing but mean to you? Well, maybe because it was past midnight and it didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon.

“Hey, come out to the parking lot you left your jacket and tights in my car, come out or I’ll throw them to the trash” it was a drunk man’s voice. A drunken man you knew very well.

“Kris?”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

This is going to be last chapter of the conference adventures.By the way, if you read BLANK (my other story ft. Myungsoo) maybe you noticed the cameo you made in the second chapter! and if you havent then go check it out please :D.

I think this story is going to be about 50 chapters long (maybe more or maybe less) so I hope you endure till the end!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS AND UPVOTES! You are the best!!