Chapter Nineteen

The Pain

When Sungmi opened her eyes, she found a face hovering over hers. 

"Ack!" she shrieked, letting out a high-pitched wail. In her startled state, she tried to slip away from under the man's scrutinizing gaze only to roll off the bed with a thunk. Oww...

"Hey, are you okay?" 

It took her brain a second to register the voice as Kai's, and to notice that the floor on which she was lying on was not carpet like in her house, but polished chestnut wood. A waft of peppermint drifted under her nose, which was also odd because usually she would not be able distinguish any scent in her home. 

Picking herself off from the floor, Sungmi swiveled around to take in her surroundings. She blinked once. Twice. Blinked again.

Holy crap. Was this place even real?

Everything in the room was black and white, from the gigantic four-poster canopy bed to the intricately carved marble furniture next to the lavish ceiling-to-floor drapes, covered by arching windows that led outside into a balcony overlooking the city. The walls were a pale white with gorgeous black serpentine designs stenciled in them, and the wooden floors added a nice exquisite touch to the entire interior design. On the left wall was a 60" flat screen TV, and to the left of that, on a black marble desk, was a platinum-plated iMac. 

Sungmi's mouth extended all the way to the ground. It even appeared as if her jaw had entered a different dimension. She turned to look at Kai, who was sitting coolly on the edge of the bed and observing her dumbfounded face. "W-where am I?" She stammered. 

Kai didn't take his eyes off her as he tonelessly answered, "My room."

Sungmi's brows furrowed. "Why am I here?" If she remembered correctly, she and Kai were on non-speaking terms, and the last time she had seen his face was the morning before her date with Luhan. What had exactly happened? 

Kai looked at her incredulously. "You don't remember anything?" 

She scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. "Well, I remember going to the club with Luhan. I must've had a few drinks, hehe." She laughed nervously. 

Kai wasn't amused. He folded his arms across his chest and cocked an eyebrow. "A few drinks? You were completely wasted. And--" He gulped before asking the next question. "Y-you said you...uh...liked...me, so whywereyouonadatewithLuhan?" Kai asked quietly, looking down at his hands as his face flushed. 

Sungmi was confused. What was he saying? "Can you repeat that?" 

Kai grimaced and mumbled a little louder, "WhywereyouonadatewithLuhanishegaytooIthoughtyoulikedme."

He turned redder when the expression on Sungmi's face told him she hadn't understood a word. He facepalmed himself and shook his head. "Nevermind, just don't answer." In truth, this had been bothering Kai the entire night. He didn't know why he disliked the idea of Min and Luhan so much, even though it shoudn't matter to him whatever they did with each other. Min was only his friend, nothing more.

So why had he been so angry when Luhan had told him they were on a date over the phone? Why had his heart clenched so uneasily to know that they had been spending time together while Kai was off by himself? None of this, none of it made any sense. 

Sungmi coughed into her hand, seeing Kai zone off into space. "Um, could you please answer my question? I still don't know why I'm here." 

The other jolted from his thoughts and sighed. "This is the gist of it: You got drunk at a club, almost got into a fight with some stranger before I came and stopped you in time, then I was going to take you home but you didn't have your keys so I took you to my house. The end. Story over." 

Sungmi looked at him with shock. "All of that really happened?" She wanted to curl up into a ball and hide in the corner out of embarrassment. What he just told her was mortifying. 

"What, do you think I'm lying?" Kai said sarcastically.

"No..." A thought struck her. "Hey, how am I here? I thought you got kicked out?" 

Kai's jaw dropped as he gazed at her in surprise. "How do you know about that?"

Crap. She definitely hadn't thought it through before carelessly asking that question, because it was a secretive issue for Kai and she didn't want to invade his privacy. But now it was too late to backtrack. "My father told me," she admitted, "but I promise I don't know anything else aside from that!"

Kai raised an eyebrow. "Your father?"

"Yeah, he's your father's secretary. Please don't be mad, he didn't tell me anything else," she pleaded. 

Kai just chuckled. "I'm not mad, Min. And to answer your question, we're here because my father isn't home and my mother...doesn't care." His smile faded at the end of the sentence and a bitter look passed over his features for a second before it was gone. 

Sungmi was confused, but she didn't want to ask any more questions. She was happy enough with the fact that Kai was talking to her again, despite not knowing what compelled him to do so or if he had forgiven her for being extremely rude after the ball. A pounding headache was ramming her skull anyways and overthinking wouldn't help very much. She walked back to the giant bed and sat down beside Kai, rubbing her temples slowly to ease the throbbing pain. A comfortable silence passed between them. 

Kai coughed. "You know, you mumble in your sleep," he said quietly. 

Sungmi's face paled. What exactly did I say? Oh gosh. "Is that why you were staring at me earlier?" 

Now it was Kai's turn to flush. "No...that was because...you kinda look girly when you sleep." And it was true. It almost unnerved him how much Min looked like a woman when he was laying with his face half-buried into Kai's pillow, his expression at ease and not haunted by nightmares. The amount of alcohol he drank had made his cheeks extra rosy, and the way his dark locks had fallen across his eyes had made Kai want to reach out his hand and brush it away with a gentle graze against the other's smooth skin. Min had looked so innocent, peaceful, and...attractive.

Wait, attractive? 

Kai was going crazy. He had to be. 

He fumbled to say something else to disperse the thick tension. "Not that I have anything against your tastes of course--"

"Kai, I have to tell you something," Sungmi interrupted with a whisper. While he was questioning her preferences, she might as well tell him the truth. It had been bothering her immensely for a while and after the cold silence that he had given her this previous week, she was afraid not telling him sooner would break whatever remained of their friendship. 

But Kai, on the other hand, wasn't so keen on Min telling him anything. Whatever would come out of his mouth was bound to only make Kai more confused and flustered and make his question things he didn't want to think about. He was already feeling weird as it was and looking at his friend's face now and being so close to him at the same time, side by side, together on his bed, made his heart race uncontrollably. Kai had to get out of here, away from Min, or at least this room, before he would do something that he'd regret. 

Kai got up and brushed off his clothes. "I'll go and get you something from the kitchen. Just stay in here, okay?" Without even waiting for a response or looking at the person beside him, Kai stalked off in a stiff manner with harried steps. The door closed behind him with a hard slam. 

Sungmi stared at the place where Kai had sat, her face falling. The chance had slipped through her fingers once again, and she wasn't sure how long it would be until another opportunity would come by. She needed to tell him, to inform him that she wasn't gay, that she was actually a girl. It didn't matter that it was Kai's stupid assumption from the beginning, because after all, she hadn't bothered to correct him. At the moment, it didn't even matter if Kai would hate her afterwards. Their friendship was now strained and he already had a good reason to hate her, since she had blatantly confessed to him without thinking of his feelings. If he found out that she was a girl, then maybe Kai wouldn't be as creeped out as he was now. That, in all honesty, would be enough to make her content.

Sungmi reclined back against the white sheets and closed her eyes. Her headache was only getting stronger because of her stupid hangover and it wasn't doing her much good to keep thinking. Before she knew it, she dozed off again.

Several hours later, when Sungmi awoke again, the room was no longer lit by sunlight. Darkness washed over the walls, and the only thing that made her surroundings visible was the soft, somber glow from the lamplight beside the bed. A slight tremor of thunder shook the ceiling, and she looked over at the window to see that a gloomy shower of rain was peppering against the glass in little pitter-pats. 

She sat up and yawned. The headache had faded to a faint throb and no longer hurt as much as before. She was the only person in the room, and turning to her right, she saw a tray of food set on the bedside table with a sticky note that read, 

Eat this when you get up. It's good for a hangover. Make sure to drink water. -Kai. 

Sungmi grabbed the sticky note and peered at it closely, tracing her fingers over Kai's pencil markings. It was weird how this simple note made her heart drum just as loudly as the pelting rain outside. The corner of her lips lifted into a melancholy smile, knowing that waking up to this was something that might never happen ever again. 

She pulled away the warm covers that smelled of Kai and took the tray of food onto her lap. She took several sips of the soup and swallowed it slowly, only to frown at the taste. Maybe she had gotten too used to Kai's cooking, because the soup was rather odd and unwelcoming on her tongue, letting h