"No way!" 

Sooyoung exclaimed as Bom told her what happened on her "date" with Sehun. They were in the spacious chicken of the mansion, and Bom was cooking up some soup as Sooyoung sat on one of the dining chairs and listened intently with Jun on her arms. The little boy, for whatever reason, seemed focused on Bom's story as well from his big unblinking eyes. 

"It sounds sooooooooo romantic!" Sooyoung gushed, giggling as if it was she who went on the date. Bom smiled at the woman's reaction while stirring her pot of chicken soup. "Sehun is perfect isn't he?"

She saw Sooyoung's hidden trap within the question, and carefully avoided it.

"He is a fine gentleman." She replied, tasting her concoction. "Whoever wins him would be very lucky." 

"Oh come on!" Sooyoung rolled her eyes."You know you like him, Bom." 

"No I do not." Bom said, despite a little part inside her questioning herself. Her mind, unwittingly, had been replaying their day together ever since it happened. She kept thinking about that beautiful field of flowers they ran through, and their laughter mixing together as they serenely floated across the smooth surface of the lake on the boat. His solid form as she held onto him before the boat flipped. The distinct and manly scent she could smell from wearing his shirt. 

And the gentle feeling of his lips pressing against her forehead. 

Bom shook her head. It had been too long since she had any contact with a male. That was all. 

"You can have him." Bom reiterated, pouring her soup out into two small bowls and setting them on the table. Sooyoung furrowed her brows at the statement and looked at the older female as she sat down opposite from her. She could tell Bom liked the guy, or at least she didn't dislike him. She could tell the woman was scared of being hurt, scared of loving and being loved, scared of having her heart shattering again when there were still cracks remaining from what she experienced. The last thing Sooyoung wanted was to add herself into the list that Bom had created as a barrier from letting Sehun into her heart and giving it a try. 

Although a part deep within Sooyoung wanted Sehun all to herself. 

"Unnie, we have already talked about this." Sooyoung stated as she fed the soup to Jun, who readily gulped each spoonful down. "You promised that we would go for him fair and square." 

"I made that promise under pressure." Bom retorted in a joking manner. 

"That still doesn't let you off the hook." Sooyoung replied wittily, and the two women chuckled. "Seriously unnie, I think deep down inside you know you like him." 

Sooyoung hit the bull's eye, but Bom showed no expression as she sipped her soup and tasted the sweet yet bitter taste going down . After what happened years ago, her heart felt frozen in place, like an artifact crystallized for thousands of centuries. Even now the nightmares haunted her, and even now the sight of children renewed ripped open a wound inside her that threatened to consumer her whole. 

Sehun was an absolute gentleman, and she would be lying if she said the male did not arouse in her any emotions. But Bom did not want to burden such a young and eligible bachelor with an older woman carrying heavy baggages. That would be selfish of her. 

The silence that befell Sooyoung and Bom was interrupted by the sound of the kitchen doors opening. A group of the other women staying inside the mansion walked in, and in the lead was the woman who Sooyoung said was the daughter of the wealthy business conglomerate. In tow were her two sidekicks. The woman was famous among the other contestants as someone who used whatever means possible to win the contests and score dates with Sehun, and weekly scoreboards revealed that she herself had a strong lead in the competition to be Sehun's wife. 

"Well if it isn't the one who got knocked up and the old maid." The woman-Julie was her name-commented snarkily. Her two friends laughed with her. 

"Well if it isn't the cheater." Sooyoung retorted. 

"I think a better word would be..."Julie stopped mid-sentence and made a dramatic gesture of contemplation. "Resourceful." A cunning smirk was etched onto her beautiful features. With those looks, she could easily stop any man dead in his tracks. Oh Sehun would be no exception. 

"You're so desperate it's funny." Sooyoung declared, covering Jun's ears from the exchange. Bom looked back and forth, gesturing motions for Sooyoung to stop arguing with the three women. 

"I don't really care." Julie responded in a self-assured manner. "But I'll be the wife of Seoul's most eligible bachelor and the mistress of Oh Inc. Meanwhile, you and your pathetic friend over there can sit by the fireplace and...knit sweaters or something." They laughed, and went off into another corner of the kitchen. 

"Those three are detestable." Sooyoung said to Bom in a low voice. "I can't understand why no one has caught her cheating already. I even heard that this competition was rigged to let her win." 

"Now now, let's not get ahead of ourselves." Bom dissuaded Sooyoung.  "The truth will be revealed one day. You just focus on winning over your prince charming so no one will be able to snatch him up." 

"Same to you." Sooyoung said, and Bom only shook her head and smiled. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

She tried to call out, but the only sound that came out of was a whimper. She couldn't move her legs, and there were a terrible and dull pain eating away at her abdomen. She could feel a sticky liquid permeating the tulle of her wedding dress, and upon weakly lifting her hands did she saw that it was blood. 

"H....Help..." She struggled, but it felt as if a rock was shoved down . Her breathing came out in short, ragged intervals. Her mind was a jumbled mess of sorrow and despair. 

Her baby. The thought sent a surge of energy throughout her body. Her baby. Was her baby okay? 

In a wobbly manner she tried to will her upper body to sit up, to no avail. She willed her arms to move, yet they planted by her side like two fallen branches. She tried again, and again. But all they did was slide imperceptibly on the floor. Crying, she started panting as she lifted first the left, then the right arm. With several more tries, she successfully put them on her stomach. She started touching her abdomen, trying desperately to feel any sign of life there. Any sign of her baby's existence. 

Yet, try as she might, she felt nothing. She felt no swelling, no kicking, nothing. She felt nothing. Empty. Hollow. Void. 

"No no no no no" She repeated, as if that could somehow elicit a response. "This can't be. No." 

"Corn!" She called out to him, her voice barely audible and full of despair. "Corn! Answer me baby!" 

But there was only dead silence. She began to sob harder as the realization dawned upon her. 

"No!" She screamed, the screaming draining all of her energy. Before she drifted off into nothingness, she vaguely saw a pair of feet next to her. 

She bolted upright in her bed, sweat making its way down her neck. Wiping her forehead, she tried to calm down her erratic hear that was beating like horses galloping in a race. This wasn't the first time she had the nightmare, but no matter how many times she went through it she could still feel herself being swallowed up in grief and sorrow. Once her heart calmed down, she looked over at Sooyoung sleeping soundly next to her with Jun. Quietly, she slipped off the bed as to not disturb them, and closed the door with a click behind her. 

The garden at night was perhaps even more beautiful than it was during the day. The colorful flowers somehow bloomed more radiantly underneath the moonlight, bathing them in a silver shower of stars. The sky was covered by the dark velvet blanket full of shiny dots that were stars, and there the moon was, full and glowing. Walking alone the stone path in the garden, she hugged herself against the chilly night atmosphere. She walked until she saw the veranda, located near the center of the garden with a domed roof that reminded her of the place where secret lovers would meet in an old movie. 

Upon approaching the veranda, she saw a figure of a person. When she got closer she realized it was none other than Oh Sehun. 

"Can't sleep as well?" He asked suddenly, turning around to face her with his signature smile. Flustered, she only nodded and sat down opposite from him.

He observed the woman, and marveled at how beautiful she looked with the moonlight on her black hair and her eyes glimmering with a faraway look that he wished he could decipher. 

"Thank you," She said, breaking the silence. "I had a great time the other day." 

He silently chuckled at her timid demeanor. "Glad you liked it." Then he added a wink. "We can do it again if you like." 

"I'm afraid there won't be a next time." She replied, casting her gaze off into the distance as if whatever she was thinking of was there. 

"Why?"He inquired, alarmed. The day he spent with her was the most magical in his life. He had his fair share of women, but none of them arouses in him the same feelings she did. He felt an overwhelming urge to embrace her and kiss her senseless whenever she looked at him, and all he wanted was to whisk her away to someplace faraway and make her his. He wanted to occupy her heart and help her forget what she experienced years ago. 

"I...." She sighed.  She hated being the bad guy, but if she didn't state her honest intentions she could be leading him on. And that was wrong. "I don't want to get hurt again." 

At that moment, when she looked straight into his eyes, she felt as if she just bared her own soul. His intense gaze bored right back into hers, and she felt even more . Laying her cards down in the open was risky, yet saying the words firmly identified what it was. She was scared. After what her heart went through, she didn't think she could ever love again. She couldn't escape from the part inside her telling her that she will be hurt again, that history tend to repeat itself and that the first time rarely was the last. She didn't think she could take another heartbreak. 

"I will never hurt you." He declared, his voice deep and serious. His eyes penetrated deep into her own, and his words revebrated in the night sky. Looking into those deep dark eyes, she realized he was the kind of person that meant everything he said. That was what scared her even more. People who meant everything they say, with all their hearts. She realized if she fell for this man sitting right in front of her, she would fall deep. She would love him with all of her existence. He would become her air, her sky, her world, her everything.

She would break if he hurt her. 

"I just..." She started, swallowing the lump in . "I just can't love anymore."

"Love isn't about can or cannot." He said. "It just happens in a heartbeat, in a single, flashing, throbbing moment." 

 Suddenly,