Minhee wiped her eyes on her sweater sleeve as she got on to the elevator, sniffling loudly to hide the embarassing snot that threatened to make its way down towards . The finger-smudged doors began to slam shut, and she let her eyes travel upwards towards the horrible fluorescents on the ceiling that made her skin look a nasty shade of blue in their sickly flickering.

            A boyish hand stuck in between the sliding doors and forced them to open again, drawing Minhee’s surprised gaze. A breathless Park Chanyeol stood frozen in the doorway, looking at her with a furious glare. His lips were parted into two perfect halves, and his chest heaved up and down as he gasped in air. His cheeks were flushed, and Minhee swore she felt her cheeks warm, as well; the heat between the two, standing barely more than a meter apart, crackled.

            “Are you getting on or not?” Minhee forced her voice to stay even, willing her voice not to give her away even though she knew that her swollen red eyes and running nose told Chanyeol everything he needed to know.

            Chanyeol did not break their gaze, but the boy took a silent step forward into the elevator and let the doors slide closed. Neither one of them had pressed any button indicating which floor they wished to get off on, but they did not notice, for they were too lost in the other’s eyes. Minhee pressed herself against the flyer-plastered elevator wall to keep herself steady. 

            The air in the enclosed space of the elevator grew heavy, and it was like someone had run a current over her skin, for she was hyper aware of each and every hair that stood up on her skin. The low hum of the electrical wiring filled the silence, but it did little to quiet the sound of each person’s heaving breaths. 

            “Chanyeol,” Minhee forced out from , the name coming out as both a prayer and a dirty curse. “Why are you doing this? What more do you want?”

            Chanyeol did not respond, but his eyes did not leave hers. His lips- Minhee could recall each ridge and curve as they had once smiled and uttered her name like it was the only word they knew- were parted just enough for a thin wisp of air to leave them, but did not make a sound. Their silence was killing her, and it brought back things she had told herself that she did not want to feel, anymore.

            The girl pressed tight within her self-created walls felt claws rip her chest wipe open, and everything her heart had once held inside came falling out into her hands. There was no more hiding. Laying all of her cards bare on the table, Minhee took a wild chance and exposed her neck for Chanyeol to do as he pleased. 

            “You know,” Minhee felt the words falling from like bricks, and never before had she been so vulnerable in front of anyone before, “when you let me go that night, I did not quite understand where I went wrong,” Chanyeol was watching her intently, but Minhee refused to stop. “I did the whole crying thing,” a tear, and then another one. “A lot.”

            Minhee felt like such a fool standing there wiping her eyes in front of the last boy she wanted to see her cry. Everything Minhee had ever wanted to say to him somehow was finding its way out of and falling in between them, and so the barrier grew. Chanyeol stood stock still, letting each word from wash over him, and Minhee hated that he was so composed. 

            But, then again, he had never been the one to lose his cool. The boy stood back and surveyed her with withdrawn eyes, and Minhee remembered then how she could never quite tell exactly what he was thinking.

            “You know the worst part?” Minhee angrily wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and pulled the sleeves of her hoodie over her clenched fists. “I actually loved you. Like, really really,” Minhee glared at him, her form hardening into something stronger and less vulnerable than before, shielding herself from the boy standing near her in the elevator. “But I’m stronger now. Park Chanyeol, this is me saying congratulations.”

            Park Chanyeol, for the first time since getting on the elevator, showed a reaction: surprise. His eyes widened imperceptibly, and he recoiled as though she had reached out and physically struck him. Minhee relished the fact that she now had the upper hand, and her indifference was hurting him just as much as he had originally hurt her with his silence.

            “You won. Whatever, I hope you’re happy now,” Minhee turned to press a button and get off the elevator, anticipating her dramatic exit, but a hand stopped her from coming any closer.

            “My turn,” Chanyeol said in a monotone, his eyes focused on some place over her shoulder. He ran his tongue over his top lip, that small frown in between his eyebrows the way it always did when he was having a serious thought.

            “What?” Minhee, as always, was thrown off guard by Park Chanyeol.

            “You have no idea, do you?” Chanyeol’s eyes turned to meet hers with astonishment. He bore into her so much force that Minhee had to look down at her feet to blink it away. “You really don’t know?”

            “What?” She felt her hackles rising once more, angry tears rushing to the back of her eyes once more, but she pushed them down. “What more could you possibly say to me? You made everything quite clear a few minutes ago out in the hall.”

            “You changed,” Chanyeol stated, the icy expression on his face beginning to give way. “You were different.”

            “Yeah,” Minhee gestured to her outfit that had so horrified her that morning: neat black shorts with white tank top and purple zip up hoodie. “I’m different. People change.”

            “No,” Chanyeol raked his hand through his hair, ruffling it from its carefully pushed-back style. “You aren’t getting it.”

            “No,” Minhee stepped forward. “You aren’t getting it. I am trying to move on,” the elevator suddenly seemed so much smaller. “And it’s time we forget about each other. I know I have.”

            “Liar,” Chanyeol spat, the vein in his neck pulsing under his skin. “You’re lying.”

            Minhee raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. “Oh really? I can promise that whatever I had with you is completely in the-"

            Chanyeol never gave her a chance to finish her sentence, because in a heartbeat Minhee found herself pressed against the cold metal of the walls of the elevator and his hands were in her hair and his mouth was pressed against hers and his breath was warm on her face and she could feel his skin searing her fingertips.

            Frozen underneath his hands, Minhee’s felt her eyes stretch wide open. Park Chanyeol, as in the boy whose name she had cursed every night before she closed her eyes to go to bed, the boy who had dumped her out of the blue after one year, the boy who broke her heart so many times she could not tell whether it was better again, the boy who made her so mad she wanted to scream, was kissing her. Actually kissing her.

            And even worse, she liked it.

            Screw it, Minhee’s mind said, and then, suddenly, all of Minhee’s nightmares came true right there on that elevator: she kissed him back.

            Minhee came alive; she felt her hands trail up to his cheek where they lightly ghosted over his skin, and suddenly she was reeling him in just as tight as he was her. asked his so many questions that he breathed back into her, and she was on fire in his arms. His hair, his nose, his eyelashes, the way he kicked one leg forward so it pressed against the wall and scuffed the front of his white sneakers−Minhee wanted all of it.

            His hands, once caging her in, went around her waist, and slowly he eased himself so that there was not an inch of space between them; Minhee would not have had it any other way. A noise left , but in no way was it sensual or lustful, it was a question, and Chanyeol answered by pulling away for a just a moment to catch his breath and look into her eyes.

            “Liar,” he told her, and that was all she needed to hear, for in a heartbeat he overloaded all of her senses once more. 

            An eternity seemed to pass with the two in the elevator, lost in their own tiny five by six world, but even eternities have an end. The two broke away, and as though they both realized what had just happened, they jumped apart. Their hair stuck up at all angles and their mouths were almost comically pink. Minhee was sure that she had several hickies on her neck.

            Minhee turned away from Chanyeol, who was looking down at his hands, his face a mask, once more, and she pressed the first button she saw. The silence was deafening as the elevator descended.

            The doors opened, and Minhee ran out so fast she almost tripped. The reality of what she had just done was dawning on her, and she knew she had to get out fast, because Chanyeol was the one drug that she was not able to resist. Minhee turned back one last time to look at the disheveled boy in the elevator, but Chanyeol was looking down at his shoes with a troubled expression. He looked up at her just as the doors shut, his eyes wide and lips parted as though he had just been punched in the gut.

            The silver barrier between them closed.

            “Dammit,” she muttered to herself. “Dammit, dammit.”

            What would she tell Minho? She could take a shower, chew some gum, wash her hair, but there was no way that she could hide the hickeys on her neck or her stung-looking lips. Her trip back to her dorms was a blur, and Minhee found herself come full circle, curled up in a pile of junk food on the couch, watching old Boys Over Flower reruns. This time, however, a strange numbness had overtaken her, and not a single tear left her eyes. Minhee lost track of the world around her, and whether she was on that couch for three hours or two days, she was not sure. 

            Park Chanyeol had again made his way into her heart despite her best efforts, and he had broken it once more.