“Stephanie? What are you doing here?”

=

Kyuhyun is preparing to leave school when he spots Siwon, slumped over in a bench near the exit of the school. He hesitates before edging towards him slowly, and marvels at how Siwon never seems to notice him approaching, even when he ends up right next to him.

“You know,” Kyuhyun starts, “you need to stop with this emo persona. I heard a few girls from the freshman class are keen on eating you up, whatever that means.”

Siwon scoffs softly. “You remember that stupid New Year’s Eve party I was forced into hosting back then? Jungsoo said the same thing about me.”

“About you looking like the callous hottie?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, for someone like me to be telling you this the second time, you best believe that it’s true. Gaining back your popularity, eh?”

“I don’t want popularity.”

Kyuhyun sighs at the terse reply. “I know. I know what you want.”

“You do? How about you enlighten me, then? Right now, I don’t even know what I want.”

“You want Stephanie to hear you out, like, really hear you out, without cutting you off or brushing your words away.” Pause. “I mean… That is what you want, right?”

Siwon chuckles, then leans forward and buries his face in his hands. “This is giving me a really bad headache. Like, a really, really, really bad one.”

Kyuhyun folds his arms. Things seem to be taking another wrong turn here. “Are you trying to say that Stephanie accepting the truth isn’t what you want?”

“It is. Believe me, Kyuhyun. It really is. But… Is the truth really this bad?” The hurt in Siwon’s voice is becoming clearer. His voice isn’t getting any louder but the hurt sure is.

“It’s not a bad truth, Siwon. She just needs time.”

“Is this how she felt back then, every single time, when she tried to tell me about her feelings? Did she comfort herself by telling herself that all I needed was time?” Siwon gives a bitter smile to himself. “If only there was someone there to tell her that this idiot sitting right here, right now – me, myself – needed more than just time. I needed a good kick in the guts to wake myself up.”

“Look, everybody deals with a discovery in their own ways. It doesn’t mean it’s any less of a good truth being unveiled. You disregarded your pride to go back to her to admit that you were wrong. She may think now that it’s your sympathy kicking in, but who’s to say she’ll never come around and realize that it’s nothing like sympathy right now?”

=

Krystal heaves a sigh after the door shuts behind her. She looks down at her feet, then up towards the staircase. Jessica is suddenly standing at the top of the stairs, not having been there previously.

“God!” The younger one exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest. “You scared the living crap out of me…”

“Was that Stephanie?”

“You heard her, loud and clear.”

“Seems like she really needs to talk to me…”

“What?”

Krystal decides to approach Jessica, deciding that conversing across the house this way did not help trying to fool Stephanie into thinking that the older girl wasn’t at home.

“She called me earlier asking to talk. I just said I wasn’t free. Did she suspect anything?”

“No, but she mentioned D—she mentioned that… You hung up on her really fast.”

“Oh. Yeah, that was my mistake.”

“Are you going to get back to her anytime soon?”

“Maybe. But not right now, I guess.”

“Yeah, of course. That’s… Good.”

Jessica turns to head back into her bedroom. Krystal glances at the door behind her and thinks back to what Stephanie mentioned about Donghae. Not showing up in school as well? Did he really fall sick out of heartbreak?

She hadn’t realized that the last bit of her thoughts came out aloud until Jessica appears at the top of the staircase again. “What was that?”

“Uh, nothing. I was just wondering what to make for dinner.”

=

Jessica closes the door gently behind her and stares at the wall that would otherwise be the final boundary between her and the house next door. She wasn’t deaf, nor was she stupid—she heard Stephanie’s every line, loud and clear. Louder and clearer than she had wanted to.

She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it. She was worrying about him, amidst all the heartbreak of her own.

And yet, she wasn’t able to say it. Not to him, not to Krystal, not to herself, even.

She buried herself in her covers, willing it all to go away.

It wouldn’t be this easy.

Especially not with them in a state like this.

=

“I, uh, just swung by to visit you!”

“Visit me?”

Donghae’s voice is uncharacteristically low and raspy, as if afflicted with some sort of illness. But he isn’t actually sick, and some part of Stephanie knows that. Something is off, though, and she isn’t sure if she wants to know what.

“Hyukjae said he called you earlier and you sounded sick… He said he thinks you’re resting at home. I… Actually came by for Jessica, but it wouldn’t hurt to come see you too.”

She isn’t sure if it’s just her imagination, but she swore that the mention of her friend’s name had Donghae wincing a little. It must be all the Siwon and Kyuhyun that was getting to her head.

“I’m okay. I just got the flu. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Awkward silence looms over the two and Stephanie merely stares, not quite sure if she should buy his story. Donghae stares back at her, unsure of what his next move should be.

“Do you… Want to come in, or something?”

Stephanie is jolted out of her reverie and gives a startled nod. Donghae gives way to her and she steps in.

“Are you sure it’s the flu you’ve gotten?” She asks as she makes herself at home in one of his armchairs, while he shuts the door.

“Yeah, I think so. I have a headache and I’m really tired, so…”

“Well, from personal experience, other things could give you a headache and make you really tired…”

Stephanie’s mind is brought back to when she had been fretting over Kyuhyun when their pseudo-relationship just started, as well as just the night before, when she had been kept up for most of the night thinking over what Siwon told her.

“Is something the matter?” Donghae asks, taking the seat opposite her.

She looks at his face, studies it, and wonders for a moment if he was asking about her, or himself.

“Yes,” she answers. It was odd indeed that the answer seemed to fit for both circumstances.

“You can talk to me about it, since you’re here already and I have nothing to do.”

Stephanie glances around, as if trying to formulate a way to get her thoughts to come out coherently. Donghae blinks a few times and initiates the conversation for her sake. “Is this about Kyuhyun?”

“Well, not… Not exactly.”

“Then… Siwon?”

Stephanie’s sudden silence told him all that he needed to know. He swallows a bit and chuckles softly. “I don’t know what’s on your mind, Fany, but I’m guessing you’re at a point where it’s okay for me to tell you what I know. Or, at least, what I think I know.”

She looks at him expectantly, not at all expecting for their conversation to take a turn like this. Donghae was no psychic, but something told her that whatever he had to say would be a game-changer for everything weighing down on her in her mind.

“Siwon likes you. He really does. I think it’s safe to say it took him too much time to come around to the truth, but it’s not like it was the easiest thing for him to say, or to accept as reality.” He shifts around in his chair.

Stephanie’s expression changes by just the slightest bit.

“Some time back, Hyukjae and I started noticing things off about him. I think there was a point in time when he dreamt about you… Not in any inappropriate manner, of course. I’m not sure how right I am, but I think that if Siwon had only one reason to keep himself away from the truth that was his feelings for you, it was because he was afraid to ruin the friendship he had with you. Of course, always the number one reason why people in love don’t end up loving each other at the end of the day…” But certainly not the only reason why, he thinks, as his mind came close to taking him back to all the painful memories from the night before. He focused on Stephanie and the posture she now took, as if she was ready to speak up.

And she was.

“But he knew… He knew I had feelings for him.” Her voice was shaky and it sounded like she could only manage this one short line of words. It was enough proof that he was going down the right track, so he took the liberty to continue.

“You’ve always had those feelings for him. Perhaps some part of him always knew, right from the very beginning, even before you told him anything. But… I guess he wasn’t sure if he could live with the responsibility of being the one who made the move that could either make or break this friendship.”

Stephanie now leaned out of her seat, suddenly a little too emotional and agitated and eager to respond. “If he didn’t run away from the truth and he accepted it and he told me about his feelings, then we could be happy together—at least, as happy as possible. So why not—“

“Because… No relationship can ever be perfectly safe from harm. Even when you think you and him could be happy for a long time, just by sticking together, things don’t always turn out that way. You never know what could come to break you two apart. Sometimes you might never come to find out, too.”

His words were starting to be more and more applicable to his own situation, eerily so. He had been going through enough, so why was his mind making him come up with all these words to further solidify the painful situation he was in?

“The thing is,” he continues, now softly, as if lowering his own volume could contribute to shielding him from further pain, “if, god forbid, your relationship with him comes to nothing, there’s a chance you two can’t go back to being friends. Imagine the awkwardness and the pain and the way the pieces just don’t seem to fit when you two try to hang out together like friends, with the sad memories and the reality that this is your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend weighing down on your mind, even if it’s just in the back of your mind.” He felt like a stake had been driven through his heart. “He’s just not sure… If he can afford to live with that responsibility.”

Donghae only realized now that he had almost taken up a fetal position, as if the more he spoke, the more it hurt him physically. He looks up at Stephanie and finds her looking at the door.

“All I’m trying to say is,” he continues, aware that this was a sign that she was ready to go and chase her destiny, “his feelings for you didn’t just suddenly appear. They were always there, and it just took him some time to finally see it. Did he confess to you? Because, if he did, then it means that right now, all the pieces fit. The puzzle is solved, and this is the solution you’re looking for. You and him could have a happy ending, and whether or not things turn out looking as monstrous as what I said earlier is only up to the both of you.”

Stephanie gives him a look that spoke volumes, and quiet as she was, he heard her gratitude loud and clear. He nods, and she goes bolting out the front door.

Donghae gets up and approaches the front door to see her silhouette disappearing into the distance. He smiles slightly, as best as he could manage, and starts closing the door.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the house next door. It had only been less than 24 hours ago when he left those grounds that only laid a stone’s throw away from his own safe haven, but already it—she—felt like it was miles away from him.

This isn’t the way it should be.

Why weren’t the pieces fitting for the two of them?