Sungjong was in a very good mood. He’d gotten the best sleep he’d ever had in weeks, some actual, substantial rest, not haunted by ferocious nightmares.

He flew through dance practice for Infinite’s new promotion song, “Paradise”, like it was nothing. He was bursting with energy, and he smiled at every fault one of the Infinite members made while they put the choreography together and nodded cheerfully whenever Sunggyu hyung bossed him to do something.

He felt like he was a bouncing bubble, and it was all because of Hyera.

He didn’t know how it had happened. The two of them had done nothing the night before other than talk, dance, and talk. They hadn’t even talked to try to figure anything out; it was just explanatory talk. But Sungjong recalled all too well that click he had felt at the end of their talk - that had allowed him to breathe much easier, to be calmer, to be able to look at Hyera without flinching or breaking a sweat.

He was eager to let Hyera know how much better things had gotten. He just had to wait for Hoya and Sungyeol to fall asleep before he snuck out for the night, to meet her at the same place, the practice room.

It took forever for Sungyeol to finally fall asleep, making a slight droning noise with his even breathing. Although Myungsoo was in Japan, it didn’t make too much of a difference, as that boy was usually out in a flash and slept through just about anything. But Sungyeol was such a light sleeper. Sungjong had to be extra careful, climbing down from his upper bunk and slipping through the door, leaving a sock in the crack so it wouldn’t click shut.

Sungjong practically ran to the practice room, excitement building in his chest. Hyera hadn’t shown up yet, so he waited, leaning against a wall.

Soon enough, Hyera appeared down the hall, her head covered by the hood of a white sweatshirt. Upon seeing her, Sungjong pushing himself off the wall to greet her.

Just like that, their eyes met, and Sungjong was hit upside the head with a wave of emotional chaos without warning. In all his enthusiasm, he’d completely forgotten to be careful. As the brilliance of sparkle and brown flashed in the back of his eyelids, Sungjong scolded himself, for thinking everything had been solved after their one meeting.

Hyera seemed to notice Sungjong’s oddity by the way he cowered a little, shutting his eyes and breathing unevenly. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, I…” Sungjong choked out. After a moment, he positioned himself in an upright position, head jerked to the side so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

It doesn’t seem like nothing, Hyera thought to herself, as she pulled open the practice room door and went in without offering the boy an entrance.

When the two had strolled in and a few lights in the room, Hyera turned to Sungjong, arms crossed, foot tapping.

“You know, I’ve been thinking, and I think I deserve a better explanation from you, about this whole situation. Because you know, if I get caught like this, who knows how much trouble I’ll get in,” said Hyera, foot tapping an even, staccato rhythm the whole time.

Sungjong couldn’t help but notice how her foot moved so rhythmically, so evenly. “Umm,… well, I should tell you first, I’ve gotten better, since last night,” he replied.

Hyera’s face took on the look of one truly confused. “Huh? What?”

“I’ve gotten better since our meeting last night,” Sungjong repeated slowly, “I didn’t have a nightmare and slept well for the first time in weeks. I haven’t had that nightmare of you at all, even during the day. I felt so much better.” He was still hesitant about turning his head to face her.

“Seriously? We didn’t even do anything!” Hyera remarked, utterly baffled.

“I know. I mean, sort of. But it still meant a lot to me, just the time we spent last night. So thanks.”

It took a moment for Hyera to process what the boy was saying. When it dawned on her that he was thanking her for, whatever she’d done, Hyera found herself blushing, ever so slightly. Then, she remembered that she still had some questions to ask.

“Alright, well I still have to ask you, why do you think you have this ‘obsession’ with me? Or my eyes, as you say? Why would you have nightmares of me in the first place?”

Sungjong was staring at the floor. Hyera realized she was wearing flip-flops, her toes clearly visible. He’s not staring at my toes, is he? The boy sighed heavily in front of her, interrupting Hyera’s thoughts.

“I… well…” He still refused to raise his head.

“Sunbae, can you look at me while I’m talking to you?” Hyera chided. At that, Sungjong seemed to almost flinch back. His eyebrows crinkled, but he made no move to lift his head from the floor.

“I can’t,” he said. It took a moment for that to process in Hyera’s mind also.

“I can’t look at you. Your eyes, they make me… roll over twenty times in my head until I’m about to explode,” Sungjong remarked. The boy sank to the floor as he said this, positioning himself cross-legged on the hardwood, gaze focused on elsewhere, not at Hyera.

She needed to hear a better explanation. She needed to know more. She wasn’t going to settle for this metaphorical message, with the truth hidden underneath. The way the boy was avoiding her face - lowering himself so he didn’t have to look at her – made her feel as if she was an unwanted, unpleasant sight. She sat herself down directly in front of the boy, legs crossed also, daring him to retreat.

“Talk to me,” she said.

Her presence so directly in front of him seemed to startle Sungjong. But he didn’t move away, and after a brief silence, began to speak. “I’ve always thought there was something odd and eerie about your eyes, since you became a trainee. I guess I didn’t see you a lot back then, so it didn’t really matter. But the more we started visiting you guys during your practices, I got… I don’t know, agitated…”

“Talking to you was so much worse. I think the encounter we had in the practice room... in here, that night, was what set off this whole thing. The fact that I couldn’t control myself in front of you, and the fact that I made you cry like that, started those nightmares for me.”

Hyera remained in her position in front of Sungjong as he spoke. She seemed to listen intently, without a word or sound in reply. Sungjong couldn’t bring himself to look up at her face, though, so he didn’t know what kind of emotion she was showing.

 “I can’t exactly call it a nightmare, because even during the day, flashes of that same image would haunt me, and I would have to stop what I’m doing to catch my breath. That image alone, the one of you and your eyes crying in front of me, made me sick to the stomach. And it’s not you, it’s me. I just couldn’t handle it.”

Sungjong stopped, and the room went silent. The two of them couldn’t even hear each other’s breathing, even so close together.

Finally, Hyera broke the silence with a tentative question. “So when you acted… I guess weird, today, when I came, was that the same thing?”

“Yes,” answered Sungjong, “It’s the thing that drives me crazy the most. I look at your eyes in person, and my insides just flip in turmoil. I don’t know what to do, I can’t recognize what I’m feeling exactly, and I have to try hard not to lose it all and just burst.”

Sungjong sighed, feeling his breath waver. He was afraid of what she thought about all of this, of him. He sounded crazy. He despised how ridiculous this whole situation was, why it was happening to him. In front of him, Hyera drew her legs to her chin.

“I’m wondering…” Hyera spoke, but all of a sudden, she was interrupted by loud noise of the door of the practice room opening. A male burst in, flipping on every single light. The brightness blinded the two occupants of the room, and they both squinted, trying to make out who the figure was.

“Yah!!! What the..?” Sungjong recognized Woohyun’s voice. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, relief flooding him as he realized it wasn’t any of the managers or anyone who could rat him and Hyera out. He stood up, calling, “Woohyun hyung…”

“Sungjong? What are you doing in here? And Hyera?” Woohyun asked, clearly confused.

Hyera stood up as well. “We were just… practicing…” she fumbled.

“Umm, yeah, hyung, it’s nothing. But what are YOU doing here?” Sungjong added.

Woohyun seemed genuinely lost, stuttering, “Hmm? I was just looking for someone… but,… well if you guys were practicing, I guess I’ll just go now… You guys should actually get in too… it’s late…” With that, he stumbled out as quickly as he’d come in.

“Hyung, are you okay?...” Sungjong called after him, but the door had shut. Sungjong and Hyera were alone again, but under bright, warm lights, not the dim few from before.

“Oh god, it really is late! Sunbae, I think we should get back, before someone else comes barging in...” exclaimed Hyera, checking her phone for the time and then looking over at Sungjong. The boy still held his head lower to the ground, not looking directly at her. At the sight, Hyera felt truly sorry that he had to be that away around her.

“You’re right, we should go,” said Sungjong. He began to make his way toward the door. Hyera followed.

Out in the hall, just before the two parted for their rooms, Hyera called, “Sunbae, talk to you tomorrow night?”

“Yeah,… Good night,” Sungjong mumbled back in response, head downward. He turned and walked away slowly, his shoulders slumped. Hyera watched him for a while before turning the other way herself. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt and sorrow for Sungjong. It was wrong, that her senior had to hang his head in such a pitiful way, to talk to her. She replayed everything he’d told her back in the practice room in her head. Who was she to cause such a thing?

A thought began to form in Hyera’s head, as she pictured Sungjong’s words in her mind. It was a farfetched thought, but she willed for it to grow in her mind, leaving what she’d do with it for later.

***

Having finished the morning’s group dance practice, the five girls broke off into their miniature, individual tasks for midday, Soojung and Dahee both heading off to vocal lessons, Jiae off for her extra acting training hours, and Hyera and Yejin remaining in the hot practice room, cooling their foreheads.

Hyera sipped water from a bottle and threw herself down onto the hard floor in a lying position. The mood of the practice room was so different, in broad daylight, with heat from the fervent practicing of the last three hours, than when Hyera had met with Sungjong the night before.

Yejin, the youngest member of the pre-girl group, lay on her stomach on the floor of the practice room as well, a laptop shining light into her face.

“Yejin-ah?” Hyera called.

“Hmmm?”

“Have you ever heard of someone being ‘obsessed’ about someone else?” asked Hyera.

Casually, Yejin answered, not looking up from the laptop screen, “Of course. I don’t think it’s very unheard of, especially if you’re talking about psycho stalkers being obsessed about celebrities.”

Hyera scrunched her forehead. “Well yeah, but this is different,” she said, “Not obsessed like, crazy stalker obsessed…” As the words came out of Hyera’s mouth, she began to doubt them immediately. What if Sungjong was crazy stalker obsessed? Hyera thought back to when she had caught him spying on her in the recording room. No, he isn’t. It’s not like that, Hyera, she scolded herself, though the thought did not leave her at all.

“Obsessed with one part of someone else, and having nightmares about that one specific thing… and, you know, being unable to control oneself around that person…” Hyera stopped herself a second time, the words sounding ridiculous inside . This inability to explain, this indescribable apprehension, this embarrassing anxiety, that the person you were talking to may think you’re crazy– was this what Sungjong had felt all this time, telling her about his obsession? Because at the moment, she could feel every bit of it herself.

Yejin raised her head from the laptop screen, looking at Hyera with a puzzled expression. “Unnie, what are you talking about?”

“Have you ever heard of something like that, happening to someone?” Hyera persisted.

The young girl seemed to contemplate her thoughts in her head before replying, “Well, there can be so many different degrees of obsession, I guess. Especially if you like or have a crush on someone. If you really like someone, then you just start obsessing over specific things no one else would ever notice, and you dream about him day and night, and find yourself unable to control your emotions around that person.”

As Hyera listened and comprehended what Yejin was saying, she frowned. “Wait, it’s not like that…” she muttered. But was it? Hyera carefully went over what Yejin had said just now, comparing her description to the explanations Sungjong had given her. Is it really different?

“But! But,… what if he insults that other person and feels the need to put the other person down, when he sees them? That can’t be said as liking that person at all, right?” Hyera argued. She grudgingly recalled the times Sungjong had accused her of being unworthy, useless, uncut. She had told herself that she had to put up with those things, in order to become better, stronger. But the words still clung to her heart and surfaced from time to time, making her boil. Now, she wondered whether the boy had only said those things to her out of his uncontrollable obsession, out of spite.

Yejin had gone back to focusing her attention on her laptop. “Hmm, sure it is! It’s just like how younger boys, when they have a crush on a girl, make fun of her or to shield their feelings. Why, Hyera unnie, have you been crushing on someone lately?” She teased.

Hyera’s thoughts were jumbled in her head. She looked over at Yejin, going over everything that the younger girl had said, in the privacy of her own mind. Loose ends of the verbal information she’d contained over the last few days swirled in and out of her brain, and Hyera couldn’t help but let a nervous tingling overcome her for a moment, thinking of the insults she’d had to bear from Sungjong, thinking of his slumped shoulders and his lowered head, thinking of seeing him again that night to continue their meetings.

“I see where you’re coming from though, unnie. I mean, I have dreams about Lee Seunggi’s y lips all the time,” Yejin added, chuckling.  

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A/ N: Hi everyone! I'm sorry it took so long to update! Time flies during the holiday season!

Forgive me, if this chapter feels rather... idk... uber cheesy and sentimental :-X

So, after my post of the previous chapter, the 7th chapter, I heard back from some people that they didn't really like the Jiae-Myungsoo couple. What about you? I would really appreciate it if you'd leave me your thoughts on it~ ^^

As for the Scorpion dance, I think I've mastered it!!! It took soooo many, so sooo many bruised knee caps... T.T But I'm fairly confident that if I keep the practicing up, I'll be a beast at it in no time!!!

Thank you for reading!