When he woke up the next morning, he hesitated for a moment, just laying in the sofa before thinking back as to why he was there. It has all been answered by the form of you sleeping in a fetal position in the much smaller couch next to his.
For him, you shouldn't have been there - shivering a bit from the cold air coming through the open window and it made more sense for you to be sleeping in his bed. You shouldn't have been clutching on your legs and should have been instead holding onto a pillow, covered by a thick blanket. It was almost like you were his. Almost, and yet it wasn't enough.
Anyone who knew him had the knowledge of his sleeping habit because chances were, that they'll be unable to remove him from the bed in the days like this. But all his words fell silent as his eyes catch onto you nearly falling onto the floor before he reached out to steady you back in the couch.
Without giving himself a chance to think, he propped himself beside you and turned to lay down, and tried to keep you close as possible. Inevitably, he couldn't help but shoot a glance only to find you blinking up at him, eyes-wide, and he grinned at how flustered you clearly are, to wake up enveloped in his arms.
"Are you already alright from what happened yesterday?", you inquired of him to cut the silence and stilling him with your hand on his arm.
He looked down at it in surprise, knowing his eyes were the ones wide now, and that he probably look stupid, but he couldn't composed himself. "At least you're here to distract me from that problem", he said, still in disbelief that you touched him. "Why did you stay?"
"My dad allowed me to", you declared softly, removing your hand from his arm, and still, you couldn't tear your eyes away from his closeness.
And him? His eyes were greedily looking over at your face, and you were awake in the same house as he, and he was looking at you with such expressive eyes that you couldn't imagine it had cried all night a few hours ago. What did change him?
Finally averting your eyes and shaking your head, you went to attempt in leaving. But he settled a hand in your waist, keeping you in place before him. And then before your hesitation could grow too much, he was giving you such a beautiful smile that you could not resist it, but returning it to him.
"Heeseung", you tried to say, his name coming out strangled between your throat. You certainly couldn't even look at him from the realization of last night.
He could sense the sudden change in your movement, and he wanted no part in making you uncomfortable, so he says, "You know, you coming to really comfort me was so unbelievable I thought I was dreaming", Heeseung sounded fond, but why did it turn sad? "But then, even in my dream, you weren't there for long, either"
Clearing your throat, you asked. "I - I wanted to ask what really happened to make you cry like that?"
"Racism", he said simply as he hold his hand out towards yours, and he said nothing, just held at your eyes, silently asking to take his hand. "Just this once, allow me to receive some reassurance from you", through all your hesitance, he continued to look at you and then you slipped your hand into his. "He was off in the street, planning to buy in a store and he was already out there when a group of americans pulled him in an alley. And the next thing he knew, he was begging for his life then before he pass out"
It was the most he could only want you to hear because he'd like to shield you from the whole dark truth of what he had heard. Simultaneously, it was too much and he wanted to protect you from that kind of harassment that he knew, Yana would not be hesitating in doing it.
Looking back down at you as you looked at your hands rather than to meet his eyes. "I don't even know why you're the one I called", he said softly, and you knew he was saying it to fill the silence. "I could've called my friends, but I didn't really let them see me in my vulnerable state. I thought you will handle me just fine"
"Like the way I handle when I found you crying in the restroom?", you wondered aloud, and it sounded like a joke that he chuckled quietly under his breath. "Just don't call me again that late. My sleep would be repeatedly cut off"
He regarded you for a moment as it was obvious you don't want to talk about that topic any longer. "But why did you still come? You could of just sleep and ignored my calls"
"I'm simply worried", you replied as you went to draw your hand back, falling silent when he held your hand firm, reluctant to let go of you just yet. Lifting your eyes to him, you decided to take the chance to ask him the question him that plagued him since he last talked to Yana, "What are we now? Will we still pretend when it was obvious you don't even wanna talk about her anymore?"
He dropped his head back, staring up at the ceiling and not looking at you as he spoke, as if he was confessing his most guarded secret to you and it really is. "After I see her lashing out like that and not really the girl I saw her as - I might have changed my mind about the deal between us"
You froze, "And?"
Heeseung looked pained as he watched you thoughtfully. "And I decided something about doing my best to make you weren't alone in the school", he started, and he smiled to you, it was painfully sad. "I would do my best to protect you. But for now, I need to let you go"
Without a word, and unable to say anything. You even forcefully draw your hand, staring back at him, hurted by the way he said it, said it like it's all over. What were you supposed to say to that?
"Y/N -"
"Don't, please", you said, abruptly sitting up in the couch and made an effort to cover your face. "Just - don't tell me that it's over for -"
And before you could even get a full sentence out, he was forcing you down against his chest as you suddenly worked to push him away by giving small punches. All of it was futile. Your heart couldn't just take it to end everything with him just like this.
He sighed and shook his head. Still, he continued. "It's the best choice for now. You have to make up your mind about me and the other boys", You hadn't really expected for him to bring up the obvious topic you were trying to put aside all this time. "Don't be selfish, Y/N. I understand that you're confused, but you have to consider who will be the lucky one"
"Heeseung-", he shook his head just once, but it was enough to have you falling silent. And you let him say what he wanted. You owed him that much at least.
"You never tried to talk to me once in class and for the first three years, you always seemed to hate me, then changed it all with your letter", He told you, his words quickening, finally pouring it out of him as he confessed what he felt. "I tried to accept that you'll never see me, so I just slowly convinced myself that I really liked Yana when everybody was saying it to me like a damn broken record"
Then he continued, not giving you the time to recover from the first shot of his confession. "And now you're here in my side and I was glad about that for the time being. But who would be happy to realize that as soon as you leave me, there will be another that you can't resist?", he then looked you in the eyes, like it was an accusatory action.
"You didn't have it in you to atleast tell them or me who you really want, to even tell them that you're still confused. Or even why you were here not wanting me to end it? Why?"
When he fell silent, holding your eyes and waiting for your response, you didn't know which one to give him. You don't even know what to do, falling down to your sense of stupidity as you just ended up bawling to him. All you could think to do was to apologize to him, even if you knew, he would not appreciate it.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do all the time"
Sure enough, he sighed heavily before pulling you again in his chest, as though to comfort a child. "I didn't ask for an apology. I just - I just want to know why you don't want for this pretend relationship to end?"
"Because it's not a pretend for me anymore", you admitted to him a little too loud as you made sure to avoid his gaze. "But that's just not only the reason why. I can't let you go back to Yana and that you'll become broke again. Yes, I know I might be selfish to let you see another girl that isn't me, but why am I still scared to go after you myself?"
He watched you closely as you let out a bitter laugh and closes your eyes to finally release it all. "What if we do somehow worked out for a while but you end up breaking my heart or what if I was the one to do it mysel?"
Tentatively and bravely for the first time, you studied him. He wasn't angry or speechless even, you could tell from just the way he was holding himself. He seemed resigned, defeated even at the fact you said all that to his face. It surely made him confused as well.
After hugging him more tightly to hide your face behind the cover of your hair, the two of you lingered in each other's arm in silence, neither you and him knowing what to say to each other. But if it was difficult for him to speak, you would bite the bullet because you couldn't lay there all day and waste the rest.
Rather, it was in your best interest as the girl to get out of there as soon as possible. The sooner you left, the less time you spent with him, and the smaller chance of you humiliating yourself further by asking him to stay in the fake relationship. But did he still want to let go of it after everything that you've said?
He breathed in sharply, asking into the sill silence of the room. "Why didn't you just tell me the way you were feeling sooner? Or had you already decided for yourself who was more more it than me?"
Reading the conflict in your eyes and knowing to worsen it for your state with all the boys troubling you, he grasped your chin, lifting your head towards him and kissing you in a way that had you thinking that he too had want for the fake relationship to be real. There's no pretending anymore in between.
All too soon, he drew away. You didn't dare to avert your eyes from his, not even when he probed softly, "Can you give them all up for me, for this to be real?"
Wordlessly, because you didn't know how to vocalise what you really wanted to say, you just shook your head guiltily. It was enough. For him, at least, it was already enough to leave you in the room.
Only to come back with the letter in his hand and he was the on to drive you back home. This time, there's no really goodbye.
You had guessed by the time he drive out quickly away from the house that all the answers you needed for him was in the letter.
The last one from the boy who received the first one.
💌 _________________________________ 💌
Later that afternoon, you took out the letter from your bag and did make sure to lock the door, just in case Daniel or Jungwon decided to spook you behind. As you open up the envelope, your body froze and whatever what it'll say inside, it would be okay for you to see, it had to.
Then you lay back down on all fours in the bed and released a nerving breath out of you, and began to read.
Dear Kim Y/N,
Have you ever been really inlove, Y/N? If yes, it was horrible, isn't it? It makes you feel things you shouldn't even feel when you completely don't know the person. It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and opens your heart and it means that someone could get in and messed you up in the way you couldn't imagine. At first, I thought I was really inlove with Yana Lin. They were right when they all said she's every boy's dream come true in Highschool.
Beautiful, rich and smart enough to manipulate everyone that she was perfect enough to idolize. But I will be the one to tell you here in secret that she's as human as everyone else could be. You won't believe me when I say that like you, she's insecure of herself and she build up a walls around her to protect herself from being hurted.
The only one she lets in enough to see her vulnerable part was me. Like you, she was always crying about how some people could be so mean. Like me, she is pressured to be the person we knew she is today. But if only if she will lets herself be real, then it wouldn't come to this point.
As much as I want to be the one to fix her, I think from now on, she should be the one to do it for herself. Sometimes, in order to build yourself stronger, the only one to pick you back to your feet was your own self as well. I believed that belief, so much that I leave her now to see it it was not all about her.
And here we come to the real point of why I was saying that I'm blinded by her before. Because well, she is my distraction from everything that I'm running away from. There was my parents pressuring me to be as good as my brother.
There was the whole school looking up to me as the perfect embodiment of a good student. And then there was you who have always gotten my curiousity from the first day. It was like in my opinion, the more you tried to hide yourself, the more people was curious about you.
Then I wake up one day driven by the need to finally approach you, only to fail when my friends prevented me to and they all said I would only end up being hurted when it looks like you're not one to consider a relationship. I don't know if you remember but one time at the second year's debate, you won over me by pointing out how the teenagers were so overrided by their raging hormones, they all thought it was emotion when it was fact, only their libido and thus, it all ended up with them getting pregnant while some boys would run from the first chance.
And then I challenged you that sometimes, there are some boys who could take the responsibility without being a coward. And there are still some boys who were so coward, they can't even show a feelings to a girl who looked intimidatingly enough, not to make a move on her.
You pointed out all the flaws in my argument. Of how sometimes, the boys still wanted the baby, but the girls didn't, so in all the sides, it was all still unfair. As for the coward boys, you told everyone in the room how life was just like that - not everything would be yours if isn't really meant to be because you didn't fight for it.
It only meants that you weren't worth it.
And that's the thing because for me you were that intimidating girl and I was the coward boy. I mean, I wasn't even still popular then. I was just nothing but one of the nerds who just ended pitifully sneaking glances to his crush at any chances he could get. Not even once did you notice, not even once did I become brave.
Maybe if only I was more confident that time, maybe I'll have you now to myself because damn, you liked me back in the days I'm still discovering how to finally fix myself up in order to look good in front of the girls our age.
You know what I want all this time that Yana could never even care to give to me? Love letters. Handwritten love letters. I love the way it was all so old-fashioned and yet it never runs out of the classic trend.
I love the way the effort it took for the writer to express her feelings to it and the longer, the better. I love the way the words gets jumbled up when the writer's excited. I loved the way there were blots of tears when the writer is sad. I loved the way the words get neat when the writer is trying not to make a mistake.
And probably the most sweetest meaning for me, I loved the way the words gets pretty, like a poetry when the writer is inlove.
The idea that you just give me one where I even felt every emotions you put in there. Like the giddy feelings when you realized you have a crush on me. Even the one about your heart breaking at seeing Yana and me that day in the Library. I felt it all too damn raw inside my chest that I cried a bit.
The notion of you still liking me for what should be a terrifying truth forever excites me to an unfamiliar degree that I break up with her and yes, she cheated, but I allowed it before, but your letter have given me the reason to finally let go of the somewhat toxic relationship, anyway.
But do you know what it feels like to wake up every morning with no desire for everything, but only to see you with another man? It's awful. Actually, awful isn't even the accurate way to describe it. There are no words that I could use that would properly display what it feels like.
It's every possible emotion, but at the same time, it's nothing. The anger, the sadness, the hopelessness and the confusion. They're all trying to get out at the same time and by doing so, they cancel each other out. And this is what I'm left with. Emptiness.
And then there will be nothing and I don't want that at all.
But why do I still hang out to the thought of the very idea of us? Why it would only take one look at your face to reconsider my desire to just let the other boys like Jake to win you over?
What the hell have you done to me, Y/N?
I want to make this work. I want to show you that whatever the thing between us could work. The same thing holding you back from letting go of me, either. The same thing that was always leading you to response to me even if you don't want to.
I want to show you that you're worth being someone's first, never someone second's best. I haven't ever wanted something so bad as I want you.
So, what do I want from you? That's hard to say because it's not really about want. It's about wish. Do I wish you were that person for me? Yes. Do I wish that you weren't pursued by the other boys and I wasn't chased by my own Ex and that even though we work together, we could explore the possibilities and that all my dreams about you would come true? Fucking yes.
You and I will never be perfect, but let's try and make it work because you're worth it.
Love, Lee Heeseung
P.S We're not something, but we're not nothing.
💌 _________________________________ 💌
Yes! Now we're going to the part three of this book. The letter was longer than the others, so I prepared it for the last. Plus, we all know in every Enhypen's note videos of how Heeseung was the prominent member to have a lot to say. The letter of his was very accurate for him, isn't it?
Now, now. Tell me what you think of his letter and this part 2 chapter as a whole?
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