As much as the nervous feeling of seeing heeseung again after the party fiasco was present in your body, your skepticism for this situation was running through your mind.

the flashing lights of the hotel became clearer as you parked a few streets away and wiped the sweat on your pants. the closer you got to the entrance, the more the faked confidence you were so used to having made a presence as you walked into the elevator.

act happy and worried, don't let them know there is something wrong, pick him up and then go out, just pick him up, say hi, say goodbye and go, pick him up and don't talk to him on his way home. let's just get over with this.

the ding of the elevator finished your excruciating inner monologue, you faked a smile as the doors opened and you walked into the bar.

and there was heeseung lying his head on a lonely table. you approached him, and the pungent smell of alcohol became more apparent the closer you got to him. you patted his shoulder lightly, trying to wake him up as you scanned the bar looking for someone else. (aka lee seunghan)

as you crouch down to his level, he started stirring awake in a daze. constantly blinking while trying to focus with his big doe eyes, the warmth on his cheeks was running down his neck.

"why are you here?" he asked softly. you held his arm gently and forced a kind smile as you felt some eyes on you.

"your brother called me, we should get you home."

as you were holding him awake trying to get him up, the noise of the sliding glass door behind you and a faint cigarette smell made you confirm you weren't really alone.

lee seunghan, firstborn son of leiras group, made an appearance as you pulled heeseung up.

heeseung stayed silent as you supported part of his weight. you were not sure if he was fighting the sleepiness or if he was disguising the tense air between both of you with the excuse of him being drunk.

"hello, I'm sorry for bothering you this late on a workday," the man approached you. "I'm seunghan," he introduced himself, holding out his hand to you.

you shook it kindly and fast, a kind but tired expression appeared in your face, the worried girlfriend persona making the grand entrance. "hi, it's nice to meet you."

as you tried to cut the conversation short, he interrupted

"we wanted to call you earlier and invite you for dinner, but heeseung asked not to bother you. sadly, we are just meeting for a short time."

so he hasn't told anyone you are not talking anymore, he is still playing this game.

"I have to meet some deadlines for work," you answered him softly as you felt heeseung weight getting heavier on your side.

you held his waist, and the warm touch stopped him from dossing off. seunghan's eyes followed your movements before he kept talking.

"I hope it was not much of a bother, he really did not want to bother you-"

"it was not that, she would not…" heeseung started before you interrupted him while you softly hit his head with yours.

"I tend to shut down everything when I'm busy, sometimes I don't answer, so he probably didn't want to add more stuff to my schedule," you added softly, trying to end the conversation quickly, making sure lee heeseung didn't end up on the floor was getting harder.

you were making excuses, you were still protecting him. you could just let heeseung talk and tell people how you weren't answering his texts, why didn't you let him do it? that would include explaining that you have not seen him since the engagement party, which meant opening the door to an insane amount of speculation and you were not ready for the moment you would face that gossip alone.

"then I'm sorry, I just could not reach jake," lies.

"It's okay, it's just a weird way to meet us," you said, trying to sound friendly. at least he laughed politely

"we should all meet for brunch soon, all of us," he said with the same polite smile on his face.

"totally," you said as kindly as possible, that was totally not going to happen.

"jeongin! you should say goodbye to heeseung, he is just leaving," he said loudly to the side you had just come from.

shit. for the first time, you felt both heeseung and yourself tense up at the same moment.

why is he always everywhere?

as you avidly tried to maintain the same expression, you looked at none other than yang jeongin walking out of the bathroom with a light drunken flush in his face.

and you just knew you had to leave.

"hee, are you leaving so soon?" he said as he got closer, and heeseung nodded his head.

"well, we better get going, it's getting late," you said, finally thinking this awkward moment was ending. as you tried to walk past him, as if it was not a big deal, he tried talking to you again.

"I didn't expect to see you," he said as if he were meeting an old friend.

"i just came to pick him up." you finally matched his energy, nodding to heeseung.

suddenly, you felt a change in the atmosphere, maybe it was after you got tired of hiding away from him, or the fact that you were so fucking tired of the day. it was full of exposure therapy, and maybe after dropping heeseung off, you would make your way to the convenience store for some drinks.

but you knew the man in front of you, and even if you met his eyes for a few seconds, you knew he was plotting something.

and maybe heeseung sensed it too, or he felt the chill that ran through your body. and rather than leaning on you he held your shoulder with his hand while he put his other on his mouth as he gagged as if he would throw up right there.

"can we leave now?" he said while looking like a kicked puppy.

"we´ll get on our way, it was nice meeting you," you said with a smile as you walked into the elevator.

now, in the silence of just the two of you, the act you were barely holding together fell apart as he lay on the opposite side of the lonely, confined space.

"shall i get you some water?"

"i don't want to throw up, i just wanted us to leave," he said while hiccuping.

_

heeseung was a weird type of drunk. he clearly was trying to give you space, after all– he didn't call you, he knew you didn't want to see him, he got you in an uncomfortable place, again, he tried to walk on his own on the way to your car.

but he was drunk.

and while he tried walking straight, he matched your pace as he serpentined through the lonely, dimly lit street. your phone started buzzing as you stopped near the parked car.

<< jaeyun: is everything okay?

yn: we just got out. going to the car

jaeyun: oh, thank god. how is he?

yn: well, drunk

jaeyun: omw to his house i´ll meet you there >>

whack! you raised your sight and saw that heeseung had actually tripped by the end of the sidewalk. You ran to him as he laughed softly on his knees.

"are you okay?" you asked, dropping to his level. you helped him up as you unlocked the car and helped him to the passenger side to check if he was okay.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, looking to the floor. and in all the night, for the first time, he did not slur the words he said.

"why are you sorry?" "are you hurt?" you asked as you tried to check if he had scraped a part of himself.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, finally looking at you. like something had collapsed, and he started saying everything he was holding inside.

“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you, I’ve been thinking that I’ve never thanked you for what you did for pretty much a stranger, and I’m sorry that I’ve done nothing but hurt you, I’m still trying to learn that not everyone is trying to get something from me but I still find it hard, and I know that’s no excuse for how I treated you, but I really mean it when I say I’m sorry, and I’m telling you this not for you to forgive me but because I feel like I owe you at least this.” He gulped.

“You don’t need to accept it, I’m aware that the way I acted at the party was not great, and I can give you my reasons, but after seeing you face that night, I'm pretty sure that they are not good enough. I don’t know if you believe me because I’m aware I’m really drunk tonight, but I didn’t know if I could get the courage to come to you and apologize. you were increasingly kind to me, I just treated you like shit. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. It was the first time I had to see someone with a different light in public, and I wasn’t aware of how I needed to protect you and make sure you weren’t hurt.

It was my complete fault, you were the one who got dragged into the mess, and I still expected you to fix it and protect me when it needed to be the other way." he said with a mist of wetness in his eyes. this was the first time you've seen lee heeseung like this, not only drunk, but saying things you would never imagine a man like him to say.

sober heeseung was so calculating that he would never allow this moment to happen; he would have never gotten things out of his control in the first place, so why was all of this happening just now? was all this lying catching up to both of you?

you met eyes for a few seconds as part of you tried to comprehend how to absorb and act to that information. a sigh left your whole body.

"let's talk about this when you're sober."

"okay," he said dejectedly.

"let's get you home," you finished as you helped him get comfortable on the seat. and securing his seat belt. as you made your way to his house in silence while neither of you looked at each other, only accompanied by the muffled road noise, a half-asleep heeseung turned to you.

"I am really sorry yn" he repeated softly in between drunkenly dozing off.

"i know," you said almost inaudibly.

__

the car engine shut down in the building parking lot, you let out the breath you were holding as you looked around for jake to help you get a now-asleep heeseung out of your car.

as you saw the lobby light turn on, you got out of the car to help him get out. jake should arrive shortly, and you wanted to get out of there soon.

heeseung stirred awake as he felt your warmth near again. he looked for your eyes as you avoided his. he got out of the seatbelt on his own, and as he tried getting out on his own while scanning around, he got a hold of your hands.

nervously looking at him as both of you heard the soft scrape of the glass doors.

"I know I'm not the best for you, but I'm selfish enough to ask you to let me stay by your side, please," he muttered almost incoherently. you could've not heard him if he hadn't been that close to you.

and you froze.

what?

before you could even process what to do, footsteps approached. jake arrived just in time to help you get heeseung out of the car and into his place. you tried to act like nothing had just happened, but your whole body was tense, with the constant weight of confusion, trying to make sense of it all.

"what happened? you took a long time getting here," jake questioned adjusting his grip on Heeseung, who had started to nod off again.

"It's a long story," you sighed.

"do you want to come upstairs? it must've been tiring, I can get you something to drink."

"no, I better get going," you said nervously. even if jake was not the source of your uncomfortableness, you wanted to end the night right now.

"it's getting late and sunoo is upstairs, let me call him so that he gets you home," he insisted as if reading your mood. "you should not drive home this late."

"thank you." there was no need to keep pretending.

_

you finally felt the air get into your lungs as you got away from the parking lot, mr kim driving, and you finally didn't mind the silence. you always knew what to expect of kim sunoo; he gave the same kind of quiet understanding he’d shown time and time again. when he accepted the cookies you brought to the leiras office, he could read the room easily letting you appreciate the white noise of the midnight road.

at the red light as the car slowed down, sunoo finally broke the silence.

"miss kang, I might be crossing a line here," he said gently.

you turned to him and, without words, told him to continue.

"mister lee… he’s complicated. I don’t know what things are like between you two when no one’s watching. but I know he’s stubborn and really closes off his emotions.” he paused, as if looking for the right words to say.

“bad habits die hard, and I’m not saying he’s a bad person, because he’s not. I just think he doesn’t always know how to be a good friend to you.”

he glanced out at the traffic lights before adding in the same calm voice.

"I just hope you know; you don't have to stay until he decides he wants to change," he says as the light turns green. "you can just let it go."

thud your heart tightened, and you realized in the silence, you had a lot of thinking to do. what do you want to do now?

"could you please drop me off at jiwoo’s place instead?” you asked, trying to sound calm. it was the best you could do, with tears already pooling behind your eyes.

he gave a small nod and flicked on the turn signal.

at the end of the day, you did end up needing that drink. at least then, the tears would have an excuse for showing up.

jay would not consider himself to be neither nosy or a liar, but after he saw you talking with your friends in the empty classroom about how much you loved the winter season and doing the typical cliche stuff in the breaks after school, the only words that registered his mind were love and ice skating.

so later in the day when both of you where in your usual study dates in the library. He heard you ask him if you could go on a date on the weekend he decided to be all cool and nonchalant acting like he got the original idea from the back of his mind of doing a winter-themed date he saw your eyes shine with excitement after thinking that both of you were sharing a brain.

seeing the enthusiasm on your face was one of the things that could make park jongseong melt and what was he if not a simple man who loved making the girl he liked happy?

have you been dating for less than 3 months? yes

but that didn't stop his heart from rushing even faster after he saw you smile with your eyes and his brain feeling like mush after seeing your warm flush. if he could he felt like he would give you the world after seeing you bat your eyelashes, so he did not register the moment he said you could go ice skating until later in the day when he actually remembered, he did not know how to skate.

he didn't know how he could forget that minuscule detail, and he was still not in his right mind when he called his friends to teach him how to skate over the phone in less than two days. needless to say, his friends had a good laugh.

so, here he was, sweating even though it was almost freezing. he swore he could not sleep last night after watching multiple ice-skating for dummies videos. waiting for you to arrive at the rink, hoping he thought of a better idea of a date before he embarrassed himself in front of you.

he could be honest and tell you that he didn´t know how to skate, or maybe say he hurt his foot after last football practice. but no, he kept digging himself deeper and truly believed he cool fool you. and he considered himself smart.

as he saw you being dropped off by your parents car running towards him he waved with a nervous smile in his face. this was going to be a hell of an experience. the small talk between you both was not entirely being registered by his brain, apart from his nervous breakdown he thought your outfit made you look even prettier, seeing your hair half up with a ribbon and it matching your jacket and gloves the blush in his cheeks was becoming more apparent and it was not for standing fifteen minutes outside.

while his hands shook after receiving the skates and he attributed it to the cold he took some good seconds of hyping himself up in silence hoping and praying he would not make a fool of himself so early in the relationship.

it became a blur in his mind whether he was doing a good job fooling you into thinking he was a good skater or if he was portraying baby bambi and after some dazy spins that ended with him smashing himself onto the floor and seeing your surprised face as you tried to help him get back on his feet to get out of the rink as quickly as you had entered he finally realized he made a mistake by lying.

now he was bleeding through his nose and his mind finished processing that he was not able to see you enjoy skating with him because he was more busy focusing on not making a fool of himself than enjoying his time with you.

and he was not successful in either of them.

with regret showing in his face, he sat alone at the bleachers a little thankful that you were the only people at the rink and no one else saw him falling. holding his face up to avoid covering himself in blood while you ran to get some tissues his emotions were all over the place without knowing if the feeling of embarrassment was bigger than the feeling of disappointment.

he heard you come back and while you held his face in place while dabbing the tissue on his nose to clean up the blood, the disappointment he felt for ruining one of your first dates was the thing he felt the most. your worried voice was the only thing he felt not caring of any pain left from his nose or the cold air in the rink. he truly felt bad for ruining it.

"I'm sorry," he said while holding your hand holding his jaw.

you looked at him curiously as you tried to understand where he was coming from "why? jay it's okay it was an accident the ice is way too smooth right now."

he sighed while finally removing your hand from his face and fully holding it in between both of his.

"I lied to you," he said "I don´t know how to skate I just heard you talk about how much you loved it and I just said it. I didn't expect it to be so hard and I was trying to make myself look cool"

he told you as he avoided looking into your eyes as he sighed "and I got so stressed that now I ruined our whole date" he signaled his nose stuffed with tissue paper that was starting to turn red as well "I'm sorry I wasted your evening"

"it's really okay jay," you said comforting him with a smile. “I didn’t waste my evening I really do enjoy spending my time with you even if it's doing nothing," you caressed his hands hoping to calm him down

"but you should´ve told me if you were nervous or if you don't know how to do something," you told him "just like how you help me study when I'm having trouble understanding the lecture you can rely on me more often, I could've taught you"

"I thought I would look lame," he said looking at you with regret

"and do you look cool right now?" you questioned him with a little mischief.

"well, no" he answered shyly making you laugh.

"see? you are not super cool for acting nonchalant, you can just tell me the things from the beginning and I can help you do them in the future" you told him trying to make him feel better "that way we can avoid future accidents right?" you said while brushing his hair out of his forehead.

"okay, I can do that" he said finally smiling, he felt comfort in you not judging him and actually finding him cute instead of dumb for avoiding telling you something as insignificant since the beginning.

he needed to learn to let his guard down with you since you kept encouraging him to be honest and to rely on you more often, he was not used to telling someone everything about him without the fear of being judged but he knew that now he had you in his life he could start opening up and understanding he didn't need to be perfect all of the time.

"now, how about I teach you how to skate?" you said while getting up and looking down at him with a smile "we still have all of the evening"

he looked at you in silence "if you don't want to we can go grab a hot chocolate or some cake" you said interrupting his thought process

"are you sure? what if I fall again?" he asked nervously not really listening to your last option as he saw you extending your hand to him

"don't worry, we'll take it slow," you said "and you can always hold my hand, I'm not letting you go okay?"

he held your hand while getting up and throwing the dried and bloody tissue to the bin "okay, let's do it"

you smile while reaching up to kiss his cheek while excitingly going to the rink again but now jay no longer felt as anxious of falling knowing you were there to help him get up.

and maybe jay fell even deeper in love with you after that day.