#ten seconds

“Holy shit seriously!?” Jean turns to Armin, who’s holding back laughter at his boyfriend’s competitive outburst. “Armin, c’mon you have to tell her to stop! This is so unfair!”

“Sorry Jean,” Armin giggles, “I’m dead already, I can’t do anything about this.”

Jean groans and turns to Connie. “Back me up here, dude!”

“Nah this is hilarious.” Connie laughs as he leans back against the couch, taking another sip from his drink as he watches the end of their game of Ultimate Werewolf unfold.

Jean just groans again as he runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Eren don’t be a fucking idiot! She’s obviously the werewolf!! She took Sasha out last round because she was onto her!”

“Eren, he's jumping to conclusions,” you defend. “I’m your girlfriend, I love you so much and I wouldn’t lie to you like that.”

“You promise?” Eren asks, finally speaking for the first time since you crawled into his lap after Jean started throwing accusations at you.

“Of course I promise.” You lean forwards to give him a chaste kiss. “Besides,” you say as you pull away from his lips, “are you really going to pick Jean over me?”

And perhaps that’s what finally does it.

“Jean’s the werewolf,” Eren proclaims, “she’s a villager.”

“Is that your final vote?” Armin asks, mildly muffled by Jean’s yells of protest.

Eren locks eyes with yours and he nods.

“Alright,” Armin says, “what were you guys?”

Jean pulls up his card to show the group, loudly shouting: “I’M THE FUCKING DOCTOR YOU IDIOT!!!”

The card he was showing was, in fact, the doctor. Which meant….

“I won!!!” You proudly announce as you hop off Eren’s lap and flash everyone your own card:

werewolf

“I FUCKING TOLD YOU SHE WAS LYING!!!” Jean throws his card onto the table as you leap across the room to add a green tally behind your name on the whiteboard, marking another satisfying victory.

“You…. You lied to me?” Eren asks, still getting over the shock of your betrayal.

“Sorry babe,” you tell him as you turn around, snapping the lid onto the whiteboard marker as you do, “that’s just how the game’s played, I’m afraid.”

“You play this game the way I imagine a war criminal would play this game.” Mikasa says.

It smells like him.

And that’s the first time you realize that you know what Eren smells like.

That he has a smell.

You really can’t describe it other than that it’s “Eren”. And it’s all around you.

He has a queen size bed with two memory foam inserts. You figure that makes sense and try not to think too hard about why it makes sense. How it makes sense. What makes it make sense.

And in trying hard not to think about it, suddenly it’s all you can think about.

You wonder who the last person he had in here was. Did they have fun? Did they stay the night? Did they know what Eren smelled like?

They probably did.

You’re normally close enough to someone to know what they smell like when they’re fucking you.

You realize you haven’t stopped staring at the bed when Eren suddenly comes up behind you, walks past you, and takes a seat.

Your eyes meet.

Does he often sit on the edge of his bed and wait for someone to join him?

You assume he does.

Maybe he notices your apprehension. “We can talk in the living room, if you want.” He offers. But you shake your head. Something about the living room feels too exposed for what you want to tell him. To… familiar. You don’t want familiar right now. For some reason.

Finally, you join him on the bed.

You notice that your knees are almost touching, so you put a little more space between the two of you.

You don’t know how long the silence lasts, all you know is when you finally break it, your voice wavers: “I um… I can’t sleep in the same bed as someone else anymore.” You begin, unprompted.

“Do you want me to-”

“No, it’s fine.”

You elaborate: “We’re sitting so… sitting is okay.”

But you can’t look at him. You look at your lap instead.

“At night he used to- I-… I’d wake up and he’d be… he’d be touching me. Touching me or fully-… fully…” You can’t finish the sentence. You hope he knows what you mean. “I used to tell him to stop. Either… when he was doing it or the morning after. If I told him to stop at night, he’d tell me to go back to sleep. That it was no big deal. If I told him when we woke up, he’d… he’d say he didn’t remember doing it. That he—he couldn’t control what he did in his sleep, so it wasn’t his fault. Eventually I stopped asking him to stop. It was easier to just let it happen.”

“That’s… fucked up.”

“Yeah.” You reply through a dry, pathetic, laugh. “It was, I guess.” You’re silent for a while, unsure how else to continue. Unsure what else to say because Eren’s right, it was fucked up. You hate how fucked up it was. How wrong it was. Except…

Except…

You take a quick breath and then suddenly all you can do is talk:

“Except when it was happening, I didn’t know it was fucked up. I mean, maybe a small part of me did, but for the most part I thought it was just-… that I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. I thought if I did that it would be some sort of… betrayal. That if I said I didn’t like it when he fucked me, that I never told him he could; I would be labeling him as something he wasn’t. If I told someone about it, they’d be mad. They’d be mad at him for being someone like that. I’d be turning everyone against him and that would make me even worse than him… I’d—I’d ruin his life.”

You move your toes together out of a sudden desire to move. To feel Eren’s carpet against the bottom of your feet and make sure that this was reality. That this was where you were.

“By the time I got that far I was just… stuck, I guess. It wasn’t just when we were asleep now. It was always. He’d say he wanted sex, and I was his girlfriend so… so we’d have sex. I never wanted it though, but if I just let it happen then it would be over, and he wouldn’t be mad. I could go back to doing what I was doing before. I just needed to give him like—like half an hour. Maybe an hour. Then he’d leave me alone.”

Your hands clench into fists against your thighs.

“I tried to tell him no a few times. Just flat-out no. I remember one time I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, so if you want to have sex, you’ll have to rape me’. I told him that and I have no idea how, but we still ended up having sex. I told him it would be rape, and I ended up doing it anyway. And even after that I— that was—it happened three years before I left him. Three years and I told myself it wasn’t- that he hadn’t—He was my boyfriend so it didn’t count. I was over reacting and it didn’t count.”

Your vision blurs. Your press your palms into your eyes because you’re not going to cry about this again. You’re tired of crying about this. Of not being able to move past it.

Of being fucking broken.

“The day I left. He told me- He said… He said I wasn’t brave enough to leave him. He said that even if I walked out, it was just an act and I’d be back because I—because I’m not brave."

Those were his words.

His exact words.

‘This is just an act, you’re not brave.’

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“B-But I did it. I left and I fucking—I missed him so much. Every second of every day, all I could do was miss him. I missed him and I thought about how selfish I was for leaving h-how I should just- just go back and every ten seconds I—I couldn’t even count ten seconds without missing him- Sometimes I think he’s right and that I’m just going to end up back-”

“Please don’t go back.”

Eren had never touched you without warning. You always had a feeling he knew how scared it made you. He could guess, probably. Even though you hadn’t explicitly told him what was wrong, maybe he could just tell.

Normally, a sudden touch would have scared you. But maybe right now you were too worked up about everything else to care.

Suddenly his arms are around you and your face is buried against his shoulder.

“Please don’t go back.” He tells you. “Please don’t ever go back. You can’t go back.” He says it over and over as you tremble in his arms. “You are brave.” He tells you. “You’re brave, and he’s a liar.” You weakly clutched his shirt, not wanting him to pull away.

He felt so safe.

After everything you’d done, were you even allowed to feel this safe?

You don’t think you are.

At least not with Eren.

But you allow yourself ten seconds.

1…

You feel the rise and fall of his chest.

2…

His pulse where your forehead rests in the crook of his neck.

3…

The way his soft shirt feels, tightly curled into your fingers.

4…

The comforting whirling of the fan in the corner.

5…

His memory foam inserts below you.

6…

His hair tickles your forehead.

7…

The way he smells.

8…

When had you started to recognize his smell?

9…

It was so safe.

10…

So safe and warm.

And then you let go.

Just ten seconds. You let yourself have him for ten seconds. Any longer than that and it would be too much.

“Hey.” Eren tells you as you meet his eyes. “Thanks for telling me, that was probably some real shit to relive.”

“Yeah.” You answer with a pathetic laugh.

He wipes your face with his sleeve, gross snot and all.

“I think maybe dating apps aren’t a good idea right now.” You joke.

Eren answers this with his own soft laugh. “Yeah. Maybe not yet.”

“I should probably go to therapy.”

The silence as you made your way out of the apartment building was not as awkward as you thought it would be. Both of you still walked pretty close to each other and even smiled at the security guarding the front door.

“Do you wanna walk or just sit on the bench?” He considerately asked as you both walked through the entry of the apartment's park which only consisted of some weird looking bushes with flowers blooming from it as the welcome gate.

“Is it okay if we walk? It’s just, I’m tired of sitting.” Chanyeol easily agreed.

For a moment, both of you didn’t say anything as you walked side by side. The silence between you both was filled by the sound of the cars passing on the road nearby and sometimes you could hear the sounds Chanyeol’s shoes against the ground. You took that moment to collect your thoughts and bravery, to make sure that you’re really doing this whether his response would be good or not—you had overlooked this part, but at this point, you didn’t even care anymore. You’re really going to tell him whether it would make you happy (if the response was good) or make you hand over your resignation letter to Junmyeon next week.

“So, do you listen to the office gossip a lot?” You spoke before you could even think twice about it.

“Well, not really.” You had expected that. Of course, he wouldn’t have the time to listen to office gossip. He’s way busier than you expected before. “I don’t like hearing it. I just… I don’t like knowing that kind of thing. Is there something I should be aware of, though?”

You pondered a correct way to tell him about this. Where should you start, though? Should you start from the story about your silly crush since high school or about the office gossip? There was no clear indication of how he’s going to react to the news and it started to stress you out. You had half a mind to refrain from telling him about this, but you had already gotten this far. If you didn’t do it now, then when?

“People have been talking,” you started, pausing for a split second to swallow down the lump in your throat. “They’ve been… making some comments about how close we are these days.” There was an overwhelming urge to turn your face to take a good look at his expression just so you could read the situation, but you couldn’t do it.

Chanyeol was still silent, so you took that as a cue to continue your words. “I don’t know how long they’ve been doing that, but… it’s inappropriate, the comments they’ve been making. Although it’s good, though, that you’ve been not hearing about—”

“Is that why you said you had lunch plans with Junmyeon yesterday? Is it because of the gossip?” His words did not only cut your own words but also stop you from walking. “I try to not pay attention to that kind of stuff, but I noticed it yesterday. Is this what you meant when you told me that people were watching?”

Braving yourself to turn and look at him, you took a deep breath. His eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pressed in a thin line. He looked impatient and in disbelief like he couldn’t believe the words that just came out of his mouth. Staring into his eyes, you still couldn’t find the right words to say. What would be better?

“Yes.” You decided to come clean to him. “It’s because of that and the things they’ve been saying lately. It’s really annoying because every time I was about to forget about them, you always showed up and it’s like you brought their words with you.”

You remembered that one time where it was particularly bad for you. Just like a scene straight out of a teen movie, it happened in the toilet. You were still inside one of the stalls, still getting ready to go out after finishing your business there when you heard them talk. At first, you thought it was about some other girl in another department, but when they mentioned Chanyeol’s name, you knew they were talking about you and their words were worse than the ones you heard at the pantry.

Waiting inside that stall was all you could do until those girls walked out of the toilet. You didn’t know how long it took, but every passing second felt painful to you and holding back your tears was a challenging thing to do as they kept on talking and blowing it out of proportion as if it was the truth. It certainly didn’t help when the first person that caught your eyes when you walked out of the damned toilet was Chanyeol’s face.

Never in a million years had you thought this would happen to you. You had actually thought that this was something that only happened in high school or even college. But even when you were in high school and college, it was a rather peaceful experience—expect the stressful final year—for you. You had never been in the center of the rumor mill and you had never even thought that this would happen to you.

Shutting your eyes and taking a deep breath, you tried to block that memory out of your mind. Once you opened your eyes again, you kept them on him as he stared at you with those eyes—those wide, clear eyes—and let the words sink in. It felt like things moved in slow motion. His hard gaze was slowly softening as the second passed, your words finally made sense for him.

“If you’re not going to say anything, I think I’ll go back now.” Before you could even turn around, he was quick to grab a hold of your wrist. He moved to stand in front of you and grabbed a hold of both of your wrists gently. The weight of his hands holding onto your wrists made you look down to really see it—to see the way his seemingly huge hands wrapped around your much smaller wrists and how his touch felt strangely warm.

“I’m sorry,” he started, your eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “I’m sorry that you had to hear them talk shit about you like that. You really don’t deserve it at all, and I know that it’s my fault, too, so I’m sorry.” You looked up at him and shook your head at his words.

“It’s not your fault, Yeol,” you spoke softly.

“But it is,” he persisted, his eyes going wide. “If I could hold myself back a little bit, none of this wouldn’t happen. Maybe if I wasn’t so selfish…” But I was selfish too, you thought. You were selfish too because you were thriving for the attention that you received from him and how good it made you feel. The resurfacing feelings overshadowed the reality of both of your work life—it seemed like both of you forget that your life at the office would be clearly affected by it.

“Look, can I just say something real quick?” You raised an eyebrow at his words, prompting him to say whatever he wanted to say. “I… I like you.”

What?

If your heart could stop at his words, then that would probably happen to you because gosh. There was nothing in this world that could ever prepare for that. Both of you were just talking about how terrible that office gossip was a while ago, how did it turn out to this?

“What are you talking about?” You managed to let out the words despite the lump forming in your throat and the heavy thump of your heartbeat. It felt like suddenly a lot of things were happening at the same time and it had gotten hard for you to focus.

But the feeling of Chanyeol trailing his hands down from your wrists to your hands and squeezing them pulled you back from your thoughts and anchored you down to the moment. “I’m serious.” You muttered an ‘oh God’ under your breath and it didn’t go unnoticed. “What is it? Why don’t you believe me?”

Why didn’t you believe him? There were many things you could say about that. Your brain could come up with a ton of different reasons why you shouldn’t believe him. First of all, why and how did he even come to like you? You had seen the people who went after him since college and you knew that if compared to them, you were nothing. Not putting yourself down or anything, but you were genuinely curious as to why he even chose you.

“You’re joking,” was the only thing you could come up with. It was pretty challenging to come out with proper words. It’s hard because your brain was still busy trying to process his words.

He tilted his head. “Why would I be joking?” He asked in disbelief and sighed before continuing his words. “This might be cheesy, but you’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful since the first time we met if I think about it. I don’t know why it took me this long, but you’re pretty and smart and I don’t know if anyone noticed but you’ve gotten so much prettier it makes me mad sometimes. And gosh, your brain is a gift. I actually think you're way too smart to be working for Junmyeon hyung but if you're not here then we wouldn't be here now.”

You could’ve sworn you could feel your cheek heat up because of his words. His words weighed too much for you to process in seconds. You’re going to need a few hours to process it because you didn’t know that those words were ever going to get out of his mouth. How could it be that easy for him to say those words? Where did he even get that sudden drive of confidence to make you melt? Where?

For a moment, all you could do was just staring at his eyes, since you knew that his eyes always told you everything—whether it was the truth or lie, whether he was being serious or not. And all you could see was how clear and deep his eyes were—how they were slightly widened and dilated as if he didn’t mean to say all those words in a rush.

“You can’t take it back. You can’t take those words back.” Shutting your eyes, you let the words out in a small voice.

“I’m not going to take it back. Never.” Letting go of your hands, he grabbed a hold of your arm and pulled you to his chest. The action caught you by surprise but the feeling of being in his arms, surrounded by him calmed your heart instantly.

It was silent for a while. There were still so many words you wanted to say, but you chose to swallow them back. You thought it was the appropriate thing you could do since you didn’t want to end up blurting out the wrong thing that might break the moment you both had. Although, as hard as you tried to repress them, there was this one thing constantly nagging at you from enjoying the moment.

“Now where do we go from here?” You really couldn’t help but ask that. As much as you would like to not do it, you couldn’t help it. It was clearly one of those times where your mouth and brain didn’t cooperate.

You could hear him sigh and tighten his arms around you as if he couldn’t handle the thought of letting you go even though only just for a moment. You let out a whine when his hold seemed a bit too tight—which he loosened almost immediately after that with a breathy chuckle spilling out of his lips. “Can we not think about that just yet?”

In another world, that was something you shouldn’t even think about. But in this world, it was something that you should carefully think about. A decision should be made because the later you made a decision, the more it loomed over your head, hanging like a blob of grey clouds following you around.

“Can we wait until tomorrow morning, at least?” He bargained. “I’ll come by in the morning and we can talk about it over breakfast. Does that sound nice?” You were mildly amused at how easily swayed you were by his words, but the way his pouty lips and his innocent-looking eyes were the first things you saw when you slightly pulled away from his embrace solidified your decision to postpone the talk until the next morning. Besides, how could you say no to that face? You didn’t have the heart to.

“Okay, fine,” you breathed out.

A sweet smile instantly bloomed prettily across his face and maybe if you weren’t so mesmerized by it, the kiss he pressed on your forehead would take you by surprise. The moment had passed already for you to be surprised by it. “C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” he stated simply as he pulled back and took your hand in his.

“You do realize that we’re living in the same building, right?”

“I still want to walk you to your door, though.” If there was one aspect of Chanyeol that you knew best was his persistence. There was no way of him giving up even if you said no because there was no logical explanation as to why you thought it was a bad idea for him to walk you to your apartment. It wasn’t like you lived in a completely different area that was far away from his place.

So, with a flash of a smile, you let him guide you, admiring the way he looked from the back. You were loving the view of his sturdy back as if it would be a perfect place for you to rest your head for a while and collect your thoughts; the right place for you when you needed someone to lean on. The view got better to you when you stood by his side inside the elevator, the reflection of both of you on the slight blurry elevator wall but still clear enough to make out your figures.

The height difference was the thing that you noticed the most; how his shoulders were the perfect height that your head could easily reach them, how you fit perfectly if you two were to hug, how he could easily rest his head on yours when he hugged you. You didn’t know how you didn’t notice this before, but even though he was taller than you, there was the right amount of height difference between the two of you if you wore a pair of shoes with a few inches of heels.

The sight in front of you took your head to places, like the future where there would be more hand-holding and more standing side by side with him or where he would give you a hug and a forehead kiss as an extra because apparently, you couldn’t get enough of feeling his lips on your skin, or where the two of you could go out and hold each other’s hand without worrying about whether someone would talk about it again at the office.

“You’ve gone quiet. You’re not falling asleep, are you?” How could you? How could you fall asleep when the reality seemed so much better and you couldn’t get enough of it. For a fraction of seconds, the thought of falling asleep scared you as if things would change when you woke up the next day.

“Of course not,” you breathed out with a chuckle. “I’m just… still processing some things.”

“Oh? What is it?” Once the doors opened, the both of you walked out. “C’mon, tell me.” You shook your head at his request, afraid that you couldn’t control the words coming out of your mouth and end up scaring him.

“I’ll tell you once I make sense of them all.” He just nodded and that was enough.

Stopping in front of your apartment, there was a lull of comfortable silence that blanketed the two of you. Standing in front of him, you braved yourself to look up and face him. It was a strangely awkward situation that made you want to laugh because he was already looking at you and although it probably seemed like nothing, it was something that you had to get used to.

“So…” he started. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” You just nodded, holding the urge to laugh. “Good night.” You hugged him one last time before reluctantly letting him go. It was hard to do that, but you needed it because it felt like if you spent another five minutes with him, it was going turn into an hour and two and in the end, you two wouldn’t part ways.

“Good night, Yeol-ah.” You smiled as you watched him walking and waiting for the elevator. Your eyes were on him until both of you were separated by the elevator and he was out of your sight. Then, you allowed yourself to walk into the apartment and finally process everything that just happened.

It had just occurred to you what just happened. Like a tidal wave, all the feelings came crashing down onto you. The sound of your heartbeat seemed so loud to your ears even though it gradually calmed down. You hadn’t even noticed if your heart was beating so fast when you were around Chanyeol before. As cheesy as it sounded, all you could focus on was Chanyeol’s presence and how thinking about it now brought tingles.

The way he confessed to you, finally saying all the words that you couldn’t even dare to mull over before. The way he hugged you and how you fit perfectly in his arms. Gosh, with all the memories from the past hour crowding your mind like this, you weren’t sure if you would get some sleep at all.