The protector

A pianist and a pirate (M)

Summary: 

About that weird, precious moment when you like someone and you get paranoid trying to guess if that someone likes you back.

Saccarine warning: from this one, fluff on the rise

2027, Spring

"Where are you and I'm so sorry

I cannot sleep I cannot dream tonight

I need somebody and always

This sick strange darkness

Comes creeping on so haunting every time

And as I stared I counted

The Webs from all the spiders

Catching things and eating their insides

Like indecision to call you

and hear your voice of treason

Will you come home and stop this pain tonight

Stop this pain tonight"

The phone was playing one of her favourite songs, one that Jeong Hyeok had begun to appreciate for having it heard a million times in her house. It hadn't been selected by chance, on that night. Standing up, in front of the window, the pianist was attending to the firm silence of the city brightening in the night under a late snowstorm. Fighting the missing of her, wondering if she was doing the same. In-ah loved the snow so much.

Clean, tidy. Meticulous. Cool headed. Brave. Serious, committed. Sporty. Passionate about his job.

These were the qualities Jeong Hyeok recognized and appreciated in himself.

These were the reason why he was embarrassed.

Noisy. Grouchy. Weak. Sloppy. Lazy. Stupid. Out of focus.

This was the side of him he had shown during the last month.

And not to someone random, but to In-ah. His personal heroine. The person who excelled in all his better qualities, the person he would have wanted to become.

Turning and tossing on the mattress, every night Jeong Hyeok plaintively thought that it wouldn't have been a surprise if she would have decided to not be his friend anymore.

He was facing something totally new, it was true. His emotional balance, he had to admit, had never been too firm. And when he had become her friend, he was coming from years which had been incredibly hard to face. And forcing himself to be someone else wasn't that easy. Sometimes he had fun and succeeded. Sometimes he failed and suffered. And she was so sympathetic...

No, stop with it. When had he become so self-indulgent?

The memory of himself in that bathroom, dirty with blood, vomit, and even... bleah, he couldn't even think of it. And she, who had had to clean his house and even his body, ishhh. Such a shame, unforgettable shame. She would have forever remembered him as the man who had fainted right below the toilet.

That shame for the behaviour he had had during the last month pushed Jeong Hyeok to recover more than the permanent pain in his chest. Having such a good example right under his eyes was what urged him to challenge himself. Above all, a part of him was starving for her consideration, and was frightened to have lowered in her esteem, afraid to be seen as weak and stupid, and furious against himself because she and the other friends were the best thing ever happened to him after Se-ri.