ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ ᴡʜᴇɴ [ᴇɴ- ᴘᴏʟʏ]

Chapter 99

It was late at night. Almost 11:30. Everyone was sound asleep. Everyone but Sunoo. Half an hour ago, he had said he'd come back in some time. I wasn't sleepy yet. So I sat at the desk and looked at the pictures we had taken today. All smiling faces. So many candid shots. Niki running from Sunoo. So many group selfies. Sunghoon giggling as I put the flower crown on his head.

I looked at my bag under the desk. I sighed and turned my attention back to the pictures. There was a picture of Jake and Niki using my hair for a makeshift mustache. I laughed at how ridiculous they looked.

Another picture of me sitting high up on a Boulder and the maknaes sitting around me. Somehow it looked straight out of a photoshoot. They were definitely giving their serious siren eyes. And I had a normal smile on my face. How contrasting. They looked like scary vampires and I looked so out of place.

The door creaked open. I turned around expecting Sunoo.

"About time, Sun-"

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I stopped short. It was Heeseung. He stood at the doorway. I got up from the chair. He came in quietly, eyes trained to to floor as he shut the door behind him. There were moments of silence that bore down on us. Earlier, I had a plan for what to say when he confronted me. But now, I was blank. And since be seemed to be blank too, I started easy.

"Sunoo isn't coming, is he?" I asked.

"No." He said.

He fidgeted a bit, looking almost too nervous. I decided to open the much-needed conversation with something that would force him to speak.

"That's a lifetime worth of favor. How do you want me to repay you?" I said.

Heeseung's eyes widened.

"What are you talking about?" He asked.

"Until today, I thought I only had to repay you for the hospital bills from that time. And like the seductress I am, I thought I could do it in a few nights. But now, time is scarce and no amount of it compares to a life-saving favor. So I can only ask you, where do want me?"

Even saying it made my skin crawl. Yes, he had paid my hospital bills. When I found out from the nurse, I felt sick in my stomach. It was hypocritical of him to say all those things and then spend that kind of money on me. And I was so ready to act like the whore he had painted me as just to teach him a lesson.

But what now? Where do we stand now? How do I approach him in anything now?

For once, I wanted to hug him and accept the unsaid words between us. On the other hand, I wanted to close that particular chapter in a proper manner and without any loose ends. Talk it out of our lives completely. My mind was begging him to just get this over with.

Heeseung closed the gap between us in a few long strides. He stood in front of me and grabbed my collar.

"What the fuck are you saying?" He said in a low but angry tone.

I reached up to move his hand away from my collar. But he only held it tighter and pulled me forward.

"How did you even think that you'll have to repay this...favor as you call it, by spending nights with me?" He seethed.

I looked away from him and tried to free myself. But he forced me to look at him.

"Answer me, dammit. Do you think that low of me?" He asked.

This time I looked at him in the eye. "No, Heeseung. It's me I'm talking about. You saved the life of a worthless whore. What else did you expect from me?"