Cuts Deeper Than Love

Chapter 06: Sehun

It was in the wee hours of the day when Sehun had arrived at Jeju. He was in a daze the whole time, just absorbed in his thoughts about Ina and extremely affected by what Luhan had done to him. It was not just the physical pain that bugged him; in fact that was already a minor inconvenience when compared to the mental and emotional confusion and turmoil. This was not at all the Luhan-hyung that he used to know. Sehun understood that the lone wolf had been through a lot lately, but was it enough to change his character so drastically? It just sent chills down his spine to think how brutal and vicious Luhan had been just now, and even though Sehun was not there to see it, he knew that Luhan had threatened and abused Ina too. He could not believed that his Luhan-hyung would do that to anybody but it happened, it really did, and that was so chilling and disturbing. Not to mention that if he could not even protect himself then he felt it was unlikely that he could protect Ina as well, even if he could get to her before Luhan did. This only made his mood worse.

Still, Sehun was undeniably exhausted. As soon as he checked into the hotel, he had collapsed onto his bed. His body gave in and his search for Ina would simply have to wait till he was in better condition. Not even the possibility of making a wrong guess about her whereabouts could keep him awake now.

~

Some hours later, Sehun bolted upright, waking up from a bad dream. He was sweating from the fright of his nightmare and could not even bear to recount it. Ina and Luhan were among the ones he had cared about the most, but in his bad dream both of them were heavily injured, bruised and bloody, on the brink of death. What was even more perturbing was that this nightmare was not that detached from reality.

There was no way he could go back to sleep now, so he went to the bathroom to wash up. He sighed at the ugly bruise on his face. Goodness, he looked hideous. And to think that just last week, an agent had been chasing after him, in impossible high heels, for half an hour, just to get him to give her modelling agency a try. He shook his head and put on the mask that he had brought with him.

He made his way to the dining hall in the hotel where a breakfast buffet was prepared. Absentmindedly, he placed hash browns, scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon onto his plate, but then once he proceeded to pour himself some coffee, because he was too worn out he was unable to even hold the kettle properly, and scalded himself, spilling the coffee all over the counter.

"I'm sorry," he uttered blankly as a waitress hurried over to the bench to clean up the mess. But the commotion he had caused had drawn attention from everybody else in the room. Although it only took a moment for most of the diners to return to minding their own business, Ina was one of the few people to look on. She was not so much shocked by the coffee spill but rather by the astonishing fact that Sehun was here, in Jeju, in the same hotel. She thought that she could get away from him and Luhan to find her own space here on this island, but still, Sehun had managed to find her and she had not the slightest idea how in the world he was able to do so.

Albeit astounded, Ina still found the sense to recover from this surprise, and approached Sehun. He seemed to be in a daze, and barely reacted to the fact that his clothes were drenched in and stained with the coffee he had spilled.

She grabbed his arm and shook him gently. His eyes practically shone when he saw that it was her. He opened his mouth and surely had a lot of questions but she reminded him that he had better change his clothes first. He nodded and obliged, leading the way to his room.

Once he had found a set of clean clothes to get into, he did not think twice about stripping, too exhausted to mind that Ina was in the room. She recalled that she had seen him shirtless before, at the faculty pool party that took place during the mid-semester week break. She sat on the edge of his bed and wondered if she should look away, but even if she should have done that, she could not bring herself to do so. His abs...wow. Just wow. As delicious as the pizzas he had refrained from eating in order to keep fit. She could not breathe, especially since she was admiring him from such a close distance. She could not make a sound either, but if she could she would probably scream at the top of her lungs.