UPDATE: To all of you who have been waiting for an update on this story, I apologise for the long wait but I've finally gotten over my writer's block! I would greatly appreciate feedback on what I could do better for the next installment if you have the time.

Key:

Normal-Present day

Italic-flashback

Bold italic-thoughts

Taking his eyes from the bleach white ceiling he peered to his left to see the hot headed brunette who was anything but boring. A small smile played itself on is lips as the slight sunrays that made it through a small gap between the dark blue curtains made her face seem more angelic than he already thought it was. She snuggled closer to the pillow that had held her head for most of the night causing him to become more complacent as he raised his hand to stroke away some stray hairs that had found their way over her eyes. A sigh escaped her mouth as she once again moved closer to the pillow, moving slightly closer to him in the process causing his smile to slightly widen as he gazed lovingly at the most precious person in his life. Wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him and closing his eyes he began to recall the events that had lead to this peaceful moment in his life.

He had been training in a class with his master when a familiar musical beat met his ears. Being curious he had followed the sound to another room where he had first set eyes on her. She was kicking and punching furiously, yet gracefully, at a worn down punching bag that whined in discontent with each swing it made. The sweat was visibly shimmering from her exposed arms as thoughts began to enter his head. Sex On Fire and Tae Kwon Do were not a good mix for a hormonal teenage boy, especially when he was watching a girl vigorously training, dripping with sweat. Before any more thoughts could enter his already steamy mind a voice pulled him from his pleasing thoughts, "Rayne turn that down, you're disturbing the class!" Baek's booming voice demanded of the girl.

"Yeah, yeah sure gramps" she panted back as she gave one last punch to the unkempt bag and allowed it to slow to a stop with a final squeak of relief. She sauntered over to the stereo and flicked it to off as she grabbed a towel and began to wipe her brow, pulling out the band that held her hair back and redoing it running her fingers through her thick brown hair. As she finished she glanced over to the doorway where her swirling green and brown orbs met his deep brown eyes and, though only for a brief moment, he felt like they were the only two people in existence. He was once again pulled from his thoughts by a hand gripping the collar of his training shirt and pulling him away from the doorway and back to the training class.

He laughed quietly to himself as memories of Baek's lecture about how to treat his granddaughter right played back in his mind.

"Don't push her into anything she doesn't want to do"-check, she'd kill him before he even had a chance to be forceful.

"Make sure you give her whatever she wants"-check…ish, she has a roof over her head and three square meals a day, what more does she need?

"Make her happy"-check, hopefully…

"But most importantly keep her safe or I'll break your legs"-well he'd tried his best, but her stubborn attitude made it difficult to alert her to danger. Thankfully Baek had made the threat of breaking his legs after the event or he'd be in a wheelchair. He closed his eyes at the thought, the face of a certain man coming into his mind. Oh how he wanted to pummel his face in again for even looking at her. Anger began to boil within him as his hands tightened into clenched fists, though still being mindful not to grab her, and a strange taste entered his mouth. He loosened his fists slightly and looked down at his lip. Blood. He'd gotten so wound up he'd bitten down on his lip to stop him from screaming out and had made it bleed.

Great…

He looked down at her again, this time with a saddened face as her smile slowly disappeared, like she could sense his discomfort. Slowly he removed his arm from her waist and carefully climbed out of the bed they shared and quietly slinked to the on suite bathroom. He declined in switching on the light as doing so would also turn on the extractor which would surely wake her. He grabbed a flannel, damped it and applied it to his bruised lip. He hissed at the sting it left as he applied more pressure to stop the flow of blood. She was a lot better than him at the 'nursing' part. She'd scowl him whenever he returned home from a fight and was a little messed up but she'd always smile gently at him, shake her head and get the necessary supplies to fix him up. Sure, sometimes it stung a little when she had to apply alcohol to a deep wound but it was more of a loving sting. He couldn't understand it but it always felt nicer when she did it and she'd always give him a loving smile even if he had been fighting over something stupid. It always made him feel warm whenever she looked at him, when she was happy, when he was the cause of her happiness. He had concluded long ago that it was love, real love. Like they were soul mates, though they both claimed not to believe in love at first sight, his opinion on the matter definitely changed when he'd met her. Even if she did shoot him down.

Training was over and after they'd changed everyone was making their way home. He came out of the changing rooms and instantly saw her. She was packing up her training uniform in a backpack; sweat still noticeably beading from her forehead as she wiped it to try to stem its flow. Slowly she began to get closer to him, though she had her back to him. This confused him. Then he realised he was walking towards her. His legs were moving on their own, his mind had no say on the matter and as he got closer he began to panic. Sure he'd spoken to girls before but that had always ended in a slap since he'd said something stupid. As he came to a stop next to her she lifted her backpack onto her shoulder and slightly turned to look at him. "Can I help you?" she asked folding her arms over her chest. He searched his mind for something, anything to say. He opened his mouth then shut it again as words escaped him. He began to feel lightheaded and felt himself shaking slightly. "Hey, you okay?" she asked grabbing his attention from his nerves. "Uh, yeah…um, just wanted to uh, say hi?" it came out as more of a question than a statement and she'd obviously noticed since her left brow had lifted slightly to signal her confusion. "Hi, you must be Hwoarang. My grandfather's mentioned you…" then came the nausea.

She knows my name…she said my name…wow…

He felt dizzy now as she continued to stare at him like he was out on day release. "Uh, only good things I hope" he lifted his left hand and began to rub the back of his neck to try and calm himself. "Actually he told me you were reckless and said I should avoid you." That did it. She'd just shattered his little growing tower of confidence. "What? No I'm not reckless" he shook his hands trying to muster up a smile to hide his annoyance at his master. "It's a good thing really, I don't date red heads" she turned and began to walk away. "What makes you think I want to date you?" he blurted out without thinking, another of his 'charming' traits. "You're sweating and stuttering, which is out of character for you, from what I've been told you're pretty cocky" she looked at him again before turning and walking out of the doors that led to the car park behind the gym.

He raised his head after rinsing out the flannel and stared at himself in the mirror. Slowly, a glare began to form and soon he was staring at himself with hate burning in his eyes. He shut his eyes and put his head down again, then looked to his right leading his gaze back into the bedroom and onto her sleeping form. She hadn't moved, which meant he hadn't disturbed her.

Good…

Looking back at the mirror the face appeared in his mind again and with it his rage returned. This happened everytime he had silence to himself. He'd start to think, which usually ended up with him going out and looking for a fight then coming home bruised because he took on too many thugs in a blind frenzy. But this time he couldn't go out. He'd promised from that day that he would stay with her throughout the night. Now it proved problematic as his thoughts began to materialise again and the memories came back in vivid detail. Too vivid for his liking. He had always wondered what exactly had happened before he got there but had never asked her to relive the experience by explaining it for his benefit. He could imagine her scared tear stained face. Seeing the aftermath was bad enough but he'd imagined she was a lot worse during the ordeal.

Of course she was, she had no one to protect her.

He mentally hit himself for hoping that she'd not suffered much when he knew for a fact that she had. His body tensed up again, his temperature rising as his anger resurfaced. He had sworn that he would never make her cry and that if anything did he would put a stop to it. Be it human or otherwise, he would make it suffer if he could. Maybe that was why he went through these silent rituals of guilt? He'd made her cry once. It tore him apart to think that he had caused her pain, physical or emotional. He hated himself for it. Though she'd insisted that it was forgotten on her part, it wasn't on his. He wanted to beat himself into submission, or get someone else to. But he knew that would only cause her more pain and he didn't want that, so these guilt trips were all he had to try and atone for letting her down.

He stood in the car park waiting for her again. He did it after every training session, it had become habit now. He would often give her a ride home if she didn't have any energy left to walk home after training and today was one of those days. One of those days where she would cling to him and his heart would skip a beat whenever she tightened her grip, however slight. It was these days that he looked forward to. Sometimes he'd even be her sparing partner to wear her down so he could make sure she got home safely. Upon hearing the doors behind him open he turned his body to see her running to him. At first he thought something was wrong but then he saw her smiling face and all tension disappeared from him entirely.

"Hey Red!" she grinned up at him as a small smile appeared on his features. She didn't like the length of his name and how it couldn't be shortened so she used his hair as inspiration. He had protested the name claiming it to be unoriginal but after a year or so it had just stuck and he'd gotten used to it.

"Ready to go?" he asked motioning towards his motorcycle.

"Sorry, Lee's giving me a lift today" she turned and waved to a silver haired man in a violet convertible. He turned to her and moved his head to signal for her to come over to him. She took off towards the car and shouted back to him to get home safely. Annoyance rose within him as she got into the car and kissed Lee as they sped off away from the training school. He had a serious dislike towards Lee. Not just because he was jealous of him, though he would never admit it, but because he was playing her and she didn't even see it. He'd seen him a few times on his way home from training with other girls. He had tried to tell her but she had insisted that he was just jealous and had slammed the door in his face so now he'd given up, it was obvious she was hopelessly in love with him and wouldn't believe anything bad about him. A sigh escaped his lips as he lowered his head and walked to his motorcycle. He had an urge to follow them due to the sinking feeling in his stomach and the sickly taste that entered his mouth but wrote it off as jealousy.

The same sickening taste entered his mouth as he recalled what had happened only a few hours after he'd seen her drive off with Lee. He knew he should have followed them, just to make sure she was safe. He had known what Lee was like, what he was after. The guilt caught itself in his throat as he lowered his head and hit it against the mirror, clenching his teeth in frustration, recalling what he had said to her. How he had made her cry.

He saw them on his walk to clear his head. They were holding hands as she looked through the items in shop windows pointing out the good and the bad things. He'd been on one of those trips with her. He was pretty bored after a while but went along with it for her happiness, and she never bought anything so that made his wallet happy too. But Lee was doing no such thing. He was peering over his shoulder to look at another girl, probably half his age. Then again, wearing such a tiny skirt she was asking to be looked at. As she tried to drag Lee down to the next window he turned back to the other girl and blew her kiss, like he was out flirting. That got him again. He didn't want to see her get hurt but he had to at least try to convince her that Lee was bad news. He crossed the road and approached the pair, asking to talk to her in private. They left Lee and went round a corner into an alley. He peered back and saw Lee calling over the other girl that he was looking at before. It sickened him. How can someone like that be so attractive to women when they know he's a player?

"So…you wanted to talk to me?" her questioning voice met his ears pulling him from his thoughts. In the past when he'd tried to tell her about Lee he'd gone for a subtle approach but this time he was going to tell her straight.

"Lee was-" she cut him off by swaying her hand in front of his face.

"I don't want to hear your jealous anecdotes Red. You've been shoving them at me since Lee and I started dating"

"But he's-" he pointed to around the corner where he'd seen Lee call over the other girl. She just shook her head at him as she turned to leave causing him to grab her arm in a reflex.

"Just listen to me for once!" she pulled her arm from his grip and turned to face him again.

"I don't need to listen to you if you're going to be like this!"

"Like what?"

"A possessive jerk!"

Voices and tempers were rising now, causing people to stop and look at the commotion. He couldn't believe this girl's stupidity. Did she actually think this guy wanted a long-term relationship?

"You wouldn't listen anyway! Things would be so much easier if you'd followed your mother into the grave and I never met you!" the minute those word left his mouth an instant nausea overcame him. His stomach turned when his eyes fell on her teary ones. He wasn't supposed to know about her past, but Baek had told him of how her cruel father drove her mother to suicide and that she would have followed her if he hadn't taken her under his wing. Now he wished he didn't know. He wished he could go back and smack himself over the head before blurting out without thinking. He'd basically wished her dead to her face. A strange feeling welled up within him. A feeling he had never experienced. Regret. He had no reason to regret anything to this point. He had no known parents and had to fight for survival on the streets. He had to steal to eat, so naturally he thought his actions were justified and had no need to regret anything. But now he couldn't believe his own stupidity and thoughtlessness. He didn't dare look her in the eye as he began an apologetic sentence to which she bolted back toward Lee, tears now streaming down her cheeks. He turned to follow her but stopped when he saw Lee taking her away, cradling her in his arms. Anger once again took over, but this time it was against himself more than Lee.

He had probably driven her into Lee's arms. It was his fault that he had the opportunity to do what he did. It was all his fault. He had and still felt awful. That same nausea welled up in him again as he raised his head to glare at the reflection in the mirror that glared back with just as much force. Now a new sense of guilt entered him as he recalled the next event in the gruesome chain of his memory. If he'd heard the phone then he could have stopped it. But he hadn't.

Returning home after seeing her drive off with Lee, he'd taken a shower to again clear his head and that was when it happened. He was unaware that she had tried to phone him to ask for his help. He had walked straight past the phone after his shower without checking it. He had carried on with his day while trying to think of some way to apologise to her when he got the answer message. His heart stopped the minute she began to speak. She was crying, begging for him to go to her, to help her. By the time her words had sunk in the message had receded and his anger began to boil up again. Without thinking he ran out of his house and was riding to hers. His anger meant he was in no condition to be driving but he had to get to her.

His eyes softened and lowered to stare at the dripping sink tap beneath him. It reminded him of her face. The way the tears had stained it as she had wept alone. He squeezed his eyes shut as her face played in his mind. He had felt so useless. He didn't know what to do to make it better. In the end he realised that nothing he said or did would take back her pain.

He arrived at her door, banging furiously to get her to answer. No reply. Images of her still body penetrated his mind. He had received the message about an hour after she'd called, anything could have happened in that time. Lee could have beaten her until she had ceased to breathe or she could have ended her own life because he hadn't come to her sooner. He couldn't bare it. Stepping back, he took a small run up and smashed into the door. He had only splintered it. He persisted and soon found why the door had been difficult to break down. The clanging of locks and chains met his ears as he finally burst through the door. Metal now littered the small hall. This didn't bother him, however, as he heard a faint sob. He ran for the stairs and flew through an open door from which the cry had originated. His heart instantly wretched in his chest as his eyes fell upon her fragile, shaking figure, curled up hugging her bed covers. He tried to speak but only the movement of his lips was registered in his brain. There was nothing to say. She turned to him, her eyes filling with relief as they met his figure. She ran to him and embraced him, wrapping her arms tightly around him. She began sobbing into his chest.

"I didn't think you would come…"

Again, no words manifested from his mouth as he carefully hugged her back. This would have been his perfect moment in time if the circumstances had not been so gruesome in which the girl of dreams would cling to him so desperately.

He was pulled from his thoughts as his nickname ran through the air. She was awake.

"You're up early…" a small smile played on her lips as she rubbed the back of her head. The sun had intensified since he had woken and her hair became a flowing golden chestnut colour.

"Yeah…" he returned her smile albeit a fake one, which she detected immediately. She frowned slightly and made her way up to him, hugging him from behind since he was still leaning over the sink.

"Not well?" she asked pressing her hand over his forehead.

"No I'm fine" he gently pulled her hand away from his head.

"How about some breakfast then?" she whispered quietly in his ear.

"Sure…"

She removed herself from him and went back into the bedroom. He watched after her with a small smile on his lips. Looking back at the mirror again he sighed and rubbed his temples to try and rid himself of his previous thoughts so that he could enjoy the day with her. By the time he re-entered the bedroom she was already down in the kitchen. As he walked slowly down the stairs of their shared accommodation her humming met his ears as she prepared to cook breakfast. This wasn't quite the norm. They usually woke facing one another and most of the time he'd get up first and make the breakfast but he'd had a rough night with his guilt and was feeling sluggish. Not that he would ever tell her, she had enough to deal with. Though she knew something was up when he was being slow, she never persisted more than a question of concern. He entered the kitchen and sat down at the table, again rubbing his temples as she clanged with pans. She switched on the radio to drown out most of the banging and the familiar sound of their song met his ears. Irony played in his mind as the chorus rang through his ears, 'I wanna lay you down on a bed of roses, for tonight I sleep on a bed of nails'. It was very apt. He was sworn to protect her by causing himself to suffer.