Author's Note: Just a forewarning, this is an un-betaed, angsty dabble in an unrequited Saeran/MC relationship post-Saeyoung's route, with a potential future for both related and unrelated chapters. This chapter is rated M (should it be T? How seasoned are teenagers now?) for language only.

Genre: Angst, with hints at romance. Small hints. Micro-sized, man.

Come Crashing

Saeran leaned against the wall at the back of the room and crossed his arms over his chest, the tips of his fingers digging into his ribs. Whether it was to fight the chill of the conference room or to keep himself from screaming, he didn't know. He just needed to stay away from her.

With careful, calculating eyes, he watched as she hedged around the table, making her way over to Jumin Han's harried-looking assistant. Jaehee Kang had closed the presentation and was just switching off the smartboard when MC stopped beside her. They chatted for a moment in hushed whispers (he was only able to make out the words "DVD collection") and Jaehee's face lit up like a toy in the hands of a toddler, the flashes and whistles all firing at once.

Even though Kang had led their three-hour meeting, Saeran realized this was the first moment she truly seemed present. Happy, even. Until Jumin Han strolled over and deposited a thick stack of paperwork into her hands. As she flipped through the pages, Jumin spoke almost absently, righting his cufflink while murmuring about "error notations in the margins" and a "two-hour deadline". Jaehee nodded and swiftly quit the room, looking dejected.

"I'll text you available dates later!" MC called after her. She turned to frown at Jumin once the assistant was out of sight.

"Jumin... I know she's an important part of the team, but please consider giving her a break. It's not healthy for anyone to work so much…" As she trailed off, her voice grew almost tender. "You too."

Saeran thought he could see a trace of warmth soften the CEO's composed face.

Jumin cleared his throat. "Once the contract is corrected, Assistant Kang will be required to leave for the day."

MC beamed up at him and the warmth in Jumin's face was instantly unmistakable. A familiar unease flickered to life inside Saeran's chest and he looked away, letting their conversation disintegrate into noise.

It didn't take long for his gaze to return to MC.

Dressed in a gray sweater dress and a pair of uniformly gray leggings, she practically melted into the walls around them. Her dark hair was gathered into an untidy twist atop her head and, not for the first time, Saeran acknowledged that her face was painfully average. Pale, little make-up, brown eyes. She was utterly ordinary. Easy to overlook.

At first, his mind hissed. Saeran dug his fingers deeper into his ribs. Only at first.

With wary eyes, he watched her chatter, realizing her conversation with Jumin must have strayed from casual into amusing because her cheeks had twitched up and her eyes had crinkled. Saeran held himself together, confident his grip would leave bruises as his eyes bolted to the clock above the coffee station. He frowned at the time and looked at Saeyoung, who was joking with Yoosung Kim near the door. Aggravation twisted his stomach into a smoking coil.

They should have left half an hour ago.

A burst of laughter stole his attention, the cacophony of half-giggles, half-bellows exploding through the room like fireworks. Everyone else turned to stare as well, watching MC wipe tears from her eyes as her chortling faded into hiccups. She seemed oblivious to the sudden quiet that had fallen over her friends, and Jumin looked almost smug as he gazed down at her.

The smile on her lips was bright—impossibly bright—as if the sun had somehow tumbled down from the sky to snuggle in behind it. Saeran's chest tightened at the sight, something bubbly and warm spilling into his heart. It sloshed around inside, fizzing up to fill the emptiness and—

Saeran pointedly sunk his gaze into the carpet. Inside him, anxiety was turning his nerves into power lines, snapping between them like voltage and hyping him into a panic. He fought it back, pulling in deep breaths—one after another, after another, after another—until the humming in his ears slowly began to fade. The room dimmed as the electricity faded, coming back into focus. He shut his eyes as the bubbling began to spill away.

MC had a sickly, frightening way of illuminating the world around her; around him. LIke a flash of lightning, she struck too close and swallowed up every shadow, threatening to reveal all his cracks. Every time she smiled, he felt the ground tremble beneath his feet.

Hacking into her phone had been the biggest mistake of his life.

An image of her surfaced through the fog of his memory, unsettlingly crisp and clear. Alone on a city bus, she sat with headphone buds squeezed into her ears, watching the world pass outside her window as she bobbed her head to the beat. He was studying her from two seats back—the same seat he'd been studying her from for a week without her realizing—and decided in that moment that she was perfect.

Perfectly unexceptional.

Perfectly unassuming.

Perfectly naïve.

He was practically giddy when the bus finally pulled up to her stop. He stood to follow her. Too easy, his mind whispered.

And it was easy; bumping into her at the bottom of the stairs; knocking her purse to the sidewalk; pocketing her phone. She didn't even check her things over once they'd finished stuffing them back into her bag, just threw it and a quick "thank you" over her shoulder and rushed off toward her destination. He watched her jog away while his program cracked into her phone, thoroughly bored. The messenger was installed before she'd even slipped out of view.

When he set off after her, his brain was already charting the next phase of his plan.

"Hey! Hey, wait!"

She spun around when he caught up with her, breathless and wide-eyed, a few strands of hair jostled free of her ponytail. She breathed a soft "Oh" as her eyes fell to the rectangle in his hand, the lace of her breath curling up past her scarf to disappear into the crisp, March air.

"I think you dropped this, too, right?"

He pressed the phone into her palm, and his mind whispered again—Too easy!—just before her eyes lifted and cut the power to his brain.

Her smile glittered like a flame, brightening her eyes from the inside. The warmth of them almost seemed to spill out and brush against his skin. She thanked him in a rush, stumbling over her words as she pressed the phone to her chest, but he barely registered her words.

What…What is this…

He searched her face for what felt like a thousand times in one moment, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find an answer that made sense.

There was no deception in her smile. No pity. No darkness.

It existed entirely without shadow.

Then.

There.

In the current world.

The realization split the foundation beneath his feet.

It was a small crack, tiny, but large enough to make him wonder—just for a moment—if the world was truly as hopeless as Mint Eye believed.

It was the same crack Saeyoung and the doctors had widened.

The same crack Saeran was still trying to—

MC began to move in the conference room, the sharp clip of her flats chasing away his memory of her on the sidewalk. His eyes shot open, following her as she walked from Jumin to Zen, who was nursing his cider just a few feet away from him. Saeran sidestepped into the shadow of a pillar, hoping the movement was discrete enough to avoid notice. Luckily for him, Zen struck up a conversation with the party planner before she'd even taken three steps, effectively stealing her attention.

"Hello, beautiful~! Talking to the trust fund jerk before me? Are you trying to make me jealous?"

She shook her head at him in exasperation and he chuckled low in his throat, slipping an arm around her shoulders. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So, how was the meeting? Did it bore you at all?" He tossed her a teasing look. "Considering who you were sitting next to, probably not, but… I think Seven put a coffee stick in your hair?"

"Three, actually." MC appeared oddly smug about it. Zen eyed her with confusion until the smirk on her face widened and she flashed him a glimpse of something in her hand. Her voice went so quiet Saeran had to strain to hear her next words. "Only a worthy sacrifice if you help me hide these in Jumin's desk."

"Ohhh." Zen's eyes flashed with mischief. "My pleasure, babe."

He plucked the mystery from her fingers and shot her a wink before sweeping across the room and out the door. Yoosung stepped over to MC as Zen left, a coffee cup in each of his hands. He held one out to her.

"Is Zen okay?" he asked with a frown, "He left in a hurry…"

"He's fine, he's fine," MC chirped, waving his concern away. She lit up when she caught sight of the coffee. "Oh, thank you, Yoosung!"

She took the cup with a smile and Yoosung practically came undone, a rosy blush creeping over his cheeks. He grinned back at her, but even Saeran could see the expression didn't quite meet his eyes. MC took a long pull from her drink as Yoosung fiddled with his, her eyes studying him thoughtfully. Her expression grew gentle and she lowered her cup. "How's your new semester going?"

They chatted about his syllabus, his new anatomy professor, and the recommendation letter he'd received from Jumin for veterinary school. As they spoke, Saeran watched the clouds in Yoosung's eyes slowly begin to clear, chased away by her sunshine and careful prodding. Yoosung's shoulders lifted little by little, and the bags beneath his eyes seemed to almost disappear the moment she leaned in and wrapped her arms around him. They exchanged a whisper, MC's lips forming the Savio—Rika's—name, and Yoosung returned the embrace with surprising fierceness. Saeran felt his panic return, needles prickling beneath his skin.

His eyes darted back to the exit, desperate for escape, but Saeyoung was still there. Babbling with Jumin this time. Trapping him in. Saeran puzzled over how to escape, his mind flipping through a dozen different strategies and trying to find one that wouldn't end in some irritating familial argument —

"Hello."

Saeran froze.

Oh, fuck. Fuck.

His gaze slid from his brother back to the carpet in front of him. MC stood where only emptiness had been moments before. His mouth ran dry, something like fear straightening the arch of his spine.

She was as petite as he remembered, the top of her head falling just beneath his chin, but nothing about her felt small as she stared up at him.

He had expected her glow to diminish if she greeted him, that a note of darkness would finally creep into her smile and distort it.

He had been wrong.

He had always been wrong when it came to her.

He bit back a curse.

Her eyes seemed to shimmer as she stared up at him, vast and glowing beneath the overhead lights. The fizzing in his chest rushed forward, expanding in the emptiness until he felt he would choke on it.

"I think we should start over." She offered him her hand.

It took a moment for him to digest that she was trying to touch him. Willingly.

Tension slid up his spine and filled his jaw with cement, making his teeth ache. He didn't understand. Didn't she hate him? She should. Didn't she know she should? He'd used her, threatened her. He'd killed—

"It doesn't bite," she whispered.

Her smile had softened while his mind drifted, but her gaze was still electric. It held him at attention. Captivated him. Captured him.

That revelation jarred his thoughts, digging up memories of needles and bars and pain that Saeran had long buried beneath the haze of elixir. He felt his fingers begin to shake and he narrowed his eyes—desperate to make her smaller, to make her less—and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. MC's expression wilted at the rejection.

"Oi!"

Saeyoung's voice broke the quiet, making them both jump. He was jogging over to them, a smiling blur of hair and teeth.

"Wait, wait, wait," he panted, "I want to introduce you!"

MC's hand had just fallen back to her side when Saeyoung stopped beside her. Saeran watched their fingers weave together before his brother clapped a hand on his shoulder, bringing up his eyes.

"Saeran, this is MC." His words were sincere despite the lopsided grin on his face. "MC, this is my brother."

"It's really nice to meet you," she gushed and then paused, adding quickly, "Well, formally anyway."

She sounded so honest that Saeran couldn't help but look back at her. The wilting in her face had fled, replaced by a smile more radiant than any of the others he'd seen that day. A smile just for him.

The bubbling inside him fizzed over, crashing against his heart in waves that crushed and bruised and ached. She was too much. Too bright.

Like a flash of lightning in the darkness.

"Welcome to the RFA, Saeran," she said, "We're really happy you're here."

And she meant it.

Saeran swallowed, nodding despite himself, and felt the ground tremble beneath his feet.