I tried to protect him.

There was a part of me that felt the need to shield him from the harshness of the world. But as it turned out there was absolutely nothing I could do against the harshness in people's hearts.

I had really begun to notice it a year into debut, at a time when the hateful people surrounding them began to overshadow the good ones. Stupidly I turned a blind eye, reasoning with myself that it would get better with time. I should have known better, because over the years it only got worse. People who still stuck around to call themselves fans began personal attacks against some of the boys that they liked less than their favourites. While most of the members shrugged it off as being nothing more than an annoyance of the job, Sehun took it with great stress and difficulty.

It was as if he sought it out, as if he was trying to punish himself for a crime that he never committed.

There were times when we sat together both just comfortable in the others presence that he brought up his insecurities. He'd rest his arm over my shoulders and talk about his worries of not being a good a dancer as Jongin or Yixing, of how he'd never be a good a singer like the others and that the fans knew it.

It was on one of his darkest days that he brought up his real reason for being accepted into SM.

"You know the rumour."

I'd looked over at him in confusion.

"The one about me only being accepted into SM because of my looks."

"Sehun..." I'd begun in an effort to sooth him, something I'd found myself doing a lot of at that time.

"Please, don't do that." He gave me a small smile which almost broke my heart. The hurt in his eyes was almost manifested in the air around us. "I understand now that it's true. Because why else would I be in this band? Sure all the guys are good looking, but they have other talents that are more suitable to being an idol than I do. All I have is my face."

I'd stayed silent, knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could say to him that would heal his heart.

"What I don't understand is why they even bother to keep me around now. It's as if they don't want to go through another ordeal like they did with Kris and Luhan."

My eyes had begun to water, and I wiped them quickly, feeling stupid for being the one that was crying. This wasn't about me.

"I wouldn't blame them. Honestly I wouldn't care, because I'd understand why they'd do it." He'd turned to me again with a vacant look in his eyes which caused my heart to plunge into my stomach. "What's the point of keeping an untalented idol around?"

I shuffled closer to him, reaching my hand out for his when he shook his head and stood up.

In times like this I would stroke his arm and tell him that those things didn't matter, that he was his own person and he was just trying to find his own way in the world. I told him that he shouldn't compare himself to his bandmates or anyone else, because he was worth so much more than his negative thoughts were allowing him to feel.

But he didn't let me do that this time, instead he walked away from me, just like he did from everyone else, leaving me with a feeling of melancholy which convinced me that there was nothing I could do.

Because I saw the way that the demands of an idol took their toll on him, but like an idiot I looked past them, because we were all new to this and they became more popular than anyone could have predicted.

I told him that the adjustment to this life would take time.

I told him a lot of things, in a way I forced my own thoughts onto him, tried to reassure him with my views and beliefs.

It was the things that I didn't do that I would come to regret.

Because though he smiled and kissed my cheek with all the love that he could fathom, I missed the way his eyes down casted and his own heart was chipped away at in his chest.

"I'm meant to be with Chanyeol right now. I'll text you later."

I was left with the sound of the door closing echoing around a room that no longer felt like a home.

~~.~~

If he wasn't beaten down by depression, he was angry.

I knew how to handle neither.

Nothing in the years that I had been alive, in the years I had spent maturing into an adult that should be able to handle these two things, could have prepared me for dealing with the type of man he was becoming.

In the beginning, when the change started, I went along with the late nights and the distant looks. But as time passed, I began to see the problem. The real problem that stemmed from deep within Sehun.

He began to stay later and more frequently at the studio with Chanyeol, while I was left to sit and wonder with a heavy heart if he was coming home.

I remember one night I returned to our apartment as clear as if it happened just recently. I was exhausted after running errands for my boss all over Seoul; the only thing getting me through was the thought of returning home to Sehun.

It was the night he'd told me he loved me for the very first time, and the memory still feels like a knife to the heart, twisted by the hateful hand of Sehun.

I made and had dinner by myself, something that by this time in my life I was all too used to. I watched the first half of The Hobbit, before I got bored and opened up at book I had chucked to the side days prior. My eyes grew heavy as I tried to keep myself awake, hoping he'd contact me soon.

I'd fallen asleep without realising it, and startled myself awake only to look outside to find it still dark, only the lights of the street outside illuminating the curtain that had been pulled tightly closed. I'd glanced at my phone, the time telling me it was the early hours of the morning. That glance also told me I had no missed calls and the empty feeling settled over the room told me that Sehun was not home.

I stretched, flinching slightly in fright when the book fell from my lap to the floor with an echoing thud. I got up, walking the space of the apartment to make sure. I didn't want to call and wake him up if he was by chance asleep in one of the bedrooms. I shouldn't have been surprised when both were empty, void of any life whatsoever. I sighed heavily as I made my way back to the lounge room, grabbing my phone from the small side table and pressed his contact.

I stood in the dim light of the apartment and listened to the ring give way to his voicemail and which I recorded a heavy sigh and hung up. I waited a few minutes, staring at the phone as if doing so would make it ring. Afterwards I called him again, almost screaming my frustration as the call went straight to voicemail, an obvious sign that the phone had been switched off.

I had no time to feel worried about where he could be, because I knew exactly where.

I grabbed my keys off the bench and made my way down to the basement, annoyed that I had to take one of his cars, instead of the bus as it was too late in the night and they had long stopped running.

I tried calling him one more time before I left the building, throwing the phone on the passenger seat when it went straight to voicemail again. I was pissed.

I sped through the streets, thankful that at that time of the morning there were few other cars on the road. I pulled up outside the shining building, not surprised that most of the lights are still on, shining through the opened windows. In my haste to get in the building, I don't even remember if I locked the car, but my mind was too corrupted with thoughts of more important things.

I raced through the building, missing the greetings of the few security guards standing at their posts. Would come to feel guilty over ignoring them later, but at that time Sehun was more of a priority. I knew exactly where he would be. I'd had more than a few conversations with Chanyeol over the months when Sehun's change began, over what the youngest was up to the nights he never came home.

The tall man had come to me worried about some things that Sehun had brought up with him. He talked about how Sehun wanted to do more, to contribute to the group. But Chanyeol himself thought that he wasn't doing it for the right reasons. Because Sehun has no natural talent or patience for composition, where Chanyeol had abundance. Chanyeol would mention how Sehun was easily frustrated at him and himself for being unable to understand the technicalities behind the practice.

I realised the depths of Sehun's despair when Chanyeol mentioned that Sehun thinks he brings nothing to the group. I'd thanked Chanyeol for his coming to me, but I was as confused as ever.

I stopped in front of the door to Chanyeol's studio; I could hear hushed whispers and occasional laughter flowing from the other side.

Well I'm glad to hear he's having a good time.

I pushed the door open, not worried about interrupting them, because if he had just answered the phone when I called I wouldn't have had to come here.

I found him hunched over his computer, mumbling curses under his breath. Chanyeol lifts his head to look at me and gives me a small smile, acknowledging my existence. Sehun does not do the same.

I'd walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder that caused him to flinch away from me. If he knew it was me, he didn't show it.

"Sehun?" The cautiousness in my own voice had me cringing in distaste, that wasn't me.

"What do you want?" He hadn't even turned to address me, his eyes glued to the screen as he tried to work out a background beat to one of his new songs.

I'm taken aback by his hard tone and stare at his back, urging him to face me. My prayers go unanswered. I glanced at Chanyeol who shrugged telling me he doesn't know what to do either. "Are you coming home?"

Sehun turns to me then, his eyes flashing as he pushes abruptly away from the computer towards me.

"Are you seriously going to do this now?" The venom in his voice I remember had me shrinking back from him, never having heard that tone from him before. And I hated the fact that it was directed towards me. "Why are you even here?" He yells, thrusting his hand angrily towards me. "I'll be home when I'm done."

"You didn't answer my calls? I came to see if you were okay."

He'd gestured to the computer screen behind him. "I'm fine, now go home."

I remember feeling worried, as if there was something he wasn't telling him and I chose that exact moment to push, my voice soft. "Sehun, you know you can talk to me."

"I said I'm fine!" He'd yelled in a tone that with anyone else would have ended the conversation. But I knew him better than that, I wouldn't let him treat me this way, no matter how stressed he was.

"What is wrong with you lately?"

"I said I'm busy. Why are you being so needy?"

I blinked; I was being anything but. I stood there too shocked to reply, so he continued.

"What do you even want me to say? I can't be with you every second of the day."

"That isn't what this is about," I was trying to keep my voice calm, wanting one of us to act like an adult in the situation.

"Then what is it?" He threw his hands in the air again, frustrated. "You're breathing down my neck like you want something, and I can't focus on work with you here. What are you so worried about?"

At that point I'd had enough. I glanced at Chanyeol again who stood there motionless, watching the exchange between Sehun and I without a word. I turn back to Sehun, seeing his eyes flash at Chanyeol still being in the room. "You. I'm worried about you."

His whole demeanour changed then, turning into a twisted version of the man I knew. His face twisted into a smirk, which had be on edge. "Don't be, you're the only one for me," He'd winked at the end, causing my stomach to turn in distaste. This isn't what it was about.

I hadn't spoken quickly enough and he had continued. "I love you, okay. Now get out." He turned his back to me again, going back to his work. It was Chanyeol who spoke up.

"Sehun…"

"Don't," I cut him off, I'd had enough.

Though the words he'd said were loving, his hard tone caused a seed of hate towards him to grow within me. How dare he think that it was okay to use those words like that. Never once have I heard those words come out of his mouth and to spit them with such a tone in anger, only to think that they would sate me. I was seeing red.

I left after that once I managed to get my legs to function again, slamming the door closed behind me with a hole in my chest that yelled for justice.

~~.~~

"Sehun?"

He lifted his head to glance in my direction, his tired eyes searching my face as he tried to understand the seriousness in my tone.

"Why did you become an idol?"

His eyebrows furrowed slightly at the question, and his eyes turned glazed as if he was remembering something from the past. Eventually he sighed with a small smile on his lips; his dark eyes held mine and I saw something there that I was almost positive I wasn't supposed to see.

"Honestly, I was never really good for much else."

My heart clenched with a pain that threatened to envelop everybody I came in contact with.

His pain was mine.

And I was becoming his.