**Sunshine's POV**
Day ten started wrong.
I knew it the moment I walked into Kael's dressing room at 5:45 AM and found him staring at his phone, his hands trembling.
"Morning," I said carefully. "I brought your—"
"The schedule's wrong." His voice was too quiet. Dangerous.
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"The interview. Channel 7, not Channel 5. They're going to ask about the comeback and I haven't—" He stopped, jaw clenching. "I'm not prepared."
I checked my tablet, heart sinking. He was right. Someone had sent me wrong information.
"I'm so sorry. I'll fix this right now—"
"You had one job, Sunshine." He stood slowly. "One job. Get the schedule right."
"I know, and I'm—"
"Sorry doesn't fix it." His voice cracked slightly. "Do you have any idea what happens if I say the wrong thing? If I'm not prepared? Everything falls apart. Everything."
There was something in his eyes. Not just anger. Fear.
"Kael, I'll handle it. I promise—"
"Just... get out. I need to think."
I left, hands shaking, already calling the PR team.
The day spiraled from there.
---
**Kael's POV**
*Breathe. Just breathe. Don't let it happen again.*
But the interview was a disaster. They circled around "the incident" they always did—asking about my "troubled past" and "personal struggles" with fake concern in their voices.
I smiled. Deflected. Lied.
All while rage built in my chest like a living thing.
The photo shoot ran over. My father called three times. Each voicemail a threat.
*"Get yourself under control. Don't make me remind you what happens when you lose it."*
By the time we got back to KDX at 8 PM, I could feel it. That familiar pressure. The thing Dr. Yoon called "emotional dysregulation." The thing my father called "being weak."
The monster I'd been fighting for seven years.
"Mr. Devereaux, you have a conference call—"
"Cancel it."
"But the executives—"
"I SAID CANCEL IT!"
Sunshine flinched, and I hated myself for it.
But I couldn't stop. Couldn't control the rage bleeding through every carefully constructed wall.
I slammed into the practice room. She followed.
*Of course she followed. She never knows when to run.*
---
**Sunshine's POV**
"Maybe you should take a break—"
"I don't need a break!" He whirled on me. "I need people to do their jobs! One mistake, Sunshine. That's all it takes. One slip and everything I've built comes crashing down!"
"I understand—"
"You don't understand anything!" His voice was rising, but beneath the anger, I heard something else. Desperation. "You've been here ten days. Ten days and you think you know me? Think you can fix me?"
"I never said—"
"You don't know what it's like!" His hands were shaking. "Everyone watching. Waiting for me to fail. To prove I'm exactly what they say I am!"
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen, and I watched something inside him break.
He threw it.
The phone shattered against the mirror, and time seemed to slow.
---
**Kael's POV**
The sound of breaking glass.
*No. Not again. Not like before.*
But I couldn't stop.
I grabbed a chair. Threw it at the mirror.
More glass. More destruction.
Min-ah's face flashed in my mind. Her hand reaching out. The rooftop. The sound she made when—
"NO!"
I picked up another chair. Threw it harder.
"Mr. Devereaux, stop—"
"GET OUT!"
But she didn't leave. She stood there, eyes wide, and that only made it worse.
**Sunshine's POV**
His eyes were wild, but for just a second—just one heartbeat—I saw something else beneath the fury.
Terror.
Pure, absolute terror.
Like he'd been here before. Like he knew exactly where this rage led. And it terrified him more than it terrified me.
"Kael, please—"
He grabbed his keyboard—the expensive one he composed on—and raised it over his head.
I stepped forward without thinking. "Don't. You'll regret—"
He brought it down.
It exploded into pieces.
Sharp, burning pain across my arm.
I looked down. Blood. My blood soaking through my white sleeve.
"Sunshine—" His voice cracked. "No, I didn't mean—"
But he wasn't stopping. He was picking up something else, throwing it, destroying everything.
And I understood.
He couldn't stop. Not because he didn't want to. Because something inside him wouldn't let him.
"GET OUT!" he screamed, but his voice broke on the words. "GET OUT AND DON'T COME BACK!"
I backed toward the door, clutching my bleeding arm.
His eyes met mine for one second. And what I saw there wasn't rage.
It was grief.
Then I ran.
**Kael's POV**
The silence after she left was deafening.
I stood surrounded by destruction. Glass. Blood. Broken equipment.
Her blood.
Just like Min-ah. History repeating itself because I'm too broken to change.
I sank to the floor, my own hands bleeding from glass I didn't remember grabbing.
This was why Dr. Yoon had diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder two years ago. Why she kept pushing medication. Why therapy sessions focused on "emotional regulation" and "distress tolerance."
Because when I lost control, people got hurt.
Tonight, I'd hurt the one person who'd actually stayed.
*I'd promised myself. Never again. Never hurt someone because of what I am.*
And I'd just broken that promise.
I pulled out my phone—cracked screen, barely working—and stared at Dr. Yoon's last message.
**Your BPD symptoms worsen under stress. Please, take your medication. Come to therapy. Don't let another episode happen.**
The words blurred.
My legs gave out.
I sank against the wall, the room spinning, memories crashing over me in waves.
Sunshine's face. Her eyes wide with fear. The blood spreading across her white sleeve. Her backing away from me. From the monster.
What have I done?
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. My chest felt too tight. I couldn't breathe.
What have I done?
And then the other thought, the one that made everything worse:
My father will kill me.
Not metaphorically. He'd threatened it before. *"One more incident like when you were fifteen, and I'll destroy you myself. You're only useful as long as you're controllable."*
Another episode. Another person hurt because of me.
Dizziness washed over me. The practice room tilted. I pressed my forehead to my knees, trying to steady myself.
But all I could see was blood.
Sunshine's blood.
Min-ah's blood.
Both because of me.
Both because I couldn't control the thing inside me that wanted to destroy everything.
Another episode.
Like this was just a recurring event. Not a catastrophe. Not proof that I was dangerous.
I looked at the blood on the floor and saw Min-ah falling. Heard Sunshine's gasp when the plastic hit her.
Two different moments. Same result.
Me destroying people who got too close.
---
**Sunshine's POV**
Director Han found me in the bathroom, trying to stop the bleeding with paper towels.
"Oh god." She was beside me in seconds, examining my arm. "Hospital. Now."
"I'm fine—"
"Six stitches later, you're going to wish you'd agreed sooner."
In the car, she didn't speak. Just drove, knuckles white on the steering wheel.
"He has borderline personality disorder. When he's under extreme stress and not taking his medication..." She glanced at me. "He loses control. Completely. And people get hur including himself. She finally said.
"What?"
"But he's been going to therapy—"
"For seven years. Since he was fifteen." Her voice was heavy. "Since the last time he....
He what? I asked
"Never mind"
And we drove to the hospital in silence.
---
At the hospital, I got six stitches.
The doctor asked what happened. I lied—said I cut myself on broken glass.
When I got home past midnight, I sat on my bed surrounded by Kael's posters and tried to process what Director Han had said.
*Seven years ago.*
*Borderline personality disorder.*
*Episodes.*
I should be terrified. Should quit. Should run.
But all I could think about was the look in his eyes right before I left.
Not rage. Grief.
Like he was watching himself destroy something precious and couldn't stop.
My phone buzzed. Director Han.
**Take a few days off. Doctor's orders.**
I stared at the message, then at my bandaged arm.
Then at Kael's face on my wall.
*What happened seven years ago?*
*And why do I still want to save him?*
I typed back: **Okay.**
Then I curled up in bed and let myself cry.
Not because I was hurt. But because he was.
And I finally understood: loving Kael Devereaux meant loving someone who didn't know how to stop destroying himself.
The question was—could I love him enough to help him learn?
---
**Kael's POV**
3 AM.
I sat in the destroyed practice room, surrounded by evidence of what I was.
Director Han had come. Lectured me. Left.
*"She's at the hospital. Six stitches. If you ever do this again, I'm done covering for you."*
Six stitches.
Because of me.
I pulled out my phone to call her. To apologize. To explain.
But what could I say?
*Sorry I'm exactly the monster everyone says I am?*
*Sorry my borderline personality disorder turns me into a weapon when I'm stressed?*
*Sorry I proved that you should've quit on day one?*
Instead, I opened my messages and stared at our conversation.
The last text was from this morning. From her.
**Don't forget your therapy appointment tomorrow! :)**
Tomorrow was today now. And I'd missed it. Because I'd been too busy destroying everything.
I scrolled up. Found the playlist I'd sent her last week.
**Songs that make me think of breathing.**
She'd responded: **Thank you for letting me help you breathe.**
My chest ached.
She deserved better than me. Better than this.
So I'd let her go.
Even if it felt like carving out my own heart.
Because that's what you did when you loved someone.
You protected them.
Even from yourself.
*Especially from yourself.*
I looked at the pill bottle in my bag. Still unopened after three weeks.
Then at my bloody hands.
Then at the bloodstain on the floor where Sunshine had stood.
*I'm sorry,* I thought. *For being exactly what you shouldn't love.*
*For being a monster who remembers what it's like to kill.*
*For not being strong enough to keep you safe from me.*
I put my phone away without texting her.
Some apologies were too big for words.
Some people were too broken to deserve forgiveness.
And some loves were better left to die before they destroyed both people.
Even if letting go felt like dying too.
---
**END OF CHAPTER 7**