sleepless cinderella ☆ ten | ✔

08

The semester, your article, and your patience were nearing their ends. Your patience with what, exactly? Your boyfriend, of course. You'd been dating for months now, but nothing had changed. Sure, you had a drawer of stuff at his place and spent any nights he had off together there, had plenty of inside jokes, little nicknames to call each other, and he'd even unofficially met your mother after she had called you while you were out with him. But your relationship didn't feel any deeper than it had at the beginning.

Your perception of Ten hadn't changed at all. If someone had asked you now and after the first night you met him, who Ten was, your answers wouldn't be any different. You didn't know a lot about him emotionally.

And sure, you might know the entire timeline of his life from your interview, but you also knew nothing about him. He still was the same happy, flirtatious, playful, and cheerful man you'd met in the lounge that first night. He felt too happy, almost... artificially joyful.

Any time you almost were able to find out some kind of flaw or sadness within him, something not surface-level—like the mysterious family from the hospital cafeteria—he'd shut you down. Push you away. Layer on the saccharine sweetness and affection. Double down with counterfeit contentment and pseudo-sunniness.

It was tiring, having him throw up wall after wall every time it felt like you were getting remotely close to him. After he'd mentioned his fondness of cats, you'd suggested that the two of you get one, together. He shot you down, claiming that his work schedule was too hectic to care for another living creature. Didn't even want to listen to your very good point that yours wasn't, and you could easily take care of it while he was on shift.

Today, however, you'd had enough.

Ten had just coyly avoided giving an actual answer to your very serious question of how he deals with knowing that his decisions are often life-or-death ones. And he'd done it with a joke.

"Woah, that's a little dark, Y/N," he chuckled lightly. "Like the guys said before, I'm a hero! Never lost a patient! It's not that serious!"

That was it. You shoved the hand he had on your leg off, shooting to your feet and grabbing your voice recorder from the table. Stuffing your feet back into the sneakers you'd taken off earlier to sit more comfortably on his couch, you shook your head in disappointment.

"Y/N? What's wrong?" Ten had reached out for your hand, but you wrenched it away from him.

"I'm tired of you avoiding anything remotely serious with me, Ten. With the interview and with us. I could stand the skirting around the subject, but now you just fucking lied to me," you finally unleashed everything you'd built up inside you, getting genuinely angry as you continued on. "Or at least I hope you just lied to me, because if that's actually the attitude you have about your job, that is absolutely terrifying."

The 'click!' of your voice recorder turning off in the deathly silent room signified that it was over. What exactly? You couldn't give specifics, but in that moment, it could have been anything. Your conversation, your interview, your relationship. Anything.

Pivoting on your heel, you stormed out of his apartment, not so subtly slamming his door behind you.