Acht

After that one time I brought lunch to Jongin’s office, I hadn’t gone out of the penthouse at all without Jongin by my side.

At night, Jongin would take me out to eat dinner at some fancy, 5-star restaurant, or if he’s too tired, he would get me to sit next to him and watch TV whilst eating takeaway food he bought from restaurants on his way home, attempting to make small conversation at times.

At day, my time was spent with no motivation and in complete silence. I didn’t even know why I was getting paid $100,000 per day for lounging aimlessly in his massive penthouse, rolling around in total boredom with nothing to do.

I felt like I was losing sense of time as the days passed like weeks, and the hours passed like days. Each day went by in a blur, yet at the same time it felt like time was dragging on and on; even though it felt like a year had passed since I came to this house, in reality, only two week had passed. I couldn’t even bother with waking up early anymore, and had soon formed a habit of waking up in the late afternoon.

It was tiring. I felt like I was being mentally strained as what faced me every day was the pink walls of my bedroom or the plain, white walls that surrounded the interior of the house. There was nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, nothing to be excited about. Gradually, I found myself losing more and more of the cheerful side of me as I barely even smile anymore except for the forced smiles I put on for Jongin.

It’s been two weeks. Twelve more weeks to go. 

Brrrr

My eyes snapped open immediately at the sound of my phone ringing beside my bed, and I took in deep, shallow breaths to calm down my nerves from the shock of waking up suddenly. Slowly hoisting myself up to a sitting position, I picked up my phone to see that it was already 12:30pm in the afternoon, and I stared dumbly at the phone vibrating in the palm of my hand before it suddenly dawned me that the person calling me is Oh Sehun.

“Sehun?” I muttered to myself as I stared at the caller ID, unsure whether to pick up or not. I mean, Jongin did stress every now and then that I shouldn’t call anyone or receive any calls in case my cover is blown, but this is the first time that Sehun is calling me ever since that first day I came to Jongin’s house.

And it may be because of the loneliness I had felt during the past two weeks, but as soon as I saw that Sehun was calling me, a sense of aching longing overtook me, and before I knew it, I had tapped onto the answer button and was pressing the phone against my ear.

“Nari?”

As soon as I heard Sehun’s voice, his sincere, caring tone filled me with an undeniable sense of warmth that melted the ice bricks that was starting to form inside of me, turning them into water than began dripping down my eyes.

“Yoo Nari, are you there?”

I let out a small sniff as I nodded my head vigorously, feeling like a lost child who had finally found her home.

“I-I’m here.”

“Oh, thank goodness, where are you now?”

“Me? I’m…” I trailed off, “I’m in France, for that business trip I talked to you about.”

“France?” I could almost sense Sehun frowning, “Seriously, I know you’re lying- well, that’s not important now, anyway, wherever you are, you better come back home immediately.”

Rubbing my eyes so to get rid of any tears, I felt myself getting a bit worried as I heard the rushed and impatient tone in Sehun’s voice.

“Why, what happened?”

There came a long sigh from the other end of the line.

“Nari, when I tell you this, don’t freak out, okay?” Sehun spoke cautiously, “But…your mum’s in hospital right now.”

“Mum!”

I rushed into the hospital ward, my whole face pale as I dreaded on what I was going to see. Yet as soon as I went inside, all I saw was mum lying leisurely on the bed, her right leg bandaged and propped up as she watched TV whilst eating a packet of chips.

“Nari?” Mum seemed just as surprised as I was as she turned off the TV and stared at me with widened eyes, “What are you doing here, I thought you were overseas in France?”

*Oh Sehun you jerk!* All I could do was yell at Sehun angrily in my head as I gave mum an awkward smile, *You told me she was in critical condition!*

“Uhm, are you alright, mum?” I changed topic as I went over to her and furrowed my eyebrows at her bandaged leg, “What happened?”

“Oh, well, I fell down the stairs this morning,” My mum let out a laugh, “And next thing I know, I sprained my leg. But the doctors said that I’ll be fine after resting a while, I’ll be released from the hospital tomorrow morning.”

Nodding my head, I just stared at my mum as I took in her warm, brown eyes which