His insecurity is getting higher after he saw Eungi bidding her goodbye to the Dutch guy in an intimate way, she’s kissing his check three times before she gets out of the café and the prejudice formed in his head are just getting worst. She enchanted him moments ago by saying she’d fight for his right and his acknowledgement about the journal and minutes later she slammed him to his own hell by being super friendly and touchy towards the Dutch guy.

Eungi said she needs to meet Professor Van Wijk and reports the interview to him so Kyuhyun quietly follows her again from behind. The autumn/winter wind blows even worse during the night, Eungi looks like she’s struggling to walk straight and all he wants to do is standing by her side as her anchor to the ground. He then remembers that she’s avoiding any kind of personal matters with him and that slims his chance to ever tell her about whatever happened a year ago, all the misfortune and misunderstanding that’s going on between them.

Fifteen minutes later Kyuhyun find himself following her to a party in one of the big houses next to the main street. It’s usual for Dutch people to spend their Thursday night longer compare to any other nights, Thursday are the time when the store opens up until ten and usually also the time they choose to have a party or celebration. He knows that he’s not invited so he waits for her in a bus stop nearby in order to be able to spots her once she’s out. Sometimes he thinks it’s creepy what he does for her, following her like a real stalker, renting a place right across her sublet house just so he can enjoys watching her from the big window in her home, even sometimes interrupts with her surrounding when she begins to lose control.

Kyuhyun never remembered her as a drunkard but seems like she spent most of her time chugging down alcohol from time to time she’s been here. He doesn’t mind as long as she’s being responsible for herself, but his patience was tested when he followed Eungi to Amsterdam a month ago. She had enough alcohol to get her drunk but she still managed to smoke a whole and begins to completely lost her mind. He was just watching from afar at first, but he had enough when one of her friend begun to laid his hand on her lap.

That night he ignored his secretive way to hide himself from her and took her away from the coffee shop immediately. It’s unusual for the locals to carry their drunk friend on their back so when Kyuhyun gave a piggy back ride to Eungi, people stared at them with question in their eyes but he didn’t care. He liked the way her arms wrapped around him and he liked the warmth of her body that glued to his back. Kyuhyun smiled a lot that night because Eungi continuously whisper in his ear, she kept on asking who he is, why he looks so similar to the man that she missed, she told him that he was as warm as that man and that he smells as lovely as him, then she kissed his cheek before she completely passed out that night.

The two hours’ train ride from Amsterdam to Delft were the moment when Kyuhyun wanted to stop the time. He had her in his arm, in his embrace as she laid her head on his shoulder peacefully. He would give everything he owns in the world to hold her that way again every day for the rest of their life, but sadly the ride was over too soon for him and he sent her back safely into her sublet house after he dig into her purse to find the house key.

That night Eungi seemed to be too relax to the point she allowed Kyuhyun to enter her house, let him put her onto her bed and even lingered a little bit to him. She insisted that he should stay with her that night and embrace her the way her man should, she was babbling whatever she wanted and what Kyuhyun could think about was only: if it weren’t him that took her home, somebody else might take advantage of her helpless stage—and he stayed even closer to observe her ever since.

His daydream interrupted with the sudden cold autumn mild rain, he’s been living in this country for more than four months to know it’s random weather pattern but tonight he didn’t prepare anything to cover up more since he prepared himself to look good in front of her in a hurry this afternoon. Kyuhyun loosen his outer coat and pull it up to cover his head from the rain while trying his best to hide under the tree next to the bus stop. Moments later he spots her figure walking out of the front door of the house, she’s not alone, Professor Van Wijk is with her and he seems to use ‘talking to her’ as excuse to lite up a cigarette outside of the house on the patio.

He tries to eavesdrop on their conversation but the drop of rain and the strong wind doesn’t help with his effort, in the end he just observes them talking like a mime show from afar.

*

“So I can proceed this to the court, right Sir?” Eungi presses her tone to her Professor.

“Cha, I already agreed to take him under my wing why would you bring this further?” The old man takes out his cigarette and Eungi automatically cups her hands near the cigarette stick to keep the wind away from his zippo.

“Because I want to bring Mr. Hwang down. It’s not fair for the student sir, you might think that it’s just a mere early research but it’s his work! Nobody should steal it away from him without his consent.”

“And how are you going to do that anyway? You need proof and testimonies; you’ll be needing an attorney also. The paper is already published so you might also deal with the journal’s legal system for doubting their reviewers.” He takes a long drag of his cigs.

“I don’t know but I really need to bring that man down. I promised your student that I would help him, Sir. Please at least tell me that it’s do-able.”

Professor Van Wijk chuckles and lowers himself to level Eungi’s face, “I wonder why are you fighting so hard for this particular student. You convinced me to trust you two days ago, stood up for this guy telling me that he’s more than what meets the eye. Tonight you try to lure me into helping you with legal matters over his previous research, what’s going on with you Cha?”

Eungi takes a deep breath and avoid his gaze, “I don’t like seeing my student being treated unfairly because of something he didn’t do.”

“I won’t like it either but sometimes you have to let them do their own battle.” He clears his throat and taking another drag.

“But it’s not fair for him Sir, he’s been treated wrongly in his whole academic career, it took him ten years to graduate from his bachelor studies and it has nothing to do with him being stupid.”

“I know, I saw a lot of potential in him also, the way I saw your potential back then. But I don’t have that much power to help you I’m afraid. You’ll be dealing with a very complicated legal system and you will have to deal with a lot of paper works, and when I say a lot, it’s A LOT!” He cringes to the thought of the legal steps that need to be taken to proceed with her plan.

“Aish, you could at least encourage me.” Eungi starts to mumble in Korean.

“Don’t use your language with me, I might think you’re cursing at me.”

“I am.” Eungi’s starting to lose her patience and she does the odd thing she rarely does, “Give me one of those.” She points to his pack of cigarette and doesn’t wait for his permission to take one from the box. “Come on, lit me up.” She demands her professor to help her light up her cigarette the way she helped him earlier.

“Nah, this is not you Cha. You hate smokers why trying to be one.”