09

the middle ground

“Go back, go back– Oh my god! Johnny!”

Jaehyun yelped, nearly slamming his mouse on the coffee table. He had been helplessly trying to shield Johnny’s avatar from being ambushed by a horde of waiting enemies, but using a piece of paper as a makeshift mousepad meant that he himself had limited movement to save Johnny’s sorry in their game of League. He closed his eyes in frustration as the other NCT members on their team started crying bloody murder in succession.

Peeking curiously at him, Youngran scooted over. “Uncle Jaehyun?” she said, leaning closely towards him. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, uhm,” Jaehyun said, trying to divide his attention between the game and the watching toddler, “I’m playing an online game with your dad and the other NCT members.”

“Oh,” she nodded. He could see her face contort in confusion – her two-year-old brain was yet to fully comprehend the world of online games.

He gave her a quick pat on the head. “I’ll play with you in a bit, okay?”

The magic words did the trick. “Okay!” she said, breaking into a wide smile and happily bouncing back to her mother. He found himself subconsciously smiling back at her, before the other boys online started yelling – “god damn it, Jaehyun, watch your !”

Youngran had always been particularly attached to Jaehyun. Perhaps, it was because he’d been around for almost every part of her life – from her being born, to her saying her first word, to the first time she used chopsticks. Simple things were enough to put a smile on her face, leaving him with a constant reminder that life could really just be that simple if he wanted it to be. She was part of the reason why he had been at Johnny’s place for weeks, making do with a cushion on the floor and the lack of a mousepad for his gaming needs.

His home had felt immensely suffocating since he returned from Paris – his car felt even more so. Turning to the passenger seat, he would see Seulgi munching away at braised chicken, dumplings, rice rolls, or whatever it was that Jaehyun whipped up for her, with her eyes sparkling like she hadn’t eaten better food in her entire lifetime. He could feel her patting him excitedly whenever she tasted something she especially liked, lauding him and his cooking skills to the high heavens. He would smile to himself, like a fool, before the airy, floaty feeling withered into something cold and heavy in his heart.

He still liked Seulgi. More than he thought he would. And her doing the right thing for the betterment of them both ironically made him like her even more.

He had always known that she would understand him. They had spent half their lives on the same path, following the same trajectory, forcing themselves to meet the same expectations. What he didn’t expect was for her to have the unyielding strength of mind that she did. Whether it was Johnny marrying Wendy or Rose, a couple years back, trying to get him to just take their relationship public, Jaehyun had seen everyone succumb to the exhaustion of the job enough for them to internalize that there was much more to their dreams. Perhaps there was, but there was a small, contradictory part of him that wanted to believe that there was something worth hanging on to.

Maybe that was why someone like Rose, who was worlds different from him, would have been better. Someone who would have quietly given up her dreams for him. Someone who would tell him that fighting in the trenches wasn’t worthwhile. Someone who would have loved him much more than she loved herself. Instead, his heart moved for someone who picked up her battle gear and steeled herself for the long, hard war.

“When you fall for someone who has something that matters to more to her than you, then you’ll know how I feel,” Rose had said, before slamming the door and storming away into the night. At the time, he thought she would probably end up being right.

But she wasn’t. Because him liking Seulgi wasn’t in spite of her commitment to her dreams – it because of that. It was because nothing and no one would be able to change what mattered to her. And Seulgi would never expect him to change what mattered to him for her sake.

Sitting at the dining table and peeling potatoes, Wendy observed the vacant expression on Jaehyun’s face. She didn’t need to ask to know the kind of thoughts that were occupying his mind.

But she did stare at him long enough before she noticed that Youngran had tottered back to him and spilled her entire cup of orange juice on his mouse.

Wendy was half-sitting, half-laying in her bed, her legs burrowed under the heavy blankets, her mind still weighed down by the thought of Jaehyun. His deep, contemplative expression had quickly dissipated in the ruckus that followed, but there was something about that look on his face that felt poignant and oddly… familiar.

“We fixed it!” Johnny announced, emerging through the doorway. He made his way towards his wife, clambering onto the bed. “It took us a lot of wiping and a few battery changes, but by some of luck, that gaming mouse of his turned out to be much sturdier than we expected.”

“Oh,” replied Wendy absentmindedly. Johnny pinched the skin on her wrist, causing her to yelp. “What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?”

She turned to Johnny, who had one of his arms propped up on the mattress, supporting his head. He sported an amused look on his face, a look that was as good as a full-blown inquiry into her dishevel of thoughts.

“Nothing,” she said, looking down at her palms. “Just thinking about Jaehyun – he’s been here for quite a bit these days.”

Johnny placed a hand on her lap. “I could ask him to go back home, if you’re not comfortable having him around.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine having him here. It’s just–“

–How he’s been. Wendy didn’t need to finish her sentence for Johnny to know the rest of it. He had seen the downcast expression on Jaehyun’s face when he snuck back into the hotel room after his night out in Paris. He had also heard the rumors circulating about the company ever since the article had hit the web. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together about the termination of Jaehyun and Seulgi’s relationship, and Jaehyun’s r