‟chapter nine

Eric and Yongsun found themselves sitting next to each other in a private room of the restaurant two months after they last saw each other at the same show. Park Narae initiated a wgm reunion along with the two other couples during their wgm stint and the rest of the hosts, and she insisted that no one would be missing it. Eric tried to lied his way out of it by saying he had schedules somewhere in abroad or a practice for his upcoming tour that hasn’t even been brought to be discussed yet. Last week when he was so sure that he wouldn’t have to go, she sent another message into the group chat she just made saying that she specifically contacted his manager to clear a few hours for the reunion and Eric almost facepalmed himself when his manager gladly agreed to the offer at the thought of getting to see Mamamoo’s manager again. 

The other couples weren’t as awkward with each other as they were, and some of them got quite affectionate with one another again after having a few drinks. Eric couldn’t help but envied how affectionate Jota and Jinkyung were with each other even after all this time, and yet here he was, couldn’t even bring himself to greet the person sitting next to him. Her hair was no longer blonde like the last time he saw her, and she looked even more smaller than she was. He didn’t understand why did she even have to go on more diet when she was already skinny enough. 

Neither of them really ate much either, and although they both were secretly concerned about each other’s lack of appetite, they couldn’t bring themselves to tell one another to eat first. Yongsun rejected all the alcohol she was offered, and instead stuck to her cider drinks knowing how much of a lightweight she could be. She watched as Eric accepted all the alcohols their senior pushed into his hands, and she wanted so bad to tell him to stop drinking because he was slowly getting really red. She looked over at his glass a few times, and at one point, she actually contemplated grabbing his glass to stop him from drinking more. At this point, she wasn’t even sure if she was worried about how he’s not eaten much or about how much he’s been drinking tonight, but Yongsun knew for sure he’d ended up with a severe hangover soon if he continued to drink like this with how little he’s eating. 

    “Yongsun, you should eat some more.” Park Misun said, a look of concern flashed across her face and Yongsun broke her gaze away from Eric to looked at the older woman instead. “Do you not like the food? Do you want to order something else? You don’t look like you’ve been eating much tonight.” 

    Shaking both of her hands rather quickly, she insisted, “No, it’s okay, sunbaenim. We’re preparing for our next comeback, so I have to watch my weight.” 

But no one has to know that their comeback isn’t even planned for at least another long while - they just had their comeback, who would even believed her that they're already preparing for another one right now, but that was the least of her worry right now. She took another glance at Eric’s glass, then at everyone else sitting around them. They were too busy talking to each other to pay attention about both of them, so she grabbed his arm stopping him from drinking the alcohol Jo Seho just poured into his glass. 

    With a frown on her face, she mumbled just loud enough for both of them to hear amidst the loud music. “Don’t drink too much.” 

Eric stared at her, then silently removed his arm from her grip. He didn’t even have to say anything for her to almost break down at the look on his face, but she was just as exhausted about this as he was. She knew she made a big mistake and the chances of her reconciling with him is close to none, but she did not like that he was not putting his own health first because of her. She watched helplessly as he ignored her then placed food into his plate and tried to ignore the fact that he didn’t acknowledge it. She knew he had no choice but to eat it if he didn’t want to be asked by everyone else, and he did exactly that. Yongsun took that as an opportunity to filled his plate with food. Both Eric and her knew how stubborn they both could be. 

After a few more hours, Jinkyung and Cao Lu had to leave first, and gradually, everyone of them excused themselves to the bathroom together or to make a phone call leaving only both of them alone in the room. Yongsun looked at Eric’s plate and was relieved to find that he at least finished what she put in his plate. 

    “Stop drinking too much.” Her voice came off much more concerned than she expected and she was surprised to find him looking back at her this time. “You’ve already had enough for tonight.” 

    He sighed. “You don’t have to act like you care.” 

    “I genuinely care.” She watched as his expression remained stoic. “I mean it.” 

She was glad she put that out without having to lie to themselves anymore. She couldn’t afford to hurt him anymore, not when she saw how vulnerable he looked like right now. Eric could only scoffed and looked away. He wanted to believe her but he couldn’t bring himself to anymore, afraid that she would tell him that it was just an act all over again. He didn’t even know how much has he drank tonight, but he knew he was deadly dizzy. He couldn’t even find the strength to pull back when she grabbed the alcohol in front of him further away from him, but parts of him were glad that she did because he didn’t even know how much longer he would take this to. He knew he was being childish and stupid, putting his own health at the line over this but he needed something to get over the pain and the emptiness inside him. Even if it only worked temporarily. 

    “Please.” She whispered, tears welling in her own eyes. “I hate seeing you being like this.” 

    Eric looked away. “Yongsun, please just stop.” 

    “Stop what?” She almost half-yelled at him, annoyed at herself for being so weak about this when she was the one who turned things this way but annoyed at him for allowing her to do that every times. 

    He waves his hand at nothing in the air. “Doing this - everything. I can’t keep up when you’re being like this. One second, you cut me off like I don’t exist and another second, you pulled me back in and I can’t keep up. Give me a ing moment to breath, and take all of these in and move on. Stop pulling me around like a stupid puppet.”

Yongsun knew it was his alcohol talking, but his words wrenched her when he put it that way. He was never a puppet to her, and heck, as selfish as she could sounded right now, she hates the thought of him trying to move on.   

Eric watched as the guilt painted over her face once again, and he felt pathetic for himself. He felt horrible for phrasing his words that way in front of her, but he didn’t need her to pity him but at the same time, he almost wished those tears meant that she really genuinely cared for him like she said. He used to believe that he was one of those people who knew her well because she said so herself, even without having to ask her but now he couldn’t even tell if what she was doing for him was genuine anymore or not. It was as if he almost never knew her at all. 

    Running his hand through his own hair, he looked down and slumped against the couch they were sitting on. “You know what is ridiculous about all of these? The fact that I wanted to believe you so bad, but I can’t even tell if you’re telling the truth or not anymore.” 

    “I told you I mean what I’m saying right now.”

    “How am I supposed to know whether you really mean it or not if you kept on telling me one thing then do the complete opposite of it?” He groaned and he was supposed to look really mad and frustrated at her, but all Yongsun saw was a fragile man who just needed reassurances that this was all just lies. “You changing your number and cutting contact were a great decision, so let’s just stick with that. Let’s just pretend that what we had 3 years ago was just a short drama we both had to act in as parts of our jobs.” 

She knows she told him similar thing but she hates it when he said it himself. It was never a drama they had to act in to her, she was genuine through all of it and she was sincerely thankful for his presence the whole time. She was thankful that it was him that she was paired with even though she never really said it, but she meant it when she told the whole world that his presence himself was a great gift to her. 

    Letting her own emotion taking over her, she cried, “But we both know it was not acting.” 

    “You’re the one who said it was all just an act!” 

This time, he was the one to raised his voice at her and it surprised both of them. Eric sighed and closed his eyes, trying to keep his own emotion under control. They shouldn’t be arguing right now in this place when their colleagues could walk into the room anytime soon. Not when neither of them can't even keep their emotions under control and lets it do all the talkings. 

    He tried to steady his breath and his voice shook when he spoke again, “Yongsun, just please. You’re the one who shut me down when I reached out, and now you can’t just expect me to act like nothing happened and believed you like an idiot again.” 

The door suddenly opened as Park Narae returned back from the restroom with Park Misun. Both Eric and Yongsun stirred in their seats, and looked away from each other. Yongsun pulled her cap further down and tried to make it oblivious to everyone else that she was crying. The two older women were still oblivious to the whole situation and instead proposed a cheer as they held out their glasses into the air. None of them really noticed until Eric was so drunk that he almost couldn’t stand up on his own. 

Jo Seho almost panicked thinking he might have accidentally fed him a little too much alcohol. Park Narae and Park Misun scolded him for kept on pushing alcohol into Eric’s hand, but Yongsun didn’t want to tell them that it was because of their fight. It was hard enough with just two of them knowing this, she didn’t want anyone else to know about this.

    Yongsun rushed to hold him and in a low whisper, she said, “It’s okay, I’ll take care of him.”

Seho offered to call Eric’s manager for them, and the rest helped Yongsun supported Eric’s body as his whole weight was on her. She could almost feel his body burning as she was holding onto him, so she told her manager that she might needed to stay overnight at his house to take care of him and she was glad her manager easily agreed to it. Throughout the whole ride to his house, he passed out with his head on her shoulder and she silently his hair, feeling especially bad that this was all because of her. 

     Mumbling quietly, she sobbed, "I'm sorry."

Eric’s manager told her the passcode to Eric’s apartment and helped her brought Eric into his room. He apologized for not being able to stay because he was still staying with his family, but promised he’d get whatever she needed him to buy in the morning if she asked. Yongsun knew from her manager before that he wasn't actually living with his family, but told him that it was fine anyway, she was more worried about Eric. 

Filling a medium-size bowl with water, she placed a damp washcloth over his forehead and wrists in a hope to bring his temperature down. She knew Eric always ended up having a fever whenever he’s really tired or when he has a hangover that would eventually turned into a flu. She didn’t even know how long did she try to make his temperature go down with the damp washcloths, it was taking longer than she expected. It was already 4 in the morning and she didn’t want to call to ask her mom for help because she’d still be sleeping, so she just kept on applying damp washcloth over his body, hoping it’d go down soon. 

Eric woke up to his head aching as if it was about to break into pieces. He fluttered his eyes open and found damp washcloths on his wrist and forehead. Confused, he pulled the one on his forehead off and shifted onto another side of the bed to find a familiar woman asleep by his bed while sitting on the floor with her head and hands on his bed. A bowl of water was sitting next to her and her hands were holding onto the damp washcloth on his wrist. It didn’t take him long to figure it was Yongsun from the outfit she was wearing from last night. 

Silently, he reached his free hand to tuck away her hair that fell over her face, but pulled back immediately when she woke up and sleepily looked at him. 

     Removing the washcloth from his wrist, she asked, “How are you feeling?” 

    “What are you doing here?” 

    “You drank until you passed out yesterday and your body was burning, so I brought you home.” She said and got up, taking the washcloths and the bowl with her. “Get up and have some breakfast first, then take some medicine.”

Eric watched her silently, confused on how to even respond. Yongsun has always been surprising but now it’s to the point where he wasn’t even sure what to do anymore. He couldn’t understand why would she constantly tried to take care of him when she wanted nothing to do with him. Shifting onto another side of his bed, he buried his face under one of his pillows, annoyed at both the headache and the thoughts that didn’t even help make it better.

    “I know you’re mad at me and you can be mad all you want to, but please come and eat first.” She said, her voice small and tired. “Please just let me take care of you until you’re well again. You can ignore me all you want to, just eat and take your medicines then I’ll leave.” 

It was her breaking voice that got him, and Eric eventually got up from his bed and followed her to the kitchen. She placed a bowl of porridge she just heated up in front of him and a plate of white kimchi. 

    “I know you usually have bread to get rid of hangover, but since you’re down with a fever and a cold, porridge would be better for now.” She said and took a seat in front of him. Her head was hurting her just as much, she didn’t get to sleep at all last night and only fell asleep a while ago after waiting to get the porridge she ordered for him. In a small mumble, she said, “And, I ordered this so don’t worry about it not tasting good.” 

Eric almost smiled at that. She still never changed after all these time. 

    He took a quick a glance to find her yawning and Yongsun stopped yawning almost right away when their eye met. “Aren’t you going to eat?” 

Shaking her head, she said she’s fine but Eric insisted so she eventually had some too. She knew he was just as stubborn as her, and if she could make him ate last night with how stubborn she was, Eric could also do the same thing to her. They ate rather quietly, even though there were a lot that needed to be ask but all Yongsun could looked at was her own bowl of food. It was until Eric spoke first for the first time that day that she looked up from her bowl almost a little bit too quickly.

    “Why did you lie?” His voice was soft just as how she used to remember and Yongsun was glad to know he wasn’t as mad at her anymore.

    Poking her spoon around in her bowl, she said, “I was scared. You didn’t sound too enthusiastic talking to me and I had a minor anxiety that you wouldn’t want what I want, so it just ended up that way. I guess I was also scared of how negative both of our fans would be, and I didn’t want to hurt any of them including you. I know it was a stupid and selfish thing to do, and I wouldn’t mind if you really want to go back to us not knowing each other.” 

Eric looked at her, and he opened his mouth to say something but he couldn’t really think of what to say. Maybe he was relieved to know that she didn’t mean what she said back then, or maybe he was confused because he wasn’t sure what choice she wanted to make for real this time. 

    “What if I asked you the same question again?” He said and this time, he was the one who poked his spoon around in his own bowl too. Eric had a feeling they both weren’t going to finish their porridge anytime soon. “Would you still answer the same thing?” 

    “That it was all an act 3 years ago?” She asked. “No. Everything was genuine and sincere on my parts, and I’ve never once thought it was acting.” 

He nodded, finally feeling completely relieve for once hearing her answers. At least now they both knew what they really meant to each other, and at least now neither of them have to lie to one another anymore. Watching as she fiddled with the spoon in her hand, Eric suddenly leaned in to kiss her. Her eyes widened in surprise but it didn’t take her long to process what was happening and to kiss him back. Yongsun almost felt the sudden urge to cry but held herself back because she didn’t want to ruin the moment. She was just glad everything worked out between them even though they both knew what they were signing up for. But as her members said, maybe she should really started thinking and putting her own happiness before everyone else first this time. 

    She giggles when they pull apart and Eric smiles with her. Staring at her, he said, “I hope whatever you really want that day still remains the same.”

She smiles and leans in to kiss him first this time. She didn’t care if their porridges were turning cold or if she’d catch Eric’s flu or how sleepy she was from not sleeping last night, but she was happy. Way too happy than she’s ever been in her entire life and she knew this time she wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the whole world. She loves him, and she doesn’t want to tell anyone else otherwise this time.