Chapter 10
Jessica’s laughter echoed throughout the empty studio. The solo photo shoot that she had attended for Singles magazine had just ended and the staff had all packed up and had gone home. She was laughing because Donghae, who had stopped by to visit, still hadn’t stopped mimicking all the poses she had made for her shoot. It made him look utterly ridiculous and she, being the type of person who easily laughed, couldn’t help but give in to what he wanted her to do.

“Stop it!” she pleaded in the middle of giggling, slapping his arm. She was packing her things, which kept on being delayed, because he went on tapping her arm to make her look at the poses he was doing.

“How can I stop when you laugh so prettily like that?” Donghae questioned defensively, rubbing the arm that she had forcefully laid hands on.

This made Jessica stop in the middle of putting her clothes back in her bag. She gave him a surprised then a worried look. But before she could open to say something, the studio door opened noisily. She decided to ignore whatever it was that had just happened and finished packing her stuff, while he stood there and watched her.

“What are you two still doing here?”

Donghae looked up and narrowed his eyes at the newcomer. “What are you doing here?”

Jessica lifted a hand to his arm to calm him down. Forcing a smile, she addressed the earlier question, “We were just leaving, Keiji.”

“Flirting was more like it,” Keiji snickered as Jessica and Donghae turned to go.

Donghae clearly heard this and turned back without hesitation, even when Jessica grabbed his arm to stop him from doing anything stupid. He was really up to the limit with everything that was related to Keiji. He couldn’t understand, right from the beginning, how Jin Ri could ever trust someone like him. He was such a shady character.

“What did you just say?” Donghae demanded, glaring at him, his hands clenched to his sides.

“Let me revise it for you,” Keiji responded in a challenging manner, not wanting to back down. He was so tired of all the Super Junior members looking down and talking down on him like he was supposed to just bow down to them and disappear. “You should be careful with Jessica. She takes things the wrong way sometimes.” He smirked when Jessica looked away when he glanced at her. “Oh wait, didn’t Jessica date all of you already? You don’t need my warning then.” With a shrug, he turned around and started walking away.

“Donghae oppa, no!” Jessica suddenly yelled, startling Keiji.

But there wasn’t a chance to react as Donghae’s fist rapidly collided with his jaw. He stumbled back, falling to the floor, at the unexpected and strong impact. He looked up at the man who had punched him, touching his bleeding lip, and gave him a defiant stare.

“Oppa, he’s not worth it,” Jessica pleaded. “Let’s go.” He grabbed onto his arm once more and tugged on it.

There were a lot of things Donghae wanted to say to Keiji, things that he felt like he’d always wanted to tell him. He was sure that he wasn’t the only one who thought that he was ruining Kyuhyun and Jin Ri’s marriage. Because of him, the couple, who never usually fought, had been fighting even more so than usual.

He roughly grabbed her hand and led her out of the studio, slamming the door shut behind them, making her jump. She watched as he paced around for a couple of seconds, pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to calm himself down.

“Oppa,” she gently and cautiously called.

He turned to her at her call. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Me?” She blinked, taken aback at the question. It was the last thing she expected him to say. “I’m… fine.” She shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before and from him nonetheless.”

He let out a frustrated breath. “Why did you ever go out with that guy?” he blurted out. “He’s a jerk.”

“I didn’t know that then,” she muttered, looking away. “I was lonely and I got carried away with his words. I was stupid.”

Donghae was one of the two people, the other being Heechul, who knew about her past with Keiji. They had met in Japan, in one of the photo shoots they had done there. He was working as part of the production crew. He was handsome and she took notice and he didn’t let the opportunity slip by. He found her number out somehow and he asked her out. She said yes and things progressed from there.

“You’re not stupid,” he immediately corrected her, frowning at her words.

Donghae knew everything about her and Keiji. He knew that Jessica had fallen for him, even to the point of almost losing everything to him. They had been going out for a couple of weeks when he suddenly dumped her, without warning. She had begged him to take her back, even offering herself to him. It was a relief to Donghae that Keiji didn’t accept her offer.

Taking her hand tightly in his, he led her out of the building.

~ * ~

“He did what?” Jin Ri asked, looking shocked. She put down the knife she was using to chop tomatoes down and looked at Taeyeon. She and the other ladies of the Super Junior members were having one of their weekly get-togethers in her house. Taeyeon had arrived early to help with the cooking. As such, she had just finished telling her about the incident that had happened between Donghae and Keiji.

“That’s what Sica told me,” Taeyeon relayed with a shrug. When Jin Ri looked more worried than she expected her to be, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jin Ri lied, turning away and going back to chopping tomatoes. She and Donghae hadn’t talked since the lunch in their house. She was afraid that this incident would push him to tell Kyuhyun what he had heard even more. It was something that she should have told her husband already, but with all the fights they’d been having, about Keiji too, she didn’t think it was wise to bring it up now or ever.

Taeyeon chuckled. “If you think I’m going to believe that, you better think again,” she told her, watching as her friend, whose back was facing her, continued to pretend that everything was fine. “What’s really wrong?” she pressed.

Jin Ri made a quick decision in her head and turned around to face her friend once more, putting the knife back down on the chopping board. As she looked at Taeyeon’s expectant expression, she lowered her gaze to the floor and slowly revealed, “Keiji and I… we’ve gone out a few times when I was in Japan.” Cautiously, she lifted her eyes to look at Taeyeon’s reaction.

“Ri,” was the only thing Taeyeon could say, absolutely surprised at this new information. “You didn’t kiss him, right?” she straightforwardly asked. When Jin Ri bit her lip and didn’t answer, she slightly shook her head. “Anything else?”

“There’s nothing else,” Jin Ri honestly told her. “Not anything more than that.”

Running away to Japan, running away from Kyuhyun, was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. It was cowardice. She had run away from the man she loved most in the world, from the person who was the only one who ever made her feel whole. She cried each day that she was there, each day that she was away from him.

She had met Keiji when she was rushing to class. He was kind enough to show her the way. Just after she was about to go inside her classroom, he had boldly told her how much he enjoyed walking her to class and that he would love to take her out to coffee. She remembered smiling at him, thanking him for the invite, and declining. She didn’t think she would see him again, despite going to the same school.

But they had met again a couple of days after that. She was at the park near the school, on one of her more contemplative moments, crying. She had missed Kyuhyun terribly. It took everything in her not to call him. Despite changing phones and changing numbers, she knew his phone number by heart. She missed his soothing voice. She missed how it calmed her down and how it comforted her. And, at that moment, she wanted to be comforted especially by him. It was selfish, but there was hope in her that, somehow, he was still waiting for her, still hoping that things would turn out okay and that they would end up together.

Keiji had arrived, surprised to see her and even more surprised to realize that she was crying. Without hesitations, he sat down beside her and handed her his handkerchief. He didn’t say anything. He just sat beside her, watching other people in the park, keeping her company.

On other days, other places where they saw each other, they did talk normally. But every time they saw each other in the park and she would be crying, he would just sit there and not say anything. It was like a silent agreement between them that she needed the space and yet he didn’t really want to leave her alone that way. And so they just sat there in comfortable silence.

One day, he arrived late. She was sitting there, not really realizing that he wasn’t there. She was crying, of course. It was one of those rare days where she had talked to Sun Young. Hearing the voice of someone she cared about back in Seoul pained her heart even more. In a time when she needed someone to be there for her, she had also run away from everyone who could.

The sun had already set when he arrived. Without fail, he sat down beside her and handed her his handkerchief. But, this time, words were exchanged between them. And he had kissed her.

“I should tell Kyuhyun, shouldn’t I?” Jin Ri asked when Taeyeon seemed to be contemplating what to tell her.

“Well that would definitely be the ideal thing to do,” Taeyeon responded vaguely.

“What’s going on?” a voice from the doorway asked.

Jin Ri and Taeyeon looked up to find Angie and Nari both entering, putting some paper bags down on the kitchen counter.

“I hope you don’t mind that we didn’t ring the doorbell and just entered your home,” Nari said. “We know that you keep your key behind the flower pot and decided to just come in instead of ringing the doorbell.” Jin Ri merely smiled.

“You should change that already,” Taeyeon chided Jin Ri. “The fans probably know about that key by now.”

“Here you go,” Nari offered, putting the key on the counter. “I highly advise that you not put a spare key outside and just remember to bring your keys all the time. It’s not safe.”

“I will,” Jin Ri chuckled.

“Sorry we took so long by the way,” Angie explained apologetically. “Jungsoo was supposed to take care of the kids, but then he had a sudden schedule so I had to drop them off at their grandparents’. Then I had to pick Nari up at the boys’ dorm.”

“It’s fine,” Jin Ri assured them, helping them bring out the stuff they had brought for cooking.

“So what’s going on?” Angie asked again, looking at the two girls who were discussing something so seriously when they had arrived.

With Jin Ri’s permission, Taeyeon launched into the short version of what she had just been told about her and Keiji. Both Angie and Nari looked shocked, just like how Donghae and Taeyeon were. No one really thought she would go out with anyone who wasn’t Kyuhyun even if she had actually broken up with him.

“So you’re thinking about telling him about what happened, right?” Nari clarified, leaning against the kitchen counter, looking thoughtful.

“We did promise not to have any secrets from each other,” Jin Ri shared with them.

“I don’t know,” Nari began pensively. “It’s not like you cheated on him. You two weren’t together when the thing with Keiji happened.”

“So you’re saying she should just not tell him?” Taeyeon pressed, considering what she was saying.

Nari shrugged. “That’s just my opinion,” she explained. “I don’t think it matters anymore.”

Jin Ri turned to Angie, who was munching on a carrot.

“Riri, dear, you know where I stand on these things,” Angie told her. “Secrets aren’t good things, no matter how much in the past they are, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Because if it really didn’t matter, why would you need to keep it a secret?”

“It could just not have come up in conversation,” Nari countered with another shrug. “I mean, really, how would you tell him? Hey, Kyuhyun, by the way, Keiji and I went out a couple of times in Japan. We kissed, too. Thought you should know.”

“He wouldn’t ask about it either way because he knows you wouldn’t have ever done anything like that,” Taeyeon added.

“Which makes it worse, don’t you think?” Angie asked. “He trusts that Jin Ri had remained faithful despite being broken up, but she wasn’t. She doesn’t tell him about it for the longest time and then he finds out.”

“Is it really worth all the pain that it’s going to cost?” Nari wanted to know. “Sure, they exchanged a couple of kisses, they went out, but she and Kyuhyun weren’t together at that time. And she came back to him. They’re together and married happily.”

“How do you think Kyuhyun is going to react?” Taeyeon asked Jin Ri, who was just listening to all of their opinions.

Jin Ri looked at them, wondering the same thing.

~ * ~

Kyuhyun was talking to his manager and Ryeowook, discussing Ryeowook’s new single that was coming out the next week. It was a song that Kyuhyun had written, one that the management liked and thought would be best for Ryeowook’s voice and style of singing. Ryeowook had done very well during the recording. He really enjoyed the song and was very grateful that, as something of a thank you, he wanted Kyuhyun to star in the music video. What they were currently discussing was who the leading lady would be.

“Who do you want to work with, Kyuhyun?” the manager asked, looking at the list of SM artists in his hand. “Some of the SNSD girls are free.”

“I’m not really keen on working with the SNSD girls, although I don’t have anything against them,” Kyuhyun stated decisively.

“Why not?” the manager asked. “Not even Taeyeon and Jessica? They’re your friends.”

“Especially not Taeyeon and Jessica,” Kyuhyun declared, shaking his head. “Do you really want my hyungs to kill me?”

Ryeowook and their manager snickered at this. They knew very well what he meant. Kangin was very overprotective of Taeyeon. He was always hovering over her. If he wasn’t with her, he was always calling or texting her, asking her where she was. He was surprised that Taeyeon wasn’t getting suffocated. As for Jessica, he wasn’t really sure what was going on between her and Donghae. But he, as well as everyone, had noticed that they seemed to be closer than usual the past few weeks. And, after him defending Jessica against Keiji through a punch, everyone who knew about what happened backed off on pursuing Jessica. It was common knowledge that Donghae wasn’t one to use his fists unless he was defending something or someone very important to him. Clearly, Jessica was very important to him.

“Well what about the f(x) girls? There’s also Yeon Hee and Ara,” the manager suggested, looking at him from the list.

“I’m okay with working with all of them,” Kyuhyun stated. “They’re friends. But I was thinking of someone else…” He hesitated.

“Who?” Ryeowook asked interestedly. If he was hesitating, he must really want to work with that actress or singer.

“My wife,” Kyuhyun offered, smiling shyly. He could feel his face and ears turning red. If he was going to act being in love, he wanted it to be real. He wanted it to be with Jin Ri because it would be so easy for him to act in love because it was her.

“Would she be willing to do it?” the manager asked, interested in the idea that his talent had presented. “She’s pretty and would look good behind the camera,” he assessed.

“I don’t know,” Kyuhyun replied, shrugging. “I’d have to ask her about it.”

“Well then ask her and let me know,” the manager said, nodding at them to signal him leaving. “Ryeowook, come to my office after practice so we can discuss your performances.”

After their manager had left, Kyuhyun and Ryeowook made their way up to the practice rooms, where the other members were. Super Junior had been invited to a couple of events to perform and they needed to practice to be able to fill in Heechul’s and Yesung’s absences. Both Ryeowook and Kyuhyun also needed to step up vocally because one of the main vocal wasn’t going to be there.

They were all just hanging out and warming up for a bit before formally starting rehearsals. Kyuhyun was situated by the open practice room door, talking to Ryeowook and Siwon when he felt arms wrap around his waist from behind. The magnae grinned and immediately turned around, preparing to kiss his wife when he took a step back in surprise when he saw who it really was.

It was Hyo Sun.

“H-hey,” Kyuhyun stuttered, shock overcoming him. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to visit,” Hyo Sun responded with a wide smile, which she also directed to Ryeowook and Siwon, who both bowed politely. Her hands hadn’t left his waist and she noticed that he felt uncomfortable about it so she dropped them. “What’s wrong? You used to like it when I did that.”

Kyuhyun chuckled uncomfortably. “Well, we were together back then,” he reminded her, glancing helplessly at Ryeowook and Siwon, who had both raised their eyebrows at him. The two boys left them and went to the other members, who were also staring curiously at what had just happened.

Right at that moment, Jin Ri arrived, carrying a paper bag full of food. Kyuhyun almost yelped in relief and happiness at seeing her. He immediately rushed to her side, carried the paper bag instead and put his arm around her, kissing her on the cheek.

“Hello to you too,” Jin Ri chuckled, amused at how eager his husband was to see her.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Kyuhyun professed, beaming. His smile faltered when he saw who was with her. “With Keiji.”

“Oh, we weren’t—,” Jin Ri began to explain.

“I don’t care,” Kyuhyun interrupted, giving her a kiss full on the lips. “Remember?”

Jin Ri giggled and kissed him again, standing on tiptoe and wrapping an arm around his neck. This made all of the members groan and protest violently. Someone, and Kyuhyun guessed that it was Eunhyuk, had thrown a very smelly shoe at his back.

“Ahem,” Hyo Sun interrupted, rather embarrassed at the scene that was folding in front of her.

Jin Ri pushed Kyuhyun away and gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry,” Jin Ri apologized sincerely, moving towards her. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Jin Ri.” She offered to shake her hand.

“I’m Hyo Sun,” Hyo Sun greeted, shaking her hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! Kyuhyun talks about you all the time.”

“Hyo Sun, finally! He talks about you a lot, too,” Jin Ri told her, smiling as Kyuhyun put his arm around her once more. “I’m so happy that you two have reconnected.” She turned to her husband. “Didn’t Na Young go to the same high school as you?” she asked then turned her attention back to Hyo Sun. “Have you and Na Young seen each other yet?”

“You still talk to Na Young?” Hyo Sun blurted out in surprise, her eyes trained at Kyuhyun.

“Yeah,” Kyuhyun said. “I sang at her wedding. And she’s going to be a godmother to our kid.”

“When we have one,” Jin Ri corrected, chuckling.

“So… I guess I should be going then,” Hyo Sun announced, turning towards the door. “It was really nice to meet you. I hope that we get to meet and talk properly one of these days.”

“Oh of course,” Jin Ri stated, very welcome to the idea. “Why don’t you come to the house to have dinner with us next week?”

“I would love to,” Hyo Sun said, looking very pleased at the suggestion.

Hyo Sun bid her goodbyes to the couple and made her way out of the room, closing the door behind her. She came to face to face with Keiji, who seemed to be glaring at her. She glanced at the closed door then turned to him again.

“Can I help you?” she innocently asked.

But Keiji didn’t say anything. He just grabbed her arm and dragged her out of there.


===
Note:
Yes, Jin Ri was engaged to Shin Jae during the time that Jin Ri left Korea to go to Japan. But her running away didn't only pertain to Kyuhyun. She was running away from everything. Notice that she barely even spoke to Sun Young, who is her best friend in the world and closest family member. She was heartbroken in more ways than one and stupid for having gone out with Keiji during that time. But it was a coping mechanism. She had no one and he was there. And when I meant they went out, they weren't exactly together. They did just that, they went out and kissed a couple of times. That was it. Anyway, I didn't mention Shin Jae anymore because no one really took their relationship seriously even if they were so close to getting married.

I hope that clears things up a bit if you guys were confused. :)