Chapter 15
“What are we doing here?” There was uncertainty in his voice. “It’s closed.”

“I thought coming here would cheer you up,” she explained. “Come on.” She tugged on his arm and pulled him inside.

“It still looks the same,” he said, wonder in his tone, as they looked around.

“It does, doesn’t it?” There was a pause as she stopped walking to look at him.

He smiled at her, his first genuine smile for the day. “Thank you for bringing me here. I haven’t been back ever since I left and… this place brings back good memories.”

“It does,” she softly responded.

They continued looking around, checking every nook and cranny to see what had and hadn’t changed.

After a while, they stayed in one of the empty rooms. The desks scattered everywhere, and they decided to just sit down on the floor, their backs resting on the wall.

They just sat there, side by side, not saying anything, not talking. Then, without much warning, she scooted closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

“I really miss the old days,” she quietly declared.

“I know,” he answered. “I do too.”

“Do you really?” she asked abruptly, lifting her head up to look at him. He pursed his lips, as if contemplating how he meant. “You don’t,” she finished for him, a bit of an accusing note in her tone.

“What are you talking about?” he chuckled, giving her a bit of a confused gaze.

“You’re happy with your life now,” she flatly stated.

He sighed. “Not at this moment, I’m not,” he interjected, staring at the floor.

In a second, his head had been turned with her help so that she could meet her lips with his.

“What are you doing?” he asked, breaking the kiss, eyes wide.

“I’m trying to make you feel better,” she whispered, her lips on his once more, coaxing him to relax and to give in. “Let me make you feel better. Give me the chance to make you happy.”

It took a while. But eventually, he gave in. His arms moved around her and pulled her closer to him, seemingly throwing away all the angry thoughts and resentments that he had.

Soon, they were both on the floor, spent from having more than just a kiss.

~ * ~

“Hyo Sun?”

She turned around, looking surprised. But the surprise immediately left her face and was replaced with honeyed joy.

Na Young knew that look very well. All too well.

“It is you,” Na Young greeted her, a small smile on her face. She shouldn’t have really been surprise that she was back. But seeing her again brought back some unpleasant memories.

“Na Young,” she greeted back. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Na Young told her, a small and satisfied smile on her face. “I’m married and expecting.” She put a hand to her still-small tummy.

“Oh Kyuhyun told me about your baby,” Hyo Sun dismissively stated, like it was old news to her. “Congratulations!”

“You and Kyuhyun are in touch?” Na Young blurted out. This time the surprise bounded towards her with so much force, she didn’t know how to react.

“Of course,” Hyo Sun answered with a nonchalant shrug. “We’ve been going out ever since we saw each other last September. I’m surprised he hasn’t told you, considering you guys have stayed so close.”

Na Young frowned at this. That meant that for three months they’d been in touch and Kyuhyun had forgotten to tell her. This worried her.

“We should all get together,” Na Young offered, recovering and amending her reaction. “And catch up.”

“We’ve caught up,” Hyo Sun interjected, referring to her and Kyuhyun. “But if you want, sure.” She fished out a calling card from her bag and handed it to her. “But Kyuhyun’s leaving for China in a couple of days so I don’t know how that’s going to work out.” She smiled at her and turned to go on her way.

“Hyo Sun,” Na Young called after her before she could stop herself. “He’s married this time.”

Hyo Sun stopped in her tracks and turned around to face her old classmate. “Oh is he? It didn’t seem like it,” she innocently countered. With a smile that was more like a smirk, she walked away.

Na Young stared at her retreating back.

Kyuhyun, what did you do?

~ * ~

Kyuhyun really didn’t know what had gotten into him. He was angry and upset and confused. But he loved his wife and he never ever wanted for what had happened to happen. She had gone after him to Japan and pledged that she would spend her whole life being with him and going after him. But how could she continue going after someone who had betrayed her trust, her love?

Trust and communication. It was only now that he thought he really understood the meaning of those words. Love really wasn’t the only thing that made relationships work. He realized what she meant now. For what was love without trust and communication?

He really was stupid. He should have listened to Jin Ri. She was the one that had made everything right in his life, as clichéd as that may sound, and she loved him more than anything in the world if her fighting for him was any indication. He should have listened to her and he should have believed her when she said that she would never cheat on him. Not with Keiji, not with anyone.

All the fears in his head and heart, there was no other way to address them than to talk to her about it. He should have talked to her. He would have then realized that he was being stupid and nothing this drastic would have happened. But he chose to let his pride and anger and hurt get in the way.

He closed his eyes and mentally berated himself. Not in any lifetime would anyone ever think that he could do such a thing, especially to Jin Ri. Not anyone, not him.

When he opened his eyes, his wife was looking directly at him. There was a longing look in her eyes, one that he knew was reflected in his. But she looked away and resumed what she was doing.

She was leaving. She said that she needed to get away to have time to think and just breathe. She told him that she felt suffocated, knowing that she somehow shared him with someone else. It didn’t matter if he rejected the idea and apologized again and again. She didn’t believe him and he wasn’t sure when she would ever start doing so again.

“Kyu, are you listening to me?”

He blinked and stepped away from his thoughts. She was looking at him again with a questioning look on her face.

Pushing himself off the wall, he scratched his neck guiltily. “I was just—sor—.”

“It’s fine,” Jin Ri immediately interrupted him, turning her back towards him and leaning against the sink.

She was tired of hearing him apologize. In the past week, he had done nothing but tell her how sorry he was, how stupid he was and how he loved her and that he never wanted or intended to hurt her. It wasn’t that she doubted the sincerity of his apologies. She didn’t. It was apparent how contrite and ashamed he was.

But it didn’t mean that she could accept it so easily.

“You don’t have to do this,” Kyuhyun quietly offered, hopeful and a bit desperate.

She paused for a second then pushed herself off of the sink.

“I’ve prepared three meals a day until the end of the week,” she told him, turning to the fridge and blatantly ignoring what he had just said. “You just need to heat them just in case you’re home and you get hungry.”

He watched as she proceeded towards the cabinets and continued, “Your favorite mug’s in here with the coffee and milk. I’ve also put all possible emergency contact numbers, including your members’ and families’, just in case something goes wrong and you panic.” She looked at him to see if he was listening.

“Okay,” was his only response.

“I’ve made sure that either Taeng, Zhoumi oppa, or Angie noona will check on you everyday,” she went on. “They’ll tell me if anything happens and I’ll—.”

“I can’t contact you?” he interrupted in a bit of a panicked tone. “Are you going to change your number again?”

She gave him a sad smile. His question just reiterated even more how bad things had become.

“I’m not,” she denied. “But I think it would be best if we didn’t talk for a while. Not at least until after you get back from China.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he croaked, alarmed at the prospect of not being able to talk to her in months. Super Junior M promotions in China were endless. They usually didn’t go back to Korea in weeks and even months. He remembered missing his hyungs so much. It was painful. The thought of missing Jin Ri was starting to hurt his heart already.

“Your manager told me that you’ll be back in two weeks,” she corrected him, a small smile on her face, one that made his heart soar a bit. “You can stand two weeks without me, right?”

“Two weeks only,” he held on with every hope in his heart, his gaze steady on hers. “Not anything longer than that.”

He thought he heard her say “me too”, but it was too faint for him to hear, and she had already continued on with her list of reminders for him.

Jin Ri had decided to go with Sun Young on her business trip to Thailand, in hopes of finding some clarity and breathing ground from everything that had happened in the past few days. After a week of crying, her cousins, who were all deathly livid—especially her male cousins, had all agreed for her that she should use this opportunity to get away for a while. Sung Ki, Yung Ho, Jae Sun, and even Il Sung had all promised, due to Jin Ri’s bidding, that they wouldn’t lay so much as a hand on him while she was away just as long as she left to start her healing process.

But she wasn’t going away just for herself. She was going away for Kyuhyun, too. He needed time to think and to process everything that happened without her by his side. He had to be able to see what he had done objectively and analyze where things started to go wrong. She wanted him to find himself again. Because the Kyuhyun that she was currently seeing was someone who seemed lost. And when he was lost, she was lost too. They had to find themselves in order for them to find each other again.

Agreeing to go on the trip meant having to explain things to certain people, those who mattered in her life and Kyuhyun’s.

The members weren’t slow on the uptake as they began to explain lightly that they were dealing with some problems. They were all suspecting something wasn’t right the moment they learned that the two had a major fight, one that made Kyuhyun not come home. It didn’t take even a minute of explanation for Kangin to stand up and grab Kyuhyun by the collar. Taeyeon had to bring him out of the room to calm him down. The other members weren’t forgiving either. They all started glaring at their magnae and some of them said some hurtful words, most of which hurt her, too. She was Kyuhyun’s other half, after all.

Everyone understood the need for space and planned out what to tell the media in case some nosy reporters and fans noticed Jin Ri’s absence in Super Junior M promotions.

“Will you let me know when you land?” Kyuhyun asked as they stood by the gate. Her flight was that afternoon, but she wouldn’t let him see her off. That was where they say their goodbyes.

“You’ll know when I land,” Jin Ri vaguely responded, making it clear to him that she was not going to be the one to tell him.

“I miss you already,” he muttered, shifting his stance and staring at the ground. She was leaving because of him and what he did. Every bit of his being hurt. He wanted so much to hug her and tell her not to go. But he knew it would be futile to stop her. They needed to be apart. They needed to breathe without each other and stand alone for a while.

“Take care of yourself,” she said, almost a whisper.

She willfully turned towards the gate, wanting to leave before she changed her mind. But as she reached for the knob of the gate, she was turned right back to face him again. She barely had the chance to open to ask why when his lips crashed onto hers.

It was a kiss of despair, regret, longing, hope and love all rumbled into one.

“I love you,” he told her as they pulled away, breathless.

Jin Ri tucked that deep into her heart as she left.

She wanted so much to believe it.


===

Author's Notes:
1. Yes, Kyuhyun cheated on Jin Ri. That's a fact. He was stupid and cheated.
2. It's currently December.
3. I'm sorry for writing broken!KyuRi. Trust me, it's more painful for me.
4. If you have violent reactions about my writing, please let me know. :)
5. /runs away now