Third Person’s POV

“At that time... I was trying not to let you go. I was trying to hold onto you. Did you realize that?”

Nayoung’s words keep repeating in his head. It’s like it is set on a playlist, it keeps booming in his mind. Those sentences are too sharp, too murderous for Hyukjae. He wants to block his ears from the girl’s painful tone, but he knows that won’t work whatsoever. The voice, the tone, the words, the pain – they are all recorded in his heart and won’t be detached any time soon.

“But I failed. You went away on your own.”

No! He wanted to scream that word so bad. He is strongly against that one sentence. He didn’t go away on his own. He was dead at heart, too. But again, it wasn’t like he had the chance to choose. He hates the fact that not everyone could know what he went through. Not everyone could know how hard it was, how depressing it was...

Hyukjae sighs. Maybe he took the wrong choice at that time. Maybe he shouldn’t have left. He shouldn’t have sacrificed himself. He shouldn’t have sacrificed their relationship.

But, it was for Nana herself. It was for his parents. His family. His grandfather...  

“...So how do you think, Mr. Lee?” suddenly Hyukjae snaps out of his thoughts. He looks up and comes face to face with a man in the middle of his 40’s. The man is beaming a million watt smile at him.

Hyukjae blinks. .

“U-uhm...” he smiles awkwardly. What did that man even say?

Three pairs of eyes are looking at him intently. One of them belongs to his secretary who looks at him in confusion. After today’s lunch time, he’s been acting weird. It’s her first time to see Hyukjae constantly reeling into deep thoughts when he’s at work. Usually he would’ve paid his full attention to his clients but today is totally different. He keeps zoning out. And his face is literally falling.

“I- Uhm, excuse me, I’ll have to discuss it with my secretary first.” He says leaning back in his chair and turns his head to the frowning secretary. Blushing in embarrassment, Hyukjae whispers, “Secretary Jung, do you... know what he’s just said?”

Secretary Jung widens her eyes. He wasn’t even listening?

“He asked if you could attend the banquet for Yang Corporation’s anniversary.” She tells him.

Hyukjae gets redder, he was just mortifying himself even further. He thought Mr. Yang was talking about their project. So it’s just about a banquet? What’s there to be discussed with a secretary if it was just about a banquet invitation? He feels so stupid now.

“Ah, I’ll attend it, of course.” Hyukjae leans forward and tries laughing it off.

“It’s my honor to invite you.” the man smiles. “Can you give some speech at the banquet?”

“Sure.” He nods.

The man laughs. “You’re amazing, Mr. Lee. You’re young, competent, and brilliant. No wonder Chairman Lee is very proud of you.”

Hyukjae’s heart clenches. His smile instantly disappears but no one would be aware of that. He’s been wearing his pokerface too often and his emotions have been perfectly hidden. But deep inside, he’s fuming. Out of reflex he tightens his teeth as if his bottom jaw were about to drop to the floor. Self control, Hyukjae. Self control.

He quickly neutralizes his expression with a forced smile. “No, don’t say that.” I’m seriously sick of it.

“Ah, you’re too modest.” Mr. Yang laughs again. “Too bad Chairman Lee can’t attend the banquet. He’s still in America, right? How’s his health? I heard he would be back in a month.”

Hyukjae almost bites on his lip. Calm down.

“Oh. I don’t know.” He replies flatly. To be honest, he doesn’t want to know nor care.

Mr. Yang looks a bit taken aback with the young man’s sudden change of tone, but he decides to brush it off. At least he had signed a huge contract with ridiculously huge profit with LJS Corporation. He actually doesn’t need to care about the rest.

After a few talks, which in Hyukjae’s opinion were just to beat around the bush, the private meeting is dismissed. All he wants to do now is just sleep early and forget about everything today. He’s worn out. Even though the weariness obviously wouldn’t be vanished with just a physical rest, at least he wouldn’t have to be conscious to his problems in his sleep. Determined to take a calming nap, Hyukjae drives straight to his apartment.

But then he notices a pair of familiar shoes at his doorstep. Hyukjae curses under his breath. Why does everything keep getting him on his nerves today?! Not only he can’t sleep early, but he also has to see someone whom he doesn’t want to see the most now. There's only one person who could enter his apartment without permission like this. Closing the door shut he walks to the living room. As expected, the television is .

“Oh, hey! You’ve-” Hyukjae cuts him off by tossing his jacket suit to the couch harshly. Too bad Donghae isn’t fast enough to dodge it from hitting his face. “Yah! What the hell?!” he stands up immediately and follows his cousin to the kitchen.

Hyukjae is mad. No, scratch that. He’s beyond furious. He flings the fridge opened and downs the first bottle of cold water he sees. His blood is practically burning fire.

“Hyukjae!”

“What?!” he screams.

“What the hell is going on?! Why are you-”

“What the hell? Did you just say what the hell?! Here’s the hell! Some bastard was asking me to come to a darn restaurant and it turned out he wasn’t there! Satisfied?!” he slams the bottle onto the table. Donghae is silenced. This is not the response he expected. “Damn it Lee Donghae! I told you not to interfere with my life!”

Hyukjae stops, panting and controlling his anger. He looks away before the urge to create some purple bruises in his cousin’s flawless face gets the best of him. His eyes are filled with daggers. Frustrations, depressions, anger, they are all clear in the darkened orbs. He drops his body on the black high stool beside the kitchen counter.

Donghae softens, he knows his plan wasn’t going smoothly. Guiltiness washes all over his body like a bucket of cold water. “What happened?”

Hyukjae remains silent. He really wants to tell him to leave but he can’t even find his voice. He feels the stinging tears in his eyes.

Donghae slowly steps closer to him. He pats his shoulder gently, surprised with how shaky it is.

“Hyukjae,”

“It’s over now.” He tightens his fists. “It’s over...”

Donghae sighs. “What went wrong?”

“Everything,” Hyukjae doesn’t hold back the threatening tears. “Everything went wrong. Everything was just wrong.” He regretfully says. “The plan, the timing, the decision... even I was wrong.”

“You weren’t, Hyukjae. You were just... stuck. If I were you maybe I would have done what you’ve done.” He looks at Hyukjae in concern. “Did you not explain about this to her? It’s not possible if Nayoung doesn’t want to understand your condition back then.”

Hyukjae shakes his head. “Like I said, everything was wrong.”

Donghae snaps. Hyukjae can be very stubborn sometimes. “Lee Hyukjae,”

“I've hurt her too much. And I can’t fix anything.”

“Yes you can.” Donghae replies.

“But it’s too late now!” he spits as he looks up in anger. “She knows everything. Apparently my phone is with her all this time and Daeyoung had called in. She knows I’ve been contacting her brother. Now she thinks I’m just playing with her. I just... I don’t know. Maybe I should just stop.”

“Hyukjae,” Donghae speaks calmly, despite of the compulsion inside him to bash Hyukjae’s head onto the counter top. He really wants to knock some sense of this thick-headed guy. “Don’t you dare stopping.” Now his tone is grave. “Yes, I’m your cousin. I understand your condition more than anyone else but you can’t forget that I was her best friend as well. I believe she doesn’t want to lose you either. She just feels betrayed. Well maybe that’s because you told her you were going to chase your dreams to US instead of telling her the real reason.”

Hyukjae gasps. “How did you...?”

“I talked so many things to her yesterday. And Hyukjae, even though you’ve mastered business or management or whatever it is, I should say you’re an idiot.” Donghae glares at him. “I won’t blame Nayoung if she mistakes you as an egotistic, obsessed jerk. You’re making her misunderstand yourself with that reason for leaving her. Dude, you seriously didn’t have to cover up for that old man.”

“That old man you’re talking about, he holds the handle for everything, Lee Donghae. Just in case you forgot, he can control everything.” Hyukjae replies the glare. “And if I told her about the real reason back then, I believe she would’ve given up on her dream.”

“Which in the very end she still couldn’t reach.” Donghae finishes for him. He unconsciously forms balls with his fists. He is angered. He is not pleased with how ‘that old man’ practically ruined Hyukjae’s and Nayoung's lives. “Damn, he’s really something. Tell me again why we agreed to be his successors.”

Hyukjae sighs. “Do you remember Mr. Yang?”

Donghae scoffs. “Another old, greedy man that we met at the yearly meeting? Yeah. Why?”

“I was having a meeting with him this afternoon. He said that the old man-” Hyukjae stops, cursing inwardly at his wording and rephrases his sentence. “He said Harabeoji is coming back in a month.”

Hyukjae himself feels nothing but wrong for mentioning him as his grandfather. He’s disgusted. But he couldn’t help it, his mother has always been telling him not to hate his own grandfather despite of his deeds; despite of the fact that he was messing up with her son's life.

“Don’t even call him Harabeoji again, Hyukjae. Just admitting him as our grandfather in front of the media is already mortifying. I’ve lost my respect for him.” Donghae sneers, before double-taking Hyukjae’s words. “Wait, what? He’s coming back here? What for?! Shouldn’t he just live happily ever after in Seattle while we make money for him?!”

Hyukjae shrugs. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

Donghae gives him a look and gasps. Hyukjae is like an open book to him and he almost had the ability to read every piece of his mind. “No, Hyukjae. You can’t be thinking of letting her go again this time.”

“Trust me, Donghae, I don’t want to. But what if he-”

“Then do something!” Donghae screeches, he already knows the ‘what if’ Hyukjae wanted to say. “If he wants to ruin you, or her again, you need to do something! Stop sacrificing everything you have and stand for your ground! And don’t you dare contemplating about this. This is not a suggestion, this is an order!”

Hyukjae looks at him, shocked with his sudden outburst. Since when are the tables turned? Donghae is the one at fault since his ‘help’ wasn’t helping at all. Hyukjae should’ve been the one exploding at him.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Donghae asks, irritated.

Hyukjae breaks into a small smile. “No, just... thanks.”

“For what?”

“For suggesting.”

“It wasn’t a suggest-”

“You’re right. I should stand for my ground, I can't keep giving in to him." He smiles lightly. "Now I know that at least you’re not brainless anymore.”

Donghae hisses. “Bastard.”

Hyukjae grins. “By the way, want to accompany me to Mr. Yang’s banquet? I guess it’ll be boring there.”

Donghae rolls his eyes. “No. What am I, your mistress?”

“You’re a president, too, idiot.” He chuckles.

“Whatever. That old man is obsessed with you and your million dollar project, not me. Why should I-” Donghae stops mid-sentence as something comes up to his head. Wait. The banquet... It could be a perfect chance! Aish, me and my genius head. “Okay, I’ll come.”

Hyukjae raises a brow, something is fishy with that fish. “Why so sudden?”

“I’m a President, too.” He smirks.

“Whatever.” Hyukjae rolls his eyes and walks out of the kitchen, not wanting to face the bipolarity of his cousin. Donghae smiles behind him, looking at him quietly and thinking about a perfect scenario for the banquet.

I told you I’m helping you out, Lee Hyukjae. If one attempt fails, I won’t stop trying. Make sure to pay me something if this works.

Meanwhile at Kang family’s residence

A heavy sigh escapes Kyuhyun’s lips. He looks at the girl in front of him intently and observes her every movement. But she’s been motionless. She’s so quiet, so pale. Her eyes are darted straight to the turned off wall-hanging LCD screen in front of her bed. Her beautiful orbs are filled with nothing but blankness and the white part of her eyes is blood-shot red.

Kyuhyun shakes his head, sometimes he just wants to read everything that flashes through her mind. He wants to understand her thoughts. He wants to be the pain-killer for her heart. However, Nayoung is anything but talking now. How would he comfort her if she doesn’t verbalize her problems? He doesn’t know why she’s being her quiet self again. He doesn’t even know if she really wants him to be there now.

Kyuhyun slips the electronic sphygmometer off her upper arm and folds it into the box. Once he’s done, his eyes are focused yet again to her lifeless figure. She still doesn’t talk nor look up at him.

He clears his throat, careful not to surprise her. “Nana,” he caresses her forehead gently. Eventually Nayoung looks at him. “Your blood pressure is very low.”

Nayoung isn’t surprised at the result. She smiles meekly. “I’m anemic.”

“You’re stressed.” Kyuhyun corrects her. He locks his eyes with her blank ones, trying to look for the answer for his inward questions. “What’s wrong?”

Suddenly Nayoung breaks the gaze. She looks somewhere else, Kyuhyun’s soothing eyes are only making her tears well up fast. Nayoung shakes her head. “Nothing, Kyu. Work is just... unbearable.”

Kyuhyun lets out another sigh. He knows something is unbearable in her mind. But absolutely it’s not about work. It’s something that always makes her this quiet and introverted. Kyuhyun is not a perfect guy, sometimes he would run out of patience with her moods. But he’s been enduring it for the longest time, which is a quite hard task for him. And this time, he’s anything but happy with her silence.

Kyuhyun brushes her fringe out of her face before abruptly standing up. “Don’t skip your meal.” He says, a bit monotonous, as he gathers the medical devices into his brown leather briefcase. It wasn’t his intention to say that so coldly to her, he’s just... he’s afraid to lose her.

“Kyu,” Nayoung reaches for his hand, stopping him. Kyuhyun doesn’t divert his gaze to her but stops moving. “Kyu, I... I’m sorry.”

Pang. His heart hurts when he hears her sobbing silently. He quickly looks at her and panicked. “H-hey, why are you crying? No, no, I’m sorry, okay?” he quickly crouches down to sit beside her and wipes the tears away.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m so annoying, I know...” She sobs harder. “But I really don’t want to talk about it now. I know you’ve been doing this all the time but please, please understand me.”

“I will, I will. Stop crying, okay?” he pulls her into his warm embrace. He closes his eyes shut and rests his chin on the top of her head. Seeing Nayoung talkless hurts him, but seeing her crying like this hurts him more. He starts humming for her, his voice smooth and gentle.

Slowly, her tears and his hums lead her into a deep slumber. She’s too tired, and being embraced is something that can ease the emotional exhaustion. Sure, Hyukjae’s warm arms could keep her safe and made her feel completed. But Kyuhyun’s hug is the best for now. She knows she had thrown away the chance of her and Hyukjae being together again. And now a painful regret fills her chest. She decides that sleeping may help.

Kyuhyun pulls away a little just to take a glance of her face. The sobs are slowly vanishing away, replaced by her steady breaths. He watches her face. She’s sleeping. Her eyes are closed and her lips parted a little. Gently, he fixes her pillow and lays her on her back.

He examines her sleeping figure, his eyes glinting with sadness. “You love him too much, don’t you?” he asks quietly. He knows that’s the ultimate reason why she’s crying a bucket of tears. He knows she can’t hear any of his words, but he couldn’t help but ask. His hand cups one of her cheeks gently and wipes the stained tears on it. “That guy is so damn lucky. But he’s so damn stupid as well. He doesn’t know how to treasure a precious girl like you.”

Unlike me, I’m so damn smart, I can treasure you like you’re the most valuable thing to me. Which you already are. Kyuhyun smiles a little at his own bitter joke. But I’m not lucky enough to have your heart.

With the last sigh, Kyuhyun stands up and fixes his dress shirt. “I hope I won’t have to wait for much longer time.” He smiles at her face and leans down to plant a chaste kiss on her forehead. “Good night, Nana-yah.”

He turns the lights dimmed and walks out the white door. He notices the oldest maid waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase.

“Kyuhyun-ah,” the maid calls out, smiling a worried smile at him. She has known him for years and Kyuhyun had told her not to call him Mr. Cho or doctor Cho.

“She’s sleeping.” Kyuhyun smiles at her. “Ahjumma, take care of her, alright?”

“I will, thanks for taking care of her Kyuhyun.” She says. “But what’s wrong with Nayoung? I’ve noticed she’s been quiet again since 4 days ago. It’s like her old self is coming back again.”

Kyuhyun walks with her to the doorstep. “Do you know... uhm... Lee Hyukjae?”

“What?” the maid looks shocked. “Hyuk... jae?”

Kyuhyun nods.

“Y-yes, I know. Do you?” she’s a bit hesitant.

“Not directly but yeah, I know how much of a jerk he is.” He subconsciously grits his teeth.

The maid stops her step. “He’s not a jerk, Kyuhyun-ah.”

“Yeah tell me about it.” He rolls his eyes.

“No, I’m serious. He was nothing but very kind to her.”

“Kind. Of course. I believe he was. Until he throws her away for something unreasonable.” He argues. “What was he? A crybaby? Why couldn’t he just hold onto her and endure it for a long-distanced relationship?”

“Don’t judge, Kyuhyun.” Suddenly her tone turns serious. “Believe me or not, he treasured her just like you do. Do you think she would be broken this long without any good reason?”

Kyuhyun looks at her in silence. He... did?

“I don’t know what his real reason is for leaving, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his choice.” She says firmly.

Kyuhyun grips onto the strap of his briefcase and forces a smile. “It’s late, I have to go home now.”

“Kyuhyun-ah,” the woman calls out before he can turn around. “I don’t mean to offend you, but that’s the truth. Or at least that’s what I catch in my sight.” She says with a smile. “But you’re a good guy, too. Both of you are great guys. Both of you deserve happiness, and so does she. That’s what I mean. Don’t get offended with what I’m trying to say, okay?”

Kyuhyun smiles. “I won’t, ahjumma.” He slips on his shoes and pats on her shoulder. “Take care of her, yeah? And I think a bowl of cream soup would be good for her breakfast. She’s getting thin lately. Well, just saying.”

The maid chuckles lightly. “I will make it for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

“Great.” Kyuhyun nods. “I’ve got to go now. Good night, ahjumma.”

“Night, Kyuhyun.” She waves her hand.

Woah I'm soooo happy my exams are over! Yeay! I can smell the loveliness of semester holiday!

I hope I can update more often :)

Oh, and I want to welcome to my new readers and subbies. Hope you like this story :)

Okay I think that's it, this chapter is long enough

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