20

She looked up, watching how the sunshine was slowly being hidden behind the thick clouds, leaving no traces but darkness to the earthlings to see. And she didn't feel the need to run away now.

Instead, she was waiting for the rain to come.

To wash away her feelings and vexations—to take all of her sadness away.

She was tired. Really tired.

Through the crowds, between hundreds faces that she saw, to the every side of the town she went—it seemed like she could never find him somehow.

It wasn't the first time for her to realize it but after all this time, she just had those small wish that God would let them meet again. She wished fate would help her at least this time.

Even though she knew it was too much to ask for.

"Jieun,"

Jieun opened her eyes upon hearing those voice, still didn't brave enough to turn as she was afraid if she heard it wrong.

But it was too clear to be ignored.

And slowly, she turned around—seeing that guy, who she thought would never want to see her again.

"Found you," Junhong smiled, genuinely.

Jieun kept her eyes opened, frowns were slowly forming on her forehead. She didn't even know what to say that time. His sudden appearance in front of her made her happy but hurted in the same time—which she didn't know why.

Junhong looked up when he felt raindrops were falling into his shoulders, finding that it might be a heavy rain soon before he held her wrist and said, "let's move away first."

Jieun watched his back that was leading her to the safe place in front of her , feeling her heart aching to receive such warmth from him, even after what she has done to him. She knew that she didn't deserve him—not any piece of him but she just didn't want to push him away as well.

She knew that she was a bad person to have this kind of feeling.

She knew.

"We can stay here for a while," he said, as soon as they got in front of the closed shop since they couldn't find any better place to go between the rain that was getting heavier. "The weather is so extreme, right?"

Jieun stared at him, still couldn't fully believe that Junhong was indeed there—standing beside her with a smile on his face. It felt like a dream.

"Why do you look at me like that?" he chuckled, trying to melt down the awkwardness.

"How can you find me?" she whispered, slowly.

"I know it from Hana," he replied, now without a smile.

"How can you always be the one that find me first?" she asked again, tears were slowly forming on the edge of her eyes.

Junhong stared at her face that he had been missing a lot since weeks ago, fighting the urge to embrace her and sweep the tears from her brown eyes away. He knew that he was indeed missed her before but he never realized just how much it was. Too much, he guessed.

"I will always find you, Jieunnie," he smiled, "you just have to wait and I will appear in front of you."

"I thought you don't want to see me again," she cried, hiding her crying face with her hands.

"Don't you already know me for years long?" he tried his best to smile, "I'm not that kind of person."

She didn't say anything.

She just cried, and cried.

Although she didn't really know whether she cried out of relief or sadness instead.

And Junhong could slightly figure out the reason behind her crying somehow.

"At least, we can be friends," he whispered, cupping her face with his both hands to make her look at him. "Just like what we used to be, right?"

Jieun nodded, couldn't say anything because she was badly sobbing already. The burden inside her chest was slowly leaving her that time—which she got the complete peaceful whenever he was around her, strangely.

"Smile, Jieunnie," he said, fixing his eyes on hers to show her that he was really alright with everything.

He would let her choose her own destination.

"Smile, and go to find him. Okay?"

"Yongguk!"

Turning around, Yongguk saw his senior, Yoo Youngjae, was standing in front of the station's gate, waving his hand to catch the younger's attention. A smile quickly formed on his tired face upon seeing him and with a light steps, he walked towards the senior that had been waiting for him since then.

"Are you waiting for me?" he asked, quite disbelief those fact.

"Isn't it obvious?" Youngjae chuckled, pushing his glasses closer to his nose bridge. "How's the seminar?"

"They're keep asking me about you, hyung," Yongguk sighed, yet his smile was stay still. "They really thought you will be the one that go."

"Really?" Youngjae smiled, somewhat feeling happy to hear the enthusiasm towards himself. "I regret it, though."

"You should," Yongguk agreed, opening the car's door for the senior.

"Ah," Youngjae slowly exclaimed as soon as Yongguk got into the driver's seat. "I actually want to ask you something."

Yongguk glanced at him between his driving duty, not looking that curious since he was already so tired after hours of journey. "What?"

"I really want to invite one of my friend to our agency's charity event," Youngjae paused for a moment, wanting to see the latter's reaction first before going on, "she's a journalist too so I think this is kind of a good chance for our agency."

"Why do you have to ask me?" Yongguk laughed, slowly shaking his head. "You can invite as many people as you want, hyung. It's originally your plan afterall."

"I just want to have your permission before inviting her since you are my vice president," Youngjae shrugged, slumping on the seat while looking into the front road.

"Invite her, whatever," Yongguk forced a thin smile on, glancing at the elder before continued, "looks like she is your good friend?"

"More like—my student?" he chuckled, earning Yongguk's laughter as response. "I don't know. I just feel something different about this little girl."

Yongguk slightly turned at Youngjae, one brow lifted up in confusion. "Like?"

"She has those guts that I really willing to have," Youngjae tilted his head to the right, remembering his last talk to Jieun where he suggested her to give up of her impossible task, yet she didn't seem to fall a little. He couldn't forget how her eyes looked like at that time. "I just hope she will find her happiness."

Hearing those last sentence made Yongguk turned to look at Youngjae that was still fixing his eyes on the street forward, didn't show any expression but blank. Without knowing why, Yongguk suddenly felt his lips were automatically tugging up to form a smile, before he put his eyes back on the street and said, "Well—I would like to meet her."

Jieun had been staring at both small crumpled papers on her hands for like more than twenty minutes, without her knowing that from the metres away, someone was inpatiently cringed to see her sudden indiscretion.

"Are you going to only stare at them and waste the time?" Junhong began to talk, finally.

Jieun tilted her head up and meeting with a pair of his dark eyes that were closely staring at her, waiting for an answer. "I'm lost."

Junhong's eyes softened a little to hear her honesty about her own feelings, knowing it must be a very hard step for her to get out and bring herself to meet up with that guy—after all this years, and after knowing that he was now a married man. He moved closer to her and sat beside her on the side of the bed, still fixing his eyes on her figure that was looking so beautiful to his eyes. Yet he had to shrug those feelings away at that kind of time.

"Why?" he whispered, slowly.

Jieun didn't look at him and kept repeating the written addresses inside her head again and again, feeling like she had already got it memorized since then. "Should I meet him?"

Junhong frowned a little to hear her question, totally not expecting it at all. "Isn't that your reason to come here?"

"I know," Jieun smiled, slowly pulled her head up and looked at him before repeating it again, "I know."

Junhong could somehow felt her pains just through looking on her eyes and it made him want to brush everything away and took her out leaving all of this behind but he knew he would never be able to do that from the first time he got those idea. He had to remain by her side as her only good friend again—just like how he was pictured throughout their high school times.

"Collect yourself back, and keep your head up," he said, curling up his lips on his trying to put on a smile. "No matter what will happen later, you still have to thank your ownself to give it a try."

Jieun closed her eyes and blew a hard sigh, before slowly opened her eyes back to look into the papers back. "I will."

Junhong finally could let out a relieved smile, somehow knowing that the girl had already regained her composure before he stood up and rested both his hands against his waist. "Now, what are we having for dinner?"

Jieun looked up at him, feeling sorry even before she answered, "I don't have a lot of money with me, honestly. So let's find something cheap and tasty!"

Junhong snorted, trying his best to look screwed. "You are the worst friend that I ever got, Jieun."

But instead of defending herself, Jieun could only laughed as response since she couldn't offer something better no matter what. She already spent a lot for transport, motel, her daily needs days before and another things from the time she arrived in Busan and she definitely had to make a good management or she wouldn't survive instead. She had no other options.

But then Junhong gave her a playful grin, showing the upper alignments of his small teeth to show he got another plan instead while Jieun was frowning a little to figure out what was he actually thinking inside.

"Be thankful you got me with you," he smirked, taking out his gold card which surprised her so much since as she remembered, he already left it unused for more than three years until it got blocked several months ago. Yet before she could say something, he quickly cut off her curiosity by taking her by hands, asking her to get up from the bed.

"I always got everything planned, right?" he chuckled, feeling a slight proud to get her amused like that. "Let's have some delicious foods and stuffed ourselves well. Tomorrow will be a long day."

She peeked inside for a moment, catching a glimpse of the receiptionist lady and some staffs that were scattering around the hall before turned her back again. It would be much better if only Junhong wanted to accompany her there but that guy seemed to didn't have any plans for doing so. He forced her to go there alone, solve everything by her own and didn't want to put his finger on her problems at all—and Jieun understood his good intention behind all of this. He was right. She had to fix it by her own.

After taking a deep breath, Jieun walked inside the building and aiming to get to the receiptionist table when suddenly, something stopped her right away.

Bang Yongguk was there.

She felt her time stopped for a short moment as she saw him walking though the hallway, still with the same figure as how she pictured him on her mind.

Every of her heartbeats felt so painful, and made her hard to breath as he walk closer and closer to where she froze.

She knew what she had to do.

Walking up to him and asked if he could talk to you for a moment or simply asking how he's doing first but she couldn't move even just an inch no matter how hard she tried. It was frustating, slowly dragging her down from the top of her confidence and she couldn't help but to blame herself inside.

She knew she was right.

She always turned back into her old eighteen-year-old self whenever she saw him.

And it was slowly killing her inside.

She watched him turned around from the receiptionist table to walk out of the building when he caught her on his vision and couldn't really hide his surprisement properly for a very short moment. His eyes widened, and she could tell that he lost words for a second before he quickly composed everything back and put on a smile to show that he wasn't bothered at all.

And she wondered why he had to do that.

"Ah—Jieun," he smiled, stopping right in front of those girl. "What are you doing here?"

Jieun looked up to him, feeling her ears burned to hear his voice running around her head which made her dizzy in a weird way. And it caused her to lost every words that she prepared before—completely.

"Are you on vacation?" he asked again, a smile never left his face.

"No," she muttered, trying to get herself back.

"Are you alone?" he made sure, glancing behind her shoulders to see no one was there. "What—"

"I'm here to meet you," she stated, clenching her hands as hard as she could in the process.

And she saw how he finally lost that fake smile from his face.

He stared at her, like trying to ask her something through his dark cloudy eyes and she could barely moved at the moment. She was again trapped, in his big empty scale—just like how she used to.

But she wanted to fight over it this time.

She knew it was probably her last chance.

And she didn't want to let it slip away again.

"I need to talk," she muttered, not leaving his eyes for a second. "I really do."

Jieun watched him pressed his lips tightly, like fighting against the part of himself inside before he smiled in hesitant. If the smile he pulled off before was looking fake, the one that he showed this time was looking confused—and there's a slight uneasiness on it.

"Maybe next time," he cleared his throat, awkwardly shifting his position. "I got a lot to do today so—"

"I'll wait," she cut him off, didn't care if he might reject her in the end. "I will wait here. Until you come back."

"But—" he frowned, obviously showing that he didn't like her idea but she didn't care at all.

If looking at his face would hurt her, then she chose to put her eyes somewhere else, just so she could continue without breaking into tears or hundreds of fearness. She didn't want to give up and leave it behind again. She had make her decision, and no one could stop her anymore.

Not even her ownself.

"Don't worry—I'll wait for you here."