Hello, my dear readers! I hope you're all doing well :~D The year's almost over and I'm feeling decidedly burnt out, which is why it took me ages to finish this short chapter. But I hope you'll all still like it. Enjoy!

---

July 2015

 

Sulli stirred listlessly at the dregs of the pool of liquid forming at the bottom of her carbonara pasta. Because of the time she’d spent sitting pensively, the milk and water used to make the cream sauce had congealed ever so slightly, resembling a substance with more of a bile-like quality. Which strangely enough, closely resembled the acutely complicating turn her life had taken.

 

Not that Minho seemed to notice her inherent abstraction. He never noticed when she was being less than her usual perky self. When they first started dating, Sulli had viewed it as her new boyfriend’s best redeeming quality, and it had made her all the more determined to be cheerful around him even when she felt down or stressed out.

 

But today, all she really wanted to do was to leave the stuffy cloying atmosphere of this uber romantic Italian restaurant that Minho had picked out for dinner, go home and curl up into a ball of tension at the foot of her loveseat sofa in the living room.

 

It had been a month of pure torture, staring off into space for minutes at a time, wholly focused on that one transgression she had committed.

 

With…him.

 

Every time Sulli dared to close her eyes, she could still see Lay’s warm brown eyes searing through, taunting the goose bumps that formed on her skin from the barest breath he with.

 

She could still feel his ice cold hands gripping tightly onto her elbows to steady her after that bus nearly ran her over and the way they had moved over her quivering bones when he had taken her roughly against a rickety drawer in a seedy motel.

 

She had slept with Lay after they had broken up months ago.

 

When she was already in a relationship with someone else.

 

And that certain ‘someone else’ was sitting across from her, talking innocently through a mouthful of chicken carpaccio and red wine, his goofy, sweet demeanour and handsome features completely oblivious to her rancid betrayal.

 

Sulli wondered idly how she’d managed to eat without wanting to throw it all up since she had cheated on Minho. It was hard enough avoiding proper conversations with Tiffany at work for similar reasons; she even suspected that Victoria might have already guessed that something was amiss with her.

 

“Sweetie, are you ok?”

 

Sulli hook herself from her deep reverie and stared in a daze at Minho, who was looking at her expectantly.

 

“Yeah…I’m fine.” She said with a great effort, going right back to playing with the remainder of her food.

 

“Are you sure? You look kind of, I don’t know, depressed.” Minho noted, cutting a neat square of raw chicken with his fork.

 

“No, not depressed. I’m just wondering if I remembered to send the English teacher’s Open Class evaluations to my boss so he can make a final decision on extending his contract at the school.” “Sulli explained in an abstract tone.

 

“You worry too much, Sulli. You’re terrific at your job; your principal would be totally lost without you there to hold his hand.” Minho praised with a smile on his face.

 

Instead of cheering her up, Minho’s kind words only served to make Sulli morbidly annoyed to cover up the persistent guilt gnawing away at her insides.

 

“That’s sweet, honey, but I don’t think that’s true. My heart hasn’t really been into work that much lately. I wouldn’t be surprised if my boss didn’t give my contract renewal serious consideration.” Sulli remarked with mirthless laughter.

 

“Don’t think like that. You’re a great employee. You’re smart, hard-working, easy-going and honest.”

 

“I’m not that honest.”

 

“Of course you are. Do you know how many times you’ve kept me on the straight and narrow with not letting me give into public opinion at work and kissing my boss’ repeatedly just to climb the professional ladder? Of course, I still kiss his anyway, but at least it’s for the right reasons now. Because I’m Korean,” Minho joked with a wicked grin.

 

“Don’t say that, Minho. I’m nothing like what you think I am.” Sulli said with evident misery.

 

“Of course you are,” Minho persisted. His large hand moved across the table and rested on top of Sulli’s small one. “You’re wonderful and I like you so much. If it came down to it, I’d trust you with my life-”

 

“I cheated on you.”

 

It took an insanely long time for Minho’s brain to process what his girlfriend had just said. At first, he thought it was an elaborate joke on her part to try and get him back for that prank he pulled on her a few days with the plastic spider on her pillow.

 

But the longer he looked at her and finally noticed the long silvery tears that dropped from her eyes, the more he realised how far this was from being remotely funny.

 

“Sulli…”

 

“I’m so sorry, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you. I’m pretty sure I never wanted to tell you. But you said all those incredibly sweet things to me just now and it made me realise how far I am from the person you think I am or want me to be. I’m not perfect and I definitely don’t deserve you.” Sulli blubbered.

 

Why did tears always come when you needed to do something terrible? Like telling the truth and possibly losing someone you cared about in the process?

 

“Who…who was it?” Minho questioned with some difficulty.

 

Sulli sniffled and wiped her wet nose with the back of her free hand. “My ex-boyfriend, Lay.”

 

“Lay?” Minho asked, crinkling his nose in confusion. “The same Lay who’s currently in the army right now? Are you sure you slept with him that recently?” he couldn’t resist adding, despite how stupid it sounded. Were conjugal visits even allowed in the army? Prison was one thing, but he had a feeling that the South Korean military would have some concrete views on   extracurricular happening in the barracks.

 

“He came back to Seoul a month ago to visit his family. He tracked me down and we got into a huge fight. And then…it just…happened.”

 

“So you just…kissed him? That’s all that happened, right?”

 

If Sulli had been a bad person at heart, she could’ve looked Minho dead in the eye and confirmed his statement. But because she was human just like all of us, all she could do in that moment was level a certain kind of pain for a far more devastating agony that knew no bounds.

 

“I’m so sorry, Minho. But that wasn’t all that happened. I slept with him too.” Sulli said with abject misery.

 

It was at that point that Sulli’s cold hand now felt like burning coals under Minho’s skin. So he wrenched his hand from hers and let it hover over the table, his fingers shaking ever so slightly like it was balancing with magnetic force.

 

“Did…did it only happen that one time?” he asked with difficulty.

 

Sulli nodded profusely and continued sobbing quietly.

 

“Did it mean anything?”

 

“Yes.” Sulli

 

“Are you still in love with him?”

 

“I don’t know,” Sulli murmured hopelessly.

 

“Do you love me?”

 

“I thought I was starting to before Lay came back.”

 

“Dammit, Sulli,” Minho muttered in a tone laced with condescension which masked his true inner turmoil. “What am I supposed to say to this?” he asked with a mesh of genuine curiosity and overwhelming dread.

 

“I don’t know,” Sulli said yet again, crying uncontrollably now.

 

“How convenient for you,” Minho snapped without thinking. “You get two guys for the price of one, your ex gets a good screw. And I just get screwed period.”

 

“Minho.”

 

By this point, more than a few restaurant patrons had turned their nosey faces onto the couple that was bickering loudly in raised voices, followed by the man in the party getting up hurriedly and throwing his napkin down onto the table and loosening his tie afterwards.

 

“What do you want from me, Sulli? You’ve been lying about this for a whole month and you just drop this on me out of the blue while I’m eating one of my favourite foods! What am I supposed to ing do with that?!” Minho fumed.

 

“Minho, please,” Sulli begged, feeling hiccoughs forming through the rapid palpitations of her beating heart.

 

What had she just done?

 

“I think I’m gonna be sick. I…I can’t look at you right now. Not ever, if I have my way.”

 

Minho fumbled for his wallet and tossed two 50,000 won notes onto the table before storming out into the balmy night air of the bustling neighbourhood of Itaewon in Seoul.

 

On a morbid level, Sulli should’ve been glad that Minho didn’t leave her to take care of the bill. But instead, it just reminded her all the more that her boyfriend (was he an ex too now?) was far more decent than she gave him credit for.

 

And now her so-called rebound had ricocheted back onto her, spraying bullets of white hot truth seeping into her skin and dotting her weary bones with red.

---

“Hana, dul, set! Hana, dul, set!” Sergeant Pyeong Shin bellowed at the top of his lungs.

 

Lay uttered a curse underneath his breath while hoisting his body upwards with his hands before sinking down to the ground and repeating the action. His regiment was in the midst of their regular chin-ups exercise on that rustic summery morning. It didn’t help matters that their sweaty bodies were already covered in a dank layer of humidity and blistering heat. All Lay could think of was ending their exercises and enjoying a nice hot shower afterwards.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Park Ye Eun walking towards him with her father in tow, discussing one thing or another. When she caught his eye, Ye Eun smiled wickedly and ‘accidentally’ kicked a clump of dirt in his face.

 

“Yah! Mwuh hae, pabo?” Sergeant Pyeong Shin demanded of Lay, who had stopped his chin-ups to wipe wet and earthy soil from his stinging eyes.

 

Chen, who was exercising next to Lay, burst out laughing. “I guess she’s still pissed then,” he chortled when Ye Eun turned her back on him and Lay.

 

“Guess o,” Lay mumbled in response. As cold as it sounded, he was past the point of caring about one random woman’s imagined slights. He was learning all too well that honesty really wasn’t his cup of tea where members of the opposite were concerned.

 

Just then, a soldier came sprinting towards their group and whispered something frantically in the sergeant’s ear. The drill sergeant in turn grunted a reply and fixed a beady eye on Lay.

 

“Zhang Yixing!

 

Lay got to his feet and immediately saluted his superior. “Ne, sungsaengnim, ne!”

 

“I’m told you have a phone call at the administration office. But I’m not inclined to let you answer till you’ve finished 500 more chin-ups.” Sergeant Pyeong Shin replied with a sadistic smile on his tanned face.

 

“Sergeant Pyeong Shin Hwa.”

 

The sergeant’s eyes bulged out of his skull as he turned around hastily. The man who had addressed him was the commander of their regiment himself, Park Sung Baek. Lay never quite knew where he stood with the commander, especially with what had happened with Ye Eun. So he, Chen, Pyeong Shin Hwa and the rest of their regiment simply stood at attention, clicked their heels together and saluted their superior.

 

“Salyeong-gwan , ulineun dangsin-eul hwan-yeonghabnida!” the soldiers greeted in unison. 

 

“Sungsaengnim,” Sergeant Pyeong Shin Hwa barked out, followed by a respectful bow.

 

“Sergeant,“ the commander acknowledged. “Forgive me, but I was eavesdropping on your conversation with Zhang Yixing. I see no reason why the soldier cannot answer the phone call and finish his 500 sit-ups once he is finished. It may very well be a family emergency,” Commander Park declared.

 

“Sir! I respectfully adhere to your natural wisdom in this affair, sir!” Pyeong Shin Hwa proclaimed, looking dead ahead of him. “Zhang Yixing, you are relieved.”

 

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Lay answered, bowing rapidly afterwards.

 

“Zhang Yixing, I hope that you receive good news today.” Commander Park concluded.

 

“Thank you very much, sir!”

 

For the barest second, Lay could’ve sworn that the commander had smiled enigmatically at him before walking away again. He barely stifled the grin that nearly fell on his lips when Chen gave him a thumbs-up sign as he jogged across the field.

 

Lay offered the receptionist at the administration office a polite smile and cordial greeting before taking hold of the phone receiver a few minutes later.

 

“Hello, this is Zhang Yixing.”

 

“Lay?”

 

That voice.

 

Lay had dreamt about it for close to a whole month since he had returned from his short vacation. It was that same sweet voice that resurrected him, only to dismember him all over again.

 

“Sulli?” he asked, hardly daring to believe it.

 

“Yes, it’s me.”

 

“Um…hi.”

 

“…hi.”

 

“When I 3was told someone was phoning for me here, I assumed it was someone in my family. You could’ve…you could’ve called me on my  cellphone,” Lay stammered.

 

 If he’d known she was going to call him, he would’ve practised sounding calmer and more assured in the mirror about ten times before this conversation.

 

“I know, but I assumed that you’d be busy with your schedule. I thought this would be the best way to reach you because…I have something I want to say.” Sulli began.

 

Unlike Lay, she had practised what she was going to tell him in the mirror at least ten times before this conversation. However, she still felt flustered and not the slightest bit in control of the situation. During all that time dating Minho, she’d almost forgotten that Lay had this effect on her senses.

 

“What is it?” Lay finally asked.

 

“I…I broke up with Minho. My boyfriend,” Sulli added self-consciously on the last part. She hadn’t actually told Lay about him the last time they had spoken, or just had without talking.

 

If he hadn’t currently been standing in a room filled with women of assorted ages who would most certainly judge him, Lay would’ve done a dance of joy at his ex-girlfriend’s words.

 

“Oh. Uh…why?”

 

“I couldn’t stand lying to him anymore about what happened between you and me. So I blurted it out and I’m pretty sure he dumped me because he stormed out of the restaurant we were in at the time. He did pay for the food before leaving, which further illustrates just how much I really didn’t deserve a nice guy like him being interested in me to begin with.”

 

Even though it was wholly inappropriate for the moment, Lay couldn’t help thinking that he had missed Sulli’s adorable blustering about one thing or another. He’d missed everything about her, even the things that had driven them apart when they broke up months ago.

 

“I’m so sorry, Sulli. Are you ok?” Lay asked with genuine empathy.

 

Sulli was standing outside on the soccer field at her school, hugging her chest with one hand while holding her cellphone close to her right ear. In spite of herself, a warm fuzzy feeling settled in her stomach at Lay’s concern for her. She had missed talking to him like this, like they were the only two people in the whole wide world. It only made her regret the harsh words she’d said to him a month ago all the more.

 

“Not really,” she replied. “On one hand, I miss Minho. He was something nice and normal for me after what I went through with you, and I hate that I hurt him the way I did. But on the other hand, it’s a relief to not have to pretend anymore when I’m around him. Pretending that I don’t still have feelings for you, even after everything that’s happened.”

 

Lay in a breath and closed his eyes, savouring the sound of Sulli’s soft breathing on the other end. “I still have feelings for you too, Sulli. I haven’t stopped since a month ago, or ever since you broke up with me.” He said with clarity.

 

Hearing those words brought silent tears to Sulli’s eyes. It had already felt like a whole lifetime had passed while she’d been waiting to hear those words.

 

“So we’re exactly where we found ourselves on the day I said goodbye to you at Seoul Station. But it doesn’t change anything.” Sulli murmured, a sad smile forming on her face as she spoke.

 

“Maybe not, but it isn’t a bad thing. It means that you and I love each other, Choi Jinri, plain and simple. The connection we share isn’t something that will just go away if we wish hard enough for it. I want to be with you.” Lay said with the utmost conviction.

 

This time, he didn’t care who overheard him say something so ridiculously mushy.

 

“It’s not that simple, Lay.”

 

“We can make it work! We can-”

 

“What? Keep doing a long-distance relationship? Because that worked out so well before,” Sulli retorted. She heard him sigh on the other end and it made her heart contort with pain. “We’ve tried this and it just hasn’t worked, Lay.”   

 

“If you don’t want to get back together, then why did you call me?” Lay demanded impatiently, feeling frustrated and heartbroken all at once.

 

“Because even after I made up my mind about what I was going to say to you, I still just wanted to hear your voice.” Sulli answered

 

“So where does this leave us, Sulli? Are you asking me to move on?”

 

“I’d never ask you to do that. But…I need time, we both do. You can decide if you still want me by the time you’re done with your military service.”

 

“What if you already have another boyfriend a year from now?” Lay asked sardonically.

 

Despite the crumby circumstances, Sulli giggled at Lay’s facetiousness. Minho had been her first real attempt to get over Lay. She didn’t think she had it in her to try again with anyone else.

 

“­You have me there,” she relented after a little while.

 

“I should get back to…my schedule. Lay finally said, clearing his throat awkwardly. Going back to his 500 chin-ups, almost as if this conversation hadn’t happened.

 

“Yes, you should. I’m sorry for taking up so much of your precious time.” Sulli apologised meekly, her legs feeling like lead.

 

“That’s ok, I’m glad you called. So…I guess this is goodbye for now.” Lay said with a heavy heart.

 

“I guess so.”

 

“Um…take care.”

 

“Thanks, you too.”

 

Unlike the night she broke up with him, Lay hung up first. The sound of the receiver clicking to an end stayed in Sulli’s mind for the rest of the day and the months that followed.

 

On some level, she felt like she had done the right thing. With that said, it was still going to be a very long year ahead of her.

 

For­ both of them. 

---

Lol, so I guess Minho won't be back any time soon ;~p I'm such a mook for taking so long with my LSMD version when winter86 finished her Yulti version eons ago. Oh well, it's not actually a race, but a literary challenge taken up between two friends. And since you asked, there are two more chapters left to wrap up this star-crossed tale. The Korean greetings the soldiers said to Commander Park translates to 'Commander, we welcome you!'. I don't know if that's actually the correct Hangul terminology used in the army, but I figured it had just enough -kissing power to be plausibly Korean. Ok, I'm off to proof a friend's fanfic writing and start the next FECH chapter hopefully before the end of 2014 if I have a mind to it. Take care, all of you, have an awesome festive season with your loved ones. Pip pip, cheerio <3