18.

Jonghyun visited the music room one hour earlier than he supposed to just because he felt guilty for not telling Onew that he couldn’t come the day before. Minho was having his hangover and he needed to stay beside Minho. He was obliged to anyway and he hoped that Onew could understand that.

He opened the door and entered the music room. He wanted to practice harder since he missed a day of practice. Actually there was nothing much to practice for except better pronunciation since Onew said that his Korean accent was quite strong.

He took out the lyrics sheet from his backpack hastily to start practicing the song with the mike. Little did he know that Onew came into the room right after he started to sing his lines.

Onew stared at the small figure in front of him, even though what he saw was just the back view of Jonghyun’s. To him, Jonghyun looks thin and small which able to make him evoke those feelings of wanting to pamper and love someone… His thoughts wandered to the memory of him hitting the pillows last night. He couldn’t say he was exactly angry at Jonghyun for standing him up the day before. He couldn’t help to be not angry after seeing Jonghyun being here earlier than he supposed to. He could see that Jonghyun was trying to amend his mistake. And so, he wasn’t really angry by the fact of waiting for someone who was not coming and making him wait for many hours.

He was more of disappointed and upset than being furious.

He was upset that he couldn’t hold a candle to Minho – his love rival and enemy. It was not that he didn’t know Jonghyun was obsessed with Minho all along. He just did not want to accept it. He has this wishful thinking of hoping Jonghyun could start liking him more and more but things don’t go this way. Until the day Jonghyun stood him up made him realized that what he was doing all the while made not worth it. His tattoo, his efforts and his love.

He sighed and walked towards the oblivious Jonghyun. He reached his arms out and hugged onto Jonghyun’s waist tight. It left the smaller man shocked that he dropped the mike onto the cold floor.

“O-Onew?”

“Please, let me hold onto you like this for a while. Just a while.”

Jonghyun tried to refuse him but no words came out of his mouth. He closed his mouth and let Onew hugged him from the back...

“Apparently, I forgave him.” Minho muttered as he packed his bag when the evening class session was finally over.

“That’s great!” Key chirped as he clasped his hands gleefully but Minho’s sullen face did make him puzzled. “But…Why do you sound sad?”

“I don’t know,” Minho sighed heavily. “He does not realize that the mistake lies on him.”

“Well…Jonghyun is too simple-minded to know…” Key shrugged, trying not to badmouth Jonghyun further or else Minho might lose interest in his boyfriend. “Maybe you can talk to him about it.”

“He loves me. All the while