Chapter 35 (Final)

 

He seems to have forgotten how to breathe, or speak—or even walk, for that matter. Taking one uneasy step at a time, he edges into his empty house, suddenly very much aware that they were all alone in here.

 

 

He clears his throat, a little unsure of where to put his hands. “Um, orange—water?”

 

 

She looks up at him when he speaks. “Orange… water?”

 

 

“Orange juice, water—would you—would you like anything to drink?”

 

 

“No, it’s okay. But thanks.”

 

 

He sits in his armchair, a fair distance away from her seat on the couch. He thinks he’s subconsciously released a sigh when she turns to him abruptly, eager to speak up.

 

 

“I’ll make this quick, I promise,” she says in a small voice.

 

 

He sees the look on her face and finds it within himself to nod, as if the simple gesture was enough to get her to keep going.

 

 

“I just wanted…” She plays around with the words in her head, lips parted but no sound emerging from within, like the cat had gotten her tongue.

 

 

He swallows, almost nervous at what she was about to say. She notices, and out comes the first thing she could think of. “To talk.”

 

 

“I know,” he answers, a little unsure. “You said that already.”

 

 

“… And to say I’m sorry.”

 

 

Oh.

 

 

Now that was brand new information.

 

 

“I’m sorry for doing that to you,” she continues, her voice becoming meek and small and unlike the exuberant her he fell for to begin with. “I’m sorry for ending things that unceremoniously. It was unfair to you. And I can understand if you hate me now, I just—I just needed you to hear these words from me.”

 

 

It takes Jessica a moment to calm her nerves and sort through the mess that was her internal system. She hadn’t planned on making it past the first sentence but her words came barreling out and there was no way of undoing what she said.

 

 

Or of undoing what she did.

 

 

Of undoing what she did to that poor boy’s heart—

 

 

“I tried, you know,” he answers.

 

 

She peeks up.

 

 

“To hate you,” he goes on to explain. “I tried to hate you.”

 

 

He shifts on the armchair, suddenly not knowing where to put his hands. “I tried really hard,” he mumbles, wiping his palms together as if they were cold, “but the harder I tried the more I realized that it was impossible. I’d probably hate the entire universe before I could hate you,” he finishes with a sad smile.

 

 

She wants more than anything to wipe that smile off his face. Because it pains her to know that he was still trying his hardest to smile even with the storm of emotions going through both their systems.

 

 

“Then I guess I’m glad the universe is much too big for you to hate all of it,” she replies softly.

 

 

“I’m glad, too,” he says back. Or at least he thinks he does, because after a while he notices that their eyes are locked on each other, accompanied with the world’s most deafening silence.

 

 

His eyes make the fatal mistake of drifting away a little from her eyes, and he does a quick study of her face.

 

 

He bites back a sigh and curses the way his mind works. Or the way it didn’t work, given the inappropriateness of the thoughts running through his head.

 

 

God, he really wanted to kiss her.

 

 

But when she shifts in her seat and makes to continue speaking, his emotions hit him like whiplash and he’s spiraling, remembering how she ended up in this predicament, stuck in the world’s most uncomfortable and painful confrontation, and he remembers the nasty break-up that led to this.

 

 

It still stings to use that word.

 

 

“I know what you want.”

 

 

His head snaps up. Was it that obvious that he wanted to kiss her just seconds ago? Or did his brain screw up and deliver the wrong words out of his mouth?

 

 

“You do?”

 

 

She nods. “And I’m sorry you had to wait so long for it, but I’ll give you what you want. Now. Here.”

 

 

He gulps. He feels like he could be going down the wrong trajectory here, and if he made a move he might be screwing up royally, but god if he missed anything the most it was her—

 

 

“Answers. I’m here to tell you why I broke up with you.”

 

 

He feels the air get knocked out of his system. When the initial dismay of not getting to kiss her sinks in, he realizes that this was it – out of everything he wanted ever since the break-up, this was what he wanted the most, but what he thought he’d never get, not in the next decade or so—

 

 

“I was afraid of losing you.” She wipes at a tear, struggling to plaster on a smile just for him to see. “I was afraid that someday fate would swoop in to take you away, for whatever reason possible. I know the thing with Yoona was a misunderstanding. But when I got scared, I got really scared—and I just…”

 

 

She fights the urge to give in to her fear.

 

 

“I realized then that I’d never been this scared to lose anyone before. And that fear was real—I didn’t know what to do, so I let myself do the stupidest thing anybody could do.” She looks at him, still smiling through the tears that threatened to billow forth. “I was an idiot, Donghae.”

 

 

Saying his name didn’t hurt as much anymore. “I’d rather let myself hurt now than watch fate take you away without being able to do anything.”

 

 

“You hurt me too,” he says in response.

 

 

A pang of ache hits her right where it hurts the most. “And there’s not one day I don’t live regretting what I did.”

 

 

He wonders if he came off a little too accusatory, because he felt like he was watching her unravel right in front of him and there was nothing more he wanted than to reach forth and hold her tight in his arms.

 

 

“Krystal talked some sense into me,” she goes on. “So I’m here to beg for forgiveness… And a little more.”

 

 

As Jessica finishes, Donghae gets up from his armchair, moving closer to her on the couch. They were almost close enough to touch, but to feel each other’s hands on them would mean feeling the burning and searing pain that they still felt, brought about through the uncertainty of their current situation.

 

 

What if there was no going back?

 

 

What if they could undo what they did, but not the damage they dealt?

 

 

What if they already lost each other forever?

 

 

“When you broke up with me, it felt a lot like fate was taking you away from me,” he starts. “Like what you were afraid would happen—it happened to me, or it felt like it did, at least.” He looks up at her. “So as someone who’s had to live through that sensation… I’d say your fear is justified.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “It really hurt,” he adds, in a tone that made him sound too much like a wounded puppy.

 

 

“Donghae,” she tries, reaching out just the slightest of inches, in the hopes of reaching him so that she knew he hadn’t gone too far yet. “I’m sorry. I was selfish. I realize now that I shouldn’t have been this scared. I should’ve believed in you, in us—and I should’ve believed that we could take this journey together; that we could take anything together.” She smiles wistfully. “You make me less scared; you make me a better person. And I blew it,” she finishes glumly.

 

 

“And there’s nothing more I’d want than to take on this journey together with you,” she says meekly. “If…”

 

 

She looks at him, this time resolute. Her hand was only inches away from his. “…if you’d have me back in your life.”

 

 

For a moment there, she thinks she sees him flinch and lean just the slightest of inches away from her reach.

 

 

And in that instant, she fears that her regrets will remain as they are — regrets.

 

 

Until he speaks.

 

 

“How could I let you back into my life…”

 

 

She shuts her eyes, out of the terrible, nauseating pain that threatens to overwhelm her consciousness.

 

 

Then she feels a hand on her cheek, the gentlest of touches and the lightest of fingertips dancing across her skin. She feels him pull her in slowly, and him starting to be close enough to touch, to be within reach, to be hers again. The last thing she really registers is that she’d missed this,

 

 

His heartbeat being the only thing she hears in that split-second before they touch,

 

 

His warm touch on her again, his warm breath close enough to envelope her in a comfort unlike any other, singing promises of never letting go and holding on tight,

 

 

His presence, his existence, like a gift from above that nothing could replace,

 

 

And most of all, him being hers.

 

 

“…if you’d never once left my mind?”

 

 

=

 

 

If anything,

 

 

Donghae’s just happy he gets to kiss her.

 

 

=

 

 

If anything,

 

 

Jessica’s just happy he’s still here.

 

 

=

 

 

“Think we could bring this somewhere else?”

 

 

“The closet? It’d be like seven minutes in heaven again.”

 

 

“Seven minutes? Hell, I want an eternity with you.”

 

 

“Then I guess we could just go upstairs…”

 

 

“That sounds good.”

 

 

“Hey.”

 

 

“Hm?”

 

 

“I love you.”

 

 

“I know.”

 

 

…

 

 

“I love you too.”

 

 

=

 

 

An eye cracks open. Jessica reaches over to her side, feeling blindly for the person who was supposed to be there.

 

 

“Donghae?”

 

 

Donghae grabs hold of her hand. “Hey, sweetie.” He leans over to kiss her on the cheek.

 

 

She has half a mind to turn her body around so she could hug him.

 

 

But the car hits a bump and she’s sent flying straight into his arms.

 

 

At least she’s in his arms. “Ow!”

 

 

Donghae stifles a chuckle. “I got you, babe. You’re in safe hands.”

 

 

She scratches at her blindfolded eyes. “I need your safe hands to take this damn thing off me!”

 

 

“Sorry, but you know the rules are rules.”

 

 

“Remind me to take over party-planning duties for next year’s New Year’s Eve. Jongwoon and Yuri should never be allowed to do parties again.”

 

 

“Hey,” the affronted couple in question shoots back from the front two seats of the car, “we’d just like to kindly remind you that you two kind of started at a party of ours! You’d probably be single and miserable now if it wasn’t for us.”

 

 

Donghae laughs. He pulls her closer into his embrace, and she melts into his arms. “Yeah, okay, fine, I’m still kind of grateful for that,” Jessica mumbles begrudgingly.

 

 

“Besides,” Donghae chips in, “this probably wouldn’t be as bad as last year’s party. You know, the one where we sang.”

 

 

“Oh my god,” Jessica pats him lightly on the arm. “If you think about it, didn’t we technically start then?”

 

 

Jongwoon and Yuri get hyped up again, this time defensively if not for anything else. “Hey, we let you guys make out at our party, okay?”

 

 

Jessica thinks for a moment, then plants a sweet, chaste kiss on Donghae’s lips that lasts a second longer than intended. Then she waves off Jongwoon and Yuri’s protests dismissively. “Yeah, okay, you guys get all the credit, whatever.” She grins when Donghae leans in to steal another kiss of an unsuspecting, blindfolded her.

 

 

“Thank you,” the couple chimes in-sync. “But we’d also appreciate it if you two didn’t start making out in the backseat of our car.”

 

 

“What can I say? You put me in the backseat with my blindfolded girlfriend; it’s like delivering her in a gift box with a ribbon on top.”

 

 

“We should’ve offered to pick up Taeyeon and Jungsoo instead.”

 

 

“They’ve been spotted making kissy faces at each other more than they’ve been seen conversing like normal humans.”

 

 

“Okay, fine. Then Siwon and Stephanie would’ve been great, too, instead of you guys—”

 

 

Jessica snorts. “Taeyeon and Jungsoo may make kissy faces, but Siwon and Stephanie are literally joined at the lips.”

 

 

“Fine, then Hyukjae and Hyoyeon! They never fail!”

 

 

“I’m not sure why you’d rather take two people who’d rip out each other’s jugulars more than you would rather take us.”

 

 

“We see your point.”

 

 

“Although, you could’ve offered to take Kyuhyun and his girl—“

 

 

Jessica smacks Donghae on the arm. “Hey, be careful with that labelling. You know how sensitive she gets to it, if what Kyuhyun says is totally true and not just him finding excuses and putting off the day he has to actually ask her to be his girlfriend.”

 

 

“What’s her name again? Juhyun? Seohyun?”

 

 

“I don’t know, she’s probably sensitive to naming too. I can’t recall her name either.”

 

 

“Speaking of names,” Jongwoon chirps from the front seat, “what’s your sister’s name again? Is she coming today?”

 

 

“Krystal? She said she’d come only if she found a date. Because thanks to your party rules, only couples are allowed—“

 

 

“We could just open the door and drop you off and you wouldn’t have to attend this party which you seem to hate already even before it’s already begun—“

 

 

Donghae reaches forth to calm Jongwoon down. “Woah, easy there, buddy. Jessica’s just frazzled from the whole blindfold gimmick—“

 

 

“Well, then, time for some great news!” Yuri pulls the car to a stop. “We’re here! Just minutes to go before you get to see again, Jessica.”

 

 

Donghae smiles against Jessica’s hair. “I’m excited. Are you?”

 

 

Jessica giggles.

 

 

“I’m just trying to digest that we’re attending this New Year’s Eve party together.”

 

 

=

 

 

Siwon struggles to get Hyukjae off him.

 

 

“Are you high again, Hyuk?”

 

 

Hyukjae cackles madly into his cup. “Party tradition, moodkiller.” He downs the remainder in one gulp then pats Siwon on the back. “Though I must give it to you, your brooding self really makes for a sight. Literally all the girls in here came with their boyfriends and yet, they’re still staring at you.”

 

 

Siwon shifts uncomfortably. “My party tradition is hating all these eyes on me. I want my girlfriend,” he adds the last part with a pout.

 

 

Stephanie appears just then, swinging her blindfold around in a crazy arm-dance with Taeyeon and Hyoyeon. “Someone called for me?” She flashes a bright grin before pouncing on Siwon’s frame, dragging him into the dance. He complies gladly, happy to get away from Hyukjae’s clingy arms.

 

 

“Well, if it isn’t my wonderful girlfriend,” Siwon dances along, arms snaking around her waist, pulling her in for a quick kiss. “You smell like alcohol.”

 

 

“It’s a party, Siwon. Stop being the handsome, brooding hunk, and start being the handsome, dancing boyfriend!”

 

 

Siwon laughs. Hyoyeon smacks Hyukjae on the head. “I told you not to get high!”

 

 

Hyukjae sneaks a peck on her cheek. “Babe, you told me many things.”

 

 

“Did I tell you that you drive me crazy?” Hyoyeon meant for it to come out condescendingly but it only served to fuel Hyukjae up.

 

 

“Don’t have to, I know it!” He cackles madly again, this time into Hyoyeon’s ear, before pulling her along to join the Macarena train forming on the dance floor.

 

 

Taeyeon laughs, but it stops short when she feels arms wrapping around her small frame from behind. “Hey—“

 

 

“Sorry, did I scare you?” Jungsoo smiles before putting a drink into her hands. “Here’s your drink.”

 

 

She plants a quick peck on his lips. “Thanks for this.”

 

 

Just then, Jongwoon and Yuri burst through the doors with Donghae and Jessica.

 

 

“Guys, that’s the last of us! The Golden Couple is here!”

 

 

Everybody cheers and claps, even those who barely know them, and Donghae grins shyly while pulling a still-blindfolded Jessica closer to himself. “I can’t believe they introduced us like that.”

 

 

Stephanie, Taeyeon and Hyoyeon jump into action, arms locking around a bewildered Jessica. “Wait, what’s happening?”

 

 

“We’re taking you for a girls’ initiation,” Stephanie exclaims. “Yuri planned it, it’s honestly so great—“

 

 

Hyoyeon slams a hand over Stephanie’s mouth. “Spoiler alert! All we’ll tell you is that it’s gonna be fun.”

 

 

Taeyeon pushes the crowd of girls along. “Let’s go! Leave the boys to it!”

 

 

Donghae joins his friends, grabbing a drink of his own.

 

 

“So, let’s get the party started?”

 

 

=

 

 

Donghae and Jessica are leaning against the balcony when the adrenaline of just joining the party has worn off. They sip on their drinks, arms entangled.

 

 

“You know, we’ve really come so far,” Donghae starts. “To think a year ago you barely even knew me.”

 

 

“Hey, I did know you,” she responds with a cute pout on her face.

 

 

“No, you didn’t,” he teases her. “You didn’t even know you had a neighbor.”

 

 

“Actually…” She chews on her lower lip, thoughtful. “You want to know a secret?”

 

 

Donghae leans in, curious. “What is it?”

 

 

“I knew who you were. And I always thought you were kinda cute.” She flails, embarrassed, bringing her arms up to cover her flushed face. “But I didn’t expect to see you at the party! So when you said hi, the nerves got the better of me and I just… Responded weirdly.”

 

 

Donghae wags a finger in front of her face. “So you… Always had a crush on me?”

 

 

“I wouldn’t call it a crush, okay! It’s more like—“

 

 

He swoops in for a kiss that leaves her giddy. “You were saying?”

 

 

“It’s more like—like… Okay, fine.”

 

 

“It’s still amazing that we made it all the way here. Not without trials and tribulations, but I guess… it really was the start of something new.”

 

 

“Not really.” She grins. “We both had crushes on each other, so it was kind of a work-in-progress, no?”

 

 

He puts his forehead against hers. “If we didn’t sing that duet together last year, we might not have spoken to each other again,” he drops his voice to a mere whisper. “Then I wouldn’t have gotten to know you, wouldn’t have gotten with you…”

 

 

“That is true,” she whispers back. “I guess it really was the start of something new.”

 

 

Just then, her phone buzzes. She whips it out and checks the new message.

 

 

“Krystal’s here! And she says she brought a date.” Jessica flashes the phone at Donghae, showing him the selfie Krystal sent. “Aren’t they adorable?”

 

 

“Let’s go get them!”

 

 

“Wait!” Jessica holds onto his arm, pulling him back and preventing him from leaving just yet. “There’s just one more thing.”

 

 

“What is it?”

 

 

She smiles up at him. “Thank you.”

 

 

“What for?” He asks, amused.

 

 

“For being my something new.”

 

=

 

A/N: First off, I'd like to apologise for seemingly deserting this story. I actually lost the final chapter after I completed it because of a hard disk crash and I had to write it from scratch. Still, not an excuse, so I'd like to apologise for having made my readers wait.

I would honestly be fascinated if anyone was still reading this, 2 years since the last update. But it's out of a sense of duty to this story that I decided I had to come back to upload this final chapter, and after recovering what was left of it, finishing it, and also recalling my login details (you'd be surprised how this could often spell the downfall of a long fic that may never get completed, lol), it's finally here.

And if any of my old readers see this... Thank you for ever having enjoyed this story. It was fun to write it, and I never took it too seriously because that was the fic it was meant to be. A little crack, a little fluff, but most of all, to feed my fantasy of the ships that will never come to be in reality. A fic is where I let myself believe and hope for something, kind of like a safe haven, and I may not be a fantastic writer, but I hope that fics continue to be that way for everybody - a safe haven where your hopes and dreams can seek refuge in.

Once again, this is the end - really. Thanks for following Start of Something New (Not Really), and believe it guys, you reading this feels like the start of something new for me. ;)