Present Day

Jeju-Du Day 6

      It’s been three days, and I still haven’t gotten an answer.

      On the contrary, I’ve received an unexpected message yesterday night that had stopped me from properly sleeping.

      From: Kwon Jiyong

You haven’t been to work this whole week and I can’t reach you. I’m really worried. Please, contact me as soon as you get this.

      I sigh and look besides me at the man in deep slumber. He was covered from head to toe in long sleeved clothing, yet he still found the need to bundle up under the thick hotel covers.

      Through the curtain cracks, rays of a barely awakened sun peaks through the balcony. As quietly as possible, I step off the bed and wrap a robe around me before tip-toeing outside into the chilly morning.

      Fiddling with the phone in my hands, I settle down on one of the wooden sofas outside viewing a secluded section of the ocean around the island. What am I supposed to say to him?

      He has been calling me the past days that’s for sure, but Seunghyun oppa would always be around and try to peak at the caller ID. Not like I’m blaming him, but he didn’t have to do that.

      I muster up all the courage left in me and type in a reply.

      To: Kwon Jiyong

I’m in Jeju for the week, so I couldn’t come to YG. I’m in safe hands so you don’t need to worry. Sorry for disappearing on you like this, especially after what happened last weekend.

       Tossing the phone under me, I manage to release a breath I’ve been holding in. I didn’t have to text him back, but why did I? Did I have to tell him I’m in Jeju. What if he gets the wrong idea?

      But then again, I’m on a trip with my fiancé. What could possibly be wrong with that, right?

      Thinking of the devil, I receive a call and it is from no one other than Kwon Jiyong. Checking that Oppa is still sleeping, I pick it up.

      “Why are you awake at this hour?” I bombard him, not giving him a chance to say anything.

      “Why are you in Jeju? Is something wrong?” he asks back, his tone frantic.

      “I’m okay, shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

      “Yah, Park Sandara,” he breathes out, “answer my question, will you?”

      “But you aren’t answering mine either.” I shift to a comfortable position in the sofa, overlooking the sky in a wave of colours.

      “I couldn’t sleep all night, that’s why I’m awake.” He sighs, and I hear shuffling from his other side as well. Is he in bed?

      “Why not?”

      “Because I was worried you wouldn’t want to face me again after everything, and it has been five days. Plus, you’re in an island far, far away from Seoul.”

      I ignore the first part of his statement, because it might not be entirely wrong even though it wasn’t entirely right either. “You didn’t know where I was.”

      “Well, now I do. Why are you there?”

      I look back into the room, only to see Oppa sleeping as deeply as he was back during our college entrance exams. He looked innocent, too innocent.

      “Seunghyun Oppa surprised me with a pre-honeymoon trip.” I decide to go with the truth.

      “Oh.” This was the only thing he says in a while, and I grow weary with the silence. Is he affected by this? Of course he is, the man drunkenly confessed his love to you, idiot.

      “Jiyong-”

      “Are you having fun?” He asks out of the blue, and I unconsciously tilt my head in confusion.

      “I guess so. The area is breath taking.”

      He chuckles, and the pit of my stomach is in knots from his throaty voice. “You’ve always liked it there.”

      “I did?” A small smile creeps up my lips, and I wistfully close my eyes with the crashing wave sounds. “I can see why.”

      “We camped there once. By the beach.” He goes on, his tone quiet and gentle, like a soft breeze. “We had a bonfire next to our tent, and a sofa-like cushion-”

      “And I was laying on your lap?” I fill in the blanks hesitantly, “You were playing with my hair?”

      It takes a silent moment for him to reply. “You remember?”

      “I had a vivid dream. I never knew it was by the beach though.”

      “You insisted on spending the night with the waves, and wanted to try waking up in a pile of sand with the seagulls,” I can hear him smiling. How could he remember it so well? “You would never take no for an answer.”

      “I still don’t.”

      “You never will.”

      Girly giggles escape me as I supress in my laughter, Jiyong’s jolliness rubbing off on me. We don’t say anything for a while as we both bath in each other’s breathing patterns. I notice his deepening.

      “Jiyong, you should sleep. It’s too early.”

      “I don’t want to,” he whispers. “This is too surreal for me to believe. It might as well be a dream.”

      “What are talking about?”

      “You.”

      It’s like a million tornados had turned up in the pits of my stomach, accompanied by a hammer pounding at my heart. One word, a simple one at that, made me so immensely happy and guilty at the same time.

      “I can’t believe that I’m actually conversing with you, on the phone, about things I would have quoted impossible last month. You actually know, but still, you didn’t run away. Everything about you is so surreal to me, and I want to treasure every part of it.

      “Honestly, I don’t know when it is going to be snatched away from me. I never do. You affect me in ways no one has ever done, you always will, and it terrifies me as much as it comforts me. It terrifies me so much.”

      I don’t