—F O U R

Onew approached Jessica, who was facing the opposite direction Jonghyun was walking. He looked at Jonghyun then back at Jessica who was frozen still and rubbing her shoulders for warmth. It wasn’t until Onew draped his jacket over her shoulder was when she realised that Onew was standing in front of her, his eyes filled with concern.

“Are you alright?” Onew tried to ignore her tear stained cheeks because he felt he knew just what happened between Jessica and Jonghyun.

“… Yeah, I’m alright,” Jessica wiped her left cheek, “I-I’m sorry about that, I just—”

“—It’s alright, Sica.” Onew embraced Jessica around her waist. “You don’t need to apologise.”

Jessica felt like she wanted to break down even more at Onew’s consideration. She looked up at him, a small smile gracing her face. “Let’s go?”

Jessica already knew that Onew wasn’t planning to question what had happened, the conversation between her and Jonghyun, or why she was crying. He promised her that he would give her some time and to her it felt like that ‘some time’ had already ended a while back but Onew was still always willing to wait patiently for her. It made her feel like she wasn’t being fair. Jessica wanted to suggest to him now and then to leave her because he didn’t deserve this kind of relationship. But he’d hold her hand and say just one thing that always reminded Jessica of why she opened her heart to him in the first place. ‘… I’ll wait.’

Gently lacing her fingers with his, Onew made their hands intertwine. This made Jessica smile and they started walking further away from the direction of the beach.

“Onew, you haven’t told me the reasons I make you smile!” Jessica placed her free hand in Onew’s jacket for warmth. He remained silent. After a few seconds went by, Jessica realised his change of expression, as if he was thinking really hard about something. “Yah!”

Jessica stopped walking, tugging Onew’s hand in the process. Onew flinched a little at Jessica’s tug that brought him back to reality, but composed himself and turned to face her. He placed his hand in his jacket pocket that was still lazily draped over Jessica’s shoulders and carefully pulled out her hand so he could hold it in his other free hand.

Jessica was worried. She has never seen Onew like this. Holding her hands in his, Jessica could feel him tremble as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Jinki?” Onew opened his eyes and she could see that his eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. Jessica gasped and held on tighter to his hands.

Onew didn’t respond but gave her a genuine smile instead. “Sica… it’s not all the time that I open up myself to you like this and it’s not all the time that we cross paths with this particular matter.” Staring right into her eyes, Jessica felt a little sting of pain in her heart as she stared right back and trying to see the legitimacy in his eyes. It was then that she saw it… the true form of the hurt he was feeling. She was hurting him.

“… I tried.” Onew started but paused and looked down onto their hands. Jessica couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell her and she felt like she didn’t want to hear what he had to say next. “I tried to support you in everything the way Jonghyun supported you, I tried to make you smile and laugh the way Jonghyun used to, I tried to replace Jonghyun… even though I know I wouldn’t be able to—”