Chpt 15

A Reason to Stay

The day to shoot the next 2D1N episode had arrived and Nari was nervous about seeing JooHyuk for the first time since their last confrontation. She had not contacted him to say hi or to even say sorry. Of course, she felt guilty, but she couldn’t bring herself to apologize.
When she arrived at the shoot, as soon as she got out of her van, her name was called.
“Nari-ah! You’re finally here! Hurry up!” It was JoonYoung. He was signaling her to come quickly to the site. She glanced at her phone and saw that she was actually quite early for the shoot. Nonetheless, she rushed over to JoonYoung, trying to figure out for what she was late. When she arrived, she entered a one-story concrete building and saw a long, mahogany table in front of her, packed with dishes and utensils. She hesitated and saw JooHyuk already seated behind the table. The other members were also there, but only JooHyuk looked at her. Trying to ignore her emotions, she scurried over and sat next to JoonYoung, so that she was at the very end of the table. As PD Yu HoJin arrived and took his seat, the cameras began rolling. 
“Since everyone is here early, we’ll begin the shoot,” the PD explained. 
Nari prepared herself for the cameras as she sat smiling, following along with TaeHyun’s introduction to the scene. As the PD explained that they had a long day ahead of them, and that the crew would allow them to stock up on this food this morning, the members looked excited. It wasn’t often that the crew allowed them all to eat, for free. They all picked up their utensils and dug into the food. 
“Thank you for the meal,” JunHo and JongMin said simultaneously. Nari was the only one who merely stared at the food.
Rather than eating, she looked towards the PD and asked, politely, ‘PD-nim, what exactly do we have a long day ahead of doing?” 
The PD smiled at her, but didn’t answer. JoonYoung stood up to move next to JunHo, where another round of meat lay. Now, JooHyuk sat next to her, moving closer to her as the others re-arranged themselves. 

JooHyuk prepared a lettuce wrap with meat, garlic, chili paste and bean sprouts and raised it to . He motioned for her to eat it, but she hesitated. She was aware of how she would look in front of the cameras if she were to reject food offered to her by her elder. So, reluctantly, Nari opened and accepted the wrap. She bowed her head in thanks and JooHyuk looked at her intently. He wanted to see if she would really eat it in front of everyone. 
Nari chewed and chewed, looking down. Her eyes began to water and she noticed JooHyuk making another lettuce wrap. 
“How does it taste, Nari-ah?” the PD asked, bringing her back into the conversation. It had been a while since she described the taste of food, but as the members next to her looked on, curiously, she racked her mind for some descriptions. 
She looked up, towards the cameras, still full with the chewed-up wrap and said, “the meat is really tender and the crunch of the fresh lettuce gives it an overall refreshing taste.” 
The members clapped on at her description and gave their own opinions. JooHyuk turned to her and raised another wrap to . Nari shook her head, but JooHyuk insisted. Thankfully, JoonYoung pulled JooHyuk to face him and fed himself the wrap. 
Nari got up and excused herself from the table, heading for the bathroom. A little later, after she still hadn’t returned, JooHyuk stood up to go check on her. 

He knocked quietly on the door, but got no audible response. He twisted the doorknob and, finding it open, entered cautiously. The bathroom was clean and painted a bright green on the walls, which made it very inviting. However, as he looked around, he found Nari crouched next to the wall, next to the sink. She was expressionless, staring at the floor, unaware of her surroundings. Quickly, he shut the door and bent down to meet her level.
“Nari-ah?” he called out to her, patting her head with his hands. “Nari-ah, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to do that.”
Nari looked up and, finally noticing JooHyuk’s presence, she swat at his hand and pushed him away. She looked at him, scared, as though he would attack her. JooHyuk backed away, confused. All of a sudden, Nari jumped up, never taking her accusing eyes off of JooHyuk. She shook  her head at him, her eyes watering once more. She opened the door and left. 
JooHyuk stood there, scolding himself for what he had done. He thought back to the phone call he received from Laura a few nights ago, explaining Nari’s odd interactions with food. He recalled the story once again. 

JooHyuk-oppa,” Laura began, “perhaps this can help you understand Nari a little better.”
JooHyuk listened on, hanging on Laura’s every word. 
“You see, a while back, before we even thought of coming to Korea, Nari was overweight and there weren’t many nice people at our school. Nari was having lunch one day and someone sneaked a picture of her eating. Later that day, the picture spread around the school and people added to it; they added captions to the picture and made edits to it to make it look like Nari was much bigger than she really was. After that, Nari hated eating in front of people, especially anywhere where there are cameras. She gets nervous and introverted. Although she lost a lot of weight, and gained some confidence through our YouTube videos, she could never bring herself to eat in front of others. I hope you can understand and look out for her on the show.”

JooHyuk took in all the information and thought of ways he could help Nari with her issues. When the phone call ended, he promised to look out for her and keep her safe.

That morning, JooHyuk thought that perhaps, if he put Nari in the hot seat and force her to eat in front of the cameras, then she could get closer to recovering herself from those vicious memories. However, given her reaction, he was very wrong. 
As he returned to the table, he avoided looking at Nari, feeling guilty enough. Rather than eating, Nari found herself talking to the other members and making wraps and serving them to the cameramen and other crew members. She still restrained herself from eating, but found comfort in feeding others. 

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City-of-Cnblue #1
Chapter 37: Enjoyed this soooo much! Debak!
Yongmi5 #2
Chapter 37: Thanks for writing such a great story. I really enjoyed it. Fighting!!
Yongmi5 #3
Chapter 15: Nari is more complex than I thought. She does have many issues to resolve. Food being just one of them. Thanks for the update. Fighting !!
Yongmi5 #4
Chapter 9: I just found this today and I thought I would give it a try. It 's really good and the flow is good too. You are very talented and just want to encourage you to keep writing. I like Nari a lot. I think she and Jonghyun would make the perfect couple since they are both musicians. Anyway fighting!!