um. hello? is there anyone still here? I'm sorry for months of late update. so here u get 2 chapters. enjoy---or not. haha

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Sana is lying on a wide field of grass and the wind of breeze on the skin of her round, huge and bare stomach. A purple tulip lays on the bump. So calm, until the trees sway and the movement cause the tulip to glide away. Glides so far away through the green grass, which from their roots, also gusting to the left, like there’s a force of wind she can’t feel.

But then she smells pancakes. The smell of warm vanilla wafting through and it’s weird because she’s in the middle of a field.

She opens her eyes, registering her environment. Then, she smiles. She can’t even be mad that her dream is interrupted because she’s home. And there’s pancakes.

Rubbing her stomach gently, she whispers to the bump. “Good morning, baby. All we probably do today is sleeping and eating, but let’s have a fun day anyway. I love you.”

Then she’s out of the bed making her way to the kitchen.

She frowns when she sees her father is dressing a little too nice for a Saturday. He still has an apron on, but it doesn’t hide the fact that he’s wearing a black shirt paired with a grey slack. Even his hair is styled.

“Where are you going? Are you leaving me?”

He jumps on his feet. The spatula almost drops from his hand. “ing hell, you scared the out of me!”

“Don’t curse in front of my baby, dad.” She takes her seat.

He eyes her bump—which he admitted to her that it will take a while for him to get used to the fact that his baby is carrying a baby. “He’s not here yet.”

“Is that you regarding my baby as a human being? Is that your gender preference?”

He stacks pancakes into her plate. Avoiding her questions, he says, “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was. Then I did this thing people call waking up.” She takes a glance into her mug and seeing as it’s black and not with cream and sugar like she prefers, she pushes it to her dad. “This is your coffee. The one you’re drinking is probably mine.”

She’s right, because her father spurts them out. Thankfully, they spill onto the apron. She hands him a tissue. “What’s wrong with you this morning? Where are you going?”

He avoids her inquisitive gaze as he pulls the apron from his body and hangs it on its hook. “I—um. Well, actually—”

Sana smiles. “You’re going on a date.”

He swallows nervously. “How do you know?”

She shrugs, finally cuts into her pancakes. “You were never nervous. And you never dressed like that. I put two and two together.” She takes a bite and while munching, something dawns on her. “But, it’s hella early. Who goes on a date in the morning dressing like they are going to a fancy dinner?”

Putting dirty dishes into the dishwasher, he speaks self-deprecatingly. “I’m out of my games here, Sana. You’re not helping.”

“I would help you if it weren’t so early. Nobody functions before eight in the morning.” Observing her father’s unusually tense stance, she decides to help loosening it. “Tell me about her.”

That finally brings a twitch to his lips. It’s not yet the same full smile and the happy glint he has when he talks about her mother, but Sana is convinced this is him taking a leap against his vow. He’s changing. He will change more. He deserves all the good changes. “She’s a teacher. The same school I’m coaching at.” He provides. When Sana smiles, he smiles too. Then, he continues talking about the mystery lady. She married before, but it didn’t work out. And if things work out between the lady and her father, Sana will have a step-brother. She squeals at that. “Yeah, you’re happy now, but remember, you’re about to make two of us grandparents too young.”

Sana laughs. When it comes to the time he leaves, she helps smoothing the crumple on his shirt and gives him a little pep-talk before she pushes him out of the door because rule #1: Ladies shouldn’t wait.

“I haven’t said a word to Seungcheol in two days eighteen hours and ten minutes,” Nayeon says from the other line. “It’s kind of disconcerting, you know?”

It’s silence except for the sound from the TV where Sana keeps changing channels. “Is this a venting session or are you waiting for questions?”

Nayeon is rolling her eyes, Sana knows it. “I hate that sometimes you don’t even want to know anything about me. Do you even know me?”

“Don’t be dramatic. I just don’t roll like that. You will tell me anyway without me probing.”

Nayeon sighs, knowing it herself that she can’t keep it too long without talking. “He’s been very quiet lately. It’s weird. When I picked up a fight with him, he just smiled and asked me what I wanted to watch for dinner. What I wanted to watch for dinner instead of what I wanted to eat. He’s not okay.”

“Was he high?” Sana chooses not to ask when this ‘dinner’ setting was. She doesn’t roll like that.

“No. I suspected but apparently, he just had too much in his mind that he turned weird. When I asked, he didn’t say anything. And then we watched this infomercials channel, and we watched someone selling this blender that can blend everything, even a stone, bones and raw meats. It’s like they are giving psychopath ideas, you know, but I digress. Okay, so I asked him to change the channel, but he told me to be quiet. Let him talk to us, he said.”

“He’s high,” Sana concludes, settling on a current hit drama Jeonghan told her about. She grabs her seaweed popcorn and starts munching.

“He’s not. I told you I suspected, but the signs weren’t there.”

“Then what makes you stop talking to him?”

“Because I asked him if he took drugs, and he looks so disappointed at me. He didn’t say much but all he said was, don’t stereotype people and let’s talk later when you feel like you want to talk to me.”

“Maybe that’s what this is? He just wants to talk?”

“We talk.”

“Your idea of talking is people’s idea of fighting, Nayeon.”

For another few minutes, Sana lets her dwell on what she said and watches as a middle-aged woman sobbing on the screen.

“How about you now? Anything about your love life?”

The one thing she’s been trying to avoid thinking and talking about for four days now. She texted him a few days ago, informing him that her next appointment is next Tuesday. He called her several times after that, but she refused to pick up. He eventually sent her a text, pleading “please pick up, I need to talk to you,” but she tried her best not to give in easy.

“I saw him on the night, the day after you left,” Nayeon states. “He was at the nightclub too.”

Sana swallows. Popcorns scrunching in her palm. “What did he do?” What she doesn’t ask is; was he with a girl?

“He was with a girl,” Nayeon states, unknowingly answering Sana’s unsaid question.

Sana’s heart drops at that.

But Nayeon is quick to explain. “But to his credit, he didn’t pay her—or anyone, for that matter—any attention. I didn’t even know why he went out looking like he’s liable to strangle anyone who said a syllable to him.” Nayeon laughs suddenly. “The girl tried to touch his crotch, though. But he tapped her hand away like she was a naughty child. Then he said something to the girl and she kinda looked mad and then she left.”

It’s like the most dramatic balm. She was so sure—oh goat—the images of girls being all over him is already in her head but the twist sweeps them away, letting another emotion flowing in. As much that it didn’t work out between them, she still wishes he could be hers. And hers alone. A sob cracks in . “I miss him. I miss him so much.” The words are finally out. The ones she didn’t want to utter, lest that if she said it out, she’d feel it much stronger.

But now she knows, her feelings to Mingyu is nothing short of strong. It’s overwhelming—the longing, the loves, the hates, the desires. And the longer she keeps it straining inside her chest, the more painful it becomes.

All the past few weeks, her emotions numbed, letting her physical did all the work. She basically ran on pure adrenaline, but she knows eventually it will hit her and she’ll crash hard.

Like right now. “I ing miss him. He’s so stupid.” She gives in to the stings behind her eyes, letting a stray tear fall.

“I know, girl, I know.”

“He called me. I didn’t answer.”

“Do you want to?”

She sniffles. “I can’t. He hurt me.”

Nayeon sighs. “If it makes you feel better, he didn’t look like he’s in good place either. But hey, just go make yourself more miserable, why don’t you? Cut contact.”

“I’m not cutting contact with him, it’s just—”

“Then, we can go around and around and nobody’s happy. Why don’t you just call him while you’re still in contact? Hear what he wants to say, because I doubt he hasn’t learned a lesson yet.”

She has a point. Though, she hopes Nayeon really listens to her own advice.

Her thumb keeps hovering on the call button. There’s a shiver down her spine as she knows that by calling him when she’s the one who told him to leave her alone—it’s her asking him to hurt her again. But she’s not able to stop herself. There’s something in her gut that feels irrational and illogical and foolish and right. And it’s telling her it’s time.

Maybe she’s done fuming and funking. Maybe she’s so done with missing and longing. And that the only thing she has to do is be done with it and . . .

Talk

To

Him.

She dials.

He picks up at the first ring, not giving her time to rethink her decision to talk. To really talk. Not in the condescending way. Talk like they were before they made a mistake of falling into bed until feelings got into the way.

“Hey,” she starts.

He releases a breath he seems to hold. “Bab—” He clears his throat. “Sana,” he corrects. “Hi. I’ve been calling you.”

“I know.” She opens to say more but all she does is her dry lips and stares at the remote control.

This is them now. After doing the impossible and becoming something, this is them. Two strangers looking for words that wouldn’t do justice to what they really want to say.

His breathing sounds raspy. “How are you?”

“Good.”

“And our Banana?”

“Good as well. Though I think he should know how to kick by now but let’s trust his pace.”

Sana removes a lint from her sweater, noticing her hands are getting cold. And as if to contradict the words she just uttered, an unexpected pain slashes her like a zap in her stomach, causing her to jerk. She sits completely still as the burning sensation eased off.

“Sana?” Mingyu sounds so far away, and she half-realizes that it’s because through the shocking sensation, she had her phone dropped onto her chest. “Are you there? You’re quiet.”

For a moment she doesn’t move, because she’s not sure what happened just now, but the pain doesn’t return. It comes as quick as it goes. Still confused, she picks back the phone. “Um, yeah. I’m here. I just had a weird cramp.”

“Really? Are you okay?” He instantly sounds worried. The Mingyu that she knows and misses.

“Yeah, I guess it’s a good cramp? It’s not that painful. Probably a tell that our baby is going to start moving. She’s been really putty.”

“Putty doesn’t sound right. Is there a way that we can move up the appointment earlier? Maybe tomorrow?”

“Mingyu, we’re okay. Don’t worry.”

“I can’t not worry. I can’t see you. Sana, I’ve tried hard to respect your decision, don’t take me wrong, but . . . I’m worried.”

“You hurt me. I can’t see you because seeing you hurt me. And I have to take care of myself.”

“I understand that and that’s why I’ve been calling you. We need to talk. God knows how much I need to talk to you. I need to right this. Please let me.”

She rubs her stomach as she feels another kind of pain prickling in her heart. He sounds so . . . helpless. Maybe he finally learned his lesson. She considers that for several seconds before she asks, “Why did you hurt me?”

And now, through his ragged breath, he really does sounds helpless. She hates that she inflicts this on him, but he brought it upon himself. He did this to them. “I didn’t mean to. I swear on our baby, I didn’t mean to. Whatever my reason is, you should know that hurting you was the last thing I wanted to do. I told you I’m bad in relationship. When things progressed between us, I don’t think either of us gave it a prior thought before it happened. But it happened, and it scared the out of me and nobody was there to tell me that cutting things off between us is something that I might regret.” He takes a pause. “Am I rambling?”

He is, but she’s taking it all in. “Continue.”

“There’s a part of me that believed you would easily agree with me when I told you that we should stop. That maybe you’d be thinking the same, that it’s better for both of us to just remain friends. Because between us, you do the thinking more than me and Sana, when I’m with you, I’m gone. My thoughts, my common senses, my resistance, my ability to make good decisions—all gone. They are all non-existence where you are concerned.”

Sana exhales. She doesn’t expect him to let it out this much. Maybe this is the perk of his inclination to ramble when emotions overwhelmed him.

“So, I thought, the only one who’s going to hurt is me. The last thing I expected was for you to be hurt. Maybe I was dense, but like I said, when you’re concerned, I don’t have senses. So, I ended up making bad choices around you, and baby, I’m really so ing sorry for that.”

She finally gives in to the tears welling in her eyes. He doesn’t say the word—but he misses her too. She sniffles. “Doesn’t it scare you anymore? Our future?”

He takes a pause. “Not having you beside me scare me more. Two nights. You were with me for only two nights, but for two weeks, I still wake up in the middle of the night, patting the bed, searching for your warmth. And I don’t want to go through that again. Add that to the fact that you look at me like I’m your enemy when you’re one of the most precious human being to me. I can’t handle that for longer.”

Tears rolling down her cheek as her heart inflates. One of the most precious human being. Her. To him. It’s not declaration of love, but close enough. She asks in a breath, “Meet me tomorrow?”

“Can we make it tonight instead? There’s something more I want to tell you and I need to see your face when I say it. I’m only three hours away.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“Again, I’m talking to you, so I have no common sense. I’m driving there as soon as I can.”

She smiles, heart is practically palpitating so fast. So nervous, so giddy. But she gets herself under control by shyly whispering, “Be safe. The baby needs the daddy.” And so is the mommy.

She hears the smile in his voice. “I miss the out of you two. But it might take a little while before I’m off the road. I’m on my day-four stubbles. I don’t even look like myself anymore.”

She laughs. This isn’t how she expects to reconcile with him, or how she thinks her decision to call him will end up to, but she’s getting him back, and she’ll take however it gets to reclaim him.

She doesn’t realize that after a long shower, shaving and putting facial mask on her face, she has fallen asleep. She wakes up on her bed, hearing the faint sound of football on television. Her father must be home. She then weakly checks the time. It’s only five in the evening. And come to think of it, why does she feel so weak when she just woke up?

Like she’s down on something.

feels incredibly dry and her skin damp with sweat. She presses the back of her hand against her forehead, trying to sleep it off again. But then she in a gasp as the pain she had earlier knifes through her stomach again. She freezes, looking down on the swell of her tummy.

The pain is like a period cramp, but a bit stronger. It also feels like a bowel movement or something. She sits up, pushing her leg down the bed, intending to go to the bathroom. The cramp comes again and this time, it slowly eases, but then some kind of pressure follows. She hisses to stand up, and the pain strikes again, jolting her.

This is bad. Something is really bad. Her guts tell her.

Her stomach is clenching, and squeezing. She falls back to the bed, hand pressing on her tummy. When the pain lessened, there’s a rush of something, pressing to the low of her stomach.

Her gaze falls down to her crotch and her heart stutters. Panic explodes as she stares down at the mattress. “No. Oh no.”

There’s blood on the sheet.

a/n : yeah. 

this chapter was done a month ago. but since it's ending in a cliffhanger, i dont want to leave u guys with it for months in case i update late again. so i need to get another chapter done so u can move on with your life which is why it took me so long. I'm sorry :(