Chasing Her

Chapter Three

“If you’re not shining, I won’t bloom.”

Once upon a time, Ah Reum was having fun.

Was, but with every fairytale comes an ending, no matter if it's happy or not.

She thought the trip would be enjoyable. After all, it’s not every day that she gets to fly out of Korea with a dad she’s barely known for seven months, have an excuse not to answer any phone calls from her friends besides Yixing, and cross paths with someone she once knew and find out that his presence was not so bad.

In fact, if she could repeat the day over, she would pass on this dinner and enjoy the rest of the day with Baekhyun, as unlikely as it sounds. The time she spent with him moved too quickly, too painfully quickly. She had so much more questions to ask him, but the boy just had to shrug her off with an overused excuse. He had to find something was what he said, but even though he left her to look for the supposed something, he managed to tell her more than she had even expected.

Thus, it had been an exciting day.

Had been.

The clue Baekhyun gave her was sufficient but trying to prove its validity was hard enough as Ah Reum could already tell that she can’t visit Sehun’s room anymore. She had lost that right the second she fled. Besides, when did Baekhyun ever find the time to practice being so untruthful? Back then, he used to stutter whenever she was around, but now he was all…well mature

It’s only been one day since she got there, and all she wanted to do was go back home with her dad and spend some quality time with her mother and start digging up clues about this past of hers that’s been bugging her since day one of finding out. To say that she regretted going on this trip was an understatement, but Ah Reum was set on not allowing Mi Seok or anyone else ruin this break for her.

And yet here she is now sitting between the grandmother she had never seen before and her oh-too-giggly father who wanted to mark that very day on the calendar as the day his daughter met his mother–what Ah Reum would later refer to as the day Hell split open.

Oh, joy.

It was too quiet, too unpleasant rather, an atmosphere quite like the cold wars both Ah Reum and Sehun give to one another whenever they fight, a hostility that would usually last a week at most. This one, though, Ah Reum had a feeling it would last a lifetime, and as narcissistic as it sounds, Ah Reum was so sure that everyone adored her. Who wouldn’t? Besides herself, of course, but Mi Seok seemed immune to her adorability.

Five minutes into the din-family bonding time and Ah Reum had known nothing about this person besides the fact that her name is Mi Seok, she’s apparently her grandmother, and they won’t get along very well. The last was 70% based on Ah Reum’s intuition, and the other 30% was based on the nasty glare the old woman was giving her. So far, Ah Reum’s intuition seemed to be accurate, as far as she knew at least since Mi Seok wasn’t giving her many options to think otherwise.

The second the old lady clad in plaid laid her eyes on her, it was as if the whole world had stopped, just for the old woman to tell her how much of a nuisance she was though she didn’t actually say it. Her so-called grandmother did not fail to smile, though, when she was graced by her son’s presence.

Ah Reum had never experienced a meeting with any of her grandparents before, so she did not know what to expect. An ecstatic grandma that would immediately run to her side, pinch her cheeks, and go on and on about her dad’s childhood? Yeah, that was pretty much what she was expecting because grandmothers usually loved their grandchildren despite having never met them until just recently. Aren’t they usually the ones who encourage their children to make children of their own because they want to go back to those days of when they pampered their kids the same way? In Mi Seok’s case, it didn’t seem that way.

Besides, the dinner had just started. Maybe she’s just as nervous as I am? That was why Ah Reum wanted to convince herself that Mi Seok did not hate her, but rather was angered that she was in the middle seat instead of her son, despite her unswerving objections to the idea. Mi Seok’s constant rambling said so otherwise.

Ah Reum could excuse herself to head to the restroom and leave the restaurant itself, and Mi Seok wouldn’t even notice. That, in Ah Reum’s opinion, was exactly how much her grandmother hated her, as odd as it is when today was the first-time Ah Reum has ever met her. She didn’t, though. She wouldn’t. Leaving would make her father sad, and as small of a matter it was, she would never leave him the way he left them. Besides, this whole trip was all about her becoming stronger, learning to be more independent, and digging deeper into this past of hers that she can’t seem to get out of her mind ever since she found out about it.

However, as stupid as it sounds, Ah Reum hoped that this day would end as quickly as possible.

And luckily, it did.

…

The next eight days were much more relaxing despite the endless rain that ruined half of her plans that she swore she’d do the next sunny day but didn’t, defeating the entire purpose of the trip. If she wanted to sleep and eat good food, she could’ve done so at home instead of flying to an unknown country just to do the same thing.

By the time Ah Reum realized it, she only had a day left until she was to go back, but she had learned nothing because Baekhyun wouldn’t reply to her texts. She knew that he knew something; what she didn’t know however is the reason why he’s hiding it. He was bad at hiding things from her, though. If he wanted to be discreet, then he should’ve turned the ‘read message’ option off. Seeing that he read her messages but never replied upset her more than it should’ve. Her trip was supposed to be happy, but here she was stressing about Baekhyun when all those years ago, it was him stressing over her.

After a week and a half of not answering her texts, he finally did.

It aggravated her.

The thought of not going crossed her mind just to spite him, but she figured that meeting up with him would solve at least one of her questions, if not all.

Luckily, she went. If not, she really would not know anything. Baekhyun knew more than she could ever find out by herself, at least she was convinced that he did. He may have been terrible at schoolwork, but when it comes to people, specifically her, he knows more than he should. Besides, there must have been a better reason as to why Sehun hated his guts. He couldn’t have possibly hated him just because Baekhyun liked her. Sehun was well aware that Ah Reum only had eyes for him, so that wasn’t such a good reason to hate him.

In her opinion, Sehun was a very simple yet observant person. He would not hate someone for no particular reason. If he hated that individual, it would be because they wronged him or someone