My Universe

“You have to get up, Chaerin,” Harin urges her elder sister, starting to get genuinely worried about her. What she initially thought to be a case of being overworked and tired quickly turned into something else when she realized that her sister would go into her sulky, unmotivated state immediately after speaking with her boyfriend, Christian. Harin is definitely dealing with a case of dramatic long-distance yearning and no amount of ice cream or chocolates would be able to solve it. However, it is a good thing that Harin anticipated this weeks ago.

“No,” the elder brunette says in defiance, burying her face further into her pillow. “Let me just have a day to myself.”

"No," Harin pushes back, moving to take hold of her sister's ankles in an attempt to yank her off the hotel bed. 

If there's one person Chaerin knows in this life, it's her sister. So, from the moment she feels Harin grabbing onto her, she immediately reaches for the headboard and pulls against it to fight back against her sister's pulling.

"Yaaa! Lee Harin!" she scolds, holding on for dear life to the bed frame. "Leave me alone, you brat!" 

"Unnie, how long are you going to keep crying over Barom-oppa?" Harin asks, a laugh escaping her lips as she continues to tug at Chaerin's ankles using all the strength she could muster. With her sister's head buried in the sheets, it's obvious that Chaerin takes no notice when a certain tattooed someone sneaks closer to the pair of sisters after being ushered into the room by Juju. 

Christian himself has to try really hard to hold in his own guffaw when he sees how ridiculous his girlfriend is being. But she's lucky that she is cute, otherwise he'd chide her for spending her days sulking over him. Not that he was any different back in Seoul.

He shoots a smile to Harin in greeting; they'd catch up later. For now, he carefully replaces Harin's grip on Chaerin's ankles with his own and takes over the pulling. 

"Ahh! When did you turn into Hulk?" Chaerin cries out dramatically, trying to pull herself closer to the headboard, but she starts feeling her grip loosening because of Harin's power. Seriously, how much protein powder has Harin been consuming lately? she wonders right before her fingers slip off the frame that anchored her and she gets pulled towards the edge of the bed, thoroughly defeated by her little sister. 

Except, Harin is now standing beside the bed where Chaerin could see her wiping away tears from her eyes as she laughs out loud. But, if Harin is there, who is still holding on to her ankles? 

Chaerin turns sharply in the bed to look behind her, fully ready to tell Juju off for helping Harin and not her. That is, until she realizes that Juju does not have sleeve tattoos, neither does she have black hair and that ing grin and— 

She kicks her feet free of her boyfriend's grasp then pounces and throws her arms around him in a tight hug, burying her face into his neck. 

"Rom," Chaerin lets out and it's something between a cry of relief and a whisper. She inhales deeply, breathing in his familiar scent mixed in with his equally familiar cologne. So many days and nights of yearning and he's finally here. It feels too surreal to be true. It must be a dream, she reckons, but she'll take it. 

"Hi, love," Christian chuckles, tightening his arms around her waist. He presses a tender kiss to her temple, unable to resist the sheer joy that he feels from having her so close again after spending months apart for work-related reasons. Even if he's thousands of miles away from the comfort of Seoul, he feels at home now, at ease. "I missed you so, so much." 

He pulls back slightly when he feels some wetness against his neck to see that she has her eyes tightly shut, her hold on his shirt tightening. He could see a few tears falling down her cheeks and he dabs at them.

"Honey, are you okay?" He questions, both concerned yet amused by the way her nose scrunches up cutely. "Look at me."

"No, I don't want to wake up," she shakes her head stubbornly. "Just keep holding me." 

Off to the side, Harin snorts and shakes her head at that remark before slipping out of the room and quietly shutting the door to give them privacy. Chaerin is definitely a goner, she thinks with a smile to herself. Her own heart feels full at seeing her sister so happy and with such a great guy. And she could melt at the way Christian looks at her sister too, as if he's falling in love with her for the first time again and again. That man is just as hopeless as her sister, but that surely isn't the worst thing to be in life.

"Babe, I'm right here," Barom chuckles, reaching to cup her face with one hand and angle her head upwards so she'd look at him. "Harin and I have been planning this for weeks and you think it's a dr—" 

Chaerin cuts him off as she comes to her senses. He's here, she wants to cry out, reaching to pull him down so she could press her lips to his in a kiss that shows him just how much she's missed him. If distance makes the heart grow fonder, well, her heart had been at its fondest. 

Neither of them knows how much time passes. Maybe three minutes? Five? But when they finally pull apart to catch their breath and settle their heart rates, she could see that his lips are redder than before and knows that hers mirror his. 

Christian is unable to recall a moment when he's even seen someone look as beautiful as she does in this moment with her cheeks flushed, her hair slightly messed up and lips swollen. And he's responsible for such a reaction. 

"You're so beautiful," he whispers to her in a serious tone, hoping she'd be able to gauge the sincerity in his voice as he makes eye contact with her. Unable to help himself, he brings their lips together in another kiss, sweeter and more chaste. 

"I’m very happy," she whispers then a teasing smile appears on her face. "So I'm ignoring that you just used your own lyrics on me."

The elder man snorts at that, growing amused too. He hadn't even thought about it like that when he complimented her. "But it's the truth so you have to accept it."

"I have so much to tell you!" she lets out, grinning at him when she thinks about all the exciting things that have been happening for her, some of which she wanted to recount to him in person and not over the phone. 

"How about we go have dinner and you tell me all about it?" he suggests with a chuckle at her excitement that has her eyes lighting up like a child's.

"Anything is fine," Chaerin shrugs, simply content with being in his presence. 

Christian lets out a low, contented sigh as Chaerin lays her head on his chest, snuggling beside him just like they do when they're in Seoul. 

His heart wishes that she would return home with him in a week's time, but he knows that there is work to be done and careers to be made and secured. For the both of them. He couldn't be any more proud of everything she's done on her own, with her own vision in mind. Although things don't always go as planned, she readjusts and sees things through to the very end. It's one of the things that he likes most about her. 

And almost as if she could read his mind, she whispers against his bare chest, "I want to go back to Seoul." They both understand that her sentence ends with an unspoken 'But I can't yet.' 

He smiles slightly, glad that she misses him just as much as he did with her, but still reasons, "Well, finish your work here and you'll be home in no time, woman." And with a light slap to her , "Chop chop, Chaerin-sunbaenim." 

Chaerin lets out a loud laugh at his teasing, "That's CL-sunbaenim to you, sir."

"Let's have you home for Christmas, huh?" He wiggles his eyebrows playfully even if she doesn't see it, but he knows that she'll catch on to his innuendo. 

"We're not going to be doing anything differently on Christmas that we won't be doing this week." 

"Very true," he chuckles, fixing the blanket over her properly so she is protected from the chill that seeps through the open windows. 

"But, Rom?"

"Hm?" 

Chaerin sits up and props herself up on her elbow as she looks over at him, really wanting to hear his answer to her next question. "When you called me 'CL-sunbaenim', it reminded me of the night we first met when Seunghyun was there, too. On the roof, do you remember?"

"Of course, I remember."

"Well, I think I said to you that you could come find me if you had any problems at all. But you never did for seven years. Why is that?" 

"Ahh, so you remember that, huh?" he chuckles, moving so that he is mirroring her position and propping himself up on his own elbow.

"Of course, I remember," she mimics, her heart skipping a beat when he randomly places a tender kiss on her forehead. "I remember everything from that day." 

"Well then you would know that I had a crush on you since then."

She nods, "Seunghyun told me. But I thought it was gone by the time we met again. Maybe that was why you never looked for me again." 

"How could I have? You were CL, literally  one of the biggest names in Korea, and I was no one. Still am, no one really," his lips turn up at the corners despite his words. And she knows that there is no sadness in them, just humility. "Then you went to the US and felt far away and I just let it be. You were right about what you said, though. We are just one small part of a great big universe so we can get by during difficult times knowing that." 

She shakes her head feverishly. Seven years have taught her that there was more to it than that. "Rom, no. I was wrong. I've realized that a while back when I got here."

"I think you were right."

"No," she says firmly, adamantly. "Everyone has their own idea of the universe and space and all that. We are all our own universe, in a way. But now..."

"What is it?"

"You are now the most significant thing in my universe." 

Just a three-shot to say Merry Christmas, if you celebrate. If you don't, Happy Holidays! How did you all like 'No Blueberries'? CL and Ian's voices sounded very nice together and they complemented each other :)