It was an hour after sunset; the horizon was mainly painted in dark blue with faint tints of oranges. In front of another worn-out flat in Seoul, a woman was standing while gripping her beige cardigan wrapping her thin frame—a futile attempt to block the chilling autumn breeze. Although she only wore a wool cardigan and black scarf on top of her silk, broken-white blouse and crème, plaid knee-length skirt, she had managed to stand against the unfriendly weather. It had been a couple hours since she started to wait in front of the door and since the owner of said door hadn’t given any sign of showing up, it seemed that she would still need to wait for quite some time. She rubbed her palms against each other and blew them in order to keep her warm but to be honest, it was vain. However, she kept on repeating the same action until a voice called her out.

 

“Excuse me, Miss, are you okay?”

 

The fair-skinned woman with long, straight, black hair turned to the guy who had just addressed her. He was only a couple inches taller than her, adorning a black long coat and a matching wool scarf on top of his dark blue jeans and a pair of wash-out white sneakers with green highlights. A black Adidas backpack was slung on one of his shoulders. He seemed like he barely reached his twenty with his short, side-swept bangs falling on top of his small eyes. When he smiled, his eyes turned into beautiful crescents. He had rather puffy cheeks that made him looks effeminate and his thin lips that curved upwards enhanced his feminineness. 

 

“I’m okay,” she said, but he didn’t believe it. 

 

“It’s really cold and you’re only wearing that. You should use my coat,” he insisted while taking off his designer-made coat, revealing the neon-green sweater that he had underneath. He handed his coat to her but she was only staring blankly at him. It would be nice to have his seemingly warm coat over her cardigan, but they were strangers, so she wasn’t sure if she should take his offer or not.

 

“Come on, just take it. I know you are cold. You don’t have to be worried about me; I’m going inside soon, anyway,” he said while pointing at the door next to the one she had been standing in front of. She chuckled—it amused her how he could think that the reason she hesitated was because she was afraid that he’ll be cold—before finally taking his coat and thanking him softly. He smirked; he wasn’t exactly handsome but he was definitely charming.

 

The moment she wrapped herself in his coat, she felt much warmer. She accidentally inhaled his faint cologne on the coat; it smelt expensive, almost like what her husband loved to wear. She shook her head to shake off the thoughts of her husband and focused on the guy who had just lent her his coat. He walked to the door that he had pointed before and knocked on it. He waited while crossing his hand in front of his chest. A cute frown was formed on his lips when no answer was heard from the other side of the door. However, when he realized that she had been watching him, he turned to face her and smile playfully.

 

“It seems that I have the same luck with you,” he commented while fishing his phone from his jeans’ pocket. He pressed a number before putting the phone over his ear; the owner of the flat was on his speed dial. However, the resident of the flat didn’t immediately pick up her phone so that irritation started to grow on his face as he repeatedly hit the buttons on his phone.

 

“Hey, slowpoke! I’m freezing outside, so quickly open the door, okay!” he snapped out once the other side of the line finally picked up.

 

She watched amusedly at the exchange. From her observation, it seemed that the two of them were quite close. Oddly, she felt a slight relieve at her assumption. She bit her lower lip; a question was dying to burst out.

 

“Are you Jinri-ssi’s boyfriend?”

 

He looked at her, baffled. Her hand immediately flew to cover as the question was too personal to ask to someone she barely knew. However, in less than a split second he broke into laughter, his eyes crinkling into crescent shape.

 

“The first question from a beautiful lady whom I’ve lent my coat to and it’s not my name; it’s my status with Jinri. Are you wondering if I’m available?” 

 

She was only staring blankly at him, not really sure as to what to say to him. Is he flirting with her?

 

Before neither of them could say anything, the door was opened, revealing the topic of their conversation, Jinri. She looked disheveled; her hair was kept on a messy pony-tail and her shirt was wrinkled everywhere. Her droopy eyes clearly indicated that she was sleeping before he ringed her.

 

“Hey, Baekhyun. I’m sorry I was…”

 

“Sleeping, yes, I can see that,” he cut her off, “now, can you let me in? I’m almost frozen here.”

 

“Well, it’s your fault for coming here without a coat,” she mumbled while looking over his shoulder, clearly looking for other people beside Baekhyun. Jinri froze when her eyes fell on the familiar woman standing in front her neighbor’s door, sporting what Jinri knew was Baekhyun’s coat. 

 

“Joohyun-ssi, you’re still here.” Jinri whispered indignantly. Baekhyun looked over his shoulder, but before he could get a full view of the said lady, Jinri had quickly pulled Baekhyun inside the flat and slammed the door close.

 

Joohyun sighed while raking her hair with her fingers. It had been a few days since she met Jongin again and she had constantly tried to make a decent conversation with him by waiting in front of his flat every single day. However, she hadn’t been lucky enough to do so. Jongin had come home in various time—sometimes early in the evenings and sometimes really late, nearing midnights—and whenever he arrived he would always ignore her and slam the door in front of her. Joohyun never gave up, though. She thought that maybe, if she was persistent enough, Jongin would be merciful enough to hear her out.

 

Joohyun’s eyes fell on the door that Jinri had just closed. Although Jinri had let Joohyun waited for Jongin in her flat when Joohyun first tried to meet him again, Jinri never offered the same hospitality to her. It seemed that Jongin had told Jinri about Joohyun and asked Jinri to not help her anymore. It was a pity since Jinri had been kind to her before.  As she thought of Jinri, she remembered that Jinri called the guy who lent her the coat as Baekhyun, so that must be his name. His closeness with Jinri piqued her; she secretly wished that he was Jinri’s boyfriend.

 

Why do you care, anyway?

 

A soft voice questioned from the back of Joohyun’s head. Whether Jinri was a in a relationship or not shouldn’t be any of her business. The only business she should be minding is how to make Jongin listen to what she had to say to him. 

 

Maybe you are afraid.

 

What could she be afraid of? Joohyun asked herself. However, that soft voice already knew the answer and so was she. And she was scared of what the answer would be.

 

You are afraid that if Jinri was single, she would end up with Jongin.

 

Joohyun bit her lower lip. After all these years, did she still have feelings for Jongin? She had sworn herself--when she dumped him years ago—that she would rather be hated by him so that he could love someone else because she already had a fiancé. She prayed so that he could get someone who would deserve him; someone who was young—around his age, someone who was kind and cared a lot about him. Someone like Jinri, she thought. Now that she had appeared, why was Joohyun feeling uneasy?

 

Joohyun tightened the coat around her again and smelled Baekhyun’s scent for the second time. She realized that it was indeed really familiar; Baekhyun was probably using the same cologne as her husband. Joohyun’s felt her stomach dropped at the thought. She was reminded of him: her—soon to be—ex-husband that she left in Beijing, her ex-fiancé of 25 years, Kris Wu.

 

At the remembrance of his name, her fingers unthinkingly traced her lips.

 

“Joohyun, please. I love you; please don’t leave me,” Kris murmured as he desperately closed the gap between them. It was merely an act of despair, of hopelessness, of desperation—an emotion that Joohyun had thought Kris would never show. The haughty and mighty Kris Wu was begging her to believe his love for her, she had to admit that it was sweet. However, this was the love that he had never spoken of in their twenty-eight years of togetherness. Did he really expect her to trust his words when in the past he had acted like he didn’t love her? 

However, Joohyun felt his honesty as he poured all his heart on the kiss—all the pent up feelings in the past years gushing through the connection between their lips. She could really sense it: his long-hidden love. Kris had never kissed her like this. He had always respected her space and never initiated any skinship whatsoever but this time he was different. Joohyun could feel the sparkle that they had never have before, tingling all of her senses. Before she could process what was happening, she found herself naturally kissing him back.

 

Joohyun blushed; the memory was still vivid in her mind as if it had just happened the day before and not three weeks prior. The gentleness of his lips was still lingering on hers. Nevertheless, she shook her head, refusing to be caught in the memory.

 

It’s over, she chanted in her mind.

 

It’s over.

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TBC

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AN:

it has been a long time since I last updated this, eh?

I'm sorry, I've been really busy. I feel that I've been keeping you all waiting for too long, so here is a quick update. I haven't had the time to reply every comments but I've read it all and would surely be replying when I use my pc to update as I'm now using the tablet. I'm really touched with your compliments and really encouraged by your enthusiasm for the story.

thank you for everyone who are still here with me, and thank you for the support.

I can't belive we reached more than a hundred T-T

 

with many-many love,

himalayancat