Chapter 17

You were at the beach, the warm sun and white sand was in front of you. No one else was there; no kids, no couples, no towels or teenagers playing volleyball. There was only you. The sound of the waves filled your ears and you immediately smiled.

I don’t even know where I am but hey, there’s the water waiting for me.

You didn’t even notice that you were already in your swimsuit and ran as fast as you can towards the sea. The moment the water touches your feet, you giggled like a little child and submerged yourself into the clear waters. The feeling of the waves hitting against your body felt nice and comforting. You closed your eyes in its comfort. It’s like you were being hugged by someone.

This was where you belonged. Why can’t you be a mermaid like Ariel? You’d stay in the sea forever. Away from people, away from all the noise.  Just the sound of the water moving, and the sound of your own breathing. But just then you heard a familiar voice. Your eyes shot open. You were still underwater but instead of it being as clear and bright as it was, it was murky, and dark, and in a shade of green.

You heard the voice again, this time, it was louder. Someone was calling you. You swam back up to the surface and looked towards the coast. A figure was standing at a distance.

Wait, when did I swim this far off the coast?

You looked around you and you noticed that you were a few meters away from shore.

“Hae Ra!”

You snapped your head back to the direction of where the voice was coming from. That voice. It was so familiar to you. The figure standing alone on the beach was waving at you. You squinted your eyes to focus your vision on him. And your heart started to ache.

“D-Dad?”

Even though you were far away from him, he smiled as though he heard you. But that smile only lasted for a second before it changed into a worried frown. His usual smiling eyes drooped and instead of looking at you, he was focusing on something at the distance. Behind you.

Just then you notice how it got dark and a shadow was casted over you.

“Dad? Dad, what are you looking at? Dad! Where are you going?! Appa! Appa come back!”

Tears welled up in your eyes and began rolling down your cheeks like rivulet as you saw your dad turning his back towards you, slowly walking away. You felt yourself being pulled by a force behind you and you turned around. You mouth was agape as you saw the huge wave that was towering over you. It was preparing to swallow you. You quickly turned around and tried your best to swim towards the shore. You could still see your father but he was already too far away.

“Appa! Appa help me! Don’t leave me, appa! Please I beg you, don’t leave me! Please appa! Turn around!”

Your screaming was left unheard and you saw the small figure of your dad disappearing. You tried your best to swim forward but the wave was pulling you back. You didn’t want to give up but you felt like you were losing strength in your arms and legs. You couldn’t even cry anymore. You were tired. A few seconds later you felt the wave hit your bag and you were pulled deeper into the sea.

Everything was dark; you felt water going into your lungs. You couldn’t breathe. The water that used to be warm was cold as ice against your skin. You couldn’t even see the surface of the water anymore. Everything was pitch black. Slowly, your eyes began to close.

You suddenly felt someone your head. It was soothing, and felt very familiar.

Am I dead?

Slowly, you opened your eyes and realized you weren’t at the beach nor were you dead. You saw the familiar ceiling of your room, old and forgotten glow in the dark stickers pasted on it. Outside, you could see how the sky is dark and the streetlights were casted into your room. You slowly turned your head and saw Mr Lee who was seated beside your bead, his head on his arm on your bed, the other, softly your head.

So it was Mr Lee who’s been my head? Why is he doing that? Why is he in my room?

You wanted to call him but your voice sounded husky and worn out. It was as though you had been shouting for real. Mr Lee’s head shot up immediately and leaned closer to you.

“Young Master, thank goodness, you’re finally awake!” His voice was soft.

You noticed how tired and pale his face looked.

“Mr Lee, have you not been eating well? Why do you look so tired?” You said weakly.

He smiled softly at you and stoked your head.

“I’ve been by your side all this while Young Master. You are more important to me than food.”

You raised your eyebrows. “How long was I out for?”

“Three days, Young Master. We were all worried. But thank goodness you’re awake now.”

Your eyes widened and you looked at Mr Lee with a confused expression. “Three days- I- What happened?” You started to get up from your bed but he firmly held your shoulders and pushed back down on the bed.

“You shouldn’t move much Young Master, the doctor said that you needed to rest. I’ll get some food ready and tell Madam you’re awake.”

Before you could ask more questions, Mr Lee hurriedly left the room. You sat up in your bed, in disbelief.

I out for three days? That’s impossible. But then again, why did my head hurt so much back then?

Your hand automatically touched your head and a headache started to form. You closed your eyes from feeling dizzy all of a sudden and slowly lied back down.

Why does it hurt so much? This never happened to me before.

Just then, there was a knock at the door and you called the person to enter, thinking it was Mr Lee, bringing you some food. But the person that entered wasn’t him. It wasn’t your mother; the second person you thought would come either. It was none other than Chanyeol.

“Hm? What are you doing here?” You eyed him as he entered your room with a tray of food in his hands.

The corners of his lips jumped upward at the sight of you and he slowly closed the door with his feet before carefully walking towards you, being careful so that he wouldn’t drop the tray.

“Wow, your room is like the size of my living room! Everything looks expensive!” His laughter bounced against the walls of your room as he sat the tray down on the small bedside table before pulling a chair beside your bed.

You stared at him.

Is my mind playing tricks on me? Why the hell is this freak in my room right now? And how does he even know where I live?!

Chanyeol just sat there, flashing his pearly whites at you before jumping in his seat and clapped his hands.

“Right! I’m supposed to tell you why I’m here.”

You scoffed. “You don’t say?”

“Well, you weren’t in school for three days after the day you left me alone with Mr Fancypants back at the café.” He mumbled the last part but you clearly heard him and decided to ignore it anyway because your head was hurting from his loud voice.

“And you didn’t reply to my texts or calls so I got worried. And so I kept calling and calling and calling and finally somebody picked up your phone! But it wasn’t you, it was your butler. He said I was being annoying for making your phone ring all the time, that old jerk.” Again he mumbled the last part, and again you ignored it.

“And so I asked him where you were and he told me you were sick so I asked for your address.”

You raised your eyebrows. “That’s weird, Mr Lee don’t easily give our address to random people. Especially you. Why did he?” You asked him and a the corners of his mouth quirked upward to form a cheeky grin.

“Well, I may or may not have begged and threatened him for it. I told him I’d continue to call you until he tells me your address and ta-dah, I’m here!” He ended while wriggling his hands in front of your face as though he was performing some magic trick.

Sneaky little .

You sighed and folded your arms. “So, now that you’ve seen me, you can go home. I need to have some rest.” You turned away from him and hid yourself under the covers. The throbbing pain in your head was killing you and the last thing you needed was CrackYeol making it worse.

“Aww come on. I just got here! Besides, your butler told me to help you with dinner. Come on Hae Ra, I even skipped work for this.” He pleaded to you. You could hear him tapping his feet on to the floor, like some child begging his mother for candy.

The sound of his feet was adding to your pain so you decided to give in to him.

“Fine, fine but could you please stop stomping your feet like an elephant and lower down your voice please? My head feels like it’s about to explode.” You rubbed the temple of your head with your thumb and forefinger.

Chanyeol nodded excitedly and placed the tray onto your lap. Despite your headache, the smell of the food was making your stomach growl with hunger. You reached out for the spoon but for some reason your hand kept trembling and you barely managed to bring the food close to your lips when it drops onto your shirt.

Fantastic.

You tried it again, more determined to get some food into your mouth this time and it did manage to touch your lip for a moment before spilling onto your shirt again. You kept trying and trying, dying to get a least one slice of tomato into your mouth but to no avail. In the end, feeling frustrated, you threw the spoon on the tray and sulked.

“God damn it.” You hissed in anger.

Chanyeol, who had been sitting by your side watching you since the beginning of your dinner escapade chuckled and took the spoon. He scooped up some rice and that small piece of tomato you’ve been dying to eat and brought the spoon close to your face. His other hand, right below the spoon, to catch any fallen pieces of food just in case. You stared at him in confusion.

“Erm, what do you think you’re doing?”

He shrugged and pointed to the spoon. “I’m feeding you, what else does it look like? Now hurry up, my arm is going to get cramps.”

“Ew! No way am I going to be fed by you! That’s so embarrassing! And I’m not a small child! Besides, I’m not hungry anymore.” You turned away from him and hid under your covers again. But just then, your stomach betrayed you by suddenly singing the national anthem of its people. It’s loud enough for Chanyeol to hear and he had to cover his mouth to stop himself from laughing. You clutched your tummy and bit your lower lip.

“Are you sure? The food looks delicious though. If you’re not going to eat it then I will-“

“Okay fine! Feed me! Don’t you dare eat any of it!” You interrupted him and sat back up. You caught him smirking at you before he brought the spoon to your lips again.

“Say ah~” He teased you and you glared at him.

I swear to God I will shove that spoon down his throat if he keeps doing that.

You quickly opened your mouth and ate the food. Even though you were annoyed by his presence, you couldn’t deny the fact that you were grateful for his help. You were practically starving and seeing how your limbs were too weak to move, it might have taken you hours to get at least one grain of rice into your mouth.

You chewed on your food Chanyeol just stared at you. You felt his stare and glanced at him, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable under his gaze.

“W-what are you looking at? Stop it.” You said to him.

Chanyeol shook his head and got ready with another spoonful of food for you. “Nope, not going to. You look so cute when you eat.” He said before feeding you again.

“Whatever, do what you want.” You mumbled and folded your arms.

The two of you continued on with him feeding you, occasionally would bring a glass of water for you to drink. This was all done in silence. Because whenever he does try to say something, you’d either tell him to keep quiet, or you’d just ignore him. Seeing how he’s not saying anything at all, you assumed he gave up.

You didn’t want that actually. Somehow, you sort of like to listen to him. His voice. The things he says. But you were the type of person who doesn’t say what you feel. You’d always say the opposite of how you feel. And because of that, you ended up being seen as arrogant, mean, and cold. And maybe that was why a lot of people hated you. The only person that stayed was Hae Ra. And also, Chanyeol.

Now that you think about it, the both of them have a lot of things in common. Both are loud, talk a lot, taller than you. But the thing that makes the both of them very similar, was that the both of them, made you feel…happy? They make you forget about the other kids in school, about all the bullying, the vandalism, everything.

Just then you felt Chanyeol moving closer to you. You looked up and found that his face was dangerously close to yours.

W-what is he doing?

You couldn’t move your body, or talk. His eyes were looking down to your lips, and you stared at him.

Is he going to kiss me?! What?! Out of the blue?!

The closer he got, the more you could feel your heart beating in your ears. He lifted his hand and placed it on your cheek.

This is it. He’s going to kiss me, and I can’t move away.

You closed your eyes shut, anticipating something to land on your lips but you didn’t. Instead, you felt him brushing his fingers at the corner of your lips and felt him backing away. Slowly you opened your eyes and you saw him holding out a grain of rice between his fingers.

“This little fella was stuck on your lips. Oh, why are you blushing? Were you expecting something?” He smiled cheekily at you.

“N-no! Of course not! Ha, ha why would I expect anything? Ha, ha, ha you’re funny.” You laughed, not at him but at yourself. How dumb could you be. Of course he wouldn’t kiss you. He knew that if he did that, you’d be sure to kick him in the face. But, why did you feel a little disappointed?

“See? Now that’s the smile I was looking for. You always look so grumpy. Even when you’re asleep.”

You’re eyes widened.

“Y-you were watching me while I was s-sleeping?!”

Chanyeol nodded his head. “I’ve been by your side the past three days! Watching you sleep was so fun. You looked like a small, grumpy gnome.” He pinched your cheek.

You sighed. Well, there was nothing else you could do. You were unconscious anyway, and you trust that he didn’t do anything funny except stare at your face with that creepy grin of his when you were dead to the world for three days.

“Why do you smile a lot?” The question flew out of your mouth without you realizing.

Chanyeol seemed taken aback but he gave you a warm smile. “Because, I’m happy. And I believe  that if I keep on smiling, the people around me eventually would too. Which includes you, Hae Ra.” He looked at you earnestly. You didn’t know why but your heart started to beat faster.

“But why? Why do you like making other people smile? Isn’t it tiring?”

He placed the finished bowl of food on the table and clasped his hands together, in deep thought, before finally speaking again.

“If you smile, it makes you feel good. But I also thing that the best feeling is when you make someone that you like a lot laugh and their face lights up, and they start giggling and you’re really happy that you were able to make someone so beautiful smile so much.” At that moment, he looked at you.

You didn’t know, but somehow you thought that he was referring to you. You felt yourself blushing and pulled the cover over you. “Okay, I’m going to sleep now. You can leave.” There was no way you could let him see you like that.

You heard him stand up and pushing the chair. “Okey dokey. Rest well. I’ll be back again tomorrow.” He said quietly and you heard his footsteps getting further and further away, towards the door. Before he could leave, you quickly called out to him.

“Wait!”

You could tell he paused right at the door, and was looking back at you, but you didn’t want to face him. Your heart was still racing for some reason you didn’t know.

“T-thank you. For today. I owe you.” You said quietly but Chanyeol of course, heard you. You could tell he was beaming and grinning from ear to ear.

“That’s fine. You could just accompany me to the café for another month.” He said before leaving the room and closing the door.

You removed the cover from your face and sighed. Great, another month at the café with him. But it couldn’t be helped, you felt like you owe him. And being who you are, you’d want to make it up to him. But for some reason, you weren’t really upset about going to the café with him. You didn’t know why. You wanted to sort your feelings and thoughts out, but your eyelids were getting heavier after your first meal in three days and soon you fell into a deep slumber.