Cunning and Evil

HE WON'T GO

She can't fathom the expression on his face, the smugness replaced by something else she can't decipher. "Seri," he called, and even though she couldn't recognize his expression, the tone of his voice gave him away. It was the tone he used yesterday when he checked up on her, and on all the other times he was worried about her. Ri Jeong Hyeok placed a palm on her forehead to check, and the contact made her flinch in surprise. She was aware of how his eyebrows furrowed and how the palm on her forehead was now on her neck, "You're burning."

'Am I?' were the words that never escaped her lips. She withdrew her hand from his grip, and held his palm that was on her neck, gently putting it down to his side. She had to break the connection, because she was this close to leaning into the comfort he brought with him. She spoke her words using the tiniest self-control left in her. "I'm alright."

"You're not." His lip formed a tight line. He had initially planned to just stay for breakfast and leave, afterall a long day was waiting for him in the National Assembly. He looked at Seri, noticing how she had put up a strong expression on her face. He knows her too well to recognize it as a facade. Jeong Hyeok removed his suit and laid it on the back of her dining chair, loosening the red tie just below his throat, before touching her elbow and leading her to the couch. "Rest. Lay down."

The transient moments of their skin chastely touching each other were liberating. It was as if in the middle of all their efforts to keep themselves in check, these slip-ups are bound to chip off their respective resolves.

And in these  moments, they let it. Afterall, that's just what they were. Fleeting. Passing. Momentary.

Her body felt so heavy and her head was throbbing to even argue, and his skin on hers was electrifying. She forced herself to speak, "I'll be alright."

"Just let me do this, Seri." He whispered, and good god, he should stop doing that because it makes her devastatingly vulnerable and weak. She leaned her head on the backrest of the sofa, unable to say anything because Jeong Hyeok had walked towards her kitchen after making sure she's settled on the couch. 

She spotted him on the other side of the room, his red tie loose, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and eyebrows furrowed while he fumbled inside her cabinets. He can't find anything to cook inside her fridge and kitchen cabinets, aside from a couple of eggs and he inwardly wondered what Seri usually eat for breakfast.

"Your fridge is almost empty." He commented from the kitchen, and Seri has half the energy to respond that she only forgot to stock up. She never mentioned the fact that she always eats outside, and she doesn't really get the point of stocking up food in her own home— in cooking for herself to eat with herself in an apartment she lives by herself.

"Coffee will do." She added, her hoarse voice betraying the strong facade she put up.

"You can't just have coffee, Seri."

With that, he fried the two eggs left in her fridge, deciding it'll suffice for breakfast so he can make her drink the medicine he got her. As the man brought the food to the living room, together with a couple of tablets on the side of the plate and a cup of coffee in his other hand, Seri saw a glimpse of Ri Jeong Hyeok, her Ri Jeong Hyeok, the younger version of himself who took care of her every single day. She wondered how high her fever was to hallucinate like that.

This man in front of him was the perfect reminder that he might have changed a lot, but he's still the caring man she always knew. It was difficult to determine whether the pain in her chest area was simply chest pains or her heart clenching because she missed him so much it hurt.

"Would you like some water?" Jeong Hyeok asked, shaking her out of a daze she was drowning in. She must have been staring at him with that plate of eggs for a while now.