The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 16

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     "We're ordering Take-out!"

     "YES!" Half of the boys in the cosy home answered back from whichever room they were in. Take-out was, overall, comfort food to all of the boys. Whenever they ordered such during their free days, it was just to have an evening all together without any intrusion, whether it be the cameras or some members and others doing something else. Takeout was like going to a restaurant, but from home. Just lazily eating and socialising.

     Ophely was finally going to be with the 'real', or more authentic Seventeen. The relaxed group of men, the calm version of them all, and the well rested boys. No worries, no job to stress them out. Just a calm few days, and the calmest hours, before working on their comeback.

     Making a comeback so soon hadn't been their plan when they had come back with 'Clap' and their album 'Teen, Age' back in November. So that was that, good things happened and they were going to promote their Extended Play in February. Filming and taking pictures for promotions was going to start any day now. But without Jeonghan. If things didn't get sorted out before then.

     However, now was the time to eat. Tteokbokki, Pajeon, Bulgogi, Japchae and many other dishes Ophely had never heard the boys even speak of. So she was going to discover them once they arrived on the table.

     After dressing the long living room's low table with enough plates and glasses for everyone, the food arrived and was promptly unpacked and put on the table by the lost hungry members. Ophely loved how lively the atmosphere was. It wasn't a calm or tired evening, everyone was talking, slang and quick wording. She didn't even bother to try and understand, but it made her smile. It was warm. It was like the Christmas meals she had with her family, or even the ones during Summer when they would all join each other to have a ginormous meal altogether. Many conversations going over the other, boys getting cut off as someone requested a dish in front of the other.

     This is what it was like to eat the Korean way. A small plate being filled with more than one different dish, flavours mixing and temperatures too. This wasn't how you ate in France. There was apéro, then starters, then the main meal. One, and only one, meal for everyone. Here, there were many portions of many things, and nobody cared about how the other ate it, or not. It was your habits and what you liked.

     Laugher bounced around the walls as Ophely drank her fourth glass of water. She loved spicy food, but this was something else. These Koreans had no knowledge of how spicy their dishes truly were. Ophely was on fire, and she usually had a very high tolerance.

     Though she did learn one new thing about Jeonghan, which she hadn't known before. And that was that he was lactose intolerant. She was told as she wanted to drink milk to tone down the fire in her mouth leftover because of the peppers. That's when she understood why she hadn't been well a few times in the morning after breakfast, it hadn't been the nerves but the earlier hot chocolates she prepared for herself. Ophely hadn't put two and two together as she had a friend who was lactose intolerant, and she could not eat any dairy products without being extremely sick and having her stomach grow the size of a pregnant woman's.

     Overall, it was a wonderful evening. Ophely hadn't' even thought about her terrible situation

     However, and this evening was all about being together, the boys had that unsaid rule to always leave their phones away from the table. And because of that, they had all missed a very important message. One that was going to change their daily life brusquely..

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      Everyone had fallen asleep in the living room, after having changed into their sleepwear and having brushed their teeth. They had all rejoined one another in the common room to enjoy the end of the evening together. And now, past seven in the morning, they were all still deep into dreamland, on top of one another. Limbs jumbled in every corner of the room.

      Ophely had been snuggled into the side of Mingyu, with Dino on top of her legs. She was cosy and warm. It was weird. An unusual feeling to her. As a bit of an eccentric person, she had never gone to a sleepover, or even held on. It was new, but welcome.

     She had woken up on her own, like she usually did. And so she got up, gliding her way out of the pile of bodies scattered on, and around, the sofas, and tiptoeing her way over to the kitchen, making as few noises as possible. Coffee brewed quietly, and the water boiled in silence. She observed the tired boys from the doorway to the living room.

     It was during those calm moments, when her brain was still a bit asleep, that she found herself having the most fun imagining things up. Artistic ideas jumbling out of her brain in endless waves. Like those at the beach during winter, calmly receding and coming back up on the sand. Over and over again. She flipped through the many pages she had filled from her sketchbook before stopping on the first empty page, and took out her pencil and watercolours from the little shelf of the little table in the entrance hall.

     Whether it was concrete illustration plans, colour swatches and mixes, notes or even just concepts; Ophely let them touch the paper and become real. Half of those ideas will not be reviewed, just forgotten, but everything had to be written out for that other half to exist and be remembered. Some ideas were crazy, they were however often the ones that she liked the most.

     It was then, at the peak of her concentration, that something unusual happened. Someone was knocking on the front door. Quite loudly might I add. And it was half past eight in the morning. Only five of the members were awake and drinking their morning beverage. They all looked at one another as they realised that this person could be anyone. Or not, since to get into the building you also needed a code. And should that person know the bottom, shouldn't they also know the one for their door?

     But you needed a key to open the door. Double locking, and the boys prefered turning the key during nights.

     Seungcheol waited for a moment before standing up and going over to the door. The knocking person had stopped.

     "Come on~" That person whined from the other side of the door, gently knocking on the door now. That voice was not familiar to anyone. Except Ophely, she seemed to know who that was. "I know you're all awake. And how dare you not read my message~" They whined again knowing they were heard. It was then that Ophely stood up, letting her pens be a mess on the kitchen table as she ran to the door, pushing the group leader to the side.

     From where he was, Seungcheol could see who was outside the door. And he froze just like the young girl. Ophely gaped at the guest. In total shock. Even preparation couldn't have kept her from reacting that way.

     "Hi." She said.