Run to You | Xu Minghao ; THE 8

XVIII

┍━━━•☽°•°❀°•°☾•━━━┑
Then I can find you
널 찾을 수 있을거야
┕━━━•☽°•°❀°•°☾•━━━┙

Jia's POV:

"I found you," he whispered, as he pulled me closer to him. Tears continued spilling as I glared up at him. We stayed in that position for a few minutes, before I pushed myself off him

Yet he still came closer to me, and took my face in his hands, wiping away my tears. I pushed him away again, but he still came to me.

"Stop it!" I screamed. "Stop it, go away!"

This wasn't what I had imagined I would have said to him if we ever met. This was definitely not how I had imagined we would meet.

I should be happy, right? But instead, the only thing that came up was anger. I tried searching his face for any emotions, but he was hard to read, till this day.

He had been here this whole time. He had been here, and he did not even bother..he did not even-

His body shook as he stuck out his hand, the umbrella in his hand above me.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Because it's you. I told you, right? I would find you."

I sobbed, and my knees gave away.

══════ ☽ • ☾ ══════

"You're probably mad at me, aren't you?" Minghao quietly asked. We were sitting by the Han River. The rain had stopped long ago, and night had fallen.

We had called the company earlier and told them that we were okay, and apologized for rushing out. The staff said that it was fine and that we could have time for ourselves.

Minghao sighed when I didn't respond to his question.

"Do you not even want to know what happened? Do you think...that I ghosted you on purpose?"

My head perked upon hearing that. I found Minghao already looking at me, and our eyes met. I could see sadness and hurt in his eyes.

It did pain me, to see him like that. I'm not that heartless, but...

"What happened?" I hoarsely asked. He swallowed and turned his face towards the river.

"You know, our last phone call," he began, in a low voice. "A few weeks before that, just after I came back from Japan...I got into an accident."

I gaped at him. He softly chuckled as he looked at me.

"It was nothing major, but I had hurt my head pretty bad. I ended up being diagnosed with Retrograde Amnesia."

I stayed silent as I processed all this.

"I didn't call you for a while because of that. The doctors had said I would recover soon, so I didn't tell you about it then. It's stupid, I know. I should have probably told you, but I was scared. I was scared because I was beginning to lose some memories of us together..." Minghao had his head in his hands now.

"That's why...that's why you said..."

"Yeah, right before you hung up. I said, 'I hope so'. I didn't think you'd heard it."

"No, I didn't...I only realised much later...when I was listening to our call recording one day..." I muttered.

"You recorded them?" He softly laughed. "Well, I did too."

I didn't know what to say, so I just stared ahead.

"After that call, it got really worse. I could barely just remember anything. I had to get all types of surgeries and everything, and it took like...more than a year for me to remember everything. Even now, I think there are some things I yet don't remember," he bitterly laughed.

"That's my reason. When I was having amnesia, I saw all the texts you used to send me. It pained me to know that I meant something to you as a person and yet I was forced to ghost you. I couldn't even remember you. But I would still see your texts. I listened to the call recordings. I reread all the letters. These things comforted me for the time I was trapped in those white walls, and that mattress, and that gown."

I shook my head. "You should have at least told me, Minghao..."

"I'm sorry, Jia."

I sighed and looked away.

"You have every right to be mad at me, but please give me a chance, Jia."

I continued shaking my head as tears brimmed my eyes. I felt Minghao's arms around me and this time I didn't bother to push him away.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as his voice broke. "I'm so sorry, Jia." He kept on whispering.

The only thing that filled the silence for the next few minutes was the sound of us sobbing when at last I pulled away from him.

"How is...your mom?"

A small smile appeared on his face. "She's great, actually. My parents got divorced, and my mom bought a house in the countryside. She's been travelling a lot."

I slowly nodded as I, too, smiled. "That's great," I said before silence took over again.

"Are we...are we good, then?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess."

"At least we met again, didn't we?"

And despite everything, both of us smiled.

══════ ☽ • ☾ ══════

word count: 807