The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 41

The headphones were grey. Sitting on top of the grey shelf, next to the grey wall. Ophely wasn't actually sure if everything was grey, she didn't remember ever seeing this room in full daylight whilst awake. Maybe she had, but her memory wasn't great. Right now, it looked grey. The vase next to it was glass, but seeing through it the wall, it looked grey. She let her eyes wander higher up the stems of the flowers, laughing quietly at the thought of the water actually staying by the side of the vase. It was gravity pulling it down, but she was looking at it from her resting position on the mattress. She wanted to know the colours of the blooms, but it was too dark up there and they ended up looking grey too-

"I'm sorry for dragging you into this."

"What?" Ophely was startled by his voice, she thought that he would be sleeping as he had been quite exhausted that evening. She let her mind work for a second, going through what he said. "You don't have to be sorry about that, it was magic that dragged me here."

"Well, yeah." Jeonghan acknowledged, she heard him turn to his side. "But it is still my job that tires you out and forced you to come here and stay for months. We don't even know when you'll be able to leave."

"It doesn't matter." She mumbled, turned to lay on her back so that her words didn't have to bounce through the walls to be heard. "You didn't choose this either. You were, and still are, hindered by my presence." She sighed, adjusting her covers. "But we got through it, right?" She didn't know where she was going with her words, but it was somewhere where Jeonghan didn't blame himself for it all. "I mean, I got to learn Korean as well as dancing coming here."

"You did, but not because you wanted to, and you haven't even been able to go around and discover the whole of Korea because you are tied to me." She felt him tighten his grip on their joint hands. "It shouldn't have to be like that..." Jeonghan sighed.

Ophley watched the grey ceiling for a few breaths, looking at the empty semi-dark ceiling with tired eyes. She could make out the shape of the lamp hanging from up there, and then two of the corners. They were lit up by the little light coming through the misplaced curtains of the window.

"It hasn't been a sad time overall. You know."

Jeonghan stayed quiet for some time. Ophely waited for his response. "Just because you had fun at some moments, it doesn't cover for how sad and stressed and out of place you have felt during that time. And you can't content yourself with what you have here, you should be thriving." He readjusted their hands, as did Ophely. She turned on her side to face him. "I know how much you wish to see your family again, and your friends. And your cat."

"Shame that none of you have cats."

"It's not going to be Vernon, Mingyu or Seokmin."

"How can you be allergic to such fluff balls~" Ophely moaned, laughing at the end as she saw Jeonghan hold himself back through the faint lighting. They chuckled quietly, imagining Dokyeom holding on to the cute kittens. A sight they might never be able to see.

"Just," Jeonghan spoke up after some time. "If you need to talk about it all, you know that I'm here to listen."

She only hummed in response, snuggling closer to her duvet.

"Maybe we'll find the reason why we've been tied together..."

"'Night." She replied tiredly, not really listening to him.

Ophely closed her eyes and, instead of seeing grey, she saw black. She fell slowly into dreamland, holding onto Jeonghan's hand as she slept soundly. It took a little longer to fall asleep, his mind thinking about why they had been attacked by that magic spell. But when he did, it was deep.