Sejun's POV
I sat on the sofa on our living room, exhausted after a day full of interviews and TV guestings.
I propped my feet on on of the couch's throw pillows. Ken gave me a look. Maybe he wanted the pillows, too. Well, I don't care if he wanted the pillows. I got dibs.
The others were talking animatedly with each other. On other nights, I would have gladly joined in. No matter how tired we were, we'd keep on talking.
Not this time. I just sat there, deep in thought.
"Dre, smile naman jan," Josh lightly told me.
I rolled my eyes. Please, don't tell me what to do.
"I'm not in the mood," I stated.
"Still grumpy, I see," he added.
"Don't go there," I warned him. I was not in the mood for Josh's fun and games. Not tonight. Actually, not ever. Not while I was still wallowing in pain, misery and self-pity.
"Attitude pa rin. Hay nako," Josh commented.
I gritted my teeth. I was beginning to see red.
"May sinasabi ka?" I asked him sharply.
Josh raised an eyebrow. He looked like he wanted to add more.
"Josh, stop it," Stell said. "Sejun, please don't be like this."
"Like what, Stell? Be like what?" I challenged.
Stell sighed. The others were silent. Justin and Ken looked like they wanted to disappear.
"Dre," Stell said, in a soft voice. "I'm sorry for saying this but, I guess it's time to move on."
He guesses.
What a callous thing to say.
Everyone keeps on telling me to move on. Like it's such an easy thing to do.
"It's so easy for you to say that. It's so easy for all of you to say that!" I burst out loud.
"Sejun, Kasal na yung tao," Stell replied, stating the onvious. "Ano ba gusto mo? Ano ba gusto mo gawin natin? Ha? Sejun, stop this. Stop mo na paging bitter. Wala na eh. Wala na tayong magagawa."
I scoffed. How insensitive. He could have kept his mouth shut. All of them could have kept their mouths shut.
"You don't understand! You will never understand. How can I stop being bitter?"
They can't just tell me to move on that easily. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how bitter I felt, no matter how I try to forget, Gabriella Anne Perez will always be my one and only.
It was hard being like this, holding on to a person who left me seven years ago. It was like clutching sand. The more I try to hold on, the more they slip through my fingers. And yet, if I don't hold on, the wind blows and the sand flies away. It was a lose-lose situation.
It was like what I felt with Gab. I tried holding on to what I felt for her. All those years of longing and pining and yet, she slipped through my fingers.
She got married to another man.
Now, who wouldn't be bitter?
"Napag iwanan na ako. Time moved on but I didn't. Everyone has moved on. Gab has moved on while I'm still here! I'm still stuck in the past. I'm still stuck because I am still hopelessly in love with her and I don't know how to stop this damn heart from beating for her!"
All of them stared at me, unsure of what to do.
"If loving was a choice, how come I feel like I don't have a choice? How come I feel like no matter which direction I'd turn, I'd still end up looking for her. I'd still end up loving her?" I asked.
My tears fell. I was an emotional mess.
"It's so unfair! It's so unfair that life goes on and yet I am still stuck!"
I had reached the end of my rope. I had stayed strong, never letting my emotions get the best of me in front of the boys. I had tried so hard to keep a façade that even when I'm hurting inside, I was solid as a rock on the outside.
I have reached my limit. I was tired. I was tired of keeping up pretenses. I was tired of letting everyone know that I was okay without Gab.
I was not okay without her. I would never be okay without her.
Stell sighed. He got up from his seat and sat beside me. The rest followed. They crowded around me.
"We're sorry for being insensitive," Stell began.
"And we'll try to be more understanding," Justin added.
"You'll always have us, bro. We'll always be here for you," Ken said.
"Like it or not, you're stuck with us," Josh told me, patting me on my knee.
I wanted to be comforted. Even though I got angry at all of them awhile ago, they were right, I was stuck with them.
I wanted to say thank you, but my stomach would not allow me.
My stomach growled. My anal muscles constricted. My golly! Panira naman sa moment. Bat ngayon pa ako gustong tumae?
"I have to go to the bathroom," I declared.
I ran in record time, anxious to make it to the toilet bowl before everything else spilled. I quickly locked the bathroom door.
It was like an explosion down there. I tried to think back on what I ate for dinner. Dir I eat something bad?
I flushed the toilet and went out. I sat on the couch.
"Are you okay?" Justin asked.
I nodded.
Then I ran to the toilet again.
I sat on the toilet bowl for what felt like hours. My stomach was hurting like crazy. I would be dehydrated at this rate.
I groaned. My knees felt weak. The insides of my mouth felt like sandpaper. This has to stop now!
There was a knock on the bathroom door. A second later, a timid voice said, "Sejun?"
My ears tingled. What was Gab doing here?
I quickly finished my business and opened the door. She was standing in front of me with a brown bag on her hand.
"I heard you need hydration. You do look dehydrated," she stated.
"Why are you here?" I asked her warily.
"Justin called," she simply said. She grabbed my hand and led me to my bedroom.
I let her.
She made me sit on my bed then she began laying out the contents of her brown bag. I eyed them. There was an IV bottle, IV cannulas, a plaster.
Then it hit me. She was going to hook me on IV fluids.
"You're not serious. You're going to insert an IV on me? Here? In the comfort of my home?" I asked her.
"Do you want to be dehydrated?" She asked.
Just then, the other four entered my room.
"I called ate Doc. She has to treat you. You looked so tired when you went out," Justin explained. He sat down on the bottom bunk, on Stell's bed.
"Just be nice just this once, Sejun," Josh pleaded.
"We want you alive. Just let her do her thing. She knows what she's doing," Ken said.
I glared at all of them.
Gab grabbed my hand and began inspecting my veins.
"Are you sure you can do it?" I asked Gab.
Gab glared at me.
That was a stupid question. Gab can insert an IV with her eyes closed.
She began prepping the tubes and the bottle and instructed Justin to hang it on a rack nearby.
Gab grabbed her tourniquet and tied it on my wrist. She got her IV cannula and said, "If I don't get this in one shot, that means I'm not good." Then she inserted the needle.
It stung. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to absorb the pain.
When I opened them a few seconds later, Gab was attaching the IV tubes to my hand.
"You got it in one shot," I commented.
"It means I'm good," she replied.
I had no comebacks for that.
Gab began to adjust the IV. Stell grabbed his desk chair and told Gab to sit.
"We'll leave you two," he said. Then the other members of SB19 left the room.
It was just Gab and me in such an enclosed space. How comforting.
"How are you feeling?" She asked.
I shrugged.
She sighed.
"Cha told me about your upcoming concert in Korea," she confided.
"Uh huh."
"She told me I need to go with you."
I looked at her. She's going to Korea. With us. With me.
I remembered way back then when she said she wanted to go to Korea with me after I debut. She had promised to go with me.
Another plan that did not push through. A promise that was bound to be broken.
"I don't want you there," I told her.
Gab sighed. "Sejun, please not this again."
"Why do you keep on calling me Sejun?" I finally asked her.
Why does she keep on calling me Sejun? I was used to other people calling me that. But never Gab. Gab always called me Paulo. I was always Paulo to her.
"I'm fine seeing you as Sejun but I can't stomach seeing you as John Paulo," Gab replied.
What? What was that supposed to mean?
"I'm still the same person. I'm Sejun and John Paulo. Deal with that," I told her.
"It's complicated. For now, let me just call you Sejun."
"Fine."
"Let's not argue, please. I understand that you're hurt but you're not the only one who got hurt. Your heart was not the only one that got broken years ago."
"And whose fault was that?"
"Sejun, we had to break up. Don't act like it would not matter at that time. A lot of things were at stake. You got hurt. I got hurt too. You broke my heart-"
What? I broke her heart?
"How dare you?" I asked her, my tone cold, uncaring.
I did not break her heart. She broke it herself.
҉
Gab's POV
"How dare you," he said.
The hairs on the back of the neck stood. What?
"What?" I asked out loud.
"How dare you," Sejun repeated, louder this time. "How dare you say that to my face and act as if I broke your heart." He said it so calmly, but his eyes were cold, unfeeling.
"Don't ever act as if I broke your heart Gab. You broke it. You broke your own heart."
"Is this all the pent up frustration that you had for seven years?" I wondered.
There was so much antagonism towards me.
"I wanted to fight for us!" he screamed. I jumped at the sound of his voice. The Paulo that I knew never screamed at me. He never raised his voice. He was scary to other people but he was gentle to me. Too gentle.
"Fight for us by keeping me a dirty little secret?" I countered.
He laughed bitterly. "It was temporary. We never knew what would happen."
"Exactly! Which was why it was better to end things. You know how strict SBT can be."
"The point was I wanted to fight for us and here you are blaming me for breaking your heart! You left me! That's the whole point of this heartache. YOU LEFT ME."
I closed my eyes, frustrated. At him. At me. At everything.
"Who upped and left?" He continued. "After you called me that night we last talked, I never heard from you again. I never knew if you graduated residency. You deactivated your Facebook. I never knew what happened to you. I never knew when you went to Singapore. I never knew a thing!"
"It was for the best," I desperately told him, trying my best to stay calm.
"I wanted to build a life with you! I wanted to marry you, have kids and spent a lifetime beside you. But you left me all alone! I love my dream and I wanted to pursue it. As much as I love my dreams, I loved you too." Sejun was on a roll.
"Loved, as in past tense?"
"Don't go there, Gab. You have no right to question what I feel for you. You were never here the past years. You were never with me all this time."
He's right. I was never with him. I was the one who left him. But what choice do I have at that time?
It felt so unfair, having him blame me for the life that he was living right now. As if that choice did not matter. He was part of SB19 because of that choice. That fateful August night had sealed his fate. He was bound to reach the stars without me.
I had never regretted that decision.
Even now.
I still stuck by it. I believed it was for the best.
"You need some sleep," I wearily told him.
I got up. "I'm going outside to get water. Just sleep," I told him.
I did not wait for his reply. I got up and left, closing the door behind me. Stell, Ken, Justin and Josh stood up from the couch when they saw me.
"Okay ka lang, ate?" Justin asked me.
I bitterly smiled at him. "Dapat tinatanong mo kung okay lang si Sejun," I wearily teased.
"Inaway ka na naman?" Josh asked.
I shook my head. They didn't have to know about our conversation.
"Dito ka muna sa labas. Gusto mo kape?" Stell offered.
"Yes please." I needed the caffeine. Sejun had depleted my energy stores.
Stell handed me a cup and I sipped on it, enjoying the warmth.
I wanted things to be okay with Sejun. I had agreed to Cha's offer that I would go with them to Korea so I could patch things with Sejun. Just so I can have peace.
But he was making it so difficult.
I sighed. Things were to complicated to get fixed.
If only I can erase all the hurt, the pain and the anger in your heart, Sejun, I would erase them all. In a heartbeat. You will always be a significant part of my life. You will always be someone special. Seeing you hurting hurts me too.
I'm sorry if things turned out this way. I'm sorry I could not find the solution to end what you're feeling.
I hope in the end, you can overcome them and we can be civil. And you can look me in the eye without glaring.
And I can come back to the time that I can call you Paulo again.