Walking away hadn't been easy. It had been anything but easy - still it was the choice she had made for herself. And it was the one she would stick to for so many years.
Once she had graduated Highschool and had said farewells to her long time friends, Hae In had decided that she was done with hurting the three boys even if she didn't meant to. She had witnessed the destruction a love could caused to a certain friendship and she had decided she wanted none of it. She had watched for far too long of how she's breaking them apart inside.
It was unbearable, simply enough to turn her stomach to the extent that she begged her mother to let her fly to England with her Aunt there and by the next morning, the boy she left with no goodbye only find letters for him to read in their house, with Hye Jin refusing to tell a thing except that it was the finale of everything about them.
If Hae In were to be honest, the world the boys had opened so much wonders for her, of love and friendship along the discovery of her true callings in life, and that had become corrupted with pain after a year and a half, and she had call it quits even if the person she was affected by the most had been missed.
She didn't change her mind. The twist of fate, however, disagreed.
It wasn't long in this year that she was fearing about that she heard back from her husband, Donghyuk on what their son had done to his sister. It had taken some colossal restraint to hold herself from flying over to their home just to stop Daniel from all his plans. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when time arrived for her to search all the names going for Y/N, it wasn't only three but seven boys all coming for her daughter. The two of them at least is the danger zone.
But still, there are such circumstances in life she could never avoid. Just like this morning, when she found Daniel and Jungwon was panicking over you who apparently leave them in the souvenir store.
"Don't worry", Donghyuk assured with a smile, "I'm sure our girl is just wandering around here to search for books"
"You shouldn't try to act as if this was easy for me", she warned, her mind briefly flicking back towards the Park boy who was too happy to obey her words of allowing this day to be only with her family alone. "If something bad happens to her here, I'm taking her and Daniel with me to England"
Her husband was about to procure a reason, his face fall at the thought of losing his childrens and Daniel suddenly butted in their conversation while holding to a phone.
"Mom, Dad! Noona is at the police station with Mr. Sim and Jake hyung!"
"Thank goodness", Donghyuk offered her a very forced smile, then look back to their son. "Who's this Mr. Sim you were saying, Danny?"
Daniel turned his head towards him slightly, not quite sure why he was asking and did not recognize the undertones of his request. "He called me in my phone and said he was Jake's dad. I think the name he said is Mr. Sim Jaejoon"
That name - it was enough to have her coming to an instant still. For a moment, she allowed herself to entertain the thought that this Mr. Sim wasn't one of the same reason that she had left behind twenty four years ago. But like all fantasies in a love story regarding more than one boy, it was shattered into pieces at the end.
Breathing out slowly, she forced herself to take the first step and push her son forward. "What are we waiting for? Let's go get your sister!"
"Let's go", Donghyuk said in return, shepherding Jungwon in his side and heading eventually for their car at the sidewalk.
The moment Hae In sank back into the front seat, she was quick to drop her face in her hands. She breathed out deeply, ignoring Daniel's querry if she's alright: Sim Jaejoon. How was she going to face Sim Jaejoon if it were to happen he was the same guy who cried to her upon seeing the small daughter in her arms some years ago?
And having seen so much willingness for him to leave it all behind just for her, she thinks there could be a possibility his son might inherited the same trait and it doesn't sound so good at all.
Things aren't like Hae In wants, so it seems.
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When the car finally stopped in front of the Boryeong police station, she grew more and more on edge with each passing second that Daniel and Jungwon didn't notice as they exited the car instantly, together. Donghyuk stayed, staring forward in the street and knew this is an event they could never escape as well like the other times.
Part of Hae In wanted nothing more than to chicken out, to have her husband take you instead but that would only wind her up in some more troubles with her responsibility as a mother. Although, she couldn't help but look to her husband, a familiar face to Jaejoon and they stared at each other with careful smile; as if to buy themselves some more time.
After all, she wasn't that brave out of the two of them and it's him.
All the mental preparation she had done was useless when she headed for the table where she could see you besides a boy your age. And there she saw him in the flesh across the teenagers's sit, Sim Jaejoon - one of the ghosts from her past that jumped back into her life.
"It's been far too long, Hae In"
When she didn't answer straight away to him, you called out to her quietly, "Mom?"
She listened then. But only to you, the reason she was ready to face this rather grating situation at hand and to you, who had run to enter in her protective arms. As she stood there listening to your story, Jaejoon stood up from his seat to watch her with you hugging her, all whilst not taking his eyes off of her. And Jake, the boy who visited once in the house, waved at her cautiously in a way he can feel the tense atmosphere.
Hae In had expected to see some massive change in him from the last time she'd seen him; resting on one of the beds in the hospital after having been encountered a crash in the highway and his wife begged her to visit for once.
Perhaps the most drastic that he was awake now from a coma ten years before this, eyes open and pinning her to her feet with a pierce bite. The weight of his gaze was so heavy that she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. Or rather, that was until she remembered she was here to take you. Apart from that, there's nothing to stay long for.
With a hesitant smile, she greeted him for the first time. "Thank you for saving my daughter, Mr. Sim"
If Jaejoon saw something off against her use of his surname instead of her nickname for him, he said nothing as he gestured for her to take a seat before the waiting chief police officer. The chief took some time in explaining what they should do about the assaulters they now know is already wanted by raping female teenagers at that abandon area of the fresh market.
It almost feels like a stab in her heart to hear this knowledge and even if Jaejoon along his son is fast to reassure you, there's nothing they could say to calm you for it was only to your dad who turned up at the doorway, did you listened and you allowed him to lead you back into the car, where Jungwon is already waiting to comfort you.
In another kind of story, Hae In knows, this would be different. If this were a movie, there would be an intense eye clash between Donghyuk and Jaejoon. But that was the past. They were only young back then. Now they were adults, they have to deal with it in a much responsible ways. It does mean that she needed to talk to Jake's dad one way or another.
When they finally sorted the case with the police and Jaejoon promising he would be the one working with that, he led her outside while Jake walks up to his mom, Stella who nods to her husband before walking away with their oblivious son.
And then he asked, "How have you been, Hae In?"
It was such an innocent question that she honestly didn't expected to hear, but she managed a quiet answer, "I've always been good"
"Good", he echoed after Hae In with a slight nod. Still, his eyes refused to leave her face, but the intensity of his gaze had ease. "I haven't seen you since Jeongseok's wedding"
What he really meant to say, lingered unsaid. And yet she heard it all the same. She couldn't let it remained ignored for much longer: she needed to address it or else they would never be able to progress any further.
"I really didn't want to linger after the ceremony", she tried to justify, hating how it came out as some feeble excuse. "I couldn't bring myself to stay there any longer"
"Is it because of Jeongseok?", he pressed without a pause: she should have expective it and yet she hadn't.
"You already know the answer to that, Joon"
He arched a disbelieving eyebrow, and her answer, clearly a wrong one, had the ice returning to his eyes. "Of course, I'm right about it"
"Let's not talk about the past now", Hae In suggested with a forced smile. "We need to start talking about your son: are you aware that he's after my Y/N?"
"Jake is like me in so many ways, Hae In", was all he shared and the way he was looking at her was as if daring her to get more answer from him. "He never runs away from his feelings.
"I'm not surprised", she murmured, not falling into his trap of engaging her some more about their past. And she gave him a curt smile, "When his dad had been the same before"
He simply nodded in answer, a small smile lingering at the corner of his mouth. This time, as he continued to watch her, there wasn't a single hint of any anger, any signs of hurt in his gaze.
"What?", Hae In couldn't help but ask when Jaejoon eyed the ring in her finger. The diamond in it was like taunting him to what he could never have.
"You just seem different", he explained eventually, giving her an assessing gaze when she shuffled uncertainly in her feet. "A lot more adult than to the girl I once proposed to"
She hesitates, then sighs. "Forget about it, Jaejoon", She feels suddenly weary as she said it.
It only took a moment for everything else to fall away, and she was suddenly brought back in that particular day at their graduation. But that time, she hadn't seen any other option.
The only escape to him is rejection.
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It was supposed to be a joyous day when you knew you were one step away from College where they said your life truly started. And yet, Hae In couldn't express this enough of how wary she is for the days to come. She climbed the stage with her mother and she smiled through the flashes and greetings along the congratulations, barely holding her tears in envy to the others.
They have families congregating around the seats of the auditorium, cheering and capturing their pictures together after the ceremony. All had their fathers in their side, but her. She only have her mother who was doing her best to cheer her up, and yet nothing of it work. Not even when her bestfriend, Donghyuk came to give her a bouquet of flowers before being dragged aside by his friends to jump up in a groupie shot.
She had been standing near the exit, waiting for Jeongseok when Jaejoon walked across the crowd to greet her mother. Mrs. Jung, unsure of who he was, greeted him as if he was one of her friends and Hae In hurriedly steered him away before he could introduce himself as one of her suitors.
She wasn't ashamed of Jaejoon, not at all. But she didn't want for more reasons for her mother to give her a hard time in not allowing her to fly over to London tommorow.
The two of them managed to duck away in a deserted corridors and leaving the cramped area was Jaejoon's idea. When he reached into his pocket, she almost shouted at him to stop because she wore if he pulled a ring, then she was going to have a panic attack. It was just the idea of it made her palms sweat.
"Joon", Hae In started cautiously, only to breath an audible sigh of relief when it was just a letter.
He looked at her with a mischievous smile, teasing. "Did you think it was a ring or something?", he asked quite playfully.
"Not my fault when Stella keep on bitching about it", she muttered with a thankful breath that Jongseok is still busy with his family.
"Maybe once you break up with that boyfriend of yours", Jaejoon grinned, reaching out to finger one of the curls that draped down her shoulder, completely missing the way she froze at the joke.
And that was the truth of their relationship. It all started with her only helping him to get rid of this girl, then he break the truce and admitted that he had fallen madly inlove to their game. He was always asking her out, she was always running from it. They just didn't fit together. Not when there was the topic of the first love.
"What is that?", she asked instead, trying to put off their conversation for as long as she could.
He smiled. "Remember me passing an application for Australia's national soccer team?", he questioned hesitantly, breaking the seal on the back of the letter. "This is the result. I wanted you to be the one to tell me if I got in or not, so I'm opening it now"
Hae In drew her hands together, as if she was praying, and watched his face for any signs of what had happened. Jaejoon read over the letter once, twice and thrice when she saw his shoulder slumps a little. She tried to think of something to say to comfort him.
But then he was looking up with a grin. "I made it to the team, Hae In", he said incredelously, beaming and striding towards her to take her in a massive hug where he lifted her off the ground and swing her around. "Are you not happy for me?"
"Of course I am", she said truthfully, holding him close and he was reluctant to let her go. To let this go.
"But why are you not smiling?", he asked, instantly realizing that something was wrong. Drawing away from her, Jaejoon kept his arms around her, meeting her eyes as he asked Hae In gently, "What's wrong? Did you have a fight with him?"
She stared up at him for a long moment, trying to gain some courage but she couldn't. "I can't do this", she said, removing his arms from around her and going to step away from him. "I can't continue hanging around with the three of you"
"Do what?", Jaejoon protested, catching her quickly before she could move far. He turned her around to face him as he framed her face tilting it up towards his, and she chose to close her eyes over looking into thos beautiful eyes. "What are you planning to do to me, Hae In?"
She couldn't bring herself to see the pain that her next words would eventually cause him. "I'm leaving to end everything here, Joon", the words came out as a quiet whisper, but he heard them all the same. "I can't do this anymore"
The silence that followed stretched on. When she looks up again, he is watching her, and she has to steel herself, her heart straining against her rib cage as he closes his eyes to stop the tears.
Until he closes the space between them again. "Look at me", he ordered, and just hearing the sadness in his voice was already tearing into him. "Look at me and tell me I was enough for you to stay"
"Jaejoon-"
"If you're going to do this to me, say it to my face while looking to my eyes", he demanded. It took her a long second before she obeyed and goodness, it stabbed her completely inside to see the desperation in his eyes. "Now what the hell are you talking about, Jung Hae In?"
"You know what I'm talking about", she protested, swallowing thickly as she spoke quietly, "Don't make this harder for me when you're not even him, Joon"
"I don't care about him. I care about making this hard - as hard as I possibly can"
With a shuddering sigh, she pushed his hands away from her face and took a step back, "Please, Joon, just let me go. It's over"
Jaejoon took in a deep breath, his chest rising and falling unevenly as he tried his best not to reach out for her. "Damn it. Are you really this heartless to even hurt us some more from trying to runaway?"
"I'm sorry", was all she said, turning to walk away from him.
This time, Sim Jaejoon cut around her quickly and before she could say anything, before she could try to convince him to leave, he closed the distance between the two of them. As he wrapped an arm around her, he leaned down to her face and kissed her for the first time, drawing it out because he knew this was going to be the last.
The hands at her waist tightened, keeping her against him before she quickly pulled back. And she muttered through quivering lips as she tears up, "I'm so sorry, Joon"
She didn't need to tell him again to let go. He released her on his own this time, staring at her as if his gaze alone could convince her otherwise. But the truth is, he will not be the one who could make her stay.
And now, in the present, the only thing left for her to do is to walk away once again, and he was there watching her entered their car, standing left alone, only to see her already happy to her family. She had already find her missing piece in Donghyuk's side.
For Jaejoon, this was already enough to be their closure after all this time.
But the thing is, what had happened to him couldn't be avoided in the situation of Jake.
If he happened to say to him to give up, then could anyone blame him for only wanting to avoid the pain for his son?
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I am back with a better working phone for writing an update. And sorry there's nothing much for Y/N here when we focused onto the past. At least there were so many hints in this chapter.
Did you all see it? We're already halfway through the story.
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