Jeonghan stared at the little figurines in his hands, a smile gracing his lips. With Ophely back in France, he hadn't expected her to get anyone anything. She was still a student who worked despite herself in the same company as him. Yet here he was, in the apartment, with a present from her, as if giving back from the previous year. The little squirrel Sylvanian family was nothing but adorable. Jeonghan cooed at the box as he took the little characters out and rubbed his fingers on the soft texture of their fur.
"Oh~" A voice broke him out of his reverie, "Isn't that cute."
Another chimed in before he could say anything. "A cute little thing for our adorable Jeonghan-i!" With dainty fingers pinching his cheeks, Jeonghan didn't bother answering his fellow members, knowing that the teasing wouldn't relent.
"Aha, our Jeonghan-i has an admirer, who could know that his guilty pleasure is reserved for adorable things..." After the three Booseoksoon members (or also known as the SVT Avengers between themselves), came the leaders. And even though Jeonghan was the second eldest, nothing stopped the others from butting in with their own things to say.
Here, it was just teasing the fact that Ophely got him and no one else anything, and that she knew him quite well to get him those as a present. But was he surprised? Not really, they did share a room and she could see the little figurines from the bed, as well as the neatly stacked Lego boxes under his summer clothes. Nothing could escape her gaze.
"With that collection of yours, you could make an entire village right now." Minghao said as he sat down beside him to look at the bushy tails of the squirrels.
It was true, Jeonghan had a lot of the cute creatures lying around in his room, and Ophely had known how he enjoyed to watch and arrange the characters to tell new stories every few weeks. A little pleasure in the hardships of being an idol. Jeonghan welcomed the little distraction from the busy days of the holidays filled with schedules and tiring events.
On her side, Ophely had the opposite. Too much time. To think about what she wanted to do, what she should do, what she could do, after the holidays were to be done. Jeonghan knew he had rest, and then a comeback. But her? She didn't know. Studies, countries, jobs... It was a mess. Her mind was a mess
So Ophely laid in bed that night, thinking about the fact that Jeonghan had opened the present that she had bought for him. It was already morning there in Korea, and she was just going to sleep. In the morning she would be opening the gifts with her family and younger cousin, all knowing that Santa was them except for the little boy.
It was with a bittersweet feeling that she joined her family. There was this ache in her chest, and she just sat there. The gifts were being passed around by the youngest, searching the names written and then running to find the person. When the boy came to her with a little package (a book from her uncle) he looked up at her, his smile falling a little.
Did she have something on her face? She cocked her head at her cousin, thanking him for the gift. But he didn't leave immediately. "Ca va?"
Ophely smiled at the concern, she wasn't really fine. But it was far too complicated for him to understand. She wouldn't be able to explain either, she couldn't even word her thoughts to her parents. How could she for a little five year old boy with a simple mind. "Tout va bien, ne t'en fais pas." She gave him a little pat on the head and pushed him to the decreasing pile of presents under the Christmas tree.
Leaning back on the couch, Ophely opened the package. She loved her uncle, she truly did, but she wished that he would stop gifting her books about depressing things. This year was a photographer in the second world war. Last year had been Karl Marx's bastard son, and the year before about two sisters reuniting that solely focused on a weird mysterious man the elder depressed sister was seeing before she decided to just stop. It just wasn't her thing.
Ophely preferred to dream, to see colour and sparkles and magic when she read. To escape from the current world and see something different, to be taken to a magical land where worries were of other kinds. She sighed, sent a shy smile to her uncle in thanks while his youngest son had his back turned.
At least she was glad that she hadn't gotten the book her brother had, so glad not to be addressed a book about a civilian having their picture plastered all over the internet after meeting a celebrity once. That would have been just maladroit.
Ophely didn't know what to feel at the moment. She sat in the middle of the rowdy living room with her parents, her grandparents, her brother and his girlfriend, her cousins, and her two aunts and uncles. It was just as many as all of the members of Seventeen, yet she felt overwhelmed. She was there physically, but her mind didn't want to stay. She sat in silence, her gaze set on the book in between her hands, mind far away.
-
"How are you doing?" Jeonghan asked on the phone. He had made sure to call when he could, and when he knew Ophely would be free. "I hope it isn't too hard back in France." He added as an afterthought when the line was still silent.
"Yeah." He sat down on his bed. Jeonghan unconsciously wanted to copy her position, hearing the vulnerability in her voice. It sounded timid, so unlike the recent Ophely on the phone. He pulled his feet on the edge of the bed, letting his chin fall on his knees.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He heard her breath in, and then slowly exhale. "We can talk about something else if you want."
Jeonghan waited patiently as he heard rustling on her side, the phone being put down for a second before it was picked up again and more rustling followed. A door was opened then closed, a gust of wind, and then silence once again.
"I don't know." Jeonghan didn't know where she was exactly, but she had left the house and was currently walking outside. "It's uncomfortable."
"What is?"
"The fact that I can't seem to enjoy the presence of my family. I haven't seen them in a year and a half, but I can't seem to be happy about it."
She cut herself off for a few seconds. He heard the brakes of a car from her side, her shuffling most likely across a crosswalk before she talked again. "It's like - my mind tells me to feel. And - my heart, just, - doesn't?" Her voice was growing. Jeonghan didn't really know what to do. He couldn't just hug her. She was an ocean and a half away from him. "Like I'm happy, but I don't feel the joy. It's there, surrounding me, but not getting in?" She sighed, finding a bench not far away and sitting there with her knees in between her legs, the phone balancing on her knees. "I don't know. It's unsettling."
"Are you happy to be in France?" She opened her mouth to answer, but Jeonghan hadn't finished his question. "Or do you think you should be happy to be in France?"
There was a moment of silence, Jeonghan took a sip of water , standing up and pacing his room. He was anxious for the girl. Again, he didn't know if it was just a feeling or the link they were sharing, but he felt like she felt pressured and wished to cry, to have a shoulder to cry on and let her feelings out. She didn't know how to approach the subject with her family, who wouldn't understand her dilemma.
"I want to be happy. It brings me joy to see my family members and learn how they have been doing. But not happiness. I -" She took in a shaky breath, watching the elderly people walking with their grandchildren in the park in front of her. "I - don't enjoy this country anymore. I don't like France." Jeonghan took in a shaky breath with her, knowing that he wouldn't be able to understand the feeling of not enjoying being in his home country anymore. "I don't like the people and their attitude, I don't like the way of living nor do I like the politeness I need to give. Not that I like it in Korea either, it's worse. But I can't seem to get myself to oblige and be polite. I want to say what annoys me out loud. I want to scream it on every roof, so that everybody knows. But at the same time, only me. It's so weird. Because I really like the fact that the countryside is very calm, pretty and the people are often generous. It's ice - but like - it's not great. I don't feel vivified. It's a dull kind of nice." Her voice quietened at the end, almost to a whisper, and Jeonghan wanted to wipe away the silent tears going down her face he knew were there. "It isn't motivating me like I wanted it to."
"You're upset, disappointed, by the fact that what you did didn't come up to your expectation."
"Yeah." It was a mumble, but an answer nonetheless. "Maybe."
Jeonghan couldn't do much from Korea except talk to her through the phone on KakaoTalk.
"Also, happy birthday to Joshua."
"I'll pass on the message." Jeonghan sat back down on his bed, letting his chest fall back so he laid down, watching the ceiling.
"I hope you know that you shouldn't feel bad about what you feel. It is okay to want different things at different moments in life. You have been away from your family and your country for a time, and you wanted to go there when you couldn't, and that need has changed into a wish, I believe. You wished for your country to bring you answers. It didn't. That's okay. It just means that you have to find the answers yourself. Take your time. You have that time. There is no rush. And even if you make a decision, you can change paths. You are allowed to do that.
Maybe change what you wish for, smaller goals, changeable goals. And that wishlist can change. It did for me.
I studied natural sciences in high school, and then went to university. And what was just a hobby for me, then turned into an idea, and then into a part time job I had to pay for. I became a trainee. Where I met the guys. And then I debuted. Even then, I questioned if it was the right track, I wanted to change, I didn't because I had no wish for anything else. I didn't want to study, or work as a barista. And I was slowly paying back my debt to Pledis. And then the link I had with the boys strengthened. And I had a dream. To do it big, with them. Not on my own. It was a common dream.
Now, we are doing well. And we are growing and wanting some of our own time. It's slow progress, but we are starting to each have different ideas and are slowly starting them. In a few years maybe I will have different dreams, different goals. I might reach them, I might not. It's alright."
"What gave you the push to become a trainee?"
"A friend. He wanted to be one, and we both set that goal together. Then I started to like it more than he did. He changed his goal, I made his become mine."
"He likes where he is now?"
Jeonghan laughed. "He does. He's a farmer now." Ophely laughed on her side too. It was a surprise, not something she had expected. "He's happy, and I'm happy for him. We call sometimes, he's happy for me. That's what counts."
"I am happy for my friends and my family."
"That's great." Ophely twiddled with her fingers wrapped around her legs, watching the ducks on the small canal as a distraction. She felt lighter than before. But still...
"I am happy for the boys and you too."
Jeonghan chuckled, smiling up to the grey ceiling of his room. "Thank you."
"I'm proud of you too. You've grown a lot in a year, and be aware of the fact that you are stronger than you look."
"What is that supposed to mean?" She bit back. "I've been able to keep up with the dance practices!" The two laughed, letting the light-heartedness stay there. The heavy stuff had been said, and they shouldn't dwell on it.
"I know. I have seen your muscles bulging through the sleeves, soon enough you will be able to kill me in my sleep and I will have to change bedrooms to get away from you, the new she-hulk!"
Ophely couldn't keep the cackle that escaped her as she imagined herself all in green and buffed up with unimaginably huge muscles in her arms and legs. She definitely would be able to kill Jeonghan in his sleep, simply because she would have turned in her bed and fallen on him, thus suffocating the man to death in his own bed.