Chaeyoung just got off from work. She was about to leave her building when a familiar figure blocked her way. She was surprised to see Taehyung standing in front of her.
“What are you doing here?” Chaeyoung spat at him.
“I came to see you.” Taehyung answered with a gloomy expression clouding his face.
“Why?”
“We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing for us to talk about Taehyung.” She said before turning to leave.
Taehyung grabbed her arm to stop her from walking away.
“Please Chaeyoung, just hear me out.” He begged.
But before she could say anything, someone else grabbed her other arm. She looked up and saw Jungkook looking intensely at Taehyung.
She called him, “J-Jungkook.”
“Is this man bothering you, Chaeyoung?” Jungkook asked, still looking directly at Taehyung.
Chaeyoung heaved a deep sigh as she said, “It’s alright Jungkook.”
Jungkook looked at Chaeyoung to make sure that everything was alright. When she gave him a short nod, he hesitantly let go of her arm. Then Chaeyoung flicked Taehyung’s hand off her arm when she walked off, leaving both men behind her. Taehyung eyed Jungkook suspiciously before following Chaeyoung. While Jungkook stood rooted to the ground, watching Chaeyoung and Taehyung walked away.
Taehyung followed Chaeyoung to a nearby café. She sat down first. And while Taehyung was buying their drinks at the counter, Chaeyoung’s mind wandered off to Jungkook’s unreadable expression when she walked away with Taehyung earlier. She was still worrying about Jungkook when Taehyung sat down across from her.
“Who is he?” Taehyung asked, waking Chaeyoung up from her trance.
Brushing his question off, Chaeyoung said, “Just go ahead and speak what you truly came to say before I change my mind.”
He puffed out a deep breath in resignation before talking.
“I’m here to fix things between us Chae.”
“You’re here to what?!” Her eyes grew wide while looking at him. The confusion and surprise on her face was apparent as if the man in front of her grew a second head.
“Fix things between us?” She exclaimed before continuing in a softer voice. “How could you? You think you can just do that? Go in and out of my life of your own accord?”
He gulped a lump in his throat, realizing the absurdity of his rash actions. When his mistake in breaking up with Chaeyoung finally dawned on him, he only thought of taking her back. Despite the disorder in his life at the moment, he became certain of one thing. Only after losing Chaeyoung did he realize her importance in his life.
“I’m really sorry Chaeyoung. I was just very confused then. I had so many things going on in my life at that time. And I had been constantly disregarding you. So I thought it was best if I let you go.”
“It was best if you let go? Best for who Taehyung? For me? Bullshit! It was for your own good. You walked away because . . . I don’t know. But I’m certain it wasn’t any good for me.”
“I know that now. I just . . . I really thought that letting you go was for your own good. I am so sorry.”
“And you think you are doing better now? You did not even ask how I’ve been after leaving me that way.” She said while rising from her seat.
He looked down, losing the courage to meet her gaze.
“How could I ask that? I already knew how much pain I caused you. It will be insensitive of me to act ignorant of how much I hurt you.”
“Nah! Before anything else, you should have cared to know how I’ve been.”
Trying to control the tremble in her voice, she continued.
“On that day at the restaurant, you ended everything with a mere ‘Sorry.’ And after that miserable night, you did not contact me ever since. Though you drunk called me last week. But you were already unconscious when I came to see you. I even sent you home myself. Oh I’m so stupid! Despite everything, I can’t help worrying about you. Yet you yourself find it so difficult to show me that you care for me at the very least.”
Then she rushed out before he can even respond. Taehyung was left silently crying on his seat as he watched Chaeyoung’s retreating back. While Chaeyoung was trying to hold back her own tears as she left the café.
Instead of going home, Chaeyoung dropped by at Paladra. She ordered all her favorite food and began binge eating. She was in the middle shoving a spoonful of food in her mouth when Lisa sat across from her.
“Is everything alright?” Lisa asked.
With food stuffed in her mouth, Chaeyoung gave Lisa the thumbs up.
Lisa eyed her best friend suspiciously.
“Are you sure? It looked like you’re having a feast by yourself here. What’s going on Chaeyoung?”
Chaeyoung swallowed down her food before answering.
“Alice is coming along with Bryan. So there’s really nothing for you to worry about. Everything’s absolutely fine. I just missed the food here, that’s all.”
“If you say so.” Lisa answered doubtfully. But looking at the way Chaeyoung was enjoying her food, she was eventually convinced.
Lisa left Chaeyoung as Alice and Bryan were nearing Chaeyoung’s table. They exchanged short greetings before the couple sat down across Chaeyoung.
“Unnie, is everything alright?” Alice asked.
Chaeyoung chuckled as she answered. “You just repeated what Lisa asked me earlier. I simply wanted to eat. That’s all.”
Satisfied with her answer, Alice and Bryan happily dug in to the food on their table.
“You guys aren’t that hard to convince, are you?” Chaeyoung giggled.
Bryan happily nodded in agreement while Alice said, “We’re just glad for the treat Unnie. Thank you!”
Chaeyoung smiled in response. And they all enjoyed their food.
Chaeyoung wistfully looked at Alice and Bryan. She mentally wished for them to always be together like this. She prayed that Bryan will love Alice enough to always remain by her side.
… … … … …
Chaeyoung was doing her last minute Christmas shopping. In three days, she will be celebrating Christmas with her family together with Lisa and her parents. Lisa’s parents flew back to Korea to spend the holidays with her. The party will be held at the lawn behind their house.
She finished preparing everyone’s gifts last week. But she failed to gather everything she needed for the decorations which was assigned to her. She can always use their old decorations but she felt as though she was still missing a few things. So she pulled herself from her bed that morning and went to the mall.
She had no idea what she was looking for in particular. So she filled her cart with anything that caught her interest. She didn’t realize that she already had too much in her cart until it felt too heavy for her to push around.
“Need help, Miss?”
Chaeyoung was about to decline the offer. With a smile on her face, she turned to the person behind her. But she bit back her words when she saw Jungkook smiling widely at her.
“Jungkook!”
“Chaeyoung.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You make it sound like I shouldn’t be here. It’s the mall Chaeyoung, which is a public place. So I can be here as much as you.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “That’s not what I mean.”
He chuckled, “Oops! My bad. I guess I’m doing the same thing as you do. But . . .” He looked down at her cart. “I think you’re way behind your shopping list than I am.”
“Oh!” She sheepishly smiled at him before rambling rapidly. “I was originally done with my Christmas shopping. I completed everything about a week ago. But there’s this small party that we’re having at home. My family will be celebrating Christmas together with Lisa and her parents. Both our families almost always celebrated Christmas together ever since. You remember Lisa, my best friend? I think I’ve talked to you about her.
So about this party . . . I was assigned on decorations. I basically have everything at home. But when I checked our old decorations, I felt that I’m missing something. I don’t even know what it is. So when I came here, I just picked everything that I found pretty. But I guess I found a lot of pretty things today. As a result . . . here’s my dilemma.”
With a visible pout on her face, she asked, “Can you help me?”
Jungkook scratched the back of his head.
But how? When the only thing that I find pretty among all these things here is her. Should I be honest and tell her that?
“Uh . . . To be honest with you . . . You’re pretty . . . good at this. I’m sure that you’re way better than me at these kind of things. So I don’t think I can be of much help. But for you, I’ll do what I can.”
“Oh! Thanks, I guess.”
“So how do we do this?”
Chaeyoung and Jungkook spent their time sorting the things in Chaeyoung’s cart. They carefully examined each item until they settled with only a few things left in the cart.
“Maybe I should go look around one last time.” She suggested before pushing her cart forward.
But Jungkook quickly grabbed the handle of her cart to stop her from moving, putting his arms on either side of Chaeyoung. He unintentionally trapped her in between him and the cart looking like he was giving her a back hug. And they both stopped moving altogether after realizing the proximity of their bodies.
What am I doing? I could easily push him away. Maybe . . . that’s what I should do.
Oh no, what did I do? I should probably take a step back. Yeah . . . I could do that.
In an instant, Chaeyoung and Jungkook both let go of the cart’s handle as if they got burned from holding it. When she took a step backward, he unexpectedly took a step back at the same time. And this incident did not go unnoticed to the both of them. They even found it amusing that they broke into fits of laughter while facing each other.
After they recovered, Jungkook straightened up and got hold of the cart’s handle once again. He was about to push forward when he stopped and reached out his left hand to grab Chaeyoung’s right hand. He interlaced their hands and proceeded in pushing the cart towards the cashier.
“I need to make sure you’re not going to add more items in your cart.” He said while looking sideways at her, afraid to completely face her and see her reaction at their interlaced hands.
When she did not say anything, he continued walking with a triumphant smile glued on his face.
… … … … …
Knock! Knock! Knock!
“Come in!” Chaeyoung called.
Lisa went inside Chaeyoung’s room before explaining herself.
“I’m really sorry for being late. We had a team meeting before I got off work.”
“It’s okay. So what did you want to talk about?”
“I told you about our family reunion two days ago right?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“About Taehyung,” Lisa mumbled.
Chaeyoung gasped, “What about him?”
“We talked about you. He asked if I could help him get to talk to you.”
“We already tried that. But the result was not very pleasant.”
“He acknowledged that. And he knew it was his fault.”
“Good for him.”
“But can’t you give him another chance to talk?”
“I can think about it, but not until he asks me himself.”
“I see. Chaeng, if you don’t mind me asking, don’t you really have feelings for Taehyung anymore?”
“Are you asking that as Taehyung’s cousin or as my best friend?”
“I’m asking that as both. You know I care for the both of you.”
“I understand. But honestly, I don’t know.”
“Is it because of Jungkook?”
“Jungkook has nothing to do with what’s going on between me and Taehyung. I just realized a lot of things about our relationship after we broke up.”
“Hmm. Let me change the question then. Do you have feelings for Jungkook?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I just liked spending time with him. I feel comfortable with his company.”
“What does he think about Taehyung?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask him that.”
“Of course I did not expect you to ask him that. I mean, what do you think is his opinion of Taehyung?”
“I’m not sure. We did not talk about Taehyung that much. After he learned about my breakup with Taehyung, we did not talk about him anymore.”
Then Chaeyoung contemplated before asking, “How about Taehyung, did he ask about Jungkook?”
“He did. I told him that you only met Jungkook recently. I also mentioned that the two of you hang out sometimes.”
“Why did you tell him that?”
“Because he asked?”
“Fine.”
“Be honest with me, you like Jungkook, don’t you?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“But he’s your type, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if you fall for him one of these days. That is . . . if you have not fallen for him yet.”
“Hmmm. We’ll see about that. We will see.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Is it too soon for Christmas? 😁😄
Anyways, thank you for reading this story. I'd appreciate your votes and comments. So will you please do? 😘