Gashiyeon- Chapter 8 [Part 3]
Another update! We're about halfway into the story now~ ^^ I'll try to keep the updates coming at a faster pace now that it's summer!
On another note! Is anyone going to the JYJ concert in vancouver?! Got my tickets for the section right in front of the stage!
I'm so excited! Leave me a comment for sure if you are!! And leave me a comment anyways if you aren't. lol. Hope you guys like this chap ^^
In the end, we didn’t end up going out like we had planned. My elbows and knees…basically any sharp, bony parts of my body were already scraped up beyond recognition, and there wasn’t even anything to be said about my backside. It would probably be difficult even going to the bathroom for a while; the thought made me cringe.
It was because both of us recognized that this would be the last bits of sex that we would have before she came back. As a result, our love making had been much longer and more brutal than usual.
I understood that was why he couldn’t be gentle with me. It seemed as though my frantic thrusts in an efforts to rid myself of all the unwanted, stray thoughts that kept popping into my head, had gotten him quite aroused.
I had nothing to say, and so, kept my mouth closed while we were in the bathtub. Even his gentle hands felt brutally painful against my skin. But I wasn’t able to say anything for fear of sounding as though I was complaining because I was feeling insecure about her return.
Clad only in a towel, Yunho wrapped one around my torso as well and pulled me into a hug. In my state of exhaustion, I entrusted my body to him without complaint.
When I opened my eyes, a slightly unfamiliar air had settled over my skin. But upon seeing the unique ceiling, I soon realized that he had brought me into his study.
He left the room after sitting me down on the sunbathed sofa, only to return soon after. In his hands were foods he had obviously grabbed from the kitchen without too much thought. He took a seat on the brown tiger pelt rug by the foot of the sofa that I was on. I felt a dark shadow being cast over my face as I continued to lay lifelessly.
A perfect looking strawberry, a perfect shape, the perfect colour, provoked my appetite. I lay completely still, moving only my mouth to nibble at the fruit, as if my four limbs had been paralyzed. As if he found this cute, he rewarded me with a soft fluttering kiss on my cheek.
A few more pieces of pineapple later, I shook my head, not wanting to eat anymore. He obviously wasn’t happy but I simply settled the matter with an endearing smile.
I lay still, observing him- the sight of him, gently feeding fruit to his past lover who was currently scantily clad in only a towel, a sight that was at a direct contrast to the calm, conservative room filled with hues of copper brown, then as if he had been hungry, stuffing fruits and a drink into his mouth, one after the other, and the sight of the bulge in his cheek, soon disappearing down this throat after being mashed up in his mouth.
I felt a sort of pride at the fact that all of these scenes was being created and born into the world right before my eyes.
But then as soon as it had come, the feeling soon faded. The overwhelming weight of reality then began crushing down on me. After all, time waits for no one. It always makes one feel rushed. The insecurity in my heart amplified this feeling.
But personally…I didn’t feel the need to put a fake smile on my face in a desperate struggle to be happy.
The memories of our times together had trained us both to be true to our feelings in the moment.
“The photos…Why’d you do it…?”
It was after I had finally revealed the scars bored into my heart for him to see that the movement of that elegant mouth ceased. He didn’t look at me.
But he didn’t avoid my eyes either. Everything went still, as though the hands of all the clocks in world had abruptly come to a halt. Despite my careful inquiry, having been mindful not to ruin his mood, his face had already turned a pale grey hue. Then, he again slowly resumed his chewing.
He offered me the drink in his hand. I rejected his offer, and at the same time, pressured him for an answer by merely continuing my silence.
“Because I hated you.”
It wasn’t hurt or sadness that I felt just then. I had already, for the most part, accepted and had expected his words. I had asked the question knowing full well what his answer would be. I just wanted to hear it straight out of his mouth.
Even if you hated me…Do you still love me now?
Pushing his plate and glass cup to one side, he rose from his seat on the rug. He bent down behind his wide desk, as if hiding himself behind it; the sound of an opening drawer followed. Once he had finished, he returned to where I was sitting with a small box now in his hand.
It might have been that I had already known what was in the box, even before having taken and opened it without suspicion or hesitation.
In his other hand was the album that I had flipped through previously.
“Put them back.”
The many cut out images of me that should have been safely tucked away in the album along with the rest of the pictures, lay in a disorderly pile at the bottom of the box he handed me. He spoke as he opened the album.
I began to shuffle through the contents to do as I was told. The me in the pictures that my fingers managed to find was young yet brilliant.
Standing at the threshold between a boy and a man, the vision of me in the pictures, forever trapped in that one moment in time, was more beautiful and radiant than what could be expressed with mere words. Yet I felt afflicted in my heart.
Because of how different of a person I had now become…Even though he had cut me out of those pictures purely out of just hate, I felt sad because it felt as though he had cut that beautiful me out of his life as well.
Because now, all that was left with him was this current, pathetic me.
Because it felt as though from our youth, as bright and vivacious as the May breeze and the rustling through the blades of grass, all that had managed to survive to the present was the me standing before him right now.
Because like me, who now stood, bleached of the bright, vibrant colours that I had possessed in the past, our love may also be doomed to suffer the same fate…
But as if in reassurance, he pulled me into his arms.
He pushed the album onto my lap and urged me to fit the cut outs back into their rightful places.
“I don’t have the strength to put them back…I’ve become too exhausted with everything in the time that you were gone…I don’t have any strength left in me…”
The new found weakness that he had developed in the time that I had been absent threatened to break me, to make me crumble. My poor Jung Yunho. If we had…both loved with just a little bit less passion, none of this would ever have happened, right….? That’s right…I want to believe it to be true….
I’ll let myself believe that, by any other apart from ourselves, the enormity of this love would not have been able to have become realized to its full potential...
I pushed the picture into Yunho’s hand, and then wrapped my fingers around his. Slowly, our hands moved towards the album, one on top of the other.
“I’ll help you. Everything will be okay…if I hold on and never let go, right?...Right?”
By his hand- no, by mine, the picture finally found its rightful place.
The blank white void was now reborn, replaced with our youthful faces, bright like the first spring leaves that had yet to lose the endearing light green hue of their birth and innocence.
Positioned in front of a humongous tree and clad in the crisp white shirts of our school uniforms and our bright, genuine smiles, were the images of Jung Yunho and Kim Jaejoong….
See. We’re the most beautiful when we’re together as one. You see it too, don’t you?
It took a long time to fit all of the pictures into their appropriate places.
All the tears and hurt that I had, up until now, forcibly pushed back, all came together in this moment to form a tight knot around my heart.
As the afternoon dimmed, I tried my hardest to stay close and not be separated from him for even a moment, an implicit response to her imminent and rapidly approaching return.
The image of her, increasingly hurriedly chasing after us as was the quickening flow of time, refused to leave my mind.
It was in an attempt to quell our growing feeling of anxiety and nervousness that we continued to desperately rub and mix our flesh, our saliva together for as long as we did.
Finally, as he helped me back into my clothes, we shared a long, drawn out kiss.
He was already wordlessly apologizing, feeling sorry that even despite being under the same roof, after today, there would be just so many things that he would no longer be able help me with or with which to concern himself.
His fingers betrayed a slight shaking as he buttoned up my shirt for me. He seemed to be pouring his feelings into handling the buttons that he had done up right up to the base of my neck.
His devout ministrations came to an end, and as if she had been watching our exchange, a knock came at the front door at this most unwelcome moment. I wholeheartedly hoped that the person on that doorstep would be anyone but her…
With this silent wish in mind, I, along with Yunho made our way down to the first floor. My legs shook as we climbed down the flight of stairs.
All of the deeply intimate, sentimental acts we had committed during the course of the weekend suddenly seemed to turn themselves into a crime, threatening to suffocate me in its enormity.
He patted my back reassuringly. It was only with his support, that I was able to finally make it to the end of the hallway.
I held on to his hand behind our backs. It was warm and comforting, effectively extinguishing the fear that had suddenly ambushed me.
With a single press of a button by his hand, the door opened and was soon followed by the arrival of the sounds of disturbance at the end of the hall. I could not help my shoulders slumping.
But suddenly, the feeling of a rogue hand, kneading at my bottom caused me to tense up momentarily. I had been so frighteningly startled that I had found the need to cover my mouth with my hands to stop the escaping of any involuntarily exclamations.
Taking a quick glance back…I saw his playful fingers against my flesh.
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me at that point. And as I looked up at him, eyes curved into crescent moons, he responded with a cool smile of his own. I felt the tension drain away at his laid back expression.
Don’t be scared. I straightened my shoulders back up at the unspoken, caring words that I saw in his eyes. As we rounded the corner of the hallway, she finally came into our view. She seemed to look in better health than when she had left.
She rewarded us with a bright, beaming smile as she saw us standing side by side. As always, she was warm and beautiful.
But what she couldn’t see was what was happening behind us, standing with our shoulders pressed together without so much as an inch of space between them.
That was why she had been able to greet us so politely.
“Did you boys have a good time?”
Of course we had a good time. Don’t I look like I’m having a really great time even as I’m talking to you right now?
Without the thought of taking her bags for her even having crossed his mind, Yunho continued to knead my tight cheeks behind our turned backs.
I greeted her with a smile bright and cheery enough to match hers.
“Welcome home, Suh-Hee.”
The uninvited guest in Jung Yunho’s and Kim Jaejoong’s lovely home, Lee Suh-Hee, welcome.