I don't care, if you don't (6/?)
I don't care, if you don't (6/?)
~ 3,100 w, pg, (changmin/yoona) part i / ii/ iii / iv / v
Boa glances at him over her shoulder and elbows him on his sides, laughing, “You sounded jealous.”
■ too many ideas and too little times, result in inability to update frequently
“Did Donghae call you?”
“Yeah,” Yoona sits up slightly, her elbow digging painfully into the arm rest as she props it up to press the phone closer to her ear, “How did you know?”
Mister Lim, the newest addition to their manager team, with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching over to turn down the radio, is neglecting the road ahead of him and instead is busy staring into the rear view mirror and directly at her.
Throwing a smile worthy of her acting career, Yoona ducts down enough to be within avoiding distance from his curious gaze, “Sorry, you’re going to have to repeat that all over again. I’m in the car right now with…you know, people.”
“You mean with the manager.”
“Yeah,” she replies lamely.
After a small sigh and a static pause, he speaks, “It - it doesn’t matter how I know. What did he say?”
Yoona frowns. “I’m not going to tell you what he said if you’re not going to tell me how you knew he called me in the first place, Changmin.”
She senses his brief hesitation as he stays silent for long enough for her to consider hanging up. Then quicker than she could keep up with he says, “He was going around talking to everyone at the dress fitting about Heechul’s plan for a trip to the karaoke bar. And…”
“And basically everyone’s there this afternoon except me so you thought he might have called me.” Yoona concludes, releasing a breath that she wasn’t conscious of holding in. He doesn’t know about me, about Donghae and Jessica - thank god, she thinks to herself as her eyes flutter shut for a fraction of a second.
“Your turn,” he reminds, “What did Donghae say?”
“I wouldn’t know,” She says quietly, “I didn’t pick up.”
There is another long pause followed by his strained chuckle, “Jesus, you made me spit that out for nothing.”
“To be fair, you made it sound like you were going to tell me some really bad news -“
She hears a small ‘click’ then nothing, so she repeats plenty of ‘hello?’s into the speaker but it without any response. Giving up on having a one way conversation with a dead line, Yoona flips her cell shut and dismissively shoves it back in her coat’s pockets.
As if on cue, Manager Lim asks loudly. “Who was that?”
“My dad,” Yoona replies easily, pulling a cheerful smile, “He’s just worried about the whole drama schedule He knows it can get really hectic.”
“He should be,” he jokes, “I swear you’re getting thinner and paler every time I see you.”
She inches closer to the window and presses randomly at her jaw lines with her hands as she watches the faint reflection of her boney form. They used to tell all the girls that “you can always lose a few more pounds”, she used to agree but now it just feels like she’s slowly fading away.
-
Technically, it wasn’t a lie, Changmin justifies to himself. Donghae did mention the karaoke event to Boa and she, mentioned it to him. It was a weak excuse, he was almost ashamed for daring to feed it to her. In the end, he couldn’t risk having her push on about the why, when and how and made a decision on a whim to end the call whilst he still had the chance.
Though he couldn’t be sure if it was Yoona that Donghae was calling, Changmin had his suspicion when the other man got off the phone with his ex-girlfriend and begun to poke around the changing rooms asking if said girl would be turning up anytime soon. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he had kept an eye on him for the next fifteen minutes that followed - Donghae wandering around aimlessly from group to group with a tight smile until he gave up and turned to his trusty old phone.
Changmin had made up his mind that Yoona wasn’t going to find out about that - not for a long while anyway.
He had the misfortune of an over-analyzer who for once, discovers the truth. Yoona should be spared the pain. He would do it for anyone really. It doesn’t matter if he’d slept with her - twice now. It doesn’t change anything. It shouldn’t.
“Were you just on the phone with Yoona…? About Donghae…?”
Changmin curses inwardly at the sound of that feminine voice, eyes narrowing warily as he pushes to open the door to face what is awaiting him. “How long have you been listening in?”
Boa puts her hands on her hips, giving him that stern look that a mother gives to her naughty son. “Definitely long enough to know that you’re up to something!”
“I’m not up to anything bad,” He explains in exasperation, ignoring the pointed look she’s directing at him as he steps out of the changing room. “Look, noona, I’m not.”
“Oh so now you call me noona?” She scoffs, “I didn’t know you two kids were…friendly?”
He gulps, sitting down on the plush chair. “We’re friends”
“Friends who are really, really nosey about each other’s exes?” Boa asks, leaning on the arm of the chair with a beginning of a cheeky smile, “Oh wait, wait, that’s just you. You kids move fast these days - how long has it been since you and Jess broke up again? A week?”
Changmin doesn’t turn to look at her but rolls his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re implying but whatever it is, you can put it out of your mind.”
Boa glances at him over her shoulder and elbows him on his sides, laughing, “You sounded jealous.”
Jealous? This woman doesn’t know how to tell emotions apart, he thought to himself with a scowl. Obviously Changmin’s intention to sulkily remove himself from Boa’s intention goes unnoticed to her because she renders on with her theory anyway.
“Hmm…” She clicks his tongue, “That would explain why you were so tensed in there with Donghae, I don’t blame you for not wanting the ex-boyfriend of your crush to know you’re after her.”
“Crush?!” He looks at her in ludicrous. God, she really is batshit crazy. “Did I miss the memo that we’re in high school - Ow!”
Boa smacks him hard enough on the head for him to lose half his brain cell, then says, “I didn’t teach you to be so rude. Anyway,” she lets out a small ‘hmp’ and pushes a strand of hair out of her face, “Do you even have a shot? Donghae and Yoona - those two, they were really in love.”
Clearly not enough, Changmin grumbles to himself. “I don’t need to have ‘a shot’, I don’t want one -“
“Aww my poor baby,” Boa exclaims noisily and throws his arm around her neck, probably unaware that she’s draining the oxygen out of him, “Don’t be sad, noona supports you in your pursuit!”
“There’s n - no pur - you’re ch - choking -“
Finally, she lets go but instead grabs him by the shoulder, shaking him into dizziness “Does Yunho know? We have to tell Yunho.”
“We?!” Changmin shouts, “W - We?! There is no we and I don’t HAVE to tell Yunho anything.”
Hope swells in her eyes. “How cute! It can be our little secret!”
-
By the time her last schedule for the day has finished, Yoona was ready to collapse on her bed and sleep into the next life time. Despite having no real musical promotion but regular performances here or there, she still found it hard to get any decent sleep.
“The restaurant is just up the here, it shouldn’t be very long until you can have some dinner.”
“What?” Yoona slurs, rubbing at her tired eyes, “I…it’s okay, I just want to sleep. I’m not that hungry.”
“Not that hungry?” He cries, “You haven’t had a bite all day!”
Holding in a frustrated sigh, she says, “Really, it’s okay -“
“Sorry, Yoona, either way I’ve still got to swing by and pick Seohyun and Sunny up first before I can take you back to the dorm.”
Doing her best to keep in her groan, Yoona nods slowly and let her eyes stray to the street they’ve been driving along. She recognized it as the usual area fellow idols rely on having a good time without getting caught or bombarded with cameras. The car comes to stop next to a familiar restaurant and the manager shouts out, “We’re here” despite having a few ideas that she didn’t need to be notified. Yoona watches the door closes and open, Lim slipping out and looming closer and closer to her own door. Looking him in the eyes wouldn’t help in disguising her foul mood, she thought to herself and shows herself out the van.
Next to the door, Soojung and Jinri stand, huddled up next to each other in their fat coats as they went on with their conversation. Jinri took noticed of her slightly and looked over her friend’s shoulder to send her one of her sweet smile, waving at Yoona with more energy than she could ever possess. A small tug at the corner of Sooung lips is all she offers and probably all that Yoona’s ever going to get.
“Yoona unni,” Jinri rushes up to her, calling out in loud enthusiasm, “Are you here for dinner too?”
Nodding softly, Yoona allows herself to be lead through the door by the younger girl. “Yeah, but I don’t think I’m going to stay for very long.”
“Why not?” She pouts, pulling her pass the many private rooms, “I never see you around anymore, unni, last time you promised to come to our album launch party but at the last minute, you flew to Tokyo -“
“I know, I know,” Yoona says apologetically, “You just try to not get overworked like I do, okay?”
“Oh now you’re going to lecture me again,” Jinri waves a dismissive hand before sliding the door open and yelling, “Look who’s here, everyone!”
A variety of ‘hey’, ‘yo’ and ‘get over here’ rolls over the entire room. Faces of friends and colleagues stare back at her with friendly looks that she returns without much a thought. Sunny, unsurprisingly, is seated next to Sungmin with a shot of soju in her hand and Seohyun’s sandwiched between Kyuhyun and Qian. But as she feels Jinri’s arm slipping from under her own, Yoona sees Changmin settled next to Qian with his gaze downcast and chopsticks picking at his bowl of rice. He didn’t look at her once, not that he ever anyway so she pays him no mind.
“Yoona!” A booming voice cuts through the room and instinctively she seeks the owner with her eyes. “Come sit over here, right next to your unni!”
It’s Boa and she’s sitting next to Changmin.
-
“What? No!” Boa likes to speak above the normal person’s hearing decibel, Changmin should be used to it by now - actually he is. Yoona on the other hand though, clearly isn’t. “I love all your dramas. Especially in…uh…You are my destiny! God, you were still so young back then!”
Changmin is abruptly very grateful that Yoona’s sitting in between them; the distance has become necessary. He’d spent over five hours with Boa so far today, he doesn’t think he could take anymore without getting drunk. There’d been some consideration of sending an SOS text to Yunho to get him away - or even better, her away from him.
He could feel Yoona wince occasionally when Boa’s voice rise to a new shrilling octave. Her patient nature stands its own against the woman’s babbling. It comes as a shock to him that she has managed to come across as interested and pleasant throughout the whole exchange. As kind as Yoona is, he’d have thought she’d have her limits too.
“Wait, hold on!” Boa crashes his train of thoughts, interrupting Yoona mid-sentence, “We can’t keep on talking without some drinks - I’ll be back.”
Yoona’s understanding expression doesn’t change when the tiny brunette leaves the room. But then her shoulders drop and her hand reaches for a glass of water; her back to the wall and not to him like the past twenty minutes. A silver of her wrist appears from under the sleeve of her black coat; scrawny and thin. He tries not to imagine how she’s been treating herself these passing weeks.
Instead Changmin leans over and murmurs, “I thought she was never going to shut up.”
She seems startled to hear him speak in such a way. “I think she’s lovely, actually.”
“Why?” he asks, now truly lost, “Because she watches your new drama religiously?”
Yoona gives a little chuckle. “At least she does”
“Is that supposed to imply that I don’t - watch your drama?” He raises a brow, “Because I have turned into a couple of episodes myself”
She sets her glass down. “You have?”
“Yeah,” he confirms with a small nod, “You sound surprised”
“Well,” Yoona pauses and licks her lips once, twice, “Uh…well, you don’t really look like the type to spend their time after work watching rom-com dramas.”
Acting appalled, Changmin says flatly, “No, no, that’s definitely how I spend all my nights.”
“Really? That sounds great,” A smile crosses her face as she tugs a loose strand of chocolate brown curl behind her ear, “The rating isn’t fantastic or anything but I’m, yeah, I’m glad at least someone’s watching -“
“You’re talking about rating to me here,” He says, voice softer than he intends to, “I think you’re great.”
Yoona looks up at him with doubt, folding her hands in her lap. “You’re just being nice to me.”
“You’re very convincing as a tabloid writer turned president’s fake wife,” It’s now his turn to smile, reminded of how shy she can be at times, “I’m not going to lie to you though; the age gap - it’s a bit ridiculous.”
“Beom Soo sunbae plays a president, you know,” she remarks in good humor, “That’s the youngest as they come.”
“Alright, alright,” Changmin says lightly, letting her win this one.
It’s strange because despite having a conversation that could easily pass as a friendly exchange, the pause that follows next is hard and distant, swallowed whole by other conversations around them. She’s sitting next to him but he might as well be on the other side of the room, watching her fiddle with her cutleries and biting down on the inside of her lips. Yet he did expect a more awkward, more strained approach in their relationship to take shape. They went to bed together. He doesn’t know how ‘normal’ could come after that.
Changmin tentatively got to his feet, leaning over to pick up a brand new plate then piling up a little bit of everything readily available on the table.
She looks at him when he hands her the plateful of food, voice softening as she questions, “Is that for me?”
“Who else?”
“I’m not hungry -“
“Eat something, Yoona,” Changmin interrupts, looking away, “You haven’t touched a thing since you got here and I have a feeling that you didn’t eat before this either.”
Almost begrudgingly, she takes it without anymore retaliation.
“Am I right?”
“About what?” She asks, then taking a spoonful of kimchi mixed with rice to her mouth.
“That you didn’t have anything to eat before you got here.”
Yoona hums her response.
It takes him a while to gather the courage to ask but he does eventually. “Is it because of Donghae -“
“Yes,” she answers with firm immediacy, “Now you know and now we don’t have to talk about it.”
Changmin can only stare at her in silly sympathy. Oddly, he knows that her pain, itself, shouldn’t be much different than his. Maybe his is even greater after having found out about the affair that she’s yet to discover for herself but he feels less of it when she’s here, next to him. He never thought of her this way before but Yoona’s warm; it’s in the way she moves or maybe in the looks she gives him from time to time - like she’s constantly checking on what he’s up to.
“I know you barely touched any food yourself, Changmin,” Yoona breaks the ice after a while, “I don’t like eating alone.”
“You don’t like eating alone?” He echoes slowly, watching as she moves his plate over next to hers and starts to dump half of the meal onto it, “You’re sitting at a table of at least ten people - at the very least.”
“Exactly, I’m sitting with them,” She says with mock seriousness, setting the no longer empty plate in front of him, “I’m having dinner with you.”
-
“Boa unni’s not coming back, is she?”
Changin shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
Yoona looks around the room and spots what’s been on her mind since the moment she got here. “Do you think those two are going to get together?”
Seohyun’s young. In her eyes, Seohyun will always be young and innocent and a girl - a nice, little girl living with eight other girls who have no idea how to take care of her so she takes care of them. But she’s just a girl and she loves so quickly and her heart breaks easily. Yoona knows she did. It isn’t news to her, or anyone, that over the years, Seohyun has developed a crush on Kyuhyun. But crush only exists in your adolescence years - except it didn’t for her.
“Them? You mean Kyuhyun and Seohyun?” He asks, following the direction of her gaze, “I gave up on trying to keep up with Kyuhyun’s love life a long time ago. You should do the same.”
“Why?”
“Ah…” Changmin says, “He’s in love with Qian, he’s not. He’s in love with Seohyun, he’s not. I - I don’t know, it’s complicated.”
“It sounds pretty simple to me,” She chuckles and flicks a bean at him, “He likes them both, he just doesn’t know who he likes more.”
He gives her an inscrutable look, “Then he doesn’t love her”
“I never said he does.”
Then perhaps Donghae didn’t love her or Jessica to begin with. Then perhaps he wants it all but doesn’t know what he wants in the first place. There are lots of perhaps with Donghae, she was used to ‘perhaps’.
“Changmin?”
He turns to look at her blankly. “What is it?”
A breath of silence is enough to make her bold. “Why did you ask me what Donghae said to me this morning?”
~ 3,100 w, pg, (changmin/yoona) part i / ii/ iii / iv / v
Boa glances at him over her shoulder and elbows him on his sides, laughing, “You sounded jealous.”
■ too many ideas and too little times, result in inability to update frequently
“Did Donghae call you?”
“Yeah,” Yoona sits up slightly, her elbow digging painfully into the arm rest as she props it up to press the phone closer to her ear, “How did you know?”
Mister Lim, the newest addition to their manager team, with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching over to turn down the radio, is neglecting the road ahead of him and instead is busy staring into the rear view mirror and directly at her.
Throwing a smile worthy of her acting career, Yoona ducts down enough to be within avoiding distance from his curious gaze, “Sorry, you’re going to have to repeat that all over again. I’m in the car right now with…you know, people.”
“You mean with the manager.”
“Yeah,” she replies lamely.
After a small sigh and a static pause, he speaks, “It - it doesn’t matter how I know. What did he say?”
Yoona frowns. “I’m not going to tell you what he said if you’re not going to tell me how you knew he called me in the first place, Changmin.”
She senses his brief hesitation as he stays silent for long enough for her to consider hanging up. Then quicker than she could keep up with he says, “He was going around talking to everyone at the dress fitting about Heechul’s plan for a trip to the karaoke bar. And…”
“And basically everyone’s there this afternoon except me so you thought he might have called me.” Yoona concludes, releasing a breath that she wasn’t conscious of holding in. He doesn’t know about me, about Donghae and Jessica - thank god, she thinks to herself as her eyes flutter shut for a fraction of a second.
“Your turn,” he reminds, “What did Donghae say?”
“I wouldn’t know,” She says quietly, “I didn’t pick up.”
There is another long pause followed by his strained chuckle, “Jesus, you made me spit that out for nothing.”
“To be fair, you made it sound like you were going to tell me some really bad news -“
She hears a small ‘click’ then nothing, so she repeats plenty of ‘hello?’s into the speaker but it without any response. Giving up on having a one way conversation with a dead line, Yoona flips her cell shut and dismissively shoves it back in her coat’s pockets.
As if on cue, Manager Lim asks loudly. “Who was that?”
“My dad,” Yoona replies easily, pulling a cheerful smile, “He’s just worried about the whole drama schedule He knows it can get really hectic.”
“He should be,” he jokes, “I swear you’re getting thinner and paler every time I see you.”
She inches closer to the window and presses randomly at her jaw lines with her hands as she watches the faint reflection of her boney form. They used to tell all the girls that “you can always lose a few more pounds”, she used to agree but now it just feels like she’s slowly fading away.
-
Technically, it wasn’t a lie, Changmin justifies to himself. Donghae did mention the karaoke event to Boa and she, mentioned it to him. It was a weak excuse, he was almost ashamed for daring to feed it to her. In the end, he couldn’t risk having her push on about the why, when and how and made a decision on a whim to end the call whilst he still had the chance.
Though he couldn’t be sure if it was Yoona that Donghae was calling, Changmin had his suspicion when the other man got off the phone with his ex-girlfriend and begun to poke around the changing rooms asking if said girl would be turning up anytime soon. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he had kept an eye on him for the next fifteen minutes that followed - Donghae wandering around aimlessly from group to group with a tight smile until he gave up and turned to his trusty old phone.
Changmin had made up his mind that Yoona wasn’t going to find out about that - not for a long while anyway.
He had the misfortune of an over-analyzer who for once, discovers the truth. Yoona should be spared the pain. He would do it for anyone really. It doesn’t matter if he’d slept with her - twice now. It doesn’t change anything. It shouldn’t.
“Were you just on the phone with Yoona…? About Donghae…?”
Changmin curses inwardly at the sound of that feminine voice, eyes narrowing warily as he pushes to open the door to face what is awaiting him. “How long have you been listening in?”
Boa puts her hands on her hips, giving him that stern look that a mother gives to her naughty son. “Definitely long enough to know that you’re up to something!”
“I’m not up to anything bad,” He explains in exasperation, ignoring the pointed look she’s directing at him as he steps out of the changing room. “Look, noona, I’m not.”
“Oh so now you call me noona?” She scoffs, “I didn’t know you two kids were…friendly?”
He gulps, sitting down on the plush chair. “We’re friends”
“Friends who are really, really nosey about each other’s exes?” Boa asks, leaning on the arm of the chair with a beginning of a cheeky smile, “Oh wait, wait, that’s just you. You kids move fast these days - how long has it been since you and Jess broke up again? A week?”
Changmin doesn’t turn to look at her but rolls his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re implying but whatever it is, you can put it out of your mind.”
Boa glances at him over her shoulder and elbows him on his sides, laughing, “You sounded jealous.”
Jealous? This woman doesn’t know how to tell emotions apart, he thought to himself with a scowl. Obviously Changmin’s intention to sulkily remove himself from Boa’s intention goes unnoticed to her because she renders on with her theory anyway.
“Hmm…” She clicks his tongue, “That would explain why you were so tensed in there with Donghae, I don’t blame you for not wanting the ex-boyfriend of your crush to know you’re after her.”
“Crush?!” He looks at her in ludicrous. God, she really is batshit crazy. “Did I miss the memo that we’re in high school - Ow!”
Boa smacks him hard enough on the head for him to lose half his brain cell, then says, “I didn’t teach you to be so rude. Anyway,” she lets out a small ‘hmp’ and pushes a strand of hair out of her face, “Do you even have a shot? Donghae and Yoona - those two, they were really in love.”
Clearly not enough, Changmin grumbles to himself. “I don’t need to have ‘a shot’, I don’t want one -“
“Aww my poor baby,” Boa exclaims noisily and throws his arm around her neck, probably unaware that she’s draining the oxygen out of him, “Don’t be sad, noona supports you in your pursuit!”
“There’s n - no pur - you’re ch - choking -“
Finally, she lets go but instead grabs him by the shoulder, shaking him into dizziness “Does Yunho know? We have to tell Yunho.”
“We?!” Changmin shouts, “W - We?! There is no we and I don’t HAVE to tell Yunho anything.”
Hope swells in her eyes. “How cute! It can be our little secret!”
-
By the time her last schedule for the day has finished, Yoona was ready to collapse on her bed and sleep into the next life time. Despite having no real musical promotion but regular performances here or there, she still found it hard to get any decent sleep.
“The restaurant is just up the here, it shouldn’t be very long until you can have some dinner.”
“What?” Yoona slurs, rubbing at her tired eyes, “I…it’s okay, I just want to sleep. I’m not that hungry.”
“Not that hungry?” He cries, “You haven’t had a bite all day!”
Holding in a frustrated sigh, she says, “Really, it’s okay -“
“Sorry, Yoona, either way I’ve still got to swing by and pick Seohyun and Sunny up first before I can take you back to the dorm.”
Doing her best to keep in her groan, Yoona nods slowly and let her eyes stray to the street they’ve been driving along. She recognized it as the usual area fellow idols rely on having a good time without getting caught or bombarded with cameras. The car comes to stop next to a familiar restaurant and the manager shouts out, “We’re here” despite having a few ideas that she didn’t need to be notified. Yoona watches the door closes and open, Lim slipping out and looming closer and closer to her own door. Looking him in the eyes wouldn’t help in disguising her foul mood, she thought to herself and shows herself out the van.
Next to the door, Soojung and Jinri stand, huddled up next to each other in their fat coats as they went on with their conversation. Jinri took noticed of her slightly and looked over her friend’s shoulder to send her one of her sweet smile, waving at Yoona with more energy than she could ever possess. A small tug at the corner of Sooung lips is all she offers and probably all that Yoona’s ever going to get.
“Yoona unni,” Jinri rushes up to her, calling out in loud enthusiasm, “Are you here for dinner too?”
Nodding softly, Yoona allows herself to be lead through the door by the younger girl. “Yeah, but I don’t think I’m going to stay for very long.”
“Why not?” She pouts, pulling her pass the many private rooms, “I never see you around anymore, unni, last time you promised to come to our album launch party but at the last minute, you flew to Tokyo -“
“I know, I know,” Yoona says apologetically, “You just try to not get overworked like I do, okay?”
“Oh now you’re going to lecture me again,” Jinri waves a dismissive hand before sliding the door open and yelling, “Look who’s here, everyone!”
A variety of ‘hey’, ‘yo’ and ‘get over here’ rolls over the entire room. Faces of friends and colleagues stare back at her with friendly looks that she returns without much a thought. Sunny, unsurprisingly, is seated next to Sungmin with a shot of soju in her hand and Seohyun’s sandwiched between Kyuhyun and Qian. But as she feels Jinri’s arm slipping from under her own, Yoona sees Changmin settled next to Qian with his gaze downcast and chopsticks picking at his bowl of rice. He didn’t look at her once, not that he ever anyway so she pays him no mind.
“Yoona!” A booming voice cuts through the room and instinctively she seeks the owner with her eyes. “Come sit over here, right next to your unni!”
It’s Boa and she’s sitting next to Changmin.
-
“What? No!” Boa likes to speak above the normal person’s hearing decibel, Changmin should be used to it by now - actually he is. Yoona on the other hand though, clearly isn’t. “I love all your dramas. Especially in…uh…You are my destiny! God, you were still so young back then!”
Changmin is abruptly very grateful that Yoona’s sitting in between them; the distance has become necessary. He’d spent over five hours with Boa so far today, he doesn’t think he could take anymore without getting drunk. There’d been some consideration of sending an SOS text to Yunho to get him away - or even better, her away from him.
He could feel Yoona wince occasionally when Boa’s voice rise to a new shrilling octave. Her patient nature stands its own against the woman’s babbling. It comes as a shock to him that she has managed to come across as interested and pleasant throughout the whole exchange. As kind as Yoona is, he’d have thought she’d have her limits too.
“Wait, hold on!” Boa crashes his train of thoughts, interrupting Yoona mid-sentence, “We can’t keep on talking without some drinks - I’ll be back.”
Yoona’s understanding expression doesn’t change when the tiny brunette leaves the room. But then her shoulders drop and her hand reaches for a glass of water; her back to the wall and not to him like the past twenty minutes. A silver of her wrist appears from under the sleeve of her black coat; scrawny and thin. He tries not to imagine how she’s been treating herself these passing weeks.
Instead Changmin leans over and murmurs, “I thought she was never going to shut up.”
She seems startled to hear him speak in such a way. “I think she’s lovely, actually.”
“Why?” he asks, now truly lost, “Because she watches your new drama religiously?”
Yoona gives a little chuckle. “At least she does”
“Is that supposed to imply that I don’t - watch your drama?” He raises a brow, “Because I have turned into a couple of episodes myself”
She sets her glass down. “You have?”
“Yeah,” he confirms with a small nod, “You sound surprised”
“Well,” Yoona pauses and licks her lips once, twice, “Uh…well, you don’t really look like the type to spend their time after work watching rom-com dramas.”
Acting appalled, Changmin says flatly, “No, no, that’s definitely how I spend all my nights.”
“Really? That sounds great,” A smile crosses her face as she tugs a loose strand of chocolate brown curl behind her ear, “The rating isn’t fantastic or anything but I’m, yeah, I’m glad at least someone’s watching -“
“You’re talking about rating to me here,” He says, voice softer than he intends to, “I think you’re great.”
Yoona looks up at him with doubt, folding her hands in her lap. “You’re just being nice to me.”
“You’re very convincing as a tabloid writer turned president’s fake wife,” It’s now his turn to smile, reminded of how shy she can be at times, “I’m not going to lie to you though; the age gap - it’s a bit ridiculous.”
“Beom Soo sunbae plays a president, you know,” she remarks in good humor, “That’s the youngest as they come.”
“Alright, alright,” Changmin says lightly, letting her win this one.
It’s strange because despite having a conversation that could easily pass as a friendly exchange, the pause that follows next is hard and distant, swallowed whole by other conversations around them. She’s sitting next to him but he might as well be on the other side of the room, watching her fiddle with her cutleries and biting down on the inside of her lips. Yet he did expect a more awkward, more strained approach in their relationship to take shape. They went to bed together. He doesn’t know how ‘normal’ could come after that.
Changmin tentatively got to his feet, leaning over to pick up a brand new plate then piling up a little bit of everything readily available on the table.
She looks at him when he hands her the plateful of food, voice softening as she questions, “Is that for me?”
“Who else?”
“I’m not hungry -“
“Eat something, Yoona,” Changmin interrupts, looking away, “You haven’t touched a thing since you got here and I have a feeling that you didn’t eat before this either.”
Almost begrudgingly, she takes it without anymore retaliation.
“Am I right?”
“About what?” She asks, then taking a spoonful of kimchi mixed with rice to her mouth.
“That you didn’t have anything to eat before you got here.”
Yoona hums her response.
It takes him a while to gather the courage to ask but he does eventually. “Is it because of Donghae -“
“Yes,” she answers with firm immediacy, “Now you know and now we don’t have to talk about it.”
Changmin can only stare at her in silly sympathy. Oddly, he knows that her pain, itself, shouldn’t be much different than his. Maybe his is even greater after having found out about the affair that she’s yet to discover for herself but he feels less of it when she’s here, next to him. He never thought of her this way before but Yoona’s warm; it’s in the way she moves or maybe in the looks she gives him from time to time - like she’s constantly checking on what he’s up to.
“I know you barely touched any food yourself, Changmin,” Yoona breaks the ice after a while, “I don’t like eating alone.”
“You don’t like eating alone?” He echoes slowly, watching as she moves his plate over next to hers and starts to dump half of the meal onto it, “You’re sitting at a table of at least ten people - at the very least.”
“Exactly, I’m sitting with them,” She says with mock seriousness, setting the no longer empty plate in front of him, “I’m having dinner with you.”
-
“Boa unni’s not coming back, is she?”
Changin shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
Yoona looks around the room and spots what’s been on her mind since the moment she got here. “Do you think those two are going to get together?”
Seohyun’s young. In her eyes, Seohyun will always be young and innocent and a girl - a nice, little girl living with eight other girls who have no idea how to take care of her so she takes care of them. But she’s just a girl and she loves so quickly and her heart breaks easily. Yoona knows she did. It isn’t news to her, or anyone, that over the years, Seohyun has developed a crush on Kyuhyun. But crush only exists in your adolescence years - except it didn’t for her.
“Them? You mean Kyuhyun and Seohyun?” He asks, following the direction of her gaze, “I gave up on trying to keep up with Kyuhyun’s love life a long time ago. You should do the same.”
“Why?”
“Ah…” Changmin says, “He’s in love with Qian, he’s not. He’s in love with Seohyun, he’s not. I - I don’t know, it’s complicated.”
“It sounds pretty simple to me,” She chuckles and flicks a bean at him, “He likes them both, he just doesn’t know who he likes more.”
He gives her an inscrutable look, “Then he doesn’t love her”
“I never said he does.”
Then perhaps Donghae didn’t love her or Jessica to begin with. Then perhaps he wants it all but doesn’t know what he wants in the first place. There are lots of perhaps with Donghae, she was used to ‘perhaps’.
“Changmin?”
He turns to look at her blankly. “What is it?”
A breath of silence is enough to make her bold. “Why did you ask me what Donghae said to me this morning?”