[PG-13] Wishing on Airplanes (25/28)
Title: Wishing on Airplanes
Characters: Donghae, Kyuhyun, Hyukjae, OC, Super Junior
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Friendship, Comedy, Drama
Jooyeon felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare. She could finally breathe properly again. She could finally be herself again. It was such a relief to be able to act normally once more, to not have to hide anything from people she cared so much about. Looking up from her book, she smiled as Shindong and Hankyung fought over a piece of the Kimbap that Taeyeon had brought with her to school. Heechul, who was on Hankyung’s other side, was glaring at the two of them because of the noise they were both making. Meanwhile, Siwon and Taeyeon were seated on the end of the table sweetly studying with each other. Jooyeon sighed, resting her chin on her palm, as she watched Siwon tuck a strand of Taeyeon’s hair behind her ear. The two’s relationship had grown positively stronger in the weeks that followed the events in Heechul’s party with Taeyeon revealing everything to Siwon. Jooyeon then realized that it was partly her fault as to why the two had been having problems. It seemed that Siwon was upset at the fact that his girlfriend hadn’t seemed to trust him with everything, which had caused them to fight a lot.
“You okay?” Hyukjae, who was seated on her left side, asked as he gently nudged her.
Jooyeon turned to him and smiled. “Don’t you ever feel a bit jealous of Siwon oppa and Taeyeon’s relationship?” she asked bluntly.
He gave her a surprised look then he smiled warmly. “If I were to be jealous, Siwon would definitely pound me to pieces,” he told her.
“I’m thinking Taeyeon would be the one to do that,” she corrected him, laughing.
“You’re right,” he agreed, grinning with his gums all revealed. He nudged her again. “Being with Kyuhyun is something all other girls are jealous of, you know.”
“I totally agree,” she responded. “Except I’m not with Kyuhyun oppa.”
He gave her a long look, as if he was studying her, then he shrugged and went back to what he was doing earlier. “If you say so,” he muttered.
She easily understood why people speculated so much about her relationship with Kyuhyun. After Heechul’s party, the boy practically never let her side. He stayed with her in the hospital the whole time she was there. When she started going back to school, he picked her up and brought her back home. He became her date to every event or party that the group went to. He was just always with her every single time.
She sighed as she contentedly continued observing her friends. She had so much more appreciation for each and every one of them. It really was wrong of her to have ever doubted their friendship, loyalty and care for her. They had all scolded her about that once they were sure that she had recovered fully. Heechul and Hyukjae especially reprimanded her about keeping such a big thing from them when they had asked again and again what was going on. To which she just told them, along with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, that she would never keep such a big secret from them anymore.
“Kyuhyun!” Shindong suddenly called, waving him over.
“Hey,” Kyuhyun greeted, smiling as his eyes met Jooyeon’s. “The gym just got cleared up. You guys want to shoot some hoops?”
“Let’s go!” Hankyung immediately agreed, standing up, his backpack hanging on one shoulder.
While the rest of the group left for the gym, Heechul and Kyuhyun waited for Jooyeon to finish packing up her things inside her bag.
“You guys don’t have to wait for me,” she immediately told them.
“Are you purposefully taking your time?” Heechul demanded, raising his eyebrows at how slow she was moving.
She hesitated. “I was actually thinking of picking up some books from the library first,” she told them, smiling encouragingly. “So you guys can go ahead.”
Heechul whispered something in Kyuhyun’s ear. Suddenly, the younger male bid them good-bye, leaving for the gym ahead of them.
“This has something to do with Donghae, doesn’t it?” Heechul straightforwardly before Jooyeon could say anything.
She opened her mouth then closed it again. She couldn’t very well lie about it when she had already been caught. “The least he could do is not avoid everyone just because he doesn’t want to see me,” she muttered, finally finishing putting her things in her bag. He stared at her, looking amused. “What?”
“You do know he’s staying away because you want him to, right?” he stated, biting his lip in an effort not to laugh. Sometimes he thought his dongsaengs were so silly.
“When did I ever say that?” she questioned, frowning.
“You didn’t have to,” he told her, chuckling. “It’s just obvious. With everything’s that’s happened…” He trailed away, not wanting to go into detail. He didn’t want to put her through the whole thing again.
After the party at his house, he, along with Siwon and Taeyeon, escorted Jungsoo to the police station. Despite Jooyeon’s pleas for them not to put him in jail, they had to do it. With Taeyeon in the lead, she gave out a statement, wherein the police said they would investigate the matter further. Jooyeon stayed in his house while all of that was going on, in a different room, with Tiffany, Eunhyuk and Kangin. The rest of the group got the rest of the partygoers to leave and go home.
“I never wanted us to end up like this,” she finally said, carrying her bag and walking out of the quad. She knew that she must have sent some vibes to him to that effect, but she missed him. That was more important. He was more important that whatever happened.
“Is that why you keep watching his soccer practices?” he piped in as he fell into step beside her. She stopped walking and looked at him in surprise. “What, you thought we didn’t know this?” When she didn’t say anything, he shook his head. “Really? Did you think that, after what happened, we’d let you out of our sight?”
“So you’ve been watching me?” she questioned, feeling surprised and unsure as how else to feel about this new information.
“I know you don’t like it, but just think of this as something we’re doing for us,” he stated. “It’s for our comfort.”
They walked for a few moments in silence then she asked, “So even Kyuhyun knows that I’ve been watching Donghae oppa practice?”
“He’s always around when you’re done watching, right?” he reminded her.
Heechul was right. Now it all made sense why Kyuhyun seemed to just pop right out of nowhere after she watched Donghae’s practice, seemingly as if he was also done with whatever it was he was still doing in school.
“Have you ever tried actually talking to Donghae, instead of just stalking him?” Heechul wanted to know, a smirk on his face.
“I’m not stalking him,” Jooyeon shot back, pouting. She paused. “I had tried talking to him once, but he was busy talking to his teammates so I just left.”
“Well, what would you tell him if you had the chance to talk to him?” he questioned.
She paused for a couple of seconds to think about it. “I guess I would tell him that we should talk about what happened. I’d also tell him about how I don’t blame him for anything because, knowing him, he probably is blaming himself.”
He shrugged. “Well the things that kid thought and did weren’t exactly things to be proud of. There are some grounds for blame there,” he countered.
“But I don’t blame him,” she reiterated, feeling slightly annoyed.
“I suggest you tell him,” Heechul demanded, suddenly turning her around and pushing her.
Jooyeon nearly fell but was caught by someone with a smell she knew all too well. Heechul chuckled, shaking his head, as Donghae and Jooyeon stared at each other. The older male smiled and whistled as he walked away. His good deed for the day was done.
~ * ~
Kyuhyun hung his head as he took a seat on the lowest row of bleachers. He let out a breath as he wiped his forehead of sweat with the use of a while face towel. They had just finished the second game of the night and he felt tired.
“Hey, you okay?” Hankyung asked as he sat down beside him. When the younger didn’t answer, he gave him a look, as if assessing him. “You look like you’re going to crash any minute.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Kyuhyun shared, running a hand through his hair. He watched as Heechul chased Eunhyuk around the court because of the teasing that he did. Shortly after, Siwon intercepted the running anchovy, helping Heechul catch him. Needless to say, Eunhyuk received quite a wrestling match from the two.
“Ya!” Hankyung yelled at Heechul and Siwon when the two starting sitting down on top of Eunhyuk. “Stop crushing him!!” The two boys just continued to ignore him so he shook his head and turned his attention back to Kyuhyun. “This has something to do with Jooyeon, doesn’t it?”
“Why does everyone assume that everything’s about Jooyeon?” Kyuhyun questioned, giving his hyung a look. “Not everything is about her.”
“On the contrary,” Hankyung begged to differ, “everything you’re concerned about these days is Jooyeon. Are you guys together and you just haven’t told us yet?”
Kyuhyun leaned back and rested his head on the next row, covering his face with the face towel and wishing that Hankyung would stop questioning him and just leave him alone. After a couple of seconds, the older male got the hint and stood up to help Eunhyuk get up from the floor after being sat on by Heechul, Siwon, and even Shindong, who decided to join into the fray. Letting out a relieved breath, he continued on in the same position, mulling over the question. His answer was pretty defensive and it made him think. He couldn’t deny that he thought about Jooyeon a lot, even more so after the incident in Heechul’s party. There was just something about her that made him vulnerable. He just wanted to be around her all the time and be the one to take care of her.
“Kyu, let’s go,” Siwon called him, shaking him a little, his hand on his shoulder.
Kyuhyun removed the face towel from his face and sat up straight. “You guys go ahead. I’ll just stay for a bit and…” he trailed away, hesitating.
Siwon patted his shoulder, knowing all along that he was going to tell them to go ahead. After their games, Kyuhyun always stayed behind to wait for Jooyeon, who always watched Donghae’s soccer practices.
“See you later,” Siwon told him, waving as he walked towards the gym entrance, following the others who were also leaving.
Kyuhyun stared at his friends’ backs as they walked out of the gym. He knew the talk that went around school. Everyone was wondering about his relationship with Jooyeon. They were always together because he made sure they were always together. If he wasn’t going to be with her, protect her and make sure she was okay, who would? He had taken it upon himself to be the someone that would always be there for her, the person whom she would see when she looked behind her shoulder.
“Crap,” he muttered, burying his face into his hands.
If he was really going to be honest with himself, that wasn’t all that he wanted.
He wanted to be her someone.
But, as much as he wanted to confess, to make her understand his feelings and to push her to try, he knew he would end up hurting himself more than what he was going through at present. He thought not being able to sleep because of having strong feelings for someone only happened in movies because he’d never experienced it before. As it turns out, all those girls he’s had relationship with before wasn’t even close to what Jooyeon was like, to how she meant to him.
Scoffing at the cheesy and dramatic thoughts he was having, he grabbed his gym bag and stood up. He never used to be so emotional before. Thinking back to the first time he met Jooyeon, he remembered how big of a jerk he was, crashing onto her and not even helping her stand up. And even throughout the course of their friendship, he wasn’t exactly a knight in shining armor to her, despite her drunken claims. But now, it seemed he had changed a lot. He wasn’t as hard on her or on anyone else for that matter. Everyone in their circle of friends kept on teasing him how he was a softy now. He really didn’t know how it happened. Somewhere in between meeting her, being friends, and feeling something more, he had changed. It had become much harder to be snarky.
As he stepped out of the gym and into the hallway, moving towards the direction of the school gates. He frowned when he saw his friends and hyungs crowding around Heechul, who seemed to be hugging and comforting someone. When he was close enough and got a good look at what was going on, he was surprised.
“What happened?” Kyuhyun asked, glancing questioningly at Shindong, who was standing nearest to him.
Jooyeon was quietly crying in Heechul’s arms. She had her eyes shut and her hands clenched into a fist.
Kyuhyun then noticed that someone very unwelcome was there as well. “What are you doing here?” he then demanded of Eunhye, who looked uncomfortable.
“I… I didn’t do anything,” Eunhye pronounced pleadingly. She glanced at Hyukjae who wasn’t looking at her and had his eyes trained at Jooyeon only. “I was just-I found her crying.”
“Really,” Kyuhyun scoffed. After everything, it was wise not to believe anything she said.
“You should leave,” Heechul advised Eunhye. “We’ll make sure she’s fine.”
Without a word, Eunhye hurriedly left, afraid of being accused of doing another horrible thing to the crying girl.
“Jooyeon,” Heechul soothingly began, caressing the back of her head. “What happened?”
Jooyeon opened her eyes and realized that she was sobbing like a baby. She pushed herself off of Heechul and wiped her tears away. “I’m fine,” she told them, shaking her head.
“Where’s Donghae?” Heechul pressed, glancing around. “I thought you two were talking.”
“You and Donghae were talking?” Shindong and Hankyung chorused in amazement.
“He… there was something he had to do,” Jooyeon nonchalantly said, shifting in her stance and tucking her hair behind her ears.
Kyuhyun knew at once at she was lying. He cleared his throat, signaling to everyone that he was leaving, and started walking away to give Donghae a piece of his mind when he felt a hand on his wrist. Jooyeon looked up at him knowingly. She shook her head as if pleading to him not to do what he planned to do.
And just like that, Kyuhyun sighed in resignation and wrapped his hand on hers. He could never deny her what she wanted, especially not when she looked so forlorn while asking. “Let me take you home,” he decided.
He gripped her hand as they walked towards the parking lot, wondering what was going through her mind, wondering what it was that had happened to make her cry, wondering what Donghae did this time.
“Oppa, please don’t be mad,” Jooyeon’s quiet voice reached his ears.
“Don’t tell me what to do, especially not when you’re crying like this,” Kyuhyun retorted. He let out a breath when he realized that he sounded much harsher than he intended to. Glancing at her, he gently squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She smiled at him and squeezed his hand back. It was during times like these that Kyuhyun proved to be the knight that he was. She knew that he didn’t believe it, always denying it. But it was true. Throughout everything that had happened, she wouldn’t be standing up like this if it weren’t for him. It would’ve been so much harder than if he weren’t around.
“Thank you,” she responded, looking up at him. They had reached his car and had stopped walking.
“For what?” he asked, his brows furrowing.
“For being you,” she answered without hesitation. “For being someone who cares a lot for me and takes care of me.”
“Someone,” he murmured, thinking back on the thoughts that he had earlier. Ignoring his brain, he smirked. “Well who else is going to put with you, you big baby? Besides, I have to live up to that stupid nickname that you gave me. Knight, is it?”
“I thought you were GameKyu now,” she teased, giggling.
“Aish, you and your nicknames,” he grumbled, pushing her to the passenger’s side of the car and opening to door for her. “Get in.”
She moved to get inside the car, but stopped and turned to face him again. “I want to repay you for everything, oppa,” she stated thoughtfully, “I feel like it’s just fair that I do something for you as well. But you never want anything and you never need anything.”
“What I want and need, you can’t give me,” he replied.
She looked straight into his eyes with determination. “You haven’t even asked,” she challenged. “I’m willing to do anything, oppa.”
Kyuhyun’s knuckles whitened as he tightly gripped on the car’s handle. “Don’t say things you’ll regret, Jooyeon,” he spat, letting go of the door handle. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” He turned around and walked towards the driver’s side of the car.
But he didn’t get far. In a matter of seconds, her hand was on his wrist again. She made it into a moment of weakness. Before he could stop himself, he turned around, cupped her face and crashed his lips onto hers.
Characters: Donghae, Kyuhyun, Hyukjae, OC, Super Junior
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Friendship, Comedy, Drama
Jooyeon felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare. She could finally breathe properly again. She could finally be herself again. It was such a relief to be able to act normally once more, to not have to hide anything from people she cared so much about. Looking up from her book, she smiled as Shindong and Hankyung fought over a piece of the Kimbap that Taeyeon had brought with her to school. Heechul, who was on Hankyung’s other side, was glaring at the two of them because of the noise they were both making. Meanwhile, Siwon and Taeyeon were seated on the end of the table sweetly studying with each other. Jooyeon sighed, resting her chin on her palm, as she watched Siwon tuck a strand of Taeyeon’s hair behind her ear. The two’s relationship had grown positively stronger in the weeks that followed the events in Heechul’s party with Taeyeon revealing everything to Siwon. Jooyeon then realized that it was partly her fault as to why the two had been having problems. It seemed that Siwon was upset at the fact that his girlfriend hadn’t seemed to trust him with everything, which had caused them to fight a lot.
“You okay?” Hyukjae, who was seated on her left side, asked as he gently nudged her.
Jooyeon turned to him and smiled. “Don’t you ever feel a bit jealous of Siwon oppa and Taeyeon’s relationship?” she asked bluntly.
He gave her a surprised look then he smiled warmly. “If I were to be jealous, Siwon would definitely pound me to pieces,” he told her.
“I’m thinking Taeyeon would be the one to do that,” she corrected him, laughing.
“You’re right,” he agreed, grinning with his gums all revealed. He nudged her again. “Being with Kyuhyun is something all other girls are jealous of, you know.”
“I totally agree,” she responded. “Except I’m not with Kyuhyun oppa.”
He gave her a long look, as if he was studying her, then he shrugged and went back to what he was doing earlier. “If you say so,” he muttered.
She easily understood why people speculated so much about her relationship with Kyuhyun. After Heechul’s party, the boy practically never let her side. He stayed with her in the hospital the whole time she was there. When she started going back to school, he picked her up and brought her back home. He became her date to every event or party that the group went to. He was just always with her every single time.
She sighed as she contentedly continued observing her friends. She had so much more appreciation for each and every one of them. It really was wrong of her to have ever doubted their friendship, loyalty and care for her. They had all scolded her about that once they were sure that she had recovered fully. Heechul and Hyukjae especially reprimanded her about keeping such a big thing from them when they had asked again and again what was going on. To which she just told them, along with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, that she would never keep such a big secret from them anymore.
“Kyuhyun!” Shindong suddenly called, waving him over.
“Hey,” Kyuhyun greeted, smiling as his eyes met Jooyeon’s. “The gym just got cleared up. You guys want to shoot some hoops?”
“Let’s go!” Hankyung immediately agreed, standing up, his backpack hanging on one shoulder.
While the rest of the group left for the gym, Heechul and Kyuhyun waited for Jooyeon to finish packing up her things inside her bag.
“You guys don’t have to wait for me,” she immediately told them.
“Are you purposefully taking your time?” Heechul demanded, raising his eyebrows at how slow she was moving.
She hesitated. “I was actually thinking of picking up some books from the library first,” she told them, smiling encouragingly. “So you guys can go ahead.”
Heechul whispered something in Kyuhyun’s ear. Suddenly, the younger male bid them good-bye, leaving for the gym ahead of them.
“This has something to do with Donghae, doesn’t it?” Heechul straightforwardly before Jooyeon could say anything.
She opened her mouth then closed it again. She couldn’t very well lie about it when she had already been caught. “The least he could do is not avoid everyone just because he doesn’t want to see me,” she muttered, finally finishing putting her things in her bag. He stared at her, looking amused. “What?”
“You do know he’s staying away because you want him to, right?” he stated, biting his lip in an effort not to laugh. Sometimes he thought his dongsaengs were so silly.
“When did I ever say that?” she questioned, frowning.
“You didn’t have to,” he told her, chuckling. “It’s just obvious. With everything’s that’s happened…” He trailed away, not wanting to go into detail. He didn’t want to put her through the whole thing again.
After the party at his house, he, along with Siwon and Taeyeon, escorted Jungsoo to the police station. Despite Jooyeon’s pleas for them not to put him in jail, they had to do it. With Taeyeon in the lead, she gave out a statement, wherein the police said they would investigate the matter further. Jooyeon stayed in his house while all of that was going on, in a different room, with Tiffany, Eunhyuk and Kangin. The rest of the group got the rest of the partygoers to leave and go home.
“I never wanted us to end up like this,” she finally said, carrying her bag and walking out of the quad. She knew that she must have sent some vibes to him to that effect, but she missed him. That was more important. He was more important that whatever happened.
“Is that why you keep watching his soccer practices?” he piped in as he fell into step beside her. She stopped walking and looked at him in surprise. “What, you thought we didn’t know this?” When she didn’t say anything, he shook his head. “Really? Did you think that, after what happened, we’d let you out of our sight?”
“So you’ve been watching me?” she questioned, feeling surprised and unsure as how else to feel about this new information.
“I know you don’t like it, but just think of this as something we’re doing for us,” he stated. “It’s for our comfort.”
They walked for a few moments in silence then she asked, “So even Kyuhyun knows that I’ve been watching Donghae oppa practice?”
“He’s always around when you’re done watching, right?” he reminded her.
Heechul was right. Now it all made sense why Kyuhyun seemed to just pop right out of nowhere after she watched Donghae’s practice, seemingly as if he was also done with whatever it was he was still doing in school.
“Have you ever tried actually talking to Donghae, instead of just stalking him?” Heechul wanted to know, a smirk on his face.
“I’m not stalking him,” Jooyeon shot back, pouting. She paused. “I had tried talking to him once, but he was busy talking to his teammates so I just left.”
“Well, what would you tell him if you had the chance to talk to him?” he questioned.
She paused for a couple of seconds to think about it. “I guess I would tell him that we should talk about what happened. I’d also tell him about how I don’t blame him for anything because, knowing him, he probably is blaming himself.”
He shrugged. “Well the things that kid thought and did weren’t exactly things to be proud of. There are some grounds for blame there,” he countered.
“But I don’t blame him,” she reiterated, feeling slightly annoyed.
“I suggest you tell him,” Heechul demanded, suddenly turning her around and pushing her.
Jooyeon nearly fell but was caught by someone with a smell she knew all too well. Heechul chuckled, shaking his head, as Donghae and Jooyeon stared at each other. The older male smiled and whistled as he walked away. His good deed for the day was done.
~ * ~
Kyuhyun hung his head as he took a seat on the lowest row of bleachers. He let out a breath as he wiped his forehead of sweat with the use of a while face towel. They had just finished the second game of the night and he felt tired.
“Hey, you okay?” Hankyung asked as he sat down beside him. When the younger didn’t answer, he gave him a look, as if assessing him. “You look like you’re going to crash any minute.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Kyuhyun shared, running a hand through his hair. He watched as Heechul chased Eunhyuk around the court because of the teasing that he did. Shortly after, Siwon intercepted the running anchovy, helping Heechul catch him. Needless to say, Eunhyuk received quite a wrestling match from the two.
“Ya!” Hankyung yelled at Heechul and Siwon when the two starting sitting down on top of Eunhyuk. “Stop crushing him!!” The two boys just continued to ignore him so he shook his head and turned his attention back to Kyuhyun. “This has something to do with Jooyeon, doesn’t it?”
“Why does everyone assume that everything’s about Jooyeon?” Kyuhyun questioned, giving his hyung a look. “Not everything is about her.”
“On the contrary,” Hankyung begged to differ, “everything you’re concerned about these days is Jooyeon. Are you guys together and you just haven’t told us yet?”
Kyuhyun leaned back and rested his head on the next row, covering his face with the face towel and wishing that Hankyung would stop questioning him and just leave him alone. After a couple of seconds, the older male got the hint and stood up to help Eunhyuk get up from the floor after being sat on by Heechul, Siwon, and even Shindong, who decided to join into the fray. Letting out a relieved breath, he continued on in the same position, mulling over the question. His answer was pretty defensive and it made him think. He couldn’t deny that he thought about Jooyeon a lot, even more so after the incident in Heechul’s party. There was just something about her that made him vulnerable. He just wanted to be around her all the time and be the one to take care of her.
“Kyu, let’s go,” Siwon called him, shaking him a little, his hand on his shoulder.
Kyuhyun removed the face towel from his face and sat up straight. “You guys go ahead. I’ll just stay for a bit and…” he trailed away, hesitating.
Siwon patted his shoulder, knowing all along that he was going to tell them to go ahead. After their games, Kyuhyun always stayed behind to wait for Jooyeon, who always watched Donghae’s soccer practices.
“See you later,” Siwon told him, waving as he walked towards the gym entrance, following the others who were also leaving.
Kyuhyun stared at his friends’ backs as they walked out of the gym. He knew the talk that went around school. Everyone was wondering about his relationship with Jooyeon. They were always together because he made sure they were always together. If he wasn’t going to be with her, protect her and make sure she was okay, who would? He had taken it upon himself to be the someone that would always be there for her, the person whom she would see when she looked behind her shoulder.
“Crap,” he muttered, burying his face into his hands.
If he was really going to be honest with himself, that wasn’t all that he wanted.
He wanted to be her someone.
But, as much as he wanted to confess, to make her understand his feelings and to push her to try, he knew he would end up hurting himself more than what he was going through at present. He thought not being able to sleep because of having strong feelings for someone only happened in movies because he’d never experienced it before. As it turns out, all those girls he’s had relationship with before wasn’t even close to what Jooyeon was like, to how she meant to him.
Scoffing at the cheesy and dramatic thoughts he was having, he grabbed his gym bag and stood up. He never used to be so emotional before. Thinking back to the first time he met Jooyeon, he remembered how big of a jerk he was, crashing onto her and not even helping her stand up. And even throughout the course of their friendship, he wasn’t exactly a knight in shining armor to her, despite her drunken claims. But now, it seemed he had changed a lot. He wasn’t as hard on her or on anyone else for that matter. Everyone in their circle of friends kept on teasing him how he was a softy now. He really didn’t know how it happened. Somewhere in between meeting her, being friends, and feeling something more, he had changed. It had become much harder to be snarky.
As he stepped out of the gym and into the hallway, moving towards the direction of the school gates. He frowned when he saw his friends and hyungs crowding around Heechul, who seemed to be hugging and comforting someone. When he was close enough and got a good look at what was going on, he was surprised.
“What happened?” Kyuhyun asked, glancing questioningly at Shindong, who was standing nearest to him.
Jooyeon was quietly crying in Heechul’s arms. She had her eyes shut and her hands clenched into a fist.
Kyuhyun then noticed that someone very unwelcome was there as well. “What are you doing here?” he then demanded of Eunhye, who looked uncomfortable.
“I… I didn’t do anything,” Eunhye pronounced pleadingly. She glanced at Hyukjae who wasn’t looking at her and had his eyes trained at Jooyeon only. “I was just-I found her crying.”
“Really,” Kyuhyun scoffed. After everything, it was wise not to believe anything she said.
“You should leave,” Heechul advised Eunhye. “We’ll make sure she’s fine.”
Without a word, Eunhye hurriedly left, afraid of being accused of doing another horrible thing to the crying girl.
“Jooyeon,” Heechul soothingly began, caressing the back of her head. “What happened?”
Jooyeon opened her eyes and realized that she was sobbing like a baby. She pushed herself off of Heechul and wiped her tears away. “I’m fine,” she told them, shaking her head.
“Where’s Donghae?” Heechul pressed, glancing around. “I thought you two were talking.”
“You and Donghae were talking?” Shindong and Hankyung chorused in amazement.
“He… there was something he had to do,” Jooyeon nonchalantly said, shifting in her stance and tucking her hair behind her ears.
Kyuhyun knew at once at she was lying. He cleared his throat, signaling to everyone that he was leaving, and started walking away to give Donghae a piece of his mind when he felt a hand on his wrist. Jooyeon looked up at him knowingly. She shook her head as if pleading to him not to do what he planned to do.
And just like that, Kyuhyun sighed in resignation and wrapped his hand on hers. He could never deny her what she wanted, especially not when she looked so forlorn while asking. “Let me take you home,” he decided.
He gripped her hand as they walked towards the parking lot, wondering what was going through her mind, wondering what it was that had happened to make her cry, wondering what Donghae did this time.
“Oppa, please don’t be mad,” Jooyeon’s quiet voice reached his ears.
“Don’t tell me what to do, especially not when you’re crying like this,” Kyuhyun retorted. He let out a breath when he realized that he sounded much harsher than he intended to. Glancing at her, he gently squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She smiled at him and squeezed his hand back. It was during times like these that Kyuhyun proved to be the knight that he was. She knew that he didn’t believe it, always denying it. But it was true. Throughout everything that had happened, she wouldn’t be standing up like this if it weren’t for him. It would’ve been so much harder than if he weren’t around.
“Thank you,” she responded, looking up at him. They had reached his car and had stopped walking.
“For what?” he asked, his brows furrowing.
“For being you,” she answered without hesitation. “For being someone who cares a lot for me and takes care of me.”
“Someone,” he murmured, thinking back on the thoughts that he had earlier. Ignoring his brain, he smirked. “Well who else is going to put with you, you big baby? Besides, I have to live up to that stupid nickname that you gave me. Knight, is it?”
“I thought you were GameKyu now,” she teased, giggling.
“Aish, you and your nicknames,” he grumbled, pushing her to the passenger’s side of the car and opening to door for her. “Get in.”
She moved to get inside the car, but stopped and turned to face him again. “I want to repay you for everything, oppa,” she stated thoughtfully, “I feel like it’s just fair that I do something for you as well. But you never want anything and you never need anything.”
“What I want and need, you can’t give me,” he replied.
She looked straight into his eyes with determination. “You haven’t even asked,” she challenged. “I’m willing to do anything, oppa.”
Kyuhyun’s knuckles whitened as he tightly gripped on the car’s handle. “Don’t say things you’ll regret, Jooyeon,” he spat, letting go of the door handle. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” He turned around and walked towards the driver’s side of the car.
But he didn’t get far. In a matter of seconds, her hand was on his wrist again. She made it into a moment of weakness. Before he could stop himself, he turned around, cupped her face and crashed his lips onto hers.