what could have been
what could have been
Lee Jonghyun/Seohyun
Angst | 715 words
-- for bollywoodrecord, sorry it's not that wonderful ;-;
Lee Jonghyun isn’t a man of what ifs. He doesn’t dwell in the past and spends time pondering over things that have already happened. “A real Busan man,” he tells Minhyuk over a can of Coke once (they were too young for alcohol back then, and getting drunk in a foreign land where nobody else actually knows them is not something they have in mind), “doesn’t fret over what’s in the past.”
True to his words, Jonghyun has never really regretted anything in his life. He left his hometown without looking back at such young age, accompanied by only a beaten duffel bag, his trusted guitar and an ambition far too big for a country bumpkin like him, all alone to Seoul, the city of dreams. He travelled all the way to Japan, the place he used to only see in television back in the living room of his parents’ house but never even imagined of stepping his foot on, without hesitation and fear that they would end up failing. They made it in the end anyway, didn’t they?
Jonghyun isn’t a man of what ifs and what could have beens. He doesn’t look back and regret, and wonder what would have happened if he had taken a different path, instead he walks straight ahead, wafting towards what the future holds for him. But it’s a different case when it comes to her.
He first meets Seo Joohyun at a second-hand bookstore in downtown of Seoul, where there are less people on the streets and even lesser in the old store. She is standing at a particular shelf browsing through the books with her big glassy eyes, seemingly unaware of her surroundings and completely lost in her own world. She is not Girls’ Generation’s Seohyun at that moment―he somehow knows that for sure―but just an ordinary teenage girl, perhaps a slightly bit nerdy who is into books that even people twice her age don’t normal read. A smile appears on her face when she finds a book she has been looking for, and Jonghyun’s world stops spinning for a while right then and there. He thinks his heart may have stopped as well.
His first regret is bringing (dragging, more like) Yonghwa along with him to the bookstore. Yonghwa, who clearly isn’t interested in reading anything other than music notes. Yonghwa, who obliviously points out “That’s Seohyun isn’t it?” loud enough for anyone to hear, but thankfully she is too immersed in her book to notice. Yonghwa, who later rises to fame, hogs the spotlight and marries the same girl (albeit only virtually on a television show), and gets to tell the story of their encounter.
Not that Jonghyun minds about Yonghwa being the most popular member. In fact he’s truly grateful for the latter’s popularity because it helps in getting the band known and increasing the album sales. But it is during the moment when he realizes that the girl who enters the building while he is hiding behind the reception table is the same girl he met years ago at the bookstore, that he starts counting all of his regrets and what ifs and what could have beens.
What if he didn’t hand the leadership over to Yonghwa? Would he become as popular, if not more? What if he was more talkative, funnier, warmer to people? Would he be the one married to her? Would he be the one to receive her smiles, to joke around with and buy presents for? Would he be her first date, the lucky one to receive her first kiss, and perhaps lucky enough to be her first love?
It’s just a television show, he tells himself as he tries to sincerely congratulate them. Maybe he can sing her a song to impress her, besides to make Yonghwa jealous. Maybe he can crack a joke and make her laugh. Maybe, just maybe, he can be the one who makes her smile.
Seohyun glances his way when the cameras stop rolling for a short break, and snaps him out of his reverie when she calls his name. “Are you alright?” she asks, a little concerned.
Lee Jonghyun doesn’t regret and fret over the past, so he flashes a smile and nods. “I’m okay,” he tells her. I’ll be okay.
As if we made a promise
I mutter to myself
Next to you who can't hear me
That I want to go to you ♥