fic: Love to Hate You :: chapter four
Park Bom can't deal with this. This being something akin to incest, them being in YG Family and all. Although, heck, the president had a twisted sense of marketing. Or maybe being virtually married to Choi Seunghyun aka Tee-oh-pee is a higher power's idea of a cosmic joke. Either way, she's not amused.
CHAPTER FOUR
TOP ♥ Bom mission card
It's time to engage in some healthy competition. Guzzle olive oil, warm your pipes and pray to Lady Luck - winner takes all! All what? Dot, dot, dot...
Please head on over to 397-5 Hapjeong-Dong, Mapo-Gu, Seoul and... expect murder. No, wait, mayhem. Yes, mayhem. Expect mayhem.
#
Bom glances up at Seunghyun over the note that's been left in the car - the driver has yet to return, unless the filming crew expects them to go on foot or something, which would be pure murder. Her poor feet -
- Wait, hang on.
397-5 Hapjeong-Dong, Mapo-Gu, Seoul... Bom blinks. That's the YG building.
"What?" Seunghyun stretches his neck out, trying to read over her shoulder. As he does, Bom catches a whiff of his cologne over the subdued scent of chlorine and fresh, clean male. And literally experiences whiplash.
Whuh.
"Here." Like an automaton Bom shoves the note at him before her brain can latch onto another shocker like that. Something like he looks really good with damp hair.
Oh my God.
He gingerly plucks the note from her fingers as she hands it over, and looks almost afraid to read the few lines of text underneath all the froufrou. Bom must admit she's starting to fret every time she sees one of the cutesy letters wrapped like cutesy gifts with cutesy bows on top, and it's only just the beginning -
"Hey," he says after a moment, "that's our building."
There goes her confirmation.
Wait. Bom glances up again to find Seunghyun studying her closely. She can't freaking ready him but surely... surely this whole fake-marriage thing they never asked for - at least not to each other! - could end right here, right now, at the simple uttering of a word.
No. there, done, over and buried and oh well, guess they weren't meant to be, how sad, life goes on.
And she wouldn't be driven completely mad by some otherwise harmless mission cards that nevertheless are harmful because... because... argh, her poor heart! They scare her!
"Are you okay?" her virtual husband asks her out of the blue, looking at her like she's grown antennae again. She should really learn to keep a poker face when she's thinking.
Bom draws in a deep breath. "Yes."
"You up for this?" He gamely gestures at the pink-vomit card.
"What should we sing?" Already Bom is happily thumbing through her mental library, unhappily pushing aside much of it since most of her favourites are solos, and the duets are... well, Seunghyun doesn't like singing, despite his actually more than passably lovely singing voice. Where his raps are powerful, his singing is smooth and buttery, albeit unhoned. Which is why he hates singing openly in the first place.
Something else niggles at her, too. She's never sung a duet with him. There's always been Jiyong, at least, to be the buffer between them, making her feel less awkward.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait, that's not true. How the heck could she have forgotten? She has sung a duet with him before. When they were trainees. Wheesung and Jieun, their respective vocal teachers, had decided to pair them together for an end-of-month progress record to show the president and... she has never heard feedback on it, much less seen it. She'd checked the day after on the company server, wanting to secretly see how well she'd done since Jieun had forbidden her to even look at the playback on the camera, and it had been wiped. Poof! Completely erased. A bit disappointed, she had, however, counted herself lucky - no news is good news, she'd told herself - and gone on with her day feeling free. I'll never have to work with him again!
Oh, God. She remembers the awkwardness between them then, now. Wheesung telling them they weren't feeling the song enough. Having to sing like she wanted Seunghyun back, Why did you go? I've missed you so much. Blah blah blah... Having to re-do it over and over again. Staying up late into the early morning, until her voice turned into a rocky whisper. Hearing Seunghyun's embarrassed "mianhae" when he couldn't hit the right notes.
She did countless duets with Youngbae and Jiyong, and a few with the others - all without a problem. But somehow doing one with Big Seunghyun had been the most trying one of her life.
It's all coming back to her now. Loud and clear. Like a freight train. In technicolour.
Oh dear God.
"Let's do a Beyonce song," Seunghyun suggests out of the blue.
"Deh?"
#
"I refuse," Bom huffs when Seunghyun has finished dragging her into of their company's empty meeting rooms - the one with the abstract painting that doesn't leave much to interpretation. She can see two of their tag-along cameramen hunching their shoulders in a vain attempt to ignore the mammoth... The other is blatantly blinking up at it like it's that hard to decipher.
TOP spares a glance and a small grin up at it. Just like every-single-time. Glance, appreciate, go on with business with a lighter step. Sometimes he really is like a pre-teen behind those charismatic eyes.
"Aw, come on. It won't kill you."
Bom keeps her ground, refusing to budge. "I might kill her first," she grumbles to herself, sparing the piece of "art" a dirty look. This company is composed of cavemen, seriously. They all worship that thing...
He grins up at her from his swivelling chair. Jealous?
Raising a challenging brow, Bom rejoinders easily, "I'm perfectly happy with mine, thanks. At least it's very real."
"Ehm."
Bom nearloy loses her footing as she whirls in surprise at the intruding sound.
"Sorry." It's the PD. He looks so uncomfortable one might think he's wearing barbed wire for clothes. "But, ehm, could you, er, change the subject. We can't air this." Then, as an afterthought, as he looks-but-not at the glamorous vulva before him, he adds hopefully, "And could we switch rooms?"
"An excellent idea!" Bom enthuses, at the same time that Seunghyun innocently demands, "Why?"
She wants to knock him out. In the very room where he and Jiyong thought up Bbeokigayo. How ironic. She is so clever.
The PD is too uncomfortable to fight for his case, and so Bom is right back where she does not want to be. Namely, in the vulva room with a lecher for a virtual husband who wants to sing a Beyonce song with her. Ah, correction. A Beyonce and Jay-Z song. Déjà Vu. And translate it. Ooh la la. Did he think he would win her over this way? Apparently so.
"You're a seriously twisted guy, you know that?" she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. She ain't moving.
It's his turn to lift a challenging slash of a brow. "You sure talk a lot of bullshit for somebody who doesn't want to sing a song with me but isn't leaving to drive the point home," he shoots back deftly in a teasing tone, a smirk hanging at the edge of his mouth.
Damn.
"Argh, fine," Bom huffs, plonking herself down at the head of the table instead of right next to him - a girl's got to grab her chances to show a guy who's boss. "Now what."
He stares at her then, locking eyes with her for so long that she has to look away first. Unnerving, always unnerving. "Now you pick up a pen and help me adapt this song," he says, nodding her over. "Come on."
#
Girl, seems like everywhere I go I see you
These city lights, they pale next to you
All those shadows in my heart, all those days
I never saw the real you
Boy, I try to catch myself but it's such a change
I never thought I'd say this to you, I can't let it go, baby
Let's pick up the pieces, pieces, 'cause everything I see is you
And I don't want no substitute, baby, I swear it's deja vu
Let's pick up the pieces, pieces, 'cause everything I see is you
And I don't want no substitute, baby, I swear it's deja vu
...
#
"It was like... like I finally saw the real Seunghyun," she tells Minzy later that day, finally able to think right as she sleeps over in the maknae's room (kid calls it squatting). But she needs to not be alone tonight. There's too much churning inside her.
"He's always been the same, though," Minzy grunts sleepily, sprawling out over Bom's legs.
Bom glances at the offending appendage, unseeing. "No, not really." She shakes her head, the rustle of the pillow seeming loud in the quiet of the room. "You wouldn't know... he changed a lot without anyone really noticing."
"And you did?" Minzy snort softly.
Bom hesitates. Minzy had begun training young; perhaps too young. "I saw something I shouldn't have," she says. "Something private that up till now I thought he resented me for. Turns out he doesn't.
In the darkness Bom can practically hear the maknae's not-so-young-and-innocent-anymore eyes pop open. "Something... private?" she edges cautiously.
Snorting, Bom kicks away the maknae's leg. That'll teach her. "Filthy mind. Dear God, what shall we do with you." She sighs long-sufferingly. "No, you nympho, he didn't flash me or anything. But it's something I've had on my conscience for a long time."
Apparently the subject isn't as fascinating anymore, as Minzy has closed her eyes and grown slack. "What," she queries sleepily.
"I saw him break up with his girlfriend."
"Oh yeah, her," Minzy mumbles sluggishly, and Bom can tells she's right on the edge of unconsciousness.
Bom settles deeper into her pillow, a world - or time - away. "I saw him cry," she whispers to the sleeping form next to her, seeing only the broken boy from the past in her mind's eye slipping down the craggy basement wall - he'd been a mess of hot tears and sobs that shook her to her core. "I wanted to die," she tells the darkness.
One step was all it had taken for her compassion to freeze up. One look up from puffy, bloodshot eyes, and she'd fled like a coward.
In his darkest moment, she'd stolen his pride, double-fold. And never apologised.
Until today.
"I'm so sorry," she'd murmured, unable to meet his eyes, after reading his piece - I never saw the real you.
For a moment she'd feared this was it - she'd finally made him snap after mentioning the past again - but, wordlessly, he'd leaned over and jotted down a few characters in his blocky scrawl... Turn the page.
His scent - subtle pine... clean and fresh - had drifted away as he'd sat back, observing her closely.
Bom had slowly flipped the page, meeting his eyes as she did, and then read to herself the note behind. Some things were meant to be private. Even from the camera staff. This was such a time.
Bom,
I think we need to give us a chance... start over... see where this takes us... Because, while we've been going our merry way for so long, it's just not the way it should have been. We should have been friends, allies. Remember that first night? I don't know exactly how it happened but it just did - we were sticking together - even though I could barely understand half of your drunken Konglish babbling by the end of the night. Discovering that you can't hold your alcohol made my night. I fell asleep happy, full of hopes and dreams - I'll be your live beat box, yo! - and a drunk noona giggle-singing the worst rap I ever heard.
My break-up was... personal. I'll admit, I never wanted anyone to find out. But I didn't and still don't hate you for seeing me break down. If anything, I was ashamed of myself, and I didn't know what to say... how to say it. I still don't, except that it's in the past. I'm over it. Sometimes I wonder... what if I'd given up on my dream instead? What would she and I have become? What would I have become? But I can't envision that alternative. Rapping is what I've always wanted to do, for as long as I can remember. I could still be rapping underground, but then how fulfilled would I feel rapping by night? What would I do by day? I was hanging with a bad crowd, you know. I could be dealing drugs by now for all I know... No... this is what I wanted, for better or for worse. I wanted to touch people with my words, if I could.
My ex is now married and has two kids, from what I've heard - and she's happy. So I can't begrudge her for not waiting around for me. Wait for me. I'll come back for you. I was a selfish little boy, for thinking only of my own happiness. It wasn't love - I realise that now - it was convenience. Conveniently, when my contract would end, I'd have a lovely aimless girlfriend with no future waiting diligently for the successful T.O.P. back home, and we could then found a family and have five kids and God knows what else. A muscle car or two. A roomful of clothes in all the colours of the rainbow. A chef making donuts and ice cream at all hours. Life would be perfect! … for me. She'd have no career, no future, no nothing - just an undying love for some selfish kid who pushed her aside to further his own future and then took her back once circumstances allowed it.
Who the hell thinks rationally at 18?
But you... Bom, I messed up bad with you. Nearly ten years have passed and I still haven't righted things with you. Sure, we can joke around with the others and all and I can tease and annoy you, but we haven't stuck by each other since then and I've truly... I'm really sorry. I'm sorry for forgetting you in the equation. I should have said something back then. I shouldn't have made you feel like you needed to be forgiven. That my job. So I'll say it now:
I'm sorry. Forgive me. I hope it's not too late, because I don't think we can go on all but studiously avoiding each other like the plague for much longer.
So let's turn a new leaf, yeah?
Seunghyun.
Bom had remained silent a long moment, possibly a long time, digesting everything. The words kept jumping out at her at random from the page, and then... then she smoothed the sheet on the conference table.
Then she'd slowly lifted her eyes, meeting Seunghyun's sullen, uncharacteristically vulnerable ones, and bitten her lip. Nodded. "Yeah," she'd murmured, and watched with a thudding heart as he'd taken a small velvet box from his hoodie.
Bom recalls that moment with crystal clarity, from the damp locks curling at the nape of his neck to the soft flush of his cheeks and ears, to the dark depths of his eyes as she gaped, gobsmacked, at him as he put the small box on the table between them.
"Wait you... you..." Bom had stuttered, feeling her heart and her cheeks and everything just... combust.
"Open it," he'd urged quietly, sounding slightly embarrassed.
She shouldn't have felt so... so... chaotic. It was part and parcel of being on the show. Get the husband; get the ring. Someday she'd even have to hug him. Kiss him, maybe. That thought made her - still makes her - positively oh my God like a broken record.
Bom extended an arm, gathering the little box in her hand, and gingerly prised it open. "Wow," she breathed, her mouth suddenly dry, tears inexplicably pooling in her eyes. Twin rings had winked back at her, eclipsing everything else around her. There were no diamonds. No precious gems. No expensive metal. Just chrome rings that stole her breath away nonetheless. "They're beautiful," she'd whispered, blinking back a new tear threatening to fall.
Seunghyun had quietly watched her, then leaned over to stroke one of the rings thoughtfully. "I didn't know you finger size so..."
"It's fine," she'd interjected softly. If it didn't fit she'd string it on a necklace or something.
He'd glanced at her then, and he was close enough that she could smell pine trees again. "Can I?" he'd asked, motioning to the gleaming rings.
Bom had held out her hand, watching as he plucked the ring he'd been stroking out of its slot. The only finger it fit would be her thumb, maybe, Bom had thought. The same conclusion seemed to come over his face as he aimed for it.
The metal was cool as it slid over her skin, but Bom's senses also picked up the warmer, light touch of Seunghyun's fingers. They'd remained in place even after he'd driven the ring home. Bom had glanced up to find Seunghyun watching her smaller hand within his two larger ones. Not for the first time she'd been unable to read his thoughts.
"My turn," she'd murmured, surprised at how husky her voice had become. Swallowing, she'd reached over and plucked his ring from the box, closing her hand over it to warm the metal, then turned to Seunghyun's left hand and slid it on.
Bom still remembers the strange feeling that had come over her the moment Seunghyun's ring had slid home: finality. They'd made their decision, and these rings sealed it.
Now, in the darkness, with Minzy breathe-snoring softly next to her, Bom recalls Seunghyun's hands upon hers as she twirls the chrome band round and round her thumb.
I hope it's not too late.
Bom falls asleep with Seunghyun's voice ringing in her ears, clutching her ring-clad thumb protectively.
CHAPTER FOUR
TOP ♥ Bom mission card
It's time to engage in some healthy competition. Guzzle olive oil, warm your pipes and pray to Lady Luck - winner takes all! All what? Dot, dot, dot...
Please head on over to 397-5 Hapjeong-Dong, Mapo-Gu, Seoul and... expect murder. No, wait, mayhem. Yes, mayhem. Expect mayhem.
#
Bom glances up at Seunghyun over the note that's been left in the car - the driver has yet to return, unless the filming crew expects them to go on foot or something, which would be pure murder. Her poor feet -
- Wait, hang on.
397-5 Hapjeong-Dong, Mapo-Gu, Seoul... Bom blinks. That's the YG building.
"What?" Seunghyun stretches his neck out, trying to read over her shoulder. As he does, Bom catches a whiff of his cologne over the subdued scent of chlorine and fresh, clean male. And literally experiences whiplash.
Whuh.
"Here." Like an automaton Bom shoves the note at him before her brain can latch onto another shocker like that. Something like he looks really good with damp hair.
Oh my God.
He gingerly plucks the note from her fingers as she hands it over, and looks almost afraid to read the few lines of text underneath all the froufrou. Bom must admit she's starting to fret every time she sees one of the cutesy letters wrapped like cutesy gifts with cutesy bows on top, and it's only just the beginning -
"Hey," he says after a moment, "that's our building."
There goes her confirmation.
Wait. Bom glances up again to find Seunghyun studying her closely. She can't freaking ready him but surely... surely this whole fake-marriage thing they never asked for - at least not to each other! - could end right here, right now, at the simple uttering of a word.
No. there, done, over and buried and oh well, guess they weren't meant to be, how sad, life goes on.
And she wouldn't be driven completely mad by some otherwise harmless mission cards that nevertheless are harmful because... because... argh, her poor heart! They scare her!
"Are you okay?" her virtual husband asks her out of the blue, looking at her like she's grown antennae again. She should really learn to keep a poker face when she's thinking.
Bom draws in a deep breath. "Yes."
"You up for this?" He gamely gestures at the pink-vomit card.
"What should we sing?" Already Bom is happily thumbing through her mental library, unhappily pushing aside much of it since most of her favourites are solos, and the duets are... well, Seunghyun doesn't like singing, despite his actually more than passably lovely singing voice. Where his raps are powerful, his singing is smooth and buttery, albeit unhoned. Which is why he hates singing openly in the first place.
Something else niggles at her, too. She's never sung a duet with him. There's always been Jiyong, at least, to be the buffer between them, making her feel less awkward.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait, that's not true. How the heck could she have forgotten? She has sung a duet with him before. When they were trainees. Wheesung and Jieun, their respective vocal teachers, had decided to pair them together for an end-of-month progress record to show the president and... she has never heard feedback on it, much less seen it. She'd checked the day after on the company server, wanting to secretly see how well she'd done since Jieun had forbidden her to even look at the playback on the camera, and it had been wiped. Poof! Completely erased. A bit disappointed, she had, however, counted herself lucky - no news is good news, she'd told herself - and gone on with her day feeling free. I'll never have to work with him again!
Oh, God. She remembers the awkwardness between them then, now. Wheesung telling them they weren't feeling the song enough. Having to sing like she wanted Seunghyun back, Why did you go? I've missed you so much. Blah blah blah... Having to re-do it over and over again. Staying up late into the early morning, until her voice turned into a rocky whisper. Hearing Seunghyun's embarrassed "mianhae" when he couldn't hit the right notes.
She did countless duets with Youngbae and Jiyong, and a few with the others - all without a problem. But somehow doing one with Big Seunghyun had been the most trying one of her life.
It's all coming back to her now. Loud and clear. Like a freight train. In technicolour.
Oh dear God.
"Let's do a Beyonce song," Seunghyun suggests out of the blue.
"Deh?"
#
"I refuse," Bom huffs when Seunghyun has finished dragging her into of their company's empty meeting rooms - the one with the abstract painting that doesn't leave much to interpretation. She can see two of their tag-along cameramen hunching their shoulders in a vain attempt to ignore the mammoth... The other is blatantly blinking up at it like it's that hard to decipher.
TOP spares a glance and a small grin up at it. Just like every-single-time. Glance, appreciate, go on with business with a lighter step. Sometimes he really is like a pre-teen behind those charismatic eyes.
"Aw, come on. It won't kill you."
Bom keeps her ground, refusing to budge. "I might kill her first," she grumbles to herself, sparing the piece of "art" a dirty look. This company is composed of cavemen, seriously. They all worship that thing...
He grins up at her from his swivelling chair. Jealous?
Raising a challenging brow, Bom rejoinders easily, "I'm perfectly happy with mine, thanks. At least it's very real."
"Ehm."
Bom nearloy loses her footing as she whirls in surprise at the intruding sound.
"Sorry." It's the PD. He looks so uncomfortable one might think he's wearing barbed wire for clothes. "But, ehm, could you, er, change the subject. We can't air this." Then, as an afterthought, as he looks-but-not at the glamorous vulva before him, he adds hopefully, "And could we switch rooms?"
"An excellent idea!" Bom enthuses, at the same time that Seunghyun innocently demands, "Why?"
She wants to knock him out. In the very room where he and Jiyong thought up Bbeokigayo. How ironic. She is so clever.
The PD is too uncomfortable to fight for his case, and so Bom is right back where she does not want to be. Namely, in the vulva room with a lecher for a virtual husband who wants to sing a Beyonce song with her. Ah, correction. A Beyonce and Jay-Z song. Déjà Vu. And translate it. Ooh la la. Did he think he would win her over this way? Apparently so.
"You're a seriously twisted guy, you know that?" she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. She ain't moving.
It's his turn to lift a challenging slash of a brow. "You sure talk a lot of bullshit for somebody who doesn't want to sing a song with me but isn't leaving to drive the point home," he shoots back deftly in a teasing tone, a smirk hanging at the edge of his mouth.
Damn.
"Argh, fine," Bom huffs, plonking herself down at the head of the table instead of right next to him - a girl's got to grab her chances to show a guy who's boss. "Now what."
He stares at her then, locking eyes with her for so long that she has to look away first. Unnerving, always unnerving. "Now you pick up a pen and help me adapt this song," he says, nodding her over. "Come on."
#
Girl, seems like everywhere I go I see you
These city lights, they pale next to you
All those shadows in my heart, all those days
I never saw the real you
Boy, I try to catch myself but it's such a change
I never thought I'd say this to you, I can't let it go, baby
Let's pick up the pieces, pieces, 'cause everything I see is you
And I don't want no substitute, baby, I swear it's deja vu
Let's pick up the pieces, pieces, 'cause everything I see is you
And I don't want no substitute, baby, I swear it's deja vu
...
#
"It was like... like I finally saw the real Seunghyun," she tells Minzy later that day, finally able to think right as she sleeps over in the maknae's room (kid calls it squatting). But she needs to not be alone tonight. There's too much churning inside her.
"He's always been the same, though," Minzy grunts sleepily, sprawling out over Bom's legs.
Bom glances at the offending appendage, unseeing. "No, not really." She shakes her head, the rustle of the pillow seeming loud in the quiet of the room. "You wouldn't know... he changed a lot without anyone really noticing."
"And you did?" Minzy snort softly.
Bom hesitates. Minzy had begun training young; perhaps too young. "I saw something I shouldn't have," she says. "Something private that up till now I thought he resented me for. Turns out he doesn't.
In the darkness Bom can practically hear the maknae's not-so-young-and-innocent-anymore eyes pop open. "Something... private?" she edges cautiously.
Snorting, Bom kicks away the maknae's leg. That'll teach her. "Filthy mind. Dear God, what shall we do with you." She sighs long-sufferingly. "No, you nympho, he didn't flash me or anything. But it's something I've had on my conscience for a long time."
Apparently the subject isn't as fascinating anymore, as Minzy has closed her eyes and grown slack. "What," she queries sleepily.
"I saw him break up with his girlfriend."
"Oh yeah, her," Minzy mumbles sluggishly, and Bom can tells she's right on the edge of unconsciousness.
Bom settles deeper into her pillow, a world - or time - away. "I saw him cry," she whispers to the sleeping form next to her, seeing only the broken boy from the past in her mind's eye slipping down the craggy basement wall - he'd been a mess of hot tears and sobs that shook her to her core. "I wanted to die," she tells the darkness.
One step was all it had taken for her compassion to freeze up. One look up from puffy, bloodshot eyes, and she'd fled like a coward.
In his darkest moment, she'd stolen his pride, double-fold. And never apologised.
Until today.
"I'm so sorry," she'd murmured, unable to meet his eyes, after reading his piece - I never saw the real you.
For a moment she'd feared this was it - she'd finally made him snap after mentioning the past again - but, wordlessly, he'd leaned over and jotted down a few characters in his blocky scrawl... Turn the page.
His scent - subtle pine... clean and fresh - had drifted away as he'd sat back, observing her closely.
Bom had slowly flipped the page, meeting his eyes as she did, and then read to herself the note behind. Some things were meant to be private. Even from the camera staff. This was such a time.
Bom,
I think we need to give us a chance... start over... see where this takes us... Because, while we've been going our merry way for so long, it's just not the way it should have been. We should have been friends, allies. Remember that first night? I don't know exactly how it happened but it just did - we were sticking together - even though I could barely understand half of your drunken Konglish babbling by the end of the night. Discovering that you can't hold your alcohol made my night. I fell asleep happy, full of hopes and dreams - I'll be your live beat box, yo! - and a drunk noona giggle-singing the worst rap I ever heard.
My break-up was... personal. I'll admit, I never wanted anyone to find out. But I didn't and still don't hate you for seeing me break down. If anything, I was ashamed of myself, and I didn't know what to say... how to say it. I still don't, except that it's in the past. I'm over it. Sometimes I wonder... what if I'd given up on my dream instead? What would she and I have become? What would I have become? But I can't envision that alternative. Rapping is what I've always wanted to do, for as long as I can remember. I could still be rapping underground, but then how fulfilled would I feel rapping by night? What would I do by day? I was hanging with a bad crowd, you know. I could be dealing drugs by now for all I know... No... this is what I wanted, for better or for worse. I wanted to touch people with my words, if I could.
My ex is now married and has two kids, from what I've heard - and she's happy. So I can't begrudge her for not waiting around for me. Wait for me. I'll come back for you. I was a selfish little boy, for thinking only of my own happiness. It wasn't love - I realise that now - it was convenience. Conveniently, when my contract would end, I'd have a lovely aimless girlfriend with no future waiting diligently for the successful T.O.P. back home, and we could then found a family and have five kids and God knows what else. A muscle car or two. A roomful of clothes in all the colours of the rainbow. A chef making donuts and ice cream at all hours. Life would be perfect! … for me. She'd have no career, no future, no nothing - just an undying love for some selfish kid who pushed her aside to further his own future and then took her back once circumstances allowed it.
Who the hell thinks rationally at 18?
But you... Bom, I messed up bad with you. Nearly ten years have passed and I still haven't righted things with you. Sure, we can joke around with the others and all and I can tease and annoy you, but we haven't stuck by each other since then and I've truly... I'm really sorry. I'm sorry for forgetting you in the equation. I should have said something back then. I shouldn't have made you feel like you needed to be forgiven. That my job. So I'll say it now:
I'm sorry. Forgive me. I hope it's not too late, because I don't think we can go on all but studiously avoiding each other like the plague for much longer.
So let's turn a new leaf, yeah?
Seunghyun.
Bom had remained silent a long moment, possibly a long time, digesting everything. The words kept jumping out at her at random from the page, and then... then she smoothed the sheet on the conference table.
Then she'd slowly lifted her eyes, meeting Seunghyun's sullen, uncharacteristically vulnerable ones, and bitten her lip. Nodded. "Yeah," she'd murmured, and watched with a thudding heart as he'd taken a small velvet box from his hoodie.
Bom recalls that moment with crystal clarity, from the damp locks curling at the nape of his neck to the soft flush of his cheeks and ears, to the dark depths of his eyes as she gaped, gobsmacked, at him as he put the small box on the table between them.
"Wait you... you..." Bom had stuttered, feeling her heart and her cheeks and everything just... combust.
"Open it," he'd urged quietly, sounding slightly embarrassed.
She shouldn't have felt so... so... chaotic. It was part and parcel of being on the show. Get the husband; get the ring. Someday she'd even have to hug him. Kiss him, maybe. That thought made her - still makes her - positively oh my God like a broken record.
Bom extended an arm, gathering the little box in her hand, and gingerly prised it open. "Wow," she breathed, her mouth suddenly dry, tears inexplicably pooling in her eyes. Twin rings had winked back at her, eclipsing everything else around her. There were no diamonds. No precious gems. No expensive metal. Just chrome rings that stole her breath away nonetheless. "They're beautiful," she'd whispered, blinking back a new tear threatening to fall.
Seunghyun had quietly watched her, then leaned over to stroke one of the rings thoughtfully. "I didn't know you finger size so..."
"It's fine," she'd interjected softly. If it didn't fit she'd string it on a necklace or something.
He'd glanced at her then, and he was close enough that she could smell pine trees again. "Can I?" he'd asked, motioning to the gleaming rings.
Bom had held out her hand, watching as he plucked the ring he'd been stroking out of its slot. The only finger it fit would be her thumb, maybe, Bom had thought. The same conclusion seemed to come over his face as he aimed for it.
The metal was cool as it slid over her skin, but Bom's senses also picked up the warmer, light touch of Seunghyun's fingers. They'd remained in place even after he'd driven the ring home. Bom had glanced up to find Seunghyun watching her smaller hand within his two larger ones. Not for the first time she'd been unable to read his thoughts.
"My turn," she'd murmured, surprised at how husky her voice had become. Swallowing, she'd reached over and plucked his ring from the box, closing her hand over it to warm the metal, then turned to Seunghyun's left hand and slid it on.
Bom still remembers the strange feeling that had come over her the moment Seunghyun's ring had slid home: finality. They'd made their decision, and these rings sealed it.
Now, in the darkness, with Minzy breathe-snoring softly next to her, Bom recalls Seunghyun's hands upon hers as she twirls the chrome band round and round her thumb.
I hope it's not too late.
Bom falls asleep with Seunghyun's voice ringing in her ears, clutching her ring-clad thumb protectively.