Meet Me Here

Chapter 11: Let You Go

Trigger Warning: Pain

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She didn't see him for a week.

For a whole week, Ye Jin never saw hide nor hair of her boyfriend.

No calls, no texts, no letters...Nothing.

Was she worried?

She would have been if she hadn't seen Hyun Bin's eomeoni the morning after the emotional call they exchanged.

Ye Jin never went back to sleep that night, because her gut was twisted with worry for her boyfriend.

Hyun Bin rarely cried. For him to cry meant that something drastic must have happened, something that he wasn't mentally ready to deal with.

Yet...

His eomeoni had rushed off that day, shooing her off to school because Hyun Bin was apparently going on a trip with the family.

Did that even make any sense?

Why would his family; his abeoji, who was so particular about his children's studies take them on a family trip during a school semester?

But who was she to judge? For all she knew, there could be an emergency with a relative.

So she stopped worrying although that niggling feeling in her chest said otherwise. Because even if Hyun Bin was on said vacation, he could have at least called right? Even if it was just to tell her he would be away for a little while?

Perhaps that was why when she saw the unmistakable figure of her boyfriend on the bleachers the following week, she blew up. He had just finished talking to his basketball couch when a livid Ye Jin stalked up to him and cornered him immediately, demanding an explanation for his week-long hiatus from her life.

"What the hell, Binnie? Where were you? Unless you're telling me your family went to the other end of the North Pole, there's no excuse why you couldn't answer any of my calls or texts! At least tell me you'll be busy for the week!" Ye Jin raged, jabbing hard at his chest in her fury.

So enraged was she, all she saw was red. All that disappeared when her boyfriend had trapped her hands in his, stilling her words and her movements.

That was when she truly got a good look at him. And what she saw didn't bode well with her.

It has only been a week but her boyfriend lost so much vitality in his features that Ye Jin wondered if he got dragged through hell and back on his family vacation.

Her boyfriend was wearing a simple cap, hiding his baldness from everyone in school.

But that was not all. His cheeks were slightly sunken whereas his eyes were stormy, pained for he was the unwilling victim of an illness that has claimed too many lives.

One life was already too many to count.

Whatever argument she wanted to give him flew right out of the window. Similarly, the concern bubbling in her chest was lost to her lips as she gingerly reached up to touch her boyfriend's face. Hyun Bin closed his eyes then, shuddering from his girlfriend's gentle touches.

He missed this. It hadn't been an easy week but somehow all that pain he went through was worth it, knowing that he was still alive and here with Ye Jin.

"May I?" Ye Jin whispered.

Eyes opened then and Hyun Bin swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbling slightly as Ye Jin reached up to slip his cap off.