The Bestfriends

34

A year after their friend, Red, left for Oxford, England, Nicolette couldn't be talked to. No one could reach her and she kind of isolated herself from her other friends. She never talked to any one of them for weeks, and months, with the exception of one guy.

Jeniel.

She admitted she had feelings for the man after she graduated as Magna Cum Laude after years of being pressured by her parents to do well with her studies.

The pressure was still there after graduating and finally having a decent job. She was never interested in taking over their family business and when she finally had the nerve to tell her parents that, of course, they weren't happy.

"It's either you train as my successor or we're cutting your allowance." Her dad threatened. Yes, threatened. All her life, she did what they wanted her to do, took the course they wanted, did what she was told.

Do this, do that.

That was all she ever heard from her parents. If they're not comparing her to successful people her age or younger, they were ordering her around like some slave.

And she was sick of it, but she didn't have a choice. Because albeit what her parents were doing to her – mentally and emotionally abusing her – she had no one else to run to when things get were getting out of hand. She didn't want to be some ungrateful child who runs away from her parents when she was tired of their orders.

And after two years of working as a corporate slave, her father deemed her finally worthy of taking over their company when he retires.

Nickolai Yan.

That name could be seen almost anywhere in Korea and it was a name almost all entrepreneurs knew. Who wouldn't know someone who saved the entertainment industry in Korea and is now almost taking over the same in the Philippines?

She was just glad that despite his dad being in the spotlight twice or thrice a month, she laid low from the media and paparazzi.

"Hello, Kulet. Kamusta?"

Nicolette slumped her body on her bed and momentarily closed her eye, holding her phone up while his boyfriend of five years was showing on her screen. Hearing Jeniel's voice seemed to take away all the stress and worry she was feeling – he had that kind of effect on her.

"Masaya naman. Pero mas masaya siguro kung nandito ka." She pouted and heard Jeniel chuckling on the other line. "Tsaka, bumalik na memories ni Red. Sobrang... ewan. Hindi ko maexplain yung nararamdaman ko. Sana andito ka na talaga. Mas maganda magkwento kapag andito ka."

"Malapit na, mahal ko. Konting tiis nalang." He tried his best to reassure her and to cheer her up. And for two years, this was their routine. They talked over the phone via video call about everything that happened to them – rants, stories, everything.