Secretly Yours, (Enhypen Jay X Female OC)

Ch. 28: The Lost Reassurance

"Look at him. All smiley after finally getting a kiss with his crush."

"What an idiot. Did he really have to take this long to finally tell her what he feels?"

"I can hear you guys, you know!"

"That was the point!" Sunghoon shouted back after I called him and Yunjin out for talking behind my back. Rather literally.

I just gave him a playful glare in return before I shook my head and turned to look ahead, my eyes soon looking out the window. The forest-clad mountains were already slowly disappearing from view the farther we traveled, and it gave me a mixture of feelings lead by both nervousness and thrill.

College, huh? I sure hope it won't be as hard as they say it is.

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It was, however, a lot harder than I expected it to.

Not because of the academics, though they were a different kind of difficult, too. But because of the events that followed shortly after I got into college.

The train behind me slowly disappears from my hearing after leaving the station. I might have stayed on the platform for a bit too long, but that doesn't really matter. Not like I'm in a rush. Dohyon's gone now, and I'm finally back in Daegu, but...

I still don't feel so sure about going to see Sawol.

Come on, now! Isn't that the whole point of my trip back here? To go see her? Why am I suddenly hesitating now?

Even my feet seem stuck to the ground as I try to move them and they end up sliding only small distances on the floor, and I look down at them as a frown forms on my face. "Ugh... this is really not the time to be having second thoughts..."

It's too late to go back, anyway. Why stop now?

I look ahead as I try to force my feet to move again, but then stop ultimately when I see a familiar child looking back at me...

The same child that sat in front of me with his mom and the Daegu Elementary School brochure.

Huh. I ended up seeing them again.

It didn't take long before his mom appears and pulls him away and out of the train station. And for some reason, that seems to be the one thing that finally pulls me out of that station.

It doesn't take long before I'm outside again, too, and I find myself met with a stronger wind than I expected.

I'm finally back in Daegu.

I'm finally... home?

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A knock came at the door of my dorm, and I called out without turning to it since I was too busy reading a new romance book I found at the university library.

"Who is it?" I cried out, but not a second later, Sunghoon got down from the top bunk of our bunk bed and smacked the back of my head before walking to the door.

"Why don't you see for yourself who it is instead of just lazily asking from your seat?"

"I was getting to the good part. Can you really blame me?" I responded, and Sunghoon immediately glared at me, making me flinch before quickly turning back to my book.

Soon, I heard him open the door, before a conversation with him and whoever was standing outside the door began. I didn't pay much mind to it as I went back to reading my book.

But...

There was definitely something else running through my head other than the book I was reading that time.

It had been... three? Four months? Since I got my last letter from Sawol.

I hadn't really told Sunghoon nor Yunjin about it. I just knew they'd nag at me again and tell me I'm wasting my time and my feelings not doing anything about the situation.

But it was complicated. And really, there was nothing I could do. After all, I was still a child, too, and the person asking me to stay away from Sawol was...

Her dad.

"Don't worry too much. I promise I'll still come to see you first thing when I arrive to Seoul next year. And don't worry too much about what my dad said! You know it isn't true!"

Sawol had assured me. Of course, she would have. She wouldn't have wanted me to worry but...

"You're a bad influence on my daughter. Please stay away from her from now on."

His letter... wouldn't leave my head.

What if it was true? What if I was actually a bad influence on Sawol all along?

Ugh, what exactly have I been doing all this time?