Regret ➳ Bang Chan

Chapter 17

"What are you doing awake?" Chan leant on his left arm, his narrowed eyes still adjusting to the light of his phone flashlight.

Jungha turned abruptly to see Chan sitting up, a black blanket covering half of his body.

After shoving the cake and pizza down their throats, everyone had collapsed onto floors, counters and for the lucky ones, couches. Jisung was on the counter.

"I couldn't sleep,"

The latter nodded and nudged his head in the direction of the front door, "let's go for a walk?"

Jungha accepted his offer and, with some struggle, managed to pull herself off the floor as Chan did so too.

The boys were snoring so loudly that their footsteps couldn't be heard, and neither could the opening of the dorm's door after Chan had taken his brown coat off the hook.

As soon as the two set foot outside, the icy wind nipped at their sensitive skin, forcing the pale tones to tint a bright pink.

It was a cloudy night, and not many stars could be seen, but that didn't stop them from sparing a few seconds to glance up at the blue sea.

Chan looked down at the shivering girl and hesitantly reached for her hand, interlacing his with hers slowly.

She looked up, visibly uncomfortable from the small but meaningful gesture.

He placed their intertwined hands in his smooth coat pocket and cleared his throat, "Skin-to-skin contact. Keeps you warm,"

She muttered an "ah" and looked away.

For a few seconds, only the whispering wind could be heard. That is, until Chan decided to clear his throat in a sad attempt to cut the awkwardness.

"I'm sorry," he lowered his head and fiddled with his pale fingers. "I know it doesn't do any of this justice, but I really am truly sor-"

"Chan, I forgive you, remember? I'm just uncomfortable with the whole situation we're in right now. I don't know how I'm supposed to react."

The boy nodded his head and took a deep breath as he sniffed in the cold air.

"I'm debuting next week Sunday," he turned towards her small face and let out a laugh, smiling so wide his dimples creased.

"I'm debuting," he shook his head in awe after being met with the face of an also very happy Jungha. "That's 5 days,"

"Seven years, Chan," she smiled at him. "You're going to debut. Debut, debut, debut, debut, its your word now. It sounds strange after a while, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Debut. That's me,"

The girl's hand still rested, mangled with his in the coat pocket, but she now had no intentions of removing it. She was reminded that night of why she always enjoyed his warming company.

He turned towards the small girl to see her dark hair glinting under the bright light of the crescent moon, but his smile slowly faded as he began his next question.

"Could you, perhaps, explain the whole situation to me? With you and Joohyun,"

Jungha cleared her throat before drawing in a deep breath and curling her toes.

"I was pretty helpless since I started schooling there, and Joohyun sensed it. Nobody seemed to want to help and I had no-one to go to, so I let it be. Just enduring the daily hardships I guess."

Chan shook his head slightly and yawned quietly. He checked his watch which stated the current time of 1:27am.

"Where are your parents? They never seem to be around,"

The girl made a small oval with her mouth and nodded. "They passed away in a boating accident,"

Chan's eyes widened marginally as he squeezed her hand beneath the coat, stroking his thumb across the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize something like that had happened,"

She shook her head slightly before reassuring him that it was okay and wiped the small gatherings of tears from the edges of her chestnut eyes.

"Beach? We haven't been there together before," and so the 2 of them took a cheesy walk to the small beach and sat on the damp sand where the temperature was even colder, watching the night waves wash closer, pull away and repeat.

They didn't talk, as much as both of them were dying to let out their feelings, but instead just sat peacefully in the company of eachother.

The beep of Chan's watch ripped both of them from their tranquil states. The boy checked the time and nudged Jungha slightly while getting up, commencing their departure.

Once home, they crawled back onto the floor where they had been once before, and drifted off into the, for once, peaceful sleep they'd loved.

★

"Why does it always turn out like this?"

The friends were seated around a large table at a fancy restaurant after skipping school for Hyunjin's birthday and were playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who would pay.

Chan brought out his sad brown leather wallet and opened it to find a few notes and coins.

"Hyung, your wallet looks a little thin, are you sure you can pay?" Changbin laughed.

"Honestly, I can't," he laughed, too.

And so, everyone (excluding Hyunjin) had to bring out their money to pay the stupendous bill.

The 10 friends trudged groggily back to the apartment, drunkenly laughing at the most ridiculous things.

Jisung pointed to a small billboard on the street corner. "Why would they use a whale in a blanket advert, honestly?"

"Bro, they're smart, it probably has like, a deep meaning or something." Woojin replied back, laughing to himself.

"You guys are so dumb," Seungmin, the most sober replied, as the rest of them just nodded along and sighed in content.

It was only when they were right outside the apartment that Seungmin got a call from JYP. He brought the phone to his ear mouthing "JYP sunbaenim" at his curious audience.

The boys leaned closer to Seungmin as his eyebrows furrowed and an ashen expression decorated his face.

Suddenly, the boy started to apologize repeatedly and explained Hyunjin's birthday and said something about Chan's personal issues.

He nodded before realizing the caller couldn't see him so, before hanging up, he replied with a 'yes' and a 'thank you'.

After placing the phone in the back pocket of his black skinny jeans, he inhaled.

"JYP PD-nim is slightly angry."

A/N:

Hellloo! I'm so sorry I was missing for so long, but I'm back! I'm getting the 2nd half of the 4 teeth I need to extract taken out tomorrow so I'm ready for another day and a half of HELL anyways I'm on vacation now, though so I'll write more <3