The Moments In-Between - A JeongHyo fanfic

Chapter 32 - Moment of Appreciation

"Hey..." Jeongyeon nervously spoke but tried to remain confident as she stepped into Jihyo's and Sana's room.

"Hey?" Jihyo was confused. "I said I was going to talk to you later." she furrowed her eyebrows.

"Yeah, but... I was curious, why not now?"

"Because, I'm here, everyone's in the living room and happy and I wanna be happy with everyone too!"

"So... It's nothing serious?"

"Jeong, please" Jihyo gave her a reassuring smile. "Besides, why are you so worried?"

"Well... In your absence, someone had to look out for the kids!" Jeongyeon felt like she dodged a bullet with that answer, she even threw out a cocky smile.

"I'm sure you did a great job!" Jihyo nodded and took Jeongyeon by the hand as the two exited her room.

"You okay?" Jeongyeon asked as they walked towards the living room.

"Mhm.. Why?" Jihyo wondered.

"I mean, because of the whole.... You know"

"Oh... Yeah... That'll take time. But on the bright side, I'm with my family here as well and you all cheer me up when I'm down, so... Let's enjoy each other's company, ay?"

"I can agree with that, but Ji..." Jeongyeon then stopped Jihyo in her tracks. She held both of her hands, and Jihyo was confused.

"Too much?" Jeongyeon then let go of the hands, which made Jihyo chuckle.

"No, silly, what did you want to say?"

"Oh, I was supposed to say something now, wasn't I?" Jeongyeon replied confused with a grin on her face, which made Jihyo laugh.

"Uhm... I guess I just wanted to say that I'm here. If you ever need someone to talk to about this topic, I'm here. I haven't been through the same, I don't know what it's like... But I can listen to your story, I suppose."

"Thanks Jeong... And I appreciate it, really... I'll just need time to process all of this. I guess some of my worldviews have shifted now a bit, but... Not everything in our lives can stay the same, right?"

"Something has to change." Jeongyeon replied with a slight sigh in her voice, Jihyo noticed it.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just... I'm just sad that an event happened that caused you to feel the way you felt when you left us."

"Whoa, don't get so specific there, Jeong" Jihyo teased, causing Jeongyeon to playfully slap her on the shoulder. It felt like old times. Jihyo then replied:

"Thanks for the vote of confidence and thanks for being there, now.... can we get back to the rest of the group, I feel like we've left them alone for too long."

"Those kids? They'll do fine without us-" she then heard Momo's scream as she got up and ran to catch a laughing Chaeyoung.

Jihyo and Jeongyeon gave each other a knowing look that said "oh those kids".

The evening went along in an easy tone - just talks on what Jihyo missed, jokes, watching videos and generally having a relaxing time.

"Oh, yeah... And then Jeongyeon eased us all about it and Dahyun suggested that we should watch the behind-the-scenes videos of our music videos so that we could see you, it was really nice!" Mina beamed proudly as she said, showing off her biggest smile. "But Jeongyeon was there for us, she took care of us and gave us great ideas!"

"Yeah... Jeongyeon did... Did that." Nayeon repeated after Mina.

"Oh, okay, and did you all enjoy it?" Jihyo asked.