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Chapter 8: Shared Suffering Cements a Beautiful Bond – June 15, 2019

“Cutie.

“Do you want to go out tonight?

“I have the rest of the evening open.

“Or do you have something you have to do?

“Tae?”

Tae looked down at his phone, finally realizing someone had texted him.  Yunseong.  He had put it on silent so if Eunji texted him, he wouldn’t have to see it.  He hadn’t thought about the possibility of Yunseong trying to contact him.  On a whim, he’d given her his number the other night. 

He kept his phone on silent and slipped it into his pocket.  He didn’t know what to do with this girl.  She was sweet…but she wasn’t Eunji.  

Although, her lips had tasted like honey…

Suddenly, he heard a knock on the front door.  He walked downstairs towards the door.  A moment later, he opened it and let Eunji in.  His glance flicked over her.  He’d never seen her wearing sweats before.  Unless he counted Namjoon’s.  Which was ridiculous.  

Namjoon should have borrowed some of Tae’s clothes for her that night.  Namjoon swamped her.  At least Tae was a couple inches shorter.  He shrugged.  It probably wouldn’t have made that much difference anyway.

“You here to see Namjoon?” 

Some part of him was holding its breath.  It hurt to be this close to her.  But he knew he’d made the right choice.  Namjoon was crazy about her.  Tae could feel it.  In his bones.

She nodded, her eyes sliding over his chiseled features.  “He doesn’t know I’ve come.”

She had texted Namjoon a half hour ago, asking if he wanted to hang out, but his response had been lackluster.  Not tonight.  Something about it had alerted her.  She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew he was in pain.  So she’d come for him.  As he had come for her that night.  When Tae had broken her heart.

Tae tossed his head towards the backyard.  “He’s sitting by the pool.  He’s been out there alone for an hour.”

She tore her eyes away from his beautiful face as she nodded her head.  “Thanks,” she mumbled as she brushed past him.

“Eunji?”

She stopped, but she didn’t turn around.

“I really hope you’ll be happy with my brother.  I wish you both the best.”

The best?

Her lips curved in a bitter smile.  Tae was the best.  Wasn’t he?

—

A moment later, she slipped through the crack in the doorway.  Someone had left the door ajar.  Wordlessly, she approached Namjoon.  He didn’t hear her.  

Which was how she surprised the tears on his face.  For a moment, she stopped.  Namjoon was weeping?  Why?

She felt the strings of her heart being pulled so hard.  There was so much she didn’t know of his heart.  What was moving it right now?  What secret pain was shattering his quiet soul? 

Had he been hiding his own agony, his own desires, for years now?  Had he been so busy playing the protective, elder brother that he had let his own needs go unattended?  His own questions unanswered?

She was only three feet from him by the time he glanced up at her.  His face was tear-streaked, the tracks glistening in the glow of the light near him.

Her heart bent.  Seeing his tears suddenly caused her own to form.  Drawn towards him by the sorrow filling his countenance, she walked right up to him and sat down on his lap as she wrapped her arms around his neck.  How did she already feel this comfortable with him?  He was a veritable stranger.

When she was nose to nose with him, she whispered, “Namjoon, what’s wrong?”

Her breath was slipping over his lips.  Drawing him into a rare circle of intimacy.  His arms came up around her, pulling her near him.  He had been so alone for so long.

A sob tore loose from his lips.  

He’d been contemplating giving her up.  Just experiencing the thought was like being slashed by a sharp sword.  His heart had been yearning for her when she’d texted him.  However, he’d brushed her off.  But Eunji, lovely girl that she was, had come to his rescue anyway.

He lowered his forehead to her shoulder.  He hated himself for crying in front of her, but her unexpected tenderness had been too much for him.  He had been longing for his eomma’s gentle voice and soft touch, and Eunji had suddenly appeared and wrapped herself around him.  Could she discern the secret desires of his heart?

For it wasn’t just his eomma for whom he’d been longing.  Eunji’s gentle voice lit up his life.  Her soft touch awakened his heart.  Her tender lips would…

He did feel oddly close to her.  Like she might just be his safe haven.  How ironic.  For years, he had wanted to be her secret place.

His arms pulled her tightly up against him as he sobbed into her shoulder.  He buried his face in the crook of her neck.  He sought comfort in her softness.  After a few heartrending moments, he finally calmed himself and inhaled deeply.  

“You smell like heaven,” he whispered, knocking loose a memory.

Eunji, you smell divine.

His breath teased her skin, making her shiver.

“Joon, why are you crying?”

His lips quirked.  She’d just called him by Tae’s nickname for him.  Did the two of them have even this in common?

“I miss my eomma,” his voice was just a breath.  “I miss her gentle voice…and her tender touch.  And the way she always knew exactly how to make me feel better.  And what the right thing was to do in every situation.  And how to accomplish it.  How she had this gift for calming my appa down.  And her faith that the future was bright.  That I would be happy.” 

He rested his forehead against her shoulder again.  “Will we be happy, Eunji?  Or am I consigning us both to a life of misery?  Am I being selfish…to want you for myself?”  He paused.  “If you tell me we’ll be happy, I’ll believe you.”

She didn’t answer him, so he lifted his head to gaze down into her gorgeous eyes.  She reached up with her own gentle touch and slid her thumb across his wet cheek.  For a moment, her eyes examined the moisture that now clung to her skin.  Connecting them.  She could feel it.  The pain bleeding into his soul.  The heart that had been broken as a child when his eomma had been so brutally torn from him. 

This was a pain that they shared.  An ache that spiraled through her still.  An agony she understood down to her bones.  But her heart was moved to see a man so affected by the loss of his eomma.  She had believed that was a pain only a girl could fathom. Yet here he was, gentle Namjoon, broken still by the fading light of his mother’s presence.

She was staring up at him with the most vulnerable expression on her face.  It made his stomach flip over.  And his heartrate increase.

She felt so drawn to him right now.  She just wanted to comfort him.  That was the excuse she would whisper to herself in the dark later that night.

She lifted her face towards his. Namjoon’s heart skipped a beat.  He lowered his head until their noses brushed.  Then he did it again on purpose.  The tip of his nose sliding over the tender skin of her own.  She gasped suddenly.  And leaned closer to him.  His lips approached hers with reverence.  So very slowly that he could feel his heart beat five times on that tiny journey.    He was giving her a long time to resist him.  

But she didn’t.  She closed the last millimeter between them herself.  And the sweetest moment of his whole life was suddenly exploding around him, into all five of his senses.  And spiraling all the way down into his heart. 

He lost himself in the embrace of Eunji’s kiss.  The world surrounding them faded away until his only focus was the girl he’d spent half his life loving.  He held her close and poured all of his devotion into her mouth.

—

Tae knew he shouldn’t have followed her, but he was worried about Namjoon.  He’d been silent all day long.  Tae stood in the doorway.  Watching their first kiss.  And feeling the crushing weight of knowing that he had lost Eunji forever. 

Suddenly, he was so happy he’d kissed that girl.  He was now ready to answer the text she’d sent him.  At least, he wouldn’t be alone tonight.

—

“Sorry.  I put my phone on silent.

“I am free tonight.  Where do you want to meet?”

Tae read her response and headed for the door.

—

Yunseong heard the bell above the door jingle as another customer entered the ice cream shop.  She was sitting across from Tae.  He was licking his ice cream slowly, almost as though he was memorizing the taste.  But she could see the sorrow in his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Tae?”

“Hmm?”  He looked up from his ice cream cone.  “Ah…”

Why had he come here?  To meet this strange girl?  It had been a sharp reflex.  The crushing blow of watching Namjoon and Eunji kiss had been mildly assuaged by this girl’s interest in him.  So he had simply reacted and texted her back.  But now that he was here with her, and she clearly wasn’t Eunji…

She wasn’t anything like Eunji.  Not at all.  Not that anyone could come close to being as wonderful as Eunji…

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do.  You need to know.”  He grimaced faintly.  “There’s this girl I like…”

Why did Yunseong feel her heart rend in half?  She had just met this boy.  She had no reason to like him.  Yet she did.  She didn’t even know him.  Although, he had claimed her first kiss.  And her second.  And she was hoping for a third.  Why did her heart already feel so entangled with his own?

“But my brother is engaged to her.  And he’s madly in love with her too.  I decided to let her go.  But she was my best friend.  I’m just still getting over her.  Learning to live without her…”  He looked back down at his ice cream cone.

“Was that what was bothering you the other day?  Is that why you kissed me?”

Tae lifted his eyes to meet hers with an amused twist to his lips. “You’re the one that kissed me though.”

Turning bright red, Yunseong pressed her lips together.

“Hmm…” Tae smiled for the first time that night.  “I suppose it might have been the reason I was compelled to kiss you, but it’s not the reason I did kiss you.  Why would I recklessly give away my first kiss like that?”  After he had spent years longing to give it to Eunji.

“It – it was your first kiss too?” Yunseong stuttered.

“Yep.”

“So, why did you kiss me?”

He stared into her eyes for a moment before his eyes traced her lips.  “I don’t know,” he murmured.  Tae decided to change the subject. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

But she didn’t answer his question either.  She was distracted by the sorrow still lingering in his eyes. 

“There’s more.  There’s something you’re not telling me.   It’s paining you.  I can see it in your eyes.”

“He kissed her!  Just a few minutes before I texted you.  I witnessed their first kiss.”  He closed his eyes as a tear slid down his cheek.  “Of course, worse is coming.  They’re getting married.  I’ll have to suffer through the knowledge of their wedding night, and the countless nights to follow, and the birth of their first child, and so many more moments that could have been mine.”

He was heartbroken.  She could hear it in his voice.  She could see it in his face.  And she could feel it all the way down to the depths of her heart.  

Why, oh, why did she have to be so attracted to this beautiful boy?  Why couldn’t she have found a guy with an untouched heart?  How could she possibly compete with his first love?

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed.

Her kiss had not robbed him of his pain.  If anything, that pain had grown exponentially tonight.

“I know I’m no substitute for your best friend and your first love, but would you let me be here for you when you need someone in the coming weeks and months?  I could really use a friend too.  I know what it’s like to have my heart broken.  I know how much it hurts.  Anything I can do to ease your pain – even just a fraction – would mean so much to me.”

He glanced up into those odd – and stunning – crystalline, green eyes.  They were full of kindness.  Suddenly, he felt just awful.  He had stolen her first kiss.  And then shared his heartbreak over Eunji with her.  As though this precious girl had no feelings of her own.  

Had he hurt her too?  How callous could he possibly be?  He’d been so lost in his own heartache that he hadn’t given a thought to this girl.  Or to her feelings.  Only to salving his own pain.

Of course, their situation couldn’t possibly compare.  Yunseong had just met him.  He’d loved Eunji his whole life.  Still.  He felt bad.

If he accepted her offer, he’d have to back up and treat her as just a friend.  Not raise her hopes in something more.  He wasn’t even close to ready for anything deeper than the simplest of friendships.  And he didn’t want to break another heart.

“No.”  

Her heart sank.  He didn’t want her.  Not even as a friend.

“I’m the one that should be sorry.   I used you to make myself feel better.  It was wrong of me.  I’m sorry, Yunseong.  I would accept your friendship.  But that’s all my heart can handle right now.”

She nodded eagerly.  “That’s okay!  I completely understand.”

Her hopes were suddenly buoyed by his truthful response.  Plenty of great loves had begun as simple friends, hadn’t they?  Perhaps, this was the beginning of more than just a beautiful friendship.  Maybe he just needed some time to heal and then he’d be open to something more.  Something amazingly special.

—

Eunji lay in bed an hour later.  Staring at her ceiling.  Not that she could see it in the dark.  She couldn’t see anything but Namjoon’s face.  The aching vulnerability that had filled his countenance.  The love that had poured from his eyes.  And she faced a shocking truth.

Namjoon was in love with her.

How had she been blind to it?  And how long had he felt thus?  Did his adoration pre-date their engagement?  Had he suffered for years in silence?  Or had love just bloomed recently?

And what was she going to do with this truth?

She loved Tae.  So why had she kissed Namjoon?

Because she’d wanted to.

Why?

It must have been the connection over their twin losses.  She’d been missing her eomma too.  And wanted to drown her sorrows in Namjoon’s kiss.  And comfort him with her own.

Except…

When his lips had touched hers, their souls had kissed too.  She had felt it.  It had astounded her.  Grabbed her.  Shaken her.

Now she couldn’t get him out of her head.  Had Namjoon invaded her heart tonight?

She could feel Tae slipping farther away from her even as Namjoon grew closer.  It was what should be happening.  So why did it hurt her so badly?

And yet…

Tonight, she found herself yearning for Namjoon’s embrace.  She wanted to comfort his heart again.  And let him solace hers.

 Ugh.

She was so confused.