shades of yellow » han seojun ff

42. citrine

IT WAS ALL A misunderstanding! If only someone had screamed that out in the face of the four teenagers—two happily in love; two grievous in love—then maybe things would have been resolved much faster.

The next day, the students were going back to Seoul.They all posed for last photos with the campsite manager and his ever-present parrot. Thankfully, the manager did not recognise Seojun and Yeonwoo from their wild night out. 

(If he had, there would have been some serious questions brought up).

Even Suho could sense that something had shifted in the girl. She posed for pictures, she smiled when it was required of her, she kissed the bird on his colourful feathers as a goodbye. But her stance undeniably faced away from Seojun, and he too. He was hesitant to laugh at his friend's jokes, scowling most of the time and nearly biting off Chorong's head when the latter asked if he had treats for the bus ride back.

(Suho hoped them both weren't being idiots. But easy for him to say—he had gotten the girl last night).

"Sit with me?" Yeonwoo said to Sujin.

"Only if you tell me what's going with you."

During the long bus ride, Yeonwoo finally confided what had been happening between her and Seojun—from him comforting her during the festival, to him chasing after her to the mountains, the baseball game, and last night where she had witnessed him getting angry when Jugyeong confessed she liked Suho. 

She also told him that she liked him.

"First of all," Sujin began, "You and Jugyeong need some serious therapy because both your tastes in guys are seriously warped. Second of all, I think he's been leading you on."

"I've been thinking that too," Yeonwoo mused. "As I was trying to fall asleep last night, I kept mulling things over. The more I thought about it, the more strange and over-the-top I thought his gestures were—too strange to be genuine."

Sujin sort of disagreed because Seojun definitely struck her as a guy who expressed his love in strange and over-the-top gestures. But that sort of intellect was unhelpful in helping your friend get over a guy who was probably in love with your other best friend.

"That's right. You're be better off without him."

Yeonwoo's older sister Heiran picked her up. She was listening to EXO as Yeonwoo clambered into the passenger seat of her car. Yeonwoo cooed at Daesung, her nephew, who was strapped in the baby seat at the back.

"How was the trip?" Heiran asked, as she started up the car.

"Fun."

Heiran groaned. "Enough with the monosyllabic responses! Tell me something fun. Did you swim in a lake, went streaking through the forest, hook up with any hot guys?"

Yeonwoo burst into laughter. "God, nobody would dare streak through a haunted forest!"

"Haunted? Tell me more!"

After a fifteen-minute drive, the car came to a stop in front of the house. Yeonwoo made a move to get out, but halted when Heiran didn't move. "Aren't you coming in, eonni?"

"I am, I am. I just—" She reached for her little sister's hands. "—want to know how you're doing."

"I'm ... fine."

Heiran was skeptical. "I don't think anybody could be fine after ... after what happened."

"No really, I am. Trust me."

"Mum told me about your outburst a month ago. She's worried, Dad's worried, I'm worried. Are you sure you don't want to speak to someone?"

Yeonwoo shook her head, fear causing her chest to constrict. She choked out, "I'm fine, totally fine. I don't want to. Just leave me alone."

"Alright, alright. I'll stop."

In the house, Yeonwoo's mother was preparing dinner. "How was the trip?"

"Cool." Yeonwoo quickly ascended the stairs and shut her bedroom door behind her, locking it for good measure.

Their voices travelled well up the stairs.

First came Heiran's fluttery voice: "I'm worried about her, Mum. It isn't healthy trapping all those feelings up within her."

Then came her mother's soothing tones. "She made herself very clear when we arrived in the UK that she didn't want to see anyone."

"But things have to change. They aren't improving, as much as you want to believe it, they're getting worse. I can see it in her eyes, she's fading away by the second. Please don't do this to her, Mother."

Pause. "Dad will try to talk to her. You know how he has a way with her."

"Do you know what day is coming?" Silence from her mother. "It's that day. What do you think Yeonwoo will do on that day? Celebrate?"

"Of course I think about it, every single day," her mother snapped.

Heiran beseeched her mother. "You have to do something. She's not stable, she will hurt herself if we don't intervene."

"You leave it to me. Worry about Daesung instead."

Voices raised. "She's my baby sister! And don't forget, my baby brother died before that because we failed to pick up the signs. Are you going to let that happen again?"

"I'm her mother. I know what's best for her."

"You better." The front door slammed, and her older sister was gone. Yeonwoo slid down her bedroom door and closed her eyes, letting the silence wash over her.

The truth was, as much as Yeonwoo wanted it, she wasn't ready for romance. There was a hole in her heart she thought could be compensated for with someone to kiss her and hold her tight and tell her everything would be okay. But really, it would do nothing but stretch the hole even wider. 

Loss was such a complicated thing, a double-edged sword. It took on numerous forms and shapes, but it remained the same on how it could hurt people—deep and right through the core. You saw the world with more clarity, although it spoiled your outlook of things.

You didn't see the bright blue sky, the water sprinklers spraying clear mountain water onto the green dewy grass. Instead, you saw the sky threatening to cave in on you, the sputtering, halted sprays of water the sprinklers shot out, the dead brown patches of wilted grass.

If Yeonwoo could learn how to accept grief rather than let it consume her, maybe she would learn how to love life once again, regain her yearn of existence she had thought long lost. But that would take some time because good things take time.

A lot of it.

—

a/n: btw, taking a break from the romance for a lil while 🤪