The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 9

     "That was so stressful ..." Ophely, crumbled into the seat beside the door of the meeting room. She closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh, her forehead was covered in a thin sheet of sweat due to the nervousness she felt. That experience was very weird, it was like meeting the boss of her boyfriend, when actually she was the boy. She knew less about herself than they knew about her. Well, him. Joshua came to sit next to her and rubbed her shoulders, untying the knot in her shoulders.

      "That was what was needed. Don't you think so?" Joshua asked her, his smile was small, but still there. Jeonghan will be going on an indefinite hiatus due to 'personal and medical reasons'. A whole lie, bug a believable one. The only undefined thing was the time, nobody knew how long it would take for the two people to regain their bodies. Or even how long that was going to last.

      "Yes, I will never have been able to do Jeonghan's work." She was tired, Ophely hadn't slept the night before and the meeting was exhausting. "But I still have to get my body back before my exams, I can't do my work from a distance, nor can Jeonghan."

      "We'll worry about that later, now you have Korean lessons with Vernon. And after we'll eat lunch, then we have a surprise for you."

      That seemed to have peaked her interest, "Surprise, should I be scared?" She inquired, "I have no idea what it could be. Is it possible to have a hint? Because I really don't want this to be something like my exams have been moved forward and can be done by distance." Joshua chuckled as the teen next to him moaned in despair, she groaned that she didn't like surprises at all, the deception could be too tempting. Joshua maybe should have kept the surprise a secret, but he still knew that she will like it, even the members cried when that would happen to them. Family was very important to people who didn't have a lot of time to meet them personally.

      "But I still think it's unfair that Jeonghan doesn't need to learn French, he's so lucky. But just so he can suffer with me I could ask my dad to teach him, but he works a lot so that's a fail." It was like Joshua was meeting the dongsaengs of his members again, they were teenagers with different problems from what adults have. But school is basically the entirety of a student's life, just like practice is one for an idol.

      The car stopped in front of the apartment building and the two stepped out one after the other, hats and glasses on. They took the stairs just like the previous time, they had been lazy that morning and had taken the elevator as a quick way down.

      "Why do we have to take the stairs?" Ophely asked, her body tired, as the predecessor was a sporty person, but it was still numbing to the mind.

      "Because it has been two days since we've been physically active, if you keep going on like that you'll be in pain tomorrow." These conversations with Ophely were meaningless, there was no information passed, nor were they useful in any way. Joshua was wrong on this point, these conversations actually were a mean of familiarity to Ophely, she could speak jer mind and not stay quiet all day long talking to herself, much like Jeonghan was doing on his side. It had been a long time since Ophely had spoken English to a native, her words were coming to her more easily than they used to, her accent was finally understandable and not a mix between French, Scottish and Korean. It would be like doing something you are used to doing for others, a hobby you haven't done for a long time and the first few tries are a bit long, but the freedom you feel when you get back the hand you had is satisfying. And as she finally got her grasp back on the language, Ophely couldn't stop talking, she missed talking like she missed drawing.

      Ophely sat in front of Vernon on the living room's table with a pen in hand, papers littering the small surface, completely covering the smooth white surface on which she had drawn the night before. It wasn't long before lunch.