The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 28

And like that little excursion of three days had never happened, Ophely was already pulled back into preparing with Seventeen their upcoming repackaged album.

Once Jeonghan had gotten better, they had immediately gone back on the road to join the rest of the boys, though a day later than supposed to. And the entire rest that Ophely had felt while being with the Yoons immediately left as she started practise again. It was like the short weekend had given her a well needed massage and the very next day she was made to play a basketball match. And Ophely did neither sports or basketball.

"How are you feeling, Opely?" A voice pulled her out of her resting position. She opened her eyes to see Wonwoo leaning over her, gaze filled with concern.

"Doing okay." She answered, sitting up on the practise room floor and stretching up sore back muscles. She really hadn't been ready to immediately start dancing again. "Feels like I forgot how to dance." She mumbled, picking the water bottle beside her and drinking from it.

"It's okay." He answered back, sitting next to her and leaning, leaning back on his hands as he watched the rest of his team bicker during the pause.

"What about you?" She asked back, knowing how Wonwoo wasn't the chattiest person, he wasn't going to talk if he wasn't asked anything.

"Me?" Ophely nodded, like - who else? "Nothing different, I'm doing good. Practising but I am used to it, singing and rapping too. Though I can tell you that the coming weeks of promotion are going to be tiring."

"More tiring than this?"

"Yes."

Ophely groaned and flopped back on the ground, arms sprawled out around her, as much so she could cool down. Only three hours of dancing and she was ready to go back to bed and sleep. She didn't see the person coming closer to her with her eyes closed, but she felt his hands fall suddenly on her shoulders.

"Fuck you!" She yelled startled, sitting up and turning around to face the attacker. Jeonghan. She huffed out in frustration. After that basketball match, she had now been ûshed under the cold shower. She had no more adrenaline left in her body.

Jeonghan laughed as he sat down on her other side, Wonwoo also cracked a small smile at the two, her reaction had really been over the top. "Sorry." The eldest of the two apologised. "I brought cookies, the boys were going to eat them all if I had nicked those for you. "During the time that it took Ophely to calm down and take into account what he had said, Wonwoo had already taken a biscuit for himself, munching on it quietly as he looked back towards the bickering groups of boys, fighting over the last biscuit. "Take them." Jeonghan ushered the girl, handing her the three biscuits in his hands, "I already ate some." The smile he had on his face told both her and Wonwoo that he had more than a few before coming to them.

"I trust that you didn't start the argument between the boys," Ophely said, thankfully taking the food from his outstretched hand before taking a bite out of the first one. "And what I see in your pocket isn't more cookies." She added as an afterthought, looking down at the joggings he wore with a very distinct outline of a packet of biscuits in the pocket area.

"Your eyes are playing tricks on you." He winked at her, again with the sly smile that told her everything she needed to know. "Also, you don't have to stay anymore. We're going to be looking over details for the upcoming promotions, you can rest on your own or do your homework." He said standing up, helping Wonwoo stand too before continuing to talk with the girl. "Just do your thing however you like, and just ask us if you need help."

Ophely was grateful for him and the few of the team who were openly there to help her these days. It was like having both her and Jeonghan away had changed something in the way they acted around her. She suspected that they had a group meeting between themselves.

She smiled up at Jeonghan, took his hand to stand up and went to the corner of the room where they usually left their belongings out of the way while they worked. She took her bag out of the pile and left to practise room to one of their studios. She knew that no one else but them used the room, she had been given one of the keys to go there so she could work, without anyone perturbing her. Ophely took out her laptop, jotters and her pencil case, ready to do her homework.

And so she worked for the coming hours, not seeing the time pass as she kept herself focused on her studies and writing out what needed to be done for her next meeting with the teacher.

-

"How are things going?" Jeonghan asked with his head through the doorway.

Ophely didn't hear him, she had her headphones on, listening to music while she wrote an essay about happiness for her philosophy class (one she didn't particularly enjoy much). She continued writing with her pen, switching a few times to look at her computer screen, doing a quick research to not get one of the philosopher's names or dates wrong before continuing to plan out her words.

"Ophely?" He called out, this time entering the room fully and closing the door behind him. She didn't answer him this time either. Jeonghan didn't want to disturb her in the works, so he sat down in the other chair in the room, looking through his phone and, in the end, slowly falling asleep in the seat. Watching the girl work calmly had brought him back to the fact that he was working very hard and that his body was physically tired. He let the rest envelop him until he was deep in dreamland.

She hadn't seen him enter the room as her back faced the entrance. Nor had she heard him call out to her because of the headphones and light music playing. She had been in her own world. And it wasn't going to be Jeonghan who would bring her out of it.

"OPELY~!" Someone loudly interrupted her thought while banging the door open.

She turned around startled, and stared at the intruder with barely any happiness in her face. She was glad that she wasn't alone, but there were other ways to come to her than screaming at her while she worked, so loud that his voice could be loud and straddling through her headphones and music.

"What is it, Seungkwan?" She stared at him incredulously, taking her music off of her ears to hear the guy better. She turned herself around so she was completely facing the man.

"Have you seen Jeonghan?" Without meaning to, she had. He laid there, previously behind her, in the little couch chair in the corner of the room.

"Here." She motioned with her head over to the sleeping man. Quietly, caring about his sleep, unlike his bandmate.

"Okay." Seungkwan stood in the doorway for a few seconds, weighing down his options. "What do I do now?" He asked himself out loud. Unsure whether to wake him up, or just do what needed to be done without him.

"Don't ask me." She mumbled and went back to work, putting her headphones back on. A sign for the older boy to not bother her anymore. She had gone to this private room for that very reason.

Seungkwan was on his own to make the decision. He decided against waking his brother up and just leaving the room for the two soulmates. He knew how he had been sick in the previous days and that this whole ordeal with Ophely was weighing down on him a bit more and more every day. So he let him rest.