The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 47

Jeonghan stared at the little figurines in his hands, a smile gracing his lips. With Ophely back in France, he hadn't expected her to get anyone anything. She was still a student who worked despite herself in the same company as him. Yet here he was, in the apartment, with a present from her, as if giving back from the previous year. The little squirrel Sylvanian family was nothing but adorable. Jeonghan cooed at the box as he took the little characters out and rubbed his fingers on the soft texture of their fur.

"Oh~" A voice broke him out of his reverie, "Isn't that cute."

Another chimed in before he could say anything. "A cute little thing for our adorable Jeonghan-i!" With dainty fingers pinching his cheeks, Jeonghan didn't bother answering his fellow members, knowing that the teasing wouldn't relent.

"Aha, our Jeonghan-i has an admirer, who could know that his guilty pleasure is reserved for adorable things..." After the three Booseoksoon members (or also known as the SVT Avengers between themselves), came the leaders. And even though Jeonghan was the second eldest, nothing stopped the others from butting in with their own things to say.

Here, it was just teasing the fact that Ophely got him and no one else anything, and that she knew him quite well to get him those as a present. But was he surprised? Not really, they did share a room and she could see the little figurines from the bed, as well as the neatly stacked Lego boxes under his summer clothes. Nothing could escape her gaze.

"With that collection of yours, you could make an entire village right now." Minghao said as he sat down beside him to look at the bushy tails of the squirrels.

It was true, Jeonghan had a lot of the cute creatures lying around in his room, and Ophely had known how he enjoyed to watch and arrange the characters to tell new stories every few weeks. A little pleasure in the hardships of being an idol. Jeonghan welcomed the little distraction from the busy days of the holidays filled with schedules and tiring events.

On her side, Ophely had the opposite. Too much time. To think about what she wanted to do, what she should do, what she could do, after the holidays were to be done. Jeonghan knew he had rest, and then a comeback. But her? She didn't know. Studies, countries, jobs... It was a mess. Her mind was a mess

So Ophely laid in bed that night, thinking about the fact that Jeonghan had opened the present that she had bought for him. It was already morning there in Korea, and she was just going to sleep. In the morning she would be opening the gifts with her family and younger cousin, all knowing that Santa was them except for the little boy.

It was with a bittersweet feeling that she joined her family. There was this ache in her chest, and she just sat there. The gifts were being passed around by the youngest, searching the names written and then running to find the person. When the boy came to her with a little package (a book from her uncle) he looked up at her, his smile falling a little.

Did she have something on her face? She cocked her head at her cousin, thanking him for the gift. But he didn't leave immediately. "Ca va?"

Ophely smiled at the concern, she wasn't really fine. But it was far too complicated for him to understand. She wouldn't be able to explain either, she couldn't even word her thoughts to her parents. How could she for a little five year old boy with a simple mind. "Tout va bien, ne t'en fais pas." She gave him a little pat on the head and pushed him to the decreasing pile of presents under the Christmas tree.

Leaning back on the couch, Ophely opened the package. She loved her uncle, she truly did, but she wished that he would stop gifting her books about depressing things. This year was a photographer in the second world war. Last year had been Karl Marx's bastard son, and the year before about two sisters reuniting that solely focused on a weird mysterious man the elder depressed sister was seeing before she decided to just stop. It just wasn't her thing.