Letters to Hae

Chapter 17

 Hae's POV

The Super Junior members are relentless in their teasing and bullying. They won't let him sleep – not in the van, not on the plane home, nor in the van from the airport to their drop-off points. "Arrrgghhhhh" he groaned. He really needed to sleep. He was tired for the most part but that tiredness masked a deep longing to see 'his girl'. He tried to laugh and joke with the boys but every spare second, they gave him, always turned his thoughts to last night. He couldn't open her SNS and he didn't want to talk to Hyukjae just yet. Hyukjae was keeping a very close eye on Hae and Hae knew he was going to get bombarded with questions very soon after he got home. In the van, on the way home, Hae texted Hyukjae with "I know you wanna ask me but can we leave it to later. I need sleep. Promise I'll fill you in. Let's just do it later yeah?"

He got into his home and went straight to bed. He didn't know if it was depression, loneliness or tiredness. Probably a combination of all three. He didn't care about his phone buzzing. He just drifted off into deep sleep.

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It was now early evening and he could hear his stomach rumble. Time for food. "where we eating?" he had picked up his phone without opening his eyes and now, without saying hello, he asked his Hyukjae. The call was short as they were quick to make eating arrangements. They met up and got stuck into their noodles. Hae knew what was coming but he didn't realise the barrage of questions would be so much. He tried to keep as much as possible a secret. This was something he was still trying to work out himself. He felt he was betraying Hyukjae by not telling him the details but he owed it to himself to sort out his thoughts and feelings first before revealing the extent of the truth. Right now, it was good to joke around and discuss projects and schedules. Yep, anything to keep his mind from drifting back to his girl.

"Are you seriously still wearing the same clothes from last night?" Hyukjae asked. And Hae checked himself and felt embarrassed to say yes. Yeah, he was woken up by his manager screaming for him to come down from his room in Singapore, so in his mad rush to get out, he put on the very clothes he wore last night. He didn't think to change after his deep sleep when he got home. Hyukjae just shook his head "man, you're definitely losing it!" all Hae could do was laugh...

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Many weeks had now passed and Hae had been keeping an eye on her SNS since she left him behind in Singapore. He knew she would post something eventually. He saw that she had posted a few pics of her holiday in Singapore but she always left herself out of the pictures, much to his frustration. He didn't have one photo of her and every time he thought about the missed opportunity of taking her picture, he berated himself. He had a lot going on at the moment. It was definitely a stressful time for all the SuJu members. In the middle of that mayhem, he managed to find time to compose new songs. All in all, his life fell back into routine very quickly. Still, it would have been nice to have a picture to gaze at.

He received another blue letter last week. Number 8 to be exact. Her letter was short again and no mention of Singapore. He understood her efforts. He would try to sit down with Hyukjae and watch 'Angel Eyes', Rachel's movie recommendation but he admitted that it wouldn't be until a few more weeks.

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It was getting close to travel time again to tour south America. Hae was thinking about the tour when a smile appeared on his face. The other members noticed and were quick to tease him. He managed to dodge their bullets of questions but the memory of that morning, which happened more than 2 months prior, stayed with him for the whole day. On this particular night, Super Junior were heavily into finishing their recording. They were wrapping up the repackage of their 8th album when he noticed a new post on his girl's Instagram. He was quick to check the fine details of the picture she posted. "yes, she is definitely going to be in the crowd on that day" he said to himself as he chuckled. He wondered where she would be staying. He hadn't finished that thought when he noticed another updated post, where Rachel was asking for Hotel recommendations... "hotel huh? ... let me help you with that..." he rang his manager to find out which hotel the members would be staying at whilst on tour. As the manager was informing him, he was quickly replying to her post from his alias account and recommending it to her. He crossed his fingers and smiled. Yes, today, that particular post had been keeping his mind occupied non-stop.

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One morning, while Hae was on his way out for the day, the cleaning lady brought a scrunched-up note to him. "you left this in your pocket and it went through the washing... I don't know... maybe it's important to you..." she said. Hae didn't know what to make of it but he flattened out the paper and saw a familiar hotel logo in the corner of the page. There in the middle was a message "enjoy your rest. You did well tonight xx" and underneath was an email address and a phone number. He didn't know what to do except to save those details under an alias in his phone. He walked to his room and scratched the rubbed the back of his neck. He sucked on his lower lip for a few minutes taking it all in, then placed his special note in his most recent reading book. He felt high as a kite and that high stayed with him for a long time.

He spent long days committed to his gruelling schedule for both SuJu and D&E. The little time he had at night, he debated what to write in his first email to 'his girl'. Yes, he could ring her, but that would take their 'whatever-you-call-it' relationship to the next level and he wasn't ready for that just yet. He finally sent her an email with very few words "hi, hope you are well. let's catch up soon". Those few words took many nights of debating with himself. He didn't want to appear desperate but he also didn't want her to feel uncared for. He received her latest letter, and he was enjoying the little bits of information she was giving about her life with each letter he received. But...this.... This was definitely different.