Thy Art | Park Seonghwa

8.0

( 🎵 FINNEAS – Break my Heart Again )

Seonghwa stood right outside the hospital room, pressing onto the green button on his phone to accept the call to which for sure would've been missed if he was to wait a couple more seconds.

"Eunji," he greeted as the line connected, "what's wrong?"

"Are you at the office yet?" he instinctively went ahead to look at his wrist watch, sighing in relief when it showed him how it was only 7:30AM.

"I'm not," he answered, "why?"

"Where are you?"

"At the hospital," Eunji wasn't surprised. It was all over the news how there was a car accident last night and the three cars that crashed in the middle of the street, strangely didn't get their license plate blurred out in some of the reports. And she still remembered Hongjoong's as clear as day.

"Who's sick?" she questioned nonetheless.

"Jongho, Hongjoong and Jiwon got into an accident last night," he replied.

"I see, is Hwang Yunhee there?"

Seonghwa was quiet for a second, confused as to why she had to ask such an obvious. "Yes, she is."

"I was wondering if you could accompany me to test out my dresses," she said almost immediately, "I've narrow it down into three choices, so don't worry about it taking much time. We can just do it during lunch, you know maybe catch a meal too."

The man didn't feel like it at all. And he felt like the timing wasn't quite right. In addition to that, he wasn't going to put himself into planning this whole wedding when one way or another, he had to get himself out of it. "Eunji, I don't think I can do that. Sorry."

"Why?" Because you're busy consoling Yunhee? She wanted to say those 5 words so bad but she clenched her teeth tight to prevent her tongue from breaking loose, not wanting him to despise her even more if he already did.

"I have a meeting this afternoon," he lied, "and I have piles of work to do."

"Oh really?" she provoked, "that's kinda strange."

"How.. is it strange?" he gulped.

"I checked in with your dearest secretary, Hwanwoong, and he said you're free of any meetings for this two days and you've settled every paperwork for the project with LOTTO."

Seonghwa pressed his palm onto his forehead, momentarily closing his eyes as he mutter a silent curse under his breath. "Since I just bust your ass for lying, you're coming with me to choose that dress." She sounded playful, almost making him pissed for the first time in so long. He wasn't in any mood to joke around nor was he willing to go with her to try on her dress. But out of the guilt of lying, he finally agreed.

"Alright, alright, I'll go," he was hoping she could hear just how unwilling he was through his tone but little did he know, she screwed all that aside and focused only on the fact that he was going to come with her.

Seonghwa ended the call, going back inside the room to see all of them still with their smiles on their faces and seeing that was enough to brought back his own, especially when he saw how happy Yunhee was upon hearing a joke cracked by Mingi.

Yunho now held onto the cake-board and with only 3 spoons, they took turn digging into the strawberry shortcake. The noise died down when they noticed his presence, Yeosang's face being the first one that became serious. "Why did she call you?" the said man was known to be blunt but he sure was living up to it.

"Nothing," Seonghwa immediately answered, "just some unimportant stuff."

"Is it about the wedding?" Wooyoung kicked Yeosang lightly on his shin, enough to bring his attention to him but not enough for it to hurt.

"It... it is," he stuttered. "But it's nothing really."

The air was heavy all of sudden. With Yunhee feeling her heart squeezing. She had to remind herself multiple times how she was the one who decided not to fight for them and let faith do her job. She couldn't admit it to herself how it still hurt to be reminded how in less than 3 months, he's going to be legally and officially wedded to someone else.

Seonghwa noticed the tension that build up inside the room as supposed to his return so he figured it would be better for him to leave. "I think it's better for me to go now," all of them had their full attention on him, "I have to go to the office."

None had anything to say as they watched him turn on his feet, but was halted when Yunhee's voice reached his ears. He immediately turned around, only to find her already digging in to the cake and placing a whole strawberry on top of it. The spoon looked like it was too small for a bite that big so she quickly rushed forward and Seonghwa too, opened his mouth in reflex, taking in the cake and strawberry in merely one bite.

He chewed on the dessert in his mouth, still a little dumb-founded and eyes still fixed on the girl standing before him with a now-empty spoon on her grip. "You were the only one who haven't tried the cake but now that you have, you can leave."

He left after and unbeknownst to Yunhee, his cheeks were burning the moment he stepped out of the room with his favorite fruit still in his mouth.

"Yunhee," Aunt Minju called out as soon as the man was outside, "you know you're only making it hard for him, right?"

Yunhee felt small, with 8 of them looking at her with a face that showed how they're about to lecture her. The only one who remained unbothered was Eunbyul who was playing with her aunt's hair.

"I..."

"You can't just tell him you don't want him to be with you then feed him cake with nothing but love in your eyes as you looked at him taking the bite." It was rare to hear Wooyoung saying something without his usual cheery tone and that nearly scared her. "It's not too late for you to tell him you want him out of this marriage."

"Make up your mind, Yunhee," Yeosang added, "do you want him or do you not? If you do then fight for it from your end even if there won't be much you can do, at least that would be better than letting him go and then continue pulling on his heartstrings."