Withered (Michaeng) ✔️

Chapter 46: Always

The hour of midnight is at hand, for Chaeyoung, it has been a tough day and now the cold breeze comes around from tree to tree and gently waving. He stands leaning on the balcony rail, seemingly watching the shining bright stars---it is so brilliant that the plain lay like a phosphorescent sea beneath him. He has just finished writing a worth four pages story inside the colourful book then goes outside with the intention to breath some fresh air, and lucky him to be awarded by a clean and newly gentle wind.

Unlike usual there's no thought surging or clouding his mind. He has no worries. Maybe it's the satisfaction of confessing? To finally stop watching there at the sidelines, admiring silently and step forward to announce that hidden love. He could have just kept his feeling but the urge to tell the girl is pumping in his organ because, he always wonders, questioning that maybe, maybe she feels the same way. It's all about one single thing---Hope. But since those hopes are crushed completely, he can also stop thinking and ponder himself as he already has the answer for those question. In the end, he is in ease.

Chaeyoung flinch when he heard his cell phone ring. He reaches into his pocket and digs out the phone. A small smile curve across his face as he looks at the caller.

[Hi]

He chuckles hearing the awkwardness in her voice with an apology for bothering him, she's always like that without any knowledge that the guy has come to value her presence although they don't talk much. He then back to tilt his head upward, gazing at the blinking fairy lights in the night.

"Hi"

[So...how are you doing?]

"Fi---I'm not fine"

[I appreciate your honesty.] She is smiling though her tone sounds concerned.

"Anyway, thank you for persuading me to confess. I've been thinking about it but I keep procrastinate until you give me words of encouragement. I owe you something,"

[.....]

"Irene-sii?"

[Oh yeah...Umm it looks like it didn't turn out well]

"Yeah"

Chaeyoung sigh, long and slow. Releasing his grip on the rail and looks down on the floor before he sits and hugs his knees. Still facing the canopy above. The latter arc an eyebrow when there's no reply from the other side, he opens his mouth to say something but got interrupted.

[.....Chaeyoung sii, I was hoping that she'll finally see the light in your eyes when you gaze at her and appreciates you for the kind of person you are. Because you're more than enough. Hoping that she'll hold your hands when you feel cold or anxious, tells you goodnight, letting you sleep without feeling unwanted, checks on you when you feel lonely and no one is around to give your warmth, makes times for you and include you in her list of priorities, and understand you. I genuinely hope she'll love you exactly just the way you are.].......Because I would have loved you.

It caught him by surprise that he has to take a second or two registering her statement. He let out an awkward laugh and clear his throat.

".....Haha now it's my turn to be speechless"

[For your happiness, you need to surround yourself with people who respect you and accept you for your virtues and flaws. You deserve someone better]

And that strikes him, hitting him hard.

"I know..but I don't want better, I want her and I can't help it..... And she said that she still needs me"