February 2021 — EN-CONNECT FANMEETING

"You certainly make a good rabbit," Heeseung snickered. His jab was directed at none other than Jongseong, who rolled his eyes and muttered something along the lines of, someone burn that stupid rabbit costume.

"Jay hyung is so adorable in that costume!" Sunoo cooed from somewhere at the end of the line. "Isn't he, Jungwon?"

"The cutest," Jungwon said with a straight face. "I'm more impressed by the fact he kept some measure of balance, honestly. It's hard to walk around in that thing—I can recall a video of IU-sunbaenim. She kept falling down in one like that."

"It also felt like a sauna," Jongseong grumbled. "At least we managed to get good footage for ENHYPEN&Hi."

Their conversation went on like this until they started meeting the fans. Heeseung found them kind of cute, all shy and some even stuttering, which, call him a horrible person, made it all the funnier to flirt with them and fluster them.

But through it all, he couldn't fight the feeling that he was missing something inside him. On their first ever break in January, the fastest he could go home, the first thing he had done early in the morning was run to the beach and stay there long after the sun rose, waiting and waiting for his Ocean Girl—but she never showed up.

He had cried himself to sleep that night, and the night after that. His manager had asked if he fought with his family and he said no, he just messed up something. His tone made it clear he wasn't in the mood for conversations, so the manager stayed quiet.

When he got the dorm, his members could tell something was off about him, but he tried to act as if he were fine. It was easy enough, with all the practice and craziness that was accompanying EN-CONNECT. It was hard at first, throwing himself back into practice without the hope that he would see her again, but he adjusted well.

Sunghoon was the only person he told—well, actually, Sunghoon brought it up one night when it was just them awake and Heeseung broke down in tears again. Sunghoon had comforted him, but there wasn't anything he could tell the oldest to ease him more than the usual reassuring things he could say. None of it would give him the relief he wanted and needed to feel okay anymore.

"It's like half my heart is gone," he whispered hoarsely. "Is that even possible?"

"Yeah," Sunghoon said. His eyes flickered with uncertainty and hesitance—fear, and worry, like how Heeseung had looked during I-LAND. Something told him that the youngest of the 02z line, as they had named themselves, was facing his own personal challenge that he was terrified of failing. "It is possible."

They hadn't discussed the subject any further, and even if she was all he thought about twenty-four-seven, he had a job to do. She had believed in him and he wasn't about to mess up the one thing he had managed to do right. He worked hard, practiced with all his soul for his first meeting with ENGENEs, and was proud of himself for it.

"Eyes up, big smile," the staff member beside him whispered. "I know you've been feeling a little down lately, Heeseung-ssi, but bear this for now, you can have some time for yourself when this is over. Okay?"

"Okay," he whispered back, plastering a smile at the next ENGENE who came to meet him—and then it fell, his eyes widening and his body instinctively leaning forward. "What the—"

"Hey there," the girl grinned brightly at him. She had large, chocolate-colored eyes, long, dark hair down her back in a single braid, delicate, small features, resembling those of a young teenager but someone who was almost at adulthood like himself. "Missed me, Heeseung?"

"What—how—" he stuttered, acutely aware of the staff member staring suspiciously at her behind him. "Wait, how?"

Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible, but somehow, her words echoed in his mind. "Woke up in a bed as a human. Apparently, now I have human parents? And a sister? That just popped out of nowhere? I'm a normal human now, for some reason, and somehow, I know how to act around them, too. It's a whole new life."

Heeseung glanced around to make sure no cameras were trained on him, and when he was sure of it, he whispered to her himself, somehow knowing it would it would echo in her mind, too. "Do you know how broken I was when I couldn't find you? I literally cried myself to sleep! I believed I was too late! And now, you're here, and I simultaneously want to hit you and kiss you at the same time. For scaring the crap out of me and coming back at last."

She arched an eyebrow. "No hitting women—it would go against the whole gentle idol image, wouldn't it? I've been looking for a way to find you for a long time now. Maybe three months? I knew you made it into the debut group so it was just a matter of time before the chance opened up for me to pop up somewhere like this. So, here I am."

"Fine, you've convinced me. Our time's almost up, so you gotta give me a number to call, Ocean Girl."

She gave him a number, while the staff member kept glaring daggers at her. As she got up, she winked at him and said, "by the way, it's Kang Yeona. Remember that."

"How could I forget?" he mumbled. The staff member gave him a quizzical look as Ocean Girl—no, Yeona—moved off to the other members. He just smiled at her and said, "don't worry, I know her. She's a good friend of mine."

That didn't really convince her, it seemed, but she subsided.

While Heeseung continued meeting fans, his smile this time was actually genuine. Later, he would go home and cry and scream and throw a few things around before calling Yeona and proceeding to talk the whole night, resulting in a tired and sleep-deprived Heeseung, but for now, he stuck to smiling widely.

She was back, she was really back. He couldn't believe it, and judging from the look on Sunghoon's face when she reached him, he was in disbelief, too. The other members looked at the two of them quizzically, and from Ni-ki's smirk as he looked at Heeseung, he had already figured out what she was to him.

That was another problem for another time. For now, he focused on getting through this fan-meeting that he was actually able to enjoy now. He had done it. He had persevered through his great challenge, even though he was convinced he had failed for a while (too long, really).

What mattered now that he could be with Yeona, his Ocean Girl. Nothing else had ever felt so good in a very long, long time.

✧✧✧

WORD COUNT: 1170

A/N: haha yeona returns, along with the end of my first heeseung book! on to the author's note where i'm being all sappy