Chapter 263 - No Matter What 2

No one said anything and they just stared into each other, trying to wrap their heads around the incident. 

"Uh… Um… I… Um..." Katherine tried to say something but her mouth just created incoherent sounds. She felt her heart hammering in her chest and her hands getting sweaty.

Matthew whose feet were glued to the floor didn't know what to do until she started hiccupping. 

Upon seeing that Katherine was panicking, he forced himself to calm down despite the two of them blushing so hard. 

After a deep and long breath, Matthew formed a very charming smile on his face and gave her a long kiss on the cheek. He wanted to give one on the lips but he chickened out at the last minute. "I'll keep my promises."

Then he waved as he jogged towards the car saying, "Bye, Kathy. I'll call you."

Her hiccup went away and her hand flew to her chest where she could feel the very strong and fast beating of her heart. She could not believe that she just kissed Matty. And he kissed her too—on the cheek—but still! Matty had never kissed her before. 

Katherine was so over the moon, excited and giddy. She was smiling all the way back to her room, thinking about that few seconds of a happy incident. Matthew didn't seem to mind and even gave her a kiss on the cheek before he left. She squealed in delight when she closed the door to her bedroom but the next moment she became quiet and sad, remembering that he was going away and they didn't know when they would be seeing each other again.

For a few months, they had kept in touch just like they promised to each other. They didn't talk about the first kiss incident but their friendship was still very much strong and sweeter.

One early evening, Matthew came home from school and greeted his mother when he saw her in the living room. He dropped his bag and went about the kitchen, grabbing himself a drink. He didn't notice that his mother had been crying until he went near her.

"Mom?" He panicked. He rarely saw his mom cry and because they were in California because of his grandmother, he thought that something happened to her. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

He had never seen his mother cry this much. It was a different kind of cry compared to when his father left them.

"Matt, come sit. There's something you should know," she said in between sniffs.

His heart started racing, unsure of what to expect. And when his mother finally told him about the Youngs, he had never been more petrified in his life.

"No… No… That's not true. Mom, don't joke about something like this! Take it back!" He shook his mother's shoulders, wishing that she was telling a really bad joke.

"I'm sorry, honey. Pack your bags… We'll fly on the first flight tomorrow. Okay?" His mother hugged him as they cried together. "I'm really sorry about your friend. Oh… My Natalie… How pitiful."

One ordinary day in California became the worst day for Matthew when he heard the news about Katherine and her parents' deaths. He couldn't believe it because the last time that he heard from her was just in the morning before he went to school. And now she was suddenly gone. He was totally heartbroken and mourned for a really long time.

It hurt him so badly that after the burial, he couldn't go back to school. He extremely regretted that he left. If he had stayed in Esmea, he could have spent more time with her. Without warning, she was gone. 

Matthew was devastated and his mother felt really bad for him. No one should go through this kind of loss. Friends weren't supposed to bury friends at such a young age. She was mourning for her friend too, Katherine's mother. But seeing her son go through grief was very difficult for her.

Eventually, his mother encouraged him to see a therapist to help deal with his pain. He went back to school but he was never the same after the incident. It took him a really long time to recover from it and it wasn't until he went to university that he started making new friends again. But because he was scarred by the experience of losing a friend, he didn't have that many close friends. 

In time, he moved on but he always missed Katherine.

…

November 4 — Mango District

Katherine and Matthew were having lunch at a restaurant in the middle of one of the high-end places in the city. There was always a crowd in this district but it wasn't congested, so it was perfect for her.

If she had to go out, she needed to be where there were a lot of people.

For the past hour, the two of them talked and Katherine was careful about what she told him – that she had no recollection of what happened before five years ago, but she remembered some of her childhood memories with him after meeting her grandfather. She reassured that she will eventually recover everything and then deflected their topic towards his youth and how he became a model and an actor instead.

He was just so excited to see her again, feeling everything was so surreal. He was afraid that this would all be just a dream and he would wake up anytime. 

Katherine pinched him on the arm and he whimpered, "Aw! What the—what was that for?"

"To prove that you're not dreaming!" she smiled and they both laughed.

Letting out a sigh, he gazed at her, feeling thankful for the nth time. It was really weird yet amazing at the same time to see her sitting across him.

"When are you going back to Italy?" she asked.

"I don't know yet. I don't have any projects at the moment so I can do pretty much anything for now." He took a sip of his juice and placed it back on the table, contemplating about how to ask her. 

"Listen… I heard from Ali about you and President Park…" He watched as Katherine shifted in her seat and he knew that it was a subject that she wasn't comfortable with. "Are you guys getting back together? The air was so strange last night."

Katherine made a faint smile, her fingers playing with the table napkin as she replied, "It's… complicated between us. We sort of talked last night and I'm… I just have a lot of things going on right now, you know?" She looked at Matthew who offered her a warm smile and she added, "I need to find myself first."

He reached out and stroked her arm. "We've been apart for many years, Kathy. But I want you to know that you can always talk to me. You don't have to be alone. I did promise you I'll always be here. No Matter What."

Katherine was so touched. It was such a great feeling having Matthew on her side again. A lot of things had changed over the years but not Matty. Just like before, he had always looked out for her.

After finishing their lunch, they came out of the restaurant and was about to look for a phone shop when Katherine caught sight of a familiar figure a few meters away.

She met his eyes, and in an instant, her heart did a backflip.

"Katherine…" Damien called as he started to walk towards her with two small shopping bags in hand.

She was not prepared to see him that day. Out of all the places in the city, out of all the days in a week and out of the twenty-four hours in a day, the two of them just had to be in the same place at the same time.

Great. Just Great.

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