#np Laboum's Aalow Aalow

Jinye didn’t know why, she couldn’t cry even though she wanted to. Tears just won’t come down from her eyes. Maybe it’s because she’s too tired to shed another tear. It’s been too long…

“You bastard.”

She could only hear a weak sigh from him. Without turning back, Bae Jinye walked away from that so called bastard, throwing away all the heavy burden she kept since long ago.

Son Hyunwoo bit his cheek as he watched the slim figure slowly faded from his view. He knew he just messed up again, big time and he couldn’t blame her for saying those words at him. The warm café latte in front of him went untouched but there was something shiny left beside the cup that Hyunwoo carefully took it into palm.

Was it really over this time? She had never taken off her ring before…

He quickly secured the ring inside the pocket of his pants, sipped the two drinks and left the small coffee shop.

***

She carefully traced his name with her index finger onto the transparent glass, forgetting the world behind her. But the slender girl suddenly stopped and let out a heavy sigh when she thought of things that happened during lunch a while ago.

“Let’s break up.”

Remembering those words that she said to him, Jinye squeezed her eyes shut.

She gave up.

“He didn’t call?”

That familiar voice shook her to the real world.

“No.” She let out a soft sigh after that. “I guess I do mean nothing to him, Solbin-ah.”

Jinye’s eyes carefully followed the sight of the trickling raindrop that splattered down on her windows and soon, the slender girl who was addressed as Solbin was standing next to her by the glass frames.

“You always say that and the next day, you two won’t let go of each other’s arms especially when you go to our family gatherings.” She said while eying the gloomy view of the rainy Seoul city before them but Jinye was only looking at the raindrops on her windows.

“I gave him back our engagement ring. I don’t wanna do this anymore, Solbin-ah.” She said absentmindedly only to receive a warm hug from the younger girl beside her.

“Cheer up, Unnie.”

“Can’t I be happy? Even if it’s an arranged marriage?”

Solbin could only answer by tightening her hold onto the raven haired girl beside her. She knew she was always bad at giving advices and so, all she could do was giving a shoulder for her dearest cousin to lean on while Jinye stood still, motionless. Her eyes were still at the unmoving raindrops on the glass pane before her, her mind was tangled.

Bae Jinye didn’t know, for the past five years of knowing him and being arranged together, was it love? They never kissed, he never wanted to, she supposed since he never tried to kiss her. His expressions were stoic and stiff, he was an aloof man. And so, Jinye could never express herself to him.

She guessed that he already had a special someone in his heart but he never mentioned anything about it and so, she could only assume that he really had one. And yesterday’s incident made her feel even more confident of her guess.

He was seen going places with another lady, with her own eyes and he didn’t deny any of her accusations when she confronted him about it at the coffee shop this morning.

Jinye knew she meant nothing to him but could at least he showed her a bit of respect? She didn’t see any other man but him, so couldn’t he do the same?

“I’m going to end this.”

***

“Do you have feelings for me?”

“Does anything about me matter to you?”

That was Bae Jinye, Hyunwoo thought. A girl who loved to answer questions with another question.

“Can’t we just go along with this arrangement?” Now, he wanted to do things like her but he noticed that she frowned upon hearing his skeptical reply.

“So you’re changing that topic?” The girl started to slightly raise her voice.

“Wear this ring back, Bae Jinye.”

“No!” She took a deep breath. Her eyes turned red. “What’s the point? I don’t want to be someone else’s trophy! Just go away!”

Hyunwoo clenched his fist when he heard her words.

“Is it about the girl you mentioned the other day?” He paused before continuing. “She’s just a friend.”

“I’m not being jealous!”

“Then what is it?!” He suddenly raised his voice as well, frustrated by her childish actions but realizing that someone could hear their shouts outside the room, Hyunwoo took a deep breath as he was trying to calm himself down.

“Listen, Bae Jinye. I came here for the sake of saving this marriage- -“

“So that you can flatter my father? Well, too bad then because to let you know, since five years ago, I swallowed ever