Jieun lies in bed, body and mind exhausted and a heavy heart beating unsteadily. She’s still in the dress from work and her hair is splayed out on the pillow beneath her head, she’s staring up at the blank white ceiling hoping to gain any wisdom from just lying there, but two hours later and she’s still none the wiser.

Her stomach feels uneasy and her heart cold at the thought of her work, at the thought of her boss, her friend, and how he’s being played by one of the nicest people Jieun knows. The fact that Mr. Mizuhara is behind the conspiracy isn’t much of a surprise but that Kiko has agreed to it and gone through with it, Jieun doesn’t know how to feel about it.

Intense anger? Yes, disappointment? Yes, sadness? Yes. And a little bit of fear as well because she thought she knew Kiko so well, and she turned out to be evil. The person Jieun least expected.

And Jiyong, poor Jiyong. Despite Jieun liking him far more than she should and wanting him for herself, she doesn’t want to end his relationship that he can see makes him so happy. She can see how his face lights up a little as Kiko walks into the office, or the way his tense shoulders relax when she answers the phone and he hears her voice. She doesn’t want to take away his happiness, despite it being fake, or at least she thinks it is. If Kiko really loves him she wouldn’t be playing him like this would she? Or is this too one of the power play things circling the political world that Jieun’s poor innocent mind can’t handle?

She sighs in frustration and looks to her left where her phone is lying on the desk on silent and non-vibrate mode, she doesn’t dare to check if she’s got any missed messages or calls, whether it’s from her brother or from her boss or even Kiko. She left work right after the whole bathroom spectacle, grabbing her bag without anyone seeing and leaving as fast as possible. She probably should have alerted someone but she needed time for herself to process.

She hits the bed in anger and rolls to her side facing away from the wretched phone. Gripping her pillow tightly she closes her eyes and tries to imagine a day without any troubles or existential crises, a day where she goes to work, works for once, and then goes home, has dinner with Jungkook, goes to bed, and wakes up only to repeat the pattern. A day without the flickering whether, a day without complications and sorrows and anger.

But this is life, Jieun thinks, and life isn’t easy nor is it fair. So she decides to be braver and launches herself up from the bed to grab her phone, she presses home and immediately she sees 14 missed calls and 23 text messages, not only from Jungkook (although he is half of them) but also from Jiyong, Kiko, Seungri and even Yunhyeong which really surprises her.

She checks Jungkook’s text messages first just to be sure nothing’s wrong with him but as she sees the first message her heart sink.

-Noona, I’m at the hospital because Chanwoo did parkour and popped his shoulder out of its socket lol

Yah, this kid, what’s with the lol at the end? Jieun grumbles, not seeing the funny thing in her brother’s best friend being in the hospital buts he continues to read.

-He’s really high right now and it’s sort of funny

-Noona why aren’t you at work?

Jieun frowns as she reads the message, how did he know?

-Yunhyeong hyung’s looking for you, he’s here too because Chanwoo y’know

“God damnit,” Jieun mumbles and bites her lip wondering how much trouble she’s really in, she leaves Jungkook’s texts as it’s only more of ‘where are you’s and weird clips of Chanwoo slurring his words. Instead, she enters the one with Kiko where she sees only one message.

-Where did you go? :)

Jieun can’t help but scoff in annoyance and grimace at the message, as if she cares, she grumbles angrily and wonders how the woman dares to keep up the facade, it’s not like she knows Jieun understands Japanese, but still, how is she putting on an oscar worthy performance every day whilst knowing she’s deceiving a really good man?

Checking Seungri’s messages makes her smile, although only a little, it’s a start.

-Did you have to poop or something, you went to the bathroom and never came back, are you alive?

He jokes and Jieun giggles quietly despite the comment being kind of disgusting. But her heart stops as she sees one of Jiyong’s messages in her notifications, and the only thing she can see is “I’ll be at the office all night, come when you’re ready to explain,” and she knows she’s screwed up. She starts wondering how he’ll react to the news. Will he cry and break down in front of her like she did in front of him in the bathroom, or will he slide down to the floor with that broken look, or will he flip a table and scream and shout his anger out.

She has no idea how he’ll react, but she’s sure that it won’t be pretty. Does she feel a bit guilty toward Kiko? Strangely and unfortunately she does, because despite the woman doing such a wrong and bad thing, she’s still been nothing but nice and kind to Jieun so it’s still incredibly hard to dislike her. The woman’s taken care of her and treated her like a little sister which Jieun couldn’t be more grateful for. But the nerve of that woman, Jieun doesn’t care if she’s doing it just because her father ordered her to, she’s an adult and should be able to stand up to her father, and if there’s money or fame on the line, if she’s been threatened by her father to lose a model gig or some inheritance money, who the hell cares? She well off enough to not need him, and Jieun thought she was kind and smart enough not to use a person like this. Even if it’s Jiyong who, she admits, isn’t the nicest, kindest nor easiest person to get along with.

Huffing an angry breath she re-reads the text and decides that she’ll go there early in the morning to explain why she left and to tell him everything she heard. No matter the consequences, he has to know.

It’s 5:30 in the morning and Jieun’s wearing a simple skirt and a cardigan, she grabs her flat shoes this morning instead of the high heels because she doesn't expect to be at the office fo