Taeyong hesitated as he lifted his hand to ring the doorbell only to lower it again. Jennie probably wanted space first and foremost, so who was he to deny her that? But he gave her said space for a whole week—or rather, a few days considering the fact that his phone number was blocked—and he decided that he was selfish and wanted his best friend to speak to him again.

She had said everything was fine, but Taeyong was smart enough to know that everything was definitely not fine. Jennie had left practice early without waiting for him, started leaving for school early in the mornings to avoid walking with him, and took another route home after school to get home. She and the other girls also began eating lunch elsewhere—in the courtyard as he was told by Jaehyun—so she wouldn't have to see him, or so he assumed. She ignored all of his text messages until one day he realized that he'd been blocked, as his messages stopped sending and his calls never made it to the other line.

He deserved this, he knew he did. Did that fact make it any more bearable to deal with his current situation? Definitely not.

"I'll be back soon, Mom."

Taeyong was just as startled as Jennie was as she opened the door, nearly walking right into him.

Taeyong could barely manage to think of two words and put them together to form a single sentence, so he simply spoke the one word he could think of, "Jennie."

"Excuse me," Jennie frowned as she walked to the side of him, closing the door and turning so she could lock it. Taeyong stood there, trying to think of things to say or something to do. To be frank, he didn't think he'd get this far.

It was when Jennie tried to get past him that he snapped out of his daze.

"Wait, Jennie."

"What do you want, Taeyong?" Jennie sighed with exasperation.

"Please, just hear me out," Taeyong pleaded as he blocked Jennie's path.

"I already told you, I heard you loud and clear. If you're here to apologize, it's fine because I don't want it."

Taeyong frowned, "Jennie, whether you want to hear this or not, I truly am sorry. I can give you hundreds of excuses but I know that they'll just be a waste of both yours and my time."

"Great, you already know so I don't have to say it," said Jennie, her lips pursed into a thin line as she stared Taeyong dead in the eye, "I'm sure you can spend all day here trying to look like the good guy, but the damage has been done."

Taeyong stayed silent. She needed to let it out and who was he to deny her of this?

"All this time, I trusted you to be my friend. I considered you to be one of, if not the closest person to me that isn't my mother. How do you expect me to react? To just hug you and say 'thank you' for letting me know how you really felt? Did you expect me to just get over it within an hour or two and pretend like you didn't just crush me into a million pieces just because you couldn't handle a joke or two from your friends?"