chapter 22
the psychology of good studentsDating Jooyoung doesn’t change anything about Kyungsoo’s personality and social status, and he’s still the ever-popular, ever-sociable Do Kyungsoo (although he keeps denying it). A few times, he’s asked Jooyoung to join them for their lunches or arcade trips, but she’s always been too lazy to accompany him. He always says he wants her there and she knows he means it, but people need their own space too, and of course she’s going to give it to him.
Anyway, she would rather play Sim City and binge Disney movies on her phone than hang out with a bunch of people she doesn't know.
Today as Kyungsoo is out and Jooyoung’s on her bed resuming her near-to-daily life before meeting him, her movie is interrupted by a phone call from Minseok, and he asks to meet a little earlier before the next student government meeting. She doesn’t question Minseok because he doesn’t do dumb things.
So the next morning, she wakes up earlier and meets Minseok with two cups of coffee at the cafeteria near the student government room.
She sets the coffee down and is about to complain about waking up early when she sees Minseok‘s backpack with his toothbrush sticking out of the smaller compartment. She decides to shut up because honestly, if he's the one who can't return to the dorms for sleep, and yet isn’t complaining, she has no right to as well.
“Did you hear about the news?” He asks, his voice a stark contrast to his fatigued appearance. He warms his hands with the coffee when Jooyoung has seated herself down opposite him.
“Which?”
“Okay, so you haven’t,” he concludes, then his face contorts slightly. “Krystal resigned from the student government.”
“What?”
When he sees Jooyoung’s confused, misbelieving expression, he sits up straighter. “I’m serious,” he says fervently. “We were supposed to know about it only today. My professor who knows Krystal too just told me earlier.”
“I know, it’s not that I don’t trust you,” Jooyoung says, but furrows her eyebrows. “But it’s just so sudden. And why, though? She worked so hard last time with her fancy rallies and pretty slogans to get voted in. She seemed pretty desperate about getting it.”
“Apparently she feels she’s too busy or something.”
Jooyoung doesn’t know what to do with the newfound information just hurled onto her, and she’s struggling to place it somewhere in her mind. Everything about it seems dubious, but so possible at the same time, and suddenly her mind is a mess.
“Well,” she forces out, deciding to shape all her complicated thoughts into a smile. “She hardly did anything, anyway. It’s about time she resigned.”
“Yeah...”
“It took her long enough!” She jokes bitterly.
Jooyoung knows she often uses sarcasm as a powerful defence mechanism. It’s just that she doesn’t know why she’s using it now, when she should be fully and genuinely happy about Krystal’s departure.
She is glad, she thinks. But the more she looks at Minseok’s complex expression, the more she knows it mirrors hers.
They go into the meeting when it is time, and Jooyoung announces the news coolly, before allowing the room time for their spontaneous bursts of conversation. She tries not to listen in to everyone’s chatter but she can hear shocked gasps, as well as outbursts of a range of emotions. She and Minseok exchange a second of eye contact but today there’s no one to dislike, so they both look back down again.
The empty seat at the front gives Jooyoung this strange pinch in her heart, just the slightest nip, but it’s uncomfortable and she has to shift in her seat to rid it.
Throughout the meeting, as if Krystal was a overthrown dictator (which she’s not, obviously), it feels like there is a power void, and Jooyoung, now the new temporary head, doesn’t feel good about anything.
The discussion time during meeting feels dead. No one expected that without Krystal, without the life of the party, without the omnipresent happy spirit, the student government would become this dull.
Krystal had left behind her pink glittery planner the last time, and it’s resting on the table as a silent reminder she isn’t here. Jooyoung decides to keep it with her so that she can return it the next time they meet. Also because she doesn’t want to see it there anymore.
“I haven’t seen Krystal in school lately,” Minseok decides to whisper to Jooyoung when she is silent. She feels her heart drop, although she tells herself she doesn’t care the least.
“Maybe it’s because you haven’t even been on campus much recently,” she retorts gently. But Jooyoung remembers all the times she went down in the middle of the night and the basketball court was empty — Krystal wasn’t there practising either. It hits her only now.
“Maybe,” Minseok ruminates aloud. It is the end of the conversation, and soon comes the end of the student government meeting. Jooyoung walks to her next class without a “Bye Vicey!”.
She only realises it when she’s stepped out of the room how silent it is without Krystal’s chatter.
Kyungsoo is seated outside the room when Jooyoung leaves from her class. He gives her that smile, the one which makes his cheeks round and his lips thin, and she can’t help but smile back. No matter how many times he does it to her, she still feels the same, intense flutter in her stomach.
She bounds up to him and decides to shut about the class in which she was so distracted by thoughts of Krystal she didn’t hear anything at all, not wanting to dampen the mood. Instead Jooyoung decides to tell him about a recent graded assignment she had gotten back.
“I got High Distinction, of course,” she replies seriously when he asks. She shrugs. “It should be the case. I wouldn’t expect anything less of myself.”
Kyungsoo stops in his tracks then, and Jooyoung feels a tug on her wrist, stopping her from advancing. He takes a big step to be right in front of Jooyoung. Then he leans in and grabs her face with both his hands, squishing her cheeks slightly. She lets him squish them without protest (he’s the only one who can).
“What did I tell you before?” He asks quietly, staring, unmoving, into her eyes. “Not to be so hard on yourself and stress yourself out so much, right?”
“Easy to say when it’s you,” she says between squished cheeks.
He scrunches his nose at her. “You are amazing enough, Han Jooyoung. You don’t need grades to validate you. No one does. Especially not you.”
“Oh, stop it.” Jooyoung feels her face flushing, and she avoids Kyungsoo’s eyes because who knows, she might melt into a puddle of gooey mess on the floor.
And just then Kyungsoo steps a small step forward... onto his other foot. Jooyoung sees his horrified expression right in front of her as he falls toward her, but she holds his waist to steady him, and he shifts his hands to cupping her neck, and all’s well.
Except now, their faces are so close together Jooyoung can see herself clearly in his pupils. His eyes dart all around her face for a while, and it’s quiet and the atmosphere is fluffed up with a certain thickness.
From the way his eyes drop to her lips every second or so, and how his throat bobs up and down, and how his own mouth is slightly parted, she knows what he’s thinking. Of course she knows.
He wants to kiss her.
Jooyoung stays in her position, wrapping her arms round his waist tighter to give him permission.
But then the stupid, spoilsport Kyungsoo pulls away and straightens up, his cheeks reddening. She knows it’s because he’s respectful as hell, and doesn’t want to kiss her in public if she isn't comfortable with it. She knows that, and yet she’s still so annoyed.
It’s his own fault they got into that position in the first place, and it’s not like they aren’t dating, for goodness’ sake. And Jooyoung is an adult with hormones. After getting her all riled up, he should take some responsibility, shouldn’t he?
“Come back here,” Jooyoung mutters, then pulls him back roughly by the collar of his coat. He is flung forward and she wraps her arms around his neck, then presses her lips squarely onto his. He takes only a second to react, kissing her back hard and cupping her face with his hands. Jooyoung doesn’t care who’s walking along the corridor now — for that moment, it’s just the two of them in their own private world, disconnected from everything else.
And like always, Jooyoung smiles into the kiss.
When she reaches home and empties her bag, Krystal’s glittery pink planner is the first thing that falls out, and Jooyoung suddenly wishes she hadn’t taken it home with her. Now her mind is going to go on a downward spiral of thoughts on Krystal.
Admittedly, she is thinking about Krystal so much because she’s slightly sorry. Quite sorry. Very sorry. Jooyoung doesn’t know whether it’s because she’s been so mean to her that she quit. She wishes her temper would stop being so out of control because now she’s quite certain she’s hurt someone.
Jooyoung sighs, then mindlessly picks up the planner and flips it open, revealing the monthly calendar pages which are filled to the max with writing in the boxes. There’s stuff like due dates for assignments and netball trainings, but most are of parties and social events. And then there are emotions too, which is strange.
Every page is filled with similar things — serious stuff, social events, and then emotions.
It’s just simple words, simple events and emotions, but the more Jooyoung reads, the more painful the prick in her heart feels.
She can’t sleep that night, which is super rare, because most of the time she’s so tired she slips into her dreams the moment she’s wrapped in her blanket. Instead she tosses and turns and just feels there’s a lump somewhere, maybe in her mattress, maybe in .
The next morning she meets Kyungsoo for a brunch (supposedly her treat), and he’s quiet along with her. He never disturbs her when she’s thinking. And he always knows when she’s not herself.
When he goes to collect their food, he pays for them both and goes to sit down beside Jooyoung instead of opposite her. She snuggles into his shoulder the moment he sits down, and he holds her there, comfortingly her hair.
“Wanna share what happened?” He asks gently, lips in her hair.
“Girl problems,” she says ambiguously, then decides she doesn’t like beating around the bush. “Actually it’s about Krystal.”
“What did she do this time?” He asks, nose still nuzzled in her hair. Kyungsoo doesn’t like talking bad about anyone, but he’s been such a good listener to all of Jooyoung’s rants and she’s forever grateful for that. Except today she doesn’t want to go on a tirade about Krystal.
“She didn’t make me angry,” Jooyoung admits meekly.
“Then what did she do? You’ve been affected the entire morning.”
“Precisely, and I don’t even know why.”
Kyungsoo sits up a little straighter, and a little closer to her. “I’ll listen,” he says in a deep voice. “Take your time.”
She considers it for a while, not being able to pinpoint what exactly she’s feeling and why, but it doesn’t take long for her to spill. “She quit the student government,” Jooyoung sighs. “And also, Minseok and I both haven’t seen her around. And, oh, that day she said she had a headache and I thought it was an exaggeration but now I’m not so sure; I feel so bad. And I don’t know why, but I’m worried about her.”
Kyungsoo is silent, and his hands abruptly stop her hair.
“You okay?” It is now Jooyoung’s turn to ask Kyungsoo, because his eyebrows are furrowed and he looks way too serious. Then he turns to look straight at Jooyoung, but as if he knows she’s slightly nervous about what he’s going to say, holds her even tighter.
“You say she had a headache? Did she leave in the middle of the meeting?” He asks seriously.
She’s slightly puzzled, but worry has consumed her too much to care. “She didn’t leave, but the entire session she was pretty quiet...” Jooyoung says with furrowed eyebrows. “Why? Do you know the real reason for her headache? Is it linked to her quitting?”
He hesitates for a while, then his head. “I’m not sure whether it’s the right time to tell you, but...”
Jooyoung doesn't want to stay in the dark any longer. “Just say it!”
“Okay, okay I will,” he nods, then straightens up. He points at Jooyoung’s book bag on the floor, and her eyes immediately follow. “Minseok told me you took home Krystal’s planner that day to keep it for her. Did you read it?”
She meekly nods.
“You know all the emotions written in the calendar boxes? Her planner is not just for events and stuff, but also a small mood diary she writes in. You noticed, right? The words that keep repeating itself are ‘nervous’ and ‘stressed’.”
He pauses just long enough to let Jooyoung digest the information, before continuing, taking a deep breath. “Also, I think this misunderstanding should be cleaned up. Krystal doesn’t actually like going out with people all that much.”
“What?!”
“Sometimes, of course, she goes out of her own will, and she has great EQ, so people are drawn to her. But most of the time she just doesn’t know how to say no, because she’s worried she would draw distance between her friends and her. It's just... she can't, because she's too afraid to. And she has a lot of friends who have loads of social commitment, so you can imagine the pressure she has to go through.”
Jooyoung thinks of the times Krystal ditched student government meetings for her own socialite gatherings, and wonders why she would choose the latter over the former. “B-But...”
As if he knows what she is thinking, Kyungsoo smiles tenderly at her, his hand going back to her hair. “She ditches the meetings for her personal stuff sometimes because she knows you’re nice. You say you hate her but you still care in the end. I think she’s been with enough toxic people — whom she never got to break friendships with — to know the difference. She likes you a lot too, Jooyoung.”
“I can’t understand,” Jooyoung says, feeling a speckle of ice run down her back, her mind spiralling.
Kyungsoo nods patiently. “See, Krystal gets overwhelmed quite easily. And she gets really concerned about other people and stuff, so she ends up not being able to say no to a lot of things. But every time she doesn’t, she ends up being really nervous about the event, for reasons she can’t identify. Also, the whole thing about her faking a relationship with me was because her friends kept harping on the issue even though she tried to deny it, and she got really nervous every time my name was mentioned because the things they were saying were getting more and more absurd. So she decided to lie so that they wouldn’t keep making assumptions about her. She’s struggled with her worries for quite long.”
He continues, “But recently, her emotions have been getting out of hand and she’s been feeling real upset and stressed over this. There was one day she was having drinks with her friends, something she didn’t want to do, when she suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. Then she left and hid somewhere because she started to shake really badly without control. She had a panic attack. And subsequently, it happened a few times, sometimes in the middle of the night for no reason at all.”
Jooyoung feels the speckle of ice turn into a whole blizzard in her body. She’s frozen. “S-So you’re saying...”
He nods slowly.
“Krystal has an anxiety disorder.”
a/n: this story is told from jooyoung's pov so this wasn't brought up prior to this chapter, bc she didn't know about it or sense anything at all.
there's a reason i chose to make both of them psychology majors (besides the fact that i really enjoy psychology too)
I OWED SO MANY OF YOU REPLIES i’m so sorry!! just replied to everyone i hadn’t replied to aaa but i hope everyone’s having a great 2019 so far! i think it’ll take a while before my next story because of circumstances.... but i promise i’ll be back :”)
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