It was the manly scent again that woke me up. I breathed in his scent again as my eyes fluttered open. Beneath me, his chest was going up and down evenly. I looked up to see his face. But he was looking away, clearly wide awake.

“Good morning,” I greeted.

He looked down at me and smiled. “Good morning, my princess,” he whispered with his y morning voice. “How’s is your sleep?”

“Thanks to you, I didn’t get to dream about that nightmare again,” I said as I cuddled closer.

“I’m doing my part as your personal remote controller very well, right?” he said chuckling. “Today’s our last day here, you know. Let’s prepare first before we meet our students.”

I sat up. Realizing that I was , I quickly gathered the blankets to cover my chest.

“What are you doing covering yourself?” he asked behind me. “It’s not like I didn’t see those.”

He then burst out laughing.

As Jiyong was locking my room door, I heard giggles behind me.

“Ooooooh…. Teacher Park and Teacher had been-“

“Ya! Stop that, will you?” I scolded them. They immediately shut up and ran away.

Jiyong wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me towards him. “Relax. Of course they’ll think that way since we just got out of your room together, right?”

After the breakfast with the student, we went to our trips. The first stop was the Hallasan Mountain. We just arrived there but my phone interrupted me from appreciating the beauty of nature.

“Hello?”

“Dara… there’s an emergency mission. I’m going to fetch you via helicopter. Where are you?”

I stared sideways at Jiyong who was staring at me curiously. I immediately walked away from the group and motioned Jiyong to leave me first.

“I’m at Hallasan Mountain right now with the group. You can’t fetch me or else they’ll get suspicious. Fetch me at Jeju December Hotel. Is there enough time for me to pack my bags?”

“No. this is an emergency, Dara. Leave your things. We could get back to them anytime,” Jaejoong said and then he hung up.

“Are you leaving?” Jiyong asked.

I jumped a little. Did he hear me?

“Um, yeah. I have to go.”

“Why?” he asked further.

Oh, gosh. I feel bad lying to him. “Sajang-nim was rushed to the hospital.”

“Oh, let’s go home then.”

“No, I’ll go home alone. You stay with the group.”

“I can’t let you go alone,” he insisted.

“There’ll be someone who’ll fetch me so don’t worry,” I said, running and waving at him.

Apparently, there was an attempted murder against a senator. Thankfully though, he was able to defend himself so he just got minor wounds and he just got unconscious. Therefore, we can’t question him with what happened.

On his residence, where the crime happened, there wasn’t any trail of evidence and the bodyguards said they didn’t know how the suspect entered.

Sajang-nim gave us different assignments. As usual, Jaejoong and I were paired up with each other to investigate the senator’s background.

“Weird, isn’t it?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“What is?”

“He was about to get murdered in his own residence but the criminal was able to do it cleanly without even leaving an evidence. And I don’t believe the bodyguards. The criminal might have connived with them.”

“This isn’t our job, Jae. We’re supposed to investigate over the senator’s background. We might find something interesting,” I said as I was reading some files.

There was silence.

“How was Jeju?” he asked, out of nowhere.

I stopped reading. “It was fine.”

“You were with Jiyong?” he asked.

I nodded slowly as I was remembering all the times we were together in Jeju.

“Is he a good guy?” he asked to break my reverie.

“Why’d you ask?”

“You still don’t know him that long, you know,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Are you being suspicious of him now?” I asked as I put the files down.

“If I were you I would be careful,” he said.

I stood up roughly. “You don’t have the right to say those things. You don’t know him that long either.”

“You said it. You don’t know him either,” he said as he stood up too.

I gritted my teeth. “Well… well, at least I know him longer than you knew him. And why are you being suspicious of him so suddenly?”

“I’m just saying that you have to know him first. Who knows? He might be a bad g-”

I slapped his face with so much impetus that his face turned to the side.

“Stop talking ill of Jiyong now. You don’t know him! He happened to be the one who has been teaching me to overcome the difficulties I have been going through now! So stop acting as if you know him!”

When he recovered from my slap, he grabbed both of my wrists and then he trapped me to the wall.

“Let go of me!” I struggled.

“Now you dare slap my face? Huh? Huh? Did Jiyong teach you that?! Huh?! Is he that great to you that you now know how to defend him from me?!”

“I love him!” I shouted so suddenly.

His hand on my wrist suddenly loosened as his eyes lowered. When I was finally free, I pushed him aside. I stepped away from him while he stayed on his spot. He leaned his head on the wall as he punched it several times.

“Why are you acting like this?!” I asked as I stopped him from hurting himself more.

He didn’t answer as he continued punching the wall. Unfortunately, he was too strong for me to take.

“Stop hurting yourself!” I ordered. He didn’t follow. I held on to his wrists to stop him but to no avail.

After the useless attempts to stop him, he suddenly hugged me.

“Why? Dara, why? Tell me why,” he said pleadingly.

“What?” I asked clueless.

“Why don’t you love me instead?” he asked.

I stopped as he asked that. My hands dropped limply to my sides.

“What do you mean? You have Tiffany,” I said.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!”

After Jaejoong screamed, he dropped to the floor.

Don’t tell me…

I needed alcohol. I needed alcohol to drain all the stress in my mind away. I know I have an assignment, but I don’t care of it anymore. Let me just have this time for myself.

I mean, why would Jaejoong be like that all of a sudden? I thought he had moved on, after all he has a girlfriend, right? He’s giving me a headache.

I gulped another glass of alcohol as the stress slowly drained away. Aaaaah! I’m so thankful with all the alcohol’s job.

My eyes wandered around the club. I don’t know why but I had a strong feeling that I’ll see something or someone in this club. When my mind suddenly told me that I saw it already, my eyes focused on someone. I squinted as I tried to recognize the figure. Surely I was drunk enough to see her kissing a guy.

I leaned forward to get a better view. The girl pulled away from the guy she was kissing. When I saw her face clearly this time, I felt myself falling from the stool I was sitting on.

A guy went closer to me as he tried to help me but I shooed him away.

With my hazy vision, I looked up and saw Tiffany looking back at me too. I struggled to stand up because I was too drunk. I swayed from left to right as I made my way towards Tiffany and her guy. Another set of arms tried to help me but I pushed them away.

The moment I reached the table where they were, I immediately gave the guy she was kissing a punch on the face. When he looked back at me, his nose was already bleeding. It might have been broken from the momentum. He was about to punch me back when Tiffany stopped him.

“Jonghyun… Jonghyun… please stop,” she said as the Jonghyun guy started to calm down. “I’m going to talk to her.”

She faced me and there was an accusing look in his eyes. She pulled me away from the gathering crowd and brought me out of the club.

“What the heck is wrong with you?!” she shouted on my face, spitting a little.

I wiped those spits away as I remained composed.

“So?” she asked, urging me to answer her.

“What the heck is wrong with you?!” I imitated her high-pitched tone.

She glared at me.

“Wasn’t it supposed to be me to ask that, eh?” I asked her. “How dare you cheat on Jaejoong?”

Unexpectedly, she laughed. Okay. That was so inappropriate.

“You sure are clueless, eh?” she asked.

“What are you-“

“Jaejoong and I broke up,” she said like it was the most known knowledge in this world.

“Why?”

“You’re seriously asking me that now? Why don’t you ask him his feelings for me? Or better yet, why don’t you ask him his feelings for you?”

“You’re not making sense here. Just tell me the damn reason why you broke up. Did you cheat on him? Or did he cheat on you?”

“Did he cheat on me?” she repeated. “You could say that. Who could have believed that I even fell for his sweet words?”

“So he did cheat on you.”

She pulled on her hair like this conversation frustrates her. “I can’t believe you could get this stupid, Dara! We broke up because of you. He’s still in love with you. He hasn’t moved on yet! He’s still head over heels for you! How could you be so dense?!”

I narrowed my eyes as if what she had just said were alien words.

“We broke up because of you, dammit!” she said as she started to leave.

 But I caught her wrist. “I’m… sorry.”

She turned to me. “By saying that you’re sorry, will Jaejoong love me back?” she roughly pulled her arm off my grasp and she walked away.

How could you be so stupidly dense, Dara? I asked myself.

Aaaah! This is so stress-relieving. I thought as I looked down on the unconscious bodies of the criminals I just had a fight with. Sometimes, alcohol isn’t enough. I also engage myself on fights like this. Because it is also through action that my mind will focus on the only matter on hand causing the other problems to be washed away from my mind.

Just a while ago, when I was just strolling around the city after the confrontation with Tiffany, these scumbags were about to harass me. Well, unfortunately for them, the girl they were about to harass was an agent. Huh! Pathetic bastards!

I picked my phone out of my pocket to dial the cops and inform them about these criminals. But I forgot all about them when I saw something flashed on the screen.

                12 missed calls.

                27 unread messages.

I opened them all and ta-da! They were all from Jiyong. All of the messages sounded urgent. So I called him back.

“Hey,” I greeted the moment he picked up, which was on the first ring.

“Dara? Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes, of course I am,” I answered, chuckling a little at his worried tone.

“Thank goodness you’re alright. I have been calling you all day,” he said, a little impatient.

“I’m sorry, sir but I was busy all day,” I said, feigning a servant tone.

“Ya! Don’t be playful. I’m dead worried here,” he shouted at me, causing my eardrum to almost break.

I laughed a little. “Okay, fine, sorry, sir – oh, I mean, Jiyong.”

He sighed. “I missed you.”

I smiled a little. I’m still not used with how this boyfriend-girlfriend thing works. But he surely knows how. However, maybe he was telling the truth.

“Hello? You still there?” he asked, still worried.

“Oh, yeah. I’m here.”

“So, didn’t you miss me too?” he asked.

“I… I missed you too, I guess,” I said truthfully.

He sighed again. “Anyway, how’s your father?”

Oops. I almost forgot about that. “He… well, he’s alright now.”

“Oh, good. I’m going to visit him too the moment we-“

“No!” I said instantly. “Um, I mean. No need! He’s about to be discharged tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, is that so?” he asked, defeated.

“So, you’re going to go home tomorrow?” I asked, avoiding the topic.

“Oh, yeah. If it’s even possible, I want to go home at this hour. But there are no flights tonight or anything. Oh, anyway, you missed so many things…” he went on recounting the things I have missed when I left.

I was laughing at the right places and at how comical he sounded while relating the experiences he had with the students. When I sensed something behind me, I quickly turned and saw one of the criminals almost going to punch me. I quickly dodged his attempt, with the phone still clutched on my ear. The criminal staggered forward.

I removed the phone from my ear and smacked his nape with my wrist. But I guess it wasn’t strong enough because he didn’t even hit the ground. He straightened up again and I smacked his face with my fist. As the final blow, I kicked his gut and he hit the ground.

As if nothing happened, I put the phone back to my ear.

“Dara? Dara? What was that?” Jiyong asked, worried than ever.

“Nothing, no problem here,” I said as I walked towards the criminal who was struggling to get up.  “So, you were saying?”

Jiyong continued on telling me his story as I gave the criminal some kicks on the gut until he passed out.

I sighed in contentment. “I missed you, anyway,” I said.

Jiyong stopped talking. Then he exhaled. “I missed you more!”

I walked away and went towards the direction of the apartment.

“Let’s see each other the moment I arrived in Seoul, alright?” he asked.

“Sure, where?”

“Um, at my favorite café?” he asked.

Oh shoot, why does it have to be at Jaejoong’s café?

-------

poster credits to SapphireQueen of Sapphire Dimension Graphic Shop