Hating Kwon Jiyong: Truth and Lies (Part IV)

Jiyong:

I entered our dorms to see Seunghyun hyung at the kitchen, making some coffee at 4:30 in the morning. Taeyang called a few hours ago, asking me about hyung; he mentioned that Dara went to our dorm and hyung stayed with her to talk. Youngbae was wondering about all of it, and I could sense that he was starting to get worried as well.

“Aren’re you going there right at this moment?” I remembered Youngbae’s almost frantic voice on the other line. “She’s pretty hysterical that hyung decided to ditch our plans for tonight.” 

I sighed in response. Youngbae must have gotten the feeling that I wasn’t in the mood to explain things to him. He’s entertaining someone else at this moment too; I quite knew that he wouldn’t have the time. “I just called so you’d know,” he said softly, and the line went dead. I swiftly placed my phone in my pocket and stayed at the recording studio not really doing anything but to cry once in a while – I’ve must have stayed there for more than 7 hours since I had that huge fight with her.

“Ah, you’re here,” Hyung greeted me awkwardly. He smiled a little and beckoned me to come over to him. 

“Coffee?” He didn’t give me time to answer as he took out two coffee mugs at the kitchen cupboard, poured some coffee and stirred it until I was already sitting at one of the chairs by the counter. 

“Here,” he said, rather quietly, and I took it without saying a word. I took a sip for several times, pausing in between while hyung watched me silently. While I’m not completely angry at him for not telling me anything, I’m still disappointed. He could have done something.

“But I couldn’t,” Hyung explained softly. I took another sip. We were reading each other’s minds more often recently. “I might never understand her intentions back then, but Dara loved you. That’s the only thing that remained true.”

I calmly put my coffee mug down and looked at him for the first time; I could see that he was suddenly taken aback with the way I looked up-close. My eyes were puffy and still red from crying, too. Maybe hyung also saw how hurt and distraught I was for getting fooled by some girl I realized I didn’t really know. At all.

“Hyung,” I said meekly, swallowing hard. “She. did. not. love. me.”

“She did.” Hyung was looking straight into my eyes as he said so. “She really did.”

Next thing I knew, I was hurling my coffee mug at the kitchen sink, which was located a few inches away from where hyung was currently standing. He was able to avoid it easily, but his face registered shock.

“Those were lies,” I snarled, and even I was surprised with the way I was expressing my feelings. “Those where motherf*ckin lies and you know it. She hated me, hated me enough to pretend that she had these pathetic feelings for me. You saw her, hyung. She was laughing at my stupidity right under my nose. She was mocking me. She and her friend. She had this all planned out, see?” Hyung tried to intervene but it didn’t do much because I was busy throwing some random figurines placed on the counter for decoration. 

“Jiyong,” hyung croaked nervously by the time the fifth figurine got smashed as it hit the refrigerator. “This won’t solve anything.” He was pleading me to just snap out of it, but I couldn’t seem to control my rage. 

“Just her. Of all the b1tches I’d fall in love with, why her?! I didn’t ask for someone like her to just enter that goddamn YG building and make me fall so hard I’d end up acting like an idiot!”

“Kwon Jiyong, yah!” Hyung’s angry voice boomed across the kitchen and I stopped throwing things in an isntant. “I’ve had enough of this sh1t from the two of you, okay?! Both of you just quit acting like motherf*ckin b1tches and save us from the motherf*ckin drama. Nobody motherf*ckin wanted this.”

The kitchen became quiet, but the silence was still punctuated with our breaths, panting continuously after what we later called “the ultimate bull session of the century”. Both of us were tired. And maybe disappointed. And worried. And confused. And maybe, hurt; I didn’t know what kind of hurt hyung had with this problem, but I could feel that he was hurt, nevertheless. 

He let out an exasperated sigh a few minutes later. “You need to sleep. We can’t act like we had all the time in the world to act like drama b1tches because we still have some recording session tomorrow.” He bent down and took a small weeping brush from under the kitchen sink cabinet to clean up the mess I single-handedly created not too long ago. 

“Hyung,” I started to say, my voice hoarse from all the crying and screaming. “I should help you.”

“Don’t,” He replied curtly. “Let me handle this. You needed to rest more than I do.”

I stood up and walked towards my room, ready to end the worst day of my life to date. I was about to get inside my room when I heard hyung call my name. I turned around to see him sporting a sad and almost wistful smile.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

------------------

25 voice messages, all from that one person I do not wish to see or hear from again.

“Jiyong?” I flinched as I heard her distraught voice. “I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

“…Jiyong, all of it were just a big mistake. I realized that I never did hate you. Never.”

I sneered like an ugly troll, my face lined with a combination of anger and bitterness. A big mistake? I got jipped once, and I’m definitely not letting her do it again. 

The next ten to twelve messages were almost the same thing, she was saying how sorry she was, how it was all a big mistake. More like a big, fat lie. There was a tone of desperation in her voice, but , what was she 
being desperate for? 

The thirteenth message was simple, but her voice changed into something I couldn’t exactly tell.

“Mianhe.”

“ you,” I cursed back. I was saying it to a recorded message, but her. She’s one conniving b1tch I never wanted to see again.

“Mianhe.” The fourteenth message said, but her voice was becoming more unrecognizable. 

Dammit, just stay away from me. 

“Jiyong,” the fifteenth message said, but it was cut short by her sobbing. I covered my head with my hands, trying to shield myself from her voice; from everything.

The 16th, 17th, 18th messages were just some recorded evidence of her sobbing hysterically, her words incoherent. 

The 19th-24th messages were her voice attempting to be calm. Those were more fail attempts, useless, something I wouldn’t bother listening to.

Until the 25th came.

"When we meet someone and fall in love,” She started; her voice suddenly becoming gentle and free of desperate sobs. It was still shaking a little because of uncertainty and despair, but I knew at that very moment that Dara was using the last courage she had just to connect with me. 

“When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! No herons, no distant music, not even the taste of his lips. How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly?”*

I could imagine her smiling sadly as she recited those words. I smiled a little at the thought, bitter tears falling down the more I got reminded of her, and of what just happened not too long ago.

“Jiyong,” Dara called out once again, “Saranghae. I love you more than anything I have. I hated you, or so I thought. But I was wrong.” There was a pause, and I thought she gave up. Until I heard the last thing she had to say.

“ I love you. For I’ve never seen love so personified as I do with you.”

One last beep and it ended. I cursed, closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. It didn’t matter that a part of me still longs for her, it didn’t matter that it was her gentle voice that kissed me off to sleep.

Dara:

“Omo,” Bom examined my face closely and frowned. “You look horrible, Dara. Did you get any sleep?”

Monday morning, and I still felt like hell. Like I died, got embalmed, and put back to life all at the same time. It wasn’t easy to forget last Saturday’s events. I spent the remaining part of my weekend crying my eyes out and isolating myself from everyone I knew. 

“Unnie’s right,” CL agreed with a hint of concern as she looked at me from across the room. “Are you sick? We can go to the infirmary to have you checked or something.”

I forced myself to smile and act normal and chirpy. “I’m ok.” Never mind that I was feeling much like a sick, sore loser.

“You’re okay as a rotting, smelly banana.” Mina interjected as she walked past us and sat on the floor a few inches away from where Bom was sitting down. “Stop bulsh1tting us.”

I looked around and I could sense that the girls agreed with her. I can’t fake this, she’s right. But what should I do? I can’t bawl my eyes out all of a sudden here. I stood up and headed straight for the door, much to their surprise.

“Hey, where are you going?” Mina asked, but I chose to ignore her. I gave them a reassuring nod before closing the door behind me. I still need some time alone.

-------------------

“Chill, lady.”

I sniffed and looked up to see Seughyun standing in front of me. He was offering me a can of ice cold soda. I hesitated.

“I can’t drink it. Too cold. It would make my voice terrible.”

Seunghyun made some gagging noise before sitting down beside me. “Crying won’t help either. Don’t fool me. A can of soda wouldn’t hurt your god freakin throat or vocal chords, for that matter.”

Isniffed and hastily wiped my tear-stricken face. “You’d make a terrible voice coach.”

He laughed at my remark and shrugged carelessly. “Hey, that’s why I ended up being Big Bang’s resident hot rapper, no?”

I looked at him and both of us shared a laugh at what he just said. His attempts to make me feel better are working just fine, seemingly so. I still felt bad, but my mood definitely improved a little since he dropped by. 

“Thank you,” I was about to take the soda from him when he opened it and drank the contents himself. I just stared at him, dumbfounded, as he emptied the can. 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” Seunghyun was being a jerk again. “That was some cool drink. I think I could do a Bocelli after drinking this stuff.”

“You’re sick,” I said to him in mock disgust, but I couldn’t help smiling at his antics. Bocelli? Seunghyun?

“Aish, be Celine Dion just for this moment and belt out the Prayer with me.” Seunghyun cleared his throat and started to sing;

La luce che tu hai 
I pray we'll find your light 
nel cuore rester
and hold it in our hearts. 
a ricordarci che 
When stars go out each night, 
eterna stella sei

I was laughing hysterically when he decided to end his ‘Bocelli’ singing, complete with Celine Dion impersonations. This guy is just whack.

“Omona,” I said, after taking a few deep breaths, “You ruined the Bocelli part, but I gotta say you killed Celine Dion’s. Omigod. That was so hilarious.”

“I’m a rather good singer,” Seunghyun replied smugly. “I just looked hotter when I rap.”

I was enjoying his company so much that I didn’t notice Jiyong standing almost in front of us. I guess he was looking for Seunghyun, but he didn’t know that Seunghyun spent a few minutes with me. His face looked surprised, but it was gone in a few seconds. He was about to say something to Seunghyun but he chose to turn his back and walk away.

As if both of us never existed.

Okay, just pretend that it was Seungri who walked over,” Seunghyun immediately instructed me the moment Jiyong left. “Calm down, okay?”

I nodded dumbly at his request. Whatever good feeling I had vanished quickly the moment I saw him. How could I forget our problems in a fleeting moment? Was it not that important?

“Oh, brother.” I heard Seunghyun whisper to himself. “Here we go again.” He turned to literally face me. “Since you got so caught up with that Jiyong-found-out-my-dirty-secret, I’m gonna tell you something.”

I averted my gaze to the wall behind him. “Tell me,” I asked stonily.

“Well, there was something I didn’t tell you a while back.”

“What?”

“About Jiyong. About this mess.”

I closed my eyes – I can’t bear to see this thing unfold once again, uglier than the first. “If it’s bad, just shut it.”

“It is bad,” he confirmed, and I could feel his eyes looking at me closer than before. “but important.”

I didn’t say anything. What could be more important than Jiyong finding out? 

“I knew the person who did it.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was staring back at me, his face serious. 
“Dara, I --- “

“I see that you’re finally telling her, huh?” A catty voice interrupted Seunghyun’s confession.
 

Preview:

“I see that you’re finally telling her, huh?”

Seunghyun froze. Whatever he was about to tell me, he seemed to have forgotten it the moment someone interrupted our conversation. Who was it anyway? The girl’s voice suggested that she was a few steps away from where I was sitting. I was tempted to take a look at her but my eyes were transfixed on Seunghyun’s ashen face. Something’s definitely not right.

“Everybody’s bullsh1tting someone in this company, and I’m utterly disgusted by it,” the voice continued in a mock sing-song voice. “I have to lie and pretend that I don’t care but I really do.”

Silence.

“Somebody hates you, Dara. With a passion as well.”

Her words shook with such familiarity that I couldn’t help but to take a look at her.

“Han Mina?”

Han Mina’s pretty face sneered down at me. Her eyes mirrored nothing but disgust, complimenting that 

sickening smile she had on her face. 

“I hate you.”