"Why do we waste our time on people who don't even care about us?"

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Chapter 5

"The Lie"

JungHee's POV

The ice cream parlor was only a few kilometers away from school. From the inside of the cab, I could see upperclassmen walking along the sidewalks, some professors bringing their suitcases while crossing the street, and even some people that looked familiar started leaving school.

I glanced at my watch and realized that I was almost late for my last class. “Ahjussi, can’t we go any faster?” I nicely asked the cab driver, leaning forward and almost pleading.

He just simply gave me a nod and stepped on the gas slightly that we only moved a tiny bit faster.

I sighed and leaned back on my seat, smiling despite the fact that I was late. Being late doesn’t really matter to me now—especially since I spent my afternoon with Jaejoong and even managed to sit with him over a cup of coffee. Maybe his ditching habit didn’t matter. I just have to understand him since he’s an Idol and idols are busy as bees and maybe like other dating idols, they always run out of time.

“I”ll make it up to you, okay? I’ll drop by your school if I have free time and I’ll bring you somewhere we would both enjoy, okay?”

I could still hear his voice clearly in my mind, those promising words and his enchanting smile. His promise is what mattered now. Yes, maybe he did leave me hanging again but then he said he’d make it up to me, right?

A promise can remove the feeling of betrayal from him.

I excitedly pulled out my phone from my bag, ready to tell my friends all about what happened. But as I was typing my message with shaking hands, a message from my other friend arrived. I opened it and a picture of Jaejoong walking inside a restaurant with a girl flashed before my eyes.

I saw this in the internet just now. My heart’s breaking, aww. Surely this is not true?  But look at them holding hands. – Minyu

Attached to the message was a link to a website article. I stared at the screen of my phone in disbelief and tears filled my eyes, making my vision all blurry. If I was just a fan, a fan who didn’t meet her idol, a fan who only spent hours and hours scanning the net for photos, a fan who didn’t receive a promise from her idol, then maybe I wouldn’t be feeling this way.

But then, I was a fan who’s got everything—signatures, photos, encounters—everything real. I was the fan who experienced everything a fan ever wanted.

And of course, this will change everything in my perspective.

An article would no longer feel like an article, it would affect me even more. A dating article was more than just a dating article. A normal fan would say “Oh god, not again. Surely this will end in a month.”  And accept that their idol is also human and deserves to be happy.

But I would say the total opposite of that since I know that I'm just no normal fan. And it hurt. The situation is a whole lot different now.

He said he’d meet his manager! I checked the date of the article just to make sure, hoping that this was a year ago or a few months ago before my birthday, maybe—but no, the article was published today, twenty minutes ago to be precise.

Maybe his manager was a girl or maybe this was just his co-star for a project and they had to go to a meeting together to settle agreements and maybe sign contracts. I tried looking for more excuses but eventually ran out of them. I couldn’t even lie to myself and sugarcoat the truth that he lied to me, that he said he had to meet his manager and he was busy but then I guess his project involved the words “date” and “girl”.

I wasn’t feeling jealous. I wasn’t in the place to feel that way. The tears that were now rolling down my cheeks weren’t the representation of jealousy but those of hurt—why did he lie to me?—and those of betrayal—why did he leave me for another girl? Why did he act so sweet and caring when he was going to see someone else?

This is not true, actually I just met him a few minutes ago. The photo is fraud.

I sent the reply to Minyu and immediately regretted it. Why do I have to lie to myself? I know better than the photo being fraud.

I ruffled my hair in frustration as I shoved the phone back inside my bag, mentally telling myself over and over to keep calm and take deep breaths.

I pulled the straps of my bag over my shoulder and opened the door as it pulled to a stop near the pedestrian lane. I rushed out of the cab and left a few bills on my seat (not even caring whether or not there was still change) before closing the door.

It had started to rain drastically, drenching my hair and my clothes as the raindrops rapidly trickled down the dark sky. My insides felt colder, weaker.

I looked straight ahead; ignoring the stares people gave me as I tried to look happy despite the hurt and annoyance I felt. The rain was now mixed with my tears. I wanted to sob, to throw my bag, to shout his name but I knew better than showing my weak side

I entered the school and crossed the wide lawn where I stood a few hours ago with Lay until Jaejoong arrived. I was happy, shocked and excited a few hours ago—the mere opposite of what I felt now.

Whispers were heard as people would constantly give me a look from head to toe. Maybe they noticed my red rimmed eyes or the fact that I was dragging my feet as I walked under the rain without even bothering to cover myself. But I couldn’t care less. I had to go to class and act normal, put a fake smile on my face and when my friends see me, I’d give them a double take and laugh and say, “Why would I even care about that?”

I arrived in the hallway and honestly, I felt sorry for the janitor since I was basically getting the whole floor wet with my dripping hair and clothes.

I gave out a short sob, catching the attention of most people walking in the hall. I brought my hand to my hair and gave it a tiny pull; the feeling inside me hurt so much. Crying and being wet didn’t ebb away the annoyance I felt.

“UGH!” I said aloud, closing my eyes and I felt my hands turning into fists.

Maybe I now have a better excuse to skip class.

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NARRATOR’S POV

“You look better,” Lay said, tucking loose strands of hair behind Eunhwa’s ear. He smiled and planted a soft kiss on her forehead before sitting down just right beside her hospital bed.

“I brought your favorite—spicy seafood ramen, mantao and some kimchi.” He set the food down on the side table and started preparing them. “I wanted to buy you some chocolates but—“

“You know I hate chocolates.” She shot back, sighing and shaking her head. “When will you ever remember the things I hate and the things I like?”

“I just thought that girls loved chocolates and maybe you might like the one I saw earlier in the grocery—“

“I hate everything in the grocery.”

Lay flinched, not expecting such a hateful welcome from his own girlfriend. “Okay, I’m sorry,” He sighed. “How was your day in the hospital? Did you go out?”

Eunhwa adjusted her position, sitting straighter and watching him prepare her food. She always liked it when Lay would prepare her food. She liked the look of deep concentration in his face, his tongue that sticks out a bit, his hair falling just right in front of his eyes. She liked everything about him. Sometimes, just not his forgetful habit.

“I had a bad day,” She said, running her hand gently on the side of his face. “I wasn’t with you.”

“No wonder you were so twitchy about chocolates. You’re kind of irritable today,” Lay stated, catching her hand on his cheek. He kissed her soft palm, smiling. He inhaled her scent—the usual rosy smell of her hand and her wrist. “I had a bad day, too.”

“Is it because you missed me?” Eunhwa smiled and felt her cheeks heat up as Lay continued to trail kisses against her palm.

“Partly, yes. Somehow no.” He chuckled, giving her hand a light squeeze before releasing it. He sat on the bed beside her and gradually fed her the steaming soup of the ramen. “I have this irritable classmate who by the way is also my partner for this stupid project. She even skipped school just to go on a date with her crush and she even walked past me awhile ago like she didn’t see me.”

“She?”

“Well, yeah. I was holding an umbrella and I thought she might share it with me because she was soaking in the rain but then, voila, she walked past me and totally ignored my kind gesture.” Lay shook his head, clearly remembering the sad look on JungHee’s face. His chest tightened for an unknown reason but it quickly faded.

“I thought all your friends were a he?”  Eunhwa asked, the trace of irritation back in her voice. She couldn’t help but feel jealous. Here she was locked up inside the hospital rotting while her boyfriend gets to spend time with another girl. That sounded unfair to her.

“Yeah, but I don’t have the same classes as them which so I’m basically alone. And this really stupid project demands me to spend time with her,” He simply explained, feeding her more as she continued to give him a glare.

“I don’t like the sound of this.”

“You can’t control who I meet, Eunhwa. It’s not like I have a choice,” He said, taken aback by the stubbornness in her voice. “You don’t have to be jealous.”

“Of course, I have the right to be jealous! How do you expect me to react?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, turning her head once Lay placed the spoon near .

“I was expecting you to be more understanding. I’m in college. I meet more than just boys.”

“Well, a girl you might want to share an umbrella with doesn’t sound so friendly.” She said, pushing away the spoon that Lay brought to her lips. The soup spilled all over the bed covers, creating a big wet red and orange mess of clams, noodles and shrimp.

“You can’t act like that. If you want to guard me then get out of this hospital and enroll in the university I’m attending. That way you can monitor me more often,” He said, standing up.

“You know I can’t do that!” She whined, pushing the damp blanket away with her feet.

“You can and you know it,” He said, his voice rising in anger. “Your disease is not terminal, it’s just another remission! You can get life! I want you to go out, have fun and be with me like a normal girlfriend! I want to walk around the campus holding your hand and telling everyone how much I love you! I want to feel the thrill of being in the same classes as you!”

“I want that to happen, too.” She whispered, looking down with a frown on her face. “Maybe someday.”

“Whatever,” was all he said, completely knowing that she really wouldn’t request for a discharge in the hospital. She was scared of getting away from all the IV’s and injections. She thinks it would be her death that would chase her once she leaves the expensive facilities that breathe life into her.

“I’m just trying to protect myself.”

“You’re sometimes being too much,” He shrugged. “You can stop being jealous. You know I love you and even if the most beautiful girl in campus approaches me, I wouldn’t even bother looking at her.”

“Really, now.” She chuckled and raised a brow.

“Of course. Don’t you trust me?” He said, stepping closer and grabbing her hand gently. He made her face him, giving her a warm and comforting smile. “Now, would you get over this topic?”

She kissed him on the cheek lightly, returning his smile. She liked how Lay would always coax her when they argued, like the intensity she saw in his eyes, the worry that he might lose her.

Then, so slowly, she realized that there was still a huge mess on her bed.

“No…” she said, letting go of Lay’s hand and pushing him away. “My dinner!! You made a mess out of it! You spilled it on my bed!”

Lay knew what was happening. It was always like this. She was bipolar all the time. When the doctor first introduced the medicine they’d administer to her, he clearly said something about bipolar being a side effect. It had already been months since she’s been like this—a minute happy, the next minute raging.  He had to keep up—he had to or else he’d lose his temper too.

“Shh, shh.” He said, trying to wrap his arms around her to calm her down. “It’s all okay! I can clean this up.”

“NO! My dinner!!! You created on my bed!!! You spilled it Yixing!!! Are you too dumb to even notice what you did??” she said, thrashing around and pushing him away. “Now my bed is a mess and I’m ing hungry!”

“I’ll buy you dinner! You don’t have to make a scene.”

“No!! I hate grocery food!” she seethed. “Didn’t you listen a while ago or were you too absorbed with your umbrella girl?”

“I wasn’t!” he defended. He tried holding her once more but she resisted. “I’ll buy you dinner in a restaurant and call the nurse to change your sheets…”

“I can change my own sheets!” she said, hitting the bed with her tiny fists. “I want dinner!!!”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll buy something.” He rubbed the back of his neck, panicking as he looked for ways to calm her down.

“This is your entire fault!! If you just held on to the soup bowl tighter and tried to balance it—“

She was rambling nonsense and no matter how Lay tried to calm her, she would just end up hitting him harder. He couldn’t make her calm like this. There were always days when he was strong and days when he felt weaker. But today, her personality was tenacious and he knew that his words, love and care couldn’t do anything for her.

As much as he hated to do it, he pressed the red emergency button just above her head. “I’m sorry.” He said once more. He was sorry to call the nurses in and to make her eat the bland hospital food.

But maybe, it’s better than trying to do something he knew he never will be able to do no matter how hard he tried—to keep up and calm her down.

“Not again,” The nurses murmured as they saw the mess she created and the state she was in now. “How long has she been like this?”

“Just a few minutes. Maybe five or ten?” Lay said, sadly.

“I guess it always has to come down to this between the two of you, eh?”

So much for her and the relationship being sick, he thought.

---

Lay watched as the clock ticked. With every piercing beat the clock made, he felt his heart clench inside his chest. Why was he feeling this way?

He wasn’t supposed to feel guilty about it. He wasn’t even supposed to be thinking about her.

He let out a heavy sigh and shifted his anxious gaze over to the hospital bed. Carefully standing and grabbing his sleeping girlfriend’s hand, he couldn’t help but smile at her sleeping figure. She looked much more serene and sweeter in her sleep that he missed those times when she still wasn’t so bipolar and always getting angry over the small things.

Despite standing beside his girlfriend, he still felt that guilt rising inside him. The image of JungHee slowly crumbling down as he passed by her in school a few hours ago, continued to flash through his mind and he couldn’t seem to get it out.

“The project,” He thought. And with that, he stormed out of Eunhwa’s hospital room as he tried to remember the address JungHee told him in the morning. As he went outside, he felt the rain soaking his clothes but he disregarded them and continued to run towards her house, eventually forgetting his duty to watch over his girlfriend as she slept.

He usually didn’t care about those stupid projects. And he most certainly didn’t care about other people besides Eunhwa.

But this time… he felt different.

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YOUR POV

Now I had to deal with the project alone. Although I tried convincing Lay countless of times to help me in creating the project proposal by going to my house, of course he refused.

I still had to keep working the whole night even if I was too tired and too emotionally depressed to think of a possible proposal for tomorrow. I just had to distract myself from Jaejoong and everything else.

After arriving home, I had managed to crumple a hundred sheets of paper, break three pencils and curse at our maids for moving too slow whenever I had requests. I know that everything I was doing was too much for such a shallow reason. But I couldn’t help myself. I felt like I was intensely PMS-ing even if my period was done weeks ago.

But then again, this was Jaejoong we’re talking about. One minute he acts all concerned and caring then the next, he’s off being sweet with another girl.

“Guys are like that, they’re players. Can’t they just keep their raging hormones to themselves?!” I thought angrily to myself as I scratched my head in frustration.

But deep down, I knew and accepted that it was partly my fault too. I hung to every word Jaejoong uttered. I trusted him as much as he tried fooling me.

I rolled my eyes and returned to focusing on my laptop.

“Hmmm…Jeju Island…” I murmured, scanning Naver for pictures of the island as I tapped my index finger against my chin. This project was eating so much of my sleeping time.

Well, maybe this is better than doing nothing and thinking about the who, what, when, where, why and how of Jaejoong’s afternoon date.

My friends tried comforting me and tried making up so many alibis for me to not think about anything worse about the picture and of course, I just shut up and thanked them. I didn’t want to bother them any longer over this. They’d just think that I was over doing it. They wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Wow, water activities?” I said to myself, seeing lovely pictures of the beach and the possible itineraries we could create.

What “we”?! Lay’s not even here! Maybe I could just leave him out, do the project alone and enjoy the island by myself without having to deal with such an annoying creature who only knew how to be mean and rude around me.

I paused as I mentally composed a very valid reason to say to my teacher as to why I should leave Lay out for this project and just work alone.

“Maybe I could say how irresponsible and ill-mannered my partner is then—“ I stopped midsentence as the door to my room suddenly squeaked open.

“Your maids just let me in.” a voice boomed from behind me and I felt my heart skip a beat. “So what were you saying about your partner again?”

My jaw literally dropped to the floor as I spun my chair and came face to face with Lay.

“Why are you here?” I asked, shocked to see him standing on the threshold of my bedroom door.

“You said we were going to do our project, right? Well here I am,” He stated in a bored tone.

Then, that’s when I realized that he was dripping wet. His light blue shirt has now turned a shade darker because he was soaked with rain. His hair fell in front of his eyes as tiny droplets of rain streamed down his face and I noticed his shoes were now in his hands.

“I wanted to help and I thought you might need me.” He shrugged.

“I thought you didn’t want to help! I thought you were in the hospital today, visiting your girlfriend?” I said, still seated in front of my laptop as I stared at him with wide eyes.

“Yes and I remembered how wrought you looked under the rain a while ago in school and I just thought you needed me. I wouldn’t want to cause other problems just because of this project.” He said and started to sluggishly walk towards me but I raised my hand to stop him.

“I need you?”  I said, amused at the fact that he was able to create a very ridiculous sentence with me being the subject and him the predicate.

He chuckled and took a few steps closer.

“Or maybe I'm the one who needs you.”