--Jonghyun’s POV—

“Hello Kibum-ah? Are you with Yerin and Yeonmi?”, I asked Key on the phone.

“Uhm no. I haven’t seen her since classes ended. Maybe they’re already home.”

“No. I’m waiting here outside the building and they haven’t come out yet.”, I looked around to double check the area if they’re already there but still no Yerin around.

“Then just wait a bit longer. I’ll hang up now.”

“Pff… You’re no help. Bye.”, I ended the call.

I looked back again at the entrance of the building then I finally saw Yeonmi.

“Hey Yeonmi. Why aren’t you with Yerin?”, I asked her when I noticed that Yerin is not around.

“Uhm she’s doing something that’s why I’ll come home alone today.”

“Is she with someone?”, I raised an eyebrow.

“No oppa. She’s probably alone now. She’s doing some research now and practicing for our art project. She’s having a hard time doing it.”, she explained.

“Really? What is it?”

“There are different kinds of projects given to each student and unfortunately, painting is assigned to her. She’s never good at that so she’s having a hard time practicing and gathering techniques. She’s going to be busy until she finish the project.”, she pouted.

“May I know where she is?”

Yeonmi bit her lower lip and scratched her head.

“I really wanted to tell you where she is right now but she’ll be mad at me if I did. You know, when I left with Taemin last morning, she didn’t talk to me the whole day. Sorry oppa…”, she bowed.

“No it’s okay. I understand.”, I smiled.

“You know I can’t understand why Yerin doesn’t like you. You’re actually nice.”

I chuckled on what she said.
“I can’t understand that either… I’ll go ahead now. I’ll try to find Yerin.”

“Okay. Goodluck.”, she smiled and waved.

I turned around but she called me again. I turned back and faced her.

“Oppa… If you’re really serious on her, don’t give up. You have my vote.”, she put her thumb up.

“I really won’t don’t worry.”, I smiled and started walking away again.

I don’t know where to start finding her and I don’t have an idea either on where she could be right now. Though she’s researching, I’m sure she’s not in the library because she can’t paint there.

I looked around the corridor hoping to see her but instead of her, I saw a familiar boy.

‘This very reliable boy… Maybe he could help.’

I smirked and walked towards him.

“Hey Jaesun, long time no see.”, I stopped in front of him and waved a hand.

“What do you need now?”, he backed a few steps away, like I did something traumatizing to him before.

“Why are you afraid of me now? I didn’t even hurt you once.”, I chuckled and stepped closer to him.

“Stop bothering me now. I already gave you her number and I even gave you a selca of her. You know how hard to find it secretly? And do you know how much I get nervous everytime she would talk to me?”

“But I’m just going to ask you now if you have seen Yerin.”

“No. I haven’t seen her. I’ll go now.”, he tried to pass beside me but i held his shoulder to stop him.

“Not so fast dude… I still have more to ask.”

“What else?!?”, he whined frustratedly.

“About your art project, are you good at painting?”, I asked.

Yerin needs help on her project right now because she’s having a hard time.

“No, I can’t! And I have my own project so I can’t help you with that.”, he tried to step away again but I stopped him again.

“If you can’t, just do something for me.”

“Not anymore. I’m not bullying that guy anymore so you don’t have anything to tell her anymore.”, he grinned.

“Oh really? Good for you. But you know? Yerin is asking me about my source of hr number and her picture. I think she’s really mad about it. She even told me that whoever my source is…. TSK TSK TSK.”, I shook my head made a slashing motion on my neck to scare him.

“I don’t believe you you’re just scaring me.”, his grin earlier faded and replaced with a scared look.

“Then don’t believe. Want to try?”, I took out my phone from my pocket.

“Just a dial away… I wonder what she will do to that ‘source of mine’. She looks quite scary when she told that to me.”, I pretended to dial Yerin’s number, occasionally looking on Jaesun’s scared expression.

“Fine! What will I do?!”, he yelled.

I smirked and put my phone back to my pocket.

“Since she’s painting… I’m sure she has a canvass. Get her canvass and take it to me. That’s all you have to do and the rest of work is mine.”, I smiled.

“What?!? Are you crazy? How will I get her canvass? She’ll kill me if she find out.”

“Double kill if you failed. So go now. I need it tomorrow so I could start working on it already. Don’t worry you can do it.”

“If I fail here, I swear, I’ll kill you too.”, he glared at me.

“Whatever. Remember not to get caught.”

“This will be the last!”, he yelled.

“Yeah, Yeah. Go now.”, I shooed him with my hands.

------

I cleared all things on placed on my living room table then laid the art tools that I just bought. I arranged it carefully and checked if it’s complete.

‘Comeplete!  READY!’

I sat on the couch and in front of me is the canvass that Jaesun secretly took from Yerin. I don’t know how he did it and I don’t care. Luckily, according to Yeonmi, Yerin haven’t noticed that her canvass is missing because she got busy on other stuffs.

I positioned the canvass and looked at it. There’s some unfinished figures and blots on it already made by Yerin.

I stretched my hands, then my head, side to side then took a deep breath.

‘Start!’

I smiled then passed the canvass to Taemin who’s sitting beside me and looking at me weirdly.

“What’s the stretching for? As if you’re the one going to work hard painting this.”, he rolled his eyes and took the canvass from me.

“Duh?! I’m sure it would take long before that painting got finished so that means I’m going to wait and sit here for too long. That’s why I need some stretching.”

“You took the canvass from noona then pass it to others to do it.”, he sighed.

“Of course, I’m not good at painting. I don’t even have an idea how to do it.”

“I’m not good at this either.”

I chuckled. “That’s why you brought your girlfriend here, remember? I know she’s good at this. Right, JaeHee?

Jaehee smiled and bowed shyly. “Yeah. I’ll do my best.”

“Komawo~ You can start now.”, I smiled and watch Taemin’s girlfriend start the painting.

“Hyung, seriously, I’m doing almost all the work on your plans for noona. I should receive a big payment for this if you succeeded.”, Taemin said.

“You’ll receive anything you want IF I succeeded so just continue helping me.”

“Make sure of that… aishhh… even my girlfriend got involve on this.”, he said then cuddled Jaehee who’s sitting beside me.

She just giggled then continued painting.

“AISHHH… Will you two stop being love birds in front of me?”, I threw Taemin a pillow.

“Jealous, hyung?”, Taemin grinned.

“I’ll soon get mine so why am I going to be jealous.”, I made a face and looked away.

--Yerin’s POV—

“Yeonmi, have you seen my canvass? I just left it for a few days and now I can’t find it anymore.”, I told Yeonmi as I dig in the stuffs on my room.

“Uhmmm… I’m sure you just misplaced it. Try finding it some other time.”, she told me.

“But I wanted to start doing it now. I think I should just buy a new canvass.”

“NO! I mean… you already have some unfinished figures drawn there so just wait—I mean find that canvass.”

I looked at her weirdly. “What’s your problem are you hiding something from me?”

“No… nothing. I’m just telling you what to do.”, she shook and waved his hand defensively.

I’m looking at her suspiciously and was about to ask more when suddenly, the door bell rang. I left Yeonmi for a while to open the door.

“Hi.”, Jonghyun greeted casually when I opened the door.

I thought Jonghyun will already stop after the rejection in Jeju but it’s not what happened. He would still continue to follow me around like he always do before but I think it got worst now. He became more consistent and determined. He’s not accepting defeats in our argument anymore and he won’t also stop until he made me do what he wants.

But of course, I have to keep what I have decided… to stay away from him. I believe that’s the best thing to do.

“What are you doing here?”, I asked him coldly.

“Aren’t you going to let me in first?”

“If you’re just going to bother me today, just go home. I’m busy.”, I was about to close the door but he stopped it with his hands.

“No, wait. I have something to give you.”

I just stared at him. He pulled something large and square from behind him and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”, I raised an eyebrow.

“Open it.”

I took it from him and started removing the brown paper wrapped on it. My eyes widened when I saw it was a canvass, with a beautiful painting on it. A fox was beautifully drawn on it.

“What’s this for?”, I furrowed my brows.

“I heard that you have an art project and you’re having a hard time doing it so I decided to help. That’s actually your canvass. It has some figure already so I had it covered with—“

“So this is why my canvass is missing. You took it?”, I cut him off.

“No, I didn’t. I swear.”, he said innocently.

“Whether you’re the one who took my canvass or not, I don’t care. I can’t and I don’t want to accept this. Take this with you.”, I gave the canvass back to him.

“C’mmon. It’s really made for you so take it. I won’t take this back anymore.”

“I said take it! I don’t need that. I don’t need your help and you don’t have to do this for me. Just go and take it.”, my voice raised.

“Yerin, look. I just wanted to help. I don’t have any intentions or someth—“

“Then to make this all clear, I’m not accepting your help. And for God’s sake, Jonghyun, leave me alone already! I already said no so take it as my final answer.”

He went quiet for a while looking at me. He looks calm and serious but I doubt that’s what he really. I said offensive things and I’m sure he got hurt but I need to be tough to hold myself back.

“If you don’t want to accept my help, I understand. But I won’t be taking this back with me. It’s made for you and this is your now. I’ll leave it here and the decision is yours on what will you do to it.”, he leaned the painting carefully on the door frame.

“I’ll go now.”, he bowed politely then left.

I stood there for seconds, looking at the painting he left. I do feel guilty that I yelled to Jonghyun again. I’m not really mad at him. In fact felt touched on the effort he did. I just really made myself tough and tried to cover my true feelings by acting mad.  I didn’t even thank him for the help he offered. I picked the painting up and closed the door.

“That’s a bit harsh, Yerin.”, Yeonmi said when I sat beside her.

“You know this, don’t you?”, I eyed her.

“Yes. But I let him do it because he wanted to help you which I cannot do for you even if I want to.”

“But… he doesn’t have to do this. I didn’t ask for his help.”, I bit my lip while staring at the beautiful painting.

“You don’t need to ask for it because he wanted to do it. I don’t know why you’re so mad at him, even he’s trying to be nice.”

I sighed really deep. The guilty feeling is eating me up now. Today, I admit, I’m the wrong one. My manners of thanking someone were gone just because wanted to cover up something.

‘Should I thank him?’

I’m thinking of that until night. I can’t sleep because of the guilt I’m feeling. I’m afraid to thank him because I might be carried away, be soft and eventually, wouldn’t be able to control myself. But I know I should at least show a little gratitude for his help.

I grabbed my phone, hesitant at first but I ended up dialing his number.

“Yerin…”, he called softly when he picked up.

“I still have my manners. I just wanted to thank you for the help. But I’m not going to use that painting for my project. I can’t pass that because it’s not my work.”, I said coldy.

I heard a soft chuckle on the other line. “I said you can do whatever you wanted to that painting, it’s your now anyway. Thank you for saying thank you…”

“And… I just wanted to… to say sorry for yelling instead of thanking you.”, I trailed off as I finish my sentence.

“You don’t have to say sorry, I’m not mad because of that. I totally understand you. Hearing you thanking me is enough.”, he chuckled softly.

“BUT that doesn’t mean we’re okay now. You still have to stay away from me. This won’t work. It’s already done.”, I told him before I completely softened and got carried away.

“About that, I can’t promise you that. And I already told you it isn’t done yet. It doesn’t end on a simple NO from you.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. I breathe in and out when I felt my eyes went warm and became misty.

“Yerin. I like you and you can’t change that.”, he said in a gentle voice.

I immediately ended the call before he could say more things that could affect me. I closed my eyes tightly to remove the mistiness on it. I buried my face on my pillow and tried my best to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jonghyun: Anyyeong readers~! You all know who am i right? *whispers* Let's have a little business here. Don't tell author-nim.ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ. You all know know how much i love Yerin, right? I seriously wanted to be with her already but this selfish author won't let us. So this is what we're going to do.... *gathers you all to form a big conference circle* Help me tell Yerin to give in already, I seriously can't wait longer. AND help me convince our selfish author to make us together already....

JJsayKimchi: HEY JJONG! What are you telling my readers?!?

Jonghyun: Nothing. We're just having some chat. *winks at you*

SORRY FOR THE DRAMATIC CHAPTERS... i don't want these too but the story needs it.

THANKS FOR READING ♥