Chapter 15

What do I mean to you?

Hyuna was the first to look away.  She couldn’t take it anymore.  Junhyung’s stare was too strong and overwhelming to her.  She could feel her stomach twist and turn in knots and her cheeks turn bright red.  At this moment, all she wanted to do was to hide away in a corner.  But as she was about to stand up, Junhyung stood up too and placed his hand on her arm.

“Hyuna why are you always running away?”  He asked.  “Can’t you be honest with yourself?”

She wanted to get away because she had no idea how to act in front of Junhyung anymore, plus at this moment, she was too stunned to say anything to him. 

“Junhyung stop playing around.”  She said finally.  Hyuna didn’t know if she was irritated at Junhyung or irritated at herself for feeling so helpless against him.

“I’m not playing around.”  Junhyung let go of her arm and continued to say, “Are you afraid of what other people think?”

That was partly true.  A small part of Hyuna didn’t want Jihyun to get the satisfaction of getting her and Junhyung together.  But then again, Junhyung’s actions were always hard to decipher.

“Yes I am.  You’re always going around and implying to other people that we are together.  But you’ve taken it too far today.”  She blurted angrily, biting on her lips.  It would be fine if he was only doing that to , but then he would act nicer than normal friends would.  She could never tell if his actions were actually sincere. 

A librarian came over to Junhyung and Hyuna, noticing their voices were disrupting the quiet atmosphere of the library.  She said politely to the both of them, “Please keep your voices down or continue your conservation outside the library.”

Hyuna then proceeded to pack her things on the table and began to head out of the library, leaving Junhyung behind.

Sohyun, after her project meeting with Dongwoon, had looked all over the school looking for Hyuna after she hearing a piece of very bad news.  Remembering that she saw both Hyuna and Junhyung at the tennis courts, she wandered there.  But she couldn’t find them, and bumped into Doojoon instead who had just finished up his soccer practice. 

“Hi Sohyun, what are you doing here?”  He asked.

“Looking for Hyuna.  Have you seen her?”  Sohyun said impatiently.  “I need to tell her something.”

“Yeah, she should be the library.  What’s wrong?”  He asked, seeing how unsettled Sohyun was.  It seemed like something urgent or else he would prefer that his two clueless friends had more alone time together.

“Ok, I’ll go check there.  Don’t worry Doojoon, its about our dance team.  But I’m surprised you don’t know about it,” Sohyun said as she hurried in the direction of the library.

She bumped into the both of them just as they were walking out of the library.  Junhyung greeted Sohyun briefly before heading off to his own class.

The air between them was definitely odd.  Junhyung had left without saying anything to Hyuna.  Sohyun linked her arms with Hyuna as she walked beside her.

But for the moment, there was something else that Sohyun was more worried about.

“Hyuna, are you heard? Our dance team might not be able to complete in this year’s competition.” 

Sohyun and Hyuna were both in the girl’s dancing team at school and they had been practicing for an upcoming competition.  But there were rumours that only one team was allowed to enter this year, so that meant either the girls’ or boys’ team had to drop out. 

After Sohyun had explained this to Hyuna, she seemed to be preoccupied and didn’t seem to have been listening to her and Sohyun nudged her a bit. Something had happened between Hyuna and Junhyung, Sohyun just knew it.  Only she didn’t know what exactly at had happened.  But whatever Junhyung said or did, it had shocked Hyuna so much she couldn’t even response to Sohyun properly. 

“Did you hear what I just said Hyuna?” 

“Umm yeah.  What are we going to do? Did they say which team was being dropped?”  She asked.

“No word about it yet.  The student committee is going to sort it out apparently.  I’m surprised that Doojoon didn’t know about it, considering he is the student president.  We’re probably going to get more information from Jihyun.  I just can’t believe they decide this at the last moment when we’ve practiced so much for it already!”

“Have you forgotten already?” 

A voice from behind called.  Doojoon looked around to see Jihyun staring back at him. 

He tensed his eyebrows together.  “What did I forget?”

“That you’re on the school committee.”  She replied with her judging eyes, arms crossed.

Jihyun knew that Doojoon had missed the lunch time school committee meeting and went to soccer training again no doubt.  There were still so many things that were yet to be resolved and she honestly didn’t know how to handle it. 

First of all, the budget had been cut and it meant that it was impossible for both the girl and boy dance teams to enter the annual Seoul dance competition.  It cost a lot to enter the competition and it just wasn’t going to work for both teams to enter.  There was also the upcoming school music event and the schedule for that was yet to be sorted properly.

It must have just hit him because he immediately looked to Jihyun with a remorseful expression, “Sorry Jihyun, I completely forgot.  You conducted the council meeting in my stead, didn’t you?”

She didn’t answer him, but Doojoon knew how Jihyun was.  She was impeccable and always handled things with elegance and flair.  Doojoon had always felt at ease with her as her right hand man.

“It would be good if you actually did your job for once.”  She said, pushing the notebook against his chest.  “I wrote down the things we discussed in the meeting and things you need to follow up with the teachers.  It’s mainly about getting permission for the next school event.  The dance competition stuff hasn’t been resolved either.”

“Can we just swap places forever?  I’ll be too happy to be your vice president.  I’m not worthy as school president.” 

“No thanks.”  She said coldly.  And then added a compliment, “You’re much more better at motivating and socializing with people, which is what the school president should do.  The rumours have gotten around by now, so expect people from dance teams to start bugging you about this.”

Doojoon shook his head in disagreement, and whispered into her ear like it was a secret, “I’m just good at making up things on the spot that seem somewhat believable to people.  I’ll catch you later to discuss all of this, ok?” 

He then waved good bye to Jihyun and disappeared down the corridor.

She ju