“You have within you more love that you could ever understand”- Rumi

Jiyong never understood romance, girls and all the things his friends always talked about.

Sure, if it was about GTAV, then he was all ears and the most passionate, it was the same with music, he could talk about different rappers and lyrics all day long but if it was about girls, he was clueless.

He… hadn’t been too harsh, had he? The thought kept crossing his mind, wondering if he should have used different words, if he shouldn’t have said anything at all, his mind couldn’t keep quiet about the argument, feeling like it was his entire fault.

“So, she rejected you? Ah, man that’s harsh” Youngbae had said after Jiyong had spilled everything.

He couldn’t do it on his own, he didn’t know what to do but now he was thinking that telling the boys wasn’t such a good idea, especially in class.

It was lunchtime so some people went to the cafeteria, but most of their class had their lunch packed and stayed in the classroom.

“Shh, you idiot, why don’t you shout it while you’re at it?” Seunghyun reprimanded, seeing how uneasy Jiyong was, but it was too late.

“You got rejected Jiyong?” a classmate asked, lifting everyone’s attention on their table.

“Who’s the chick? Who could reject Kwon Jiyong?” someone else asked, standing up to sit closer to them.

Jiyong just smiled widely, shaking his head as if to say that it was nothing but it just came off as a grimace, his eyes betraying him.

“Oh, are you crying Jiyong-ah?” he heard someone say, glancing up, he felt a tear running down his cheek and with a soft “damn”, he exited the classroom just as people started to come in from the nearing end of lunch, including Jessica.

She looked at him curiously but as his head was hung down and his steps rushed, shrugging her shoulders, she sat down in her seat her seat, furrowing her eyebrows.

Jessica wasn’t the type to feel awkward, most of the times careless and oblivious of her surroundings, protected in her own world but she could swear that she had never felt as awkward as she had that moment, everyone’s busy doing things but ignoring her in an obvious manner. No one trying to talk to her as usual, no one even looking at her but the murmurs of some of her classmates could reach her, even if they thought she couldn’t hear.

“How could she do that to him?”

“I know right, did you see his tears? Aw!”

“Huh, they’d be cute together”

Please tell me this isn’t about that, she desperately thought, anything but that.

With a hand through her hair, she distracted herself by staring at the ends of her locks, passing her fingers through it, wishing she was anywhere but there, wishing for the bell to ring fast and for everything to be lost and forgotten the next day.

Jiyong returned to class after a few minutes, sliding in his seat, coincidentally, the bell rang at the same exact time, leaving Jessica distracted for the rest of the day and the classmates with a new gossip out.

***

“You’re so pretty, Jessi! No wonder Jaejoong Oppa likes you!”

“Do you really think I like her? She’s completely off her head”

“Then why are you dating her?”

“Have you seen that body? You don’t find pretty girls like her so often!”

“Wow, who does she thinks she is? Just because she’s pretty”

“She’s so pretty but such a ”

Deep breath followed, darkness was the only thing Jessica could see right then and there, gasping for air, she could feel her sweat running down, her hair sticking down her neck, out of the ponytail she put it in before sleeping.

“Not again…” she whispered to herself, sitting up on her bed.

She looked at the time on her nightstand, it was only 2:17AM, hours to go until she had to wake up but going back to sleep wasn’t an option, not when she knew she’d go back to that dark place with all those voices, she didn’t want to feel that, not now, not ever again. But as the clock ticked and the minutes went by, she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep again after two, maybe even three hours she spent thinking and thinking over again.

***

Poke after poke, Jiyong stared at her, not knowing how to wake her up. The lesson had finished twenty minutes ago but he didn’t wake her up then, thinking she needed the sleep. The cleaning lady came in twice and even though she looked sympathetic when she saw Jessica sleeping, he knew she had to come in and clean soon.

He told Tiffany that they’d be fine, they needed to talk, but as the clock ticked, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to do that now. He was scared, did he have to open himself again? He didn’t like it, he hated being vulnerable and the worst thing of it all was that Jessica made him exactly like that. But then again, he couldn’t help but feel so helpless because every time she talked to him, or even just sat there next to him, he couldn’t stay calm and his stomach would flip, so much that it took him so much self-control to not walk away to calm himself down. He liked her so much, that even though he knew she didn’t like him that way, he had to clean everything up. Awkwardness was one thing he hated the most with people and he would have hated it more with Jessica.

It had only been two days with their talk but he could feel that he couldn’t talk to her freely like he used to just because the fact that he liked her was bothering her. He could tell when they were having a small conversation that she would just answer with yes or no, maybe nod her head a few times but she couldn’t smile or look at him the way she would just a few days before, with that glint in her eyes of complicity and familiarity. He didn’t want to lose that, not after it took him so long to get it.

“Uhm… why… didn’t you wake me up?” she asked groggily, rubbing her eyes, yawning.

“You looked tired” he simply answered, sitting on the desk.

“Oh”  was all Jessica said, not really paying attention to what he said.

She hadn’t been sleeping well again, with her father coming home a little more often than usual and these past two days, Jiyong’s outburst made her think a lot so sleep became an issue as she stayed up to think and rethink, and then when she finally did sleep, a few hour after she had to wake up again as the night already went past wasted.

Why was everything in her life becoming so complicated suddenly? She always knew what to do, what to feel and how to handle herself but why was it so difficult now? She never really minded what other people thought about her but the thought of Jiyong hating her was eating her up, she wanted nothing more than everything to go back to the way it was. Her mother being faithful, Jiyong being just nothing more than a friend or at least, for her sleep to come back, that was the only thing she asked.

“Can we talk?” Jiyong asked but both of them knew that there really wasn’t an answer to that question, they had to talk if they wanted to sort the awkwardness out. They weren’t the type of people to let just things go like that.

“I don’t know what to say” she started off.

It was true. In part, she knew what she wanted to say and everything but no words seemed to come into her mind when she thought about then, she didn’t know how to say what she did want to say and everything she had wanted to say, disappeared from her mind, completely gone, her mind blank.

“I think I overreacted” Jiyong said, fidgeting, his fingers torturing the skin close to the nail, his eyes focusing on the movement of his fingers, so intent into evading her eyes, not knowing that Jessica’s eyes where anywhere rather than on him for the same exact fear. They knew that this moment could either break their friendship or make it, they both didn’t want the first to happen but for the latter to happen, they had to be honest but honesty came to a price and honesty also came when comfortable and then, Jiyong was more comfortable in not looking at Jessica and Jessica felt more comfortable that way too. They were more similar than they made it out to be, things didn’t really need to be that hard but what would human be without complicating things for themselves.

“No, you didn’t overreact. I… ah, this is so difficult!” she blurted out, shaking her head.

Jiyong chuckled, feeling the same way.

“I was insensitive, I didn’t think about your feelings at all, like… but I don’t understand why you were so angry”.

“I like you Jessica. I really do, and it’s so weird saying it out loud, especially to you but I do and I don’t want to lose your friendship, but not liking you is so hard, so hard you don’t even realize. I felt so… humiliated and played, you knew that I liked you which made me feel like… I don’t know, I guess I was just hurt?”

Oh man, what do I do? She asked herself, biting her lip. She hadn’t been in many situations where the guy outwardly said he liked her, and in most cases a “Thank you but no” was always enough but she couldn’t bring to say those words to Jiyong, she just couldn’t. But if there was something Jessica really wanted to know was the why he liked her, that was the most important thing to her. Someone doesn’t just wake up one morning liking someone, she needed to hear the reason, to know the reason because she couldn’t see it no matter how many times she looked for it.

“Why me though?” she asked, this time her tone was flat, no accusation, no sarcasm, nothing, just pure curiosity.

“I don’t know, do you think I have a choice?” Jiyong asked, shrugging his shoulders. He stood up, turning around to face her, he had enough of looking elsewhere, the conversation wasn’t going anywhere and he needed to reach a conclusion. He couldn’t just leave it hanging today for then his feelings to be even more jumbled up than they already were.

Jessica looked at him, for the first time in these couple of days, she looked at his eyes and she could see. How uncomfortable he was, how tired he was, she could see it all.

“Is… it like being gay then?” she wondered out loud, raising an eyebrow up. Jiyong laughed, his laughter echoed in the whole room for a good two minutes, and the he let out a huge sigh. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“Is it like being gay? As in, you don’t have a choice?” he shook his head, his hand on his face.

“I guess you can look it that way. I don’t go around choosing who I like, I just do. You were there and it sort of… just happened I guess”

Something seemed to click into Jessica’s mind as she nodded and then grinned, as if something got lifted off her shoulders, she began to relax and after stretching, she stood up.

“So, what do we do then?” she asked, putting her bag on her back, they starting walking out of the classroom, more relaxed. There was nothing Jessica could really do at the moment, she didn’t like him liking her but that wasn’t up to her, it wasn’t even up to him.

“It’s okay, you know if you don’t like me” he suddenly said, his smile full of mischief as he fastens up his pace down the stairs.

“You’re okay with it?”

“I don’t understand much of this but I can tell that you like me, maybe not as much as I like you but hey, you will fall for me” he smiled, giving her a thumbs up, he walked on, leaving her like that, surprised as he always did.

His heart was lighter, he was starting to get the hang of his feelings and he was sure of his words. Jessica only needed time to like him, time to see him in a different light as he did with her and that much, he understood.

Kwon Jiyong was full of surprises and as much as she wanted to deny it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to give him a change.

Only time could tell.

***

Happy New Year guys.

Thank you for your support, for your immense Jisica love, for the lovely comments and for just being so cute and nice to me. It means the world to me.

I was going to post it a midnight but I couldn't finish it by then and then,

at 3.a.m, I didnt like what I wrote.

So I slept on it and changed a few things this morning.

A few things, I'm really sorry if this is getting so long but I need to say this.

Liking someone is something that takes time, someone might like you

and you might have never thought about them in that way

when they do tell you that they like you

you start seeing their actions so differently and they have more meaning.

I think that's what's happening, or going to happen actually, to Jessica.

You can't like someone in a day and that's what I wanted to convey, 

time is the best factor in falling for someone.

Jiyong understood this now and although he is hurt, he likes her more than he is hurt.

What do you think? Ahh, by the way!

A little spoiler: Jisica is going to have a little special moment soon.

About TopFany, I will make up for it, I'm really sorry but Jisica was priority hehe

DID YOU GUYS HEAR ABOUT YOONA DATING LEE SEUNGGGI? YOU GO GIRL.

Once again, sorry if it's so long and HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Pinch punch, first of the month

pinch punch, first of the year

Minnie xx