Jessica felt a hand touch the 'End' button and grab her phone. Startled, she looked up thinking it was either Yoona or Tiffany. 

"What?" she snapped, turning towards the direction of the person.

But it was neither; it was a male who looked like he was in his early twenties and had a baby face. His hair covered his forehead and was slightly swept to one side. He had a grin on his face that Jessica didn’t know how to respond to. He was wearing a blue button up shirt that was tucked into his jeans. Even Jessica, who normally didn't care about looks, found this guy to be like a flower boy straight from one of those Korean dramas.

 She didn’t recall ever seeing him before. She would definitely remember a face like that. She became automatically shy, unable to make a peep until, that is, Tiffany came barreling around the corner, only slowing her pace as she reached closer, whacking the guy hard on the shoulder.

"You weren't supposed to walk ahead! I was just admiring those shoes, no harm done!" Looking at her friend she said, "He is so impatient," while rolling her eyes.

Jessica was without a doubt confused. Tiffany knew this guy, but just who was he? It seemed like Tiffany was all too comfortable with him.

“So…” Tiffany looked at Jessica, realizing that Jessica knew nothing about the guy, “Jessica, I was going to do this another way but mister hot shot over here decided to ruin my plan.”

Jessica glanced at the guy and saw him smiling playfully, their eyes met and he winked at her. She looked away quickly and could hear him chuckling.

“Jessica, meet Joongki, the next part of my plan,” Tiffany pointed at him and he smiled back at her.

“Hello Jessica, it’s definitely a pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman. By the way, I don’t know if I should be proud of being part of this plan or not. What do you think? Was it a good decision?”

 “Joongki, you stay quiet for a sec,” Tiffany hushed him before he could say anymore. “Jessica, I need you to hear me out on this.”

That was what gave Jessica the ability to speak once again. “Wait one second here. Just what plan are you talking about? And how come you still my phone?”

Apparently, Joongki also didn’t realize that either as he hurriedly started to look for it. He put it in his pocket earlier and forgot to return it to her; he reached out and passed the phone back. “Here you go, sorry for that,” he said playfully.

How can someone say that playfully? She wondered, but somehow he made it work. She grabbed the phone and looked back at Tiffany.

“Let me explain,” she said before Jessica could say anything. Jessica didn’t know if she really wanted to. She didn’t want her suspicions coming true. But she nodded anyway.

Tiffany motioned them both to sit on the picnic table and then sat across from them. For a while the three sat there not uttering a word. Tiffany was staring at the ground looking distracted and the other two were waiting for her to talk. Then she looked at each of them and took a deep breath.

“So you know that Joongki is part of my new plan but I didn’t really get to explain. Jiyong said that he’s falling for you but I know that getting him to actually confess is going to be a hard task. And I know I told you to get alone with Jiyong, but then I thought about it and if you two do end up alone together what are you going to do? Call him out on it? Act like nothing happened?”  She looked at Jessica who was taken back and was opening to reply however Tiffany continued on.

“You wouldn’t know what to do, right? That’s why I came up with a plan!” she snapped her fingers and raised her hand in the air. Joongki couldn’t help but chuckle.

“This guy,” she pointed, “is meant to make Jiyong jealous.” She held up her hand when Jessica was about to speak, successfully keeping her quiet. “He will pretend to act very close to you every time Jiyong is near, thus making Jiyong jealous. When he realizes what he’s feeling he’ll understand what he said before wasn’t something that was just said in the spur of the moment.”

At the moment Joongki decided to in, “what happens if we really do get close? Like really close?” he asked. They both turned to face him and saw a playful smirk on.

Everything about this guy seems playful, thought Jessica.

“Joongki,” warned Tiffany, giving him a stern look. He replied by giving a dramatic response with him raising both hands and giving an expression of feigned hurt. Tiffany shook her head and turned back to Jessica.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s always like that,” she sent him a glare and he smiled in return. “What I was saying is that Jiyong will realize his undying love for you and confess again! It’s the perfect plan!”

Jessica stared at Tiffany with an ‘are-you-serious’ face. She opened to speak then felt something hit her. She looked around and saw that it had started to rain slightly.

Tiffany yelped and got up, “Oh my gosh, this just had to happen! Jessica lets go to your house so we can talk more about this.”

Jessica nodded and also got up along with Joongki. They all rushed to Tiffany’s car and got in. By that time the rain started to get harder and it was almost pouring.

As they drove to Jessica’s everyone listened to the radio that was on and decided it was best to continue their discussion at Jessica’s. When they got there Tiffany stood in front of the door and turned towards Joongki.

“So this is Jessica’s apartment. She lives with her friend Yoona.” The other two gave Tiffany a weird look. Jessica chose to ignore Tiffany’s obviousness and opened the door. They entered and showed Joongki around.

“Nice and cozy,” he said, setting himself on the couch. They all sat there not knowing how to continue the conversation then Jessica stood up, “I’ll go get some drinks.” Joongki also stood up, “I’ll come with you.” He said walking behind her.

“Let’s get to know each other,” he added with a smile when he caught up to her.

She looked up him and saw that they were uncomfortably close. She took a step back and studied him. She concluded that he wasn’t a bad guy. Tiffany wouldn’t be friends with a bad guy, would she? She decided to go with her gut, so she gave a smile and nodded up at him.

As they were in the kitchen getting out drinks they heard the door open and could hear voices. Jessica recognized them instantly.

“Hey Tiff, I just kind of ended up tagging along but it started raining so we came back here.”

"It's seriously pouring out there."

"I brought my umbrella but these two dummies didn't look at the weather forecast this morning."

Jiyong, she thought, and it seemed like Seunghyun and Yoona were there too.

Joongki saw the stricken look on Jessica’s face and figured it out, “That’s Jiyong isn’t it?”

She whipped her head in his direction, almost forgetting his presence, and nodded. Slowly forming a smile Joongki walked closer to her. He had come up with something.

“WJessica have some fun?” She looked confused so Joongki decided to demonstrate it for her. He placed an arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

She almost yelled in surprise but fortunately kept it in. She looked up at him, “What are you doing?”

“We’re supposed to make him jealous, right?” He smirked. “Let’s do just that.”

“But I’m not good with these things,” she replied helplessly. She was honestly worried. She didn’t know if the response they were going to get would be the same as the one she hoped.

“You’ve been doing fine ‘till now and I know you’ll do a perfect job.” He said softly and added another one of his charming smiles. She took a deep breath and nodded. This is going to work. Oh God, I sure hope it does, she prayed.

They both walked in the living room pretending they didn’t know what was happening. Joongki told Jessica a joke on their way that caught her off guard but couldn't help but laugh anyway. When they reached the living room everything died down. They looked at everyone as they got similar responses. At the back Jessica could see Tiffany trying to hide a grin while the other three had their mouths agape.

They all stared for what seemed like an eternity when Jessica decided she didn’t like the silence, “Guys this is a friend of mine. His name’s Joongki.”

He let go of her waist and waved to them as they all stared back with appalled faces. Tiffany went closer to Yoona whispered something in her ear and instantly she loosened up. Then Yoona went ahead and was the first of the three to greet him, “Hi, It’s a pleasure to meet you. I can’t believe we’ve never met before.”

Joongki smiled back, “Hi, I’m happy that Jessica finally decided to introduce us.”

Jessica could see that Seunghyun and Jiyong we’re still in shock but then Yoona jabbed Seunghyun in the ribs and he also mumbled a greeting Joongki.

However Jiyong just stood there scowling at Joongki.

Seconds later a great boom of thunder erupted and everyone jumped.

Seunghyun wrapped his arms around Yoona, Tiffany covered her ears and Joongki, who was the closet to Jessica, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her close. Jiyong on the other hand was going up to Jessica but was too late. He didn’t know what he should do so he stood there.

Joongki murmured a soft, “Are you okay?” at Jessica and she nodded back. They looked up to see Jiyong glaring once again. Joongki loosened his grip on her a bit only to lean in closer and whisper in her ear, “I’m guessing you’re getting the response you wanted?”

She chuckled. She saw from her peripheral vision that Jiyong was shooting daggers at Joongki. He really needs to be less obvious. She laughed again realizing that Jiyong was definitely jealous. She wondered if he would ever admit to it.

But even then she felt happy, knowing that his feeling weren’t impetuous. 

Joongki let go of Jessica and walked closer to the windows. He looked outside and saw that it looked like a storm was brewing.

"I don't think it's very safe to go outside in this weather," he informed everyone. "If anyone was thinking of going home that is," he added when he saw them giving him weird glances.

As Jessica was watching Joongki walking around something struck her; their wedding picture was still up. That was the reason that they never wanted Jiyong to ever enter their apartment and they totally forgot about it.

Luckily it seemed like Jiyong enjoyed glaring at Joongki more than looking around so he didn't notice the clearly visible wedding portrait.

Her eyes widened when Joongki was inching closer to the picture as he talked to Tiffany about having some sort of sleepover. Luckily she caught Joongki's eyes. She pointed out the picture with eye signals and somehow Joongki understood her crazy signals. He looked at picture secretly and his eyes widened slightly and then looked back at Jessica. He gave her knowing nod that he knew what to do. While seamlessly keeping up the conversation with Tiffany and not growing any suspicion.  

Joongki knew that he needed to get away from the picture but he was trapped as Yoona, Tiffany, Seunghyun and Jiyong all stood around him. Making it almost impossible to move so the attention didn’t wander to the picture.

Jessica realized that Joongki was trapped and called out to Jiyong. She needed to come up with a plan, quick.

"Hey Jiyong, can I talk to you for a second?"  Oh my god, she panicked, what had she just done?

He swirled his head to her and looked shocked that she would call her.

"Yeah, sure,” he nodded.

She nodded her head towards the direction of the kitchen and he started walking.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked when they stopped. He looked like he regretted saying that. His eyes drifted to every place but her.

"I," she hadn't really thought that far. Oops.  "Umm… about yesterday," she started, but was-- to Jessica's relief and Jiyong’s annoyance-- interrupted by Tiffany who came barging in.

"Hey guys! We're deciding what to do for today, since it looks like there's a hurricane outside! And no one is going anywhere. So it would be great if you could join us."

Jessica sent her a grateful smile and she winked in return. Jiyong murmured something under his breath that Jessica couldn't quite catch, and walked ahead.

Tiffany came up to Jessica and let out a big gulp of air, "Oh my goodness, if he saw that picture. My whole plan would have been ruined!"

"How is it that I'm the only one who noticed? What if he really did see that picture?" Jessica whispered loudly. She didn't want to take the chance of Jiyong hearing.

"I know, I know. We're lucky to have you!" Tiffany patted Jessica on the back. "There's nothing to worry about now though," she said as she walked back towards the living room.

"Really? You sure about that?" Jessica raised her eyebrows but followed Tiffany's lead anyway.

 Oh boy. This is going to be one heck of a long night.

~~~

Sunday, April 26, 2015

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Tuesday, June 23, 2014

mycatWalter: kekeke... I was the one who thought of Joongki to become the newest character of The Love Bet, it happened a while back you see... *flashback*  Mar5122: "What should we add next? Any Ideas, dear chingu?" Me: "How about we add the playboy guy, that somehow knows everything, from Sungkyunkwan Scandal!?" Mar5122: "Joongki? oh hey! that could work!" *end of flashback* We both just think he is great and are glad he made it into this chapter! Thank you all for continuing to support The Love Bet!!!!

Mar5122: So first of all I had Joongki originally as part of Jessica's family but he didn't really fit so I scratched that idea. When mycatWalter mentioned him I JUST HAD TO add him. He is like my favourite actor! How could I not add him? LOL, I hoped you like this chapter!! Exams are finally over and summer vacation has now begun, YESSS! So I'll try my best to update quicker. ^_^