After Jessica stormed out, she headed straight into her room. The tears that threatened to spill over had done so and she raised a hand to get rid of them. The last time she had cried was when she left her home to come live with Yoona and that wasn’t even the same kinds of tears. She didn’t want to recall the last time she had cried due to someone else. It hurt too much for her.

She was fed up with Jiyong not listening; this was the second time now. He kept on assuming things and Jessica would’ve thought that after the first time he had learned not to jump to conclusions.

Jessica understood that the picture may have brought back unwanted memories but he had no right to let it out on her. That picture was the last piece to the puzzle that Jessica was struggling to piece together. By now she had figured out that the girl must have done something to make Jiyong be so hostile about relationships.

She lied down on the bed and rubbed her eyes. Her tears had stopped by that point, for which she was glad about.

She didn’t know what she was doing at this point. Nothing made much sense to her anymore. She had no idea what she was doing with Jiyong and what she wanted to accomplish with it because all that this ordeal was giving her was headaches.

Jessica couldn’t believe that she actually agreed to marry a man she had never met before. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was to do that. Then she had to go and try to get back at Jiyong which resulted in even more headaches. It was dumb of her, really. She had agreed to so many things over the years that it almost became an immediate response.

Then there’s the cherry to top the cake: she had agreed to a plan for Jiyong to fall in love with her. Even in her head that plan made no sense. What was she going to do after that? After he found out that Jessica was Sooyeon what would he do?

Flipping over she groaned into her pillow. What was the point exactly of her doing this? She didn’t love Jiyong enough to go through so much for him. Sure, she had her hopes of fixing their marriage but when she came to the city, those thoughts disappeared.

Oh yeah, she thought. Her parents: the reason for almost all her decisions in life. She given up becoming a designer to support her parents, she had thrown away love to spend more time with her family and she had married a guy she didn’t know to please none other than her parents.

Her thoughts were disturbed when there was a knock on her door. Sitting up, she figured there could only be one person that would look for her. Ignoring the knocks she dropped down on the bed again. Even after a minute of ignoring, the knocks continued.

She grunted and stood up. She walked up to the door and stood in front of it, not opening it yet.

“What’d you want?” she snapped.

“Can we talk, please?” The voice she knew clearly as Jiyong’s pleaded.

“Why should we? When you’re going to keep interrupting me?” She rested her back on to door.

“Look, I’m sorry about that. It’s just, I can get a bit snappy sometimes, and these past few days have been,” he paused, “stressful to say the least. So, please-- I apologize for not letting you talk and I won’t do it again but can I please come in and talk face to face? I don’t necessarily enjoy talking with a door in-between us.”

Jessica shut her eyes and sighed. Then she pushed herself off the door and opened it revealing a very frazzled looking Jiyong. His hair looked like he had been running his hand through it continuously and he looked genuinely sorry.

Leaving the door open she walked back into the room and sad on her bed. She heard Jiyong close the door and when she looked up she saw him sitting right in front of her on the window seat. She waited for him to start talking but when he didn’t she sighed.

“Alright, what do you want to talk about?”

His eyes snapped to hers, “I, thought maybe you—I wanted to give you a proper chance to explain.”

She shifted her gaze away from his and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, “I didn’t mean to snoop through your things. I just thought that since I’ve been in your closet before that you wouldn’t mind and then I tripped on the box there.  I saw a picture that flew out the box and picked it up. I guess a part of it was my fault as well for even looking at the picture but I couldn’t help myself, I’m sorry.”

He shook his head softly, “It’s fine. It was my fault that I overreacted.”

Jessica nodded slowly. She didn’t know if it would be wrong of her to ask the question that was on her mind but before she could even think about it Jiyong spoke up.

“What do you want to know? I can see it on your face.”

She bit her lip and tried to think of the right way to say it.  “Does that girl have anything to do with the things I’ve been hearing?”

He chuckled and rested his back against the wall, “So you’ve heard things?”

She nodded, “Just stuff like you don’t have a good past with women and stuff.”

He grimly nodded, “That I don’t have. And to answer your question, yes that girl does. It’s quite a funny story.”

Jessica looked at him; he was looking off into the distance, lost in his own world. She saw the pain etched into his eyes, it was clear as daylight. Whatever the girl did, it hurt him and a lot.

“She was my girlfriend in high school,” Jiyong spoke up. “I loved her. And I know that high school romances rarely work out but I believed it would. She was my everything and I would’ve done anything for her. We knew each other for a while before we started dating and she was my best friend before my girlfriend.”

He paused, letting all the memories of her come back. Jessica saw a look on his face that she had only read about. It portrayed so much sentiment that Jessica had no doubt that he loved this girl with all his heart. Then suddenly he let out a bitter laugh.

“It lasted for a year before everything broke apart. As much as I loved her she apparently despised me. Funny thought, isn’t it? We’re together for a year and I’m thinking about all these plans for the future, for our future but it turns out that it was just a joke to her.”

He took a deep breath and wiped a tear that had fallen. Jessica had the urge to wipe the other tears that were trailing down his cheek but she restrained herself. He blinked a few times and regained himself.

“It was a bet,” was all he said.

Jessica’s jaw dropped, she couldn’t believe it. She stared disbelievingly at Jiyong, hoping he had just said some sort of joke but the punch line never came. That broke her heart, Jiyong loved the girl so much and she had been dating him for only a bet.

“Funny, huh?” he croaked and looked at Jessica. She shook her head and went to sit next to him.

She wrapped her arms around him; she felt him go rigid but ignored it and continued to hug him. A few seconds later he loosened up and wrapped his arms around her while resting his head on the crook of her neck. 

“No,” she whispered. “It’s not funny.”

“It would’ve been our anniversary tomorrow,” he murmured after a few seconds. “And that’s not even the best part; it’s also the same day my mom left us.”

Jessica was utterly baffled. What kind of girl did something like that? That was so cruel. She wondered what Jiyong saw in the girl to love her that much.

She didn’t like seeing Jiyong this sad; she had to do something to make him happy again. She wasn’t used to this kind of Jiyong and she had never dealt with sad people before. She hoped she was doing it right.

She pulled apart and looked at Jiyong who straightened up as well.

“So it’s decided,” she said as she slammed her hand on the seat.

He gave her a quizzical look, “What’d you mean?”

“We,” she pointed at Jiyong with a determined look, “are going to hang out today. As much as I would like to see you in pain, this isn’t the kind I want. I’d much rather it be me who caused that pain and since it wasn’t me, then it’s unacceptable. That is why we are going to get you back to your old self once again.” She had no idea what kind of idiotic things were sprouting from but it seemed to work on lifting Jiyong’s mood so she went with it.

“What about your project?”

She waved that idea away, “Whatever, who cares about that. We have enough time to work on it later.” She stood up from the seat and held her hands out.

Jiyong stared at them like it was his first time seeing hands. She moved her hands closer to where his hands were and he seemed to get the picture. He grabbed her hands and she pulled him up. She let go of his hands and pushed him to get him to keep moving. She stopped when they reached his room.

“What?” he asked, “Weren’t we gonna hang out?”

She glanced at his clothes and pursed her lips, “In your pajamas?”

He looked down at his clothes then back at Jessica and grinned, “I’ll be back in a sec.”

She nodded as he opened his door and entered his room. She turned around and went back into her room. As soon as she closed the door she leaned her back on it and slid down to the floor.

“What’re you doing, Jessica?” she asked herself. She had practically said that she didn’t like Jiyong earlier and now she was doing this.

     She didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like she hung out with guys often; she had no experience with this. She thought about taking back the offer but that would be too mean, she had blurted it out and now she had to face the consequences.

Having no other choice she rung up Tiffany.

“Hey, girl! How’s it going with the Kwon family?”

“I just asked Jiyong out to a date and have no idea what to do,” she decided to cut straight to the chase. She counted, three…two…o-

“What?” Tiffany exclaimed. “You what? Did I hear a date? You actually asked him out on a date? Wow, you grew up so fast.”

“It’s not really a date. I asked him to hang out in the spur of the moment and have no idea what to do now.”

“Uh-uh, I heard you say date and a date it is,” and she squealed so loudly that Jessica’s eardrums were about to burst.

Jessica moved the phone away from her ears and when it seemed like the squealing had ended she cautiously raised it to her ears again. “Are you going to help me or not? Jiyong’s gonna be ready any minute now and I have no idea what to do.”

“Wait, the date is right now?” Tiffany asked, totally ignoring the situation at hand.

“Yes, now please help,” begged Jessica.

“Okay, okay I got you,” Tiffany replied and proceeded to tell Jessica of a date that Jiyong wouldn’t be able to forget. She didn’t say anything too fancy but Tiffany knew that it would make Jiyong smile.

After Jessica hung up and made sure she looked presentable there was a knock on her bedroom door. “One sec,” she called.

Opening the door she was met with the good looking Jiyong, who was dressed in a jean jacket, a white shirt, black pants, and a beanie. She had to admit, he worked that beanie very well.

“Ready for this date?” she blurted and instantly regretted it.

“Date?” he asked, a grin forming on his previously serious face.

“Huh? Who said anything about a date?” She pushed past him and entered the hall, trying to hide her red face. “Let’s go.”

~~~

Monday, July 6, 2015

Update 3 of 3! Hope you enjoyed reading it =)