Chapter 8

“He-he’s,” I took a deep breath and almost ate my words. I changed my words, not being able to bring myself to ruin Mark. “Jackson, I want you to promise me something first.” I tried to buy some time as I thought of how to say this properly. He listened attentively, his piercing gaze fully capturing my focus once again.

“What would that be?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“If you promise me that you will act as if I had never told you, I will tell you who me. If you aren’t able to do that, then I just can’t.”

Jackson frowned, pausing for a second.

“Are you asking me to basically watch the person who took advantage of you every single damn day and do nothing about it? If that’s what you were thinking, then don’t think for a second that it will happen,” he whispered with his deep and serious voice. “Whoever did this to you… I’m going to kill him. He will regret his every action, his very life.” Jackson put his hand on either of my shoulders.

“Then I’m afraid that I can’t tell you,” I simply uttered, our eyes locked together again. “Look, you have to trust me that it’s best that you never find out.” I moved his hands away from my shoulder and pushed him to the wall with my chest.

My arm was wrapped around his neck now, gently rubbing the back of his head. I pressed my left cheek against his soft skin, as my mouth practically let out breathes near his ear.

I felt his bitterness and I could tell that he didn’t like my reasoning.

I kissed his prominent jaw line and paused before continuing what I was saying.

“You’re debuting soon and I don’t want you to get in any trouble,” I explained with a soft voice ringing near his ear. “I know for a fact that if I told you, you wouldn’t be able to control yourself.”

“But Lina I-”

“I want to forget that night altogether. And the only way I can escape that nightmare is if I forget who that person who did it to me is. I don’t want to be reminded every single day about his mistake. I’m still trying to forgive him, even if it takes years to do so,” I said, keeping his warm cheek near. His heavy sigh could be heard as his chest lifted, his hand grabbing the left side of my torso. Twitching and letting out a sigh of uncomfortable feelings, Jackson immediately let go, understanding that I was still under a lot of trauma.

“I have a question,” he began. I moved away and turned my ear to his mouth as he continued to whisper. “Did he hurt you? Did he?... I need to know.”

I scoffed sarcastically, in a way, trying to not make the descussion all too dramatic.

“I’m scared for life,” I simply put out. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to remove my fear of men anymore.”

Jackson closed his eyes, probably out of pity for me. He stood there for a good two minutes, almost as if he were trying to contain his anger. Seeing the tension between us had become too much to handle, I came close to him again, but this time, allowed my hand slide down his back into his pocket. Jackson jolted in surprise when feeling a tickle in his behind.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked referring to the awkward position I had put myself in. I pulled out a bag of chips that Jackson had stuffed into his pocket and showed it to him.

“This is mine now,” I claimed, trying my best to shifts subjects as smoothly as possible. Though it came out kind of randomly. I opened to the bag of chips and began gobbling it down my throat like a seriously famished child. “This is for the baby, he’s hungry.”

“Ya sure, giving excuses just to hide that you’re the one who eats like a pig,” he added mischievously, pushing my shoulder lightly. I ignored him and continued to eat madly. I could hear him sort of laughing at me. But it didn’t take long for his died expression to return, exposing his bitterness, his gloom.

“Jackson,” I called him out, making him shoot up a tired gaze. I began to cough, pieces of the chips clogging my throat. Jackson tapped my back to make an airway, treating me with a newfound gentleness that I didn’t even know existed in him.

“Careful! Gosh! How am I supposed to trust you to protect yourself if you’re always so careless?”

I rushed in regaining my composure from the coughing, going back to the serious expression I had previously.

“I’ll be fine.” I tapped my chest to recover from all the heavy breathing.

“Lina,” he called out again, wanting to ask another question. It was as if he wanted to ask me so many of them. “What about the baby?”

Being reminded about the baby felt like being slapped back into reality; unpleasant and very hurtful. My hand crept up to touch my belly. It was still pretty flat, not even a sign of growth had even started yet.

“Well I guess I’ll have to live with what God gave me, right?” I tried to say with a small amount of energy to fill in the void. Jackson frown, seemingly unsatisfied with my answer.

“What about you’re career? How are you supposed to debut with a freaking baby, Lina?” His voice began to rise with a slight vibration cracking through his throat.

“I just won’t debut then.”

I kept my words short, not having much to say other than the obvious.

“So you’re quitting… Just like that? After three years of suffering through this hell, you’re just going to let everything drop?”

“Well what do you want me to do, Jackson?” I simply said, staring deeply into his eyes, searching desperately for an answer. All the decisions, and all the pressure I was facing was worming me down, it was overwhelming. Sighing helplessly, my fingers crumbled the small bag of chips as tight as I could.

Jackson his dry lips and rubbed his hand across his face once.

“I’m sorry, Lina. I’m just frustrated. I’m so upset that I can’t do anything for you,” he said, rubbing my right arm mildly with his perfect touch. It didn’t make any sense. Jackson, although indirectly, had done a lot for me already. Speaking to him at that moment made me feel safer and cared for. Of course I wasn’t able to tell him that, because being all sentimental just wasn’t usually my style.

Instead, I pulled his fingers open, placed the chip bag I was crumpling in his palm and pressed it all shut.

“If you feel that way, you can start helping me now by throwing this chip bag away,” I jokingly said, trying to bring back a less serious atmosphere.

“You are really something else,” frowned Jackson, not exactly laughing, but smiling dimly. “You can never stay serious for very long.”

I had a smirk plastered on my face as I began to walk out of the hallway. I stopped in my tracks when I realized that I left out a very important point that I wanted to make since the very beginning.

“Also, please don’t tell any of this to Mark. I’m afraid he’ll freak.”

“He’ll find out eventually, especially if your belly stats expanding like a balloon,” he started playing along. I nodded in disagreement, scratching the bottom of my chin.

“I don’t think that I’ll be staying here for very long. I have nothing more I can do in Korea if not for singing.”

Jackson remained silent, not a word to fight back. It surprised me that he didn’t say anything to object.

“I was thinking that I should call my parents, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the courage to do that. I don’t know… we’ll see what happens.”

After shrugging it off as if nothing mattered, I made a right turn out of the narrow hallway we were in, leaving Jackson there. It pained me for things to be this way, but I had no choice.

***

I emptied my locker in the JYP building and neatly placed my belongings in a medium sized box. It felt bitter looking through all the objects accumulated in my small space over the past few years. I finally closed it and carried the box over to the practice room where I had left my bag.

Entering the room like a breeze, I could hear whispers as I walked past the other trainees and towards the sofa where a whole bunch of bags were stacked.

“So they weren’t just rumors. She is actually leaving,” I heard someone say, although I couldn’t identify a person who did.

“Bet she did something so wrong that Park \jinYoung PD needed to kick her out,” I heard another trainee say on top of all the other voices murmuring my name as if they were actually close to being discrete.

In fact that wasn’t true at all, Park Jin Young PD did call me over to his office just the other day to discuss the rumors going around the company that I was sleeping with both Jackson and Mark. But he didn’t need to throw me out of the ompany.

“I like you, Lina. You have a wonderful voice, radiating stage presence and your dancing has improved so much. You have worked so hard and I don’t want you to have a difficult time with people judging you when it really isn’t your fault,” explained PD as I listening attentively, without uttering a word.

“So tell me, Lina, why is everyone fussing over you? Is there a reason? Are the rumors true? I called you over so you can explain yourself”

I stood still for a while, making sure that the right words were going to be conveyed.

“They are somewhat true sir,” I lied, but tried my best to make it sound credible.

“Lina, I don’t know what to say.” He seemed somewhat shocked and disappointed all at once.

“PD-nim. I know that this is weird and disappointing, but I assure you that you don’t need to worry about this anymore.”

“I don’t know…”he seemed skeptical.

“I’m going back home. I don’t want to be a singer anymore.”

I walked out the practice room, giving everyone one last glance. The trainees who hated me, somehow I felt sorry for them for being as judgmental as they were.

“I know you guys are going to miss me,” I teasingly said before walking out the room carrying both my box and my bag. It felt amusing and satisfying to confidently mock them openly to their faces, knowing they couldn’t do anything to me anymore.

Suddenly, I felt someone take away the box in my hand while I was in my Trans. My head turned in all direction to find who it was, only to see Bambam’s figure breeze past me. He walked backwards, the box between his arms, giving me a cute frown.

“You’re leaving? When are you leaving, noona?” he asked with his adorable voice that just made me feel guilty for leaving the way I was.

“We-Well…” I stuttered not sure how to respond.

“Why are you leaving so suddenly, noona?” Yugyeom continued to pressure once he popped out from behind. I didn’t know what to say, or how to explain what was essentially going on with my plans.

“You know what Lina noona? You don’t have to tell us actually. We can discuss it over dinner tonight.”

“Dinner? What dinner?”

Before he could answer my question, he started walking away with my box, so I turned to Yugyeom for an explanation.

“Jackson hyung told us that we were eating dinner with you tonight. He said that you had nothing better to do, so you’d accept even if we didn’t warn you earlier,” explained Yugyeom, a bit embarrassed by what he had just paraphrased.

“That bastard is making plans for me without my permission,” I mumbled mildly, tough deep down; I had mixed feelings about the whole idea.

“Who are you calling bastard?” said a voice from behind. From the corner of my eye, I could see Bambam backing up and joining Yugyeom, me, and dork air-head dumb ball Jackson.

“Do you see any other bastard around?” I followed the flow of the conversation, the two younger boys scoffing on the side. Jackson ignored my remark and simply smiled. No comeback, no insults. He accepted my verbal abuse, causing me feel deeply troubled. It wasn’t something I was used to.

All four of us walked a bit, opposite direction to their dorm as they were following me to mine.

I was going to miss them. These were one of the only people who ever cared about me in my life, and I was about to lose them. These thoughts lingered through my mind as we talked endlessly on our way to where I was staying.

Once we got to the front of my dorm, they left me off, leaving me the box to carry inside. The younger boys said their goodbyes, making me smile widely for their cuteness. Jackson stayed an extra second to whisper a few words in my ear. He pressed his lip near my ear and my hair. I shivered.

“I’ll come pick you up later tonight for dinner so you can get away from cleaning. I figured it’s the least I could do for somebody with no life like you.”

 I punched him on the chest lightly, smiling in the process. I was going to miss those jokes.

“I have something to tell you later. So you better be ready when I come get you. Don’t back out last minute.”

He took a few steps back with that unreasonably attractive smile of his. I was stuck in a daze just staring at him.

But the smirk he wore when running after Bambam and Yugyeom worried me. It was one of his dangerously mischievous smirks, the ones that meant he was too happy. Way too excited about whatever he was planning on telling me.

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