YOU CAN SKIP FIRST PART; I'M JUST EXPERIMENTING WITH POV FOR ANGST PROSE (BECAUSE I MISS MY ANGST)

You have survived so far without him.

He pretended to not see you again. Standing in the lobby all alone, his back was pressed against the glass wall, his body covered in dark long sleeves shirt and coat even with the approaching summer. His dark and brutish outfit only highlighted his pale elegance. Even the hatred that had twisted his young features could not mar the beauty and sometimes, you wondered what he would look like with his features softened in a gentle smile. You were starting to accept that this person wasn’t who you used to know, and that made you even more keen to see that childish smile on his scowling face.

You laughed at yourself, unable to envision such a thing, for as long as he was Zelo, he would never look at you with anything other than disdain or anguish.

He turned away now, making a snide comment, the kind you’d heard from him a thousand times before. You had nearly perfected indifference and managed to keep your tone even as you seemed powerless to keep walking, despite knowing that malice like his fed on attention. If you could truly ignore him, his hatred might just wither and die. Or perhaps, would it intensify…

You looked at him mildly, pretending casual disinterest. Your hands clenched into fists in your jacket pocket, the only sign of your tension, as you waited for him to turn, safe because he couldn’t see them.

When he turned, he smiled nastily and jeered. You tried not to hear it, the same sort of vile comment he usually made, confirming in a drawl that he did, indeed, was not who you used to know. It might have sounded pathetic if he wasn’t so good at it.

You pursed your lips even as despair washed over you. Everything you did lead you toward an inevitable confrontation that could very well end in your death. Should you happen to win, you would still face this bitter hatred, directed at you simply because of who you were and the path you chose for yourself. Some days, you thought about chucking it all, leaving everything behind and giving up on all this pain. You could be someone else other than Juniel. Maybe you could be Just Junhee. Sometimes the feeling of futility wore you down, especially when it found focus in a pair of sunken eyes that made you feel like you belonged back in the streets with only a guitar, strumming and singing for scrap money.

It didn’t matter what he said. You replied, pausing a mere foot away. “Really? And what would you do about it?” You took your hands from your pockets and forced them to relax, letting them dangle at your side, to show that you were stronger than you actually were.

It was a rhetorical question. The answer didn’t matter anyway, considering your history. Even if you had a time turner, would you really go back and change things? You expected him to snarl and stalk away after a few more curses. He surprised you.

He stalked forward and fixed you with his infamous glare. You knew he enjoyed the height advantage. When it came to him, every difference was magnified. He seemed to tower over you and you bristled as he stepped closer still, sneering. His fist brushed against your hand and his breath was warm against your skin, touching you forehead and ruffling your hair.

You wanted him to speak, to tell you something you hadn’t heard before, something besides the malicious and vile words that always seemed to lurk just beneath the beautiful surface, like a pristine pond tainted with poison, invisible at a casual glance, but deadly just the same.

Have you forgotten?

x-x-x

Junhee wanted to throw something at Zelo. One second they were doing just fine, the next they were fighting again. She hated this. And then, as Zelo stalked away, she found herself sitting alone with nothing to do. As if the day was not bad enough, the girls from T-ara came up to her, asking for help.

“You don’t mind, right?” said Hyomin with a sickeningly sweet smile. “I’m wearing heels. I might tear the tent.”

She wondered why the girl wouldn’t just take her shoes off and climb inside the tent to get whatever she dropped inside. Holding back a sigh, Junhee got up and followed them. In her peripheral vision, the staffs were still filming some other groups who were struggling.

Junhee climbed inside, looking for the pouch Hyomin was talking about.

She frowned. The tent was empty. Was this the right tent? She crawled around to face the entrance. What the–

The flap was zipped shut. Somebody closed the flap. Junhee scrambled to the front, clawing the fabric as she looked for the zipper, only to realise the tent had been set up inside out, and the zipper was on the other side. Junhee grimaced, feeling even more upset, and she was sure that she might just cry. She flopped back onto the tent floor, and waited, deciding to just stay there until it got stuffy or until the oxygen ran out or something, and maybe she’d finally die and everything would be okay.

x-x-x

“You made me look like an idiot,” growled Youngjae pacing in front of Yongguk who was leaning against the wall of the bathroom. Youngjae wheeled around, glaring at him, finger in the air, declaring, “I do not like being seen as an idiot.”

“Okay,” said Yongguk. “Nobody said you were–”

“You made me look like an idiot.”

“You said that already,” pointed out the leader, only to get a death glare in return.

Youngjae took a deep breath and stopped his pacing. In a low, contained voice he said, “After all this time, we thought Zelo needed to let go of his dead friend, but oh!” He threw Yongguk an accusing look. “Turns out she isn’t dead!”

Yongguk raised his hands in surrender, like he was trying to say sorry for pronouncing somebody’s death a little too early.

“I could have figured this out way sooner without your stupid deceased-friend theory,” bantered Youngjae, looking more pissed than anybody had ever seen him since the last time Jongup outwitted him in chess. The dude really hated being fooled. “You–”

“It’s not that bad–” Yongguk tried to say.

“Not that bad?” exclaimed Youngjae. “You claimed the ‘nation’s sweetheart’ had committed suicide due to teenage angst, in a very Romeo and Juliet fashion, only Romeo isn’t dead and oh! neither is Juliet! We were all fooled.”

“I didn’t mean to– I mean, how was I supposed to know it was Juniel? I mean, I thought–”

“Yes, that’s exactly the problem,” said Youngjae, pursing his lips, his jacket hanging off one shoulder in that raggedy way, that made him look more maniacal and skeletal than Yongguk would’ve liked. When had he become so malnourished? “You thought. You, you thought. You didn’t know, you just–” He waved his hands aroun