Jiho’s POV

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked Chanyeol the moment I took a seat beside him in our last class of the day. He just nodded, wearing a blank expression on his face. I doubt that it had anything to do with his sudden stomachache. I’m not even sure that he really had one. It seemed to me that he looked perfectly fine walking away from us during break just now.

I sighed, knowing I probably wasn’t going to get anything out of him that quickly. So, I endured for an hour, clicking my pen impatiently and wishing that time would pass faster. When the lesson finally ended, I followed Chanyeol out of the classroom. I don’t even think he noticed me following him. He turned right towards the staircase leading to the rooftop garden. I was about to follow him up when someone called out to me.

“Jiho!”

It was Sehun. He was walking towards me from his classroom. I beamed at him. It felt so good to finally have him back, like normal. Although I earned a few glares from other girls and I was sure I was probably at the top of their gossip chain right now. I already overheard a few girls asking each other if I got together with Sehun already. Those who didn’t know about our past, which was probably no one, all assumed I had given him my body or something- any form of bribery. I ignored them, knowing fully well that if I argued with them, it would only cause more trouble for both parties.

“Where’re you going, princess?” Sehun asked me, putting an arm around my shoulder and kissing me on the forehead. We weren’t together but it somehow felt normal for him to do that.

“I’m just going to check on Chanyeol, he seemed moody all day,” I answered truthfully. I wondered if Sehun was going to mind. He did seem a little hesitant.

In the end, he just nodded. “Need me to go with you?” he offered. I smiled in reply, shaking my head. “Okay then. I’m just going to head over and play ball with the guys, see you in a bit?” He took off towards the basketball court after I nodded.

As I opened the door to the rooftop garden, I could easily spot Chanyeol. He was the only one there, and he was standing so close to the edge I almost had a heart attack. But I trusted he wasn’t doing anything rash, so I continued walking over to him. He didn’t seem to notice me even when I was only a few feet apart from him.

“Hello?” I called, waving my hand in front of his face. He finally snapped away from his reverie and looked at me.

“Oh, hi Jiho, what’re you doing here?” he greeted, not sounding the least bit interested. His smile could easily pass off as being real had it not been for me being able to read people’s faces well. I could tell he was trying real hard to fake it.

I crossed my arms and glared at him. “What’s wrong with you today? Why’re you being so moody?” I asked. He seemed a little taken aback by how direct I was being, but I didn’t care. It frustrated me to no end that he wouldn’t tell me what the reason was. I mean, I was his friend wasn’t I? He even said I was his only friend in the class. So why should he be afraid to tell me anything?

Chanyeol sighed and looked away from me and stared blankly at the fields ahead of us. He seemed as though he was thinking hard. “I bumped into Jihyun just now,” he said, still avoiding my gaze.

He didn’t have to say that for me to know though. When he walked out of the cafeteria, Sehun had spotted said girl following behind him. Then he proceeded to telling me that Jihyun was Chanyeol’s ex-girlfriend, although he never said anything more and told me if I wanted to know anything I should ask Chanyeol himself. Now was my chance.

“Mm-hmm, what about her?” I probed.

Then, he proceeded to tell me a few things, like how it ended between the two of them and how rumours of him started flying around the school. Honestly, if I didn’t know him before this, I would have steered clear of him, but since I was already his friend, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

“You’re only human after all, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to feelings,” I told him, pulling him in for a hug. It took him a few seconds to return it, and I could sense that there was more than Jihyun’s situation which was bothering him, but I decided not to push him too much for one day.

When we pulled away, he smiled at me- this time genuinely- and muttered a ‘thank you’.

“What for?” I asked him.

“Sometimes, you just need someone to tell you you’re not as terrible as you think you are,” he told me. I was going to say something, but he cut me off. “What else did you want to know? You look like you’re still puzzled.”

I never knew I was that predictable too. But since I knew myself very well and I knew that I was incapable of lying at all, I came out with the truth. So much for not trying to push him too much. “Why did you feign that stomachache just now?”

Chanyeol wasn’t expecting that question, because he struggled for a few seconds, thinking of what to say. Then, he closed his eyes for a while and sighed. “I guess…” he stammered, slowly opening his eyes. “I guess I was just jealous that you and Sehun became okay again so fast. I mean, I’m happy for you guys, but…”

He looked a little timid, as though he was afraid that I might get angry. I didn’t take any of his words into offence, though. “But…?”

“I don’t know, I guess I get a bit territorial.”

Wait, did he mean that he had wanted me all to himself? When I didn’t reply, he continued. “Have you ever had that feeling where you don’t exactly know how you feel? It’s an indescribable feeling. You don’t feel happy, you don’t feel sad. You’re not angry, or even confused. Your emotions are just all jumbled up and you have that uneasy feeling in your stomach. All you do is wish that everything made sense, that you knew exactly what was happening to you. But the truth is you don’t, and it’s killing you inside. You know that feeling? I hate that feeling.”

Hearing what he said dampened my mood further. Just what exactly was he feeling, what exactly was he thinking, that could make him feel like this. Sehun had said that before everything happened, Chanyeol had this positive aura around him that was so infectious it made everyone feel happy. But nowadays, he said that he sort of lost it, like he wasn’t fully happy with himself.

I was going to ask him about it further, when he changed the subject. “Well, enough about me. So how’re you and Sehun doing now?” he asked. I furrowed my brows, knowing very well he was probably sensitive to this topic. But I figured out it was fair, I had probed about him and know he wanted to know about me- and Sehun. I figured out being truthful from the start would be better, so that was what I would do.

“Have you ever met someone who made you feel warm in the coldest weather with their words?” I asked, as the cold weather today started to get to me. He tilted his head to the side, thinking, before nodding. “Well, that was how Sehun made me feel. It was how he always made me feel. I felt like this past week and the moment I opened up to him, it felt right, and I guess his presence made me feel warm inside.”

Chanyeol smiled weakly upon hearing my words. I didn’t know if I should continue further, lest I made him feel worse.

“So you like falling in love?” he asked. I was getting that he was implying I had fallen in love with Sehun, but I couldn’t be sure of it myself. But I guess I generally liked the feeling of it, so I just nodded.

“Don’t you?” I asked him back.

He scoffed and stared back into the distance, leaning forward against the railings. He shook his head. “I don’t like falling in love because falling in love means at the end of it, you’ll be left with scars for your whole life.” I stared apologetically at him. Just what had happened to him before that made him feel that way? “But there is one thing that’s good about it- love, I mean,” he added. “I learned a lot about falling in love when I fell out of love. I learned a lot about being a friend when I was alone.”

The things he was saying sounded so negative I almost couldn’t take it. Then, he asked me a question I never thought he would ever ask me. It was as though he was taking a nudge at Sehun. And he said it so seriously that it somehow scared me.

“If I disappeared one day without saying goodbye, would you forgive me?”