-

“Ya, Jeong Eunji.”

“Oh, f-ck.”

Eunji left as soon as the band were dismissed for the night despite Inguk’s being not in the vicinity anymore—and even telling Chanyeol that, “I’ll walk myself home if you’re not going to walk through the door with me in five seconds.” And by door, she meant the back door of the café.

The boy was just about to provide her a reply yet she was already gone when he turned around.

“I knew you’d be leaving from the other door,” Inguk went on as he made small steps toward her with his hands in his jacket pockets. He resembled a predator making its way toward its prey. “That’s how you are.”

A heavy sigh escaped Eunji’s mouth; she’s got to deal with him. Again. She shifted her weight onto one leg and crossed her arms.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” she asked in a raised voice. “And don’t you show up out of the blue and then stalk me.”

Inguk fixed his glasses and then proceeded to answer her. “You know, I wouldn’t be doing this creepy action of stalking you unless our problem is fixed.”

“It is. It’s over.” Eunji put extra mega uber emphasize on the word ‘is,’ trying to tell him that he definitely had no more reason to come and see her. “You’re just too stuck up on the past, Seo-ssaem.”

Now it was Inguk’s turn to sigh. “If you didn’t f-ing leave me in the middle of the f-ing road then I wouldn’t f-ing bother to come after you.” Her eyes widened at the triple swearing he used in just one sentence. Even when she had lived with him for what was more than just a brief period, she never heard him swore.

Loosening her tense body, Eunji went to ask him, calmly, “So what do you want now? Apology? Fine, I’ll do it.”

“You think apologizing can fix what happened to me?” Eunji froze.”You left as if there was ever anything between us, Ji. You broke my f-ing heart. And you think saying sorry is all?”

Her upper teeth dug into her bottom lip and she pondered on what to do. Offering him an explanation was not the best choice—it was pointless if his head was still hot and his feelings were stirred up—so she refrained.

“Just . . . I’m sorry, okay? There’s nothing else I have in store for you.” She buried her face in her cold palms before she went on, “Let’s just not meet each other anymore.”

Being a cold heartless was the only thing she could do right now to send him away. Assuming if it works.

“Eunji-ya?” A swore slipped once again when she heard that voice coming from behind her. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

The girl only looked up to face Chanyeol when he was now standing right beside her. “Sorry,” she muttered without really meaning what she said.

“Who is this?” he whispered to her as he stole a glance at Inguk. “You know him?”

Inguk, seeing how Eunji was too startled to say anything, provided the answer. “Hello, I’m Eunji’s high school teacher. Nice to meet you.” He might be smiling and all but inside, he was scanning the boy and gathering whatever information he could make out from what he was witnessing.

“Oh? Wow!” Chanyeol then bowed slightly at him while telling him his name. “Nice to meet you, too, seonsaengnim.”

“I guess Eunji is in safe hands now so I’ll be leaving.” Just before Inguk left for real, he said, in a low voice, directed especially toward the worried girl, “See you around, student.”

When he was no longer visible in their sight, Chanyeol remarked, “Wow, he looks so young. He can’t be older than thirty . . . .”

Eunji rolled her eyes so hard they might just come out of its sockets. ‘What a useless thought.’ Because everything that’s got to do with Seo Inguk became a pointless thing that need not to be discussed or talked or wondered.

She started to walk, putting one leg before the other in such a heavy and slow movement. Looking over her shoulder a little bit, she told the boy, “Let’s leave.”

“Why don’t you look happy seeing your teacher?” asked Chanyeol who started to trail close behind.

“I’m just tired. That’s all.”

He pursed his lips into a thin line. The boy had been with her long enough to know that when her face looked like that, he shouldn’t be asking anything further.

“Alright.”

-

When Eunji received a text message from an unknown number just before she tucked herself in for bed—and in which it read: You got yourself a handsome boyfriend—she realized that the past which had been rising back lately will just keep on haunting her.

‘Will there even be an end to this?’

She couldn’t care less what the message read, leaving Inguk to assume the term he used to refer to Chanyeol was right, so she put her phone away, sneaking it under the unused pillow on the other side of her bed.

There’s Seungyoon and now there’s Inguk; the exact two guys from her high school days.

And as she was driven by her exhaustion toward sleep, she reminisced.

~

Seungyoon was the last resort Eunji turned to in her attempt of hiding her secret love affair with her own teacher which was starting to become quite the hot topic amongst students back then.

“I heard someone saw Inguk-seonsaengnim with a high-school student out and about in town,” Eunji heard a stud