What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? // Breakeven - The Script

They say if you can go through 21 days without it, you probably wont need it anymore. Probably.

“I’ll be back,” but that was four months ago.

Where that leaves Nayoung, she’s not exactly sure.

Everything was moving way too fast for her liking. From actually having to experience what all the sappy love songs and sappy sweet flicks were all about for a grand total of six days, to being promised of a return, to being left waiting at an apartment complex’s rooftop only to find out that her source of adoration had left her behind.

And now here she was four months later, a fresh graduate with her friends circled around the table in the restaurant her parents owned. Her mother envelops her in a tight hug, repeatedly congratulating her before her eyes land on an empty seat between Sungyeon and Eunwoo.

“You’re one person short,” her mother says. “Where's Kyulkyung?”

The table falls silent. Nayoung doesn’t miss Kyungwon shooting Minkyung a look, Yewon shifting uncomfortably, Yebin pinching Siyeon’s arm from under the table, as if telling her to speak up for them.

Way to keep it lowkey, ladies.

“Kyulkyung…” the words suddenly find shelter in , making her voice weak but strong enough for everyone to look at her. “Kyulkyung couldn’t make it,”

Her mother frowns. “Well, why not?”

“She left a few months ago,” she flashes a half-hearted smile. Her mother probably sensed something was off, seeing as how she didn’t press the matter any further and left to get their orders.

Jieqiong had always been close with her parents. If her mother ever finds out that she left without as much as a goodbye, it would break her heart.

Like mother like daughter.

The food came and the light atmosphere was brought back.

xx

Fair enough to say, Nayoung wasn’t surprised when Eunwoo started visiting her late at night to cite all the unfair things this world has come upon.

Global warming, how she flunked that one test because she was so convinced her professor was out to get her, Dobby’s death, Jieqiong leaving, Jieqiong cutting any form of connection with them, and all that jazz.

Nayoung wasn’t self-centered. She was fully aware that when Jieqiong had gone, she wasn’t the only one that felt left behind, but the rest of the group was well. Especially Eunwoo.

And so every time the younger girl comes late at night, Nayoung prepares tea for her—the green tea ones that Nayoung despises oh so much but buys them anyways because both Eunwoo and Jieqiong have taken a liking to them. Soon enough, Eunwoo becomes a sobbing mess in her arms.

“I miss her,” she says through shaky breaths against the crook of Nayoung’s neck, the two of them cramped up on the couch.

Nayoung could only provide comfort in the form of awkward hugs and those Disney princess movies Yewon and the rest liked to store in her drawer of dvd collections.

“Do you miss her, too?” the first time Eunwoo asks her, she was taken off guard, as if an anchor had been chained to her ankle and then thrown in the middle of the sea.

Nayoung doesn’t answer—never answers. She pulls Eunwoo closer, eyes focused on the screen as some guy flies around on a weird-looking blanket with some girl who had a tiger for a pet. And was that a monkey?

“Why is that thing flying?”

“Because it’s magical,” Eunwoo huddles closer. Her favorite part was near, so she lets out one final sniffle before they were back to comfortable silence.

Nayoung bites back a scoff.

She lets Eunwoo bask in her teatime siesta and waits for her to fall asleep. Only then will her fingers find themselves raking Eunwoo’s slightly disheveled locks. Only then does she whisper to her, as if they aren’t the only people in the room.

She whispers: “I miss her too.”

The late night visits come to an end when Yebin asks, “Have you been shagging Nayoung?” because apparently: That’s against the bro code.

xx

Days stretch into weeks, which then stretches into months. Meeting up with the girls hadn’t been easy, not when Nayoung was in the midst of job hunting. Not when the rest of them had just started a new semester and were now currently drowning in responsibilities. Not when they’re still one person short and by God, it has been a pain to keep receiving weird looks from people every time they ask for an extra chair because that’s Jieqiong’s seat.

“Why ask for a table for nine when there’s only eight of you?”

“Why are you being a nosy prick?”

But when they do meet up, they settle with somehere near each other’s schools because according to Yewon and Siyeon, it’s annoying to be the ones who always go to their university that usually takes them an hour or so by train just for Yebin to talk in front of them.

Nayoung already saw them through the diner’s glass windows before she enters. The smell of coffee greets her, she looks to her left and sees the girls being rowdy as usual, and it was such a sight to take in—Siyeon and Yewon in their school’s yellow blazers, Sungyeon listening intently to Yebin’s conspiracy about dogs, the older ones had piles of books on the side.

She reached for her phone to take a picture, and then she notices the extra empty seat. She snaps a shot anyway.

It’s been months. And in those months, Nayoung has learned to convince herself that she’s built a wall so high and so mighty to fill in for Jieqiong’s absence. She was so sure it was safe for her to say that it doesn’t bother her as much as it did before.

Nayoung makes her way to their table. She hears them banter.

“I told you not to order the salad.”

“And I told you not to order me around.”

“Humpty dumpty was pushed off the wall and there’s nothing you can say that can make me think otherwise.”

“Stop. ruining. my. childhood.”

She inhales deep, the smell of coffee was still strong. Home is still home, despite being one person short.

She takes the seat next to Siyeon, her eyes momentarily lingering on the bracelet she wore. The same bracelet she got as a “moving up gift”.

She shakes the thought away before her eyes roam around. Only then did she realize that everyone was focused on her.

“What?”

She looks to Kyungwon who starts to say something. Kyungwon stops herself. And then she says it anyway: “Kyulkyung called.” The bomb has been dropped and their wasn’t even anything to cushion its fall.

The high and mighty wall crumbles all at once, the impact causing her back to straighten, causing her breath to hitch, the side of her eye twitching only the slightest.

The girls catch every single one of it. Nayoung knows they did.

“You couldn’t have bothered to start with something a tad bit lighter?” says Siyeon. Kyungwon only smiles that smile of hers at her.

Nayoung brushes everything off with a cough. “It’s fine, really.” It’s not. “It’s good that she called. What did she say?”

Eunwoo’s eyes lit up as she told how it all went. Nayoung smiles because Eunwoo deserves this, because the girls deserve this. Nevermind how her ribs are closing in on her lungs, making it difficult for her to breathe as the others join in on the conversation.

Nayoung subsides the feeling of having an overwhelming tide that breaks said ribs one by one. She guesses everyone was able to talk with Jieqiong. Everyone but her.

Her smile was sincere nonetheless because it’s a beautiful thing, how people can come together. There are so many ways to let people down, not nearly as many to get it right.

But she can’t help the aching feeling of wanting to ask. Right now, she doesn’t care if the wall that’s been broken down minutes ago takes time to clean. She just wanted to ask.

Did she talk about me?

Did she talk about another guy? Another girl?

Nayoung’s sincerest wish was that she’d never hear Jieqiong talk about another person, another partner for as long as she lived. Unless it was her.

So much for thinking that it doesn’t bother her anymore.

“She asked about you,” says Minkyung. Nayoung was palpitating at this point. “She asked if you were okay.”

xx

Oh, and is Nayoung okay? How dare she ask that. How dare she make it seem like she was just a passing thought that crossed her pretty little head. How dare she make it that easy. How dare she only asks it once.

Nayoung gets up late in the morning a week after. She had received a call informing her that she got the job she applied for.

She should be happy; ecstatic even.

But that wasn’t the call she craved for right now. Some woman behind a desk in the same firm as hers in an office telling her she landed a job wasn’t the voice she was hell bent on hearing.

She weakly slumps in her bed.

And everything slowly sinks in.

Jieqiong wasn’t here anymore. Not beside her, not in this room, not in this country, not in her life. And by the events that had transpired, Nayoung wasn’t of Jieqiong’s anymore.

And like a child, she starts sobbing. Everything she’s bottled up these past months couldn’t be contained anymore—the mask she’s been wearing disappears completely and is replaced by uncontrollable weeping.

It was Jieqiong’s choice to leave. It was Nayoung’s choice not to get in the way.

xx

“Have you considered dating other people?” Minkyung asks over a cup of coffee a few nights after. She’s been… giving her a little push.

Nayoung only shrugs. It’s been so long already and the phone calls between Jieqiong and the other girls were still going strong as ever. Jieqiong never asks for her, Nayoung refuses to hear Jieqiong’s voice, refuses to fill in such hollow.

“I’m not ready yet.”

Guys are jerks and other girls were too pretentious for her liking, none living up to the expectations she purposely set up high for no one to reach.

Minkyung can only nod in understanding.

xx

Fair enough, Nayoung takes the little push Minkyung gave her when she meets someone in the office.

Brown locks that flow freely, fairly tall, has that kind of smile anyone would want to protect no matter what.

Nayoung later finds out her name is Siwon. She was everything Nayoung had made her out to be: funny, adorable, and absolutely lovely.

They stay what they were, Nayoung’s leftover reflex from Jieqiong was thrown at Siwon, Siwon gladly accepts them.

Siwon was easy—easier. Maybe it was because she worked in the same firm as her. Maybe it was because Siwon was only a desk away from her and not a thousand miles aways in a different country enjoying hot pot. (Sungyeon told her. Sue her.)

Siwon fills in for the late night calls, fills in for the empty days, and when brave enough, fills in for the empty spaces between her fingers.

Siwon was filling in for Jieqiong.

Nayoung didn’t want that, doesn’t want that.

It wasn’t really the shock of her life that by the end of the month, she was being driven up a wall in an empty hall, a shaking hand on her waist, and a pair of foreign lips onto hers.

Nayoung closes her eyes, tries to take it all in, tries to reciprocate everything Siwon.

Her hand finds itself on the small of the brunette’s back and pulls her closer.

Siwon kisses… stronger. Unlike Jieqiong who takes her time and does it softly.

Nayoung feels the lines on Siwon’s lips through the kiss. It wasn’t like Jieqiong’s smooth ones.

She gets a whiff of the watermelon scented hair. She prefers the strawberry scented shampoo Jieqiong always uses.

Jieqiong. Jieqiong. Jieqiong.

A hand on the brunette’s shoulder, a light push, lips parting, an apology.

“I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m not ready, I thought I was.”

The brunette in front of her only smiles, as if accepting her poor excuse of an apology. “You’re a good kisser.”

This elicits an uncomfortable chuckle from Nayoung, and then she says something else—another kind of an apology. “I still love… someone else,”

Siwon hums and nods before tucking a loose strand of Nayoung’s hair behind her ear. “You’re adorable.”

“We’re still friends, right?”

Siwon laughs at this. “We’re still friends,” she confirms. Then she adds, “and until you’re ready for something more, I’ll be waiting.”

Nayoung knows for a fact she’ll never be ready.

xx

Nayoung had always adored Jieqiong. The younger girl always kept her feet on the ground, always kept her in check, was always there when she needed someone to tell her problems to.

Jieqiong had always been there when Nayoung just wanted to have a good time and run away from life even just for a little while.

Jieqiong had not only tolerated the things Nayoung lacks in, but has learned to fill them—to love them.

But most importantly, Jieqiong was always the one to keep her from being too late up at night.

Because a single glance at her phone tells her that it’s already 1:00AM and she has work tomorrow. But it was one of those nights she just felt like watching movies that most certainly did not remind her of Jieqiong that she most certainly did not keep in a box that was most certainly not hidden under her bed.

Hell to the no.

She was nearing the end of the third movie when everything suddenly turned quiet, so quiet. It had always been quiet but tonight felt like a new form of silence.

Nayoung tries. She tries genuinely hard to remember what it felt like, what it used to feel like back when she hadn’t met Jieqiong. She blames herself for making the younger girl her whole damn universe.

Had she not done that a few years prior, maybe she wouldn’t be in this kind of desolation.

And as the credits continue to roll, she couldn’t bring herself to regret a single moment of being with the Chinese girl.

How could she? Jieqiong was such a constant in her life that introduced to her to the entire ing spectrum when she only knew black and white.

The credits end.

Nayoung just sits there, looking at the door, waiting for something to happen, someone to come in.

She waits. She hopes. For Jieqiong.

No one barges in.

Nayoung puts in another one of Jieqiong’s favorite movies.

The next movie starts and it was one of those sappy ones that Jieqiong adores and cries over for hours. She feels the empty space next to her.

“At least no one’s crying over a tragic love story.”

She closes her eyes, a single tear escapes.

“.”

She texts one of her co-workers to call in sick.

xx

She was getting better, she can feel herself getting better. Finally healing, finally forgetting.

She was moving on to better things.

Except her friends are such jackasses with poor timing.

“Kyulkyung's coming back.”

yikes! this took too long to update ;; aff wont let me put up the whole thing so I had to cut it into parts..... dont sue me. Until the next update! <3