Jiyeon’s POV:

“Between them both, who do you like?” She shined a curious look at me, one that was expectant of an answer.

I shook my head and answered her truthfully, “I don’t know”.

The next few days passed by in a blur, I returned to school after healing from my injuries, still trying to deal with my minor social anxiety and well, fear. I stuck to Haneul mostly and immediately dashed off home after school, refusing to hang, meet or even any form of eye contact with the BTS members.

For awhile, I could feel Jisoo avoiding me but I assumed it was due to me cutting them off. So when she finally approached me, I did what I’d do, treating her like a member of BTS and ran off everytime she got near me.

10 out of the 40 school days had passed and finals were to approach in a month now. In the past 10 days, the snickering and fingers pointing to me had gradually stopped, the only thing that didn’t stop were the occasional hate letters left in my locker for me to read. Steadying myself, I took a bunch of the letters and threw them into the bin, not giving any thought to it.

After all, why read letters of hate just so they could get the satisfaction they needed? I didn’t want anyone to see that they had gotten through me and had successfully crept under my skin, hurting me.

5 days passed and only 25 days were left. In the past 5 days, I stopped seeing BTS or Jisoo around as much anymore and I had to resist the urge to ask Haneul about it. But most importantly, I stopped seeing Taehyung in school for the next 10 days, which meant only 15 days left to finals.

I caught myself frequently wondering about the whereabouts of Taehyung but I always stopped myself from asking anybody, including Haneul. However, other than Haneul, there was someone else who was always looking out for me.

Yep, that’s Hoseok.

I frequently caught him staring at me from the corner of my eye, trying to take care of me like always and I’d always let out a small grin to myself, because he seemed like a tiny puppy that was afraid of being kicked down by me. In which I found, totally ridiculous, irrefutably silly and just a tiny bit cute. How could I ever do that to Hoseok though? But as much as I wanted to take the first step to talk to him first and reassure him that I wouldn’t snap or actually kick him down like the monster he thought I was, I couldn’t.

The reason? Because of his confession.

How could I talk to him if I didn’t even have an answer to his confession, if I didn’t realize my own feelings?

I opened up my locker, retrieving the mail that people had placed in there, not even bothered to take even a single glance at it as usual for I already knew they probably contained the same hate letters that stupid people were trying to bother me with.

And as I slammed down my locker, my shoulder tensed up and I could have sworn I had just jumped slightly. My first instinct was to walk away as quickly as I could and pretend that I haven’t seen her, only to have her hand tightly gripped on my wrist and dragging me away from the Hallway.

I shifted my eyes around anxiously trying to search for Haneul but she was nowhere to be found, and so I tried finding the next best person I knew would be looking out for me. Ah, there he was! But Hoseok wasn’t looking at me, instead he was preoccupied with his phone and before I knew it, he was already out of sight.

And there I was, standing on the rooftop alone face to face with Jisoo.

I felt my breath snatched out of me, my shoulders heaving up and down and with each passing second I found it really hard to breathe.

Crap. My social anxiety just had to rear its ugly head now, at this timing?

“Jiyeon! Jiyeon, what’s happening to you?” Jisoo held me up with her hands, looking at me in concern and her voice was hoars as if she had been crying for days. But I couldn’t be bothered with her or pretty much anything else except for my ability to breathe properly right now at this moment.

“Jiyeon, listen to me and breathe.” I looked at her with panic grayed in my eyes and I clutched as tightly as I could onto her, trying to listen to her while the numbness tried to gain control of my body.

“Breathe…. 1-2-3, in. Exhale…. 1-2-3, out” I followed Jisoo’s breathing techniques, trying to calm myself down while she was soothing and rubbing my back up and down. I felt the numbness receding and myself regaining control of my limbs, I looked up to Jisoo with tears in my eyes.

It wasn’t that I was sad or anything that caused me to tear up, but rather, it was the fear that I couldn’t even control my own body that I literally felt losing myself physically.

“You have social anxiety issues?” Her voice sounded broken and heavy, like it was laden with guilt. I wasn’t sure if I should nod or shake my head, I didn’t want to add more guilt upon her especially since I’ve heard from Haneul that Taehyung and Hoseok had fought over me and Taehyung had incidentally spilled out his inner feelings for me.

“Your lack of reaction tells me the truth anyways. Was the hallway fiasco the cause of it?” Once again, I looked up at her, unsure of a response to give. Jisoo dragging me up to the rooftop, talking to me when she was seemingly broken just doesn’t add up.

Something was definitely fishy here.

“I tried to get in touch with you for the past few days, but whenever I approached you, you took off. And I’ve no idea if the reason you fled from me was because you’ve already heard of the truth? And if you do, you don’t have to be scared of me. I’m just here to apologize.” As soon she finished her statement, she knelt with both knees to the floor with her hands placed on top of her thighs.

Perplexed, I furrowed my brows and looked at her in confusion.

Why is she kneeling down in front of me, apologizing when it should be my fault anyways?

Quietly and softly, I asked her, “Why’re you apologizing? What’s wrong?” and in turn, she stared at me, this time she was clearly the one confused and embarrassed for her cheeks had a slight flush to it.

“No one told you yet?”

“No? Told me what?”

Clearly at this point of time, I was slightly annoyed. What was being hidden from me, what was kept under wraps from me? Why couldn’t there be anyone for once out there, to actually tell me the truth and to tell me whatever the heck that has been happening? It was like that with Taehyung and his stupid mystery and now, this too.

“I thought they would have told you.” Jisoo mumbled to herself albeit it was loud enough for me to hear. The silence between us grew while the winter sun hung above us, as if casting a spotlight between the two of us, turning the rooftop into a stage of life.

I waited in silence for Jisoo to continue what she had brought me up here to say. I wasn’t willing to help her out, to give her a nudge for her to speak. After all, she had come to find me out of her own accord, and I was ge