“Jennie,listen to me this time”

Hanbin begged to Jennie while grabbing her cold hands. Jennie did not care and instead tried to take her hands from his.

“Let go of my hands”, she sobbed.

“Please…..”

“What is it? What else do you want to tell me now? You appeared in front of me again,out of nowhere. You acted like you wanted to be a good friend like nothing ever happened to us. You only said sorry to me and then thought I am okay now?”

“I am sorry…. I was…. “

“Don’t you know how many days I cried because of you? I was there with you during our hard trainee days. I was there to support you until your debut day. But when that day was about to come, you left me. Where were you when I was struggling for my turn?”

Hanbin was speechless. She never even heard Jennie spoke that much. He then realized how much Jennie must have held her pain that she let it all out right now.

“You can say anything you want”, he whispered.

“I’ve haunted by bad rumors about me even before my debut. They said, Oh Jennie that . Everything I had to bear with but you were not even there. How unfair you’ve been to me, Hanbin”

Jennie burst into tears that she could not speak anymore. Her voice diminished. “I hate you”, she whispered, barely heard.

Hanbin immediately caught her. Although Jennie tried her best to block him, he pulled her into his arms that she couldn’t move at all. And as she fell deeper into his hug, she cried even harder.

“I don’t know what else I should say to pay my fault. I did hurt you, it always haunted me, Jennie”

“But what have I done so wrong that you did that”

Hanbin took a deep breath. He took off his hug and looked at Jennie’s eyes intensely.

“It wasn’t you, Jennie. A staff found out that we were dating. You know I was going to debut.  I was under so much pressure that time. He warned me to stop, otherwise more people might know about it. I didn’t want to be a trouble to my group. Then, I thought about you. If our CEO found it out, you might also be in trouble. Everyone knew you were the strongest candidate to debut, I didn’t want him to label you as a rebel and ruin your whole hardwork”

Jennie slowly gathered herself. She stopped crying and started to look at Hanbin in doubt. It was not an answer she expected at all.

“You can believe it or not. But I couldn’t think of any better way to keep us safe. I love you so much that I didn’t want to see you fail”, he once more explained. Jennie could feel his sincere words expressed in his eyes. Hanbin looked down and drop tears.

“You should’ve at least told me”, Jennie whispered, “instead of walking away like I didn’t even exist”

“I was selfish, I know. But I thought It would be the best to let you hate me. And seems like that worked.