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Chapter 14: She’s a Monster

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“Well, it’s obvious. Isn’t it? I’ll sleep in Jinyoungie’s room. We are engaged after all.”

“There’s no way in hell,” Jinyoung cut her off into a deafening silence.

“Why not?” She argued, pouting, and Jaebum echoed her in a less annoyingly cute tone.

“Yeah, why not? It’s not like you sleep in there most nights, anyway. You usually fall asleep on the studio.-”

Entering into the crowded front lounge, I shifted over to Jackson who motioned for me to sit beside him and Mark. Even before I’d walked in, the house had been a flurry of activity, the news of Jinyoung’s apparent engagement clearly having stunned most of its residents. Most but not all. Irene’s abrupt introduction had shocked me, no doubt, but I had quickly remembered who she was from the text Hwasa sent me.

“Son of Millionaire Artist and Art Curator Gets Engaged to Beautiful Heiress.” But why is she here?

Now everyone was gathered in the lounge to figure out the situation at hand.

“-Alice slept on the divan last night, but she can just sleep in my room tonight,” JB added in a single breath, “I’ll just use the couch down here until Bam and I finish up her room.”

I could tell that this was the first time the others had found out about Jinyoung’s engagement by their stares. Not a single pair of eyes in the room could look away from her for more than ten seconds at a time, and I knew it wasn’t just because she was strikingly beautiful, which she was. More than that she was a mystery, an unknown force of nature, like a blood moon that children watch with dread and a sense of desperate curiosity. The only person who didn’t stare was the one person who arguably had the most reason to, but Jinyoung’s eyes were anywhere but on her. At JB’s last sentence, Jinyoung’s eyes darted to me.

He knows damn well I didn’t spend last night on the divan, but he wouldn’t say anything. Would he? We had a deal.

I broke the awkward silence that followed, “JB, there’s no reason for you to give up your bed. I’ll just sleep on the couch. It’s no big deal.”

“But I feel awful that we keep misplacing you,-”

He didn’t say it out loud, but I saw it in his eyes like the eyes of the boy I knew all those years ago.

“I promised you a home. Remember?”

“-plus the couch is incredibly uncomfortable.”

I resisted the urge to say I know.

“We found it at a yard sale after our old one… broke,” this time JB seemed to speak pointedly at Mark and Jackson beside me.

“Well, I think that’s a great idea. Don’t you, babe?” Irene grabbed Jinyoung’s arm and pulled herself close to him receiving a wince in return as he pulled away.

They reminded me of something I’d heard in Physics earlier that day… equal and opposite forces.

They look like repelling magnets.

Throughout this exchange Jinyoung’s eyes never left mine, and it looked as if a light had gone off in his brain.

“I have a better idea,” he finally managed, breaking free of Irene’s grip, “Alice is right, JB. There’s no reason why two people should be forced out of their room by this inconvenience, and since Alice is really the one being most inconvenienced here, seeing as she lost her room for the time being on top of all of this, she should take my room for now. I’ll sleep on the divan like I usually do, and Irene can have the couch.”

Irene huffed in indignation before bolting up from her place on the sofa beside Jinyoung, “Jinyoungie, how could you be so cruel? I flew 11,000 miles for you.”

“On the contrary,” JB interrupted, “I want to know since when you got so generous. I’ve never heard of you giving up anything for anyone, especially not for someone who’s practically a stranger. It’s unnerving. It almost makes me want to tell you no.”

“Well, it isn’t really up to you. Is it? It’s up to her,” Jinyoung motioned to me with his eyes.

I tried to ignore the burning sensation of Irene’s intense glare as I thought over my options, but the same old thought clouded my judgement.

You can’t bother JB. Think about all he’s done for you already. He’ll just think you’re a nuisance. They all will. You think they’d want you to stay after that? Think again.

It’s illogical. I know, but the ‘what ifs’ always tempt me in the end.

“Okay, I’ll use Jinyoung’s room. I mean my room will be done soon enough, right?”

BamBam drug his eyes off of Irene for long enough to answer me, “Hopefully in a day or two.”

“That’s that then,” Jinyoung said picking up his coat off the back of the sofa and slinging it over his shoulders, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs practicing.” He started out of the room and without looking back added, “Also, don’t need me.”

Without Jinyoung, the awkward tension in the room grew tenfold, but obliviously Yugyeom broke the silence, “So how long have you an Jinyoung been... like... together?”

Irene rolled her eyes away from me, finally, and to Yugyeom, “Our parents have been planning our wedding since we were in diapers, but it wasn’t official or anything until we graduated from high school..”

“Oh, that’s cool,” he added, “I mean kinda weird but cool.”

“Maybe it’s weird to you, but it’s not like we didn’t have any say. Sure our parents wanted us to get married, but it was ultimately up to us. Jinyoung proposed to me a few years ago, but we both decided to finish school before making it final.”

“I guess, I didn’t really mean to say your engagement is weird just the fact that none of us ever knew about it.”

“Yeah,” Jackson spoke up, “I mean Jinyoung’s been living in this house for three years, just like me, and I’ve never heard of you until tonight.”

Irene huffed, perhaps feeling threatened by the comment, “He’s not the type to brag.”

At that, I stifled a laugh, an