Chaeyoung POV

Chaeyoung was usually the emotional one in a relationship, the one who shed tears first, the one who devolved to eating ice cream when she was sad. She was so sensitive that she had cried over and held a mini funeral for the passing of her pet fish. She was a crybaby, and she was always made fun of for it.

But now, as she sat on her bed, covered in blankets with Lisa next to her, she felt no tears coming. The tissue box in her lap was unused. The ice cream Lisa had generously bought lay uneaten in the freezer.

"Are you okay?" Lisa asked for the millionth time, the confusion in her voice very apparent. Chaeyoung didn't blame her for being confused. Even she didn't know why she wasn't bawling her eyes out.

"No, I'm not okay," Chaeyoung said darkly. She felt angry. Hurt. Betrayed. She held her phone in her hand with a force that was probably not healthy for its frame. She stared at the picture, simultaneously wishing to see the man in the image, but also wanting to never see him again. There was no mistaking that it was Jungkook in the the photo, even if it was blurry. After spending so much time with him, she couldn't mistake the classic hairstyle, his bangs parted slightly to the right of the center of his forehead. She couldn't miss his sharp eyebrows, his wide doe eyes, his slightly beaked nose, his slightly hollowed cheeks, the sharp line of his jaw. It was so obviously him. Yet it wasn't him at the same time. Because the Jungkook she knew would never have done this to her.

"Wanna tell me about it?" Lisa asked.

"What's there to talk about?" Chaeyoung replied monotonously. She really didn't know what there was to discuss. He cheated on her. They were over. That simple.

Who was she kidding? Nothing about this was simple.

The way she was feeling wasn't simple. She felt like all of her joy had been out, as if she had entered the world of Harry Potter and she had just encountered a dementor. Life itself seemed dull and grey, unwelcoming and purposeless. She felt like her heart had been ripped apart, mashed to a bloody pulp, duct taped back together, then shoved back into her body. Her body felt like utter , like a combination of being sick and sleep-deprived at the same time.

Furthermore, simple couldn't describe both Taehyung and Lisa's cryptic messages. Lisa still kept saying she felt like there was more to the situation, that Jungkook wasn't as guilty as this photo was making him seem. Lisa had trust in Jungkook's faithfulness that Chaeyoung didn't have. Taehyung had said something on a similar line. Although he had taken the incriminating picture, he was unsure about the situation. The words "Talk to him" and a shrug was his only comment. It would have been so much easier to cope if she had a clear response from her friends, like in her previous relationships.

Simple couldn't describe the fact that her flashbacks started to reappear the night after receiving the photo, even after they had gone away for several weeks. Simple couldn't describe how she felt when Jungkook didn't come to her house that night, or even the morning after, or how he hadn't contacted her at all when he would normally spam her phone with cute messages every ten minutes.

But the most complicated matter of all was the image itself. Jungkook was showed facing the camera, but the woman he was with had her back to it. The only definining feature about her was her glossy black hair. But that didn't peeve her. It was Jungkook's expression that did. His face was contorted into one of disgust and anger, but he was trying to hide it. He looked like he was tensed up, wrinkles appearing above his eyebrows. He clearly wasn't happy. The unfaithful bastard doesn't deserve to be happy, she thought, shoving all brain-hurting logic out the window.

"You're scaring me," chimed in Lisa, breaking Chaeyoung out of her thoughts. The younger girl was anxiously looking into her face.

"What? Why?" 

"Because I already called your name, like, five times, and you didn't answer me. You're just sitting there with this brooding expression on your face. It's really scaring me."

"I'm sorry for scaring you," Chaeyoung replied, forcing a fake smile onto her face. "But I'm fine. Don't worry too much about me."

"You saying that stuff worries me even more. I know how much he meant to you; it's impossible for you to just be 'fine.' Talk to me Chaengie. Even if you don't want to tell me exactly how you feel, don't be so guarded. He's not worth losing yourself for."

Chaeyoung wanted to object to that last statement. Jungkook had been worth everything to her. But she decided not to say that, in fear that the moment she said those words aloud, she would completely break down. 

Instead, she decided to open up to Lisa, like she requested. "I don't know how I feel; how I should be feeling." She sighed heavily, feeling as though a small weight was being lifted off her. "I think I'm more confused than anything. Jung-" She stuttered upon saying the first half of the name, as it was accompanied by a wave of pain. "He made me believe that I was his soulmate, his everything. He made me love living in this world when it had been bleak and desolate before. Everything was perfect. He was perfect. We were perfect." 

She heaved another long sigh, and she heard the tremble in her breath even though the waterworks were not yet starting. She pushed on with her monologue. "He looked at me as if I was the only girl, heck, the only living thing in the world. I may be the most oblivious person to walk on this planet, but even I could see that." She felt her shoulders untensing, her fists clenched into fists as she felt her nose burning with the threat of incoming tears. "He was like that to me every single day, even until yesterday."

was starting to twitch now, and she knew she would have difficulty forcing her words out now. But she kept on going, because it felt good to pour out her feelings to Lisa. "But here's the proof that says otherwise, right in my hand. " She turned off the phone and dropped it on the bed next to her. "I want to believe that there's a logical explanation to all of this." She felt her eyes watering, her vision becoming blurry from the moisture. "But the only one I can think of is that he's just a good actor. That he's a playboy that took pleasure from manipulating me and leading me on."

She leaned on Lisa's shoulder, and from the rhythm of the sound of Lisa's breathing, Chaeyoung could tell her friend was crying as well. "Do you really believe that?" Lisa asked, her voice small. "I don't think that look he gives you is something that's fake. Unlike all the other times that the Thai had served as her shoulder to lean on, she never once had sounded unsure of herself. She had always known what to say: urge Chaeyoung to dump one guy, trash talk another, try to mend a relationship with the other. But now, Lisa offered no answer.

"I don't want to believe it," she finally said. "But what else can I believe? What other explanation is there?" She hugged her knees to her chest, and finally started to make use of her tissues. She cried silently and heavily, her eyes feeling like an unstoppable waterfall. Lisa, as always, was glued to her side without being asked to.

An hour passed, maybe more, and Chaeyoung felt the tears subside. She felt like complete trash, but a lighter version of trash. Now that she cried all the sadness out of her system, she was left with a bitter taste in . She felt her anger toward Jungkook begin to manifest.

After crying about it for so long, she had convinced herself of her theory. Jungkook had played her. And she had fallen right into his trap.

"I think I hate him," she said, as the last of her tears rolled down her cheeks.

*

Jungkook POV

To say Jungkook was a complete mess was an understatement. On the outside, he thought he looked normal enough. Besides red eyes, puffy cheeks, and the bags under his eyes, he looked like he always did. But on the inside, he was a raging storm, a tornado, and a hurricane, all at once. He was a mix of e