“I come in at 3:00 minute mark, okay? You have to keep up till then”, Soojung told Seungwan as they got ready for their presentation a little behind the stage, waiting for the announcement that was up next. The conference had started a while ago, and there turn to be judged was number five.

“Don’t worry. I got it”, Seungwan replied blankly and Soojung had to make effort not to flinch. She still wasn’t used to this cold, unfazed Seungwan.

After she’d returned from the restaurant after her meeting with Kyungsoo, Seungwan had cried herself to sleep. And she’d woken up, feeling worse than she’d ever had. How had she let herself get this pathetic? All those years of staying away from him, of saving her pride, had they all been in vain? Had she wasted the past seven years only to let herself fall to this level?

And she’d accepted that day what Taeyeon had told her long ago: ‘Love can’t be forced’. It was a painfully learned lesson, but one she was going to remember for the rest of her life. He didn’t love her, maybe never had, she could have been delusional. A part of her scolded her and she felt guilty for believing that for a minute, because she’d seen it in his eyes. From when they’d read Having A Coke With You to when they’d danced under the starry sky and he’d told her he wanted to stay like that forever. She’d seen love in every gesture of his. She hadn’t imagined it.

But that thought was soon replaced by him telling her he couldn’t marry Nayeon without ending things properly with her first, his cold emotionless eyes as he’d laughed at her for believing their relationship was real, Nayeon’s beauty and charm when she’d found her in his office and all the unanswered calls and messages.

She couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t still believe, when there were things literally screaming at her to stop.

And so she put on a brave face and told everyone she was fine. That she was done with their pity. Her friends wouldn’t believe her pretense, but she had no other option. If she couldn’t even pretend to be over him, how would she in real? She had to be strong. Had to put on a façade in the hope one day it would become her reality. That she would get over him eventually.

“Hello”, Seungwan looked up to find a certain man standing there in a suit, and her heart flipped in her chest.

“What are you doing here?”, Soojung questioned him before Seungwan could, displeasure evident on her face.

Seungwan clenched her jaw when Kyungsoo didn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Until he finally did. “This is my project too, remember? It’s evaluation marks get added to my final report”

“Oh, do they?”, Soojung was bitter, and rightfully so. “Is that why you never bothered to show up for any of the meetings with Mrs. Park? She already took your name out of it, I think”

“I’ll ask her to reconsider”, Kyungsoo replied back calmly and started to move towards where Seungwan was standing behind the stage. Soojung interfered by coming in between and shot him a glare. “Leave, now”

Kyungsoo sighed. “Soojung please – “

He was cut off by the announcement of their presentation, followed by a member of the organizing team showing up and telling them to get on the stage. While Soojung was blocking Kyungsoo’s way, Seungwan made her way up the stage and started the presentation as she’d practiced. Stay focused. No need to panic.

She couldn’t help the shaking of her hands, and thanked God she had to talk from behind a podium or she would’ve come across as a nervous mess. Though whether the nerves were due to the presentation or Kyungsoo showing up, she couldn’t tell.

The part where Soojung had to show up came, and Seungwan refrained from glancing towards the corner of the stage in front of her, as the person who was supposed to read the poem with her came up. Because she already knew who it was going to be.

_

Kyungsoo walked up the stage with his heart beating fast as the soft background music they’d decided for this part, began to play in the background.

In the red dress hugging her figure, and her hair in soft curls, she looked as beautiful she always did to him. He bowed to the audience, spotting Mrs. Park in between. He sent an apologetic glance in her direction before sitting down on one of the two chairs placed in front of each other. He hoped his professor would understand, and that he hadn’t fought his way up the stage in vain.

“Having a Coke with you……”

They started as Seungwan took her seat and Kyungsoo was transported back to the time when he’d first read it with her. It had been raining that day he remembered, and for a moment everything else disappeared. It was just him and Seungwan there, as he professed to her yet again what he had a few months ago.

Only this time, he had no eyes to look into. No blush to see and smiles to get lost in, just the feeling of his heart sinking as he alone looked towards her and read his lines. Seungwan didn’t raise her head to look at him once throughout the reading, and he didn’t blame her.

It’s good, he thought realizing how little his presence seemed to affect her. It was what he wanted wasn’t it? For her to move on? To never think of him again?

Then why did his heart clench in pain still?

They finished and Seungwan got up to leave the stage. He continued for another two minutes as they’d decided, feeling a little disoriented at first but then continuing confidently, before Soojung came up at last and concluded it.

“Why did you read it like that? There were no emotions!”, He caught Soojung whispering to Seungwan in a reprimanding tone as they stepped down. Seungwan didn’t bother to reply, and left her friend’s side to walk away as soon as they reached the end of the stairs.

Soojung sighed, and then looked back at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo gave her a strained smile. “Thanks for letting me do it, I really appreciate it” He had asked, rather pleaded with her earlier to let him go after Seungwan had started the presentation.

“How is he?”

He looked up at Soojung’s question as they made their way to one side of the auditorium.

“He’s still not talking to you?”, Kyungsoo thought about his brother and his stubbornness.

Soojung shook her head slowly, with a tinge of sadness she failed to mask. He’d never seen her sad. “Don’t worry, Soojung. He’ll come around”

“I don’t know why he thinks it was his fault. It wasn’t”, Soojung told him, looking genuinely confused and pained.

Even he wished he could convince his brother that the accident wasn’t his fault just because he was driving, but who knew it would be such a hard feat? He had strictly cautioned his friends not to tell Jongin or Sehun anything he’d told them, but he knew that even if they did, his brother was still going to keep blaming himself. Maybe it was his own way of dealing with the trauma, but it didn’t hurt Kyungsoo, or even Soojung, any less.

They took their seats at the far end of the auditorium where all the other participants were, and Seungwan came around the side some minutes later.

Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds before she bent down to whisper something in Soojung’s ear, and then she went to walk towards the end of the auditorium

“She said she’s feeling a bit down so she’s going out first”, Soojung told him, a hint of apology in her tone.

Of course, it wasn’t like they were going to be in the top three anyway, with the performance Seungwan had put up on stage while reading with him, so there were no prizes she needed to receive or wait for.  And it wasn’t like he could blame her for it even if his heart sank like a heavy stone. He gave Soojung a tight-lipped smile in acknowledgement, all the while resisting the urge to get up and run after the woman he still loved.

_

Kim Nayeon had never known her parents.

Her mother had died after bringing her into this world, and even if anyone told her it wasn’t because of her that her mother died, she wouldn’t believe. Not that anyone ever tried to tell her.

She knew her father as the man who had given her the other half of her DNA, but nothing more. He’d been away at work, for as long as she remembered and though there was a time she’d cared, rushed out of her room, eyes filled with anticipation, when she would hear him come home, that time was long gone.

Her brought up at the hands of housemaids meant that by the time she was 12, she’d developed an aversion to everything in the world. She didn’t have friends, didn’t like having them and she’d always been an aloof strange thing at school. Some of her teachers had tried paying attention to her, but they had changed so quickly from one class to the next, she hadn’t had the time to develop any deeper meaningful association with them.

Enter Middle School, and a guy called Jaebum had once given her flowers on White Day. She’d smiled in class for the first time then, and when he’d asked her to be his date to the farewell prom the next week she’d agreed. Only the prom had turned out to be more annoying than anything else, when she’d caught Jaebum confessing to another girl that he was only here with Nayeon because she was influential, being a chaebol. She hadn’t cried than, like any other girl would, only thrown the flowers, that he’d had the nerve to give her that night at his face in anger and left. Maybe it was then that she developed some feelings, even if they were all negative, towards the opposite gender apart from her father.

It was also the first time her father had taken notice of something about her. She’d realized he kept an eye on her, asking her about the guy she had gone to the prom with, but then again, she’d always been scrutinized by the media so she thought he must’ve known. Too bad she didn’t care.

It was her last year of Middle School when she’d first met him, who was in the last year of his High School then. Do Kyungsoo. The man she knew she was going to love for the rest of her life.

It was a tedious day like any other, with her waiting for her driver to arrive to pick her up, kicking pebbles by the road to kill time.

“Watch out!”

In a flash, she was looking into those perfect doe eyes of his, widened in apprehension and she barely registered she’d just been pulled out of danger zone of a car coming down the road, as she lost herself in the sea of his gaze.

“Be careful”, He was gone the next minute, talking on the phone, his hand that had pulled hers and the warmth that radiated from it, gone. Like her life had not just been turned upside down.

The next day, for the first time in her life, she’d paid attention to herself while getting ready for school. She’d gone to the High School building located on the same campus as her Middle School during refreshment time, and had been in luck because she spotted him and his friends on one of the tables right away.

It hadn’t taken a lot of work to figure out that they were kind of this popular clique. Over the next few days, she’d taken time out to observe each one of them. Kyungsoo had still been the only one who had appealed to her, and she’d started liking him even more after seeing how he kept to himself and never gave in to the “popular” antics.

Jinyoung, their class’s renowned shady hacker who she’d never give a second glance to, had cornered her some days later with that annoying smirk of his and asked what she was always doing at the High School building during breaks. Middle Schoolers weren’t really allowed to roam free to the High School territory even if they were studying at the same campus. Even though it had been the guy’s attempt at interacting with the complex chaebol of their school, who he happened to crush on, Nayeon had taken it as nothing more than blackmail and had asked him to help her instead. She had asked the guy to work out all the details she wanted of Kyungsoo, (like his cell number and address) in turn for dating him. It only lasted for so long, with him being the only one who was even slightly invested in their relationship. But when he told her she no longer needed to date him, she realized she missed him warm presence and asked him to be her friend. The guy, despite having feelings for her and knowing how much pain it would bring him, had still agreed and had been her confidant and ally since.

(Her father had inquired her about her dating Jinyoung, the second time he’d taken any interest in her life, and the perfect way to tick her father off and garner his attention had finally dawned upon Nayeon)

She had always been beautiful, but with her now taking care herself and actually taking out time for makeover, she was the new hot topic of their school and before long was sitting with the ‘filthy rich brats’ bunch during breaks in the café.

She’d still go to the High School, now with two giggly divas who called themselves her friends, and on the next Valentine’s Day she’d finally prepared herself enough and gone up to Kyungsoo’s group with flowers and chocolates. Her heart had almost flown out of her chest at the thought of finally confessing, but all Kyungsoo had done was take the flowers and chocolates, giving her a smile, and add it to the pile already increasing in size on his table.

With a thud she’d realized she wasn’t the only one who liked him this much. He had other admirers too, though not as many as some of his other friends, but she had to compete still. Would have to stand out amongst all others, make herself known to him. And seeing as he was completely oblivious to her already growing popularity, she’d have to try other ways.

And so she’d started texting him. Anonymously at first, and when he’d graduated, she’d openly told him that she loved him and wanted to be with him. It didn’t matter if he didn’t love her, her love was enough to last them both.

What she hadn’t prepared for was rejection. At first he’d lightly told her off, but then she’d been blocked. It had hurt a lot, and she’d cried then for the first time in a long time, cried for her mother, for someone to be there to guide her, and even though she didn’t get an answer, she’d woken up with a new resolve. She wouldn’t give up this easily. She’d contacted Jinyoung again, and asked for his help. He really was her only true friend.

The three years of High School that followed were spent in agony, every time she contacted him he would block her again. Was it wrong of her to love him? Had she committed a crime? He had given her hope when she had none, given her a reason to live and something to look forward to everyday, how could she give up on him so easily?

And so she’d waited. Waited for the day she graduated out of High School, so that no one would have any objections on her not being of age (from what she’d known of him, she realized he might only see her as a child and she had to change that). She kept herself popular in school, kept herself in the tabloids to keep her father interested, always choosing to date guys she didn’t care a fig about who her father would deem most bothersome, but for some reason the guy never outright stopped her or scolded her. She enjoyed the misery of his dilemma nonetheless.

But what she hadn’t been prepared for was to see the man of her dreams in her father’s office that Friday. Unable to believe her eyes for several minutes, he was gone before she registered fully what she’d just seen. She’d talked, actually talked to her father then about him, because she couldn’t stop thinking that if her father had business ties with him or his family, how much easier it was for her to be with him. And her father hadn’t disappointed her.

For the first time, she had realized that maybe her father wasn’t as dense and callous as she’d labelled him in her mind, maybe he did care. That maybe she’d been rude as well, too distant for him to reach and the negative feelings she had towards him had lessened considerably. She felt like the luckiest girl on the planet. Her relationship with her father was improving, she was getting to know things about him that she’d never bothered to know, the gap that had been left from all the previous years was somehow getting filled. And she was about to marry the love of her life.

But what she wasn’t prepared for was actually being with Kyungsoo. He’d looked surprised and for some reason dejected the first time they’d met, but she’d brushed it off as it was only natural for him to be shocked. He’d bought her a ring a few days later, and she was on cloud nine. Her dreams were, actually really coming true!

She didn’t know what her father had done to get Kyungsoo to agree to be with her, and she didn’t care. Not at first anyway. But as time passed she realized he wasn’t exactly how she’d dreamed him to be. He’d bought her the ring sure, and they were getting married, but she couldn’t stop feeling this hollowness that was always present between them. She tried to tell herself that she couldn’t seriously expect him to love her back immediately, he needed time to get used to her and things would eventually fall into place but she was starting to doubt it more and more as time passed. He never tried to do anything more than what was expected of him, not once had he ever asked her out himself, only gone through with the plans they’d already made. Never complimented her no matter how much she put into getting ready and looking her best, not even the kind of appreciation she was used to seeing in other men’s eyes whenever she walked by. It was like he was looking at her, but never really seeing her. And even as she tried to convince her self that the lack of emotional commitment from his side would go away with time, especially once they got married, she wasn’t sure she even believed it herself after two months of seeing him unaffected and cold.

Was she prepared to spend the rest of her life like this? Was her love really enough for the both of them? She wasn’t sure anymore. And it scared her to no end. If she had even been wrong about this man, the man who’d filled her days and nights, her mind and her heart completely for the past few years, then what did she have left to strive for?

You’re overthinking, Nayeon. It’s all going to be fine, her mind fed her sweet lies and today again she chose to believe them as she made her way to the auditorium of the college campus that Monday. Chanyeol, one of Kyungsoo’s good friends, had invited her to come see him present at a conference and she’d gladly agreed.

She took her seat in the back waiting for Chanyeol to show up and Kyungsoo’s presentation to start. And soon as it did, she found the answer that she’d been looking for.

Looking at Kyungsoo looking at the girl in red who wouldn’t raise her head (she remembered meeting her shortly once in Kyungsoo’s office, right after the news of their engagement had got out), like she was the only person in the room, the emotions radiating from him so clear even though she was sitting at the end of the auditorium.

And she realized what might have been the reason for the chasm between them. Or rather what she had come between. She should have realized sooner. That it wasn’t possible for a man to be this immune to her charms unless a third factor was involved.

She should have felt wronged, or even angry in such a situation but all she wanted, as she gazed at the two people sitting on the stage, was to disappear. To act like she had never seen anything, and all was perfect so that the guilt she was feeling for some reason wouldn’t be there.

How long will you keep pretending? A voice mocked her in her head.

“It’s sad, right?”

She snapped her head towards the source of the voice, and found the guy with the funny ears sitting next to her. When had he come? He seemed to be as lost in what was happening on stage as she was a minute ago. “Huh?”

Chanyeol spoke up again, without turning his head. “It’s just sad to see how two people you thought would stay together for the rest of their lives can’t even look each other in the eye anymore”

Nayeon tried not to feel too perturbed at the clear indication in his words. But her heart sank further nonetheless.

“They-they were….?”, She couldn’t even voice out the full suspicion in her mind.

“They were dating”, Chanyeol turned and told her as if her mind wasn’t going haywire trying to connect dots. Dots that were already a line, but one she refused to see.

“But he’s marrying you now, so”, He shrugged. “The past is the past, I guess”

She opened to say something, to ask him how he could tell her all this so casually but he spoke up first.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this, it’s because you have a right to know. You’re going to spend the rest of your life with him after all” He explained, and even though she should have felt good considering the fact that her fiancé’s friend cared enough to tell her details that Kyungsoo had never bothered to, she didn’t. She just wished she hadn’t heard or seen anything so that she could keep living in her own bubble without any guilt.

“Did I overstep my mark? Sorry, I was just trying to – “

“No, you’re right”, She turned to him with a fake smile. “I had a right to know. Thankyou for telling me”

“Right”, He awarded her with a smile with his jaw clenched, the goofy grins she recalled seeing him wear nowhere in sight. She didn’t know why that made everything feel so much worse.

But as always, she turned towards the stage, trying to brush away the bubbling hurt, and pretended everything was fine.

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A/N: I am thinking there'll be approx 10 more chapters? Give or take. Hope you guys are liking how the story is turning out.

The Baek-Tae arc is going to reach its too, hopefully in the next update.

Thankyou for reading!