Chapter 5: The Breakup

Rec Song - All I Ask by Adele

Joohyun is not subtle at all. She immediately starts as soon as she gets back on her desk at work. Her mind is running miles and there is only one thing she can think of — that she’s not going to lose her best friend over a stranger.

She hires a girl because she doesn’t have any clue if Jisoo is gay or bi or what, and she doesn’t want to take a chance. That said, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with that woman, too. This girl she hires — Byul, or that’s what she said she is called whenever she is doing something like this, only has one mission. As far as she is concerned, she just wants to learn what she has on Seulgi and end it, once and for all.

Joohyun finds out Jisoo has been a police six years ago, right after graduating from the Korean National Police University. She was born in Jeju and has been there until she decided to become a police. After being stationed at Daegu for four years, she went back to Jeju and lived there again. Strangely, there seems to be nothing wrong with her.

“Are you sure? Did you look enough?” Joohyun, agitated, asks over the phone. Her voice remains a whisper but anyone listening can hear the irritation in her voice that is not matching the brightness of the dress she is wearing. She is, after all, in the office and is supposed to look presentable. Her facial expression is a different story though.

“She’s clean,” Byul answers confidently. “Are you sure you just don’t want me to find anything?”

That stops Joohyun for a moment. She bits her lip and hisses, “Do your job right and you’ll get everything you need.” Then, she hangs up without hearing another word from Byul, her knees shaking as she sinks and catches herself on the chair.

Fortunately, she has regained composure when she hears two knocks and immediately, she knows who is going to open the office’s door. It’s Bogum, looking sleek and handsome in his usual office attire that is only complete with his smile.

Joohyun may have forgotten about lunch.

“Love? Ready?” Bogum asks, smiling at his beautiful wife.

“I’m so sorry. I haven’t called the restaurant. I was —”

“It’s okay, love,” the president of the company quickly says. “We can just go.”

She looks at him, feeling slightly guilty, because maybe he should have let her finish and she will tell him exactly what she has been doing. I’m so sorry. I haven’t called the restaurant. I was just having my best friend’s girlfriend investigated because… Instead, she simply puts on her best apologetic smile for more than failing to book their lunch reservation, gets her coat, and catcher her husband’s reaching hand.

Perhaps she has become impatient after hearing that recently, Seulgi and Jisoo had celebrated their anniversary for one week at Jeju from her own best friend. Truthfully, she tried to be happy and enthusiastic for Seulgi but it just won’t come right and she had to make an awful excuse of grocery shopping to get off her phone.

Angrily, she calls Byul and demands her to just get Jisoo whatever it takes. Even though she doesn’t have the reason to be at Jeju, she still wants to be there when Seulgi and Jisoo break up. She wants to be there for Seulgi. She books the earliest flight and goes to the island.

Joohyun watches as the girl she hired literally jumps to Jisoo in front of Seulgi, calling her babe out of everything, and demanding why she had not called for days. How Seulgi’s eyes literally widens and opens. Jisoo’s hands move in defensive position as she tries to get Byul off her. Seulgi’s eyes look defeated as she just turns around and takes a step back, walking away.

“Seulgi, wait!” Jisoo desperately calls after her and that’s when Seulgi runs.

Joohyun will have to think of an excuse why she’s suddenly at Jeju right after Jisoo and Seulgi broke up, but first, she wants Jisoo to see her. She wants to tell Jisoo that she shouldn’t have come near her best friend, that she shouldn’t have loved her best friend.

“Kim Jisoo.”

Byul and Jisoo dart their eyes on her. She has already told Byul before that if they are to meet, under any circumstances, that she will have nothing to do with her, but she doesn’t miss the slight confusion and mild displeasure the moment Byul sees her.

“Joohyun,” Jisoo acknowledges her, taking her hands, or taking Byul’s arms, around her. The way she speaks Joohyun’s name sounds eerily familiar and the latter hates it. They are not familiar. As a matter of fact, they are strangers, and this person just broke her best friend’s heart. “What are you doing here?”

“How could you cheat on her?” Joohyun demands.

At this point, people are beginning to stop to look at the commotion. A policewoman is trying to separate herself from a blonde woman with skimpy dress who is trying to wrap herself around her, and an extraordinary beauty is demanding why someone cheated on someone. It’s technically not the usual drama scene, but it’s drama and people like that.

“Joohyun, stop.”

The voice halts everyone as Joohyun quickly turns around to see Seulgi behind her, looking displeased at what is happening but more than that, betrayed. Quite easily now, Byul and Jisoo stop trying to do whatever they were doing before and separates from each other’s limbs perfectly fine.

“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” Seulgi asks quietly, her eyes never leaving her best friend.

“I —” Joohyun begins, not knowing how to answer those questions. She hired someone to investigate Jisoo and when she finds nothing against her, she demands something to be found against Jisoo. She doesn’t mean to hurt Seulgi. “I want you to realize you’re making a mistake.”

Hearing that, Seulgi’s blood boils and her face reddens in a way that isn’t supposed to be a blush but fury. Her white complexion completely changes and she doesn’t even remember the last time she feels so mad that she just wants to shout. And she does. “What?!” She doesn’t understand what mistake Joohyun is talking about but she knows what it is. “Are you that mad that I’m gay?! Do you hate the fact that I like girls that much?!”

Those people who stop to watch the drama gasp and murmurs begin. Perhaps they now have a better picture of what is happening. Joohyun doesn’t understand why Seulgi will shout that and she blames Jisoo once again.

“Seulgi, that’s not —” she begins once again, taking a step towards her best friend.

But Seulgi steps back, like she is afraid of Joohyun and that’s the first time it happened. Her eyes are hurt and betrayed but they are also raging. “Why did you do that? Why did you have Jisoo investigated? Why did you pay someone to…” her entire body is shaking but her voice is stable as she speaks every word in rage. “Do you think I wouldn’t know? Do you think Jisoo wouldn’t? She is a ing police officer, Joohyun!”

Joohyun opens to explain but there are no words. She has never seen Seulgi this mad, most especially, to her. “Seulgi, please calm down.”

“How can I calm down?!” she snaps at her. “My best friend paid someone to ruin my relationship and my best friend humiliated the person I love. Tell me, how can I calm down?!”

“Jisoo is not the right person for you. She’s not who you think she is!”

“How can you still say that?” Seulgi asks, more worn out than exasperated. “No, Joohyun. I love Jisoo,” she calmly tells her best friend but her eyes look beyond Joohyun’s and meet Jisoo’s, “and I know for a fact that she will not do anything to intentionally hurt me.” Her eyes look back at Joohyun as she continues, “Like what you are doing to me now. If you hate me this much, just tell me and you will never hear from me again. Jisoo didn’t do anything to you.”

Joohyun shakes her head. “You’re just confused, Seulgi.”

“I am not,” Seulgi insists.

“You are.”

“How in the world can you say that?”

“How are you even going to bear children and have a normal family?”

Seulgi’s mouth drops open and she just can’t believe she’s hearing this. “I can’t believe this,” she finally finds the words and she shakes her head, looking disbelievingly at Joohyun. “Even my own grandmother accepted me already. Do you know what the old-fashioned woman who condone technically everything fairly new to her said to me? I can be with whoever I want to be as long as I am happy and I am not hurting anybody. And you are saying this to me?”

“You don’t actually believe you can be happy with her forever, do you?” Joohyun asks, quite not near stopping yet when she knows she has come this far in making Seulgi realize the mistake she is making.

“But I do,” Seulgi immediately answers her without a beat. Her eyes are b with confidence and truth. “I do believe I can be happy with her forever, Joohyun.”

“You’re just in a rush, Seulgi, since she’s your first and all.”

“What?”

“She is your first relationship, right?”

Seulgi slowly shakes her head. “No, she’s not, Joohyun.”

Joohyun stares at her.

“Jisoo is actually my third, and hopefully, my last, girlfriend.”

“No, that’s not true. You’re just making that up,” Joohyun says, shaking her head and looking confused.

“It’s true.”

“If it’s true, why didn’t you tell me?” she demands.

“Because I know, somehow, you’d react like this,” Seulgi tells her. “And you’re my best friend. How can I live with you hating me? You are important to me, Joohyun. So important I couldn’t tell you a huge part of me because I didn’t want you to hate me. That was before. Until I realized that the people who stay in our lives are those who should, are those who wants to, no matter who we are. That’s why I decided to tell you the truth. I didn’t do that because I want you to hate me or because I am waiting for your acceptance. I just want you to understand. But now, I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore.”

“You’re lying. There’s no way that’s true,” Joohyun still says.

Seulgi watches her in that state and there are still a lot of things she doesn’t understand. She is still mad and she feel betrayed at what Joohyun did but now, she just feels pity towards her best friend.

“I know I shouldn’t ask for anything. It came as a shock to you, I understand that,” Seulgi says, “but just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And you know what, I don’t really care anymore. If you don’t want to believe me, it’s not my problem anymore. I just want you to know that what you did, to me and Jisoo, I can’t forget it. I will never forgive it.” Then, she moves forward towards Jisoo without another word.

“Wait, Seulgi,” Joohyun whispers, trying to catch her arm, but she just walks away. And that moment, there is no heart breaking more than Joohyun as she watches her best friend walk away from her. She thought realizing that she has fallen in love with her best friend is a bad thing. She thought meeting her best friend’s girlfriend is worse. But realizing how much she loves her best friend that she can do crazy things, hearing how much her best friend loves her girlfriend that she wants to spend the rest of her life with her, and knowing that her best friend can never forgive her for the things she did to them is the worst.

Watching Seulgi walks away from her, Joohyun knows she is not just walking away from her at that moment. She is walking away from her life.

And damn, she should just have told her.

--

A/N:

Joohyun, what are you doing, seriously?

Take care, guys. Two more weeks until this trim's over. Thank God. I honestly wish I can say the same with work.

- Elle xo