Days had passed since Jiyeon's awful breakup with Taeyong. It had affected her so much more than she knew.

"Jiyeon-ah, stop eating." Chaeyong said while watching her bestfriend wolfed down the third McD burger that morning. "You're scaring me."

"If I stop I'll still be upset. So I rather eat..."

"You're still going to be upset too. It's been days. It's almost a week. It shouldn't affect you more than it—"

"Chaeyong, please don't. I've been trying to distract myself and it's working, so please?" Jiyeon forced a smile before continuing her burger.

Chaeyong sighed at her friend in front of her.

"So you've been hanging out with Yuta again now, huh?" Chaeyong casually asked while smirking.

"Yea so?"

"What do you mean so? Are you seriously gonna make him a rebound—"

"No, it's nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. I was so upset, you didn't pick up my calls, I didn't have anywhere to go, so I went to his house." She replied, now filled with McWrap with no interest in Chaeyong.

"You went to his house..." Chaeyong said and Jiyeon nodded. "You slept with—"

Jiyeon choked on her food, coughed like crazy and drank her mineral water.

"Damn it, Chaeyong. Why would you think I slept with my own bestfriend?" Jiyeon eyes widened at her.

"You know... post-breakup se—"

"No! Never! He's my bestfriend we would never do it, okay?" Jiyeon shook her head in denial.

"So... you didn't sleep with Yuta?"

"No!"

Chaeyong laughed it off as a joke and they stayed at McD until it was time for them to go to school.

Chaeyong drove them to school and she parked her car at the usual spot near the school's main building entrance.

Jiyeon still felt like she has lost the love of her life. Everywhere she looked around the school, all she could think of were the moments they used to spend there together. Walking along the corridors side-to-side, talking near the lockers, giving each other goodbye kisses before their separate classes. She also used to spend a very long time in the library tutoring his boyfriend, which was then her ex, because he had difficulties in Chemistry and History. 

Most of the time when they were together were spent there, at the school. So how could she walk along with her friends like nothing happened?

"See you after school for practice, Jiyeon. The Venus have missed practicing with our finest flyer in school." Chaeyong smiled to her shorter friend, but her expression shifted into a worried look. "Ok you know what? You want to swim? Fine. I'll cancel today's practice."

She looked up at her friend, confused.
Sometimes she was glad that her bestfriend was the head of the squad.

"Try not to think about it too much ok? Remember, you still have school for your career which is much much much and much more important than that stupid guy who dumped the best girlfriend there is in the world, ok?"

Jiyeon cracked a wide smile, which Chaeyong returned. She hugged Jiyeon and went to her class.

~

She wanted to go to Venus' table in the cafeteria, but she didn't feel like it, again. She hadn't sat with them since she broke up. At lunch breaks, she would now go to the school's indoor basketball court and sat on the bleachers and ate her food there. 

She opened her wrapped sandwich she brought from home and ate it in silence. She stared at the court in front of her, the court which Taeyong and his team had always practice at, where they would win, where she could cheer for him. Flashes of happy memories on Taeyong's victory came to her mind and she also couldn't stop thinking about what Taeyong had said to her in the hospital,

"I have no feeling for you anymore, Jiyeon."

She still couldn't believe Taeyong would say something like that. She'd been telling herself that Taeyong was just upset and that he would call her back and apologize. But then she also remembered exactly of how he looked like when he said that. His words fell out of his mouth like vapor but landed in her guts as shrapnel. His eyes were cold, as if his words were nothing, as if he had no idea that his words would crush one's entire heart into tiny pieces.

She put her half-finished sandwich beside her, cleaned her hands and held her head in frustration. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her thigh, supporting her head, and looked down on the wooden surface of the bleachers.

She felt her chest tightened. She held back her tears. She had no more intention to cry, not every single time she was there. She was tired of feeling the way she had been feeling. She really wanted to scream her lungs out. She needed it to stop more than anything.

How can someone be the source of so much pain, she thought.

She felt her face heated up and her eyes became blurry. A tear dropped from her eyes to the cold wooden ground.

She heard squeaky sound of the court's entrance door. She looked up in a heartbeat while swiping her tears away.

"Thought you were here," A boy's sound echoed through the hall.

She could only managed to guess who it was from his silhouette.

"What are you doing?" She asked and sniffled unintentionally.

"Hey, are you crying?" He said and walked fast to her side.

Yuta sat beside her and she looked away, putting her sandwich back inside her bag. 

"You know, you can't cry every day, every minute, you know." Yuta said. 

"I wanted to be alone, but you blew that away." She said and managed to chuckle softly.

"Wanna talk about it?" Yuta asked.

"What to talk about?" She looked at her friend beside her.

"Unless it'll make you feel better, you don't have to."

She flipped her hair back gently and stared at the court in front of them. 

Jiyeon shrugged, "maybe, do you know how it feels like? I feel like... I feel like a red hot coal is put inside of my chest, you know. And it's like someone is pressing it hard even deeper in there."

Yuta stayed silent, not knowing what to say. "Jiyeon..."

"Because of that, my eyes are always triggered to cry and more to it, I feel stupid, very, very stupid." A single tear slid down from her warm eyes, she wiped it away. Follow by another one, and another one.

Yuta pulled her into his embrace gradually. She didn't sob, but her stream of tears wouldn't stop. 

"I feel stupid because, I feel like I'm the only one who feel this way." She sniffled and Yuta brushed her hair gently to calm her. 

"I visited him a few times..."

Jiyeon breathed in.

"And he looked like he was fine. His eyes were only tired, because of the therapies and his medication. But he didn't look like he has lost something that meant the world to him." She stopped for a while, trying to hold herself together, "like I do."

She let her tears flowed down for a minute and Yuta didn't complain. Once she was relaxed, he let her go.

"Gosh, how many times have I cried in front of you already?" She said while smiling in guilt.

"Hey, it's okay. And... I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I couldn't be much of a help to you."

"No, no, Yuta. Talking about it with you actually always makes me feel better." She smiled and he chuckled.

"Come on, get up. We have Maths." Yuta held both her hands and pulled her up, and let go. "Race you to the class!"

Yuta stormed off and skipped through the bleachers, landed on the court and ran outside. When he started to run, Jiyeon immediately followed. She ran and found herself chasing him.

Other students were eyeing them both dirty looks. Jiyeon felt their gazes, judging her, but she didn't care. She knew people were shocked that someone with her status and being the girlfriend of the basketball star in the school would hang out with someone like Yuta. 

Yuta wasn't in any sports club, but he was in the photography club. He loved taking shots