Chapter 6

Sumi closes her front gate, looking around. Yoongi isn’t waiting for her today. Her chest aches as she pushes aside her thoughts. She plays some music and walks alone.

Her thoughts stray to Yoongi as she listens to her favourite song. She shakes her head, refusing to acknowledge her darkest thoughts, the truth sliding around her mind, reminding her of the inevitable.

As she reaches the school, she spots Jennie, waving her down.

“Hey, Sumi,” Jennie smiles weakly, “You’re alone today?”

“Yeah,” Sumi shrugs, “What did you get up to last night?”

“I just finished watching that drama I was talking to you about the other day,” Jennie starts talking about her favourite drama, grateful for the change in conversation.

Sumi and Jennie walk to class, Sumi listening and laughing as Jennie expresses her emotions from the ending episode.

“I just can’t believe they ended it without addressing it!” Jennie grunts in frustration as Sumi opens the classroom door. Half the class is in there, along with Namjoon, Hoseok, and Yoongi.

Sumi spots Yoongi first, her smile slipping from her face. She walks to her seat, composing herself as she ignores her feelings once again.

“Hey, Yoongi,” Sumi beams, sitting beside him.

“Hey, baby,” Yoongi smirks, equally awkwardly.

“Hey!” Namjoon gestures for Jennie to hurry to his table.

“What?” She whispers.

“What happened?” he whispers back, making sure Sumi and Yoongi are too engrossed in their uncomfortable bubble to hear them.

“Well,” Jennie bites her lip as Namjoon sighs.

“You told her, didn’t you? About America?”

Jennie nods as tears well up in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to… do anything,” She looks over at them sadly, “I thought I was doing the right thing!”

Namjoon shakes his head, looking at the pair as well.

Meanwhile, Yoongi is sitting tensely.

How do I make things just like before?

Yoongi runs his hand through his hair, frustrated.

“Sumi,” Yoongi starts, leaning closer to her, “Can we forget about this… problem… for a moment?”

Sumi stares at him. For a moment, Yoongi thinks she might cry, or get angry. But she beams at him, rubbing her neck awkwardly.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Yoongi glances briefly at the whispering duo diagonally behind them, “Let’s just push it aside and not make things awkward. I’ll tell you when I know if I want to go or not, okay?”

Sumi nods, holding her hand out for him to take.

They both relax, the tension leaving their bodies instantly.

They talk about various things during class, holding hands and sneaking glances at each other, but Yoongi knows she’s not okay. Her smile doesn’t extend to her eyes.

Ignoring this, he enjoys his day with her, even though it’s all fake because neither of them wants to address the issue.

At lunch a few hours later, Jennie and Sumi eat alone, the boys wanting to go to music class early as they always do.

Jennie decides it’s time for her to voice her own problems.

“Sumi,” Jennie bites her lip, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?” Sumi smiles, looking down at her food.

“If you weren’t good at writing, would you still want to be an author?”

Sumi frowns, turning away from her food.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sumi gasps, “Are you about to tell me you think my writing is rubbish?”

“That’s not it,” Jennie laughs weakly, “I mean, hypothetically if you just couldn’t wrap your head around metaphors or grammar, would you still want to be an author?”

Sumi considers this for a moment as if trying to imagine herself hating grammar.

“Honestly, no,” Sumi says simply, “I wouldn’t have wanted to be an author in the first place if I wasn’t good at it,”

Jennie’s heart drops. How can the girl who wants to write metaphors for a living not pick up what Jennie is putting down?

“I see,” Jennie replies coldly. Sumi looks up at her tone of voice, frowning.

“Why do you ask?”

“What if you wanted to be something… like a scientist,” Jennie suggests.

“Listen, Jennie,” Sumi puts her chopsticks down, “My dream is my ambition. I wouldn’t put myself through something that I don’t understand. It wouldn’t be my dream then, would it?”

Jennie narrows her eyes as she clenches her jaw.

“Really?” She murmurs.

“Obviously!” Sumi chuckles, “Why call it a dream if it brings you pain?”

Throwing all caution into the wind, Jennie slams her utensils down.

“So I just shouldn’t be a doctor then, huh?”

Sumi’s eyes go wide as she puts two and two together.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Sumi bites her lip, “I mean, you enjoy reading medical books and stuff, right?”

“I guess,”

“So it’s still something you like, right?”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jennie snaps, folding her arms, “Should I give up?”

Sumi frowns, actually considering her question. Jennie scoffs before Sumi can respond.

“I see,”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Sumi protests, “I just can’t imagine struggling for a dream, okay?”

“Because everything is so easy for you?” Jennie stands up, swinging her backpack over her shoulder.

“Jennie!” Sumi calls out in frustration, “You know I didn’t mean it like that!”

“I’ll see you in class,” Jennie mumbles tonelessly as she leaves the cafeteria, leaving Sumi to finish eating alone.

Sumi spends the rest of the day filled with regret. She never meant to offend Jennie, and now that she recalls the conversation, she didn’t mean any of it. She struggled for her dream as well. It didn’t come naturally. But she also thinks that if it became too difficult, she wouldn’t be able to see it as a dream, but as boring work.

As she continues to pout, her thoughts stray to Yoongi. As much as she’d like to forget his ambition to move to America, she can’t stop thinking about it. She feels as if she’s waiting for her boyfriend to decide whether or not he’d like to break up, and that isn’t an easy thought to ignore, especially whilst it’s swishing around up there, appearing at the forefront of her mind when she really doesn’t want it to.

Once again, she decides to bottle it up. He’ll choose her over an over-accomplishing ambition, right? He can still be a rapper in Korea. Hell, he can go to America for a short while if he wants to experience hip-hop culture first-hand. He doesn’t have to leave for so long, so he won’t choose that over her.

Right?

“Holy , Min Yoongi!” Namjoon beams as he enthusiastically gestures for Yoongi to come to him. He’s staring down at his phone with excitement.

“What is it?”

“Look at this!”

Yoongi looks down at Namjoon’s phone, frowning slightly. On the screen is a website Namjoon has been frequenting often ever since the career council day a week or so ago, particularly after meeting the underground rappers.

It displays a small entertainment company that produces idols and creates kpop groups. It has an advertisement for an audition set for the end of the year, just after they finish High School. Yoongi groans, looking at Namjoon with disgust.

“You want to audition to be a kpop star?” Yoongi groans again, “Go on, I bet those underground rappers will destroy you,”

Namjoon laughs, shaking his head.

“Listen, we can either become like those other guys, struggling to make a living and barely developing a style or getting any better,” he gestures to his phone, “Or we can audition to join this really cool entertainment that actually has really amazing hip hop producers, some of whom are underground rappers,”

“Really?” Yoongi watches as Namjoon opens another tab, containing all the information of the producers working for the entertainment. They all have a very ‘underground’ appearance. He recognizes one of the rappers as Vanilla, the guy they met on the weekend.

“Those guys?” Yoongi scoffs, “You could have just simply said ‘Vanilla works for this company’ and I would have been sold,”

“Nice!” Namjoon switches back to the advertisement, “They also say they will send the winners to America to study for as long as you’d like. But the minimum is 3 years,” Namjoon looks up at Yoongi, “That’s what you want to do, right?”

Yoongi goes to nod but stops as Sumi comes to mind. If he auditions and is sent to America, he’ll be agreeing to leave her.

But if he doesn’t he’ll miss an amazing opportunity to become the rapper he wants to be. There aren’t many kpop entertainment agencies that have underground artists working for them. Plus, he’ll join with Namjoon, which will make it at least more likely for them to debut together.

But he really loves Sumi. Will she really leave him if he wants to follow his dream?

He sits down, staring at Namjoon’s phone as if it’s the beginning and end of 2 important things in his life.

Must I choose?

Eventually, he decides, nodding towards Namjoon.

“Send me the link and I’ll send off my details,”

Namjoon smiles wryly, understanding Yoongi’s conflicted feelings better than Yoongi will ever know. This will be a difficult decision.

Who will he choose?

Does there have to be a choice?