“I don’t want this thing to get any bigger than it already is… I just hope it dies down quickly and quietly. That is all I want now. I have no answer either. But somehow the world makes me feel that as the victim, finding the culprit, seeking justice, is not my priority”, Jihyun explained and stood up to leave.

“Jihyun…”, you called out to her.  

She didn’t turn around but she did stop moving towards the café’s door.  

“Don’t be fooled into thinking that he’s on your side…”, you preached.  

She suddenly felt a surge of irritation, she spun around and stalked back towards Taehyung and you.  

“My side? Then are you on my side? Is he on my side?”, she raged as she pointed at Taehyung. “Just because he’s here with you, you think he’s on your side now? You should be the one being worried about getting fooled, Y/N. Don’t be too happy now… we may all be in the same boat in the end.”

You suddenly felt a sense of embarrassment and a tinge of guilt. Who were you to be preaching a lesson to her? Everyone faces life with a different set of lenses. We have experienced different things, we have met different people, we have walked different paths. Thus, the specifications of our lenses cannot be the same. Even when we face that same landscape, that same frame, how we capture it and how the final picture develops, will ultimately be dependent on those lenses.  

You watched Jihyun walk out of the café and you thought to yourself, we always assume people share the same values and the same world view as us. That’s why it is difficult to understand when they see things differently from us. And when we don’t understand why they don’t think like us, we conclude that they stand against us, that they are on the other side.  

Jihyun stalks on, her winter boots clicking against the dull pavement. She kept her eyes on the ground as she walked along. She never used to be this way. She used to enjoy seeing the view on her way, but now she just doesn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. The moment she does, she wonders whether they know about her, whether they are judging her.  

Out of nowhere, you rushed out in front of her, cutting her path. She was befuddled at your persistence. But then again, maybe you are just desperate to save Taehyung from this situation. You will probably never see it from her view – that what you are asking her to do, is to believe a guy who has hurt and abandoned her, and to give up on one who had supported her through the most difficult times.  

“Jihyun, I’m trying to-”, you started

“Y/N,”, Jihyun sighed and you immediately stopped talking, because you know you needed to hear her out, you needed to figure out what kind of lenses she has now. “Is it weird if I think that you must be happy this happened to me? Is it weird that I think you must also be happy to know that Taehyung never truly loved me? Even if it’s weird, that is what I think. And I have been suppressing and suppressing it, telling myself to not see you as the same petty person that I am. But here you are, making me doubt the only person that is keeping me stable now. Don’t… push me further please, I think I might really go crazy…”, Jihyun’s words were just pouring out.  

“You are petty…”, her face said it all, she was shocked that you would say it so abruptly and directly, “… but so am I. All the times Taehyung took your side. Every time I saw your triumphant smile, it’s as if I was the pettiest girlfriend who ever existed. I always thought to myself, I hope one day you will be in my shoes and will realise how it felt. But I’m not happy now either, Jihyun…”, you said.  

She was skeptical, she even scoffed lightly but that did not deter you from explaining, “… because I was the one who went around drawing those lines, separating myself from this person, from that person. If you are not standing on my side of the line, I get hurt. With these rules I made for myself, how can I ever expect to be happy?”  

You cannot deny that it is human nature to want to be sided with, but when you start obsessing over it, when everything is either your side or not your side, that becomes counter-productive, or in some ways, it can manifest into ‘jealousy’.  

“If I’m not making sense to you… what I’m really trying to say is that I was wrong to think that everything is black and white, my side or your side or whatever… what I’m getting at is that not everything is about picking a side, Jihyun. You are still my friend… I just want to help you, just like I want to help Taehyung too. There can be no other reason why I am doing this…”, you pleaded with her.  

“After all that has happened, you think we are still friends?”, she asked, very incredulously.  

“Why not? Even after all that has happened, you believed that I wasn’t the one who took those photos of you, right?”, you questioned.

She kept quiet and still, silently acknowledging it.  

“And despite your getting together with Taehyung not long after our break up, I believe you were just friends with him while I was dating him. I just wanted to tell you that”, you said.  

“I liked him”, Jihyun suddenly said. “I liked Taehyung before you guys got together. But when he was with you, I never intended to snatch him away. I was just not used to him prioritising another girl, we were best friends for a really long time you know…”, she said softly.

“I know…”, you replied.  

There was a long silence, both of you not really looking at each other but still stealing glances from time to time until Jihyun broke the silence, “He really locked up you up on the rooftop? Haejoong?”

You nodded, showing her a frost bite you had gotten on the sides of your palm. “It’s not about whether you believe me, it’s about what is the truth, we need to find out…”  

—

As Jihyun walks into the police station, Haejoong was into his own vacuum amidst the bustling scene.  

A lot ran through his mind in a matter of seconds, and he stood up from his seat, his hands still cuffed in front of him as he approaches Jihyun. You wanted to jump at him a second time, but Taehyung held onto your wrist and shook his head at you.  

“Jihyun…”, she winces as he calls her name. Just as he inhaled to say something again, one police officer shouted from across the room.  

“Hyung, the room’s cleared!”, he pointed towards a corridor at the same time.  

Haejoong was moved into an interrogation room. Unlike the dramas it wasn’t dimly-lit, but it was shabby-looking. The police quickly got down to taking all of your statements before they will proceed to question Haejoong. Once your statements were given, Helen, Taehyung, Jihyun and you, were all told to leave. You were not allowed to watch the interrogation anyway.  

Jihyun requested to speak to Haejoong for just five minutes but was rejected by the policemen. “Come back after we are done questioning him, Ms Kim”, was all they instructed her.  

—

The next day you walked into class, that same one that you used to hate because of Jihyun and Taehyung, and used to find refuge in sharing the class with Haejoong.  

Some of your classmates were looking at you fleetingly, curious but not wanting to make actual eye contact. You took a deep breath and intended to bulldoze through the stairs to your usual seat at the back of the room, but a voice caught you by surprise.  

“Y/N”, you turned to see that it was Hyesoo, the teaching assistant who had called you. “These are mine, it’s only for your reference, don’t write on them, don’t crumple them and make sure you return it to me once the project is done”, she nagged and shoves a notebook into your face.  

You looked at the book with utter confusion and then back at her.  

“What? All four of you have been so caught up in producing your own little school drama that you forgot the project is due next Monday? With the number of classes you guys missed, and having one groupmate held in a police station… why do you keep looking at me like that, you don’t want my notes? Fine… give it back”, she sneered.  

She almost snatches the notebook from your grasp but at the last moment your fingertips stuck onto them and tore it back from her.  

“No no I just totally forgot about the deadline… thanks sunbaenim…”, you stammered.  

Her haughty air doesn’t let down, and her hair flips as she turns to walk away to her seat again.  

—

Taehyung and Jihyun were nowhere in sight during the class, so you messaged him asking where he was but there was no reply. You walked listlessly out of the building after the class ended, thinking whether to give Taehyung a call or to drop by the student office first.  

“Y/N”, it was Taehyung’s voice and you scanned around in the crowd of students, finally spotting him standing not far from the landing of the stairs that led out from the school building. Jihyun was next to him and as you approached them you noticed how her eyes were all red and swollen.  

“I called Jihyun this morning to make sure she would go for class, but she didn’t pick up and when I went to her room… she stayed up the whole night, I just couldn’t leave her there alone”, Taehyung explained.  

You nodded.  

“Are you feeling okay?”, you asked her. 

“I want to go meet him”, Jihyun said.  

—

“Why?”, she asked Haejoong who was sitting across the table from Jihyun and you. The police only allowed two people to meet him at one time, so Taehyung volunteered to wait outside, a little too willingly. 

“Why?”, he wasn’t mimicking her, he was genuinely bewildered that she didn’t understand him, his choices. He continued to peer at her, his hands hidden below the table.  

“I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start”, she would pause a little between her words but she looked at him with a coldness resembling the season.  

“Because I like you… I would think you would know that by now-”, Haejoong answered but a scoff from you cuts him off.  

“Funny… that’s what you said to me not too long ago too…”, you spat sarcastically.  

He doesn’t even so much as glance at you, he was only fixated on Jihyun.  

“That was different”, he asserted without missing beat.  

You pouted your lower lip and slowly bobbed your head. “It was different… hmm… I thought about it for really long. Why is it that you liked Jihyun but approached me at the start?”

He finally turns to you, his eyes rather unconcerned about your phishing attempt. 

“You wanted to see if Taehyung would get jealous? You wanted to make Taehyung leave Jihyun…? You were just using me to achieve that?”, you theorised, you spoke slowly and peeked twice at Jihyun to make sure she was not too affected.  

“He doesn’t love her… she deserves to know that…”, Haejoong hisses at you in response.  

“Then why?! If you like me, why would you make everyone shun me like that… by taking those photos and videos?”, Jihyun bursts out at him eventually.  

“I didn’t make them shun you, Jihyun… don’t you see it? None of those bastards who claim to like you will stay by your side when it really matters. After Taehyung left you, they think they stood a chance”, he mocked and they would circle you like bees circling a flower, but look how they all just fly away when you face the smallest problem”, his answer sounded like he was trying to pacify a child who didn’t know better about the horrible world.  

“And you? You created the problem just to save me from it!”, Jihyun’s voice reeked with disbelief.  

“No! I didn’t create the problem… I was only showing you the problem. I was showing you the truth, Jihyun-ah!”, Haejoong leaned in as he shouted his reply at Jihyun. He was taken aback; this was the first time he raised his voice at her.  

“You are crazy…”, Jihyun whispered as she gripped her thighs to stop her hands from shaking.  

You reached out your right hand and gently placed it over her tightening left hand.  

“And it still wasn’t enough…”, Haejoong said with a dejected yet chilling expression.