“But sometimes, when you choose not to pick a side, you have essentially picked a side.”

“What? How does that even make any sense?“, his face was nothing but bewilderment.  

How do you even go about explaining this without sounding like you are making a mountain out of a molehill?  

“Y/N, I’m fine with girls being jealous and all but the one thing I cannot stand is you throwing a tantrum by threatening to break up with me. I don’t do this break up and get back together thing. If we are breaking up, it will be for good… so… are you sure? That we are worth less than this argument you had with Jihyun? Are you sure that you are prepared to give us up over something like this?”, he reasoned as if he was giving you a second chance to backpedal.  

“I’m trying to tell you that you have already picked your side, Taehyung, but if you don’t see it that way then fine, I’m telling you again… not everything has a middle ground. And this time, you have to choose one. So… will you be on my side?”, you threw the second chance card back at him.  

Taehyung was obviously annoyed by now, he looked nothing less than he was about to curse at your stupid insistence on this.  

“There’s no need to answer me anymore”, you shook your head in disappointment as you left.  

—

He was serious about what he said too. He never contacted you again after that night. You weren’t sure if he really was in your life this whole time. The only times you were sure you actually did date him were when you opened your chat with him and went through the old messages. If you were hurting this much, it must have happened, right?  

Needless to say, the news of the break up spread fast and furious, given Taehyung’s popularity, and so did the rumours as to the reasons why.  

Y/N is such a petty girlfriend. Y/N was jealous of Jihyun. Can’t Taehyung even have friends now just because he is dating Y/N? Taehyung deserves better… She’s so selfish…

There were so many, to the extent that even you became aware of them despite how ill-informed you usually were of the gossip around school.  

The first lesson you learnt from this was that giving in to someone becomes something taken for granted over time. Because you did it once, because you did it twice, you are expected to always do it. And when you choose to not do it, when you took a stand for yourself, you became the mean one, the selfish one, the petty one.  

“Oh please, who doesn’t share such videos nowadays, it’s even in the news. I heard Y/N was just being overly sensitive and got upset that Taehyung didn’t side with her.” You were sitting in a corner of the library trying to focus on the textbook in front of you when you overheard the conversation between two of your classmates behind the bookshelf that blocked them from seeing you there. The third time this week.  

Lesson two: the entire world would simply conclude that you were not worth supporting, because the one person that everyone presumed would or should have sided with you, chose not to.  

Not once did you try to clarify or defend yourself. How do you stand up against the rest of the world by yourself? Where do you even start? Who was going to listen to you? What is the point anymore?

When you believed that nobody would take your side, you too, have abandoned it.  

All that was left was your desperation and desire for the world to move on, to leave you alone.

—

And alone you were. You didn’t have many friends in school to begin with, the only few you had were closer to Taehyung than they were to you.  

Avoidance became a valuable skill. Good thing you didn’t share any common classes with him this semester but you still had to avoid him around school and you decided to stop going to the painting club. From what little you heard through the grape vines, he went about his activities as he normally would.  

Isn’t it usually the case that the one who was more blameworthy, ran away more? What have you done so wrong to be avoiding him like this?

—

Eventually, you worked up whatever courage you had left in you and decided to join a new club in school to prevent yourself from sinking into further lonesomeness.  

The people in the photography club were generally friendly to your pleasant surprise. You had been attracted to the club when you saw a wall full of photographs outside the club room. The club welcomed anyone to propose captions for the photographs and a few of them had post-it notes stuck to them; some captions were funny, some were sentimental, you found solace in reading all of them.  

Even though you did not attend club activities too regularly, you ultimately managed to produce a photograph you felt was worthy to be placed on the photo wall. You had gone to visit a friend near the countryside over the weekend and the lake that you passed by had already started to freeze over. In the morning fog rising in the dusk, it looked desolate and you were compelled to snap a picture of it.

Two days after you put up the photograph, you passed by the wall on your way to one of your classes. A yellow post-it note was stuck on the corner over the white sticker that had your name written on it. Someone had written a poem on the post-it:

“A thick ice has formed  
Atop a winter lake on which I was thrown away  
A thick ice has formed 
In the dream I shortly went into 
My agonizing phantom pain  
Is still the same.”

You peeled the post-it off the photograph, peering at it and then at your photograph again. You finally had an inkling of why you avoided Taehyung to this extent.  

The one who was hurt more, runs away more. Because although you pretended like your wounds have frozen over, that everything was calm on top, you knew it was not all that frozen underneath.  

—

Finally the first semester ended, the winter break was exceptionally cold. And then it was the first week of the second semester of your sophomore year. You strolled into class very early, only a few seats were taken and per usual, you walked up the stairs all the way to the back of the small lecture room, picking a seat in the last row.  

There were two girls who came in after you, they sat down in the row right in front of you and started to take out their things when one of them whispered softly, “I heard Taehyung’s taking this class too…”  

“And so? You know he has a new girlfriend now right? Stop being so boy crazy…”

“It doesn’t hurt to have an eye candy in class”, the first girl giggled.  

You were not surprised you would eventually end up in a common class with Taehyung, it was inevitable given how small the arts faculty was in this school. What surprised you was how your heart pinched upon hearing that he has a new girlfriend. Has it still not been long enough?

It’s about time though. For him to get a new girlfriend, for you to stop avoiding him, for everything to return to normal. Maybe seeing him together with his new girl would do the trick for you, you could only hope.  

“Is this seat taken?”, a sweet voice inquired. You looked up.  

He had a shy smile, and everything about him was tidy and neat. His simple white shirt was tucked into his light blue jeans, his hair was short and he styled his fringe up revealing his forehead, flaunting his impeccable features.  

“Umm… no… it’s not”, you answered, although you were still a little taken aback by the suddenness of the stranger’s approach.  

He widens his smile a little and puts his backpack down on the seat next to you, along the aisle. The classroom was starting to fill with people. “I’m, Haejoong”, he introduces himself as he sat down.  

“Oh… uh, hi, I’m Y/N. Are you new here?”, the question came out a bit too abruptly, but you couldn’t help but wonder why you never noticed him around before.  

“I major in film-making, it’s my first time taking a pure arts class, if that is what you mean”, he laughed while answering you.  

Just at that moment some guy at the front of the class squawked loudly, “Oh~~ here comes the campus couple!”  

Both Haejoong and you turned towards the front entrance of the classroom. Your heart stops a little seeing Taehyung walk in. His smile looked more captivating than you remembered it to be, reminding you of the times he used to smile and goof around with you. It was just because you haven’t seen him in such a long time. That was the best you could come up with to rationalise it to yourself.  

Taehyung almost immediately spots you, even though you were hidden behind rows and rows of other students. It was strange, how he was always able to see you even when you hid so far away from him. He sees you looking at him, and he momentarily contemplated letting go of the hand he held, but he eventually catches hold of himself. The hand he held slowly dragged him further into the room, his eyes only focusing on her now.    

The girls seated in front of you were quietly whispering something again, occasionally glancing back towards your direction. And this time you couldn’t hear them, perhaps you didn’t want to hear them.  

Haejoong notices when Taehyung stared at you, although it was short-lived, and he turns to look at you closely.  

You thought you had been alright, you thought you would be alright, even if you weren’t, you thought seeing him with his girlfriend now would finally force you to put it down.

You couldn’t have been more wrong, not when the girl who was now by his side is no other than Jihyun.  

How cruel of him… to answer your last question to him in this way.