Some months passed by and Jiyeon was doing it well, she started to get along quite fine with her classmates and at least nobody was making things hard for her.

Myungsoo and her started to develop an even closer relationship, it was a common scene to see Myungsoo and Jiyeon together everytime they had some spare time.

There was also someone who was trying hard to get to know Jiyeon better.

“Come on Jiyeon, let’s go together!” Hyomin pouted while grabbing Jiyeon’s arm.

Jiyeon didn’t know why but since the first day of college Hyomin was trying so hard to get close to her, it wasn’t that Jiyeon disliked her but she wasn’t so sure about opening up to her, since her insistence was suspicious for her.

“I don’t know.” She answered doubtful.

“The girls are coming as well, we’ll go eat something and after that maybe we can go play some videogames or the cinema.” Hyomin explained cheerfully.

Great, there’ll be more people. Jiyeon thought.

Hyomin looked at her and seemed to acknowledge her doubt and indecision.

“What about asking Myungsoo to tag along?” Hyomin suggested.

Jiyeon was taken aback by the sudden suggestion.

“Myungsoo?” Jiyeon asked.

“Yeah, you two seem to be really close so I thought you’d feel more comfortable with him around.” Hyomin explained.

Oh, so she already noticed it, but…

“I don’t know if he is willing to come.” Jiyeon answered a bit down.

“Huh? Why?” Hyomin asked confused.

Jiyeon wasn’t in the mood to explain things to Hyomin, so she just cut the topic.

“Maybe he’s busy with something, I haven’t seen him today.”

“Is that so?” Hyomin said.

Even when things seemed to go smoothly, there was something worrying Jiyeon. Ever since they got into college, Myungsoo seemed to have changed, even when things between them remained the same as ever, the boy was behaving weirdly. It wasn’t long before he started to behave the same as their last year of high school. Jiyeon got to know that Myungsoo was labeled as a bad student, his grades were a mess and it wasn’t rare not seeing him in classes.

Jiyeon tried countless times to bring the topic into conversation but was always cut off by the favorite phrase of him “everything’s alright, don’t worry about it”. She didn’t know what else to do, even when they were closer than ever, somehow she felt he was getting farther away from her.

That was why Jiyeon started to think that she shouldn’t rely so much on him, even when she wanted him to be by her side forever, there was something telling her that probably that may not be the case.

“Well I won’t force you to come if you don’t want to, but if you change your mind we’ll be at-“

“I’ll go.” Jiyeon said cutting Hyomin off.

Jiyeon could see Hyomin’s eyes bright up.

“Really?! Great! We’ll have a great time I can assure that!” Hyomin said excitedly.

Jiyeon smiled at her and nodded. Even when she was scared, she decided it, she will try to get close to Hyomin; she couldn’t keep going on with that fear towards people forever.

So they waited for the rest of the girls to gather up with them.

 

“Minhyun, dude, hey, Minhyun!”

Minhyun turned to see Aron who was calling him.

“What is it?” he answered.

“What are you so immersed on?” Aron asked with curiosity.

“Or with who?” Ren asked mischievously.

“Nonsense.” Minhyun answered.

“Her name is Jiyeon.” JR suddenly said.

“Huh?” Minhyun asked.

“The girl you were staring at, her name is Jiyeon.” JR answered while directing him a smile.

“Oh so it really was someone, who is it?” Ren asked while looking for the girl.

“Cut it.” Minhyun said a bit embarrassed. “How do you know her?” he asked JR.

“It seems that she’s Hyomin’s classmate, so she introduced her to the girls, Eunjung told me about it.” JR explained.

“Hey, maybe you can ask Eunjung to introduce you to her.” Baekho suggested.

“Forget it.” JR suddenly said. “According to Eunjung, she’s a really introverted girl, she still isn’t even close to them.”

Minhyun got visibly discouraged, so Ren tried to cheer him up.

“Hey don’t give up that easily; all you have to do is look for an opportunity to talk to her and gradually become close to her.”

“Guess you’re right.” Minhyun answered.

He then turned around to look at her, the rest of the girls joined her and Hyomin and they went away, Minhyun kept staring at her until she couldn’t be seen anymore.

 

The girls decided to eat pizza, Jiyeon thought it may be a bit awkward to get along with them being the only outsider from the group but for her surprise the girls included her in all the conversation and explained the things that she may not understand.

Jiyeon got to know that they knew each other from high school but became that close during the vacations previous to entering college when they got to know that all of them would be enrolling in the same university. Even when they chose different careers, they tried to tag along as much as they could.

They spent the rest of the evening on the arcade. Jiyeon hadn’t had so much fun in quite some time, so she really enjoyed that evening and even when she was with girls she just started to get to know, she felt really comfortable with them.

 

Just like she decided, Jiyeon started to be more open with Hyomin, she would talk with her more often and would also go out with the girls more frequently. She told Myungsoo about them and the boy seemed to be really happy about it, he really liked the idea of Jiyeon being more open towards people again.

But not everything was as good as that.

For some reason Jiyeon started to feel worse towards studies. Even when her social development was improving, her academic side was going downhill. Back in the days, she would enjoy classes and learning new things; but that wasn’t the case anymore, somehow everything seemed so dull and uninteresting for her.

When those feelings crawled inside her mind, her demons also started to make appearance.

Jiyeon now doubted if enrolling into education was the right choice. Did she really enjoy teaching things? How was she supposed to teach other when even she wasn’t interested in learning anymore?

There was no way she could be a good teacher with that kind of thoughts.

 

Jiyeon started to space out a lot in classes; she didn’t care about them anymore. She was constantly asking herself how she will be able to endure four years when just a semester has passed and she was already so done with the career.

One day during class, she was spacing out as usual, until she decided to put some attention to class. She started to freak out when she noticed she didn’t understand a thing that was being said. Jiyeon frowned trying to keep up with the explanation but to no avail. She was so focused on that until some voices started to appear in her mind.

[Jiyeon? Yeah she isn’t as smart as she claims to be.]

[Did you know she failed the entrance exam? What a loser.]

Jiyeon closed her eyes and put a hand over her head in an attempt to silence the voices inside her head.

[Jiyeon a smart girl? Yeah right, what a good joke!]

[Have you heard the rumor? That she actually made some kind of “favors” to the teachers to keep her good grades? At first I didn’t believe it, but right now I think that’s true.]

Jiyeon couldn’t stand those voices anymore, so she stood up and got out from the classroom. She directed to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face.

The voices went away as suddenly as they came. The girl sighed and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She chuckled and looked away.

“Come on Jiyeon, you were supposed to have gotten over it some time ago. What are you doing?” She said to herself.

She looked at her cellphone and noticed the class she was taking was almost over and after that she had a free period, so she decided not to return to the classroom but stay outside for some fresh air.

Jiyeon walked out from the bathroom and started to walk randomly across the campus, she started to feel more at ease and decided to sat on a bench, she was looking at the blue sky when a voice called her.

“Jiyeon?”

The girl turned around to the owner of the voice and smiled at her.

“Hi Hyomin.” She answered with a little smile.

“Can I sit here with you?” Hyomin asked her.

“Sure.” Jiyeon answered.

Hyomin sat by her side and both remained silent looking at the sky for some minutes. Until Hyomin spoke again.

“Are you okay?”

Jiyeon sighed, she knew she couldn’t hide what was happening to her anymore.

“You noticed?” She simply asked back.

“I just know something’s happening to you but I don’t know what it is. I saw you really overwhelmed by something during the entire class and then you just suddenly went away.” Hyomin explained.

Jiyeon remained silent, she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to tell Hyomin everything that happened before. She was afraid. Afraid that Hyomin may think she was being ridiculous, afraid that she’d judge her the same way everyone did, afraid to break down in front of her and be betrayed again.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just worried about you.” Hyomin said sincerely.

Jiyeon turned to see her and noticed her genuine concern, so she decided to trust her, she decided to open up to her, no matter what the outcome may be. She averted her gaze and sighed again before starting to talk again.

“I’ll tell you. But before I start I have to tell you that all of this may sound dumb and really stupid.” Jiyeon said.

“That can’t be” Hyomin said and Jiyeon looked at her again “It can’t be something dumb or stupid if it affects you this way. Don’t minimize your feelings Jiyeon, whatever happened hurt you and left a scar, nobody has the right to say it’s stupid, because they don’t know how it affected you.” She finished saying.

Jiyeon widened her eyes, surprised by the seriousness in Hyomin’s voice. A wave of warmth invaded her and she felt less burdened, she finally felt she could trust Hyomin completely.

So she told her the whole story, not letting anything out.

She told her about Myungsoo and the boys, about Sojin, about Jungmin, the entrance exam, what happened at her the last year of high school and also about what was happening to her at that moment.

Hyomin listened attentively to her throughout the whole story, paying her complete attention to everything.

By the time Jiyeon finished her story, she was obviously affected and crying. Hyomin then embraced her, Jiyeon tensed at the sudden contact at first but then relaxed.

“You’ve endured a lot Jiyeon, I’m sorry about everything that happened to you.” Hyomin comforted her.

They stayed like that a couple of seconds until Jiyeon composed herself a bit and then Hyomin spoke again.

“You know you can’t keep on going like this, right?”

Jiyeon just nodded still unable to utter a single word.

“You can’t keep on living in the past or you will always be haunted by it over and over in an endless loop. I understand that what happened affected you to a great extent. I almost can’t believe that you used to be a friendly and talkative person, it’s like you’re a complete different person.” Hyomin said.

Jiyeon chuckled sadly.

“I know that, it’s just that there are days like this when everything comes back and the world suddenly feels so crushing.” Jiyeon answered monotonously.

“Then in days like this you’ll have me.” Hyomin said.

Jiyeon turned to look at her and noticed Hyomin was smiling at her.

“Come to me when you feel that you can’t handle your world anymore, we’ll come up with something to ease that burden from you, but I won’t let you keep on going with this, we’ll get you out of this abyss.” Hyomin finished.

Jiyeon felt so relieved after that conversation with Hyomin, she never expected that the girl would react so good, she was waiting for scoldings or judgments, but neither of them made appearance; just the kindness and understanding came into play.

And she was truly grateful towards Hyomin.

 

Both girls came back to the classroom to take the next lessons. Hyomin was constantly checking up on Jiyeon but noticed the girl seemed a lot calmer than before.

At least she seems more at ease. The girl thought with relief.

But Hyomin was still worried about something.

I know I said I would help her, but to be honest I’m a bit unsure about how I’m going to do it. She seems to be even more complex than what I thought. I wonder what other secrets you’re hiding.

The rest of the day was really peaceful and Jiyeon still seemed to be alright. By the time the day came to an end, Jiyeon went to her to talk about some things about a project they had together for a class. While everyone was leaving the room, Hyomin turned to see the exit and noticed a boy standing there, waiting for someone. She immediately recognized him and smiled.

“Hey, we can talk about this later, there’s someone waiting for you.” Hyomin cut her off and smiled.

Jiyeon looked at her confused and then turned to the open door of the classroom, just to spot Myungsoo standing there, at the moment their gazes met, Myungsoo smiled and waved at her. Hyomin noticed how Jiyeon blushed a bit and smiled as well while returning the wave. She then turned to Hyomin again.

“I’ll text you later then.” Jiyeon said enthusiastically.

“Sure.” Hyomin simply answered while signaling her to go away.

Jiyeon smiled at her and quickly grabbed all her stuff, she then rushed to Myungsoo, who received her with a hug and then ruffled her hair.

Hyomin rested her chin over her hand and looked attentively at them. According to Jiyeon, those two were just “best friends”, but Hyomin could see it, the way they smiled at each other, how their eyes brightened up by just the sight of the other and the protectiveness of Myungsoo towards Jiyeon.

Yeah sure, best friends. Hyomin thought.

Then Myungsoo took Jiyeon by the hand and they went away like that, holding hands not letting go of each other.

Yup, best friends my . Hyomin thought with a smile.

 

Months passed by like that, Jiyeon and Hyomin grew closer to each other, and they would hang out together everywhere, Jiyeon also got closer to the rest of the girls so they quickly became a well-known group of friends.

Even when Jiyeon was still having breakdowns from time to time, they were more bearable having Hyomin around.

Things seemed to start going well little by little for Jiyeon.

 

Unlike Myungsoo.

 

He knew it, he truly clearly knew it. He was becoming a complete mess, he no longer recognized himself and acknowledged he was behaving erratically. But there was nothing he could do against his own mind.

There was no trace from the Myungsoo he used to be. Sure, he was still popular and talked to a lot of people and had a lot of friends, but it wasn’t sincere as before. Back in high school he really enjoyed talking to people, he was genuinely popular and smiled a lot. Nowadays that was just a façade.

Facing the fact that his parents no longer supported him, the disappointment of not going to the medical school and the shame he felt towards himself consumed him to no extent.

The only one that always managed to make him smile genuinely was Jiyeon. Just thinking about her put a smile on his face. But even having her around, wasn’t enough to keep him completely sane.

After his fight and distancing with Sungkyu and the boys, he no longer established deep friendships with anyone; he never accepted it, but that chapter of his life left a huge scar. He would constantly blame himself for what happened and most of times he regretted what he did back then.

“Hey Myungsoo, what about having some drinks?”

Myungsoo turned to see Yongguk, one of his classmates with whom he spent most of his time.

“We just got here; won’t you take at least a class?” Myungsoo asked sarcastically.

“Yeah as if you really wanted to take classes, come on, let’s go.” Yongguk said.

Myungsoo smiled and went with him and his group of friends without a second thought.

Myungsoo and Yongguk were known for being troublemakers at college, as well as being kind of bad students, since their grades weren’t that good and were constantly absent from classes.

They went to a near bar from college, since they weren’t planning to return to the campus, they didn’t leave their belongings there.

Everything was going smoothly, they were drinking happily and hours passed by like that.

Until the night fell.

Yongguk stood up to make a speech when he accidentally pushed someone behind him. The man from behind turned around, he was also drunk.

“Hey are you looking for a fight?!” The man said visibly angry.

“Chill man, it was an accident.” Yongguk answered nonchalantly.

“Accident? You pushed me idiot, you owe me an apology.” The man demanded.

“What?” Yongguk asked while laughing “It isn’t my fault that you’re so fat that you occupy the whole place.” He mocked.

“What did you just say?!” The man screamed.

“Yongguk, dude, chill, ignore him and sit down.” Myungsoo said trying to cool things down.

“You think you’re funny? Let’s see if this seems funny for you!” The man threatened.

After that, he gave Yongguk a punch, which led him to fell to the floor. Everyone, including Myungsoo, immediately stood up and a confrontation between the two groups started. They made a mess inside the bar and as it was expected, the owners of the place called the police.

It wasn’t long before the police arrived and cooled things down; however, they took everyone back to the police station.

Their injuries were treated as well as their declarations were gathered. In the end the incident was labeled as a minor matter, but they still had to have someone come for them to the police station in order to let them go or else they would spend the night there and be released until the next day.

They were allowed to make one phone call per person. Everyone called their relatives, but by the time Myungsoo had to make the call, he noticed he didn’t know who to call.

He clearly knew he couldn’t call his parents, it wasn’t like they would bother with him, even more in that kind of situation.

The next person he thought of was Jiyeon and he was about to call her when he regretted it. He didn’t want her to see him like that, not Jiyeon, besides, he didn’t want to expose her to that place and the people gathered there.

In the end he could only think about another person, he wasn’t sure if that person would be willing to come over or even answer his call. But he still had to try it and hope for the best.

He dialed the number and waited.

After some seconds a voice finally came out from the device.

“Hello?”

 

A/N: Another chapter is up! ^^ Who do you guys think Myungsoo called? You'll get to know in the next chapter.

As always, thank you so so much for reading, and your patience, comments are appreciated ^^ stay safe and have a beautiful day <3