"I​t's good to finally see you back in school!" My best friend, Sooyeon, greeted me as I walked into our classroom.

“Yeah...” I managed to smile. Now that I thought of it, that was the first time I smiled in a long time, even if it was a cheap attempt.

“Well, you’re okay now, aren’t you?” Sooyeon asked me.

I nodded slowly. I secretly wished that I didn’t have to lie.

“Alright! We’re going to have a good day today!” Sooyeon said enthusiastically as she threw an arm around me and pulled me towards our group of friends who were all hanging out in one corner of the classroom.

“Eunji!!” They all squealed as they saw me.

“How are you? Why were you gone for so long?” One of my friends asked me.

I shrugged. I still wasn’t in the mood to speak.

My friends all tried to bring me back to normal, but no matter what joke they made or even insult they made against Jiyong, I still couldn’t find that old joy again. I’ve been with Jiyong for such a long time that I couldn’t remember the last time I was completely happy without him.

They were almost getting to the point where I was able to laugh genuinely again, when my emotions got the best of me. Because that’s when they walked in. My heart stopped, seeing his face, but my blood began to boil as I saw her. I saw how he came in that classroom laughing bashfully and how his arm was slumped around her shoulders. Her other arm was around Jiyong’s waist, while he held her books for her. I could feel my cheeks turn red seeing them.

I stood there in pain, anger, and jealousy. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to look at them with so much spite because that would make my feelings obvious, but I couldn’t help it. When you feel so strongly about something, you really can’t hold it in.

And that’s when he saw me. He saw me standing in the middle of the classroom, watching him. He stopped walking as soon as his eyes caught mine. He dropped his arm around the girl he was laughing with, and her books suddenly found themselves on the floor.

“Oppa?” The girl asked, surprised at Jiyong’s sudden astonishment. She looked up at Jiyong, then followed where his eyes were looking at. She looked over at me for a moment, and then a look of disgust formed over her face. “Come on,” she said, tugging Jiyong out of my way, “don’t talk to her. She doesn’t exist, remember?”

My heart sank. Has he been telling this girl that I no longer existed? Were my nightmare-ish theories really true? Jiyong bent down to pick up the girl’s books that he dropped, though he didn’t dare pry his eyes away from me. He looked… surprised. No, he looked… like he was going to tell me something.

No. I’m not going to lie to myself. Jiyong was never, ever going to talk to me. I was only wishfully thinking.

Jiyong got up and walked away from me, still taking one last look at me then turning his attention back to the girl he was with.

“Ugh, the nerve of that girl,” Sooyeon commented. “Eunji, are you okay?”

“We can beat her up if you want to,” my other friend, Minyoung, offered.

I smiled. “No, it’s not necessary.”

“If I were you, I’d let us mess her face up.” Sooyeon said. “Since you’ve been gone she’s been doing nothing but getting into Jiyong’s head. From what I heard, she’s been telling him that you broke up with him because you didn’t think he was good enough.”

“Yeah, I also heard that she told Jiyong that you were only using him.” Minyoung added.

I looked at my friends, then quickly turned around to look at Jiyong and his new girlfriend. How could he even believe the lies that that girl was telling him? Was that the reason he was being so cold towards me?

Jiyong’s new girlfriend was playfully placing kisses all over his face as he tried to conduct a proper conversation with her.

“That’s disgusting,” Minyoung said, pulling me away from the scene.  “We’ll take care of her later.”

Our first class went by quickly, though I couldn’t help but glance up at Jiyong and his new girlfriend several times. The two lovebirds sat together a few seats in front of me, so their whole show of PDA and holding of hands were a great view for me. I wanted to vomit just by seeing that. Whenever Jiyong and I were together in class, we always made sure to not show too much affection towards each other. But now it was obvious that the Jiyong that sat in front of me, wasn’t the same Jiyong that used to always sit next to me.

Lunch wasn’t any different, either. Jiyong’s girlfriend sat with him and his friends in the cafeteria, and the part that made me even more jealous was the fact that she became the center of attention among him and his friends. I never sat with Jiyong’s friends during lunch; we would always go out for lunch alone together.

“Eunji. Eunji!” Sooyeon snapped her fingers in front of me. “Hellooo!”

“Sorry…” I shook my head, trying to get myself out of my trance.

Sooyeon sighed. “There’s only one way you to move on.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, Sooyeon nodded towards Minyoung, who immediately got up and pulled three different guys from their seats and brought them up to our table.

“Take your pick.” Minyoung grinned.

“YAH! Minyoung! I was enjoying my lunch – “ One of the boys complained.

Minyoung didn’t have to say anything to shut him up. Her “death glare” totally shut his mouth for him.

“Eunji, in order for you to move on, you have to lose your interest in that monster, and meet someone else. While you were gone, we fished around for possible prospects, and came up with these three.” Sooyeon explained.

The three boys waved, saying hi to me sheepishly.

“Mind you, they’re a bit shy around you. We heard that they all have crushes on you.” Minyoung whispered to me.

“Of all the boys that claimed to have a crush on you, these were the best looking,” Sooyeon added. “What do you think?”

I smiled politely at the three boys standing in front of me. “It was nice meeting you, but I just got out of a really bad relationship. I don’t think I’d be seen dating someone new anytime soon, but it was nice meeting you.”

Minyoung looked taken aback, but explained quickly to the good looking boys. “She’s just a little crazy, you know, being locked in all day can cause people to be a little mental. Forgive her.”

The three boys simply said that it was no big deal and that they’d wait, and then all three went back to their seats.

Once they were out of earshot, Minyoung took the initiative to scold me. “What are you doing? These are really cute boys! How are you supposed to get over Jiyong if you keep rejecting possibly prospects?!”

“I don’t know…” I mumbled. My glance seemed to find my way towards Jiyong’s direction. Though his girlfriend was the center of attention at his table, he didn’t look a bit interested. He looked a bit daze, as if he was staring into nothing and was in deep thought.

Just as I was about to turn away, I caught him glance up at me too…