8 days later…

            Yoona stared at the clock in front of her as she leaned her head on the wooden desk.  Somehow, time seemed to go by very slow to her, but if she looked back at the past, it seemed as if everything had gone by too quick.  She pushed her stray hairs behind her ears as she continued to stare at the clock as the second hand ticked around in a full circle.

            It had been one whole year since Seunghyun had been involved with her life.  It was hard to believe that their relationship transformed from not wanting to even see each other to being madly in love with each other to finally hating each other.  It was like a dreaded cycle that she refused to go through again.

            “Yoona, can you stop doing that?  All you do all day is stare at random things,” Yuri sighed, “You should just drop your major to become a veterinarian and just major in philosophy instead.”

            They both knew that Yuri was joking, but Yoona had been thinking hard about it.  Did she really want to become a vet?  She knew that even though being a vet was a respectable and prestigious career, she wouldn’t be able to accomplish all of her goals.  She wanted to set up a charity for orphans.  She wanted to raise awareness about impoverished families.

            “I think I might switch my major,” Yoona admitted, “I don’t care if I have to take a year or two more.”

            Yuri crossed her arms, “And what would you switch it to?  Are you doing this because of Seunghyun?  Yoona, I told you that he’s a jerk and you should not let him change the way you live.  You did well on your own before him and you can do fine without him now.”

            Yoona shook her head.  She had to admit that she still loved the man.  Even though she hated his guts for not believing her, she could not bring herself to fall out of love with him.  Because of her stubbornness, she refused to let anyone know that she still cared for Choi Seunghyun. 

            “I don’t know,” Yoona admitted, “What if I major in business?  I’m actually very good at it.  I helped Seunghyun in business at times because the idiot would let his pride cloud his judgment.  If I major in business, I can have the company I work for sponsor all kinds of charities that can change many lives.  Once I work myself up to a higher rank, I can start my own foundation and it’ll take off from there.”         

            Truthfully, Yoona looked like a mess at the moment.  She was wearing a pair of worn out sweats and a ratty sweatshirt from her high school days.  Her hair was up in messy ponytail and she didn’t even bother to put makeup on.

            “Yoona, you know you’re too good to be working for someone like that.  You have a brilliant mind,” Yuri sighed, “I don’t see you working under anyone.  I only see you as the boss.”

            Yoona nodded as she gave Yuri a smile.  Yoona had been staying over at Yuri’s for a little over a week, and Yoona felt as if she needed to get a part time job so that she could save up to move into a small apartment.  Even though Yuri told her to stay as long as she wanted, she didn’t want to take advantage of what Yuri was giving her.        

            “I don’t know what my plans are as of now,” Yoona admitted, “but Yuri, I promise you that it’s going to be for the best.”

___________________________

            “Jiyong, are you listening to me?” Jessica asked, “I said I want to talk to you!”

            For the past few days, Jiyong had been acting very strange.  He wasn’t smiling as often and he seemed to be more distant.  Jessica noticed it right away, but she thought he would go back to normal after some time.  He didn’t change one bit though.  He was spending less time with Jessica and more time in his office or at work.

            “Jessica, whatever it is can wait,” he snapped, “I’m very busy and I don’t need you nagging.  It’s causing me more stress.”

            He took out his phone and began to type something out.  Jessica’s eyes focused on him.  He seemed to be absorbed in his own little world.  He completely forgot about his girlfriend and family.  Jiyong knew that Seunghyun was going through a hard time, but they hardly spoke to each other.  Danny and Eugene were freaking out over the media reports about Yoona moving out and the breakup between Seunghyun and Yoona.

            “Who’s the other woman?” Jessica finally asked.

            Jiyong looked up from his phone to see that she was fighting the tears.  Her hands were rolled into fists as she pressed her lips together in a straight line.  Jessica’s eyes were red while she took deep breaths.  Jiyong stood up from his chair and put his phone in a drawer.

            “There is no other woman,” he denied.

            Jessica exclaimed, “Liar!  Jaebeom did the same thing to me!  He was showing signs that there was another woman on his mind when he was with me.  He was always on his phone…he was spending less time with me!  He lied to me, too!  I know you weren’t at the meeting you said you were yesterday.  I called the office and they said you never arrived!”

            Jiyong frustratingly ran his fingers through his hair as he gritted his teeth in irritation.  The stress of his last year in the university, becoming vice-president of the family company, and other personal things were getting to him. 

            “Think whatever you want!” Jiyong yelled at her, “If you want to believe that I have another girl on the side, then go ahead and think that!”

            Jessica slapped him in the face in an instant.  He wasn’t even trying to defend himself.  To her, he might have as well told her that there was another woman that he was seeing.  It felt like a replay for her.  Her relationship with Jaebeom was so similar to her relationship with Jiyong that it frightened her.

            “If you don’t love me anymore, you can just tell me,” Jessica’s voice shook, “It’ll save us both the time and effort!”

            Before Jiyong could even say anything, Jessica left the room and slammed the door behind her.  Jiyong buried his face into his hands.  He knew that their relationship was already disintegrating.  He loved her dearly, but he couldn’t protect her from the pain.

            His phone rang and he sighed in defeat after seeing who it was from.

            “Eunjung,” he answered, “Yeah.  Our relationship is practically going down the drain.  Don’t hurt her or else.  I’m doing everything you’re telling me.”

            He hung up the phone and began to draft a message to a private investigator that he had hired.

To:  Investigator Song Ryu

From:  Choi Jiyong

            Investigator Song, I had just contacted Eunjung.  Please figure out who her accomplice is right away before my relationship completely breaks apart.

________________________

            “I’m actually surprised that you invited me to go out,” Nichkhun looked at her with skepticism.

            Yoona held onto his arm as they continued to walk through the shopping center.  She just wanted to spend time with her best guy friend.  Ever since her relationship with Seunghyun, she was restricted in spending time with Nichkhun because of Seunghyun’s jealousy.  Now that she had hate for him and they were formally broken up, she could spend all the time with Nichkhun she wanted.  He was like a brother to her and she missed their bond.

            “I missed you, my brother,” Yoona said in English.

            Nichkhun’s jaw dropped after hearing that come out of Yoona’s mouth.  He honestly thought she was going to be heartbroken and depressed because of the fallout of her relationship with Seunghyun.

            “It seems like you’ve been working on your English,” Nichkhun smiled, “I am impressed.”

            Yoona cried out in Korean, “You better be impressed!  Do you know how hard it is to speak without the accent?  It’s so difficult!”

            He looked at Yoona and saw her laughing to herself.  He stared at her more intently as he studied what she was feeling.  When their eyes met, Nichkhun had already known what she was feeling.

            “Yoona, it’s okay to cry, you know?” Nichkhun assured her, “You’re a strong woman, but I know how important he is to you.  You two have been together for almost a year.  He was almost going to ask you to become his wife.  The relationship that you had with him is not something you can brush off so easily.  I tried so hard to make you fall in love with me for years, but it never worked.  He has to be damned special to have your heart—even if it was for only a certain amount of time.”

            Yoona looked down, “I’m perfectly fine, okay?  I don’t love him anymore.  I stopped loving him the moment he told me he was leaving me.  Can we stop talking about depressing things like that?  I just want to live!  I realized I did so many things I wished I had done before I got involved with that jerk!  I want to go bungee jumping, rock climbing, cliff diving, and so much more!”

            “Let’s not plan your death and let’s just grab some dinner,” Nichkhun joked.

            It was true that Yoona had been acting like a daredevil these past few days.  None of her friends had seen her shed a single tear.  Instead, she was spacing out and staring at random objects, dancing crazily by herself, or singing loudly to herself.  It was like she was a complete different person.

__________________________

            Jiyong’s fingers tapped against the table’s surface as he impatiently waited in a restaurant.  He became repulsed once he felt a weight on his lap.  He didn’t even see her enter the restaurant.  Eunjung gave a flirtatious smile and kept it on until Jiyong shoved away from his lap.

            “Be careful before I hurt the love of your life,” Eunjung smirked as she took a seat across Jiyong, “Jagi, what do you want to eat?”

            He rolled his eyes, “Don’t call me that.  I didn’t come here to eat.  I came her to discuss the terms.”

            Eunjung looked over the menu as Jiyong continued to stare her down.  She sneered as she put down the menu and held his hand until he retracted it from her reach. 

            “You’re very impatient,” she frowned, “I don’t like that about you.”

            Jiyong scoffed, “And you’re a psychotic, self-absorbed .  I don’t like that about you.”

            “Choi Jiyong, I think you are forgetting the fact that the life of Jessica is in my hands.  If you upset me too much, I can have her killed.  If you try to get me killed or throw me in prison, I have a partner that will do the job for me,” Eunjung grinned.

            He couldn’t believe her.  When he first met her during his early college days, she was so sweet and loveable.  He let her off gently as he did to the other girls that he dated.  It was easy to see that the love she had for him became an obsession.

            “Why are you doing this?  You’ve been threatening her!” Jiyong lost his temper, “You shot her.  You sent her death threats.  Are you ing crazy or something?”

            Eunjung’s smile dropped as her eyes daggered to Jiyong.  She crossed her arms across her chest as her cold eyes refused to back down to the intense look on Jiyong’s eyes.

            “I want you to feel the pain that I went through because of you,” she snapped, “I want you to feel every single thing that I had felt because of you.”

            “You’re really crazy,” Jiyong insulted, “You’re selfish.”
            Eunjung scoffed, “And you think I care?”

_________________________________

            “Oppa, I want to order two entrees.  Do you think that’s too much?” Yoona worried.

            Nichkhun smiled at her.  It didn’t surprise him that she wanted to eat two entrees.  There were times in the past when she’d order two things and eat some of his food right after.  Yoona told the waiter her order as the waiter stared in disbelief.  He could not believe that a thin woman like her could eat that much.

            The waiter walked away as Yoona gave Nichkhun a bright smile.  She may have been giving him a beautiful smile, but he knew that she was hurting inside.  She was always so good at hiding it. 

            “So what are your plans as of now?” Nichkhun asked.

            Yoona raised an eyebrow as she snacked on a breadstick, “What are you talking about, oppa?”

            “Your future,” he hinted.

            “I guess whatever happens will happen,” Yoona shrugged, “I just want to go with the flow, but I also want to plan to do a few exciting things.”

            He was just waiting for her to bring up Seunghyun, but she didn’t.  It really was like he was dead to her or something.  Yoona continued to nibble on her breadsticks as Nichkhun scanned the room.  He saw a familiar face and immediately sighed.  The last thing that he wanted was drama.

            Yoona sensed that her good friend was preoccupied with something.  She looked at what he was looking at and immediately saw why he was acting the way he was.  Yoona turned back around after her eyes met Seunghyun’s.  It was the first time she had seen him since the breakup.  She had made no attempt to call him or text him.  As stubborn as she was, she didn’t even want to talk about him with others.

            “We can leave if you want,” Nichkhun whispered.

            Yoona shrugged it off, “And miss the pasta and pizza that I just ordered?  No way in hell will I leave because of that jerk.”

            Yoona managed to pull off a sarcastic smile.  She didn’t even bother to lower her tone.  She just spoke like he wasn’t even there.  Of course, he knew that she was in the same restaurant she was in.  In fact, he could spot her from a mile away.

            “Yoona, I know you’re hurting.  Stop trying to force yourself to be tough,” Nichkhun muttered, “You can work your way up to move on from him, but blocking away all your feelings isn’t doing you any good.”

            “I’m not blocking away my feelings,” Yoona defended.

            Nichkhun sighed, “You are, okay?  If you aren’t, that meant that you never loved him to begin with.”

            Yoona remained silent as she stared down at her lap.  She didn’t know how to react.  Her friends had been calling her a robot because she refused to show her feelings.  She thought she was being strong when she was just dealing with her heartbreak in an unhealthy way.

            Nichkhun’s phone rang, but he put it on silent and dropped it in his pocket.  Yoona took a deep breath and nervously swallowed.

            “Khun oppa, you can go,” she told him.

            “What?” he questioned.

            “I know you have training at 5 in the morning.  I don’t want you to get into trouble with your trainer,” Yoona informed him, “I know he’s going to make you run double the distance if you oversleep again.”

            Nichkhun shook his head.  He refused to let his best friend stay in the same restaurant as her ex-boyfriend.  He looked over at Seunghyun and saw that he was having dinner with a business associate.  Someone was trying to give him a business proposal, but Seunghyun didn’t look one bit interested.

            “No,” he rejected the idea.

            “Khun, I can take care of myself,” she assured him, “I am a grown woman, and I don’t need you to supervise me.  Now, get back home so that you can go to your early morning training on time.”

            “Yoona,” Khun exhaled.

            “Khun, I said I can take care of myself,” she said in an abrupt tone.

            Nichkhun took his phone and texted his trainer back that he was on his way home.  He stood up and hugged Yoona.  Yoona gave him a confident smile as she hugged him back.

            “Take care of yourself,” he told her.

            Yoona giggled, “Of course!  I am going to eat a big meal.  I’ll be sure to go home on time.  Good luck on your training tomorrow.”

            Before Yoona knew it, Nichkhun left, the food was in front of her, and she was still the object of Seunghyun’s attention.  She caught him looking at her, but she was just as guilty for stealing glances.  She exhaled and focused on her food.  She began to stuff with the food with the idea in her head that the quicker she finished, the sooner she could leave the restaurant.

            She felt her heart drop once she saw him sit on the seat in front of her.  She refused to look at him and continued to eat.  He sat there staring at her as if he was observing her for a purpose.

            “Yoona, I can’t believe you haven’t changed one bit,” he said in a deep voice.

            His voice sent chills down her spine.  It was odd that even though she hated him, his voice gave her a sense of comfort.  She swallowed her food and looked up at him.  She refused to back down.  She knew he was expecting her to break down in tears, but she was stubborn.

            “I can see that you’re still an arrogant, egocentric ,” Yoona fired back.

            He folded his hands on top of the table and took a closer look at her.  It didn’t look like she had been crying over him, but he knew she was really good at hiding the fact that she was crying.  When they were dating, he would notice right away after he saw her empty foundation bottles. 

            “I have a proposition for you,” Seunghyun stated.

            Yoona rolled her eyes at him.  He was the one that broke up with her, but here he was making the first attempt to talk.  Seunghyun completely abandoned his business associate and had his full attention on Yoona.

            “What do you want, Choi Seunghyun?” Yoona took a bite into her pasta.

            “If you fully explain as to why you transformed from the woman of my dreams to just another , I might consider taking you back,” Seunghyun smirked.

            Yoona closed her eyes as her fists balled up.  Her hate for him was growing even faster.  She knew that he was there to taunt her.  He thought that she’d go crawling back to him the first chance she got, but he was wrong. 

            “Go to hell, Choi Seunghyun,” Yoona glared, “If you think that I’m going to be a doormat to you, you’re wrong.  I’d rather die than come back crawling to you.”

            “What’s wrong, Yoona?” he asked, “Did you find someone richer than me already?”

            Yoona quickly got up from her seat.  He expected her to run away in tears, but she didn’t.  She grabbed her glass of water and dumped its contents on top of his head.  He closed his eyes as the water cascaded down from his head to his neck and chest.  He opened his eyes to see that Yoona had put the cup down on the table.  After slapping down money on the table for the food, she cleared .

            “I would apologize to you, but I’m not sorry,” she snarled, “You deserved it.”

__________________________

            Jessica was resting in her room until she heard Jiyong’s footsteps in the hallway.  She opened the door to her room and peeked at what Jiyong was doing.  After they argued, he left and by the looks of it, he was drunk.  His tie was loosened around his neck as he tried to mak his way into his bedroom.  He was about to fall, so Jessica immediately stepped out of her room and provided him with support.  She could not believe that she was helping out her drunken boyfriend.

            “Jiyong, what were you doing?” Jessica nagged.

            He giggled and sang, “I was…drinking bourbon and some whiskey.”

            Jessica rolled her eyes.  Jiyong was putting emphasis on all of the types of alcohol he drank. Jiyong was either an emotional drunk or an adorable one.  He was like a combination of both at the moment.

            Since Jessica’s room was closer, she brought him to her room.  She put him down on the bed and panted.  He was too heavy for her petite body.

            “What am I going to do with you?” Jessica asked.

            “Just love me forever,” he slurred. 

            He pulled Jessica next to him as she landed on the bed.  He wrapped his arms around her tightly.  Jessica tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he was persistent in keeping her close.  He began to plant light kisses on her neck as Jessica continued to get out of his reach.  He was drunk, and she wasn’t in the mood to joke around with him.

            “Go to sleep,” Jessica ordered.

            Jiyong looked into her eyes, “Jessica, you know that you’re the woman I’m in love with, right?  You’re the only one for me, but I’m so sorry.  I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

            “What?” Jessica asked.

            “I did something I shouldn’t have.  You’re going to get mad.  I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.  I just want to be with you forever,” Jiyong managed to say, “I regret what I did.”

            Jessica pushed him off of her and fought the tears again.  This man had made her cry many times, but the pain that she was feeling was indescribable. 

            She expected the worst and immediately assumed he was with another woman. 

______________________

            Yoona was relieved that Yuri wasn’t home.  She was out on a date with Young Bae, so she had the house to herself.  Yoona stumbled into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.  Her hands were shaking and her knees were wobbling.  It took her all of her strength to keep her tears in when she was in front of Seunghyun.  It was difficult to pretend that she didn’t care.  In reality, she did care for him even though he broke her heart.

            He was the man that taught her how to love.  A woman’s first love is not something that you could forget about so easily.

            She was still in shock that the guy she had compared to a prince charming was nothing but a bully.  All of his words were hurtful, but she had to act as if it didn’t affect her when she was in front of him.  Tears began to stream down her face as she whimpered at the pain she was feeling.

            “Yoona?” she heard a voice call out.

            The voice wasn’t Yuri’s.  It was Jessica’s; Yoona could distinguish their voices from each other.  Yoona grew concerned after hearing how unstable Jessica’s voice was.  It sounded as if she was crying.   Yoona stood up and unlocked the door.  Jessica entered the bathroom and hugged her friend immediately.

            “I’m sorry,” Jessica apologized, “Yuri told me that she had her key in a flower pot, and I really needed to see you.”

            Yoona said, “It’s fine.  Sica, what’s wrong?  How did Jiyong react?”

            “He’s acting like a stupid jerk,” Jessica shook her head, “And what happened to you?”

            “Seunghyun called me a and thought I’d go running back to him,” Yoona confessed, “I didn’t think he’d be that heartless.”

            The two women looked at each other before they both burst into tears.  It was hard to believe that a pair of rich, spoiled brothers caused their problems.  Yoona scooted closer to Jessica and handed her a box of tissues.

            “Jessica, please don’t put too much stress on yourself,” Yoona begged, “What if your baby gets affected?”

            Jessica looked down at her flat belly.  She honestly didn’t know what kind of future was set for her unborn child.  She would have loved to have a whole family for her baby, but if Jiyong was going to sleep with other women while he was with her, he didn’t deserve a family with Jessica.

            “Yoona,” Jessica sniffled, “I really don’t know what to do.”

Authors' Notes:

Sunshine94:  Dun dun dun!  Jessica's secret has been exposed.  I really wanted to add a few sweet moments for TopYoon and JiSica in this chapter but both couples are going through drama. :/  Thanks for reading!  I really do appreciate it! :D

jessicajessica:  We tried hinting Jessica's pregnancy in the past chapters, but no one caught on lol.  So what do you guys want?  A daughter or a son for JiSica? Please do comment and subscribe if you haven't.  Thanks and much love from us to you.