"What's wrong with you?" Mom asked. 

She was standing at the door and looking at me as if I had blood all over my face. What's wrong with me? That was a very good question. There was a lot that was wrong with me, apparently. Apparently I was wrong for running away, I was wrong for rejecting Baekhyun, and I was wrong for holding a grudge against my crazy mother who had no responsibility for her family and no right to come back home. The only thing that was keeping me from literally going insane from despising my mother was what Jongin told me one day when we were sitting by the ocean.

It was the day after my mom came back. I was telling him how much I hated her. And Jongin just looked at me and nodded. I thought he understood and back then, what he told made me want to strangle him. But now, it was what held me down from doing the unspeakable.

"Forgiveness is just making more room in your heart. Right now, all of your rooms are taken up by your hatred for your mom. All you have to do is empty out those rooms. Then, you'll have more room for other things too," he said. I wasn't expecting him to say those words. And I didn't say anything back to him but plainly stared out into the ocean, bitter that he didn't agree with me.

But then he put his arm around me and I realized that I couldn't be upset. Besides, I didn't want to admit it, but he was right.

What was wrong with me?

In my eyes, nothing.

"Do you want to go outside?" My mom asked.

I quickly turned around, "Really?"

I controlled my emotions. I didn't want to get disappointed when she killed my happiness.

"Yes," she replied, drumming her thin fingers against my door frame, "I'll let you go if you go with Baekhyun."

My expression hardened. I knew that there was a condition. "No."

"Why do you hate him so much?" she crooked her head as if she didn't know the answer.

"You keep forcing him into my life when I don't want him. And I don't hate him. I just don't understand why I can't go alone," I muttered. I turned back to the window.

"It's the best for you. And you never know, you might find a liking for Baekhyun."

I furrowed my eyebrows. She made me angry.

"And why can't I go alone?" I asked, my eyes steady on the unchanging scene outside. The summer was coming to an end slowly. There were two more weeks left and the traces of the sunlight and kids laughing and eating ice cream were already gone. In fact, this summer  there wasn't any of that in the first place. The sky was full of thick, gray clouds and the atmosphere was humid and thick.

"You might run away."

I chuckled a little, "Do you think I'm some rebel now?"

"I'm going to force you to go outside. It's not healthy for you to stay in your room like this," Mom replied, starting to walk over tautingly to where I was sitting. I rolled my eyes. Who's fault was this in the first place?

She shook my white sheets off of me and grabbed my wrist, forcefully pulling me out of the bed.

"Fine!" I twisted my wrist out of her grasp and fixed my shirt, "I'll go outside."

Her thin lips curved into a smile, "Good girl."

I let out a sigh and walked out into the front of my house where Baekhyun was sitting on the sidewalk.

Just walk past him and maybe he won't notice you was my thought, but mom screamed his name through the open kitchen window, making him turn just in time to see me walking out of the house. He smiled. He smiled as if nothing happened yesterday. As if his kiss never happened and as if I was a dummy he could just kiss and invade whenever he wanted to.

He got up from the sidewalk and dusted his jeans off.

"Hi," he grinned.

I nodded.

"Where are we going to go?"

I was absolutely pissed off that he didn't even apologize for his lip yesterday. I kept walking and I spotted from my peripheral vision that he waved goodbye to my mom.

We walked in silence.

"Is there something wrong?"

I decided that we were far away enough from my house that my mom wouldn't hear me yelling at him and come rushing out to save him.

"What do you think?" I stopped walking abruptly and turned to him, glaring at him straight in the eye. He looked startled.

"Huh?" Baekhyun stammered.

"You can't just kiss a girl, Baekhyun. And more than that, you know that I'm with someone!" I yelled into his face.

"I don't get what the big deal is if you're never going to see him again, Hana," Baekhyun cracked a smile as if he was teasing me, "Let's think rationally here, okay?"

"No-"

"I like you and I'm pretty sure that in a month or so, you'll get a hold of yourself and realize that Jongin isn't coming back. Your parents hate him and they love me. He comes once a year, I know that I can do better than him."

 Staring at him was all I could do. Is this what everyone else thought also?

"It's because I care for you," Baekhyun added, smiling a little. His hand drew towards mine a little and I eyed it dirtily.

"I don't understand Baekhyun."

"What don't you understand, Hana?" he asked. He spoke to me as if he was speaking to a kid. It didn't matter if Baekhyun was here when Jongin wasn't- the way Baekhyun seemed to look down on me was frustrating. Jongin would never do that.

In the end, it was little things like this that made me realize how golden Jongin was.

"I don't understand what is so bad about Jongin and I being together."

"I don't know any more than what everyone else knows. But we're worried about you because you're in love with some guy that probably won't even care about you after he gets your V-card," Baekhyun answered plainly.

I stared up at him with dark eyes. "You don't know him."

"I know enough. He smokes, he pays his way through school, he has family issues."

"And who are you to judge him for that," I mumbled. I rolled my eyes and stalked off, wondering if Baekhyun even had the nerve to follow me after what he said.

He apparently did. Because everywhere I would go, he would trail behind me. Whenever I eyed something that I wanted to eat, he felt obliged to buy it for me. He made it seem as if we were together. And even if Jongin never came back, I wouldn't even think twice about moving out of Busan and never seeing Baekhyun again.

"What are you doing for college?" Baekhyun asked. I had decided to sit down on the side of the sidewalk with an ice cream that Baekhyun forcibly bought me.

"I'm not sure," I replied, the side of the ice cream cup. My ice cream was melting. It wasn't even that hot outside.

"Well, I'm going to be in Busan."

"Mhmm."

"I heard you're staying too."

"I probably won't be."

Baekhyun stared at me, gaping mouth, "But. That's what your mom said."

"So?" I replied, my glaze shifting to his doe-like eyes. 

"I thought you were going to stay... with me," Baekhyun mumbled.

"Don't friends want the best for each other? I feel like the best for me... isn't in Busan,"  I responded nonchalantly.

"We're more than friends."

"We're not."

"Then what are we?" I asked.

"Lovers in progress."

--

That night, I heard a rapping scratches at my window. I didn't bother to check. It had been fairly windy during the past week. I thought it was just tree branches hitting against the glass.

But when the gentle taps turned to loud knocking, I walked towards the window with caution. It was right about midnight and I couldn't possibly think of anyone that would be looking for me right now. Nonetheless, at my window, not the door.

Until it dawned on me.

"Hi, pretty."

A smile grew on my face in response to his melodious voice.

Jongin's back.

if you guys wouldn't mind, could you please tell me how you found my story? (ex: friends, tag surfing, etc). finals are over this week and i'm on christmas break starting on the 20th so i'll update more often. i love how confused i'm making all of you btw. (;
thanks for reading and subscribing and commenting xx