Maddie slowly awoke to the sunlight that was streaming onto her face from the window. As she slowly opened her eyes, she noticed that L.Joe was no longer in the room. After venturing downstairs, she realized that no one was in the house besides her, but she noticed a note that was placed on the living room table.

You woke up! I didn’t want to disturb you since you looked so peaceful, but I went to my classes today so I had to leave early. Sorry for not doing much to help you against the creeper guy that’s been bothering you. I guess that’s what next time is always for. Anyway, I’ll keep this short. If you ever need help again, don’t be afraid to call.

-          L.Joe

Maddie found herself chuckling at L.Joe’s simple note when she heard the door open. Thinking it was L.Joe, she immediately turned around, but saw Chunji there instead. “Oppa…” Maddie slowly said as she hid L.Joe’s note, “what are you doing here?”

            “Am I not even welcome in my own home anymore?” Chunji asked with a bitter laugh as he finished taking off his shoes and approached Maddie.

            “It’s just…it’s been days…and you’re here,” Maddie said as she attempted to think of the words to say. She hadn’t expected to see Chunji show up so suddenly in the house and acting as though nothing had happened.

            “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I just can’t give you up,” Chunji said as he got closer to Maddie and reached out to touch her arm. Thankfully she didn’t pull away from him. “You’re my everything, you’re perfect for me and I love you.”

          “But what about everything else?” Maddie asked. “Are you just going to ignore that other things happened?”

            “Of course we can’t ignore it now, can we,” Chunji began, “let’s just think of it as a stepping stone in our relationship. Something that we both had to overcome, and in the end, we both overcame it.”

            “But I don’t think I have.”

            “What do you mean?” Chunji asked. “I thought that the break was to let us realize how important we are to one another.”

            “But I haven’t done that,” Maddie said as she thought about the past couple of days she spent with L.Joe, but attempted to shake those memories out of her head while looking at Chunji. Frankly, she had difficulty thinking of such fond memories with Chunji, whereas thinking of them with L.Joe was easy.

            “Look, Maddie, I’m sorry for everything that you had to endure by yourself,” Chunji apologized as he sat down on the couch. Maddie, however, continued to stand in front of him. “I’m sorry that I made you misunderstand something and I didn’t have the courage to clear it up for you.”

            “Is that because it wasn’t a misunderstanding?” Maddie asked. “I think that if I were simply misunderstanding things, then you would’ve apologized to me on the day that it happened, but we’re no longer on the day that it happened. It’s days later and who knows what you could’ve done in that time.”

            “I’ve done nothing, I swear,” Chunji said as he stood up once again to defend himself.

            “So now you’re defending yourself?” Maddie asked. “If you’re getting all defensive, then that must mean that something was going on that I shouldn’t know about.”

            “Look…Maddie,” Chunji said as he softened up his tone. “Nothing happened, why won’t you believe me?”

            “Believe you,” Maddie scoffed as she crossed her hands over her chest. “You’re telling me to believe you? I saw the note that she left in your pocket thanking you for a good time and I saw you kiss her when she dropped you off and you’re telling me to believe you? You have no other excuses do you?”

            Chunji didn’t say anything and simply stared at Maddie. She was right; there was nothing else he could do. “Maddie, I’m sorry. It was a mistake; it was supposed to be a onetime thing and I—”

            “Just stop,” Maddie said stopping Chunji in the middle of his sentence. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

            “Alright,” Chunji said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I understand. I better take my leave now.”

            Maddie stayed planted in her spot as she watched Chunji leave and once he was gone from the house did she let her tears fall. “So it was true all along,” she whispered to herself as she wiped her tears away. She didn’t want to believe it, but she knew that what Chunji was saying was true.  Besides the two recent times that Maddie had caught him, there were other signs that pointed to Chunji cheating on her. However, Maddie never told Chunji that she saw him in those other times and always played it off, she always attempted to hide it, but finally, it caught up to her and there was nothing she could do.

“Why do you look so happy?” Hwayoung asked L.Joe after their last class. “You looked happy all day.”

            “I don’t know,” L.Joe said with a shrug of his shoulders as he looked at his phone, but there was no sign of Maddie.

            “Are you waiting for a call?” she curiously asked.

            “No,” he said shaking his head as he put his phone away. “It’s just…one of those days, you know?”

            “Maybe,” Hwayoung chuckled as she looked at her watch. “I have to go to a study group, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”

            “Yeah, see you tomorrow,” L.Joe said as he waved to Hwayoung as she left.

            After L.Joe saw Hwayoung off, he began walking to a clearing in the campus and was going to start doing some of his homework when he saw Myungsoo sitting over by a tree. Deciding that he had nothing better to do, L.Joe made his way over to greet his friend. "Myungsoo?” L.Joe asked when he saw that Myungsoo’s head was down.  “Is there something wrong?”

            “Jaerin broke up with me,” Myungsoo said as he lightly threw his phone on the ground.

            “She what?” L.Joe asked in shock. “She broke up with you? Why?”

            “She said that she thought that things weren’t going to work out between us.”

            “Why wouldn’t they work out?”

            “I don’t know, but she said something about moving back to Korea for good.”

            “For…good?” L.Joe hesitantly asked. “Her parents are coming along, too?”

            “I guess,” Myungsoo sighed as he got up and went over to pick his phone. “Whatever, it’s whatever,” he said as he began to walk away.

            “Um, Myungsoo,” L.Joe said stopping him. “Did she say her exact reason for breaking up with you? Was it only her saying that she didn’t think things were going to work out between you guys?”

            “She just said that she didn’t think things would work out given her circumstances, but she didn’t specify what the circumstances were.”

            “Oh,” L.Joe said. “Okay then. Sorry, Myungsoo.”

            “What are you sorry for?”

            “Just thought it might cheer you up a bit,” L.Joe said with a slightly awkward laugh. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Yeah,” Myungsoo said as he started to turn on his way home.

            As L.Joe walked to his own house, he kept thinking about Jaerin. Surely she wasn’t coming back, why would she go back to Korea after her parents made he leave? As if on cue, though, L.Joe’s phone rang with Jaerin on the other line.

            “How did you get my number?” L.Joe asked as soon as he picked up.

            “Why do you have me in your contacts?” Jaerin asked.

            “Myungsoo gave it to me when you were coming in case something happened to you, it was only safety precautions, but I guess since you broke up with Myungsoo I can just delete this number now, right?” L.Joe asked.

            “So he told you about that.”

            “Told me about that?” L.Joe asked. “I saw him sulking by a tree right now about this whole breaking up thing. And shouldn’t you be sleeping? What about the time difference?”

            “It’s alright,” Jaerin said. “I’m fine.”

            “But why are you calling me anyway? Why did you break up with Myungsoo? He’s a nice guy, he shouldn’t be treated that way.”

            “As you probably heard, I’m moving back to Korea.”

            “Which is also a question of why are you doing that?”

            “To be closer to you,” Jaerin admitted.

            “Closer to me?” L.Joe asked. “Why in the world would you want to be closer to me?”

            “Because of Jocelyn,” Jaerin said saying their daughter’s name. “My parents think that instead of us living overseas, that it’s a good time to come back. Jocelyn is two and they think it’s a good time.”

            “So two years is good enough? Why did you even leave in the first place?” L.Joe angrily asked. “What was the point if you were only going to come back and make everything worse now? What will Myungsoo do when he finds out?”

            “I’ll tell him.”

            “When will you tell him? So far it looks like you’re not going to tell him anything. You could’ve told him that that was the reason you broke up with him because when he sees you living here and when he sees you with a baby, he’s going to figure out something. We can’t hide it forever!” L.Joe yelled, earning the looks of some people that were passing him by. “Look, Jaerin, I don’t want to continue talking about this, we’ll just talk about this some other time, goodbye.”

            L.Joe hung up the phone and continued walking home. His mind was in a complete jumble and he didn’t know what to do. How could Jaerin simply come back with his daughter? Sure L.Joe was happy that he would finally get to know his daughter, but that didn’t mean that it would be good if they both came back. Jaerin and Myungsoo had just broken up and Myungsoo didn’t know about the daughter that L.Joe and Jaerin had together. How would he react when he found out? L.Joe was sure that Myungsoo would flip out and he wasn’t sure whether or not he would have a friend anymore.

            As L.Joe neared his house, his phone rang again. “What do you want this time?” L.Joe complained into the phone.

            “Byunghun, how dare you talk to me like that!” Maddie yelled through the phone as she slurred her words. It didn’t take a second thought for L.Joe to figure out that Maddie was probably drunk.

            “Maddie, are you drinking?” L.Joe asked.

            “Only all day,” Maddie continued to slur, “you know, drinking helps to ease the pain.”

            “Well I’ll be over there, give me a moment.”

            “You shouldn’t come over,” Maddie warned.

            “Why not? You’re drunk,” L.Joe said. “I’m on my way right now, whether you like it or not.”

            “But Byunghun,” Maddie said as she attempted to object.

            “No buts,” L.Joe said. He wasn’t going to take any excuse, he couldn’t let Maddie just waste herself away by getting drunk. He was sure that something had to happen with Chunji since that would be the only reason for Maddie to be drinking herself away.

            It didn’t take that long for L.Joe to reach the house. “Maddie!” he yelled outside of the door as he knocked. “Let me in.”

            “Byunghun!” Maddie yelled as she opened the door and wrapped her arms around L.Joe as she dragged him inside. “You’re here!”

            “Yah! What is wrong with you?” L.Joe asked as he separated her arms. “What’s going on? Why are you drunk?”

            “Oppa and I are no longer together.”

            “What do you mean you guys are no longer together?”

            “We’re not getting married,” Maddie said as she sat back down on the couch and attempted to pour herself another drink, but L.Joe took away the bottle before she could pour more. “He was cheating on me, so I broke it off.”

            “But you two love each other,” L.Joe attempted to reason while he began cleaning up the mess that Maddie had created.

            “Love isn’t the only thing that holds a relationship together,” Maddie continued to say in her drunken state. “Trust is important and there is no trust in our relationship. I also think that there’s something else that I like even more.”

            “And what is that?” L.Joe asked as he finished putting the empty bottles and cans into the kitchen and sat on the couch next to Maddie.

            “You,” Maddie calmly said as she turned to look at L.Joe before she closed in for a kiss.

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What will happen when Jaerin moves back to Korea? What will happen with Myungsoo? What will L.Joe's eaction be to the kiss?

Here's Chapter 11. Hope you enjoyed :D