AHHHHHH......ONCE AGAIN i skipped a chapter..T_T" lesigh...(if you're reading my "third times the charm" story you know what i mean..). Aaaanyways this isn't hte new chapter, chapter 4: Noticing is the new one so go read THAT one~~Kay thanks sorry bye OTL

SUMMERSUMMERSUMMERSUMMERSUMMERSUMMERSUMMER<33

sorry for the short chapter OTL

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Chapter 9: Restraining

                “Wonder what happened to Gukkie-Oppa,” Jungin mumbles around a mouthful of toothpaste as the girls get ready for school on Monday morning.

                Jieun is upset at him, she’s confused herself, but she’s curious, too. It can’t hurt to listen in, can it?

                “Yeah, no kidding. He doesn’t hang around here. Usually he gets into fights over by his house,” Sungah murmured. Sungmi was already long gone at her morning job, so there was more room in the cramped bathroom than there usually was at night.

               “He asked for you, you know,” Jungin directs at Jieun. Jieun had kept the run-in with Daehyun and Yongguk private, and, unsurprisingly, they hadn’t mentioned that Daehyun stayed over.

                “Did he?” Jieun asks, trying to keep her voice nonchalant.

                “Mm,” Sungah agrees. “Maybe you’ll be the lucky girl that gets a round two with the Bang Yongguk,” she laughs, grabbing some water to rinse with.

                Jieun’s frown deepens at the thought. “No, believe me, it won’t happen,” she tries to convince herself as much as her friends, but it’s hard when all she can think of is the good times with Yongguk. No matter how many times he hurts her, no matter how many times he breaks her down, she builds herself up only for him. She knows how bad he is, she can name all the ways he’s hurt her, but she can’t actually bring herself to do anything about it. To hate him, to refuse to forgive him, to stop caring. “It won’t,” she murmurs softly, and she’s sure Jungin and Sungah haven’t heard her because they’re already in the kitchen fixing breakfast.

                It’s been a few weeks since Jieun has stepped into the little market where she stops to get breakfast. She doesn’t want another unexpected and unwelcome run-in with Yongguk, and she doesn’t want to think about him, either. But this morning she takes that familiar path, having left while her friends ate breakfast, and she purchases a chocolate milk and a cream-filled bun.

                She walks as she eats, biting at the bread quietly as she draws in her surroundings. It’s too cold for her liking, and her bare legs are cold, she can almost still feel it, but she has to admit it’s pretty. So pretty but no one stops to look. The frozen branches glisten and the air feels clean, but everyone is bustling with their heads down, trying to get out of the cold. What’s there to hurry to? Jieun asks, letting out a small, bitter laugh.

                With a start, she realizes that familiar sick feeling in her stomach. She had eaten too much rich food on a stomach that hadn’t had anything for days. Wincing, she stumbles to the nearest garbage can, trying her best to ignore the stares and scoffs of passersby as she rids her body of her breakfast. Wiping with the back of her sleeve she slumps down, not caring that she’s against a dirty trash can, not caring that the bare sidewalk is frigidly cold on her bare legs. She feels pathetic, stupid. She’s finally trying to get some nutrition into her and her body rejects it. It’s like her body would rather slowly starve, slowly lose energy until she’s nothing.

                It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.

                You’re pathetic. You’re a poor excuse for a human, Jieun isn’t even fazed by the harsh words she tells herself. By now she knows it’s true.

                Well, you better get up and get to school. Your friends do enough for you, no need to keep them waiting, she sighs, pulling herself up slowly. Her stomach still hurts, that too-full sick feeling, and she’s hungry again. But hungry is normal by now. Hurting is comfortable. So she runs her tongue over her chapped, dry lips and wills herself to move forward, heading to the school.

                Daehyun watches Jungin and Jieun walk in, late, as always, with an eye more keen than usual. It’s become his habit to watch Jieun, but today he’s being even more careful. After the encounter over the weekend he finds himself even more curious than before. And perhaps this new fervency to see Jieun, really see her, is what makes him realize how sick she looks. How her skin that’s normally pale and smooth is looking scarily white, and her gait that’s normally carefree and full of that perfect attitude is stiff and tired.

                But he doesn’t send her another note, he doesn’t call her name, and he’s careful that she never catches him looking at her. No matter how much he flinches when he sees her wince as she sits, no matter how sick he’s getting himself because she looks like she needs someone, no matter how much he wants to be that someone, he keep to himself.  Because he’s getting scared.

                He’s scared she’ll push him away before he can even get to know her, he’s scared she’ll reject him before she accepts him, and he’s scared of what he’ll miss out on if those things actually happen. Because despite her cold looks and fierce eyes he wants to get closer. There’s something that he can’t deny, that he can’t let go of, that keeps bringing him back to her. He’s irrevocably drawn to her.

                Ms. Chung eyes Jieun and Jungin wearily as they walk in late, but there’s something in her eyes that’s different than normal. She looks more easy-going today.  Eerily at peace with the fact that those two have walked in late for 98% of the days in the school year…

                “Girls,” Ms. Chung even goes so far as to greet them.

                Jungin looks up, surprised at being called out. “Mm?” she asks. “Don’t mind us.”

                “You never do any other day,” Jieun adds beneath her breath, and Jungin smiles.

                Ms. Chung just sends them an encrypted look, almost amused, as she shakes her head and continues with her lesson.

                “What’s up with Chung?” Jungin asks, popping her gum loudly. “I thought she finally got the balls to do something.”

                “Evidentially not,” Jieun murmurs in agreement.