Hi everyone! Long time no see, sorry for the hiatus but school has been piling up with exams and assignments. But because of that, I've made this update a biiiiit longer than usual ^^ Enjoy! 

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We hang out in Bobby hyung’s condo for a while, waiting for Jinhwan hyung to get off school. We’re just hanging out like usual, but somehow our conversations keep going back to me confessing to Yoonjin. The more I think about it, the more I regret doing it. It’s not like it was intentional, it just slipped out, but I should’ve stopped myself. I let out a groan, as I lean my head against the wall.

“Don’t worry hyung” Donghyuk says, not looking up from his phone “Things will turn out well.”

“Thanks Donghyuk” I say, not convinced. “Who have you been messaging this whole time anyways? You haven’t looked up from your phone for a long time now.”

“Oh it’s no one,” he says, clearly hiding something “Just a…classmate.”

“You sure it’s not a girlfriend?” Bobby hyung puts his arm around Donghyuk and shakes him around.

“I don’t have a girlfriend” he says, while Bobby hyung is still hassling him. “If I did, I would’ve told you guys.” Bobby hyung lets go, and Donghyuk puts his phone back into his pocket.

“Speaking of girlfriends, Hanbin-ah do you have Yoonjin’s number?” Bobby asks, teasingly, and the rest of the guys start laughing.

“Hyung” I whine.

“Ah I’m just playing with you” he says, “But I’m curious, do you?”

“I do.” I admit defeat, and they start taunting me.

“How’d you get her number?” Donghyuk asks, sitting up straighter and interested.

“I…just asked her for it.” I say.

“Ehh that is such a lie” Yoonhyung hyung says, seeing right through me. I actually snatched Yoonjin’s phone out of her hands one time when she was on it, and then shamelessly got her phone number. Of course, she wasn’t too happy about that, but I at least got it. The guys keep pestering me about how I got her number, and I’m about to come up with some lame story, when beeps from the condo lock go off and the door opens.

“Ah Jinhwan hyung is here!” I say, and I quickly walk towards the door to greet him. “Hey hyung, how was school?”

“Boring as usual, but from what I hear, things are getting pretty interesting for you.” He says, poking fun. I turn around and glare at Donghyuk for telling.

“What?” he says, “I didn’t tell him!”

“But you’ve been on your phone for so long!” I say, pointing at him.

“I told him.” Junhwe says, waving at me with a smile on his face. Gah, that kid can get so quiet sometimes, that he’s practically invisible.

“So have you thought about how to fix all of this?” Jinhwan says, putting his arm around my shoulder.

“No, not you too hyung.” I complain, and all the guys start laughing.

“Well from what I hear, you did a make a girl cry” Jinhwan says, “So I think you deserve a little bit of heckling from us” I let out a sigh of frustration and embarrassment, as I drop my head into my hand.

“Can you guys please stop?” I plead, “I regret doing it too.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll stop.” Yoonhyung hyung says, and the guys all get up and start getting their things.

“Huh, are we going somewhere?” I say, confused.

“Of course!” Bobby says, smiling “We gotta make you feel better, and what better way than going out. Unless you wanna stay here?”

“Out it is.” I say, without hesitation. I grab my phone and wallet, and follow the guys out. Jinhwan waits up for me, and walks beside me.

“So tell me what happened. Junhwe left out a lot of details.”

“Hyung!” I say

“What, we promised to stop making fun of you. We didn’t promise any questioning. But really though, what happened? I’m curious to know.” Jinhwan says, with his usual motherly aura. And just like that I tell him everything.

==

“Oh man, I’m so full” Bobby says, rubbing his stomach, as we’re leaving the restaurant. We wait for Yoonhyung hyung outside, talking, when Junhwe points out something.

“Hey, isn’t that Yoonjin noona’s boyfriend?” he says, pointing across the street. We all turn to see, and Yoonjin’s boyfriend is walking down the street hand in hand with a girl that isn’t Yoonjin.

“…Maybe that’s his sister?” Donghyuk says, trying to defend Yoonjin’s boyfriend, when he turns to the girl and gives her a kiss on the lips. “Nevermind.”

“That cheating scumbag.” Jinhwan says, shaking his head. As I watch them walking, I can feel my insides boiling in anger. I’m getting so mad that I just want to punch him until his face breaks. How could he cheat on his girlfriend like this? What would Yoonjin think, how would she react?

The guys are all talking about Yoojin’s cheating boyfriend, when Yoonhyung hyung comes out of the restaurant and asks what we’re all talking about. Before I can hear all of it, I walk away.

“Hanbin-ah, where are you going?” I hear Bobby hyung yell.

“Knowing him, probably going to look for Yoojin.” Jinhwan hyung says, and the rest of the guys remain quiet.

As I’m walking down the street, I keep thinking about Yoonjin and how hurt she will be if she finds out. Should I tell her? But if I don’t it will only get worse over time.

I go into a café that Yoonjin works at, and no sign of her. I ask one of the employees and they tell me she’s not working today. I go to another place she works at and she’s not there either. I start to feel desperate, and I start breaking into a run from place to place. From following her around after school, I know all the places she works at, hopefully. I have to find her.

I’ve been running around for the past hour and a half, and I’ve come to the last place I know she works at, the Manhwa (comic book) Café. I run down the stairs and bust open the door. I’m hunched over and totally out of breath.

“Welcome!” I hear Yoonjin say, “…Hanbin?” I stay hunched over, catching my breath. When I can finally breathing fairly normally, I stand up straight and see Yoonjin looking at me weirdly.

“You’re here.” I say, still a little out of breath.

“Yeah, I have work.” She says slowly, still confused.

“Good.” I say, “Then...um…” I’m trying to figure out how this café works.

“Would…you like to read manhwas?” she asks, and I notice that she hasn’t been able to look at directly while talking. The wave of regret hits me again from earlier today.

“Yes.” I say, pulling out my wallet “Um..how much – “

“5,000 won for an hour.” I pull out money and give it to Yoonjin. After she gives me the change, I go to shelves and pick out a couple of manhwas that look interesting, and I sit close to the register where Yoonjin is working, looking over to see what she’s doing every now and then. Should I tell her about her boyfriend?

===

I try to look busy with work, so I can avoid Hanbin as much as possible. I know why he’s here. He’s here because he feels bad about what happened earlier today. Well that’s what Donghyuk said.

Donghyuk and I were texting each other earlier today, and he asked if I was okay and that Hanbin didn’t mean to embarrass me or make me uncomfortable by saying that he likes me. My mind starts to wander again.

Hanbin said that he liked me. But how do I feel about him? I want to hate him because of his teasing and of his “the world revolves around me” demeanor, but for some reason I can’t. I feel like what I see at school is just an act because from the way Donghyuk and Junhwe talks about him, it doesn’t seem like he’s that bad of a guy. And if he was really that obnoxious, he wouldn’t have close friends like he does now.

I’m putting away books, when one of my co-workers tells me to start getting ready for closing time. I put away the rest of the books, and start to stack the chairs onto the tables.

“Do you know that guy?” my co-worker unnie asks me quietly, while helping me clean one of the tables.

“Yeah, I do. Why?” I reply,

“He’s cute, are you guys dating?”

“Unnie, no it’s not like that!” I accidently say too loudly, and Hanbin takes a quick glance at us talking. I whisper back, “It’s kind of complicated, but we’re just classmates.”

“Oh it’s complicated all right, I can tell by the way you’re blushing.” She teases, and I turn around to clean another table, embarrassed.

“Seriously though,” she comes back beside me, “He’s been looking at you a lot since he got here, so if there’s nothing going on, it’s considered very creepy and calling the police might be a smart idea.”

“No need to call the police.” I laugh.

“Fine, keeping your mouth shut, I see.” She says, waving and leaving to do something else.

After finishing cleaning up the café, I go to the back to get my things. As I’m walking out, I hear two people talking, and I see unnie and Hanbin talking. Oh no, I think, and I speedily walk towards them.

“Ready to go?” unnie says, when she sees me.

“Yeah.” I say, eyeing both of them. The three of us leave the café, and lock the door behind us. Hanbin walks off and stands at a distance, talking on his phone. As unnie is locking up, she turns around and looks at Hanbin.

“He’s a keeper.” unnie whispers to me.

“Unnie! Why would you say that? You know I have a boyfriend.” I whisper back,  “What did you guys talk about?”

“Oh not too much.” She says, “I was just trying to find out what you weren’t telling me. And pah! I don’t like Sunghyun. Dump him and go for Hanbin.”

“You’ve been saying that since we’ve been dating. I still don’t get why you hate him. So what did Hanbin say to you?” I ask, a little nervous that she found out about what happened earlier today. I don’t think I can handle any more people knowing about it, especially when I don’t even know how I feel about it.

“Just that you two are in the same class.” She says, and I let out a sigh of relief. Unnie finishes locking up and and calls out to Hanbin. “Hey! Are you gonna walk Yoonjin home?”

“Huh? Um yeah, I guess.” Hanbin says, taken off guard. He looks at me and quickly adds, “But only if you want though.”  I turn and stare at unnie wide-eyed.

Unnie gives me a wide grin and turns to Hanbin. “She says yes!” she yells.

“Unnie!” I tug at her jacket, telling her to stop.

“What?” she says, brushing it off, “I can’t have you walk home alone.”

“But I always walk alone.”

“Not today you’re not.” Unnie says, and pushes me in Hanbin’s direction. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, and it was nice meeting you Hanbin! Protect her well, okay?” she waves at both of us.

“Heh, okay. It was nice meeting you too, Jisu-ssi” Hanbin says, with a shy smile. He waves back at unnie, while his other hand rubs the back of neck.

“Jisu-ssi? Just call me noona!” She yells, and we both stand in our spots, watching unnie leave.

“So um…” I start, awkwardly “You really don’t have to walk me home.”

“Oh, okay.” He says. “I guess I’ll just walk you up to the end of the street, because it’s the only way out anyways.” And we both start walking, both of us not saying a single word.

“Are you getting picked up?” I ask, trying to cut the awkward silence.

“Yeah.” Hanbin replies, “Driver ahjussi is picking me up somewhere around here. He said I’ll see him if I just keep walking.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Yeah…”

We continue walking, and I think about how I never realized how long you have to walk street until you get out to the main road. I turn my head and look at Hanbin, who is looking down at the ground while walking. He seems different that usual, like he has something on his mind. He looks up, and I quickly look away, hoping he didn’t notice me staring at him.

“What’s up?” I ask him without thinking, and I mentally smack myself.

“Hm?” he says, looking at me.

“I don’t know, you just seem unhappy about something.” I say, the filter for my thoughts is clearly not working. “If it’s about what happened earlier today, it’s fine. How I reacted wasn’t because of you. Well it was partly you because you caught me off guard, but it was everyone watching and-“ I turn to Hanbin mid sentence, and he is staring at me.

===

“I hear you're a classmate of Yoonjin’s” someone asks me, and I look up from my phone to see one of the employees sitting down.

“Yeah,” I reply, not knowing what to say next.

“I’m Jisu, by the way.”

“I’m Hanbin.” I try to think of something to say, “So how long have you worked with Yoonjin for?”

“About a year or so, but I’ve known her since she was a little baby. Our moms were best friends, so I saw Yoonjin a lot.”

“Were?”

“You catch on fast. But yeah, they were best friends until Yoonjin’s dad passed away and…well, let’s just say our moms had a falling out.”

“Yoonjin’s dad passed away?” I feel my heart sinking.

“Oh you didn’t know? I’m sorry for telling you, I thought you two were close.” She apologizes, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“We’re not very close.” I say, hesitating. “But I think I’d like to be.” Jisu-ssi looks up at me, and smiles.

“You like her, don’t you?” She asks me, and I give her a nod, not wanting say it out loud.

“It’s too bad she has a boyfriend.” She says, clearly not liking Yoonjin’s boyfriend. I feel like I should say something about her boyfriend, but I think about Yoonjin and how hurt she would feel is everyone knew but her. I decide to keep my mouth shut. I’m about to ask Jisu-ssi more about Yoonjin, when I see Yoonjin come out from the back and starts to speed walk towards us.

“Ready to go?” Jisu-ssi says,

“Yeah” Yoonjin says, looking suspiciously at Jisu-ssi and then me.

When we leave the café, I check my phone and see that the driver ahjussi texted me. I walk off a bit, and dial his number. As I’m waiting for driver ahjussi to pick up, I see Yoonjin and Jisu-ssi talking, as Jisu-ssi is locking up. It seems like Jisu-ssi is teasing her about something, hopefully I’m not a port of that conversation.

“Hanbin?” the driver ahjussi picks up,

“Hi ahjussi,”

“I thought you were having dinner with your friends, I went to pick you up from Bobby’s condo, but they told me you weren’t with them.”

“ Yeah, something came up. I’m at that manhwa café I asked you pick me up from last week.”

“Ah okay, I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“Thank you ahjussi, sorry for causing you trouble.”

“No, no. It s no problem.” And we both hang up. I’m putting my phone away, when Jisu-ssi calls out to me.

“Hey! Are you gonna walk Yoonjin home?”

“Huh?” I replied, caught off guard that Jisu-ssi asked me that out loud. I was gonna do it, but I didn’t expect someone to ask me. “Um yeah, I guess” I managed to say. I look at Yoonjin, and she is just as startled as I am.

“But only if you want though.” I backtrack, making sure Yoonjin doesn’t think that I planned this with Jisu-ssi.

Yoonjin looks at Jisu-ssi, still wide-eyed, looking for some help.

“She says yes!” Jisu-ssi exclaims, leaving Yoonjin looking even more flustered than before. Yoonjin tugs at Jisu-ssi’s jacket, and I can’t help let out a quiet chuckle. Jisu-ssi pushes Yoonjin towards my direction, and waves at both us.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night, and it was nice meeting you Hanbin! Protect her well, okay?”

“Heh, okay.” I wave back, feeling a bit embarrassed and shy about her comment. “It was nice meeting you too, Jisu-ssi.”

“Jisu-ssi? Just call me noona!” she yells. Yoonjin and I stand here watching Jisu-noona walking away.

-

We’re walking down the street, making awkward conversation. But the whole time, I am contemplating whether I should tell Yoonjin about her boyfriend. Is it the right time to tell her? I don’t know how she’ll react if I tell her now, but I don’t tell her, she’ll either find out herself, which would devestate her. Or she will never find out, which would drive me insane.

“What’s up?” she asks, as I’m in the middle of thinking.

“Hm?” I reply, trying to remember if she said anything while I was spacing out.

“I don’t know, you just seem unhappy about something.” She says, and I feel like I just got punched in the gut. I remain speechless, looking at Yoonjin. After I saw Yoonjin’s boyfriend cheating on her, I came here to see her. The reason why I came here was to tell her everything, but something keeps stopping me. Maybe I just wanted to see her, and make sure she’s okay. Many thoughts are going to my mind, and I can’t think straight. Why am I even here, if I’m not going to say anything? But I don’t wanna be the one to hurt Yoonjin. And after finding out that Yoonjin lost her father, I want to comfort her and talk to her about everything that troubles her.

All I know is that I feel pathetic for being the one consoled. Instead of me being there for Yoonjin, she’s the one who’s asking me if something is bothering me.

“If it’s about what happened earlier today, it’s fine. How I reacted wasn’t because of you.” She says, and I’m still speechless. After seeing Yoonjin’s boyfriend and rushing over here to see Yoonjin, my confession earlier today was completely slipped my mind. Wait, did she says it wasn’t because of me? So I didn’t make her cry? I can’t look away from Yoonjin as she’s talking. My mind is trying to figure out what is going on, and it’s all just a frozen jumbled up mess.

“Well it was partly you because you caught me off guard” she continues to explain, “but it was everyone watching and-“ she turns to look at me, and she stops talking. I know it’s making her uncomfortable, but I can’t look away.

“Is- is there something on my face?” she asks, completely flustered, and she pulls out her phone to check.

Seeing her frantically go through her bag breaks me from my trance, and I start to laugh. Yoonjin hears me laughing, and looks at me strangely.

“Sorry,” I say, as I’m trying to stop laughing. “And no, there’s nothing on your face. I was just…distracted.”

“Oh.” She says, confused, looking away.

“I really am sorry about earlier though. It kind of just…slipped out.” I say, as we’re nearing the end of the street, and I can see driver ahjussi’s car up ahead.

“It’s okay” she says, “And I’m really flattered, but you know that I can’t accept your feelings though right? You know that I have a boyfriend.” I want to tell her so badly, but I just can’t. We walk in silence until we get to the car.

“Well, this is me.” I say, “Are you sure you’re okay walking by yourself?”

“Yeah of course!” she answers, nervously. And another moment happens where I want to tell her everything. I know that she isn’t from a rich or influential family, like most of the students at Seoul National High. And I know that she tries to hide it. But working multiple part time jobs everyday till late at night and studying her off to maintain high grades? Nobody at Seoul National High does that.

“Okay, well…have a good night.” I say, opening the door of the car.

“Wait.” Yoonjin says, stopping me. I look at her, and see her looking down at her feet. I patiently wait for her to say what she wants to say.

“Nevermind.” She says, shaking her head. “Have a good night, Hanbin.” She gives me a slight smile, and walks away.

As I watch her getting farther and farther away, I slowly get into the car. What did she want to say to me?

I’m lying in bed, and since getting in the car, I have not been able to stop thinking about what Yoonjin could’ve wanted to say to me. I guess I will never know. I kick the air in frustration. Jung Yoonjin, what have you done to me?

===

“Wait” I say, stopping Hanbin as he’s getting into the car. I see Hanbin look up at me, and I quickly look down at my shoes.

“Nevermind.” I say, deciding not to say it, and I quickly walk away.

I wanted to tell him that for the short amount of time that we talked, it felt nice. It felt nice to not have him teasing me, or making me angry. And I feel like we could’ve talked for a lot longer, if we had the time. It felt like it wasn’t even real life because every time we see each other, he just teases me and gives me a hard time. During my walk home, I think about how nice it would be if he could always be like that. 

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As usual, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll try to write more often :) And I actually have a couple of ideas for another story, so I need your opinions about this. Should I start the new story, or should I finish this story before starting a new one? Ahh decisions.. Anyways thanks again!!