It felt like I was going back and forth between heaven and hell. One moment I was smiling like an idiot and the next thing I knew, I felt like someone was tearing my heart apart. Ever since that incident when I found out that Jessica had went to eat lunch with Donghae at the school cafetaria, things were a bit different. The fact that Jessica had been spending more time with him and kind of neglecting me, was making me more confused with each passing day.

Flashbacks:

(3 days after the incident)

I had went to the Ladies and was about to exit from the cubicle when I heard a conversation outside that caught my attention.

"Hey, did you hear about Jessica and Donghae dating?"

"Jessica and Donghae? I thought Jessica is already in a relationship wth Taecyeon?"

"Someone saw both of them being intimate with each other while having lunch at the cafetaria a few days back."

"Does that mean Jessica and Taecyeon are no longer together or is Jessica cheating on him with Donghae?" 

"I'm not sure though."

I only left the cubicle after I heard the girls leaving the toilet. Dating? Being intimate with each other? Once again I felt a sharp pain in my heart as I had to hold on to the washbasin to keep myself standing.

(Friday before the practice)

I was at the cafetaria with Taeyeon, Sooyoung, Tiffany and Jessica. Sooyoung, Taeyeon and Tiffany were seated on one side of the table in that order while Jessica and me were seated on the other side. There was an empty seat beside me. We were there to accompany Sooyoung who wanted to get something to grab and decided to just relax before going for our practices. I was feeling happy since Jessica was there as we talked about our assignments. Being able to see her smile and hearing her laughter makes me realise how much I miss having her around. But my happiness was short-lived when Donghae suddenly came up to our table. He greeted everyone and was smiling widely at Jessica. He even asked me to move down one seat so that he can sit beside Jessica. Donghae kept talking to Jessica and I noticed that he was being a bit touchy with Jessica by patting her on the head and playing with her fingers. What infuriate me was that even though Jessica looked uncomfortable, she was not doing anything about it. Unable to withstand my anger, I suddenly stood up and excused myself, saying that I need to go to the library and will meet them at the practice later.

(Friday after the practice)

We were waiting for Tiffany and Taeyeon to finish their meeting between the futsal and the cheerleading team. HyoHyun and YoonYul couple had left straight after practice since Yoona and Seohyun needed to catch the bus home. Sooyoung and Sunny were playing around with each other so I decided to just lie down on the bench and closed my eyes. Suddenly I felt another presence beside me. I peeped through my half-open eyes to see Jessica looking at me. She wasn't aware that I had noticed her presence as she kneeled down beside the bench. She must have thought that I was sleeping when she started to whisper and gently my right cheek with the back of her hand.

"Jae, mianhae. I know you're upset with whatever that is happening right now but I hope you'll wait for me. Please wait for me."

"They're here. Let's go. Sica, help to wake Jae up."

Sunny suddenly shouted, causing Jessica to panic as she quickly retracted her hand. I felt Jessica shook me gently by my shoulders as I pretended to have woken up from a nap. Seeing a weak smile from Jessica, my heart cracked. I smiled widely at her with the hope that she won't feel so down and it did the trick. She returned my smile brightly as I gestured her to follow us out from the gym. Even though I was hurt earlier, nothing is more painful than seeing a sad Jessica so I tried to cheer her up. By the time we reached the dorm, Jessica was smiling and laughing at all the jokes that I was telling her.

 (Saturday)

I had went back home to meet Uncle and Aunt Kim as I needed them to settle some of the paperwork for the house ownership. It should take about another 3 weeks before everything will be settled. I kept checking on my phone for any messages from Jessica but there was none except for one in the morning where she greeted me good morning and also informed that she's going out today. She didn't tell me with who but I had a feeling that it was with Donghae since the girls were all still at the dorm when I returned at 4pm. SooSun, YoonYul and TaeNy were all gathered at the living room, watching a movie.

"Hi Jae, where's Jessi?" Tiffany asked the moment I stepped into the dorm.

I told them I didn't go out with her and all of them were shocked. Seems that all the girls thought Jessica had went out with me. Both Sunny and Tiffany didn't asked Jessica who she was going out with when she left the dorm as they assumed that it was with me.

"If she's not with you, then who did she go out with? Aisshh, Fany-ah. Why didn't you ask her earlier?"

"I thought she's going out with Jae. Even Sunny thought so too. Taetae, are you angry with me for not asking?" Tiffany looked upset but Taeyeon quickly gave her a hug and a peck on the cheeks.

"I think she went out with Donghae." Yoona blurted out as everyone quickly looked at her before turning to look at me.

"By the way, did you guys know that there is a rumour going on about Donghae and Jessica dating?" Yuri asked as Taeyeon suddenly kicked her and stared at her while giving an eye signal to Yuri.

"It's okay Taeng. I've actually heard about it a few days back." I sighed as I sat down to join them.

"I've already told you to confess earlier to Jessica. That Donghae guy must be trying to woo her." Sooyoung started to nag at me.

"I've already...." I couldn't complete my sentence when our doorbell went off.

Sunny stood up and opened the door to reveal a grinning Hyoyeon. She walked past Sunny and walked straight to us.

"Guess who I met at the movie theatre earlier? Jessica and Donghae!!" Hyoyeon said excitedly but she stopped when she saw the gloomy atmosphere.

"I'll be in my room. I need to work on my assignments." I stood up as I saw Yuri and Taeyeon showing the cut-throat action to Hyoyeon.

"Wait, Jae. Have you eaten?" Sooyoung asked.

I waved off my hands and tell her that I wasn't hungry as I continued walking to my room.

Meanwhile in the living room,

"Yah, Hyo!! What's that all about?" Taeyeon threw a pillow at Hyoyeon who managed to catch it.

"Mianhae. I didn't realise that Jae was around. I thought she would be at the orphanage every Saturday." Hyoyeon quickly covered when she realised that Yuri and Taeyeon had their eyes wide open. "Ooopss.. I also didn't realise that Tiffany and Yoona are here. I think I need to go back to my dorm. Bye."

Before anyone could say anything, Hyoyeon was out of the dorm in a flash while Yuri and Taeyeon were holding on to each other hands.

"Kwon Yuri!!"

"Kim Taeyeon!!"

"Aaarrrgggghhhhh!!" Both Taeyeon and Yuri could only struggle in pain when their girlfriends were pulling them by the ear.

"What's going on?" I had ran out from my room after hearing the scream from Taeyeon and Yuri just to see them being pulled by the ear by Tiffany and Yoona.

"You!! Park Hyun Jae. Sit down here." Tiffany instructed me.

Swallowing my salive and blinking my eyes repeatedly, I sat down beside Sunny. I looked at Sunny and Sooyoung who were just watching the other two couples with poker faces. I turned back to look at Yuri and Taeyeon who were busy rubbing their red ears after their girlfriends let it go.

"So who wants to start explaining now?" Yoona asked as she folded her arms and glared at Yuri while Tiffany did the same to Taeyeon.

Yuri and Taeyeon started to nudge each other, fighting over who to speak first before both of them looked at me. I was totally lost and didn't understand what they wanted from me until Yuri raised up both her hands as a sign of giving up while Taeyeon just slumped into the couch.

"Hyo blurted out about the orphanage."

I turned to look at Sunny who had finally made me understand what's going on. I looked at Tiffany and then to Yoona before turning my eyes to look at Yuri and Taeyeon. I sighed and took a deep breathe in. "Before I start, let me apologise first and please don't blame Taeng and Yul on this."

I started to repeat the story that I had told Sunny before with regards to the orphanage, my renovation projects and also about my family status. I obeserved how Tiffany's and Yoona's face changed from frowning to being totally shocked.

"Oh My God!! You mean all this while you've been lying to us? Especially you Taetae." Tiffany looked at me before turning to look at Taeyeon.

"Technically I didn't lie because in the first place, I've never really talked about my family background. Like I said, don't blame Taeng. She's not at fault. Me, Taeng and Yul had been friends since middle school and I guessed all 3 of us got so used to the way we are that we didn't bother to explain about our family status."

"But at least Yuri does show her wealthy side with her sports car and even some of her clothings are branded goods. But Jae really looked and behaved like an average student. Why didn't you just tell us who you really are?" Tiffany asked me.

"Because this is who I really am. Unless if you're talking about wealth which I think doesn't really matter. Will it have made a difference if you had known I was rich?" I asked Tiffany who took some time to think before shaking her head. "See. That's the whole point. I don't want people to be friends with me just because I'm rich. I don't need that kind of friends in my life. Furthermore, my parents always taught me to be humble and treat everyone equally."

"But you're not just rich. You're like super super rich. Ten times richer than Yuri." Yoona suddenly said, causing Tiffany to look at her.

"Yoona, you knew Jae was rich?"

"I knew about it. I only didn't know about the orphanage part. But seriously speaking, Yul does have better fashion sense than Jae." Yoona gave Yul a high-five as I just rolled my eyes at them

The girls laughed at Yoona's remark before Tiffany suddenly pointed at Sunny. "Wait.. Don't tell me you knew all about it too?"

"I only got to know about it a few weeks back. Thanks to my observation skills, I grilled this shikshin to tell me the truth but she just won't budge until Jae herself came to explain. But Jae, I think there's something else that you didn't tell Fany and Yoona."

I looked at Sunny, tilted my head to one side as I tried to remember what it was that I forgot to tell them. When Sunny mouthed the word 'money', that was when I realised it. Tiffany also noticed Sunny saying it and quickly asked me.

"Money? Did Sunny just said money? What mo... Wait a minute. If it's about money, don't tell me it's got something to do with that anonymous donor that helped Jessi with the family debts." Tiffany looked at me.

"Omo, Jae is the one who gave the money to Sica's mom. Daebak!!" Yoona started to clap her hands in excitement.

"But please don't tell Sica about it. I don't want her to feel indebted to me." I said before any of them could question my decision.

"But what are we going to do about the current situation? About Sica and Donghae?" Sunny asked all of us.

"Talking about Donghae, me and Soo found out that he's close to Eunhyuk. Both of them are actually dorm mates." Taeyeon replied as she started to explain about what me, Soo, Yul and her had discussed together previously.

"Eunhyuk? He's a good friend of Hyo and also our classmate." Yuri answered. "Let's call Hyo and asked her to come down to join us now."

All of us agreed as Yuri took out her phone to call Hyoyeon. After assuring her that everything is okay and no one was going to kill her later, Hyoyeon came down. Well, she did received some kind of punishment for her blabbering mouth as Yuri and Taeyeon pulled each side of her ears while me and Soo helped to hold on to her. We only let her go when she agreed to cook dinner for us.

During dinner, all of us continued with our discussion. We all agreed that Donghae's sudden appearance in Jessica's life was too suspicious. I also told them that Jessica was not even close to him during high school. All of us took turns to try to figure out the reason to why Jessica would suddenly be close to Donghae but none of us could think of a valid reason.

"Unless Sica likes him." Hyoyeon suddenly blurted out with a poker face.

I sighed as I stood up to excuse myself. I told them that I was feeling tired and wanted to sleep early. I laid down on my bed as I stared at the ceiling. Without me realising it, tears trickled down my face as I hugged my bolster tight and forced myself to sleep.

********************************

It was the first week of October and the situation remained the same. The whole week, I tried to stop thinking about Jessica by making myself busy with school work. I didn't hang out with the girls much, preferring to stay in my own room to do my assignments. Even during lunch, I will spend time in the library or the gym. I still leave messages for Jessica though, asking her about how's she's doing or if she needs help with her school work and also to remind her to take her meals on time. Sometimes she will reply, asking me to take care too and not to worry about her. During those times, I would read back the messages that she had sent to me previously, especially one particular message. 

Jae, you do believe me when I say that I like you right? I just want you to know that no matter what, it'll always be you in my heart.

We had just finished our futsal practice. Ms Lee had informed us that we'll be taking part in a charity event where we will go against the champion from last year women futsal competition. The event will be held next week. Since it's only going to be a friendly match for charity purpose, we didn't really have to go through any special practices. But Ms Lee still expect a high level of discipline from us. The senior members of the team won't be involved in the game since they wanted to concentrate for their final year.

"Hey Jae, you seemed to have lost weight. Are you okay?" Seohyun asked when she came to our bench with Tiffany after their cheerleading practice.

"Where's Sica?" Hyoyeon asked her girlfriend as we all got ready to exit the sports hall.

"She's not feeling well. She didn't attend class today." I answered even before Tiffany could say anything.

"How did you know?" It was Yuri who asked me as everyone turned to look at me.

"She messaged me this morning, saying that she's having a bad headache with fever. But her fever had subsided when I left her to rest just now after checking on her and sending some food over to her dorm."

"You went back to the dorm to send food and check on her? Aaawwww..." Yoona asked.

"Ceeehh.... She only look for you when she needs help. Where was she all this while? Spending all her free time with another guy. She's even avoiding us." Taeyeon blurted out her anger while Tiffany tried to stop her.

"She didn't ask for help,Taeng. I volunteered to do so. She's unwell. As a friend, shouldn't we take care of each other?" I tried to smile but it was a weak smile.

"A friend? Is that all you're hoping for after you keep on helping her? I keep telling you to confess but..." Sooyoung was also upset about the whole situation.

"Youngie, calm down. Like what Jae says, no matter what, Sica is still our friend. Until now, we are still unsure why this is happening or why is Sica avoiding us but at least, she still keeps in contact with Jae. Let's try to be rationale and don't add extra pressure on Jae." Sunny spoke up while the rest remain silent.

"But Jae, you need to take care of yourself too. You're losing weight and there's even dark circles around your eyes. You looked so drained. Go back and rest well. Don't wake up early tomorrow."

"Thanks for the concern, Fany-ah but I need to visit the orphanage tomorrow. Don't worry. I should be fine." I heard Seohyun asking Hyoyeon about the orphanage since she's the only who was not around last week, besides Jessica.

Hyoyeon continued explaining as both of them along with the YoonYul couple walked towards the bus stop. As the rest of us continued to walk towards the dorm, I called out to Tiffany. She fastened her pace and walked up beside me, leaving Taeyeon behind to walk with SooSun.

"Fany-ah, did you and Sica manage to find anyone to do a write up on for your project?"

"Not yet. Some of the teams had already managed to get in contact with some of the well-known models through their connections. But we are still trying to find one and we need to do it soon. The dateline for the write-up and portfolio is end of October."

By then Taeyeon had walked up to us and had her arms wrapped around Tiffany's waist. "Why don't you and Sica become the models instead? You can do a write up on each other. Both of you are already beautiful enough to be a model." Taeyeon grinned dorkily.

"Awww.. That's so sweet, Taetae and also an interesting suggestion but the only problem is that we are not well-known models or even a famous designer."

"What if I can introduce you to someone who is a model and has just released her own brand of clothings, designed by herself?" I smirked at both of them.

"Jinjja? You knew someone like that? Aaahhh.. For a split second there, I forgot about who you really are. Someone of your status, obviously will know and have connections to famous people. Anyway, me and Sica would be very thankful if you could do that for us."

"Of course I could help. My only request is that only you could do the interview with her, without Sica around. Don't worry. I'll be there to accompany you during the interview"

"Wae? Why can't Jessi be around and how am I suppose to make her agree to this arrangement?"

"It's better that Sica is not around if the person that Jae intends to introduce you to is the same person that I'm thinking of right now." Taeyeon looked at me while I just smirked and showed her a thumbs up. "From her expression and action, I think I'm right. Believe me, Fany-ah. You won't want Sica to be there."

When we reached our dorm, Taeyeon followed me to my room and closed the door behind her.

"Jae, are you really going to arrange a meet-up between Tiffany and her?" I nodded my head as I switched on my laptop. "But I thought she's not in Korea at the moment?"

"It's true that she's not here now. But she'll be flying in from England tomorrow and will have a stopover for one night before flying off to Japan on Sunday night. I had already contacted her to request for her help and she said that she's more than willing to help me out. I planned to make arrangement for them to meet up on Sunday afternoon."

I took out my phone and message Tiffany about the arrangement which she gladly agreed to. I reminded her about not bringing Jessica along and she replied by saying that she'll come up with something.

"So Jae, can I join you on Sunday then? You know how clingy that person can get when she's around you. It's better for me to be around to help you out."

"Help me out or you just want to spend time with Tiffany? By the way, that person has a name, Taeng. I can't believe you still bear grudges on her for always teasing you during middle school."

"Both. Hahahaha.. I don't bear grudges. I just like to call her by that. So can I come?"

"Andwae.. I'm not going to take the risk of the two of you squabbling with each other and distract Tiffany from doing her interview. Now, if you don't mind, I need to settle some stuff. Go and sleep, Taeng. Goodnight."

I pushed Taeyeon out of my room even when she was still protesting about my decision of not allowing her to tag along this Sunday.

********************************

After spending a few hours at the orphanage, I informed Uncle Kwon that I need to go to the airport to fetch someone. I took a cab and reached there at 2pm. While I was waiting for the person to arrive, I took out my phone to message Tiffany.

To Tiffany:

Fany-ah, don't forget about the interview tomorrow at 1pm.

To Hyun Jae:

I won't. Don't worry. But why can't I at least know who's the person I'm interviewing? By the way, Taetae keep begging me to ask you if she can tag along tomorrow. 

To Tiffany:

Aissshhh... That shorty. Tell her that she can follow us tomorrow. About the person, it's a surprise. I'll see you tomorrow then.

I had just kept my phone in my pocket when suddenly I saw a familiar looking lady, running towards me. Within seconds, I was engulf into a hug.

"Jae-giya!! I missed you so much."

I just shook my head as I returned the hug. Before I could say anything, I was dragged along to a waiting limousine.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Shopping of course. It's been some time since I'm back here in Korea. I need to check on the lastest fashion trend."

"But you had just touched down. Don't you have any jetlag and do we really have to travel in such a luxurious manner? A limo? Anyway, you do remember about the interview tomorrow right?" I leaned back into the car seat.

"Of course. Don't worry. I've already promised to help you and I'll keep my promise. I'm so used to all these long flights that I rarely have jetlag. Furthermore, I've not spend time with you since you came back to to Korea. By the way, I didn't realise that you're getting more good-looking, Jae. Seeing you up close makes me want to kiss you."

"Yah!! Stop joking around and stop sitting so close to me. This limo is so big and spacious yet you're sticking so close to me." I meronged at her.

"Yah!! Why can't I be close to you? We've even slept together before. I just miss you a lot, Jae. That's all. Anyway, you're sleeping with me at the hotel tonight."

"Mwo? Andwae, andwae.. I'm going back to my dorm tonight and will meet up with you tomorrow with Tiffany."

"Tiffany? Is she the reason to why you want to go back to the dorm tonight? The one that made you fell head over heels?"

"Anniyo.. Tiffany is Taeyeon's girlfriend. The one that I like is Jessica who is her partner in this project. But you wouldn't be meeting her tomorrow."

"Minion Taeng already has a girlfriend? Daebak!! I really need to meet this Tiffany then but why is Jessica not coming along? Did you purposely planned for her not to meet me? Are you scared that she might be jealous of us?"

"Anni, she doesn't know who I am with regards to my family status." I explained to her about everything as she listened attentively.

"Fine. But you still have to sleep with me tonight. Final decision. Anyway, we've reached the mall. Let's go and eat first. I'm hungry."

I just shook my head as the both of us exited the car. People were curious about us since they saw the limousine there as I quickly walked into the mall. We spent our time at almost all the shop, stopped over at an ice-cream shop and had our dinner at a restaurant. People would have mistaken us as a couple if they judge by the amount of skinship and intimacy that the both of us were portraying especially with my boyish dressing, even though I'm not the one who was initiating all of it. We only head back to the hotel at around 10pm. The problem is, I wasn't aware that someone had been watching me since I came out from the limousine and was following my movements until the hotel.