My girlfriend...

The fact that he had made the obvious, indirect statement of being in a relationship was not what had bothered me ever since those two words had come out of his mouth. No, that definitely wasn’t what bothered me. Here, we sat across from each other in a rather simple yet elegant cafe just about two blocks away from campus which I couldn’t recall the name for. All I really knew at that moment was that I hadn’t been to this cafe before, and that was basically the extent of my knowledge. Mr. Jung sat across from me, eyes more focused on the menu that was laid out in front of him.

No, what bothered me was meeting his girlfriend. I wasn’t about to make outrageous assumptions or anything, but it felt uncomfortable, knowing that I was about to meet Mr. Jung’s girlfriend...Junsu’s first love.

“What would you like?” he smiled at me, but instead of fawning over him, which would have been the expected reaction out of me, I felt even more uncomfortable.

“Whatever you’re getting, sir...”

“Oppa!” the voice of a female was heard, and in a matter of seconds, I found myself staring at my professor and a female in a rather affectionate embrace, he, standing up in the process to compensate. A small peck on the lips had been exchanged between then as well. I suppose this was the perfect example of public displays of affection.

“Hey sweetie, how was your day?”

“Just fine, oppa, the daycare seems to be getting more and more packed though,” she smiled at him, but then noticed me across the table, “Oppa, shouldn’t you introduce me?”

“Ah!” he scratched his head as he turned to me, “Jiyeon, this is my new research assistant, Jung Sung-Jin. Jin, this is my beautiful girlfriend, Choi Jiyeon.”

I didn’t know whether to be flattered or feel uncomfortable that he had used my nickname. That showed some sign of informality, am I correct? What was he implying?

“Nice to meet you,” I stood up and bowed the full ninety degrees. Hm, I didn’t realize how detailed the design on this table was...though I suppose you can’t help but notice when you bow over a table the full ninety degrees and your face was less then fifteen centimeters away from the table top.

“Likewise,” she bowed as well, though not to my extents. Perhaps my action’s overall purpose was to demonstrate that I was merely Mr. Jung’s research assistant, in case she had made any false assumptions. Unconsciously, I had already made the decision that I need to find out more about her...for Junsu’s sake. That seemed to be the only logical reason as to why I thought that.

____oOo____

I stepped out of the lab area where I had temporarily resided in for the last five hours, and as much as I love my labs, I love the intake of fresh air even more, especially after prolonged amounts of time without it. I exhaled the deep breath which I took, feeling just slightly more content with myself, and looking at my watch, the time read 2:55 pm, just five minutes before I usually met up with Jin over at her dorm.

Sung-Jin and I, according to the extent of my knowledge, would most likely not have any classes this coming semester, but of course, the upcoming registration date would give us the verdict on that case. So, to compensate for the lack of time we had to spend together, we’ve been meeting up nearly daily over the course of the break. Originally, my opinion on it had been that the idea for constant get-togethers with her would be the most annoying thing on this terrestrial planet. However, after numerous persuasions from my friends (that was probably the most appropriate term to label those six goofballs as...), I gave it a try, four days to be exact, and though I never verbally mentioned it to anyone, I had enjoyed myself those four days, probably too much since I found myself in the midst of my friends’ teasing most of the time around our small meetings. So, without much more motivation needed, I went ahead and agreed to the daily meeting. Once per day, one hour, that’s all it was. There weren’t really any definite plans, and most of the time, we just walked around until we found somewhere to sit and chat, which would almost always be a small deli of some sort.

Quite often, our conversations would begin with me ranting about my lab work and both of us simultaneously complaining about the amount of work and studying we needed to accomplish in the next couple of days or so, but after a while, the conversations would level off, both of us suddenly talking about nuisances, which, more than often, would be about how ridiculous Yoo-Jin and Nichkhun looked together...they were together, right? I wasn’t quite sure, but the amount of time they were seen together was nearly equivalent to Jin and I.

“Oppa!”

...and speaking of the devil. I turned towards the direction of the all too familiar voice, seeing Yoo-Jin running up towards my direction with a huge smile on her face. She finally halted right in front of me, grasping her knees to catch her breath.

“Hi...” I was unsure of how to answer her.

“How are you, oppa? Been eating well?”

...well this was definitely awkward for me. In all honesty, I wasn’t exactly fond of this woman, nor any other woman of her kind. No, it really wasn’t her rather...sweet personality that I really disliked, for if it were, I’d have told Sunny that I disliked her a LONG time ago. Perhaps it was her persistence, or maybe even her obsessive nature that I disliked. I couldn’t tell, but I did know that I wasn’t taking a liking to whatever it was.

“Yeah, I’ve been fine,” I replied simply, which was true. I had been sleeping for longer periods of time, making more use of my day with productivity, and obviously, talking with Jin about...well, talking about whatever really.

“That’s good, hey I was wondering-”

“Hey Yoo-Jin!” Khun had come running up to her, grasping her left arm rather roughly, “Remember the movie started at 3:15?” he dragged her away from me, which I merely chuckled at. I had never really thought of Khun to be the rather aggressive type, but I suppose looks can be very deceiving.

“Yah!” and that was basically the last I heard of her before she was completely dragged away. It was quite amusing to watch actually, Yoo-Jin being completely angered as Khun merely grinned until they were out of sight.

After that small unexpected piece of entertainment had concluded, I found myself just walking down the sidewalks of the city, perhaps finding Jin along the way. We usually met up right at the gates on campus, but I’ve found that (because I’m usually the first to arrive) she usually comes from somewhere outside of campus, considering she comes rushing towards the gates almost every time in hopes of putting away her things back at her dorm before we left to go wherever.

However, I suppose today was, in fact, a bit different in the first place. Not only had I walked down the sidewalks of the city casually rather than waiting for Jin, I had also managed to find her...sitting across some male figure in a cafe I had never been to across the street. I couldn’t identify who it was exactly due to the small baseball cap that had been placed on his head in a lop-sided fashion, but I assumed that Sung-Jin was indeed enjoying his company, at least to some extent, the faint smile that played against her lips being the only piece of solid evidence I had. I unconsciously found myself glaring at the figure, unconsciously probably because my mind was being shrouded by other thoughts, like, perhaps, why Jin had not mentioned that she would be meeting up with another man. I found myself walking away, seemingly frustrated and angered by what I had just seen, but unable to justify my emotional state of being.

“Hey, you didn’t wait too long, did you?”

My train of thought had been disrupted by the familiar female voice coming from right in front of me. I looked around me, noticing that I had managed to make it back to the gates of the campus. How I managed to get here, I didn’t know. My gaze shifted downward to find Jin looking up at my towering form, her eyes seemingly worried.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah!” I stuttered...for the first time in front of her.

She giggled slightly, and I’m pretty sure that if she hadn’t done that before, it would have still been rather disturbing for her to do that.

“Well, let’s get going, yeah?” and she grasped my wrist just slightly, pulling me away from the gates and off to somewhere else.

____oOo____

“YAH!”

“!”

...my poor shin. How such a petite girl with strong naivete gets this type of strength is beyond me, but I suppose the shin being one of the organs most susceptible to any amount of force also had something to do with the unbearable pain I was currently experiencing.

“SERVES YOU RIGHT! YAH!” she punched my arm at full force while I was hopping up and down, holding my shin with both of my hands, so the pain that was supposedly expected to follow the blow to my arm had been completely disregarded, well...almost completely. I grunted in response, at least I thought I did...

“Damn woman...”

“What is YOUR PROBLEM?!” her anger was in direct correlation to the volume of her voice... (I suppose talking with Jin a couple of times for help with math had rubbed off on me...)

“I told you not to interfere with them.”

“What do you have against me?!” ...and I heard sobs. After slightly recovering from my pain, I looked at her eyes to find them tearing up, “Why are you so insistent on keeping me away from true love?! I bet you haven’t even experienced it yourself!”

“So how do I look? I didn’t put too much makeup, did I? What about my hair? Do you think this dress is way to y?”

Her questions, at that moment anyway, seemed to come at me nearly at the speed of sound through air, the speed of light being too much of an exaggeration, mind you.

“Yah, Jiyeon-ah, you look beautiful. Relax. He loves you as much as it is, you may be overdoing it.”

It pained me to say those words, but these two were, in retrospect, my closest friends. My interference between their relationship would only end up with negative results, and I definitely did not want that. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair for either of them if I were to just suddenly superimpose myself in between, as if I had that type of authority. Everything I said to her was true, whether it have been from my own personal perspective or Junsu’s. He was one lucky guy to have been able to capture this woman’s heart, even after my numerous attempts of doing so. However, I’ve learned the harder and more painful way that indirect methods of showing someone you love them wasn’t exactly the best way to go about things.

“Are you sure, oppa?”

“Yeon, I’m positive. Just calm down,” I placed my hand ever so delicately on her shoulder, tension eminent on her deltoids (Junsu was definitely rubbing off on me...).

She and Junsu were celebrating their one year anniversary today, so I understood what she was going through. I smiled at her, sadly, and I didn’t even try to hide the pain I was going through, but Jiyeon was too preoccupied with her thoughts of being together with Junsu that night that she didn’t notice, or if she did, completely disregarded them.

The familiar honk of Junsu’s car could be heard from outside, “Oh, that’s Junsu-oppa right now! I’ll see you later oppa!” she quickly hugged me and raced down the steps and out the door towards Junsu, I, only being able to watch them through her bedroom window with only a single thought on my mind.

If she only knew...

“What did you just say?” I asked her, well, more of in a demanding manner, and I believe that that aspect of my voice had been clearly communicated since Yoo-Jin had immediately stopped her small sobs and looked right into my eyes with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

“W-What’s wrong with you now?!”

Calm down, Nichkhun, calm down... I exhaled deeply.

“I’m sorry,” the words had come out of my mouth before I even thought about it, and now, Yoo-Jin was even more confused than usual.

“What exactly is wrong with you?”

“Lee Yoo-Jin,” I stated syllable by syllable, my tone of voice clearly stating my higher position, “I’m telling you again. Don’t interfere with Junsu and Sung-Jin.”

And with that, I walked away. Tension was building up inside me. Tension was a sign of stress, and stress was that last thing I needed at the moment.