Chapter Twenty: Life Support

Mi Ja and Soojung stare at Seokjin in disgust and partly amusement before breaking out into shivers. Words start flowing out of their mouths and Seokjin couldn’t handle the bashes and the hatred etched on them so he slaps them with the towel he has repeatedly wiped his forehead sweat with. They both scrunch their noses and protests in unison, “That’s disgusting. I’m going to sue this shop for disobeying the ‘customer is always right’ rule!”

“Excuse me, just because my father owns the place doesn’t mean purchasing this,” Seokjin points to his already emptied bowl of ice cream and snaps his fingers, “doesn’t make me a customer.”

“Well, the fact that you have just asked me to work in your place while you go to Busan for a college examinations preparations states otherwise,” Mi Ja points at Seokjin with her spoon, like she’s accusing him. Soojung laughs and shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t know but if I were you, Mi Ja, I wouldn’t accept it without any more salary offers. Like, for example, a weekly allowance of —!”

Seokjin covers Soojung’s mouth with his hand and grumbles under his breath, “If you give that woman an awful idea, I will shave your head bald.”

“Try me.” Soojung smirks, cutting the distance between their faces until they’re just inches apart. Seokjin’s eyes widen and he backs away out of shyness, which Soojung mistakes as fear of her. Mi Ja snickers, although her attention is obviously fleeting and her eyes are certainly looking for another dimension. Soojung and Seokjin stops laughing and sighs at Mi Ja.

Soojung asks, “Aren’t you going to tell us what’s going on lately?”

“Duh,” Mi Ja laughs, “Nothing.”

“Yeah, because obviously avoiding him the whole day – and even yesterday – wasn’t evident enough to prove that it was just nothing,” Seokjin coldly says, though Mi Ja appreciates the fact that Seokjin and Soojung, alike, both noticed slight changes in her. But maybe Mi Ja’s just being delusional right now. Maybe she’s already losing the ability to act like there’s nothing happening when deep inside, her wholeness is already crushed into shards. Maybe she’s become too much of an open book.

Mi Ja takes a deep breath and narrates from the morning yesterday. She tells them how awkward it has been, seeing the face you haven’t seen for months. Suddenly finding herself captivated by the same face she’s been dying to kiss. Suddenly finding herself studying the same features she’s been dying to see smiling back at her again.

Seokjin furrows his eyebrows and wonders frankly even before Mi Ja could get to the rising action of her story, “Well, if you want to his face so bad then why didn’t you just do so?”

“Well,” Mi Ja shoots a glare at him and states in a matter-of-fact tone, “If you want to know the answer so bad then why don’t you let me finish?” Seokjin makes a hand gesture like a gentleman and sarcastically smiles at her, so Mi Ja resumes.

She tells them, “But even if I wanted him, in Seokjin terms, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Because Soojung, remember what I told you? When he got my message, when he realized that I was confessing, Taehyung shrugged it off and forced to believe that because I was sick, my confession was just a delirium. Soojung. Isn’t that even worse than rejection?”

Mi Ja’s words leave Soojung speechless and Seokjin chuckling at her, like she’s so naïve. He says, “Taehyung has a girlfriend, you know. That just tests his loyalty to his girlfriend. If you really love him, you won’t do something that would put him in an uneasy stat—!” Soojung cuts him off before he starts shouting out his point.

“Hey, hey, calm down,” but Seokjin heeds no hurdle that moment – not a comfort from anyone nor a stop sign from Soojung – and Mi Ja touching Soojung’s wrist to stop her from soothing his rage down seems to tell Soojung that Mi Ja wants to listen to his rant.

Seokjin groans and makes gestures with his hands, “Think, Mi Ja. If he accepted you and your goddamn aggressive feelings that time, would that make you happy? Would that make anybody happy? The point here is, that guy we’re talking about here… He has a girlfriend, that’s it, and you can’t stop him from being happy just because you aren’t. The world doesn’t wait for you to catch up to the pace, so learn to catch up.”

After talking, Seokjin feels his throat completely dried up. Mi Ja hands him a glass of water and waits for him to gulp it all down. Until he seemed refreshed, Mi Ja asks him, “I’m most certainly aware of that. And that’s exactly why I told him. To at least let him know, after few centuries, that my world has stopped because of him.”

“I don’t get you,” Seokjin scowls before Soojung pinches his cheek.

Soojung says, “Mi Ja, you know what the problem right now is? You’re his most beloved best friend, and seeing you hurt and abandoned and being parted with you must be causing him great anxiety and devastation right now.”

Mi Ja recalls how sad Taehyung looked yesterday and how desperate he looked like when he was trying to catch her attention. Soojung resumes in talking, “There’s a high probability that sooner or later, his feelings will settle in a conclusion that he loves you romantically. Just because his confusion got into him. Mi Ja, more than anyone, you know he’s a dimwitted bastard, don’t you? He might mistake his feeling guilty and feeling sorry and missing you and loving you without romances as a feeling that can reciprocate yours.”

“Exactly,” Seokjin sighs, “If you ever end up dating each other sooner or later, it’s either it will last because he loves you or it won’t because he’d eventually realize that he doesn’t love you the way he wants to. Mi Ja, do you want that to happen? Because that .”

“I never thought you guys would help me this much,” Mi Ja fakes a tear and laughs out loud later. Seokjin and Soojung join her later and then the whole shop is soon filled with the their heartfelt laughter. Soojung calms down earlier than Seokjin and Mi Ja and says, “To be honest, we’re just bored.”

“Yeah, totally,” Seokjin snaps his fingers and laughs.

“Wow,” Mi Ja buries her chin nearer her neck and makes a sour face, “Thank you for reminding me how unloved I am.”

Soojung flicks her forehead and giggles, “You’re welcome, ugly.”

They end up laughing again, but deep inside Mi Ja, there’s a pang of guilt and regret coinciding with each other. She’s regretting how she rushed herself and confessed hastily to Taehyung, not caring about the consequences