THIRTEEN

Author’s POV

“Jiyeon! Are you coming with us? We’re going to the café.” One of Jiyeon’s new classmate offers.

“Thanks but… I’ll just wait for my brother.” Jiyeon rejects.

“Come on. It has been a week and you still spend recess time with your younger brother. Aren’t you gonna give us a chance to befriend you?” She asks Jiyeon.

“No it’s not like that. It’s just that— Oh, Taehyung is coming. Please excuse me guys.” Jiyeon then runs outside classroom where Taehyung is seen standing there while waving cutely.

“Jiyeon’s younger brother is surely a hottie, but it’s so hard to approach her.”

“Maybe she’s just too arrogant to be our friend. Let’s go guys.”

Jiyeon and Taehyung walk into the cafeteria linking arms together. Basically, everyone in the school knows they are siblings that transferred from Seoul. Jiyeon is famous for being pretty and attracting boys, even the one who already got girlfriends. To evade being in trouble, Jiyeon avoids herself from making guy friends, even her own classmates. She’s kind of loner and that makes her missing Sehun and Chunji so much. Her school year has never been worse than this. Meanwhile The Weird Taehyung is still being weird regardless the new surroundings. He’s still creating trouble by himself, causing his classmates to keep away from him. It’s only the first week, and Jiyeon was called to the administration office twice because of Taehyung.

“Noona, dad texted me just now.” Taehyung talks as soon as they reach the table with their food trays.

“Huh? During school? For what?” Jiyeon asks before stuffing with a mini sandwich.

“He said someone from Seoul arrived.” Taehyung simply answers her.

“Eh? Uh—huk!” Jiyeon chokes and starts coughing, surprised.

“Why so clumsy noona?! Drink this.” Taehyung shoves banana milk towards Jiyeon in front of him.

“Thanks.” Jiyeon says while patting her chest, “But who’s coming?” She continues and her eyes are shining brightly, obviously hoping for a miracle.

“I don’t know. Dad didn’t mention that. Maybe one of your friends. Sehun hyung, or Krystal maybe.”

“As if they would come. I don’t think so. I don’t want them to come either.” Jiyeon pretends to be indifference and continue eating.

“As long as you’re happy noona.” Taehyung answers and starts eating too.

That evening, Jiyeon and Taehyung jump off the bus as soon as they arrive in front of the house. Taehyung quickly rushes into the house and leaves Jiyeon alone behind. Jiyeon slowly advances into the gate while Taehyung has already flew into the house. She’s curious as hell right now, to think that someone is waiting inside the house, but she tries to keep herself calm and acts as normal as she can. While taking off her shoes, Taehyung suddenly shouts in the house, startling Jiyeon outside.

“WOAHHH!!!!” He yells and loud and big laughs are heard alongside the shouting, a boy’s voice.

“— Sehun?” Jiyeon whispers to herself.

She carefully enters the house and walks to the kitchen where voices came from. She gulps a few time, completely anxious. She tries to keep herself calm but her heart is beating really fast, nervous. She slowly proceeds to the kitchen amidst her anxiety, and a soft smile appears on her face once she arrives. Taehyung is hugging a boy and they look utterly excited.

“Jiyeon noona! How have you been?” The boy approaches and hugs her.

Jiyeon hugs him back before weakly replying, “So it’s you, Jungkook-ah. Great! How are you then?”

“It’s been hard without Taehyung. The good news is that, my older brother lives here and my father allowed me to live with him. Basically, I transferred here too!” Jungkook excitedly explains.

“YEAH!!! Ah yeah~ Ah yeah~” Taehyung celebrates with EXID’s song, and they even danced to the song.

“Noona, aren’t you happy?” Jungkook asks, getting worried to see Jiyeon’s dull smile.

“I’m sooo happy for you and Taehyung. Finally Taehyung got his best friend back. And Kookie, for your information I spend time with Taehyung at school, during recess, lunch time, and like all the time outside classroom with him since I barely got any friends. Please bear with it later okay?” Jiyeon tries to sound as excited as she can.

“Great! That’s not a bad thing. I’d love to have noona around too.”

“Okay then. I’m going to my room. Good bye~”

Jiyeon half-heartedly waves at Taehyung and Jungkook before leaving the kitchen. She walks into her room and throws her school bag onto a small couch before throwing her body onto the bed. She looks at the ceiling for 10 seconds and she senses something is wrong with her. Her eyes suddenly gets all teary. Tears are unknowingly dropping from the edge of her eyes and she just let it be.

“I really thought it was Sehun…” She mutters.

Jiyeon takes a pillow and covers her face with it. A small sobbing sound is heard. She blames herself for expecting too much. She put away the pillow and uncovers the red eyes. She has to admit that she’s just missing her friends, that’s all. But she’s thinking too much, making her becomes quite emotional. Jiyeon takes out her phone and hesitatingly taps Sehun’s contact number. She decides to send a message for Sehun. They haven’t talk once since she left a month ago, and it’s distracting Jiyeon a lot, especially after the incident she mistook Jungkook for Sehun.

JY: Sehun-ah… How’s school? What about Krystal? I’m doing great here, but it’s awkward and lonely without you around.

Jiyeon types and sends the message after hesitating a lot. Jiyeon keeps staring at the screen for almost five minutes, waiting for his reply. She notices Sehun has read the message, but why isn’t her replying? She waits again, doesn’t want to give up so soon.

JY: Sehun, I’m sorry for being imperfect. Let’s be friends forever. I hope one day we’ll meet again and we’ll be able to pick up where we left off before, where we’re so close. Take care Sehunnie~ And Wang is doing great too!

After typing and deleting several times, Jiyeon checks on the message for one last time before sending it. And this one too, Sehun reads it but there’s not even a short reply from him. Jiyeon’s lips trembles as she’s holding herself from weeping. But the tears are unbearable as it finally falls down endlessly, drowning her face. She constantly wipes away the tears but no matter what, the tears won’t stop. In order to satisfy one side, she unknowingly hurt the other side. On top of that, she eventually hurts herself too.

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Sehun exits the school building with a bunch of girls tailing behind, fangirling over him. He doesn’t really talk to them, but whenever he did something like smiling or even coughing, the juniors will get crazy. At this rate, even when he’s breathing can actually attract the girl’s attention, and imagine if he’s actually winking or flirting, the girls might as well die from happiness. Sehun stops his steps when he feels his phone vibrating inside his pocket. He takes out the phone and reads a message that just came in. He unknowingly sighs to see the sender’s name, Jiyeon. His gaze turns cold, and a bitter smile forms. Without bothering to reply, he inserts the phone back into the pocket.

Then, why did you bother to leave at the first place? Sehun thought.

“Is that your girlfriend, Sehun-sunbae?” A girl asks.

“Just someone.” Sehun shortly replies.

“What are you girls doing here? Go away! So crowded!” A voice suddenly complains and Krystal appears in between some girls. She arrogantly shoo-ing the juniors. They all pout but everyone is leaving anyway.

“You really love to get surrounded by girls huh?” Krystal grumbles.

“And why do you care?” Sehun coldly replies.

“Are you going to be like this forever? I told you I did try to stop unnie from leaving, but she still left!”

“That’s not the problem. The source of her leaving is still you, up until now I believe it’s all started because of you. But don’t worry, I do not blame you overall. Jiyeon was being stupid too. Both of you guys are headaches for me. And of course, I’m at fault too. I shouldn’t have sent the ‘Dear Jiyeon,’ letter because I’m just ruining my own life with it. Last but not least, Krystal Jung, let’s not talk to each other for the time being. Good—bye!”

“But unnie said you’re going to take care of me!” Krystal yells.

“Screw you and your unnie.”

Sehun simply waves and turns around. He walks away and leaves the angry Krystal alone. As she walks out the gate, his phone vibrated again. He takes it out and looks at the new message. He rolls his eyeballs and shortly sighs before ignoring the text and walks away.

Sehun arrives in front of Seoul Metropolitan Library in the middle of the city and he quickly walks in. He saw some students are in there too, but mostly are adults. He decides to do some extra studies since he got nothing to do too now. And he’s in a senior year, so he realizes he needs double effort for a great result. He picks a table and sits down alone. He tells himself to focus, but something is bothering him. He takes out his phone again, and this time he’s emptily staring at Jiyeon’s last message.

JY: Sehun, I’m sorry for being imperfect. Let’s be friends forever. I hope one day we’ll meet again and we’ll be able to pick up where we left off before, when we’re so close. Take care Sehunnie~ And Wang is doing great too!

Sehun then takes out something from his wallet, and a gentle smile appears as he keeps staring at the thing he’s holding. It’s the photo they took on his birthday. He smiles recalling all the memories they created together that day.

“I’ll take these three, and you take those.”

“What is this Jiyeon? I look so ugly in here! Let me see yours.”

“Ah let it be! The main point is that I look great in these photos. You can always look at yourself in the mirror.”