ᴀʙᴅɪᴛᴏʀʏ || baek kyung

Carry On, My Wayward Son. There'll be Peace When You are Done.

Carry On, My Wayward Son. There'll be Peace When You are Done.

Damp hair curling in the edges, Jia jumped over the tinyass gate of Eun Danoh's house and stood right under the girl's window. She cursed under her breath, disliking the rain for the first time because her grey cardigan and the thin floral tank top under it were soaked, sticking to her body uncomfortably.

"Eun Danoh," she called out, loud and angry, "you better come out before I fling this brick through your damn window."

Almost immediately, the window was pushed open and a head poked out. "What the hell are you doing here?" Eun Danoh shrieked.

"Come down!" Jia threatened, her hand gripping the brick she had found down the road, where she had parked the car.

"No way."

She clenched her jaw, "You pint-sized demon, you better get down here before I put this brick through your window and text your dad that you're hiding your beanpole boyfriend in your room!"

Eun Danoh gasped, "How do you even know that!?"

But the threat worked. A few moments later, Eun Danoh had shuffled out her front door, followed by a nervous-looking Haru. Jia flung the brick aside and pointed a threatening finger at Eun Danoh, storming forward to stand under the roof of the driveway. "You," she said sharply, "I don't care if you two were fucking or whatever—"

The couple turned beetroot red as they exclaimed in unison "We weren't."

"—I don't care. You do not hang up on me after you steal things from my bag, Eun Danoh. What the hell were you planning?"

She looked down at her feet and grumbled something inaudible. Haru tilted down his head and asked, "You stole from her?" Eun Danoh pouted at him and he sighed, "You knew it was a terrible idea and you still did it."

Digging her slippers into the cemented ground, she muttered, "She was taking too much time."

Jia's phone vibrated in the pocket of her jeans. She ignored it and inhaled deeply. She counted to five and then, struggling to maintain her voice at a decent level, said, "I told you, Eun Danoh, the timing isn't right. I never said I wasn't going to do anything about it."

"But you never told me—"

"You can think for yourself!" She snapped, "Or is the ball still rolling despite the hamster being dead?"

"What does that even mean?"

As patiently as she could, because dealing with Eun Danoh required a lot of patience if you weren't in love with her, Jia explained, "Listen. The reason I decided now was not the time was because one, we have our CSATs. Even you know how important it is for us. It's not just Kyung, even Joonhyun has his finals soon. Two, people are going to talk. At school, in the neighbourhood—heck, the tabloids will talk about it for a long time. And three," she stressed, eyebrow twitching because someone was calling her again, "If...if the cops believe the information, the whole investigation could take weeks. Longer, if the case goes to trial. What do you think that would mean for both of them? The press will tear them apart."

Eun Danoh lowered her head with a pensive look on her face.

"Maybe Kyung can escape to college. What about Joonhyun? He still has two more years here, at school. Do you think anybody's going to let him live it down? The things they would say about the both of them. We need to think about the consequences."

Haru couldn't stand to see Eun Danoh upset. "I think that's—" He clasped her hand and started.

"I'm not finished." Jia scowled, startling him a little, before easing her expression when she addressed the other girl. "Eun Danoh, I know how much you want to help Kyung. You know I do too. But we rushed into it and things went wrong. We can't do that again because it's not just one person who'll be in trouble. So we'll have to wait. Either for the right time or until an opportunity presents itself."