Loves Me Not

In Memoriam

Slam! The door banged on Sujin's face for the eleventh time that day.

"Well fuck you too." Sujin said into the door. "Alright, who's next?"

Seojun wanted her to drop this, but Sujin wasn't one to ever give up. Even on a bad idea. "We really should sto-"

"Who's next?" Sujin said louder.

Seojun looked at the list from his high school year book. "Chang Jimin. She lives..." He trailed off as he opened the other notebook where Sujin had noted down all of the addresses. How she had acquired those, Seojun didn't know. He didn't want to know. "... just three blocks over. She lives near."

"Good," Sujin shuffled around in her heels. "Damn it, I should have brought sneakers or something."

"Why didn't you?"

"Packed in a hurry. Didn't think about shoes."

They walked over to Chang Jimin's house, Sujin wobbling a little now. Seojun's face was hidden behind his mask and sunglasses. He had even put on a hat underneath his hoodie for good measure.

They had been visiting his classmates since last night; going to their houses one by one to convince them to speak up the truth about Seojun. In hindsight, it was a foolish idea. Many of the people weren't even aware of Seojun's scandal or even the fact that he owned a flower shop. And once they were made aware, they didn't want any involvement.

Sujin had tried various tactics. She first tried pretending to be a reporter, simply following up on an old incident in high school. That didn't work as Seojun's classmates seemed terrified of any investigations being done into the incident.

"You're not a police officer, are you? I don't want to talk to you if I'm not legally required to. Go away!"

Then she tried cajoling them to go on the record by offering them the promise of temporary fame, "You'd get to be viral. Many people would know about you," but that failed once Changmin's name got involved. After that, she tried getting them to give a testimonial without realizing what they were contributing to without his classmates catching on. But they all proved too shrewd and quickly realized what Sujin was asking of them. "Are you crazy? Don't you know who the Kim family is?"

Finally, Sujin resorted to bribery, which Seojun put a stop to the minute she said, "You could earn a couple of hundred-hey!" Seojun dragged Sujin away from the bewildered man who had once dumped milk on Seojun's head.

"What are you doing?" Sujin had demanded. "I almost had him!"

"I'm not going to resort to cheap tricks to get people to take my side."

"You need cheap tricks at this point." Sujin put her hands on her hips, "Ah-nee, what kind of people are they? How can no one come forward with the truth? Don't you have any friends we can call up?"

Seojun gulped, "The only friend I had is dead."

Sujin shut up after that. There was no argument she could give. Now the duo had resorted to simply making rounds around the neighborhood in hopes of finding at least one person who would be willing to counter the news about Seojun killing his best friend.

"Is this the home of Chang Jimin?" Sujin asked the woman who had answered her door. Seojun recognized her immediately as the girl who always used to shy away from him in class. She seemed to have lost her timidness now, as she stared down Sujin suspiciously.

"Who's asking?"

"Annyeoghaseyo. I am Kang Sujin-"

"Wait a minute, you're that woman who's going around digging up dirt about what happened to Jung Seyeon." Chang Jimin eyed Sujin from head to toe. Then her eyes went to Seojun who immediately turned sideways. "Who's he?"