Start Again

Chapter Seventeen

Audrey

"Annyeong," Joon Soo said as he came up next to me.

"Annyeong," I mumbled back. I was scared to look him in the eyes after the last time we spoke.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I lied.

Suddenly Joon Soo was in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, pulling me to a stop. "No you're not. What's wrong?"

His eyes met mine. I wanted to stare at them forever, when suddenly...

"Who do you like?"

"Pass."

I looked away from him. "Nothing."

Joon Soo dropped his hands from my arms, shoved them into his pockets, and started walking again. "Okay."

I watched him walk further down the path. He came to a stop, and looked back at me.

"Are you coming?"

"Where?"

"Lunch."

I ran a couple of steps to catch up with him. "I didn't know we were eating together."

"Of course we are."

And that was the end of our conversation.

"So, guess who I just ran into," Hye Ri said as she sat down, looking between the two of us. "My ex-boyfriend," she answered when neither of us replied.

"I thought he went to a different university?"

"He did."

"Was he here to see your friend?"

"Nope. To see me."

"Why?"

"He wants to get back together."

I sat up straight. "He asked again? You told him no, right?"

"Should I leave?" Joon Soo asked.

"No, you were here first."

"I feel out of the loop."

"He's just this stupid guy I dated for a while and he decided to start dating my best friend whilst we were still together."

"Kim Jung Ah?"

"That's her."

"How do you know her name?" I asked Joon Soo.

Joon Soo went quiet. It was the first thing I had said to him since we sat down. We had already finished our lunches by the time Hye Ri had replied and we had been sitting in silence the whole time, refusing to talk. He stared me intently in the eyes. Why was he reacting this way? Did he want to tell me who he likes? Did he feel awkward about it? Was it because he knew I liked him? Would it upset me to find out? Was it maybe Hye Ri?

"She's in our magazine group," Hye Ri filled in. "You two are weird today," she added, after looking at us. "Anyway. Back to my story."

Joon Soo and I broke out gaze and turned to look back at Hye Ri.

"So I decided to hear him out this time seeing as I hung up on him last time he tried asking. He asked if I'd get back together with him and begged me and blah blah blah, so I asked what happened to Jung Ah, and apparently she broke up with him. She hated knowing we lost our friendship because of him. Would you believe that? So I asked him how long ago that happened, he said basically the week after we broke up."