A Thousand Purple Stars (JinJi)

Catching Up

"I didn't... I didn't mean that," she said quietly, the first thing she said that she meant all afternoon. Jinyoung shook his head gently.

"It's okay," he said. "Anyway, Mr. Hong wanted us to do this so we could catch up. You go to Eastern? Let me guess, you're studying literature."

"Business, actually," Jisoo said, covering her mouth full of bread. A wait came and brought Jisoo her food. She had ordered dessert even though it was just past 1 in the afternoon and she hadn't had a proper lunch yet.

"Not literature?" Jinyoung asked, crossing his arms. There was a curious look on his face.

"No," Jisoo said. Jinyoung leaned forward.

"I thought you wanted to be a writer."

"I did," Jisoo said. "I still do. This is just a temporary thing. I'm trying to be sensible about my future, I can write whenever I want, but I still need to have a job."

"Did your decision to study business have anything to do with your dad's business?" Jinyoung asked. "I'm guessing he wants you to come home and take over the orchard."

Jisoo didn't know why she bristled every time someone mentioned her father's orchard, the peach farm that she grew up on. She especially became tense anytime the person who brought that up was Park Jinyoung. He was, after all, the reason why she felt like she could never escape that peach farm when she was in middle school.

"How did you know that?" Jisoo asked, her tone becoming defensive. Jinyoung shrugged.

"Just a guess," he said, amused. "I never had you pegged as a sellout."

Jisoo was about to bite into her tiramisu, but she stopped and cast a venomous look at Jinyoung instead.

"I'm not a sellout," she said, her voice low and determined. "It's not selling out to do something you don't want to do to make someone you love happy. It's not selling out to put your dreams on hold to take care of something important. It's not selling out when you're trying your hardest but things—"

"Alright. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," Jinyoung said, putting a hand out to stop her. "It wasn't what I meant. But what are you going to do with your business degree, then? I thought you wanted to write books, what happens to that?"

"Why do you care?" Jisoo asked, putting her fork down and crossing her arms. Again, Jinyoung felt hurt by her tone.

"You think I shouldn't care?" he asked.

"I think you haven't cared ever, so why start now?"

Jinyoung stared long and hard at Jisoo. Did she really think he was so heartless as to not care about a former classmate's prospects? Evidently, she still only thought of him as the bully from her youth.

"You still don't get it, do you?" he said.

"What don't I get?" Jisoo said.

"You still think I hate you, don't you?" Jinyoung leaned back in his chair and scoffed. Jisoo gave him a confused look.

"Well, yeah," she said. "You've done nothing but tease me and sabotage me and call me names—"

"Call you names?"

"—since middle school, and you fought me tooth and nail every time I even came close to beating you at something, so, yes, I can only assume you probably hate me!"

Jinyoung glowered.

"I think you're unnecessarily defensive about everything and you blow things out of proportion and you're kind of hypocritical and overdramatic at times and you have a competitive streak," Jinyoung said. "But I don't hate you. I don't hate people. That's not me."