Third person's POV
After texting Chaeyoung to let her know that she will be practicing until late tonight, Mina turns her phone to silent mode and puts it into her bag in the corner of the room. She then turns music on, starts her routine practice.
A while later, the door is forcefully swung open, Mina startles at the loud noise, she looks at the door entrance in alarm, there Jb and Bambam arrogantly walk in, Jb heads straight to the cd player and turns the music off, while Bambam locks the door. Mina knows right away that she is in danger, she glances at her bag, planning to get her phone to quickly call Chaeyoung, but it's in the far corner of the room. Mina turns pale, knowing what these two bad boys had done in the past. She gathers all her courage to speak, 'What are you two doing here? You are banned from entering this place.'
Bambam smirks 'We will break any rules, just to be with you, Mina'.
'Help!...anyone...please help!' Mina decides it's time to shout for help,
Jb laughs 'Scream all you want, there is no one else around anyway.'
They keeps approaching Mina closer and closer, she steps backwards bit by bit until her back hits the wall, they have cornered her. Nowhere else to run, Mina can only pray to God ,'Please..Please God, let Chaeyoung comes and helps me!'
Bambam is now too close to her, 'Get away from me!' Mina shouts at him and tries to push him away, just to be grabbed by both wrists and pinned to the wall,
'Be a good girl, Mina. Let me have a taste of you first' He forces kisses on her, Mina uses all her strength, turns her head left to right, trying to avoid all the aggressive kisses while calling out to Chaeyoung 'Chaeyoung...help me!...Chaeyoung!'
Right at that time, the door was kicked open, 'Stop what you are doing to her right now!' Jackson yells at the two,
Jb and Bambam both turn to look at him, 'And who are you to tell us to stop?' Jb asks,
'You don't need to know who I am, you just need to know that I'm going to beat the hell out of you two.' Jackson confidently says,
The three of them then jump into a fight, punching, kicking each other. Jb and Bambam just happened to be kicked so hard that they are both rolling on the floor in pain, while Jackson seems to be untouched. Jb and Bambam share a look, then decide to run away.
Mina plops down onto the floor in relief, hugging both her knees close to her, feeling traumatised by what just happened.
Jackson runs to Mina, crouches down to check on her 'Mina, are you ok?' He's trying to touch her hand but Mina flinches away,
'I'm...ok, Jackson...thank you...for saving me!' Mina is still shaking,
'Thank God that I decided to come asking you out for dinner, otherwise things will be bad.' He's trying to give himself some credits.
Chaeyoung finally reaches building D, she is almost out of breath because of all the running she has done today, but she's not allowing herself to stop. Breathing heavily, she checks every rooms in the building, one by one she opens the door, checks then moves to the next one while calling out Mina's name.
Meanwhile, after shaking off the fear, Mina stands up with Jackson's help, she grabs her bag, heads to the door, stepping out. From afar, she sees Chaeyoung furiously searching every rooms, her eyes start to get teary, she didn't cry the whole time she was with Jackson, but seeing Chaeyoung, as if she sees her safe place, that she knows it's ok to cry now.
Chaeyoung finally sees Mina from the distance, she immediately runs over and engulfs Mina into her arms, hugging her tightly,
'Chaeyoungie!' Mina is now crying out loud while calling her name,
'My God, Minari, are you alright? Are you hurting anywhere?' Chaeyoung breaks the hug to check on Mina,
'They...forced kisses...on me...but I...didn't let...them.' Mina says between her sobs,
'Good girl! You did well, Minari!' Chaeyoung hugs Mina again to calm her down from crying.
Chaeyoung turns her head a little, and there she sees Jackson who has been standing at the door for a while now, her blood boils, fists clench, she immediately releases the hug with Mina and steps forward, throwing one of the hardest punches she ever does straight to his face. He falls down hard onto the floor, blood is gushing out of his nose, Chaeyoung is not done yet, she gets on top of him, punching non-stop.
'Stop it, Chaeyoung! What are you doing?' Mina yells and pulls her away by the arm,
'Why are you stopping me, Mina? I gotta kill this asshole.' Chaeyoung is still very angry,
'No, stop, Chaeyoung! He just saved me.' Mina tells her while crouching down to check on Jackson,
'He saved you?' Chaeyoung asks in disbelief,
'Yes, he saved me when Jb and Bambam were about to do bad things to me.' Mina answers,
And that's when Chaeyoung realised, this guy is a lot smarter than she thought, so his plan wasn't to physically take Mina's body, his actual plan is to play the role of a hero in the play that he wrote himself, being Mina's saviour, then rightfully taking Mina's heart.
'Mina, don't trust him, he planned this whole thing' Chaeyoung is trying to tell Mina the truth,
'What are you talking about, Chaeyoung?' Mina is confused,
Jackson then speaks up through the pain on his face 'I know you don't like me, but don't make things up, Chaeyoung. I don't even know those two bad guys.'
Mina looks at Chaeyoung, not sure what to feel right now, she knows that Chaeyoung hates Jackson, but she can't get herself to believe that Chaeyoung would make such things up, 'Chaeyoung, are you alright? Why would you say such things? He literally just saved me.'
'Mina, listen to me! He planned it, he and Jb and Bambam, they...' Chaeyoung abruptly stops talking, she looks at Jackson, then to Mina, they're looking at her intensely, Chaeyoung suddenly has the feeling of being cornered,
'Why do I suddenly become the one that needs to explain...?' She says while looking at Mina in the eyes, 'Mina, you...you don't believe me, do you?'
'Chaeyoung, it's not that I don't believe you. It's just...' Chaeyoung clenches her fists, turns her heels and walks away before Mina could finish her sentence.
Mina immediately stands up and runs after her. She grabs Chaeyoung's wrist when the girl is at the end of the hallway, 'Chaeyoung ah, I...'
Chaeyoung turns around, the look on her face stops Mina from talking. Chaeyoung takes one step closer to Mina, looks straight into her eyes, speaks in the coldest tone that Mina has ever heard from her, 'Do you know what I hate the most, Mina? It's when people don't believe me eventhough I tell the truth, and it hurts a thousand times more because the person who doesn't believe me is you. It hurts badly right here.' Chaeyoung points at her left chest where her heart is,
Mina's eyes got teary again, she stands frozen, speechless.
Chaeyoung continues 'From now on, Mina, do whatever you want to do, trust whoever you want to trust, I won't be involved anymore.'
She then forcefully removes her wrist from Mina's hold, and walks away without looking back.
'Chaeyoung...don't leave me!' Mina weakly calls her, tears are falling nonstop from her eyes. She wants to run after Chaeyoung again but the look in Chaeyoung's eyes before she walked away scared her, it's a mixture of anger, sadness, disappointment and mostly pain.
Jackson had been watching the whole scene, smiles to himself, internally celebrating that his plan has been working so well. He then approaches Mina who is still standing rooted to the ground,
'Mina, it's late. Let me take you home!'
Mina shakes her head, 'No, Jackson, I just want to be alone now.' She then walks away by herself,
'That's ok. There is no need to rush, Jackson. She will be yours sooner or later.' Jackson talks to himself while watching Mina's back slowly disappears into the distance, with a pair of dark and dangerous eyes.
Mina drags her feet into her room like a soulless corpse, she plops down on the bed, stares into nothingness, 'What if...what if she never wants to see me again?' That thought scares her, she's feeling sick all over her body worrying that she might lose someone very very important to her, someone she loves.
A while later, Mina reaches for her phone, decides to text Chaeyoung after thinking for a long time, there she sees 16 missed calls from Chaeyoung, they all were from around the same time when the incident happened. Then the scene of Chaeyoung furiously searching for her in every rooms plays in her mind, 'It looked like Chaeyoung knew something was going to happen to me, and she was trying to look for me before any bad happened.' Mina is thinking to herself, realising that she might have made a huge mistake for not listening to what Chaeyoung said at the time, 'What have you done, Myoui Mina? Why did you doubt her words when all she ever does is care for you?' Mina hits her head while scolding herself.
She decides to text Chaeyoung,
M: Chaeyoungie, I'm sorry!
M: Please let me explain!
M: Chaeyoung ah, please talk to me!
Mina sent multiple messages but none of them gets a reply. Waiting for hours but still nothing, tired from crying, Mina falls asleep while still holding the phone in her hand.
Next day lunch time at the food court inside the university, where all of them always have lunch together. Mina is sitting with Nayeon, Jungyeon, Momo, Sana and Tzuyu, she is nervously waiting for Chaeyoung and Dahyun to come from their art class, but to her disappointment, only Dahyun shows up,
'Where's Chae?' Tzuyu asks as soon as Dahyun sat down,
'She had just gone home, she said she doesn't feel well.' Dahyun answers,
They all share a look while Mina is looking down, messing with her food, not eating any. They all know about what happened yesterday and also know that Chaeyoung is angry at Mina,
'I know that none of us has ever seen Jackson hangs out with Jb or Bambam, so we can't be 100% sure that they made that plan together, but what I'm 100% sure is that, throughout my 15 years of being friends with Chae, she has never told a lie.' Dahyun defends her friend, her talk seems to be directed at Mina,
'Mina never says that Chaeyoung was lying. She was just confused at the time, I mean, the guy just saved her from a traumatic experience, she couldn't just turn around and accuse him of setting everything up.' Nayeon defends Mina, totally understands how her friend feels,
'But still, Chae must have hurt so bad because of being doubted by the one she l...' Tzuyu stops mid sentence, remembered that Chaeyoung hasn't confess her feelings to Mina yet,
Sana nudges her arm, 'Tzu, you are not helping!'
'Alright, everyone calms down, i think both Mina and Chaeyoung are not at fault, it's just a misunderstanding. We all know how much Chaeyoung cares for Mina, she won't be angry for long.' Jungyeon tries to calm everyone down.
Momo nods her head, patting Mina's back, 'Jungyeon is right, Mina. Chaeyoung will be back to normal soon.'
'I don't know, she seems very angry.' Mina dispiritedly says while still looking down at her food,
Dahyun and Tzuyu saw Mina looking so down, feel guilty for what they said earlier, 'Mina unnie, we're sorry, we didn't mean to upset you.'
Mina gives them a sad smile 'No, don't be sorry. It's true that I made Chaeyoung angry, it's my fault.'
Sana holds Mina's hand, 'Mina, stop blaming yourself. Everything will be fine soon, Chaeyoung just needs a little time to think.'
Mina nods slightly, still feeling dejected.
Next day comes, Mina still hasn't gotten any reply for countless texts that she sent to Chaeyoung. Chaeyoung still doesn't show up at lunch, no communication whatsoever. On the other hand, Jackson has been showing up infront of Mina too many times, he tries asking her out for coffee, for lunch, for dinner, for a walk or a movie, but to his disappointment, he only gets a no everytime. Eventhough there is no evidence to prove that he planned the incident, Mina just doesn't trust him anymore, plus she is too upset about Chaeyoung ignoring her, her heart and soul are full of Chaeyoung, there is no space for anyone else.
Another day comes, Mina happens to cross paths with Chaeyoung a few times, but Chaeyoung completely ignores her, not even spare her a glance. Mina almost cried when Chaeyoung passed by her like a stranger. She remembers how Chaeyoung was always so sweet to her, always so caring and used to adore her at everything she does, but now Chaeyoung is so cold to her, it hurts her heart, her whole body isn't functioning well anymore. She feels empty, lonely and lost.