She did not go to her grandmother the night before, her neighbor called and she told her that it was alright and that she would be there for her grandmother. Jiheun smiled thanking god that she has some good people around her.
She eventually told said neighbor to not let anybody access her grandmother's room even though she is on the VIP list and that in itself gives enough reassurance. Jiheun is just grateful that she is an idol and she has that much power to protect her grandmother from her supposed mother.
She slept for a whole 12 hours, and when she got woken up by Jaehyun to eat, she almost got into a physical fight with him as she did not want to leave the bed just yet.
"You get up right now to eat, we are not about to go practice when you have not eaten anything for the past 15 hours," Jaehyun said as he took the cover off of her freezing body.
"Make me!" She said back as pulled the cover back, rolling in it like a burrito.
"Jiheun you don't want to see me angry, get up." He says lowly but Jiheun is too lost in her mind to even care anymore. She was being childish ignoring her member but she needs them to understand, just for this time.
"Oh, ignoring are we huh? You asked for it." Jaehyun grumps and suddenly she is being lifted, with the cover and everything that comes with it.
"Oppa!" The girl is suddenly throwing a fit and Jaehyun doesn't even seem to care as he leads them to the kitchen and puts her down on one of the chairs to eat.
Taeyong came to cook for them and the rest of the 5th-floor members decided that it will be better if they all just ate together and went to practice directly. The leader looked at the two of them with a questioning look and Jaehyun shrugged as he took the chopsticks, "She was being bratty."
"I was not!" The girl glared at him and the older gave her a warning look that she successfully dodged by focusing on the rice in front of her. Jaehyun angry is not a sight somebody wants to see.
They were eating peacefully until a phone rang, Taeyong's specifically, and the rest of the members just continued their food.
"Okay thank you." Taeyong hangs up and sits down again with a laugh. The rest just look at him confused.
"There's no practice, SM got infected by cockroaches," Taeyong says with a laugh, and the rest cackle at that, a win is a win.
"See you woke me up for no reason!" Jiheun glares again at Jaehyun the other groans, "I swear if you don't stop I'm going to scatter legos on the floor tonight." He warns and the girl huffs.
"I'm going to get my phone," The girl gets up and heads to the room.
She gets hold of the phone and goes to her contact. She decided that it would be good if she talks to Jisung and chenle, their friendship shouldn't be tarnished because of their feelings. Therefore she decided that she will confess that she has feelings for jisung.
What she didn't expect is to find a message from jisung inviting her to a cafe down the street to talk. She smiles at that as she answers quickly and the boy quickly answers with a "See you in half an hour."
Completely forgetting about her brunch, she gets ready to see him. Wearing something nicer than usual, and of course, self-picked because most of her clothes are picked by her company's stylist.
"I'm having an unhealthy obsession with this dress." She mumbles with pure love for the clothing item and she fixed her makeup once and for all.
She goes out of the room as the rest of the boys look at her confused, "You look pretty!" Jungwoo says as the rest of the boys agree, Jiheun's cheeks redden a little.
"This outfit needs an insta post!" Mark is the one to say it this time and she chuckles before nodding, "Later I guess."
"Where are you going thought?" Taeil asks and Jiheun smiles brightly, "To meet Jisung, Going to come back in while, inform me if there is anything new for practice!"
"Sure, have fun!" They say in unison and just like that she goes out and heads to the cafe.
Only when she is in front of the store does her heart start hammering, this could be it, she will confess and she guesses that they will start dating and then they would have to keep it from the fans and the company and everything. Nonetheless, she was going to endure anything because she truly thinks highly of jisung. They deserved the most.
When she enters, she quickly spots him at the near end of the store where it is calm and private.
"Hey!" She waves as she sits down in front of him and the boy smiles at her with a little blush on his face as he sees her dolled up and all pretty, "Hey,"
"You look very pretty," He starts and the girl feels her heartbeat quickening.
"Thanks!" She says with a smile, "So what is that you wanted to talk about?"
"Uhm about what happened between us, me, you, and chenle." Jisung starts with more of a serious tone, the girl began playing with her fingers because of the butterflies in her stomach.
"Yes, sure." She answers briefly.
"I know that you know chenle has feelings for you, and I do too." Jisung starts and the girl bites the inside of her cheek from the happiness that suddenly flooded in after hearing that he does have feelings for her.
"We talked last night, and I told him we kissed, and we settled it," Jisung said with a low tone, and the girl nodded starting to feel anxious about what is about to come.
"I want to ask you something," He speaks again and that's it, the moment she has been waiting for, "Can we forget it happened?"
Jiheun stares blankly at him as she grows rigid.
"F-Forget about it?" She asks again and the boy in front of her nods.
"I don't want to tarnish what we had previously, our friendship me, chenle, and you. I talked with him last night and we came to the conclusion that it would be better if we all just stayed friends." He speaks and the girl grows cold.
She didn't expect this to come, never in a million years did she see this one coming.
"So you two talked it out?" She asks him with complete hurt laced in her voice.
"Yes," He answers quickly and this feels like a sharp knife in her rip cage.
"So if I understand well, you and chenle talked about how you shouldn't date me for the sake of our friendship." She repeats in hopes to make him see the big hole in the situation, but the boy just nods.
"What about me? Am I just some trophy or accessory that comes with the output of your conversation?" She says with tears threatening to fall, "Neither of you two thought that what I want is important? What I feel matters?"
"No Jiheun that's not what we mean!" Jisung tries to go back to his words to fix the situation but the girl has enough, "But that's what I understood, you made up your minds and that's that. I agree though, we should not be together."
Jisung feels a wave of guilt hit him and the girl gets up with teary eyes, one would think that it looks messy, but that only makes her more gorgeous than she already is, maybe that's the reason the waiter who comes to take their orders is so mesmerized.
"Jiheun no-" Jisung tries to stop her but she gives him a smile, one heartbreaking smile that hides her fresh wound, "I need to go, friend."
She storms out of the store and tries to walk as fast as she can so he wouldn't follow her.
Until she realizes he didn't.
He doesn't.
He won't go after her.
She goes to the recording room in the other building of sm, and she sits down in the empty, soundproof room before she begins to cry uncontrollably.
She cries and screams for twenty minutes straight as she couldn't contain herself anymore, it felt like the moment she would start to be happy something needs to go in and destroy it for her.
She felt like a used cup that was tossed around, they didn't even think of asking her what she feels. It was as if she was just a bracelet they get to wear.
The door opens and the girl tries to dry her eyes directly and get up, "Sunbae?" It was a voice she recognizes, sungchan.
"Oh hey sungchan!" She says with a smile, feeling like a clown trying to hide that she was crying even though the tears are still streaming from her eyes.
Seeing her that way, he closes the door to prevent any rumors if anyone sees her that way.
"I told you to stop calling me sunbae," She says with a chuckle and sungchan decides to sit beside her.
"Would that make you stop crying?" He says with a soft smile and the girl laughs, "Sorry, I must look crazy."
"No, not at all! Do you know the amounts of times I cried in this building?! One would think they torture me with Russian mafia ways." He answers with a huff and the girl laughs yet again.
"Yeah that's sm for you," She answers but smiles after, "But you debuted and I was pretty amazed by misfit and 90's love, and I don't get impressed easily!" She says and Sungchan feels his cheeks burning.
"Thank you!" He exclaims and the girl chuckles, "It's an honor to have a member as good as you on the team!"
"Thank you Jiheun-ssi." He answers truly thankful because he feels like half his worries are lifted away.
That's only normal because Jiheun knows exactly what he needs to hear, she has been there after all.
"Call me Jiheun, please! And I'll call you Oppa." She says knowing that he is two years older than her.
"Sure, Jiheun." He says with a blush at the mere thought of her calling him by oppa.
"So why were you crying?" Sungchan asks after a long silence settles between them.
"Damn straight to the point!" She teases and he hung his head low slightly ashamed, he was just curious.
"I'm sorry, I just don't want you to be sad alone, it's not good to keep your sadness to yourself!" He says matter of fact and the girl dries her eyes yet again, but the mere thought of the situation makes her tear up again.
"I got rejected by a guy who had feelings for me and did not even ask for my opinion." She sums up the situation and the guy beside her goes rigid.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He says not able to look into her eyes, she wasn't able to look up from her lap either anyway.
"It's not the rejection that hurts the most, it's the way he didn't even spare me a word to ask about how I felt." She mumbles as tears keep flowing without any stop.
Weirdly she didn't feel ashamed to admit it to sungchan because probably she needed to talk with somebody because the boys would freak out if she told any of them. It just felt easy to talk with sungchan.
"It's his loss then, not yours." He says after contemplating, "if for anything, you are lucky you didn't get in a relationship with somebody who doesn't value your opinion,"
The girl looks at him as his cheeks redden, "Plus, who wouldn't fall for you. You are literally the prettiest and nicest person I know."
She swallows the lump in her throat as she feels her cheeks burning and then turns her head to the side.
"So please don't stain your cheeks for somebody like him, let's go have ice cream." He gets as he tends his hand, the girl looks at it and then gives in.
She gets up and they go out of the recording room.
"Don't you have a schedule?" She asks as she checks her phone, and the boy chuckles, "Originally yes, but sm go infected by roaches so we rescheduled, I guess you too." They both laugh at that and they go for ice cream sandwiches even though it's not good for their diets.
After eating ice cream, they decided that since they are near the Han river it would be good to get ramyeon, and that's how their little ice cream to feel better turned into ramyeon to feel more energized. Then into an Instagram dump.
J.Jiheun: let's say thank you to sungchan for taking the pics!
Comments flooded the post, and for instance, she feared that the company would get mad for directly posting it without their permission. But everybody knew that this was good as an image for sungchan and nct being viewed as a group that gets along. Plus they looked good!
The message that she got though was not from the company telling her to take the post down but was from her manager asking her to confirm the person she would do the shooting with.
The sudden reminder that she agreed to do the shoot with jisung made her slightly uneasy, she absolutely wouldn't do it with jisung. So she needed to quickly find another replacement.
"Oppa are you free the next Wednesday?" She asks the boy who was on his phone nodded before looking back at her, "Yeah why?"
"You are shooting with me for a brand." She says with a bright smile, more of a relieved one to be honest.
"Really?! That's so cool!" He says absolutely happy that he is going to shoot with her.
"Okay, it is settled." She says as she texts her manager who took some time to answer, probably checking with the team managing sungchan.
And they loved the idea, it would be good for sungchan as an idol, and good for Jiheun because she couldn't stand the idea of seeing jisung at the moment.
"Okay, check your schedule?" She asks gently, and the boy complies, "So it is settled, I'm shooting for the whole day." He says as he reads the email that was sent to him, his manager, Jiheun, and the Chanel team.
"Woah, for Chanel?!" Sungchan exclaims and she nods with a bright smile because she is almost around the corner of becoming an ambassador for the brand.
"Yep, plus it will open lots of opportunities for you! You have a handsome face might as well model!" She tells him as she reads the email confirming the date, she sadly misses the sight of a madly blushing sungchan.
"Give me your number so we can plan this well," she asks as she hands him her phone and he quickly registers it.
"Okay, all settled!" She smiles then checks the hour and decides that it will be a good idea to go back to the dorms.
"Oppa I'm going back to the dorm, I'm frankly tired but I had an awesome time, thank you so much!" She says but sungchan frowns a little, "It's late, I'm walking you there. Please?" He speaks and the girl admits that it would be better than going late alone.
Somebody could follow her, yet again. She is still shocked that nobody came to them or recognized them, the beauty of the exam season, there are no floods of students around, only old people who might not be part of their audience.
" Thank you." She answers but she shakes his head as a silent welcome.
Once they reach the dorms, sungchan waits for the door to open and to see her go in for him to go.
Doyoung is the one to open the door and he directly smiles at them.
"Oh, you're back!" He says as he moves to the side to let them in, "Come on in, dinner is almost ready."
"No thanks hyung we just ate, I just walked her here," Sungchan says with a smile.
"Thank you oppa for walking me!" She says to sungchan as goes for a small hug before the boy goes out and doyoung closes the door.
"You were out with sungchan?" He asks confused because the blush on sungchan's cheek is too apparent.
"Yeah, we ate ramyeon and ice cream." She answers casually taking her shoes off and doyoung is dying to ask what is happening because he is so sure she said she would go with Jisung.
"You said you're going out with jisung?" He asks and by the change of air around the girl, she knows something is up.
"I did, turns out hanging out with sungchan was lovelier." She answer with a smile that urged her to bury any tear left in her.
"Alright, happy you had fun."
"Thanks oppa!" She says before she slides into the living room where the boys were watching sweet home.
"Welcome back!" They say in unison as she sits beside yuta and instantly grabs a handful of gummy bears.
"Your post with sungchan is so cute!" Johnny was the first one to point it out and the girl smiled knowing fully well that all of them had question marks over their heads as to why it wasn't with jisung.
But for the sake of their team, she knows it's not the right time to tell them.
_DREAM_