Third person.
Going back to the building where he is greeted by Jieum standing outside the entrance (and with the car all in one piece with no hint of a scratch), Jongseong notices how she looks quite calmer by a tiny percentage compared to this morning. It makes him relieved, to be honest, as he never asked for her scowling face throwing sharp blades at him. Jongseong rolls down the window of the passenger seat and ducks his head down to look at her eye to eye.
"Want me to open the door for you, ma'am?" He smiles ironically. Jieum rolls her eyes for what must have been the seventh time today.
"Where the hell did you bring my car?" She asks as aggressively as she does in opening the door for herself.
"Your car's still good as new, don't worry." Jongseong says, brushing her question off.
"Where are we off to?" He asks.
"The mall. Twenty-five minutes away." Jieum answers him briefly, her phone on her face.
Without further words to let out, the car motions onto the command of Jieum.
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"So, do I also get to stay here in the car and wait for you?" Jongseong sounds a bit hopeful about his question, resulting in a loud scoff from Jieum.
"No, Park, you're carrying all the shopping bags I will have in no time. My arms get pretty tired easily." Jieum scrunches her face to an expression of physical Jieum gripping her arm as said.
It was Jongseong's turn to give an eye roll, pushing himself out of the car. He walks to Jieum's side of the car, knocking on the window slightly for consent. When he sees Jieum nodding her head, he takes it as a cue to open the car door. Jieum walks straight ahead, leaving him behind.
"God." Jongseong sighed, closing the door and locking the car, walking at a fast pace to catch up to the girl.
The mall with blinding lights is swarmed with people and sumptuous stores. With Jongseong behind Jieum, he keeps an eye close to her in order not to lose the girl who seems to be disdaining his pure existence.
"Ah, here!" Jieum brightly exclaims, veering to the left inside a clothing store that finally took her interest.
The store is huddled with ladies doing the same thing. Standing still next to the body mirror, Jongseong scratches his head as he watches Jieum's hands expertly examine every piece of clothes from the racks in every section.
Jieum goes in front of the mirror, holding two leather jackets in different colours — one in brown and the other in black. Putting them close to her figure back and forth to see which one's best, it becomes a problem when she reckons that both of them suit her nicely.
"The black one looks nice." She hears Jongseong comments, leaning on the side of the mirror, apparently watching her fashion crisis.
'Of course, you'd say that. Although, I didn't ask.' Jeum would never admit he was correct at any point.
"I'm getting both." Jieum buffs and Jongseong shrugs — he didn't ask either.
They spent another twenty minutes inside that store, and another half an hour in the next boutique. Each time Jieum makes a new purchase, she gives the bags to Jongseong who carries them for her, as if he has more than two hands for Jieum to boss around. Jieum walks out of the store with empty hands but a satisfied cocky smile.
"I couldn't care less if you're going to keep shopping until dawn, but can I at least fucking put these inside the car for a minute?" Jongseong is about to lose it, struggling to hold them up. It's not that they're all heavy, they're just too many.
With his jacket gone from feeling warm a while ago, his veins popping out from his arms are visible to anyone's sight. His eyebrows are almost drawn together from his irritation. Jieum looks at him blankly and takes a few seconds before nodding — not out of pity, but because she needs more of his lending hands.
"Don't go anywhere." Jongseong warns her and hurriedly walks away towards wherever the exit to the parking lot is. To think that Jieum would stay put in one place is nowhere near possible.
"As if." Jieum mutters under her breath, watching his figure get smaller and smaller the farther he gets away. Once out of sight, she proceeds to look for another store she hasn't gone into.
Yet truth be told, Jieum's mood washed out after Jongseong left her side. Buying everything her eyes laid on impulsively was mainly to provoke the man who kept following her around with a face clearly stating that he didn't want to be there as much as her. She fists her hair, plopping down on an extended lounge seat beside a huge fake ornamental plant. She isolates herself for a moment as she stares at her Doc Martens on the floor.
"Hey!" The voice of someone she certainly just heard last night bursts her out from her thoughts.
"Fancy seeing you here." Jieum says with a humorous tone, but somehow, Sohee has already sensed something was up from the second she saw her.
"Are you good? Was it a bad day?" Sohee's quick to raise questions to check up on Jieum, her arms crossed while standing still in front of her. It wasn't the scowl she caught a glimpse of when she found her lumping on the seat that made her question, it was Jieum sitting on the mall's lounge chair like some lonely lady that made it unusual.
"I'm... I'm good." Jieum wasted the one chance to convince Sohee that she was fine. But whatever, she's not gonna keep it a secret from her anyway.
"Are you though? The universe has been in favour of me ever since I woke up and I got to leave work earlier than I wished, so stand up and come with me, let's spend our cards." Sohee instructs, pulling her up but Jieum swats her arm away.
"At least one of us is having a fantastic day... I feel like the universe is laughing their ass off at my face. You don't understand, I feel like I'm getting punished because of something I didn't do." Jieum tells her in exasperation.
"What's wrong, babe? Let's not talk about what's going on in your life here in a big open area because I swear you were just fine last night, but do you want to get our nails done right now while you tell me about it?" Sohee suggests, smiling giddily to lift Jieum. Jieum can't believe herself, but here she is refusing Sohee's idea.
"I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you next time." Jieum puckers her bottom lip out, Sohee chuckling as she nods.
"Okay, then-" Sohee didn't mean to spin around for her pair of eyes to catch sight of a person, her mouth dropping to the floor.
What's even more shocking to the best friend is that he's casually walking towards their direction, with a glower on his face. Jieum is well aware of Sohee's reaction to the alarming presence of Park Jongseong.
'Sohee? They're still friends?' Jongseong questions himself, validating her frozen figure staring at him. She didn't change much, he supposes.
Sohee shakes her head to get off from this hallucination, but even so, Jongseong's still here. She clears her throat as her widened eyes begin to shoot Jieum with 'Is this real? Is he real?'.
"N-no way... P-park Jong- wh- what... Ji- Jieum...?" A cat must've gotten Sohee's tongue and with dismissive hands, she tries to give herself a minute to process what's (or who's) in front of her.
"Alright, calm down. You're not hallucinating, that's Jongseong from high school in front of you. He's um... how do I say this... oh! My bodyguard- for today only! Dad found him in the streets somewhere and decided to give him a lovely job." Jieum snaps her fingers and sinisterly smiles. Jongseong pierces a glare through her in response.
"Eh? Bodyguard?" Question marks are still all over Sohee's head.
"This is technically your fault. You brought him into our conversation last night and now you jinxed him into coming back." Jieum snarls crossed arms over her chest.
"You were talking about me?" Jongseong asks, raising a brow.
"Bad-mouthing you." Jieum taunts, receiving another glare. Jieum stands up to grab both Sohee's shoulders and shake them.
"I want to go home, I don't feel well." Jieum stands up, clutching her bag. Sohee understands and nods.
"It's- it's fine, yes. Get home, I'll call you later." Sohee pulls her in for a hug, only to give Jongseong a stink-eye.
Sohee breaks the hug and takes small hesitant steps backwards, before completely turning around to leave.
"You don't feel good?" Jongseong repeats what he has heard from their conversation.
"I don't know what I'm feeling, Jongseong, but it's making me sick." Jieum tells him, looking at him straight in the eyes with anger.
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Jongseong manages to bring Jieum home safe and sound, as the whole ride home is suffocatingly quiet. The car is parked outside the main door, Jongseong takes off his seatbelt but stays in his seat as he doesn't know what's supposed to happen next once Jieum leaves the car.
"Can't you quit this job?" Jieum speaks her mind.
"And what fair reason would I give to your father? Because you hate me?" Jongseong answers back. He's not wrong.
"Say that I was being shitty towards you, I don't care. Or something that will make my dad regret having us meet again, even though he knows nothing. Unless you want me to tell him how you were the boy who hurt me badly? I don't mind." Jieum snarkily provides him with the choices.
"He doesn't know?" Jongseong looks at the girl in the backseat, who's been throwing daggers at the back of his head.
"He does. But not what you look like, or your name. Just the story of us. If he did, he would've killed you first before I could meet you in the living room." Jieum scoffs. Jongseong returned his sharp gaze to the front, scratching his temple frustatingly.
Staring into oblivion, the guilt that has never left somewhere in his body surges through him again. Years ago, he used to wish for the world to give him one opportunity to see Jieum again just so he could apologize and explain himself. His wish had now finally been heard, but not to what he hoped. No time will ever be the right time now that he can't even let out the three primary words people say when they apologize, because he knows it's too late.
He has no choice but to accept her grudges towards him. He was the first to have ever known nonetheless, that a person like Moon Jieum did not deserve what he did to her.
"You know what? I'm sorry for how I acted today." Jieum swallows hard along with her pride, surprising Jongseong the most.
"Until I have you as my bodyguard- which I can assure you will not last long- here's what's going to happen, Park. Let's forget how you broke my heart and all you have to do is to protect me, are we cool?" Jieum utters with a forced smile and nods at him.
Jieum can't bear to hear another word from Jongseong today. She rushes out of the car and into the house and leaves Jongseong by himself.
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That's all for tonight 🚶♀️
See you in another two or three
weeks HAHSHAHA