Life is unbelievably cruel.
Especially to Emily.
The only thing she has wanted since moving to Korea was to live peacefully. Clearly that wish is out of the window.
Sometimes Emily just didn't understand why everything wrong is happening with her. All around her, people are happy, her friends are happy, her family back in America are happy. Then why the hell is her life so miserable?
And now she's even lost all of her appetite.
Coach Shin had warned her to take care of her protein intake to make sure her muscles don't loose all the retention. Compared to the other athletes at the training center, Emily's muscle retention rate is a lot shorter and she needs to work extra hard to build up on the muscles. But now Emily could care less about her stupid muscle retention.
She can't help but wonder if everyone else realizes how uncomfortable Emily is right now. Although she is normally good at controlling her facial expressions, most of the time her body language gives her away.
It's weird because even though he is sitting beside her with a distance and not physically touching her or even anywhere close, Emily feels violated and weird. She feels so overtly conscious that she cannot even concentrate on anything else other than getting out of the restaurant immediately.
Emily just doesn't understand why he is doing this.
He did a good job of ignoring her the rest of last semester after that incident then why is he suddenly acknowledging her now?
Or wait.
Is he even acknowledging her right now? It's not like he said a word to her or even looked her way. All he did was sit down. But then why would he sit down next to their table when there are so many other empty tables in the restaurant.
Emily bit her tongue a bit too harshly and closed her eyes.
Did is why she hates him.
He makes her crazy and confused. Every time he is near, Emily's brain just goes into overdrive and she overthinks herself to the point she feels sick.
She hates that he still manages to have this effect on her.
This won't do.
Emily can't do this right now.
She doesn't care if think makes her look petty and like a loser. She knows people will think she is immature and childish but Emily doesn't care.
"I feel a little unwell so I think I'm going to go ahead first," Emily said, picking up her jacket and her bag, already getting ready to leave.
"Already?" Soyeon questioned, looking at the time on her phone, "You haven't finished eating though."
"I'm full. I wasn't even tat hungry to begin with," Emily said, as if lying is her second nature, "I'm just tired from the unpacking and all the traveling so I'm going to go early and sleep."
"Oh okay," Soyeon responded while the other two were a bit too dumbfounded for a response. Emily is already standing up and zipping up her puffer jacket.
"I'll send you guys the money later," Emily informed, referring to her portion of the meal.
She was out before anyone else could say more and try to convince her to stay and headed towards the store to buy a few things before leaving for the dorms.
While shopping, Emily couldn't help but let a wave of sadness wash over herself.
Tonight was just...sad.
Emily had thought that catching up with her friends after so long would be fun and therapeutic and make her forgot all her worries for a while but all she really felt was alone and left out. The other three had so much to talk about and already knew so many new things about each other while Emily was just trying to keep up with the conversation the entire time.
She doesn't blame her friends, since after all it is her who has distanced and isolated herself away from everyone. It isn't even that she is trying to do so on purpose but more that it just happened to be so naturally. Being away at the training center for days at an end just makes it obvious that Emily is going to be missing out on a lot of the inside jokes and isn't going to be around for the day to day incidents so she doesn't feel hurt about being left out. But she still can't help but feel a bit sad.
Her entire school life back in America has been exactly the same. She always found it so incredibly hard to make friends because her training schedule demanded so much out of it and her mom always thought that attending birthday parties is stupid when she could be training instead. Emily focused so much on becoming this wonderful swimmer her parents have raised her to be that in the process they didn't realize how much harm they are doing to her personality and her social life.
Emily was only fourteen when they diagnosed her with social anxiety. And while it has never been very bad or has caused her to have full blown breakdowns at social events, it definitely has prevented her from being able to form proper conversations with people or just be friends.
Since Emily is so introverted and shy, it isn't hard for people to like her or be friendly with her but they never wanted to be actual friends with her. After all, she barely speaks that everyone seems to forget about her presence after a while that most of her friendships are short lived or just very casual friendships.
Emily remembers the first time she got close to someone when she was sixteen. She remembered how it changed her life. First positive. Then negative. Then a little more negative to the point it drove her crazy. Since it was her first real close relationship, Emily had ended up clinging onto them and it ended up in a disaster with Emily being the one getting hurt.
Then when she came to Korea and ended up being roommates with Soyeon, she was determined to be more outgoing and make more friends, talk more, attend more social events and maybe even get a boyfriend. And at first it did work. She did talk more, did make a few friends and even joined a few social circles. While she only considered Soyeon, Jia and Nana has her only friends, Emily is proud to say she knows more people and has friendly situations with many.
The she got a boyfriend and then it ended in a disaster again.
And so the old Emily is back in motion.
After all, none of it mattered at the end of the day.
The only thing that matters is the pool and the water and Emily's timings.
Once she reaches the Olympics, she will be able to breathe again.
.
.
.
Emily forgot how physically draining the Sebong campus is built.
It is overtly spread out with a good ten to fifteen minute walk to every buildings and each department has its own buildings which means you have to walk ten to fifteen minutes in between classes. The only thing built conveniently is the cafeteria and the coffee shop which happens to be in the middle on the campus and near the bus stop.
Emily glances at the time on her Apple Watch and knows she is late but she can't do anything about it. She does increase her walking speed but in all honesty, she is not going to run for this meeting.
In the beginning of her second year, Emily was asked to be the representative of all the female athletes in Sebong on the student affairs committee. She said and was even enthusiastic about it. All she really had to do was attend the weekly meetings and pitch in for the female athlete group whenever a student organized event will be held and be in charge of the annual sports event Sebong holds to celebrate its athletic students and all sports achievements. Though it is, it is also stressful and now especially with her national training, Emily had declined to be the on the committee again but then changed her mind as she realized this is one of the fewer normal aspects of her life.
But now that she is on her way to the meeting, she is once again regretting her decision. All the people on the committee has borderline annoying personalities and Emily is yet to be mentally equipped to prepare herself for the one hour of subtle bragging of wealth and power.
Walking up to the second floor of the club activities building and opening the door to the meeting room she wasn't every surprised to see everyone already there. Despite their annoying personalities, the committee is very dedicated to what they do and treat it like a job.
"Sorry I'm late," Emily murmured as she walked in, not really looking up to smile at everyone. She wasn't feeling the most friendliest today. She's had a long day with back-to-back classes and has to rush to practice right after the meeting.
"You're actually right on time. We're just getting started," The president of the committee, Joshua, said. He is seated at the very front of the long table, in the position of authority.
Emily just takes a random empty seat and sits down, taking out her laptop and opening up her calendar.
Now that she has seated, Emily takes a good look at everyone.
Beside Joshua is Park Jinyoung, the handsome senior student studying Law, who is also the co-president with Joshua. Jinyoung sunbaenim has always been so kind and polite and he is the only one Emily feels like she isn't tolerating them. Jinyoung sunbaenim also does come from a chaebol family as his father owns a famous music label.
Next to Jinyoung is Jisoo, the secretary and while Jisoo is pretty and smart, she is way too blunt for Emily to handle. Jisoo's father owns a famous plastic surgery clinic in Seoul. Next to her is Namjoon, the publicist and handles all external communication. While he acts holier than thou, Emily has to admit he is a very charismatic speaker who gets the job done. Next to Namjoon is Johnny, an American who thinks he is very funny but is really not, and is the spirit leader. Emily still isn't sure what that means but apparently it is an important role during the Sebong festival weekend or any other school event.
Besides him is Nayeon, who represents the student body that is studying visual and performative arts. Then is Irene, who represents the science portion of the student body. Since both visual arts and science are smaller parts of the student body, they only have one representative. Next to her are sitting Taeyong, Rosé and Eunwoo, who all represent the Liberal Arts Department. While all of these Department positions do not sound important, they are crucial in making sure the students have what they need in these areas and that the students participate in University events.
Finally there is Jackson, a member of the national fencing team and the representative of male athletes in the university, Emily's co-partner. Jackson is a very extroverted and talkative person and has hit on Emily multiple times, despite her turning each one down. He does not take no for an answer very easily. Jackson also seems to know almost everyone on campus and is an extremely friendly person. And at least there is Emily, the only person in this room without famous parents or generational wealth. Maybe that is why she feels so out of place here since she cannot relate to anyone.
Joshua stands up to begin speaking when the door opens again.
Emily feels the blood in her vein freeze as she realizes who it is before even looking at him.
She can't believe she forgot about him.
"I see you decided to finally show up Jeonghan," Joshua said with a deadpan voice.
Jeonghan didn't say anything but just silently walked over to a random empty seat and sat down.
"Now that everyone is here, we can finally start," Joshua said.
Jeonghan, the treasurer of the group. It just makes sense to make him the treasurer with his quick wits and sharp mind. He has always been good at numbers his entire life, which explains why is he studying finance and math and he is cold-hearted and calculative. Emily knows Jeonghan doesn't really care to be here but is really only doing it because Joshua asked him to.
Out of everyone here, Jeonghan has the fakest personality and Emily cannot stand him.
"I hope you all had a good break," Jinyoung started the meeting, "I'm pleased to start of by announcing that we have finally been approved by the administration to install the ice cream machines in the cafeteria as well as install clean and new water fountains all over campus, as that had been one of our biggest complains last year."
"Now that this one project has been completed, we can focus on the next project, which is to help raise funds and rally for an open eating section to be built within the library to allow students to take quick snack breaks or eat something in the middle of studying. Currently the administration is seemingly approaching this topic with a positive attitude but they said that as this is entirely student led, we will have to find ways to raise funds," Jinyoung continues, "So...any ideas?"
Rosé raised her hand with a pen in it and said, "We could do bake sales every week."
"We're in University, not middle school," Irene said.
"While that sounds wonderful Rosé, I think it might be a bit impractical. We will need to bake goods in mass quantity and buy all the ingredients ourselves, which means we will have to take more money out of our budget when we are trying to make more," Joshua said, "Jeonghan, what does our inventory look like right now?"
Jeonghan lazily crossed one leg over another and leaned back into his chair, saying, "We earned quite a bit during the valentine's day event we did. Currently we have over a little over 600 dollars with us so we can start with something small and make sure we generate profit to continue to do so. But a bake sale is likely to exhaust our savings."
"Hmm...how about asking for donations?" Johnny suggested, "Everyone here is rich enough and is aways eager to donate more."
"I was also thinking of that," Joshua admitted, "But I also do not want to come across as very greedy. We also asked for donations three times last year."
"People won't really donate," Jeonghan said, "Why would anyone want to invest building something that is likely to finish building after they graduate? Seems like a waste of money to me."
Irene leaned forward in the direction of Jeonghan and put on a seductive smile, saying, "Then what do you suggest?"
Emily fought the urge to roll her eyes. Irene thinks she is being hot and flirtatious but little does she know how dumb she looks.
Jeonghan looked up the ceiling and thought deeply.
"I think-"
"OOOO! I know," Jackson shouts excitedly, grabbing all the attention. Emily notices how Jeonghan slowly looks in Jackson's direction without any expressions.
"This is great! You guys are going to love it!" Jackson screeched like a child.
"What?" Nayeon asked.
"We don't even need to think. We have the answer right in the room with us," Jackson said.
"What is it?" Jinyoung asked.
"Emily!" Jackson pointed at her, surprising everyone and her in the room.
"We have Emily! She is going to bring up our funds."
"Emily?" Jisoo gaped.
"Em..il..y?" Namjoon said slowly.
"Me?" Emily said at the same time, pointing to herself in mere shock.
Jackson nodded happily.
"Emily," Jeonghan repeated in a slow voice, taking advantage of the shocked silence in the room, and for the first time in so many months, he looked at her.
"Emily. . ." Jeonghan repeated again, "And how do you plan on doing that?"
I don't hate any of the kpop idols mentioned above or mean to insult them. I used most of them because they are leaders in their groups or are extroverted and just cause I'm fan of them.
Emily mostly have a negative perception of the world so most thing in her point of view are written negatively, hence why everyone is shown in poor light.
Thank you so much for waiting so long for this update and thank you for reading!