«aww theres my bias!!! hes so cuteeeeee... and then theres my bias wrecker... STAHP»
Park Jieun's POV
"Alright class, for this project, you will be with a partner." The teacher said. I could see the glances across the room as people began to mentally pick out their partners. I made eye contact with Kiseok before breaking it and pretending to search for one. "However, I will pick your partners for you."
"But miss—"
"I already gave you guys permission to pick groups last time." The teacher said. "Now it's my turn to choose for you." The class grumbled. She began to drone on with a list of names. I turned towards my table partner.
"I hope that I don't get placed with Jowan." I told them. My table partner nodded.
"I feel bad for whoever has to get partnered up with him." She said. "He never does any work and rides off of others."
"Jowan..." The teacher began. Everyone grew tense. "You were the odd one out, so you have to do the project alone."
"Why can't I be in a group of three?" He asked.
"Because I don't trust you in a group of three." She said. "I've heard many complaints about you, and I have seen how much work you do for a project. I want to see if you can really complete a project on your own."
"But—"
"No buts about it." She said. He tried to speak up again. "Don't say a word or I will double your work." He shut up. "Anyway, Jaemin and Jieun..."
I was paired with Jaemin. Anger bubbled up inside of me as I knew what he knew. Before I knew it, Jaemin sat himself next to me.
"Are you okay?" Jaemin's voice snapped back to reality.
"What?" I turned towards him, shaking my head to wake up. "Yeah."
"I saw what happened earlier." Jaemin said, trying to comfort me. "I'm sorry about not telling you about his habits."
"It's fine." I told him, brushing him off. I didn't say anymore.
"Anyway," He started. "Do you know what we're supposed to do for this project?"
"I think we're supposed to a research project on some form of disease." I said, looking over the rubric. I couldn't help but secretly gaze at Kiseok. I tried to force myself to not look, but old habits kept resurfacing, causing me to look. My heart broke every time I saw him smile. I heard Jaemin's voice in the distance, but no words were heard. "What was that?"
"I said, which disease do you want?" He asked. "There's a list of diseases that we can choose from, but we can't go further than it. I was thinking about doing ADHD or HIV." I quickly scanned over the list.
"Why don't we do tuberculosis?" I told him. "It might have more narrow resources to choose from."
"That could work." Jaemin nodded.
"Miss?" Some classmate of ours asked.
"Yes?" The teacher responded.
"How come Jaemin and Jieun get to work together?" They asked. I looked over to see Jaemin's girlfriend had complained. "They're the smartest people of our class, so why can't we have them separated?"
"Because," the teacher began. "You guys need to learn not to rely on them for answers. You need to learn how to do your own research."
"Then can I be transferred to their group?" She asked.
"No." The teacher responded. "Besides, you have
. He has a pretty good grade in this class."
"Fine." She turned back to Kiseok and discussed with him about their project.
"So, do you want to do the presentation portion or the report portion?" Jaemin asked.
"What's the difference?" I asked him, forgetting about what I just read.
"We have to a do a presentation over our chosen disease and write a report about it." Jaemin recapped. "The presentation has to be simple and clean while the report has to be in depth with APA citations."
"I mean I'm okay with either one." I told him. "Which one do you want?"
"I'm not really good at making presentations..." Jaemin awkwardly laughed.
"Okay, I can do the presentations." I said, going back to my slouchy mood before. "We can start tonight."
—
"Alright, bye!" I told Jungwoo and Lucas, who were walking away. They were lucky and got paired up together.
"If only we were in the same science class." Jinyoung said.
"I know right." I sighed. "At least I didn't get paired with Kiseok."
"That's right!" Jinyoung said. I already told everyone that Kiseok and I broke up through our group chat. Let's just say we almost ended up with a group of dead bodies. She looked off into the distance before a face of disgust appeared. "Ugh, that's my partner." She pointed at a guy waving at us.
"He isn't that bad." I told her, basing my judging off of appearance. The guy had a giant eye smile. "In fact, I would say that he's kind of cute."
"He just doesn't have the same humor as me. He's so boring!" She complained. "I have to go, though. We planned to work on some of the project tonight especially since we don't have any other homework because this is our 'project of the year'. Besides, if we don't start now, we're going to procrastinate."
"Well, you have fun." I told her.
"And you have fun with Jaemin." She teased, running away from me.
"He has a girlfriend!" I screamed towards her. She just turned around and attempted to wink. I laughed at her feeble attempt.
"Ready to go?" Jaemin's voice surprised me, causing me to slightly jump and lose my balance. Jaemin quickly caught me and rebalanced me. "We can't have you sprain your other ankle."
"Unless that's what you want." I shrugged. I noticed the absence of someone. "What about your girlfriend?"
"She's going to work with Kiseok." He said. "Do you want to walk or take a cab?"
"I'm totally going to walk." I said in a sarcastic tone, expanding my face.
"Alright, then." Jaemin said, trying to pry my backpack off.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"You said that you wanted to walk, so I'll carry your stuff and walk with you." He said.
"Wait, I was just joking." I told him. "We can hail a cab."
"Nope." He smiled. "Whichever one you chose, joking or not, is what we're going to do. Let's go!"
"I hate you so much." I told him.
"It won't be that bad." He said.
—
"That was the worst walk of my life." Jaemin said, panting as he opened the door to his apartment.
"I told you." I said. "We should've hailed a cab or rode the subway halfway."
"But I thought we could handle it." He whined, dropping our bags on the ground.
"Boy, I've walked home, which is farther from your apartment, every day. There are days where I just take a subway home and walk." I told him.
"I should've listened to your advice at the subway station." He said, grabbing a water from the fridge and chugging it. Once he finished, he spoke again. "How could you be fine? I thought those crutches hurt."
"They do." I shrugged. "I had stuff on my mind, so I kind of ignored the pain."
"Like what?" He asked, getting another water out of the fridge and placing it on the table near where I sat on the couch. He sat down across from me.
"Just things." I said.
"Kiseok related things?" He asked.
"Sort of." I admitted.
"Just tell me everything." He said, laying back into the couch across from me. "We have time."
"It's just that..." I hesitated. "He said that he loved me two days ago. So, why?!" I could feel the hot tears rolling down my face. "Why did he have to do that? Why did he think that he had the audacity to do it? In front of the school?" I turned to Jaemin. "And you knew. You knew all about it."
"I didn't know that he was going to do it in front of the school!" Jaemin lifted his hands in the air, playing the innocent card. "Look, I didn't even know he was going to break up with you in the first place."
"But, how could you?" I screamed. "You could've told me that you knew Kiseok! You could've picked up on the signs from him!" I began to rant about me. "Then again, why did I have to care about him so much? Why did he consume so much of me? Why did I let myself fall for him?"
These questions pounded against me as I cried. But out of these questions, one remained strong in my heart:
Why didn't I care for him more?
If I cared more, maybe he wouldn't have fallen out of love. Maybe if I cared more, I wouldn't have to worry about the marriage. Maybe if I care more, I wouldn't have let this marriage happen.
I felt a warm embrace pull me in.
"It's okay." I heard Jaemin whisper in my ear. "Just cry it out."
"Why me?" I yelled. "Why me? Why did it have to happen to me?" My voice had dropped to a quiet whisper.
"I don't know." Jaemin said. "Life is like that. It's cruel, careless, cold-hearted." I began to feel something wet drop on me. "It's unfair." I looked up to see Jaemin crying.
"What happened?" I asked him, hiccupping in between each syllable.
"She broke up with me." He began to cry. "Two days ago." I pulled him in, grabbing the nearby tissue box and handed him some tissues.
"Let's just have a pity party, for the both of us." I said, tears falling down my face as I thought of Kiseok.
oh so guys... go to nct127's insta account cuz they're accepting questions rn. :)