SONG JI-WON'S POV
I finally started to really work on it. I worked on fixing things and I didn't set them aside. I was done being the liar.
That's not to say it's been easy. For the first week of January, I wasn't trying hard enough to drop all the flirting and switching around, but at least Jungkook and Hoseok never really mentioned anything about romantics. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere that way- if I continued to let Jungkook tease me in ways that gave me goosebumps and and reply with flirty statements and let him back me into walls or lean in really close. I can't lead Hobi on by giving mysterious, in-solid responses when he mentions anything about him liking me, I can't cuddle with him all the time, and I definitely can't kiss back. My mind wanders to the car...
Even though I had been drunk, I honestly probably would've done the exact same thing if I was sober. Shame on me, then.
It's Monday, starting the second week of January, and this time I'm really going to change the way I act. I'm staying true to what I've promised myself.
8th period ends, and I wait for Hobi at the door. He finishes packing up and jogs to me, and we start walking out, just talking.
He's laughing while telling me about something dumb that happened during 4th period, and I'm glad that it feels normal. No matter how much we go through we're still gonna be best friends, I feel like it's literally impossible to feel awkward around him. There's a lot of comfort in knowing that.
But when we're laughing and he tries to put his arm around me while he says something, I automatically flinch and move to stand in front of him, walking backwards while continuing to talk. I think he noticed that I avoided the simple gesture but thankfully he doesn't say anything.
Jungkook jogs to catch up to us and greets us both. We walk together for a minute or two before the turn to Hoseok's house comes, and we say bye, going our separate ways. Me and Jungkook chat while we walk to my house, but I'll admit I'm lacking in the conversation. It makes me feel bad but what else can I do if I want this to work?
We get to my house, and my parents are still at work. Jungkook makes his way into my kitchen, opening the pantry and getting some cookies, then the fridge and helping himself to a coke, before we began making our way upstairs. Even though it's something I didn't usually address, I cleared my throat.
"You know, you could start asking before you take food. That'd be polite." I said.
He stops in his tracks and stops chewing his cookie to look at me, with a confused expression. Then, after a moment of silence, he cracks into a smile and laughs, continuing to walk to my room. He thought I was joking.
We get there and I leave the door open, though I usually close it. It doesn't really make a difference, since my parents aren't home either way, but it does leave a small, simple message. One that he noticed. He eyed the door for a few moments, but didn't say anything before sitting in his chair.
I instantly took out the textbooks, and got to the part that we needed to work on.
"You want some?" He asked, holding the coke out to me. I shook my head.
"No thanks, sharing saliva is kinda insanitary." I reply simply. Was I being too formal? Not flirting doesn't really mean stop being friends...
He smirked. "As if we haven't done that before." And with a singsong voice he adds "You liked it anywayyy,"
"Let's start with Science." I say, completely changing the subject. He chuckles and nods, rolling closer to me so that we shared my desk.
As I went over some things, he nodded a lot and gave "mhm"s, but they were really just a cover up. Sometimes he would hold his head up in his hands and look at me, instead of looking at the paper. Or he'd lean towards me, his arm touching mine or he'd rest his head against mine, and adorable things like that, which still made my heart beat so fast. The only difference was that I couldn't show it anymore.
He now had his head laid on the desk on top of his arm, staring at me. I looked down at him and sighed.
"You're not really focused are you?"
He smiles cutely. "It's hard to." And I almost blush.
I give him a serious look. "Seriously, pay attention."
He sighs, giving in. "Ok then."
He doesn't mess around too much while I'm explaining things, and we actually get some work done. Eventually we decided it was too cramped on my desk so we moved to sit on my bed, and he was diagonal from me.
I have him some practice problems for math, and as he was working he stretched his legs, putting his feet in my lap. I move them off. He giggled faintly and moved them back, wiggling them a little. I move them again and get up, going to sit in my chair again.
"Finish your problems." I say, and he gives me a kind of confused look, probably wondering why I was being so serious, and continues without saying anything.
After an hour and a half, we finish everything I had planned for today and he happily flops on my bed with a wide smile and closed eyes, his arms and legs stretched out. "Done!" He exclaims happily.
"You're messing up my bed," I whine.
"I am?" He asks, with a faint grin while he starts making snow angles on my blanket to wrinkle it further. "I'm sorry I didn't realize." I sigh and walk over, grabbing both his hands and pulling him to a sitting position.
"You should head home." I say, letting go of him. He furrowed his eyebrows and made a pouty face.
"You're kicking me out this early?"
I sit on the other side of the bed. "I'm kind of tired."
"But I didn't even ask many questions today." He insists. I feel a sharp pant of guilt, making me feel something in my stomach that I didn't like. When I don't reply, he glares at me.
"If you're making me leave just to invite Hoseok over you're dead." He warns. I crack a smile.
"Hobi isn't a good person to have around when I'm tired either, so don't worry about that."
I walk him to the door and he swings his backpack over his shoulder. He side hugs me while he says bye, but I don't hug back. I just smile and wave as he walks out, then close the door. The second I do the smile fades, and my chest hurts.
This is how it'll have to be from now on then.
Cold and fake.
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JUNG HOSEOK'S POV
Things have been changing and I hate it.
This morning I laid in my bed, thinking back to early in the school year, when Ji-won and I would sleep over and be around each other practically all the time, when over the summer we would face time for entire days while we were in separate vacations, how we would cuddle and binge watch shows, insult each other, argue and get over it right after, cry together, get emotional, rant, sit in silence and laugh so much.
I think I took her for granted, in a way. I got so accustomed to being happy so often, to have her here for me, that I never thought about what it would be like without her.
It's the second week of February, and me and Ji-won haven't hung out outside of school even once for over a month. It sounds simple in some minds but for us that's insane- we've never gone that long this way.
We still talk, but everything special about us is slipping away. Neither of us brings up inside jokes, or even mess around at all. We just talk about random generic stuff during class. It's as if we're back to the very beginning of our friendship.
How long is this going to continue though?
It hurts to bad to watch someone slowly slip away from you, but as much as you want to, you can't do anything, because the other person has all the power.
And I've been thinking for so long, how do I fix this? How do we get past this? And for the first time nothing comes to mind. And it hurts so bad.
We don't even face time anymore, and rarely text. My parents have been wondering where she's been. I just shrug when they ask. I think the worst part is how close by she is, just a few blocks away, but neither of us is brave enough to make that short trip.
I think about Halmeoni's. That was our place, it's always been. Now it's like a stranger to the both of us, just a building to drive past without sparing it a glance.
I think about eating jelly beans on the roof at night, looking at the few tiny stars that dot the sky, her sitting right and me left, splitting the good ones in half to share. I think of just being able to sit there, enjoying each others company and presence without uttering a single word. Conversation was never a necessity, because both silence and noise were perfect.
I think about her hugs. They were always long and soft- never squeezing. They were warm and genuine.
This is all slipping away from us.
I'm a mess on the inside, and others have probably noticed; I wish I could get it all together but no. I cannot, because I'm weak.
And because of that we continue this way.
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JUNGKOOK'S POV
Did I do something wrong? What made her hate me this much?
It's like she doesn't even want to be friends at the least. She doesn't talk to me, plain and simple. The only thing she makes conversation about is fucking tutoring and school and shit. I've tried, so many damn times, but it's all the same. Dry responses, she won't mess around, she barely smiles.
I just want to scream at her- what the fuck did I do?
But every time I look her in the eye, and I see her soft expression, I can tell that she's sad too, so I don't scream.
But the moment I get home I do.
Everything has basically gone to shit- I lost my best friend and the girl I'm in love with in the end. With that, how am I expected to be in a good mood once I reach my house at the end of the day?
I can't help but snap at my parents and yell at them easily, I can't help slamming my door and ignoring my brother's calls, something I've never done before now. He could be in pain and in need of something, or just someone to talk to, but I let it ring and continue to clench my fists in my room. The sound hangs in the air and mocks me.
It's been a long while that it's gone on like this, and I genuinely don't feel happy anymore. I'm not good at faking a smile either.
Between all my friends, I'm sure they've noticed the changes in both me and Hoseok. Ji-won and Haru started eating lunch in Ms. Lee's room all the time now. When the guys asked them why, their excuse is that they want to spend a lot of time with her before high school ends. But what about the rest of us?
Me and Hoseok don't talk. Not even in group conversation. It's gotten that bad, and I can't help but get angry inside every time I look at him. I wish I could say it's all his fault. But I know that's wrong, it's honestly mine. It's my own fault that I can't help but catch feelings for anyone. But Ji-won isn't just anyone to me, I wish she would see that too.
I don't understand why she's being like this, and I want to ask, but I never can. Something won't let me, and I think it's the fear of her answer. It's the fear that she'll say I don't like you anymore, or I always loved Hoseok more. That would crush me. Maybe the only thing keeping me from physically crying is the unknown, it's that sliver of hope that maybe this will pass.
But as time goes by, it all stays the same, and I hate myself for not being strong enough to do anything about it.
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SONG JI-WON'S POV, FEBRUARY 11th
Poetry.
An art I usually love and admire, but right now I'm too tired to analyze it properly. Not physically, but mentally. These days have been shitty, straight up. And it's exhausting to pretend that it hasn't been.
I snap out of my thoughts to pay attention to Ms. Hong, who continues on with the lecture. She reads a stanza from the poem we're currently looking at as a class.
"And the rain takes with it the life and soul of this once beautiful place, and the drought spreads like an infection. The rain is selfish to leave all so suddenly, not giving the grass time to even wave goodbye. What the rain leaves behind is false hope, and this once beautiful place waits in a sickening dry for something that will never return."
She leaves a strong dramatic pause, and I sigh, uninterested for the first time in my entire life, possibly.
"Can anyone tell me what they think this portion of the poem really means? Can anyone dig deeper?" She asks, looking around the whole room. Not a single person raises their hand, and I unwillingly lift mine, since that's what's expected of me.
Her eyes land on mine briefly, but they flicker off to the other side of the room, where Jungkook sits, deciding to call on someone who doesn't answer things often. I'm only now noticing how many classes I have with him, unfortunately.
"Jungkook, tell me your personal thoughts."
He snaps out of his zoning-out, blinking and hesitating for a few seconds, his eyes quickly skimming over the stanza on the board. He clears his throat.
"I, um, I think that..." there's some silence when he finally gathers his thoughts. "I think this poem is truly about how a person feels about being abandoned by someone else." He pauses again.
"I think it's trying to convey how painful it really is to be waiting in anticipation for someone to return to their life. It seems that by the time they wrote this poem they came to an understanding that what they had together is over."
Ms. Hong nods slowly. "Yes, I like your thinking and connections. Elaborate on that."
He blinks and has a blank expression for a moment, and his gaze flickers over to me for a merely quarter of a second. But I didn't miss it, and suddenly this discussion has turned into something else. Suddenly I'm paying attention.
"Well, to me it seems like the author, the place, didn't do anything wrong. The rain, or the other person, filled the place with life and made it happier and fuller. What's so wrong about the place embracing the rain? I think the speaker is the victim." He explains. I clench my fist, and have an urge to speak up.
I stay quiet.
"And I agree with the author, that the rain was selfish, to leave the person without an explanation or apology, just leaving as if nothing that they went through mattered." He continues, and his connections are staring to sound personal. I can't stay quiet anymore. I raise my hand, but I start speaking before I'm even called on.
"Excuse me, but I'd like to interject with a disagreement. I think the speaker is jumping to conclusions too quickly." I say, keeping my voice even, not wanting to let anyone see the real meaning behind this.
"Elaborate." Ms. Hong says, seeming to like the participation.
"Well," I begin. "This poem is in one, single point of view. We have no way of knowing what the rain, or the other person, was feeling during their time together. What if the rain had its own problems and decisions to worry about, and had no choice but to leave? I would say the place is selfish for wanting to keep the rain there despite anything else going on. Maybe the place should've tried to be understanding and give the rain some time, instead of instantly going to blame them."
My teacher nods. "I like where you two are coming from. Anyone else want to contribute?"
But before anyone else can speak Jungkook carries on. "Ok well even though what your saying has sense behind it, the rain was being insensitive. If the rain wants the place to understand, she needs to explain. How can you expect the place not to be upset after they went through something beautiful together, and it all just falls apart? When human emotion comes into play, things can't be simple and straightforward."
"Then all there really is going on is a misunderstanding, a miscommunication." I say, looking him dead in the eye, a painful feeling in my gut. "Well what if the rain purposely doesn't want to give an explanation, in fear of hurting the place?"
He scoffs a laugh. "No matter how bad the reason is, it can't hurt worse than leaving the place in a drought and clueless as to what they did wrong. The rain is obviously making the place feel guilty and confused and upset and angry, even. The rain is really at fault."
"No it's not, it's both parts, or else the rain wouldn't have left in the first place." I say, my tone a bit sharper than I intended.
"Then tell me." He says seriously. "What did the place do wrong?"
What did I do wrong, Ji-won? He's asking me. I open my mouth to speak, to truly tell him how he ruined it all and release my anger, right here in front of everyone, but then it hits me as silence fills the room.
He didn't do anything wrong.
All Jungkook ever did was love me and make me happy.
So I am the rain, and I am truly at fault.