"Ugghh! Can't believe this is happening!"
"I told you, Lisa, he's been acting distant these past days."
"I know, Rosie, but I didn't know that he'd get out of hands this quick." Lisa stopped pulling at her hair and flopped down on the bed, laying her head in Rosé lap.
After the happenings of yesterday, she had invited her best friends over to her house without her parents knowing. Though Jennie and Rosé were grounded for the the actions they'd taken, they had argued their way to come over, while Jisoo had just been disappointed and refused to hang out with them anymore.
"You should've kept an eye on him," said Jennie who just came out of the bathroom after a shower and now was drying her hair with Lisa's extra towel.
"Well, unnie, you lost your guy too, so I wouldn't be talking!" Lisa half-yelled. She couldn't believe that instead of comforting her, her unnies were saying that it was her fault that she lost Jungkook.
"Don't talk to me like that!" Jennie snapped back. "At least mine wasn't going around kissing other girls!"
"He still loves me, though. He came back to make up!"
"And your stupid ('a' word) ruined the opportunity by making out with someone else right in front of him!"
"Girls, what happened was supposed to happen," said Rosé, trying to calm down the situation before it got worse. She knew how wild the two of her friends got when they argued. Jisoo and her were the peaceful ones in the group. "We shouldn't fight over what we don't have anymore."
"Well, you never had that Jimin guy to begin with so shut up!" Lisa screamed.
"Lisa!" Rosé gasped, one hand on her heart and the other over her mouth.
The younger one realized what she had said and apologized, her shoulders drooping. "Sorry, unnie. You know how frustrated I am right now. Things just keep getting out of hand and I have no idea what the hell I'm saying."
Though she didn't want to forgive her just yet, Rosé gave in. "It's fine. I know what you guys are going through. We're in the middle of an ugly situation and we need to get out of it together."
Jennie threw the wet towel on the couch and sat down on the bed next to her friends. "I really don't care about being expelled as long as my parents find me a different college in the same city. All I care about is getting Taehyung back from that snake."
"What about you, Liz?" Rosé asked. "Do you still think you want to stay with Jungkook?"
"I don't know," Lisa replied. "I really don't care about him anymore."
"Really? It's a only been like, two days."
"If he likes that witch, then I don't give a damn about him."
"So, you're just gonna let him be with Tzuyu?"
"I guess so, though I'm pretty sure that she doesn't like him back."
"You never know."
"What? Hmm." Lisa rested her chin on her knees and went deep in thoughts.
"Alright," Rosé sighed, grabbing a pillow and putting it on her lap.
"But," Lisa suddenly said, lifting up her head and cracking her knuckles. "I didn't say that I'll let them be happy if the do like each other."
"What do you mean?"
"You gotta have some tragedy in you love life."
"But didn't she already lose someone?"
"A little more wouldn't hurt."
Jennie laughed and laid down on her back. "That's the Lisa I know."
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
After lunch, Tzuyu had Geography, the cursed block that she had with Jungkook. She raced to the classroom before anyone else could get there. Taking her seat by the window, she buried her head in her arms and waited for the room to fill in. With her eyes closed, she drifted off to to dreamland.
Some time later, she was woken by someone tapping her head with something hard. She lifted her head and was blessed with the sight of the teacher glaring down at her. The old woman stood there, smacking down a ruler hard on her hand. Tzuyu was about to ask if it hurt when she felt droplets of spit on her face.
"Good morning, Miss Chou. Mind if I wake you up?" she asked, a bitter smile decorating her face.
Tzuyu twisted her head around the class as her cheeks started to burn from the snickering. "N-no-"
"OUT!" the teacher yelled before Tzuyu gave her more of her dumb relpy. "Out of this class! Right now!"
"Y-yes," Tzuyu muttered. She picked up her books from the floor and stacked them on top her desk with her stuff. Then, giving the room one last look, she left with her head down.
"Wasn't expecting you out here, Tzu," was the first thing she heard when she stepped outside. "Missing me too much?"
"Shut up, Jungkook!" she snapped and slid down the wall, burying her head between her knees.
"Hey, hey." Jungkook bent down and placed his big hand on her back. "It's alright. That old woman hates us, you know. You should be expecting and perishing more of these 'outstanding' opportunities in the furture with me." He burst out laughing at his own joke.
"Can't believe your sense of humor is this bad when you've been living with someone like Kim SeokJin your whole life." But even as she was saying this, she was trying to hold back the laughter herself.
"See?" he grinned. "You're laughing, too." He smiled as Tzuyu's tiny figure slightly shook and covered her mouth to prevent the noise.
"Why the heck are you out here again?" she asked when she recovered from the fit of giggles, her face red.
"Ran a bit late to class," he answered.
"And why was that?"
"Just a last minute bathroom break. You know she doesn't let us go during her class." He pointed at the classroom door with his thumb. They both glanced inside through the window and saw the teacher hitting the board with her ruler. "Damn, she looks like she's in a bad mood today."
"Hmm, yeah. Looks like it."
The old woman momentarily turned her head towards the door that at first Tzuyu and Jungkook didn't realize it. They moved away with a jerking motion that caused them to bump into each other. Without caring about the searing pain in his forehead, he brushed away Tzuyu's hand and rubbed her spot. "You okay, Chu?"
"I guess so." But she had tears swimming in her eyes.
"Aww, my baby's crying?" He moved her away from the door and wiped her eyes with the back of his hand. He had totally forgotten about his own pain, and kept rubbing the spot gently where he had hit Tzuyu. "Better?"
She nodded. "I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"Yes, Jungkook." She pushed him but stopped dead in her tracks when he kissed her forehead. "Why'd you do that?"
"To make it hurt less," he smiled and look down at her.
Caught in between the sweet moment, both of them didn't hear someone coming down the hallway. "Oho! My fave love birds!"
The two students pulled apart, blushing madly. "It's n-not w-what it looks l-like, you old geezer!" Tzuyu stuttered, trying to present herself as boldly as possible.
"Uhmm uhmm," Mr. Gong beamed, a little too happy to witness the scene.
"What? We just bumped our heads!" She couldn't believe that this guy decides to show up at the worst moments. And he even had the nerves to ship two students together, like, really!
"Uhmm uhmm... Anything you would like to say, Mr. Jeon?" He started clapping his hands which was annoying the heck out of Tzuyu. If he wasn't a teacher, she would've punched him to ground before he even knew what was happening and be done with it.
"What should I say?" Jungkook's blush was now creeping up his ears. Though he was glad that someone else wanted him and Tzuyu to be together, he didn't want Mr. Gong interfering with his love life. At first, Jungkook had even considered making that old dude the God father of his and Tzuyu's kids but he didn't want to be cruel to those young souls from the beginning of their lives.
"I don't know," said the teacher, putting his arms around them. "Well, when are you two becoming official?"
Jungkook chuckled. "Oh, very soon, sir."
Tzuyu pushed the teacher's arm off of her and stepped on Jungkook's foot. "Never!"
Mr. Gong furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean, Mrs. Jeon?"
"What did you say, huh?"
"I asked what do you mean by yelling out 'never,' Mrs. Jeon?" Mr. Gong repeated.
"Can you not call me that!" she growled.
"What? You're gonna become Mrs. Jeon someday, though."
"We don't even like each other to begin with! We're never going to be together!" Even as she said that, she she knew that she had babbled out something that she shouldn't have. She felt a small, almost unrecognizable knot of guilt inside her stomach when she saw Jungkook's smug expression change to a hurt one. But he was quick to cover it.
"I called you that this morning, kid," he pointed out, trying his best to ignore her last sentence, though his heart was shattering into pieces like fragile glass but he was fast to pick them up and put them back together, like a puzzle. "You didn't say anything then."
Mr. Gong clapped his hands excitedly. "Ooo, tea!"
"Would you mind getting lost?" Tzuyu walked away and leaned on the locker nearest to her.
"Yes, I do mind. And I mind it very, very much."
"I'm gonna count till ten."
"What will you do?" he asked, backing away.
"You find out if you don't leave. One..."
"Don't forget that I'm a teacher, Tzuyu."
"Two..."
"But I'm having a good time with you two! You guys are the most interesting students I've ever met in this hell of a school!"
"Three..."
"Bye!" He waved his hand and sprinted down the hallway. Tzuyu stared at him as he disappeared around the corner. She spun her head around when she heard Jungkook laughing.
"You're too hard on him, Tzu," he said, lightly slapping his hand on the wall.
"And who said that we're going to be together? I told you to stop being delusional! Don't go around telling other people what's not true!" Her eyes were so big that he could see the whites in them. "Jungkook, why don't you understand? I don't feel anything towards you, and I don't care if you... if you like me."
Jungkook's laughter stopped midway, like someone slamming down their foot on the car brakes. He should've known that by picking those pieces up, he was risking his palms getting cut and right now, they were bleeding along with his heart. The glass was slowly sinking into his skin, leaving reminders of Tzuyu rejecting him. He didn't respond to her question, just hoped for the class to be over soon. As much as he wanted to be closer to her, he wanted to get as far away as possible at the moment.
As soon as Tzuyu was about to burst out some more hurtful words, Jungkook's delicate heart was saved by the bell. Students started pouring out of the classroom still snickering at them. Tzuyu elbowed him hard on the chest and huffed back inside to get her stuff. She couldn't wait for the day be over. Jungkook followed her and got his own books. Having a hard time believing that just a while ago they were having a moment which turned into a hell for him, he went to his locker to get what he needed for the last two blocks.
All the time during the last two classes of the day, he only thought about her. As much as he wanted to be with her, tell her about his feelings, the more further apart they kept getting. If this went on, he would never get a chance to make her his. She would find someone else, someone who'd be perfect for a precious girl like her.
He knew that she had been through a lot in her love life. That's why she became really sensitive whenever she was in between something love related. He remembered the night, just a few days ago, when Lisa had mentioned her late boyfriend. Tzuyu had totally turned to a different person; heartbroken, sad, angry, depressed, regretful. She had shown him the side of her that he couldn't even recognize. He had no idea who the heck that girl was. He had to admit, though that was just a few days before he began to have feelings for her, he was disturbed by the way she had acted that night. Perfectly normal one moment and close to losing her mind the next. What bothered him even more was that she didn't remember any of it.
Maybe they weren't meant to be together in the first place. Everytime he tried to make a move on her, something happened. Either she got really mad about it or someone got in the way. Maybe only that one week was meant for them, to show affection for each other. Maybe they would soon grow apart despite living under one roof. Maybe he should stop trying. Maybe her should just give up on her.
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