Unrequited

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On the ninth of february in the year of 2013-- precisely two days before her sixteenth birthday - Park Chaeyoung fell in love.

It was vivid, thrilling perhaps. The world was quiet, yet it shook so loudly. Her heart flipped. The moment was breathtaking. And, Kim Jisoo felt the same, her loss of breath precisely the same as Chaeyoung.

Oh, not the love part. Kim Jisoo certainly didn't fall in love with her in 2013, not in 2014, 2015, 2016, or, in 2020, and don't talk about in 2021 either, when Jisoo was out in the country, traveling as she modeled herself, sweeping everybody's feet. But, it was vivid as well, thrilling, Jisoo's world, her breath was taken away in swiftness. For a good ten seconds.

Tripping on a woman's foot and kissing the floor tended to do that to a woman.

Thus, this happened:

She didn't know what to expect. Really, she doesn't know, because the moment she reads the email of her passing to some audition, it was too impossible to believe. When she first entered South Korea, though, her father had insisted-- especially her sister, to escort her to YG entertainment, she denied. She wanted to be independent, be on her own for her character, yet at every step she takes inside the entertainment, she felt her heart throbbing, and slowly regretting.

Maybe she should have just agreed. Maybe she should, because her feet that were sticks are slowly turning into jelly. She knew if she ever backed up now, she would have regretted this till her death, yet it was so tempting to back up, because Chaeyoung never liked the feeling of her legs turning into wobbly. Nonetheless, she tried to hold herself calm and strong.

As Chaeyoung sauntered near the wall, she saw two girls coming, well, more like running, and it seems like the other girl is chasing while the other girl is running for her life. Chaeyoung's heart starts to quicken, she certainly didn't want to embarrass herself and that doesn't exempt her from being involved in some beef she barely has knowledge of.

So she tried to scoot away, giving a huge access for the, er, chased girl to escape.

But then, an unexplainable fate happened, because just when Chaeyoung was going to scoot away, she was met with a creature she certainly hated the most from the bottom of her heart, a cockroach.

She shrieked, her hands up to her chest, and walked back off, causing her to lose balance, and fall into the ground. It was flying and Chaeyoung certainly didn't want that cockroach to touch nor even graze just a tiniest part of her skin. Then without awareness, she let her leg rest, and yelped in pain when she realized the chased girl had immediately tripped to her feet, and thud! The chased girl had kissed the floor.

Chaeyoung gasped, halted her breath in horror as she watched the chased girl lay on the floor. Oh my god! It's only your first day and you've already killed someone! Oh my god, Park Chaeyoung!

Thousands of thoughts were spreading inside Chaeyoung's head as she rushed forward. She knew she was going to get lashed out, perhaps, the chased girl would grab her hair strongly, but Chaeyoung guessed she deserved it and would let her, because she totally humiliated the chased girl just now. The chased girl's clothes were filled with smudges of the food she had taken. Yet, Chaeyoung's thoughts completely disappeared into thin air when she finally rose up to her feet, rubbing her forehead and brushing off the food sticking into her clothes.

She didn't lashed out at her. She didn't even give her a stinging set-down, she didn't yell, she didn't even glare.

Instead, she laughed.

She laughed.

Chaeyoung had many experiences with women, especially when her last school was all-girls. And with that, she can completely detect what was behind their orbs and lips. But this woman's eyes-- a rather intense shade of charcoal-- were filled with amusement as she wiped a smudge of sauce off her cheek and said, "Well, at least you're the only one who saw it, right?"