Treat You Better - Park Jeongwoo

II

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chapter one

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(tw: domestic violence)

What's that on your wrist Yeri?" Jeongwoo asked as she covered her wrists up with her long sweater sleeves.
"It's nothing I promise." Yeri muttered as she scanned through the pages of her textbook quickly before the test began.

"Show me." Jeongwoo demanded.
"It's none of your business Jeongwoo! Let me study for this or I will fail."

"Didn't you study last night?" Jeongwoo asked only to be met by silence from Yeri.

"What is wrong—" Jeongwoo stopped, sensing it wasn't his place to say anything.

He got up to sit in his usual place as he saw Haruto come into the class. Haruto sat beside Yeri, and before the test began, he heard him ask her, "What was that bastard doing here?"
"Nothing." He heard her say faintly.

After the test, Jeongwoo saw Yeri leave alone. He always noticed that Haruto wouldn't talk to Yeri around his friends. He seemed embarrassed to admit that Yeri was his girlfriend.

As far as Jeongwoo knew, Haruto paraded in the school that Yeri was 'just a slut' that the fucked occasionally.

Jeongwoo felt bad for Yeri. He wondered what made her stay with him after all this time.

There has been instances where because of Haruto, Yeri had been called a slut in the hallways. Guys would ask Yeri how much she'd take for a night as if she was a prostitute. But Yeri never spoke back, he ignored them and kept walking.

Jeongwoo knew Yeri to be confident in her first, second and third year of college. It all went downhill in the fourth year, when she started 'dating' the fuck boy of the school, Haruto Watanabe.

He tried to convince Yeri to leave him, she'd tell him they were in love. Jeongwoo knew that Yeri knew some of the stuff Haruto did behind her back.

Jeongwoo walked past the guys Haruto was friends with. "Jeongwoo!" He heard them say.

He turned.
"Party at Yedam's tonight." Jihoon said.
"Okay." Jeongwoo told his brother.

***

The loud music could be heard all the way down the block as Jihoon and Jeongwoo drove to Yedam's house in their father's ferrari.

The huge garage doors to the house opened as Jihoon drove in and parked his car beside the yellow sports car.

Getting out of the car, Jeongwoo headed straight to the poolside where red cups filled with beer were sitting beside a beer dispenser.

Yedam really went all out for his parties. He took advantage of his parents never being in town to the fullest.

"Bro." Haruto said handing him another red cup. "Don't drink that one." Haruto told the other one.

"This is much stronger." He said.

Haruto looked pretty wasted already, considering that it was barely 11 pm yet. Jeongwoo decided it was much better to not argue and to take the glass and pretend to drink.

"Thanks bro." Jeongwoo said as Haruto walked away. He threw the red cup the tall one gave him directly into the trash can sitting beside the small bar setup.

He drank his beer as Yedam joined him. "Bro! You made it!" Yedam said, grooving to the hard rap with a beer cup in his hand.

"Cool party." Jeongwoo said through the lower level of music as compared to inside the house.
"Mom.and Dad are in Japan for a month." He winked. "I'll throw atleast five more parties before they're back."

Jeongwoo scoffed. He knew Yedam wasn't bluffing.
"By the way..." Yedam began to be cut off by Yeri.
"Hi Yedam." She said, sitting in the chair beside him. "Hi Jeongwoo."

"Yeri you came?" Yedam asked.
"You invited me Yedam, ofcourse I'd come." She said as if it was a simple  fact.

"Haruto said you were down with the flu..." Yedam said.
"Did he?!" Yeri asked in shock.

"Ofcourse. What can I get you mademoiselle?" He asked in an awful attempt at a franch accent. She giggled.
"Just Beer." She said.

"Here." He said handing her a red cup similar to the one on Jeongwoo's hand.

"Yedam!" Jaehyuk called. " Someone's doing drugs in your dad's study room!"
Yedam put his cup on the table as he ran into the house.

Yeri and Jeongwoo laughed. "So...I thought parties weren't your thing." Jeongwoo said.

"Haruto comes out here often so I figured I'd come too." Yeri said, sipping her beer. "And Yedam has been my friend for a while now."

Jeongwoo nodded. He didn't know what to talk to her about. He'd been observing her from afar but he'd never really had that many conversations with her.

He released she was wearing a jacket, covering the marks she had on her wrists.

He wanted to ask her how they got there in the first place even though he had a faint idea as to where they could've been coming from. But he knew it was best to not ask.

She looked around, people were dancing while some jumped into the swimming pool. There were empty pizza boxes lying around in the grass beside the pool.

"Yedam's gonna have a hard time cleaning all this up tomorrow." Jeongwoo said, wanting to make conversation.

"He called it upon himself." Yeri smiled, sipping from her paper cup.

"And he says he wants to throw more parties this month." Jeongwoo laughed.

"Oh lord. Trust me he willm" Yeri agreed as they both laughed.

"Yeri!" A deep voice yelled as Yeri's smile disappeared. "Haruto!" she said getting up.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, shaking her arms aggressively as his eyes pierced into hers. "Yedam invited me and I thought youd—"

"I told you not to!" The taller one said. Yeri wrinkled her nose slightly as the alcoholic smell hit her.

He took Yeri inside, his voice raised. Jeongwoo couldn't catch what Haruto was saying but he couldn't help but see how weak Yeri looked beside him.

He saw Haruto raise his hand as Yeri flinched. He had seen enough. He got up and walked towards them.

Haruto somehow managed to control his anger and took his hand down, but a singular tear slid down the short brunette's cheek.

Jeongwoo couldn't hear much of their conversation because of the loud music but he saw how angry Haruto looked and how helpless Yeri looked beside him. It was apparent Haruto was really drunk.

He was taken by surprise when Yeri was pushed into a wall by the taller one 

He grabbed her by the neck as he kissed her and Yeri didn't seem to object even a little. It was apparent that Haruto treated Yeri as a lifeless doll.

Jeongwoo saw Haruto grab her hair and kiss her even more fiercely.

The doubt in Jeongwoo's mind has been confirmed. Jeongwoo knew exactly how Yeri had gotten those scars.