Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Ari woke up to the banging on her door.
"Ari, open the door!" Chaewon ordered. Usually, when the oldest girl ordered the younger ones to do something, it would be done without a second thought. Not out of fear, but out of respect.
But right now, she was too wasted for either one, though Chaaewon's voice sounded angry and distressed. Ari popped her head out of the blanket that contained her dried-up tears. The room smelled of soju and stale food which she had used as a coping mechanism last night in her crying session.
Another bang on the door was heard, which made Ari groan and lose her will to sleep through it all together. Chaewon could not be ignored. With much effort, she got out of her single-sized bed and threw the sheets off her body, and wobbled to the door.
She stepped on the floor only to be greeted by a broken piece of glass piercing through her heel. She pushed down her wince, afraid that Chaewon outside her room would hear.
The broken pieces of the ceramic flower vase decorated the floor of her room, and the ripped-up pieces of the white rose petals adorned it here and there.
Ari cursed out loud at the broken piece inside her heel. The white ceramic started getting blurry. She realized she was tearing up. Not because of the blood gushing out of her flesh and flowing across the floor, but because of the memories that came rushing into her mind.
The scene of Jake kissing that girl. Gosh, she looked gorgeous, Ari thought, as even more hot tears streamed down her cheeks.
The part where she almost broke down in front of him and the girl looked at her with confusion smeared on her face.
The wound on the palms of her hands as she threw the flower vase across the room and it broke into a million little pieces.
All of those memories brought her down to her knees as the control over her sobs was lost.
"Ari?" Chaewon called as the sobs got louder. Her voice was soft and accepting which made her want to throw the door open and jump into her arms. "Ari, are you okay?"
Ari's cry got louder at the question.
"Sarang, can you bring the keys to Ari's room?" Chaewon's voice said, concerned and distant as she walked further away.
No sooner, the key was fit into the lock, turned around twice, and the door creaked open. No one came in for a few seconds. Then the door flung open and the three girls' eyes searched for their friend. They found her sitting on the floor, back supported by the beats of her bed, and a crying mess with blood all across the floor.
"Oh, Ari," Sarang's strangled voice felt warm to her, as she rushed to her and wrapped her arms around the lean figure of the girl.
"I'm sorry," she shushed her, as Ari cried into her neck. "I'm so so sorry. Oh my gosh, Ari"
"She's hurt," Hyejin noticed. "No wonder where the blood came from"
Sarang stroked the crying girl's hair, with patience and the care of a best friend. "Could you get the first aid kit Hyejin-ah?" Sarang whispered. "Please?"
"He was there," Ari sobbed, barely able to breathe. "He was there, Sarang!"
"Yes, yes," Sarang spoke, patting her back. "I know. And I'm sorry you had to go through that"
"No, you don't get it!" Ari exhaled. "He was - she was - with him - they were -"
"Yes, I get it," Sarang stroked her cheeks.
"Why, Sarang?" she asked, doing all she could to hold her sob in. "Why is it that I'm affected so much, while he doesn't give two flying fucks about me?" It took all of her energy to speak the sentence in one breath.
Chaewon had seated herself in front of her after Hyejin delivered the first aid kit. Hyejin came and sat next to Ari, the lump of crying mess, and hugged her, as Sarang spoke comforting words to her.
"He's an asshole," she said. Very comforting, indeed. "He doesn't deserve you. You're such an amazing person, and he doesn't deserve amazing people. The girl you saw him with was probably a junkie, just wanting his attention. And being the jerk that he is, he probably agreed to hook up with her for money."
That seemed to calm her down and Sarang felt no regret whatsoever in saying all those things about her best friend's ex. The bandaging was finished too, and Sarang's words were distracting enough for Ari to not pay attention to the pain.
"Then-then, why did he befriend me and pretend to be nice and kind?" Ari asked, inhaling sharp breaths from time to time. Chaewon was now on a mission to bandage her palms.
"I saw him with another girl from your class," Hyejin offered to reply to Sarang, caressing her shoulders. "I heard him asking her to be his friend, too"
There was silence as they let Ari process everything.
"In short," Sarang said, breaking the silence. "He's a playboy and you need to stay away from him. End of discussion"
Ari laid her head on Sarang's shoulder as the other three girls sat in silence around her.
The Jake she ran into last night was so different from the Jake she used to date. Who knew, the innocent Jake who loved cute things could turn into a womanizer and a playboy?
But she had to do something about the friendship she had promised him.
