boyfriend for rent • kim yohan

030

"I miss Wooseok." Jiwoo let out a sigh, looking at the empty seat in front of her.

"Strangely, me too." Yohan glared at his pen, as if angry with the fact that the lack of his friend's presence confused him.

The girl couldn't help but think. Now that Wooseok was no longer attending the school, would he still want to talk to her? Did he still consider her a friend, or was he going to cut contact with her like he did with his previous girlfriends?

Maybe what Jinah said was true. Money can't always be a solution to her every problem. If Yohan wanted to ditch her when she no longer had money, she could always turn to Yuvin and Jyunhao. It would be the same.

Right?

Yeah, everything was going to be fine. She didn't need more people in her life anyway. If she managed to survive the past three years with only Yuvin, she could manage the next two years without Yohan and Wooseok.

"Are you okay?" Yohan asked her, concern flashing through his eyes.

It wasn't the first time she had this insecurity. It dated many years back when her childhood friends decided that she was too rich and snobby after visiting her house (borderline a mansion, really), and left her alone for lunch the next day, and for the whole years after that, in the midst of jealousy.

Or the fact that her middle school friends no longer wanted to hang out with her after finding out she got a new wardrobe full of fancy ball gowns and dresses for her birthday, a surprise thrown by her parents after they couldn't come back to Korea for two years in a row.

Her friends came and went, almost as easily as a breeze picking up a small leaf from the ground and into a lost place. Jiwoo had stopped letting this insecurity plague her after she got to know Yuvin and he made it clear that he wasn't going to leave her any time soon, and that was when she settled her mind with yeah, one friend is enough for me.

And for years, it was.

She shook her head. And just when she was thinking of letting more people into her life, just when she was enjoying more company, they would have to go too. After all, she was simply an obligation to them.

Yohan gently touched her shoulder, his eyebrow raised in silent question at her behavior. It was funny, really, Jiwoo thought, he could read her like an open book sometimes.

"I will be."

When the time comes, they would leave her. And that's okay, because like always, she would be able to go through it all on her own.

———
"Young lady," Yohan said after he locked the door when the two housemates entered the house. "Spill."

Jiwoo raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

He put two of his hands on her shoulders and guided her to the white sofa, pushing her onto it.

"Spill. What has been bothering you all day?" He asked with a strict look on his face, sitting beside her.

"Umm.. nothing?" Jiwoo made a move to stand, but Yohan's quick reflexes allowed him to grab her wrist in time, pulling her back into her seat.

"Oh, you're not doing this. I'm doing what you've taught me: communication." Yohan nodded wisely. "Yes, Jiwoo, we are going to communicate, whether you like it or not, because the quiet and gloomy you is not something I like."

"Does it matter what you like?" She bit out, despite the pride she felt at Yohan's initiation to talk things out.

Yohan blinked at her harsh words, and Jiwoo couldn't help but feel a little bad. She's throwing her frustration caused by her insecurity onto him.

"Of course it matters." He answered back softly. "Because if you're not happy, I'm unhappy too."

Silence stretched across the house, so Yohan knew his words hit a mark. He looked at her seemingly straight face, but because he was Yohan and he had lived with her for more than a month, he knew that the slight scrunch of her nose and the minute downturn of her lips meant something.

And it wasn't one of her tantrums when she couldn't slice the potato properly or when Yohan woke up late so the both of them ended up being late for school. This was something more serious, and it clearly bothered Jiwoo a lot.

His hand reached out to close around Jiwoo's, his thumb lightly circling the back her hand, and to the girl, it was a strangely reassuring act that made her feel safe and not alone anymore.

"You can talk to me about anything."

Those words seemed to do the trick, because the moment he said it, words spilled out of Jiwoo's mouth like water gushing out of a broken dam, and it was almost as if she had kept this to herself for more than ten years and this was the first time that she had finally been able to talk about it.

And talk she did.