Life was hard for me for the past month. My mom died, I agreed to kill my best friend, and I experienced a shoot out without being allowed to call the police.
And I had to act like I was ok.
"You good, Jiwoo?", Jeno asked me as we walked through the school halls together to our next class.
"I'm fine", I forced a smile, "Just peachy"
He nodded slowly. "You know, if you're upset about anything-"
"-I said I'm ok", I interrupted, speaking through my teeth, "Its all good"
Alright, maybe I was a little forward. Jeno just kind of stared at me without knowing how to react.
"Sorry, I just...", I scratched the back of my head, "Its been a little hard since mom died"
"I get it", Jeno said, "You're fine"
Its true...I was having a hard time getting over my mom's death, but it was everything just got 100X worse after I agreed to help EXO.
"Thanks for understanding...", I murmured as he and I walked into the classroom.
We quietly put our backpacks down next to our desks.
As usual, I skimmed through my phone notifications before class. I didn't really have anything; just tweets and some Youtube subscription stuff. I didn't really have "friends" to text anyway, aside from Jeno.
"Uh, Jiwoo?", Jeno asked, looking up from his phone.
"What's up?"
"Where were you last night?", he turned his phone off and looked at me.
I froze.
My heart stopped.
Did he know?
"At...At the convenience store. Where else would I be?", I acted as calmly as I could.
He nodded. "Look, there's ten more minutes until class starts", he sighed, "Would you mind stepping outside with me real fast?"
"I mean...", I stammered, "Sure? I don't see why not"
'He knows', I thought, 'Someone save me. He knows.'
I have no idea why I agreed to following him; maybe because I was too scared to make everything obvious...but I regretted it the moment I stood up.
I awkwardly followed him out to the school courtyard without saying anything.
When we got there, he turned to me and held up a text conversation for me to read.
"So", he looked at me, "You know I'm in NCT Dream?"
"Yes", I replied quietly. The texts he showed me were all from Jaemin, explaining what happened last night. I couldn't lie anymore.
"And you're with EXO?", he asked.
I took a little breath in, "Yes."
