Chapter I

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"Why can't you look the way I like, so I could just fall for you ?" NamJoon's deep voice echoed through the room, his words slurred, but intelligible enough. The girl holding onto his arms stood petrified, her eyes staring into his barely opened ones. He was drunk, and slurring, and annoyed with his ex-girlfriend. The girl helping him into his dorm room was not his ex-girlfriend, but his best friend.

The girl let him fall onto the bed, her stare unmoving from the wall next to his bed. She hated him when he got drunk. He always told her that, always saying her personality was perfect with his, just that her outer appearance did nothing for him. And it hurt.

The fact that she confessed three years ago, and got rejected by him for the same reason, still irked her. But she bypassed those feelings and stayed best friends with him. They were a great duo, in school projects, and life. She read his mind before he could realize what he wanted to decide, and he was always there to support her. But times like this, when he acted like that every time his relationships did not work, those times annoyed her the most.

Placing the blanket over his body, she took his shoes off, and quietly exited his room. Tears were streaming down her face from the words he slurred into her face. It hurt her too much, always stabbing her heart and bringing back those feelings she buried away for him.

"Why must he always do this?" she whispers into the empty hallway as she looks out the window. "Why do I have to change for him to look at me? Why can't he like me for me?" she says, feeling the headache starting to appear, her arms and sides aching from carrying the dead weight of his drunk body to his room.

Before she could let herself fall into bad thoughts and memories, she straightened herself, wiped her tears, and immediately left the boys dorm, not in the mood to actually meet anyone else. One drunken friend was enough for her tonight, she did not need a group of them after the party that was still ongoing on the campus.

Leaving the dorm was easy, dodging the drunkards was easier, as most were sprawled on the grass outside, trying to either crawl to their rooms or drunkenly reach for an invisible person. She hurried down the roads, not caring to stop and take the scenery in, as she would other times, to make sure none of her other friends were amongst the grunting people on the ground. This time, she just wanted to reach her room, throw herself on the bed and either cry or punch her pillow.

She knew she had a weak spot for NamJoon, he was her first love after all. It was not easy just letting it go like that, but she was good at acting. She had to be, to not show how much his words hurt. Slowly, over the years, the hurt was not as bad, just a stab here, bleeding there, crying after his drunken sessions. Otherwise, she was feeling ok, and she was not as infatuated with him as before. Just the hurt remained, sometimes her traitorous heart skipping a beat when his face was closer to hers. It was a painful skip, reminding her he sees her as a friend only. His best friend even.

Reaching her room, she immediately groaned and threw herself on her bed, hugging her pillow. No tears fell from her eyes, despite her earlier predictions. Maybe she has gotten used to him being like this. He has gotten drunk so many times this past year, she heard the broken record of his mind so many times, maybe her heart started ignoring it now. But she still felt sad. His words, even when drunk, still weighted her heart down and kept dragging her to the depths of her sadness. And they never wanted to let her escape from that pit. But she was stubborn, and she learned how to live like that. And she was not going to change to suit his tastes, or anyone else's.

"Three years" her voice bounced through her room, solitary and broken. "And he still utters those words every time he gets drunk" she continued, her eyes glued to the ceiling now. Maybe the answers she needs and seeks are written on the white paint, and she just needs to look closer. But even she doesn't know what questions she should ask or what she should look for. All she knew was that she was tired.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift to the time she first met NamJoon. Both were in the same class, just starting high school, and they got seated next to each other. One smile from him, and she was lost in his dimples. But that was not what made her fall for him. In the first year, they bonded pretty quickly, and he was smart, sweet, kind, polite, clumsy, and a jokester sometimes when he noticed she was down. They became really good friends, but she dared cross over that line. By the time the second year of high school started, she was head over heels with him. And because he was her friend, her confidence was higher than how she started high school with.

So, she confessed. And she knew her feelings were not reciprocated the moment his eyes stared into hers. She read immediately his emotions: pity, sadness, feeling sorry, rejection. He jerked his hand away from her as it started moving towards her head, a reflex of his to pat her head whenever she looked down. It hurt to see those emotions shift in his eyes, but she tried hard to not let him see how broken she was becoming.

"I am sorry. I...just don't like you like that" he said, his mouth set in a grimace, eyes shifting like he was looking for a solution on how to deal with this. "You are smart, and nice, and sweet, and funny" he tried to appease her, to somehow sweeten the blow, but all that it did was twist the knife inside her soul. She was all that, but still not enough. "But when I look at you, I feel nothing in a romantic sense" he finally says, sweat gathering on his forehead, and his fingers twisted awkwardly on his wrist. The grimace never went away, and he was trying hard not to flee from that spot. "Please, understand. I don't want to hurt you, or give you false hope, or.." he wants to continue, blabbering in a try to comfort her, or himself even.

"It is ok" she cuts him off, and she tries to smile, she really tries. "I understand. I just wanted to ....get it off my chest" she says, looking down at the floor, and she sees his feet shuffle, unsure. But they never get closer to her. Before she could actually scare him away though, away from her life, she smiles at him wide, trying to look anything but sad. "Friends right?" she asks, 'still?' her mind adds.

"Best friends!" he claims loudly, and then rubs the back of his head, slightly embarrassed, before smiling at her "Gotta go to practice though, I am late," he says hurriedly, and he flees. He runs away from the situation, from her feelings, from her broken self, who was still smiling, her eyes filled with tears.

Coming back from the bad memories lane, she rubs her teary eyes and turns on her side, this time to stare outside her window. She hated these types of nights when he got drunk and reminded her she was not good enough. Her personality could be golden and she could shine like a diamond, but her body was not good enough. He was not the first one to tell her that, but it hurt the most coming from him.

So, this time, like all those other times, she would swallow her anger and hurt from him, smile the next morning she sees him, and wipe all the sour words she wants to utter to him and anyone else who told her she should change or she would never be seen. Tomorrow was a new day, she was not going to waste it on feeling sad because people could not appreciate her. But until tomorrow came, she was going to lay in bed and cry. 

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