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Shameless, brazen, numb—call it what you want, but it was the trait that helped Jiseol walk into her classes with her head held up high like nothing happened.
The less than subtle stares she received burned into the back of her head as she refused to act any more differently and took her usual spot in the front of the class with confidence. Even her lecturers couldn't make their gazes (out of pity? curiosity? disgust?) any more obvious, except for Professor Hwang and that was because she was number 4 on the cursed list that was now dubbed "The Grand Reveal". The day immediately after was the hardest to deal with, but it gradually got easier.
Jiseol hadn't been home in a few days and she was surprised to find that she hadn't bumped into Donghyuck at all within that time. It was surprising because they were in the same faculty and all social science departments had their classes in the same building, so she used to bump into him a lot more times than she'd like. She guessed she should've been thankful; he'd tried reaching out to her, but she wasn't ready to talk to him, especially when her feelings were still ever changing.
Astral had released an official statement to cool the situation down, but details of who was suspected to have done it was kept confidential. Jiseol was advised to take as much time as she needed away from Astral, so even if Donghyuck was around to help the other editors with their ongoing investigation or whatever, she wouldn't have met him anyway.
Rather than bumping into Donghyuck, Jiseol eventually bumped into Renjun and Jaemin. The second her eyes met with Renjun's, it was as if they shared the same telepathic powers as they both immediately ran into each other's arms. Luckily it was an empty hallway and only Jaemin was around to watch them; it might've caused extra havoc if people saw two people on The Grand Reveal emotionally hugging each other that way. Even Jaemin looked at them in sorrow, feeling the pain shared by his two friends.
"I don't know if I should say how good it is to see you," Renjun chuckled almost sadly when they pulled apart. "I've been meaning to check up on you."
"Why check up on me when you're struggling too?" Jiseol squeezed his arm.
"Mine really isn't all that bad. It just sucks a bit," Renjun shrugged, but Jiseol could see that it had been hurting him more than he was letting on.
Number 7 on the list was entitled Da Vinci's Disappointment; attached below was a paragraph on how sweet sociology student Huang Renjun should take anger management classes instead of pursuing his hobby of art. Then, there was a video of Renjun at a national art competition. He'd made a small mistake and after being unnecessarily reprimanded by a judge walking by, he ripped his canvas, threw it on the floor and left the competition without another word. Everyone on campus now saw him as a person with untreatable anger issues and some were too scared to approach him.
"Only Donghyuck, Jeno and Jaemin know how much I didn't want to join that competition and how pressured I was because I was the only one representing our university's art club," Renjun said with a sullen tone. "And with what that judge said to me...I couldn't pick up a brush for six months after that. Now everyone flinches when they talk to me, it makes me feel like a villain."
