For Love's Sake || Jeno

14: Walls

Note: I'm not sure if I'm publishing this chapter for the second time or the first since I'm having connectivity issues.

Previously on For Love's Sake:

Our girl Naeun goes on a date with Jeno, and with reassurances from him she has mostly gotten over her fear of trusting people. Naeun's family finds out about her job at The Seventh Sense. There's a lot of arguing with her father and insults exchanged from both sides causing her to run away from home. She spends the night at Jeno's house and meets his housemate Jaemin and the kitten they rescued, who Jeno named Little Naeun.

Going back home was not easy. Once the initial anger and resentment had died down, the embarrassment came flooding in. To assess the damage after the catastrophe, Naeun went home.

As it turned out, Naeun had been worried for nothing. Her mother had wrapped her in her arms and started to weep as soon as Naeun stepped into the house. Her endless string of apologies continued with her sobbing. Naeun had started crying too.

After the emotional moment had passed, the three women sat around the table and straightened things out. She came clean about her previous job but left Jeno and the kidnapping out of it. Her mother made her promise to never do something dangerous like this ever again. Seulgi was surprised but admitted that she had always been suspicious of Naeun because of the mysterious money in her bank account.

When she met Jeno at school he whispered as he walked past her, "look, it's the runaway." He grinned in his teasing manner. Naeun rolled her eyes and went into the classroom. Little did she know, this wouldn't be the only time she'd get teased.

If Naeun didn't know better, she'd have thought that Jiyoung, Renjun and Haechan had teamed up to embarrass her by constantly teasing her and Jeno. Soon, half of the school knew about their relationship.

Naeun was waiting at the bus stop with Jiyoung when Soomi sat next to her.

"You really surprised us there, Naeun," she said as a way of greeting, her smile sickly sweet. Naeun just smiled, not sure what to say to that. "I mean, you and Jeno, who would've thought, right?"

"It just happened this way," Naeun replied flatly, all the friendliness gone from her voice.

"I won't lie, I am a little sad," Soomi continued, "anyways, good for you." She stood up as the bus stopped in front of them and boarded it.

"Gosh, she's insufferable," Jiyoung muttered under her breath. "But I do agree with her on one thing, it was quite a surprise after what you told me about Jeno." She turned her worried gaze towards Naeun. "You're sure that Jeno isn't involved with anything dangerous anymore, right?"

Despite Naeun's smile and reassurance to Jiyoung that everything was fine, the latter's question reflected her own worries. Was she sure? Did she really know Jeno? Did she want to know?

Throughout the bus ride until the point she met Jeno in the evening the question was eating away at her. Now that she took a break from the sunny side of their relationship, she could see the cracks in it. Cracks formed by distrust and bruised egos.

Sure, her pride was hurt. Jeno knew about the undignified and embarrassing parts of her life while Naeun was still on square one, knowing close to nothing about him. For all she knew, he could be a criminal, worse than Calamity - her kidnapper.

"Naeun," Jeno's voice brought her attention back to the present. "Did something happen again at home?" Naeun shook her head. "Then where are you lost?"

"I just... Jeno, actually-" she was cut off when Jeno's phone started ringing. His eyebrows raised slightly when he looked at the screen. He mouth 'one second' to Naeun and stood up to answer the call.