I Don't Like The World, I Only Like You

Chapter 5: My Dearest Rosie

In Chapter 5 of I Don't Like This World, I Only Like You, we are introduced to a new character – Park Chaeyoung 'Rosé', who has been Jennie's best friend since High School. Rosé appears to be a rather good natured and happy-go-lucky girl, who treats Jennie with nothing but loyalty and kindness in the incidents that Jennie recounts. Similarly, Jennie is able to courageously stand up for her friend in times when her friend is in need. Perhaps there is some truth in the saying 'Birds of the same feather flock together'. We also witness even more hijinks between Rosé and Jennie. This Chapter slowly transits from the times Rosé and Jennie spent in school to other interesting episodes in the present day and age. As their friendship continues to withstand the test of time, Jennie concludes with a sweet, thoughtful note; just as how they fan over handsome actors right now, she hopes that in the future, when they become weak and old grannies, Rosé would still remain by her side, fanning over young and handsome boys – because she is her dearest, dearest Rosie.

001

Rosé is my best friend, my High School classmate. She was born on May (Wu) 1st (Yi); those who knew about the origin of her name always said that her parents were too easygoing about her name. Rosé would sigh, before giving thanks that she wasn't born on March (San) 3rd (Ba). (A/N: The character's real name is Hao Wu Yi)

(T/N: This was because san ba in Chinese translated into 'bitch' in English.)

According to various rumours, when Rosé was young, she suffered from a huge bout of illness, and hovered near the brink of death. As a result, her parents didn't impose any expectations on her in relation to her studies – they were satisfied as long as long as she could run and jump about like a healthy kid. Rosé lived up to her parents' expectations, never ever falling out of the bottom three places in all the big exams and small tests she sat for.

Her father wasn't anxious, and always assured her that everything would be alright. He promised her that when the time came, he would pay 'school fees' that enabled her to enter X High School. During our era, all the children would have heard of the following saying: 'Entering into X High School is equivalent to having one foot into the huge universities.' Despite that saying, we subsequently found out that our admission into the universities had not much relation with this 'foot' we had by virtue of being in X High School.

Rosé thus let loose and daringly played for the three entire years in Junior High. However, during the year when we were due to take our graduating exams, there was a sudden amendment in the policies made by the Ministry of Education – 'school fees' were no longer allowed, and admission into schools would be purely based on the grades that we scored. Her entire family was stupefied – her dad was unable to discover any solution despite asking all his friends and networking acquaintances. It was only when our Principal changed the name of the funds from 'school fees' to 'construction fees' that Hao Wu Yi managed to enter into X High School.

002

I was extremely stressed when I first entered school. When I was in Junior High, I could still manage to squeeze into the Top 10 – however, when I came to High School, I realized that there would always be people better than me. A simple glance around the school compound yielded geniuses everywhere. I couldn't even bear to compare my trashy results with theirs.

Thus, I was extremely good to Rosé. I helped her buy her breakfast, accompanied her when she did her cleanup duty, and when we ate together I always gave her my meat so that she would be able to feel the love between classmates. Till today, whenever she reminisces about these incidents, tears would always fill her eyes. I simply don't have the heart to tell her that all my actions were motivated by my fear of her transferring out of school – with her around, I would never be at the bottom of the class.