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NAEUN DID SCREW up.
Things had been going according to plan and all the details Naeun could remember from the first time it had happened until they got to one specific moment when the two were sprawled out under the shade of a tree that protected them from the UV rays of the scorching afternoon sun.
"Naeun?" Hanbin had cut through the silence.
"Yeah?"
"I've just... Okay, this is going to be sudden, but hear me out for a bit before you go on a rampage about what I'm about to say next," Hanbin said, sitting up to look at her better. "I think I like someone."
Be hopeful.
"Oh. Who's the unlucky person?"
"Don't be mean." Hanbin slapped her leg gently. "It's, uhm, Junhee. From dance. Ohmygoshpleasedon'tlaugh."
Naeun didn't laugh. She kept lying there, gazing up at Hanbin who had turned his head away, probably bracing himself for the worst. The worst never came from Naeun. Instead, it felt like it was coming to her at full speed.
So much for the extra fifteen minutes she spent.
"Don't worry, I won't laugh," Naeun had replied, propping herself on her elbows. "I'm glad you finally got over your crush on the other person."
Hanbin only laughed. "Yeah. I guess a part of me still wishes things could be a bit different though, but I think this time my feelings for Junhee are real and here to stay."
Who was Naeun kidding? She couldn't possibly change his mind or feelings now. The guardian angel that sent her back to this timeline had sent her to a moment in time when it was already too late. It would have been a trashy move of her to say anything in objection. Frankly, she didn't know if she could even muster any proper words without letting the lump that was forming in her throat make its way up further.
Hanbin sighed in relief when he realised that Naeun wasn't going to start yelling at him. (And there wasn't really a reason why Naeun would even yell at him in the first place. Maybe it was the paranoia getting to him.)
"She's over there actually," Hanbin said, pointing to the flower bed where amidst a crowd of rowdy children stood a gorgeous girl with dark ringlets of hair falling down her shoulders and onto her azure dress. "Ah, I'm kind of terrified to talk to her though."
Naeun bumped their shoulders together, beckoning closer to Junhee's direction. "Don't be a chicken. Go on."
"Don't be ridiculous," Hanbin scoffs. "I'm not going to leave you here. We planned this day to be just the two of us."
Oh.
Naeun sighs when her face, still caked with a bit of makeup that the sun hadn't washed away, hits the soft white duvet on her bed the moment she reaches her bedroom. She doesn't know what time it is, but definitely later into the evening, around dinnertime. And despite Hanbin's continuous offers to take her out to a nearby restaurant, concerned that she would skip dinner, she politely declined and wished him a good night before practically sprinting up the flight of stairs that led to her apartment.
(He really didn't have to be concerned—Naeun's personality was practically built off her love for eating and it took so much self-restraint for her to not drop everything, take Hanbin's hand in hers, and run off together to the nearest malatang place.)
She wanted to spend the rest of the night (hyperbolically) screaming into her pillow and wallowing in self-pity. There was something about the way Hanbin's face had lit up when he mentioned Junhee in their conversation at the park that spawned a hand in Naeun's chest and squeezed her heart tight, never letting go, never letting her forget.
She asks herself why it's so difficult to pour the contents of her heart right in front of Hanbin. She asks herself what's holding her back so much that she screws up her second chance this badly. She then asks the miracle-granting-Oh-So-Glorious guardian angel who overuses yellow sticky notes to give her another chance. Just one more.
All of a sudden, Naeun feels like a teenager again, heartbroken with day-old mascara staining her cheeks as she sobs to a designated Sad Hours playlist. She feels like she's relived the time when she had her first-ever crush on a guy who was far too good for a blindsighted sixteen-year-old Naeun. Naeun decides to return to that time and cries herself to sleep with Laufey playing on shuffle from her phone tossed onto the nightstand.
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