Jihyun is stuck in a love scandal with someone whom she hates. This person is coincidentally the stubborn Riki on her debate team and her favorite mainstream artist at the same time. And Jihyun is just a college girl who gets wrapped into a dating s...
"So..." Jihyun ends up trailing off instead of finishing her sentence and takes a seat at the table awkwardly. At least the tension was mutual because it was clear through Riki's body language that he wasn't exactly comfortable either. "So we should do practice debates perhaps."
He looks at her, his eyes on hers almost in an intimidating manner, and scoots his chair closer by just a bit. The packet is pushed toward her for her to look at it. Eventually, he props his elbows on the surface to hold his chin in his palm. "Why a practice debate? We should be fine without it."
"I always do practice debates, it helps me structure my arguments," she answers as she looks over what was written, reading through Riki's handwriting.
"Is that why you've been losing so much recently?" Riki asks and he leans forward to get a better look at the paper too, even if it means getting somewhat closer to her. It seemed like he didn't mind, or that he somewhat stopped caring about the online ruckus with how calm he was acting. Well, it was still rigid interaction, but pretty nonchalant from him.
Jihyun glares at him, narrowing her eyes. "I don't even lose that much. I've barely even lost."
He briefly gets another look at her before riveting his eyes back to the packet and shaking his head slowly. A soft laugh tumbles from his lips but that's as far as it goes. "Sure," Riki says and he sits back against the chair. "Let's do a practice debate then. What side do you want?"
She thinks about it for a moment and eventually comes to a decision she doesn't say, instead she just taps her pencil against the table.
"What is it?" He asks her.
"Nothing, it's just funny how we're wrapped into this one big dating scandal only for us to not know anything about each other," she says.
He raises his eyebrows at the statement but doesn't seem any more intrigued by it. "So? That's pretty typical for about any public figure out there," he comments.
"I figured that. I'm just surprised that I get to experience it. But whatever it's nothing."
He sighs and decides after the subtle change in the air to indulge in a conversation. "Then tell me about you."
It makes her look at him wide-eyed, yes, but a tiny smile curls her lips at the attempt. Granted it was obvious Riki didn't feel like participating in any conversation—at least not with her—it was a move made nonetheless. Almost a bit of a heart-fluttering one too.
"You first," Jihyun murmurs.
"Yeah?" He voices, a gentle timbre unlining his voice. Maybe she's crazy to not have taken into account just how pleasantly deep his voice was too, because it takes a while for her to tell herself that this is Riki in order to keep a smile away from her face. "Well, what do you want to know?"
She thinks about it, about what to say, but she considers their surroundings. They're out in the open, in the school library and though people may already be recording or whatever—it'd be worse to catch her and Riki actually getting along. "Forget it."
"Jihyun maybe we should," Riki starts, and he lets out a small sigh of consideration. "Start meeting somewhere else, in private."
Jihyun shoots him a confused look. "In private?"
"Do you really want to come out here every time and risk getting any other forms of media out there?" He deadpans.
"Well, no, but there's quite literally nowhere else for us to go. You're not coming to my house and I'm not going to yours," she says sternly.
His eyes roll at her response before he adds on. "I'm saying like...let's meet at the company or something. As long as you find a way to disguise yourself we'll be fine."
His words land and in return he gets no immediate response, and his eyes, confused and almost worried, check her expression.
"I..." she pauses to find a way to confront the issue. She couldn't go back there. Something was up. The last encounter was strange enough and she was sure she'd be recognized by Mr. Lim or even that lady at the front, and she didn't need Riki asking about it or Mr. Lim confronting her again. Heck. Jihyun wasn't even this paranoid or nervous when it happened despite that point being the most overwhelming.
"I can't go. I have to take care of my brother—I'm not even supposed to be here."
"What?"
"No, nothing." Jihyun shakes her head. "Let's just stick to the library. I'm pretty sure now that my face is almost everywhere it'd be hard to disguise in the first place so let's just keep things obvious by coming to the library. If we meet in secret they might suspect more."
It's clear that he notices something's off with the way he looks at her, but he doesn't ask. "Okay. Let's stick to the library then."
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"Aren't you nervous for this thing, like at all?" Jihyun asks.
"No," Riki says as he shrugs his shoulders. He tilts his head a bit to the side. "But you are."
"How could I not?" They've finished a slightly helpful practice debate not lasting entirely long but a bit longer than usual due to their quarrelsome habits—it'll get better over time. Jihyun has her ideas down well enough, and because Riki looked calm about it he must be fine with his part too, but something about speaking for the school makes her nerves jittery. "We're going to speak in front of so many professionals. It's easy to make a fool out of myself."
"Then don't."
She levels him another glare. "It's not that easy."
"But it is," he passively chimes. "But I mean it's whatever I guess."
"Easy for you to say. You don't care about anything."
"And you're one to know that, aren't you?"
She purses her lips and mulls over a response before opting to stay quiet. A moment or a few pass by as Riki focuses on his phone, and Jihyun awkwardly tries to make herself look busy. In hindsight, it was weird that the both of them stayed instead of instantly leaving like they usually did when they were done.
A small sound reverberates from her back pocket but in the hushed library, it's loud enough for her to pick up on. She internally curses and moves hastily to turn her ringer off when the song to her ringtone starts up loudly. Of course it just had to happen, she tries to laugh—rigidly and stilted—over the sound but to no avail.
She'll just have to answer Rohee later, Jihyun concludes as she denies the call. A quick glance up shows that Riki is laughing shortly behind his hand, and finally looking at her when he stops. She closes her eyes at the humiliation of it.
"I wonder how much you liked him, Shiru."
"I liked Shiru not you," she clarifies, though admitting it was already somewhat embarrassing.
"Same person."
"Yeah like I knew that."
"Well regardless you like me enough to get front row, right?" He says, breathing out a small laugh through his mouth.
Her face scrunches at the comment and Jihyun decides then that she should get her stuff together so that she could leave. She didn't need to be there longer anyway.
