I don't love him." Jennie persisted.
Jaewon shook his head.
"Then do you love me? Do you love the ideal me, or the real me?"
"I don't understand what you're saying." Jennie mumbled as tears pooled in her eyes.
"You do understand Jennie. I know we have a wonderful time together because I feel the same. But that's only because we're similar in many ways. This is not love. I have my pride."
Jennie bit on her lip to control herself and the tears that were threatening to spill. She said stubbornly "What on earth did he say to you? Tell me."
Jaewon kept his silence.
"Fine. If you won't tell me, I'll ask him."
Jennie left the library and headed straight for the school gates. Even when she crossed paths with her fellow peers, she didn't even bother acknowledging them.
At this moment, Taehyung was still in the city at a relative's place in an upmarket district. As he had invited Jennie and Jaewon to his place only two days previously, Jennie could roughly remember the way.
When she reached the apartment, Jennie pounded on the door with all her might. The door swung open almost immediately and Taehyung stared at her with a delighted expression.
But before he had a chance to say anything, Jennie delivered a resounding slap.
Taehyung touched his cheek and shouted "Are you crazy?"
Strangely, the tears that Jennie had been trying so hard to keep in finally burst its banks. It seemed as though she paid no heed to Taehyung's wrath.
She herself was also different from her usual peaceful manner as she grabbed his clothes and delivered punches and kicks. She cried out
"Taehyung you jerk! What did you tell him?"
"What are you talking about, you're the one who barged in my apartment and hurting me now."
She wanted to curse at him but she couldn't find the right vocabulary to do so.
She cried out "What must I do so that you will leave me alone? How long will you continue to bully me?"
Jennie cried and cried, as though releasing all her pent-up anguish at having lost Jaewon as well as all her frustration at the never-ending struggle with Taehyung
His teeth was clenched as he touched the deep scratch on his chin
"Since young, my parents have never once laid a finger on me. Yet you dare to do so even without clarifying anything. You'll be the death of me. If it were not for the fact that it's you, I would have ..."
"And what would you do about it?" Jennie laughed coldly.
She recalled the encounter with Jaewon in the morning and felt an ache in her heart.
"What are you not capable of? You're such a lowlife Taehyung . What have you done this time?"
"I may be a lowlife, but your Jaewon is no saint either."
"What do you mean?" Jennie demanded to know.
"You want to know what I told him? I merely told him the truth, in fact right in your presence.
I don't believe in keeping people in the dark." He inhaled deeply before continuing
"Besides, whatever I had to say, if he were a real man, he would have accepted my open challenge for your affections and not have given you up so readily."
