The Love Scandal ♪ Nishimura Riki

22 ♪ d-day official

Chapter twenty-two

It's D-Day, worry thrumming energetically through her veins. Jihyun woke up distressed as it was one of those days when she erupts out of sleep fully conscious of everything. Liquid nervousness replaced the blood—the water in her body completely. Her entire body was shivering at the most random moments despite not being cold. The frustration had died down overnight.

She distinctly remembers her reaction to the message from Rohee. Angered. Annoyed. Hurt. Like a fire being constantly aided with more charcoal, more gasoline, her vitriol was high. Jihyun remained with a calm face in front of Nara in case of interrogation, but with Nara being the psych major that she was she probably noticed the change in Jihyun immediately. But now she was on the day of.

Following Riki's endless fans cheering about his removal, Jihyun was now all by herself to debate against the other team, and since it was so abrupt towards the end, there was nobody to fill in for Riki. So it was just Jihyun, with the pressure of winning squashing her entire being.

Rohee: Good luck luv! Remember if you don't do well, you can always fly away and start a new life somewhere else :)

It's the first comment to calm her down that day. Even her parent's cheers and motivational statements, and her little brother's small and quick claps, didn't make her feel better because they didn't know. Her family didn't know all that Rohee knew, surprisingly, they didn't even know all that Nara knew.

They didn't know the legality issue, the Gyuha issue. It was so hard to be comforted when all they knew was a mere fraction of it all. She couldn't tell her parents. Jihyun especially couldn't tell her father, and if she told her mom, then her mom would of course tell her dad. And what would her dad do?

He would get involved. He's a lawyer and his ambition to seek justice would go overboard and that lucrative entertainment would tear him to shreds because their money could possibly buy his life. Then that would make it ten times worse. Then Jihyun would actually have to consider flying to another country, then she would have to learn a new language, say goodbye to everyone forever, Rohee, Nara, Riki—

"Jihyun, Ji, are you ready?"

Jihyun focuses her eyes on her reflection, her hands stopping abruptly in the middle of fixing her tie. She's been thinking for too long. No worries. No worries. She thought about touching up her look but left it as is. "I'm coming, mom!"

Just another day!

It's time to debate all by herself for her school on national TV and see if she'll embarrass herself in front of all in South Korea.

Yay.

She speeds down the stairs until she arrives right in front of her mother. The small gentle mortherly smile on her face allowed Jihyun to breathe properly for once, she returned the grim. "You're going to do great, Ji, regardless of the outcome you'll still be my lovely child, okay?"

Jihyun scrunches. Cringe at the sanguine compliment but she chuckles because it's her mother. "I'm nervous," she admits.

"You're excited, not nervous," her mom chimes in response, softly patting her shoulder as Jihyun nods faintly. "Let's go. Your dad and Jeeyu are waiting in the car."

They get packed into the car and Jihyun sits beside Jeeyu, who repeatedly rams his dinosaur toy into her shoulder with airy rawr sounds. Maybe rather than it being annoying, Jihyun could perceive it as one of those kid ways to ease her nerves.

Her mother is murmuring to old songs from the 80s that Jihyun knows parts of due to how many times she's heard them, and her dad is in a ping-pong conversation with Jihyun herself as he keeps giving her reassurance and she responds with 'I know's and 'Alright's.