coming undone! | gayeon

chapter 20 - END

A funny thing happened about five months after they had recorded the explanatory video.

As Jooyeon and Jiseok strolled down the street hand in hand and fed ducks with bread they were met with some gaze.

They thought they would never talk again but it was just a false hope.

Gunil stood in front of them and waved awkwardly. He had that shy smile all over his face, his teeth were barely showing and a pink tint was spilled on his cheeks.

It's been nine months since he had spread the rumours about Jiseok raping Jooyeon.

"Jiseok," he said, his eyes darting from the black haired boy to the blonde. "Jooyeon."

Seven months ago Jiseok learned that it was Gunil who was the one he wanted to kill so badly for ruining everything that mattered to him.

Seven months ago he learned not to believe anyone—even his closest ones.

"Gunil." He furrowed his brows, not willing to talk with him.

"Never thought I'd have the opportunity to say a word to you again but there we are now."

Jiseok thought the same. He was almost certain they would never exchange a sentence in their entire lives, but no. Gunil was still Gunil.

And even though he was met with silence, he didn't go away—instead, he spoke up again.

"First of all, I'm sorry."

Jiseok or even Jooyeon could say something now—something like it's too late for a stupid sorry or you needn't have done that at first, but they kept quiet. After all, Gunil won't suddenly wander away. So, they decided to listen.

"I know I've done the worst thing ever and I still feel very guilty," Gunil continued. Jiseok refused to believe his every word; but even if Gunil were feeling guilty, he frankly didn't care. "I hate to remember the things that happened in the past, but I have to; and I can feel free to admit that I'm the worst person out there. I feel really bad, Jiseok."

The latter bit his lower lip, he didn't like the conversation. He didn't like anything that had happened in the last few minutes—everything that had happened immediately after Gunil's eyes had met his.

"What do you want to achieve?" Jiseok uttered, his teeth chattering as his whole body became so uneven suddenly.

He felt so fragile that the smallest gust of wind could make him fly away.

"I don't know," Gunil replied, blinking as naturally as possible. "I wanted to say sorry and—"

"Gunil, I don't want to hear your voice ever again, can't you understand?" He clenched his hand harder on the emptied bread packaging—the noise it made was louder than he expected.

"I am aware you don't." Gunil choked out. "Still, I wanted to at least say that I'm happy for both of you, because I can see that you're doing pretty well and that everything's going great."

"Gunil, stop fooling around." Jooyeon finally muttered and gripped Jiseok's hand tighter than before, then as he felt how giddy Jiseok was, he knew he had to deal with this situation himself. So he spoke up, "get the fuck out of his life," and simply walked away.

"I didn't mean anything bad." Gunil's voice echoed in the air, but didn't reach their ears—or rather, they didn't want to hear it. They walked home much quicker than they had planned, but they wanted to be far away from this place, hide somewhere they were sure Gunil wouldn't be around and feel safe again.

They didn't discuss what had happened in the park later that day; they wanted to forget rather than dwell on it.

And additionally, the case seemed rather easy—Gunil was still trying to make himself seem innocent—seem like he really cared, even though everyone knew the truth. Gunil might've cared a bit, but only because his whole life was spoiled by his own actions, and that was the only reason why he has ever come up with the idea of apologising to Jiseok. He wanted to seem as pure as possible, glaring at everyone with his big eyes, praying they wouldn't see how much of a bad thing he had done.