riki.nishimura. → yours sincerely

33

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Just like I foretold, but instead, it wasn't before my lecture, but after.

I was about to head out, making my way home. But before I could even leave the building, Yejin came up to me, a glare in her eyes that clearly meant no good.

We weren't necessarily on the greatest of terms, so there's no need for me to fake being nice to her.

"Can we talk?" The words that came out of her mouth were surprisingly less arrogant than I thought they'd be.

"Pfft, you wanna speak with me? A village girl? Won't that tarnish your reputation?" I scoffed lightly, mocking her.

She rolled her eyes, staring at me before folding her arms.

"Listen, I know you and Niki have something together." She cut to the point, and I just pressed my lips into a thin line, turning my head to look at her.

"I have nothing with him, get that out of your head." I corrected her, she furrowed her brows.

"Jesus, you're worse than I thought." Yejin muttered to herself, before perking her head back to look at me as if I didn't just hear what she said, "Where the hell is Niki?"

I just stared at her face, before giving a large sigh.

"He's your boyfriend, not mine." I replied, before walking off.

To be fair, I wasn't even sure if Yejin was actually dating him, and they were the official term of boyfriend-girlfriend, or whether Yejin was just another side chick Niki was notorious for having.

Either way, none of my business, don't care.

I made my way home, in peace, thankfully. And the second I reached my room, threw my bag onto the floor and sat onto my bed, my phone pinged - twice.

I had my hopes high, maybe Niki actually was going to break this uncomfortable silence between us, but to my disappointment, it was just the groupchat, and Sunghoon.

I opened Sunghoon's message first, looking at what he said.

sunghoon: missing you

sunghoon: niki isnt well so we're all chilling at his

I just rolled my eyes, not even bothering to reply to his messages. I opened the groupchat next.

mina: you guys wanna go for drinks later?

go-eun: HEEELLL YEA

go-eun: haeun i can already sense the angry 'no' coming straight from your keyboard

go-eun: pretty pretty please say yes

I obviously wasn't mad at the girls, how could I even be mad at them. I was just frustrated in the moment.

haeun: fine..... ig......

haeun: when where who what how

jihyun: will your mommy let you out

haeun: not funny did not laugh

With that in mind, a few hours passed of me just doing absolutely nothing. And when it came to the time, I changed, got ready and head out to meet up with the girls.

It was nothing too amazing, we were heading out to have drinks with each other - how hellish could it be?

We collectively sat down at a booth, music was rather loud, but the vibes were good and our first drinks came to us relatively quickly.

We clinked our glasses together, taking the first drink as a group. As the liquid ran down my throat smoothly, I gave a satisfied, small groan. This was exactly what I needed, something as refreshing as this.

"It's crazy how all the guys just disappeared you know." Yoojung brought up Niki's group, and the group discussion suddenly began.

"Maybe they're busy performing, I don't know, heard they're attracting an insane amount of people nowadays." Mina chimed in, while I just sipped my drink and stayed silent.

"Pfft, I wonder if they'd still be as popular if people found out what assholes they are in university." Go-eun rolled her eyes, clinking her glass with mine.

"Yeah well, let's not dwell on them, waste of time if I'm being real. Cheers." I brought my glass up, subtly changing the topic to something lighter. I raised my glass, and the girls did the same.

And a good hour and half later, we were laughing with each other, probably on our fourth round of drinks so far. No mention of Niki, or his group at all after that.

I was thankful they managed to take my mind off him, and the anger inside too, but it was only for a brief moment that I'd forget him, because there was always something that would simply remind me of him.

Even a single word that one of the girls might say, reminds me of Niki.

I sighed, rubbing my face gently as I spaced out for a short while. I made the decision that I just had to go and splash my face with water and act right, he's probably doing fine - why the hell can I not even go a single hour without thinking of him?

"I'm heading to the bathroom, I'll be back soon." I let the girls know, and they nodded, watching as I stood up and head off in the direction of the bathroom.

I squeezed by crowds and quietly crept past couples making out with each other in dim corners, and somewhat close to the destination I was heading to, my feet stopped walking.

I stared over to the distance, a familiar face, with an unfamiliar girl.