Rank One (Park Sunghoon FF)

21

Juna felt as if her world stopped spinning as she clutched the bouquet of roses in her hands that Sunghoon had given to her and sank to the ground. Her best friend of thirteen years, Lee Heeseung, had just thrown away the symbol of their friendship: the same flowers he had given her for the past decade. He shoved it in the trash like it meant nothing to him, like they meant nothing to each other. She knew it was far from the truth but how could she not think like that when the first conversation she'd had with him in two weeks left such a bitter taste in her mouth?

Juna could hear the footsteps of Sunghoon and Boram rushing to her side, but she didn't care about them. All her attention was fixed on the trash can beside the door that Heeseung just walked through. 

At that moment, she knew their friendship couldn't go back to what it always was. She was just denying the truth that from the moment Heeseung admitted his feelings for her, they were hardly friends anymore. 

She didn't stop the tears that were continuously falling down her face - and were wiped away by Sunghoon, who knelt next to her and lent her his shoulder. Juna wanted desperately to go back in time. To when she didn't know what Heeseung felt for her so that she could feign ignorance until it wasn't physically possible anymore.

Juna didn't even notice when her hand was being held by Boram who softly spoke next to her ear, "Do you want me to go after him? I can tell him to apologize."

Juna couldn't bring herself to reply with words so she simply shook her head.

"You think she wants to see him right now?" Sunghoon quietly whispered to Boram but Juna caught onto every word with how close he was to her.

Boram sighed as she slowly stood up. "I'll distract her parents if they ask about her. I think Juna needs a break. Bring her to the waiting room, will you?"

Before Sunghoon could find the words to reply, Boram had already gotten up and went to find Juna's parents who were now halfway across the auditorium, enjoying the company of other families.

"Come on, Juna, up," Sunghoon said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her off the ground. It was probably difficult for him considering the fact that she was pretty much glued there.

She dragged her feet along with him as he led her to the waiting room which only brought her memories of Heeseung's hands before every performance. He sat her down in a chair and she felt herself relax a bit. Coming back from closing the door, he sat next to her and offered his hand to her, which she didn't take. She didn't want to be reminded of Heeseung in any way or even worse, associate hand-holding with him, someone who had just dropped out of her life.

She needed to take her mind off him, and fast before she could break down into endless tears again.

"Sunghoon, what's something you struggle to do?" Juna leaned her head back against the wall, letting it support the weight as she looked at him.

The boy seemed surprised at her question. "Something mentally?"

"Sure." That wasn't what she was expecting but she was in no position to complain.

"I can't figure out how I feel about people most of the time. And when I do, I have trouble expressing it to them. So to people who don't know me well, like pretty much the whole school, I seem like a heartless guy." Sunghoon answered her question despite still looking a bit confused.

"That's what I thought, too, when I first met you. You had this invisible wall around you that clearly said you didn't want to be bothered or messed with."

"Yet, you broke it."

Juna allowed herself to faintly smile at the thought of their first interaction. "What, like it's hard?"