Not Your Boyfriend (2PARK✔️)

Lesson Twenty-Seven: Destroying

i recommend listening to the song. all in all, i think the lyrics really help sum up how jihoon feels for most of this book. he's never able to sort out how he feels, or what he should say to explain everything. there's just too much for his own good, and he gets trapped.

honestly, Stray Kids, although they've only had one comeback so far, are incredibly far ahead of some artists that haven't bothered addressing these topics after years of a career. stan talent. stan Voices by Stray Kids.

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Woojin follows me out, his breaths puffing into small clouds in front of his mouth as I turn to face him. I can't help the small frown I send him, my mind racing past so many thoughts at once that I can barely latch onto one so I can speak.

"Are you rich?" I ask quickly, assuming this to be the safest of all the questions I've got rearing to be launched. "Or, your parents I mean?"

Woojin shrugs, his eyes flitting across my face nervously. "In a sense, sure? Why is this so important right now?" He glances over his shoulder, looking in towards his family I presume, before meeting my gaze awkwardly once again. "They're better off than most, I guess."

"You speak English?" I ask now, folding my arms over my chest as I receive but another shrug. "Jaehwan worked for your parents?" He nods, his nose crinkling as his confusion grows. "He worked in their restaurant?"

I don't really want to hear an answer. In fact, I don't really want to know any truth. Whether everything I've known for months or everything I've known for minutes is true, none of it is what I want to hear. No matter what he says in the next ten minutes, someone is lying just to spare themselves.

"Well..." He scratches at the back of his neck nervously, his lips parting in thought. "Okay, well, it wasn't exactly a restaurant, per say." He chuckles as he steps towards me, his hands out for only a moment before I take one long step back. He falters.

"And you dated Jaehwan?" I ask now, my eyes narrowing as my hands fold against my middle, the bile of an empty stomach rising in anger. I can feel my throat burn already, my emotions overtaking my body.

Woojin sighs, grimacing for a moment before shaking his head. "Okay, now, no not really. We uh, we didn't date for real-"

"You didn't date at all," I correct, my eyes so thin now, that he almost looks like a blur of tans and browns. "In fact, he's straight, has a wife and daughter, and laughed his ass off at the thought of you two."

"Okay where's this coming from all of a sudden?" He clears his throat, visibly put off as I follow his next step forward with my own step backward. "Jihoon, what the hell are you-"

"You've created this entire life for your family based around your sister's education, when she's actually dead?"

He flinches, but I can't let myself react to his pain. I can't let myself be weak over something as trivial as this. I can't let him get around this-

"I didn't create a life," he says quietly, casting his eyes down to the concrete between us. "I just made an excuse for never talking about it."

"About what?" I ask in exasperation. "I just-" I toss my hands up, turning on my heel in frustration. I can't even look at him without fuming. I speak from over my shoulder, the new wind carrying my words straight to him. "I just don't understand how you can preach to me about never sharing anything, when everything you've ever shared was a lie-"

"I've never lied-"

I turn so sharply, my hands out to keep steady, that Woojin actually flinches back in fear. "Were you ever even in training?"