How It Should Have Ended (A Ji Hoo and Jan Di Story)

Chapter 12

Jan Di showed up bright and early at Ji Hoo's house the next day. She went to visit Jun Pyo the night before, but didn't stay long much to his dismay.

Ji Hoo was just coming out of the shower when she arrived. He had a towel draped around his waist.

Jan Di gasped and quickly averted her eyes. Ji Hoo ran a hand through his wet, disheveled hair, embarrassed.

"Umm...you're up early today," he managed to say.

Jan Di's head was turned away, which was a good thing because she was turning a deep shade of red. "I...um..." she stammered.

"Let me go change." He went inside his room and got dressed unusually fast. He was wearing a pale-yellow sweater with white horizontal stripes on top of a white collared shirt and a pair of jeans. He slipped on his favorite white coat to finish his ensemble. He gave her a puzzled look. "Is Jun Pyo outside?"

"No. I just thought I'd go to school today with you."

"Oh. I'm not going to school today."

"Oh."

"Yeah, I have enough credits to graduate already." He smiled at her, that smile of his that he gave her so often, and Jan Di wondered for a moment if she had imagined what she saw the night before.

"If Jun Pyo's not coming, I can drop you off school?"

She nodded almost too quickly before she could stop herself.

She debated skipping school that day so she could hang out with him, but she didn't have the luxury to miss her classes. It felt like a hundred years passed by when her last class finally ended. He had told her he would be in the music room that afternoon and sure enough, she found him sitting there playing his violin.

"Sunbae," she began, a huge grin spreading on her face, "let's go somewhere."

He looked puzzled. "Where?"

Jan Di had thought long and hard where to take Ji Hoo that afternoon. She remembered the only date they ever had when he took her to Namsan tower. She had been feeling extremely guilty about having hurt Jun Pyo back then, so she couldn't focus on their date. She remembered him saying that was his first time riding the cable car, and she was such a miserable date then she was sure he didn't enjoy himself. She decided she was going to take him there, and this time, she was going to be a great tour guide. Before, everything in Namsan tower reminded her of Jun Pyo and made her sad. But she felt different now. She was going to make her memories of that place happy. Her focus was on making her sunbae smile again.

His eyes widened when they arrived at Namsan tower. His face was full of questions he never bothered asking her. He just followed her lead, listening as she showed him around. They stepped into the cable car and he looked out the glass window. She stood close to him, their arms touching. She began pointing out the landmarks (she was sure he knew them, but she was pretending to be his tour guide so he played dumb). When he pointed to a building far away that she didn't know of, she made up an answer that left them both laughing hysterically at each other.

They were sitting on the floor talking when his eyes caught the writing on the wall across from them. Jan Di froze. She had forgotten all about it.

The writing read, "Gu Jun Pyo and Geum Jan Di's first night together." It was too late for her to cover it, so she sat there, turning beet red. They weren't even together then but Jun Pyo wrote that to stake a claim on her. Thankfully, Ji Hoo didn't say anything about it and acted as though he never saw it, much to her relief.

"We should probably go," she heard him say after a while. "It's getting late."

She asked if he could stop by the campus first, as she had to get something from her locker. He nodded and drove her to school.