Broken

45

"Who do you mean?" Comes the confused response to Chaeyoung's out-of-nowhere question.

"I hear you are a taken lady?" The shorter one continues.

"Oh, Chris?"

"We have a name, everybody."

"Chae, tone it down a little." Mina tries to reprimand in a chuckle.

"Not a chance, our little girl is all grown up and has a boyfriend. I'm milking this for all it's worth."

"Are they always like this?" Dahyun whispers, very amused, to the girl in question.

"It gets worse, don't worry too much." Jihyo whispers back the first part, before speaking up to the others. "You do remember I'm older, right? And he's coming back tomorrow night, so you'll meet him on wednesday."

"And where might he be if not spending time with our precious little girl?" Tzuyu demands, hands on her hips.

"Right..... He is visiting his family, and they are coming back with him, so I might need to go over and meet the in-laws on wednesday. No worries, though, we already worked it out."

"Meeting the in-laws already? So it's serious?" Mina is the one to ask this time.

"I already did, though. Met them in a video call a few months ago, I'm just meeting them in person. But yeah, I guess it's serious enough." Jihyo answers with a fond smile.

"Now you HAVE to tell us about it." Dahyun, surprisingly, is the one to ask this time.

"He is childhood friends with my roommate and her brother, so I met him as soon as I settled in. We became good friends trying to control the idiot siblings, the Lees are a handful sometimes."

"The Lees?" The smallest one asks.

"Amy and Felix. My roommate and her brother."

They all show their understanding and Jihyo continues.

"So, Chris and I began spending a lot of time together, and we also had a lot of classes together, meaning a lot of projects, then we began to talk more about ourselves, and he asked if I wanted to try dating, since we were pretty much a couple already. We just didn't do much of the being affectionate part."

"Aren't you the cutest?!" Mina squeals and had to be restrained by Tzuyu.

"Sounds like he is a very good kid."

"Chae, will you stop with the parent stuff? We all know you and we already know you are weird." Dahyun tries to stop the girl.

"But-" Chaeyoung begins to defend herself.

"Or, maybe." Jihyo cuts in. "You want to have another talk with me? This time in person?" She ends with a mischievous grin.

"Thank you, ma'am, I'll be good now." Is the answer from a, now, frightened girl.

"What happened in there, anyways?" Tzuyu remembers and asks.

"Just know you are better off never finding out." Jihyo chuckles.

"Alright, who is up for a movie?" Dahyun is the one to dissolve the tension.

They all laugh a little and proceed to choose something to watch and spend some relaxing time together. There was a silent agreement that none really wanted to see angry Jihyo, ever. And Chaeyoung was back to trying to cope and forget those terrible moments in her life, she was too young to have that kind of trauma. As soon as the group begins to settle down for the movie, idiot couple #1 rejoins them.

"I just hope you two had the decency to change my sheets and air out the room."

"I don't know what you are talking about, but I suddenly have to go back to your room." Nayeon says, while she walks in and makes a U turn back, without stopping.

"I, suddenly, have to go help Nayeon." Momo follows her girlfriend.

"How?" Dahyun asks, for Jihyo only.

"I know my sister. And Momo's neck is covered with hickeys." She answers to her kitchen assistant for the day.

As the duo finishes up with popcorn, snacks and juice (Jihyo had made a point to banish soda after Amy drank five liters of cola in one day and started convulsing the next morning), idiot couple #1 had come back, sweaty and clearly having rushed to clean up. The trio had picked up a thriller, despite Mina's protests, and everyone settled down for some quality time and catching up.

Nobody knows when, but Sawako had showed up at some point and joined them, later they would find out their own dorm head, the poor woman's boyfriend, had got captured by the drama club and blackmailed into helping out, so she was "single" for the next month, when the play would happen. The girls learned that the college drama club would always pay high for dirt on anyone and everyone, and use it whenever they needed extra hands for their plays, Francis happened to have destroyed the librarian's flowers on his first week as a freshman, and that was his downfall. Drama club had the video.

Dahyun was truly entertained about these new people she was meeting, and began thinking changing colleges wouldn't be that bad afterall. She just had to remember to not screw up, and if she did, never let herself be caught by the drama club.