"Okay." (Bbangnyu) ☑️

z

Tomorrow came around too quickly for Chanhee to get his head together. He had been up all night stressing over what his feelings towards Younghoon were, and he still hadn't come to a conclusion.

Chanhee had never even really liked anyone seriously before so he didn't know what it was meant to be like. When he was in high school his friends would keep asking him who he liked, and he would always answer "no one" because that was the truth. Of course they didn't believe him and thought he was just too shy to tell them, so they kept pestering him about it until he decided to lie and tell them that he liked a girl in their class called Meiqi.

She was from China, and she was so pretty that all the boys had crushes on her, so it was a pretty believable lie.

What Chanhee didn't expect though, was his friends asking Meiqi out for him, and what he definitely didn't expect was for Meiqi to say yes.

It didn't last long though. Within a couple of days, Chanhee came clean to Meiqi when they were walking home from school one day, and told her that he had only said he liked her so that his friends would stop bugging him.

To his surprise, Meiqi seemed relieved to hear this, and confessed that she had actually only said yes because her friends had told her to.

Then she told him a secret that she had never dared to tell any of her friends.

She liked girls.

Chanhee told her that he didn't know what he liked, because as far as he was concerned he had never actually liked anyone.

That was when Meiqi gave him a piece of advice that had always stuck with him:

"Once you do like someone, you'll know it."

But that didn't seem to help at all in Chanhee's current situation.

He'd know it? He didn't know anything. What was that even supposed to mean?

He sighed and flopped down onto his bed.

Great advice Meiqi. Thanks a lot.

Then he remembered what he was doing and rushed to get ready to go to Younghoon's apartment.

On the walk there, Chanhee bumped into Jacob. He often came to visit Kevin on weekends because he went to a different university nearby.

"Oh, hey Chanhee."

"Hi Jacob."

Chanhee shifted his eyes to the ground.

"Can I umm... can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure. Do you want to go get a coffee or something?" Jacob asked.

"Oh- no I don't want to waste your time, we can just talk here."

"Alright." Jacob walked to a nearby bench and sat down, with Chanhee joining him.

"So what's up? I'm all ears."

Chanhee sighed.

"Well, you know that Bona and Juyeon... pick on people a lot.."

"That's one way to put it." Jacob said.

"...And recently it's been me that they pick on.."

Jacob nodded.

"Well... it wasn't really that bad until- until yesterday they did something... really really bad."

"H-How bad? Like what they did to me?"

What they did to Jacob. It was part of the reason why Chanhee was so afraid of them and didn't dare to lash out at them in retaliation. He didn't want the same thing to happen to him.

Back in highschool, there had been a party. It was Bona's birthday party, and every year it was like the event of the year. Everyone went, even Chanhee who didn't even like parties that much.

One year during this party, there was unfortunately a lot of underaged drinking involved. And that was where the trouble began.

No one really knew exactly what happened, because the booze wasn't that strong, but someone had probably spiked Jacob's drink because he did a lot of things that night that he would never do even if he had drunken a few beers.

A lot of things with Juyeon, to be precise. And Juyeon had - accidentally - livestreamed it all.

Of course no one judged Juyeon for what happened that night. Everyone knew that he was with Bona. He was just a little tipsy, these things happen when you're drunk. But things were a lot different for Jacob. Bona had spread the lie that Jacob deliberately tried to seduce Juyeon, that he was trying to ruin their relationship because he liked Juyeon. And of course everyone believed her because she was Bona and why would she lie? People hated Jacob for it, and some of the things people would say to him were disgusting.

A few days later, Jacob moved schools, and no one had really heard from him since then.

Until just recently, when Chanhee had discovered that he was none other than Kevin's boyfriend.

"N-Not really- I mean... kind of-" Chanhee replied.

Jacob grabbed onto his shoulders.

"Oh my- Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"N-No."

"What did they do?"

"Juyeon..." Chanhee couldn't finish his sentence.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I know how hard it can be."

"I d-do want to tell you. J-Juyeon.. He- he made me... strip. In front of him. And he tried to- B-But I begged him not to and he didn't- But he was filming. And now Bona has that video..."

"God I hate them-"

"I don't know what to do Jacob! I don't know what Bona wants but Juyeon said something about blackmailing me. And I really don't want the video to get out..."

"I'm not really sure how I can help you with this, but, if you have no one else to talk to about it I'll be here for you whenever." Jacob stood up. "I'd better get going, Kevin will be waiting for me."

Chanhee nodded.

"Yeah me too."

Jacob gave him a sly smile.

"Going to see Younghoon?"

"How did you know?"

"Just a hunch. Anyways, don't worry about things too much, you have friends who can help you, and if you can't talk to them about it then you have me. I know what it feels like, and I know that sometimes you just need someone to vent to."

"Thank you Jacob."

"No problem."

And with that they went their separate ways.

-

I was gonna put the next scene in this chapter too but I'll write another chapter just because I feel like I'm making them too long so it takes ages to update

Also thanks for 1k!