the yin to my yang [everglow] ✩

ten

"We need to talk."

Jiwon felt empowered when she approached Eunji and said that to her. She meant business, for the sake of their relationship. No more procrastinating, getting side-tracked, or wooed by pet names. Jiwon was going to get to the bottom of it. And if it resulted in them breaking up, then...it is what it is.

Jiwon waited for classes to end before approaching Eunji, who was walking with Serim in the courtyard. The two looked happy to see Jiwon before their expressions quickly turned confused when she didn't smile back.

"Alone," Jiwon added when Serim didn't leave.

"Oh!" Serim exclaimed under her breath. "Right, I'll uh, go wait...somewhere else...not here. Yeah..."

Serim tucked her thumbs underneath the straps of her backpack and walked away, leaving the couple to talk to each other.

Jiwon was mentally applauding herself for being strong enough to actually approach Eunji confidently. Now, all she had to do was demand why Eunji was being a sucky girlfriend, and to not fall for any tricks the younger might pull.

"What's up?" Eunji asked, a small smile crossing her a face.

Jiwon made a point not to look at Eunji's smile. Great! Now she just had to tell Eunji what's been bothering her. Hopefully Eunji had a good reason for hanging out with Serim all the time, then they could work things out and go back to being the lovey-dovey couple that made their friends puke with how sweet they were—

"Let's break up."

Eunji's eyes grew wide.

Wait—no.

"What?" Eunji asked in a small voice.

"I mean," Jiwon backtracked, "it feels like...we aren't dating anymore."

Yeah, that's a good cover-up.

"You're always with Serim," she continued, feeling her confident aura dim. "I keep thinking that you don't like me anymore and would rather date her."

At Jiwon's explanation, Eunji's expression turned guilty and Jiwon feared for the worst. But Eunji didn't say anything, so Jiwon pressed on.

"I kept talking to Sihyun about it, and even Yiren and her girlfriend. And we—they saw you two out with another girl."

Eunji just made a pitiful noise in the back of her throat. What did that mean? Why wasn't she saying anything? If it was all a misunderstanding like Sihyun said, then why wasn't Eunji explaining herself?

"Is it her? You're seeing the short girl?"

"No, Jiwon."

Jiwon honestly didn't expect her to speak at all, nor for her to do so in such a casual way. She stared at Eunji, perplexed, before she continued on.

"Then what? What's going on? Why haven't you been talking to me as much? If you wanted to break up or take a break or something, you could have talked to me!"

Jiwon was holding Eunji's forearms by then, silently wondering why Eunji wasn't actually talking. In order for them to talk it out, both of them had to actually talk.

It was quiet between them for a few minutes. Almost every student was out of the courtyard of the school. Eunji wasn't even looking at Jiwon, and that really hurt. Maybe Jiwon should've just cleanly broken up with her like her subconscious was trying to do, and left it at that. It would've been less painful than maybe listening to Eunji lie to her.

"That girl you saw Serim and I with," Eunji finally said, eyes focusing on the shorter, "is a Japanese girl who just landed here not too long ago. Her name's Nako."