[EDITING]
When Jeon Jeongguk's sister gets engaged to his friend's brother, almost everything changes.
Desperate to hold onto a fragile friendship, Jeongguk is willing to get himself into sticky situations--even to the point of ruining his sister's...
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Chapter Twelve: Jeongguk Thinks About Things
He didn't know how exactly, but he had survived his oral exam, with what he thought could turn out to be a good grade. It was a job well done. But now he needed to survive hell.
Mina and Nari were already in the classroom when he arrived. For some reason, he felt a little nervous as he walked in when he saw the two of them after the events of last Friday. He hadn't talked to either of them the entire week, the simple reason being that he had avoided Nari like the living flame and talking to Mina, in general, wasn't something he did.
He sat down at his table, nodded their way–Mina gave him a little smile in return–and then turned, facing the front of the classroom, waiting for the teacher to call their names. As the teacher checked their attendance, Jeongguk wondered whether Mina knew about his and Nari's kiss; if the two of them had talked about it. They must have, girls talked about these things, didn't they? Even he and Jimin had talked about it, but then again, his friendship with Jimin was different from most friendships between guys.
After talking for a bit, the teacher told them all to join their respective groups – Jeongguk's queue to turn around. As he did, he felt immediately that something was different, not exactly off, but the dynamic had changed. Whereas last week Nari had sought out his gaze, following him with her eyes, actively tried to converse with him, asking him questions, telling him funny anecdotes, showing him photographs and smiling fondly, now she kept her gaze on her friend, she acted as if he weren't even there. When she talked, she talked to Mina and suddenly, it was as if she were the only link between the two of them, as strange as that may seem. Since Nari didn't speak to him, he felt, out of perhaps a little bit of pride, he would only answer to Mina and ask her questions–which Mina didn't object to, as she had taken it upon herself to be the leader of the group.
Strangely so, he felt almost relieved of Mina's presence, as she had a way to manipulate a situation, to make it feel comfortable, in a way that almost resembled Taehyung–or no, not like Taehyung, as he would smile and soothe, charm people off their feet, make them feel important, whereas Mina was determined, she was decisive and around her, you almost felt you didn't have the time to feel awkward. She was to the point, but not in the way that she made you feel bad about yourself. She didn't defuse tension in a situation, make it inherently more comfortable, as Taehyung did, but she gave that same tension a sense of purpose, an outlet to pour it into, and that way, defused it.
Jeongguk had never noticed that before. He didn't know why he did now.
Perhaps it was because they weren't behaving like their usual selves.
But then again, perhaps not, perhaps they were the same as they always had been; Mina had always been polite, yet honest, and now she conversed with him because he let her, she smiled at him, laughed at his jokes, but hadn't she always? When in a group and he would say or do something funny, hadn't she always laughed (much to his dismay, as she hadn't been the one he wanted to please)?
