BEHIND THE SCENES

chapter 84: crushing... hard

<OST: I Wanna Say To You - Suzy>

"Jieun-ah," Seokjin took a seat next to Jieun in the backyard, overlooking a nice river - not the same one Jennie and Taehyung had gone to fish at earlier. "Hey, can I talk to you for a bit?"

"Hm?" Jieun looked up and smiled as she saw Seokjin. "Yeah, sure."

"I'll just get straight to the point-" Seokjin swallowed hard. "Moon Byulyi... has she ever told you anything about that childhood sweetheart of hers?"

"Hm?" Jieun narrowed her eyes. "Ah, Sandeul-ie? Yeah, of course. She liked him back in middle school or something. Why?"

Seokjin's face fell. "Ah, is that so? Ah, okay."

"Why?"

"Nothing-" Seokjin changed his mind in a split second. "Did she ever tell you how much she liked him? Like... a little bit, a moderate amount, a lot or-"

"A lot-" Jieun laughed awkwardly, sensing that something wasn't right with Seokjin. "Based on what I've heard from her, at least. She lost contact with him for many years, but she still talks about him now and then. So the impression he left on her must be pretty strong, I guess."

Seokjin pursed his lips together tightly. "You know this time she went back to meet that guy right."

"Huh? She what?" Jieun's eyes widened abruptly. "You're kidding."

"She didn't tell you?" Seokjin pouted. "She must have thought you were busy or something... but yeah. She also told me she was going back to find a husband or something, because her mom was rushing her to get attached."

"She tells you more things than she tells me these days," Jieun said with a sigh. "I guess that's what happens between housemates - you tend to grow closer after staying under the same roof for a while."

"Like you and JK, huh-" Seokjin smirked. "I've been sensing something going on between you two for a while now..."

Jieun was just thinking about that right before Seokjin had joined her. But her first instinct was to deny all accusations.

"Huh? No, you're overthinking it."

"You sure?"

Jieun nodded. "Yeah."

"That's good then," Seokjin said as he nodded slowly. "The last thing I'd want is for the two of them to have yet another scandal. The toilet incident the two of you had was bad enough, then came the V and Jennie hospital scandal, I'm sick and tired of it. It's always the managers cleaning up after their mess. Even if you have feelings for him, it's better if you hide it from him, anyway. There's no way the two of you should be dating - he's a celebrity and you're just a regular person... it's never gonna work out."

Seokjin's words hit Jieun hard. Out of all the struggles Jieun faced when coming to terms with the fact that she had indeed fallen for Jungkook and was willing to give up her entire reporter career for him, that seemed to be the least of her worries. Instead, questions like: "Did he like her too?", "Was it really okay to stay by his side?" and "Was he really worth it?" had preoccupied her thoughts most of the time.

But Seokjin had just made a good point - even if let's say, he returned her feelings... would things really work out between them? A rising star, Jeon Jungkook, and a makeup artist with no big aspirations, Lee Jieun - could things really work out between the two of them? Why did he have to pose such a challenging question to her just a day before she was due to inform Namjoon about her final decision?