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I bid goodbye to my mom with a kiss through the phone. Once the call ends, my hand drops to my side and my fingers grab at my hair in frustration. I sigh heavily, forcing my lips together from resisting the urge to scream. Thankfully, I'm standing some feet away from the other Justice members as I had strayed off to the empty corridor to call my mom, so nobody else was close enough to hear our conversation or see how affected I am by it.
My mom was talking about how she'll be coming down to the city with my dad to pay Taeil and I a visit. I was thrilled at the idea since I've been missing my parents a lot, but my smile faltered when she told me to bring her "son" and her "son-in-law" along to dinner when they arrive. Her "son" being Renjun, who my parents love more than me, and her "son-in-law" being none other than Mark Lee. I had to gather all the strength I had in me to break the news that Mark and I are no longer together.
For the first time in my life as a diligent student, I played truant and skipped my elective class, solely because I didn't want to be anywhere near Mark. Childish, I know, and Donghyuck nagged me for hours about it, but I'm just not ready to face him after that mess we called a conversation. I didn't even consider avoiding him or pretending like he doesn't exist because just the mere sight of him makes me feel horrible. Talking things out with him was supposed to give me closure, an ending, but all it really did was give me sleepless nights and a whole lot of overthinking.
At least, on the nights I found it hard to sleep, Donghyuck would Facetime me while working on his assignments—watching him do calculus and programming was so boring that it did help me.
My mouth reacts faster than my brain when I yelp before I register someone poking my sides. The audacity of this creep to touch me! My first reflex is to swing my elbow backwards into the first body part I can reach which happens to be his stomach. I spin around and am ready to kick his shins, too, when I realize I know who this guy is.
"Fuck, you're strong." Donghyuck doubles over, face contorted in pain. My eyes widen as I immediately throw my arm around him to support him, cringing at how hurt he looks.
"Where did you come from?" I screech at him.
"The toilet, Peach. Right behind you," he groans. "Remind me to never surprise you again."
"That's probably a good idea," I mumble and softly press my hand to the part I hit, making him wince. "Does it still hurt?"
Donghyuck shoots me a look. "What do you think?"
"Well, I'm sorry, but you're not very smart for sneaking up on me like that either." I grumble. I stay beside him until his pain subsides and he finds the strength to stand straight again; in the meantime, my mind's already drifted to my initial thoughts prior to his interruption.
"What's wrong? You look like when the cafeteria ran out of pretzels."
Oh, yeah. I remember that. Last semester he was behind me in line and I was so upset that the pretzels were gone that I told him to shut the fuck up eventhough he didn't say a word. He remembers that.
