Fate's Little Bell

Chapter 42

Jeongguk

    The rest of the rehearsal went by pretty quickly. Other than the brief moment when I caught Jane May staring at me and then watched as she proceeded to turn very, very red, nothing too interesting happened. I walked my somewhat reluctant partner back down the aisle, totally not flexing my arm as much as I possibly could.

    I released her, trying not to feel hurt as she skipped away, dashing back to her fiancé. She grabbed his arm, bouncing up on her toes, and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. Quickly, I looked away, keeping my face as blank as I could.

    "What was that for?"

    "Since when do I need an excuse to kiss you?" I glanced up in time to see Jane May pouting up at the fiancé dude. Matthew? Mason? No, it was Matthew. "I just missed you, that's all."

    I turned towards Seokjin-hyung. "When is this over?"

    He glanced up from his phone. "What?"

    "When are we leaving?"

    He looked around. "I think we're supposed to eat together, so probably after that. Is everything okay?"

    I nodded quickly. "Yeah. I was just thinking about going and getting some lunch. I guess I'll just eat with everyone else though."

    "Okay, Jeongukkie, sounds good," Seokjin said, reaching up to ruffle my hair.

    "Hyung!" I protested, backing away from him so he couldn't mess up my hair. My back met a solid wall of human flesh and I flinched, turning quickly to see the last person I could ever want to bump into.

    Tanned skin with the hint of blond stubble greeted me and I had to look up to meet the man's watery blue eyes. He had neat blond hair and I could see a small silver cross hanging from his neck.

    "I— um, sorry," I blurted, backing away from him and my pretty ex, who was clinging to his arm, her cheeks slowly turning pink as her eyes darted back and forth between us.

    He smiled. "Don't worry about it, man."

    Jane tugged on the sleeve of his blazer. "Matthew, are we going?"

    He turned towards her, his eyes softening as they met hers. "Of course, Pumpkin."

    Her face burned red and she stared down at her shoes, a curtain of wavy brown hair, glimmering with sunlit streaks of gold, falling down, blocking her flustered expression from view. A small part of me died, my soul aching from her absence, wishing that I could be the one making her blush like that. Wishing I could be the one she clung to, nagging me to hurry up and leave.

    "Anyway, see you later, man," Matthew said, waving casually, Jane still tugging impatiently on his sleeve.

    I couldn't help but grin internally at that.

    He did grin, for real though, and laughed softly at her, shaking his head at me, like this was some inside joke only we were in on. "Hey, man," he whispered, clapping his hand down on my shoulder, "for real, thanks for letting her go."

    "Matthew! What the heck?" Jane shrieked, yanking on his arm, her face almost purple with embarrassment.

    He chuckled again, smiling at me before turning towards her, letting her drag him away. From where I was standing, I could hear her scolding him as they left the air-conditioned church, and for once I was a little happy that I wasn't the one she was yelling at. But then reality came crashing back down, and there wasn't an ounce of me that didn't feel like it was ready to drown, because I would gladly take every nonsensical rant, every argument, every mood swing that came with loving Jane May if it just meant I could stand next to her and see her smile.

Jane May

    I was struggling to hide the obnoxious blush that threatened to envelope my face every time I snuck a glance at Jeongguk and was met with his unbearable, soul penetrating gaze. Not to mention the fact that each time our eyes met, the smug look on his face grew exponentially, and I was starting to worry that he was going to run out of room for it. That, or I was going to loose my cool and go up to him and kiss it — excuse me, smack it off.

    "Hey, Pumpkin, are you okay?" Matthew murmured, leaning his elbow on the back of my chair. "You seem a little tense."

    I tore my eyes away from my salad, which was looking like a shredded mess thanks to my unsuccessful attempts at actually getting the leaves onto my fork.

    "Yeah, sorry, I'm okay," I told him, leaving into his touch as he brushed his thumb across my cheek.

    "You sure? Because I think your caesar salad's been stabbed more than the actual Caesar."

    I grinned at his dumb joke, shaking my head at him. "That's only because it wasn't cooperating."

    He laughed. "You're sure you don't just enjoy stabbing stuff?"

    I stuck my tongue out at him. "Don't be stupid."

    "I'm just making sure I'm not marrying a serial killer."

    Narrowing my eyes at him, I retorted, "Well, maybe I should've been stabbing you and not my innocent salad."

    He frowned at me and I felt my face heat up.

    "Sorry," I mumbled sheepishly, fidgeting with the cloth napkin sitting on my lap.

    "It's fine."

    I glanced away, feeling a little awkward. Predictably, my eyes landed on Jeongguk, a tiny smidge of jealousy flaring within me when I took in the way he was talking to Sabrina, one of the bride's maids.

    She'd wound up sitting next to him in the restaurant and while I hadn't thought too much about it earlier, I was starting to regret having sat on the opposite side of the table, because now I was stuck unable to hear their conversation. If he was going to be sitting with and talking to some other girl, I certainly wanted to be privy to their conversation. It was even worse because I didn't even have anyone around me to talk to, other than Matthew. Helena, to my right, was far too engrossed in her conversation with Hoseok to even notice the uncomfortable silence that had taken over my end of the table.

    In all honesty though, it wasn't even a silence. Everyone else around me seemed to have someone to talk to and something so fascinating to discuss that they didn't even seem to notice the fact that I was stuck here, completely surrounded by conversation, yet cut off from it at the same time. It's not like that wasn't something I was used to, but it still sucked to be surrounded by people who were supposed to care about me, yet oblivious to my misery.

    I picked at my food halfheartedly, glancing towards Matthew who had absorbed himself in his phone. From what I could see over his shoulder, it looked like he was reading an email, and from the frown that spread on his face, it seemed like an important one.

    Sighing, I turned away, my eyes involuntarily returning to the spectacle taking place on the other end of the table.

    Sabrina had managed to scoot her chair closer to Jeongguk's and judging from the overwhelming amount of times she was batting her eyelashes at him, she was definitely trying to flirt with him. I couldn't completely hear her braying laughter from here, but I could clearly see her pretty face contort every few seconds and either Jeongguk was being extra hilarious today or she was really desperate. Probably the latter.

A//n: I am literally uploading this AT WORK so um yeah lol...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the drama and are excited to watch everything unfold... and please forgive me for any typos.

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Love you all and I hope you have wonderful weeks!!

~xoxo Jewelea