buttercup, don't break my heart
buttercup, don’t break my heart
Donghae-Jessica (Sehun/Krystal with Onew/Jessica) ≈ 5,769 words
Romance-Fluff, pg
It's always a matter of where we stand and how much that person means to us
→ the setting is around early 2000-2003s when we relied much on the radio more than other social media for entertainment.
Happy Anniversary to sutekimizu It’s been one year! Thank you for watching/joining this little place of ours because it means so much to both of us, me and Valerie. I’d like to thank Valerie as well for agreeing to be part of this with me. We’ll try to write more if we can and if we both have time to do so, so please anticipate more from us. I’ll get those requests done as much as I can so hang in there guys. It’s been such a long time since I’ve written Haesica.
1.
“We can always learn to love again.”
A minute left, she hears herself beg.
The room is a freezer and no amount of warm latte eases Jung Jessica at a corner. She wraps her legs up, rubs her hands together, and watches the man of the hour from here. She tries not to fall asleep -it’s the least she can do for now.
“As you all know, DJ Sica will take over Dear Love Doctor starting tomorrow,” he winks at Jessica’s direction, to let her know he isn’t neglecting promotion. “She’s going to be the new love guru, so please show her your support! This has been your last night with DJ Kris. Have a good night everyone!”
“And we’re done!” says the scriptwriter from behind, him and two others instantly clap their hands as Kris pulls away from the table, gets out of his headset and turns to Jessica who starts kicking off her stilted legs and dead arms, shaking her head from the drowse.
She looks at him painfully once her vision cooperates, and she pouts because it’s impossible to look too happy at a time like 2:00 am in the morning. “Must you really go?”
“Canada needs Kris, so...” he smiles and moves away. “The real question here is will you actually handle this shift?”
About to collapse, Jessica nods in response. “I think I’ll manage.”
“Of course you can,” Kris adds on, the two exiting the studio. “Considering the number of boyfriends you probably had, I’m sure giving advices will be easier compared to my skills.”
Boyfriends. Advices.
She thinks she lacks pep talks about certain things.
2.
“Krystal.”
“Hmm.”
“Krystal, wake up.”
The younger girl, petulant and near to throwing a fit, flips her plaid covers and cringes when she sees 7:00 am on the clock. It’s a Saturday, third week of her summer break, and the weather outside has been lighter than last night.
Jung Krystal hates breakfasts and mornings and birds chirping by her windowsill. Most humans like it though, which once made her thought she was a vampire.
“What?” She’s as half-resigned as to going back to sleep.
“I need help.”
“What?”
“Well, I’m getting Kris’ job. Dear Love Doctor, you’ve heard of it?”
She starts combing her hair, without giving Jessica the slightest hint of care. “So?”
“So...” She’s not even listening. “Since I’ll be giving advices and you know I’m not that good with it, I might really need your help on this since you’ve -”
Krystal rolls her eyes, hiding again under her sheets.
“Please, Krystal? I really would appreciate it if you help me with this!”
Krystal heaves her biggest pillow straight at her sister, shouting, “Get a boyfriend!” and so Jessica leaves, a little pissed at her sister for answering two-three words each time.
Getting a man for herself is a very good idea but she isn’t sure if they are auctioned at a nearby garage sale for spare change either.
3.
On her way to work, Jessica stops her car. Alien grumbling transpires from underneath its hood, and it lives on even after the engine dies. It isn’t much, she hopes, or someone’s going to walk all the way to the station tonight.
She dials some self-help service on the phone, when she opens the front sizzling and steamy like barbeque and she isn’t some mechanic but she assumes it overheated.
“Yeah? I can’t be late I have work. My car broke down and I’d like to -”
Taken aback, she jumps back when a motorcycle nearly hits her, and then she screams a little too late out of reaction and sits down, cowering for defying death - just the hospital really but Jung Jessica likes exaggerations - before seeing a man and his toothed sneakers, asking if she’s all right.
That’s about the stupidest question of the night and she hasn’t even been to the station to read the rest of the love letters.
Words at ready, Jessica stands up. “You could’ve beaten your horn to death, you know!”
The man doesn’t say anything at her sharpness, still eyeing her from head to toe. “But you are all right? You didn’t get hurt, right?”
She breathes heavily and in silence, trying to find out the question herself, and then shakes her head.
“Just watch where you’re going next time!”
“You could’ve stayed on the sidewalk next time too,” he suggests, walking away and putting his helmet on again.
He mounts his motorbike and adjusts his mirrors, Jessica reflected there still in disdain.
She’s pressing buttons on her phone so very angrily as if desperate to call the police about the accident, he observes. She catches him watching her so she crosses her arms, glaring.
He wishes he could just race off right away from this but leaving her like that seems harsh enough, which he thinks is not really his character.
“Pathetic,” he mutters when he goes to her side, and Jessica snorts right after. He checks the car himself while it cools, while Jessica cools down. She sits on the curb, still trying to contact anyone, if there is anyone out there other than him.
“Well, you’re in some bad luck,” he tells her.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
4.
He’s starting to hate her immensely.
“Haven’t cleaned the car in years, have you? Or had an expert check it out, maybe for - what, a couple of decades?”
She scowls. “Are you the mechanic they sent or -”
“No, but I used to work with cars when I was a kid so...” he turns now to her, the way she sits so probably tired with her makeup and coat and ponytail and stockings. “On your way home or something?”
Tired, Jessica gets up in lethargy, stretching now. “No, I have to get to work. My shift starts at ten and it’s... less than thirty minutes.”
“How far?” He says, looking in a distant. Jessica stares back at him, in wonder whether luck has changed its course now for her, or if she’s just terribly terribly desperate to get there.
“The radio station? Star Struck Studio? Around ten minutes to fifteen by car, but an hour by foot.”
He shrugs, going to his motor and taking an extra kiddie helmet with flowers on it and rubber straps. He hands it to Jessica not a second later, and she stares in deep horror at the expectation gone wrong.
“Well?” He asks while backing his bike. “Put it on.”
“Don’t you have other helmets? One that can actually protect my skull from any more accidents?”
It’s the first she’s seen him smile or chuckle, and it feels the warmest. Kind of like a kid from kindergarten, the one who’s willing to share his yellow crayon when yours broke while coloring the sun for arts and crafts. That sort of kid, that after awhile with him, Jessica realizes she’s been in safe hands all along.
She wears it, smiling when he turns away and she gets on very slowly, carefully, holding his shoulder for support. He wears his own helmet, still smiling when her reflection again bounces back on his mirrors and makes room for her to move closer.
Jessica holds onto his shirt very tightly as they take off, turning the bend in a flash.
He’s fast.
And her heart as well.
5.
“Jessica, you’re live in fifty seconds! Where have you been?”
“Calm down, Jinki, my car died on me, can you check it out?” She replies, rushing now inside the studio as an S.E.S song approaches the last chorus in the background.
An intro about being the best radio station in Seoul markets in while she prepares quickly. She fixes the headset and nears the mouthpiece, adjusts some more technical input for later because she can’t sound too hyper or even too languid on air.
His clipboard pressed under his pits, Jinki’s hands are up from behind the glass door: 5, 4, 3...
“Coming to you live,” she says softly, as how Kris does it to attract the active listeners, “from your favorite FM radio station, here to bring you the latest and hippest music on the block. You’re tuned in to Dear Love Doctor with me DJ Sica, good evening faithful listeners and welcome to another night of magic and love and whatever else DJ Kris likes to say. We do miss Kris already, don’t we?” She flips through the script, wishing to give Kris some good kicking for leaving her behind with this shit.
6.
“I forgot to thank the motorcyclist guy who drove me here, which... I think I didn’t even get his name. Whoever you are, thank you so much for helping me out. It means a lot, stranger.”
“Lee Donghae,” he responds, fiddling with the unpaired heart earring that was stuck on his jacket. “DJ Sica, it’s Donghae.”
7.
The next morning Jessica wakes up to Krystal’s giggling in the kitchen, the first time she has heard her sister do so since the start of the month. The younger Jung apparently is having cereal now, for what is, she calls as brunch, other arm crossed over the other. What gives Jessica the surprise though, is Krystal happens to have company over.
Jessica knocks now hoping not to interrupt them but of course, she already has.
Krystal’s smile fades while the boy gets off from the high seat and bows his head as Jessica enters.
“Good morning, noona.”
“Sehun! What are you doing here?”
She moves past Krystal and pokes her for a second to stop slouching, and then Jessica heads for the cupboard to get herself her breakfast.
“Well, you see...” he stammers, his lisp tripping him just a tiny bit. “Mom wants me in NYC for the summer but I said I don’t want to. I drove back here from the university just this morning.”
“And you’re going to stay in Seoul, right? For the rest of the summer?”
The boy doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t imply it much either. “Just three weeks, ‘is all. Mom is forcing me to still leave afterwards.”
Sulky, Krystal plays with her candies, and drinks milk and then exits to leave the two to talk, heading to her favorite armrest to watch some Sunday morning cartoons. After the short interview, Sehun immediately disappears to the living room, shuffling his feet towards Krystal now by the couch organizing her M&Ms.
Smiling, Sehun pushes her to the side to make room for him, and eventually Jessica after dishes finds her baby sister on Sehun’s lap, even more comfortable than her own bed while he segregates red M&Ms from blue, yellow from green, brown from orange.
That is then that she herself, even though being the older sister, understands a bit of what love is.
8.
“DJ Sica, I think I’m in love with a stranger,” she continues reading some of the messages while off air, and then turning to Jinki as he enters the room, passing the girl her bottle of water. “Dude, how many messages have I read something like this, come on!”
Jinki peeks at the paper with interest. “It reminded me of something. Just read it.”
She frowns. “She has the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen. She looks so high maintenance and annoying and our first meeting wasn’t quite the best as I had hoped but there was something. I think I really like her but I don’t know if I should go tell her about it. She’s working at the radio station too, so maybe you can help me out. Fighting! Love, Handsome Guy.”
“Well? What do you think?”
“Did you write this, Jinki?”
“Excuse me?”
Jessica chortles. “Please, wasn’t she your first love at the university?”
“I got over her quick,” Jinki answers, Jessica as always unconvinced. “Stop it! And just tell me what advice you’re going to give already because you’re going on air!” When she refuses to say anything after a minute, he scrambles with his things, the pencil, his sketchpad, his phone, and goes out as the red light over the header blinks ‘on air’.
She proceeds now with the letter at hand, reading it aloud to her listeners, a quarter now before midnight, fixing her headset. “Dear Handsome Guy. I want you to think about it. If you really like her and she’s not tied to anyone, then why not go for it? Date her, get to know her, maybe you’ll change your mind at some point but that’s why you’re going to try okay? I hope this helps. Just go walk up to her during her broadcast or something, it’ll surely surprise her!”
Jessica wonders if one day someone will try this on her. She hopes it’s not Jinki. That’ll be the day.
“Our next letter...”
9.
She arrives at work the following night, noticing at once the bouquet of daisies perched on top of her desk. Her eyes are wide as saucers going from it and then at Jinki, who coolly folds his arms while gazing at her, smirking because he knows a secret she is dying to hear.
Jessica picks up the card that comes with the present. It reads, “You told me to just date her and to date you I shall. Meet you at the Oriental tomorrow at 7. Love, Handsome Guy a.k.a Mr. Stranger.”
“Am I really annoying and high-maintenance?”
“He’s not your type though,” Jinki adds.
“What do you know about my type?”
“Don’t come running to me if he breaks your heart, all right?”
Jessica smiles and punches him lightly on the arm, if ever there is some guilty truth behind his words. She hopes there isn’t.
10.
She arrives at the restaurant with an uneasy heart, looking from table to table, trying to picture each guy in her head, in her memory if ever she has seen someone like them, in middle school back in the states, in high school where she has been crowned prom queen, in college with Jinki and the media arts. Nobody rings a single bell.
“Hey!”
Jessica stares and finds the voice right behind her, looking at him up close and recognizing him as the motorcyclist guy, her eyes glistening in sheer interest because for some reason, she has expected this to happen. Maybe just a little bit, but she knows they’ll see each other again. The first meeting can’t possibly the last.
“Oh, it’s you,” she says, shrugging and searching the room. “I’m look for a handsome guy. He sent me a bouquet of flowers at work, you see.”
“Oh,” he replies, taking her with him. “I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”
Jessica laughs. “I’m not, it’s just that it’d be rude to decline such an offer.”
He nods as they sit down together in the table, he hands her the menu while she tries not to be too distracted.
“I’m Lee Donghae by the way.”
“Jung Sooyeon but you can call me Jessica, I mean everybody calls me that long before I can remember and it’s practically my given name since forever and since we went to America where I used to live, you know? I grew up there and just came home after junior high and and -”
He smiles to ease her, and she smiles because it works. His smile. All the damn time.
11.
She’s not exactly a high-schooler anymore; her baby sister’s already in college, her mother’s getting ready for retirement, her dad’s still somewhere in the world signing his best-selling novel.
She’s stuck in Seoul, trying to clean bird poop off the balcony.
And she’s never been really truly in love.
“How did the date go?”
“I didn’t find handsome guy,” Jessica answers nonchalantly, scraping her tiled floor clean when Jinki enters. “Just motorcyclist guy and his wolverine hairstyle. We talked while I waited for handsome guy but he didn’t come. At least motorcyclist guy fed me.”
“He’s a music instructor at some college -”
“He’s name’s Donghae and he told me handsome guy stood up the date -”
“I don’t really believe him to be honest -”
She’s running around now, back and forth, with a bucket of water and a brush, bottle of dishwashing soap - pitiful really but she has her pride to keep, and while he offers help, she replies, “Yeah, I can do this. It’s just shit.”
Jinki watches her and blinks, once, twice, a couple of times, leaning against the glass door and wondering why he has never dated Jessica back in the days.
Maybe it’s because he knows it’s risky to have his heart pound in a manner she will never let hers do in return.
12.
They are unexpectedly getting closer and closer with surreal explanation.
When Jessica happened to drop by the video house to rent some aging DVDs, Donghae is there, apparently spotting something of her favorite. When Jessica made a bank deposit the other day, he on the other hand with his motorbike withdraws some funds.
“I’m gonna report you.”
“For what?” He has that stupid smile again. You must ignore.
“For stalking me,” she walks faster, but he catches up. He always does.
“I am not stalking you,” he denies as fast.
“Then what are you doing here? Skateboarding at the park? Renting the same exact DVD I wanted? ”
He laughs, folds his arms and stares at her while she does the same, impatient. “Can’t we call it fate?”
Jessica rolls her eyes out of disdain, unfriendly and not a second later she steps on his foot as harshly as she does with her breaks, he cringes and loses her again to something uncalled for, something unreturned called curiosity.
Because Jung Jessica isn’t in any way interested in knowing him.
13.
They’re just strangers, both know that.
But sometimes even Jinki overreacts at the smallest changes Jessica’s been showing while she’s at work. She smiles more, that’s for sure, and maybe it’s a contagious one because he catches himself smiling at her in the worst of timings, and she glares back when that happens. He laughs it off, and shakes his head and tells himself he’s not in love with Jung Jessica the ice princess.
Most things are easier to deny, though.
“We have to cancel that movie date on Saturday.”
“Why?”
“We watched it earlier.”
“Wow, aren’t you a sweet girlfriend.” Jinki of course has instincts as a man, and he can tell its Donghae.
“Excuse me I have no interest in...” her voice fades, and then whispers, “Donghae. We hangout as a group, I even brought Yuri. It just so happened that we were in the movies together, and his friend is dating my other friend. It wasn’t planned.”
“And you didn’t call me? I wanted to watch it!”
“Just shut up and tell Krystal to heat up the meat loaf tonight. She’s not answering my calls.”
14.
Donghae runs into her again at the mall, sorting out some jeans and trying them on. He doesn’t like to scare her that much but he sits on the chair closely near where she seemed to be mindlessly strutting about and indeed gives her one of the best shocks.
“Shit, what are you doing here?”
“Shopping?” he chuckles and raises the sweater he bought. She calms down a little, maybe she just went overboard, but her eyebrows are still knitted together in doubt, a little frightened by him.
Jessica looks at the mirror and he’s right there. “Do you think this make me look fat?”
“It does.”
Her mouth hangs wide open, scoffing afterwards. “You’re not supposed to say that to a girl!”
“Weren’t you asking for an opinion?”
They seem to interact more and more, which Jessica just finds awfully entertaining. Donghae runs out of gas so she gives him a lift, drops him off at his apartment after stories from his high school and the job at the university as a substitute teacher later absorbed in. She also finds out he’s older by three years which has things turned upside down.
“Donghae.”
“It’s nice when girls call me oppa.”
“I’m never going to call you, oppa.” She promises, her eyes down on the unfamiliar street.
She knows she will, and he knows that too, if ever they cross paths again, and they both are pretty aware they eventually will.
15.
It has been about three weeks since the very first time and Jessica fussily paces the kitchen here and there, grabbing a bowl for her salad, draining some meat by the sink, cutting them carrots and peeling the potatoes all on her own.
Krystal enters and takes out a carton of milk, plugs everything down to her mouth, bloating her face as Jessica stands behind the fridge’s door with arms crossing.
“It’s eleven and you can’t even manage to wake up earlier?”
“You be a college student then.”
Jessica clicks her tongue. “Yeah, in case you forgot it’s summer that’s why you’re living with me.”
“And in case you forgot, I’m paying back sleepless nights from last semester,” Krystal answers, leaving her sister to attend to her meat.
“I called Sehun to have lunch with us today.”
She glares back at Jessica. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Problem?”
“I don’t, but he has,” Krystal replies, turning away. “He answers your calls and ignores mine.”
“Aren’t you two gonna celebrate your 1000th day today? And isn’t he going to leave for New York tomorrow? Why are you always harsh on Sehun? The boy’s doing his best -”
Krystal squishes the milk box, throws it to the trash bin quite unkindly before again leaving Jessica to work her ass off by herself. Neither one speaks right after.
16.
“You’re here,” she says, opening the door wider.
“A little late because Hyukjae’s printer jammed and the poor guy won’t let me leave,” he says a little embarrassed, entering and noticing Krystal by the couch. Jessica calls her sister, who at first is reluctant in getting up, but eventually does when Donghae comes over and reaches for a handshake.
“This is my little sister Krystal,” she says.
Donghae bobs his head. “She’s my student at the university. You’re in journalism, right?”
Krystal, who is as wide-eyed because this happens to be unmentioned earlier, looks at Jessica in question, wondering if this will turn out to be one of those double-date scenes that her older sister can’t picture out quite well without Krystal’s help. And has lured the youngest to her plan by calling Sehun over, just to make it look like those chick flicks. Genius.
“Small world,” Krystal tries to smile when they shook hands. She curses inwardly.
The doorbell rings and it’s Sehun with a pink teddy bear half his size.
17.
That same night after work, Jessica finds Krystal on the couch, hugging a throw pillow; half-sobbing, half-asleep while the TV ran a SpongeBob episode, Soojung’s phone so close to her heart.
She doesn’t speak when her older sister approaches worriedly, not a simple hi, or bitch where’s my milk or something Krystal will usually say.
She stares blankly, infinitely.
“What happened?”
Krystal closes her eyes to lock back the tears, and for five minutes, she holds back an answer that obviously was at the tip of her tongue. She gets up suddenly; Jessica pulling her hand at once.
“Did you and Sehun fight again? I thought I told you to be nicer. Remember your first? With that Jongin, was it? Boys appreciate it when girls show how much -”
She snaps her hand back, cradles it while her face stays stoic, corner of her eyes glittered with the pain, noticeable even through the mere television’s light.
“Just because you can give advices to other people about their fucked up relationships, doesn’t mean you can nag me in mine. I never asked for them.”
18.
“She said that?”
He passes the milkshake, looking at her in full concern while Jessica sips to calm her nerves. It’s the following week, school’s gonna start soon, her bond with her sister isn’t any better either.
“I tried but she’s…”
“She just doesn’t like it when you’re trying to be your mom, I guess.”
Jessica shrugs. “But that’s just it, I’m not trying to be mom. I’m trying to be her sister but ever since high school, she’s been distancing herself I mean I’m used to it, then again I’m not because we’re sisters we always talk to each other about these things.”
“Maybe she just likes Sehun a lot,” Donghae answers. “That’s why she’s bottling up things. You know how teenagers are.”
But Jessica doesn’t. She thinks she time-skipped that stage of her life when hormones run amok, when you desperately want to be appreciated, when you never had a clue about what it’d be ten years later. She wonders if she’s gotten amnesia or some sort of memory eraser; she can’t remember a single thing about any of those.
Ages 13 to 19 were very very swift years.
Jessica simply nods. “I like Sehun for her too. They’ve been best friends since forever.”
“But maybe that’s why they’re fighting a lot because they’re not ideally meant to be together? You get what I’m saying?”
“What does ideally-meant-to-be-together mean? In what context?”
Donghae sighs and smiles. “And you’re the love doctor.”
She kicks him under the table, hitting his knee and he makes such a face. “Come on, tell me.”
“Let’s take you and me for example,” Donghae begins, their heads nearing each other, the strawberry drink being the only wall.
“If you and I were together, we’d be an ideal couple. I mean, I’d be the hot professor, your inspiration when you give love advices, while you’re the pretty DJ who works overnight in some radio station. It’s the perfect, ideal love story. I mean we met by accident - literally - for crying out loud! How’s that for fate?”
She squints and thinks about it hard, moving away when he finishes. After a minute, she calls him closer again with her finger and whispers, “If you were flirting with me just now, I’m gonna tell you it didn’t work.”
Laughing, he shakes his head and busies himself with other things, a little red.
“So this is rejection.”
“Aish!” She stands up and messes his hair before leaving. She catches on pretty good, Donghae decides.
19.
“Dear Love Doctor, what do you do when you’re in a state of transit? Like, you’re more than friends but not yet a real couple? But you do feel like you are, it’s just that you don’t want the official recognition as one because maybe you’re scared? You’re afraid to get hurt when it all ends? Or something? Please help me! Love, First Timer”
Jinki just happens to pick out probably the best letters for broadcasting, and she sighs wearily before she gives her answer as honestly and as whole-heartedly as she can, as if it is her own.
She remembers Donghae, then pushes him at the back of her mind. Not now, you idiot.
“Take some time to understand what you two really feel about getting into that level of relationship,” Jessica explains. “The advantage of being boyfriend-girlfriend is, in my understanding, you have a more right. You have a right to cry when he leaves, a right to scream at him, a right to get jealous. That sort of stuff you can’t really give justice to something in transit. The disadvantage on the other hand is this level is risky, but if you love them, why not?”
“There’s nothing wrong with staying with what you have now,” Jessica rebuts her own stand, picturing the first time she and Donghae held hands. “If you’re happy, then why be committed? Advantage: you’re free to flirt, you don’t have to reply to everything he texts, you can get even without hurting one another. Something like that…”
She searches Jinki from the other side of the glass window but he isn’t where he usually sits. He must be off to get coffee or something, because the night’s growing colder by the second.
“But this type of relationship will hurt, because you’re playing with what you feel.”
20.
Ever since then she hasn’t urged herself to talk to him, call him, text him - any interaction detained for some reflection time Jessica really hasn’t mind for the past weeks. School’s just around the corner, so Krystal’s bound for leaving in a few days and Jessica too might never see Donghae again because of it.
But isn’t it what she wants? That is, until she sorts out everything she feels?
Not exactly, her phone, vibrating for the nth time, begs to differ. She doesn’t pick up. No matter what as long as it’s him, she doesn’t.
She doesn’t have the will to.
But one day, after vacuuming the living room clean of floor popcorn Krystal chucked, Donghae finally leaves her with a statement shaming her understanding about how love can be defined by fucked up destiny and princely bank accounts.
“Do you like me Jung Jessica?”
Jessica flips the phone open and types, “No, I don’t Lee Donghae,” and throws it down the bin along with the rest of its crude kind. She remembers exactly now why she skipped being an adolescent.
21.
DJ Onew, looking bothered than usual, enters the room. “I’ve been getting messages from that Donghae.”
“Burn them.”
“Did something happen?” Jinki automatically wonders, sitting next to her as she adjusts her system for her segment. “Did you guys break up? Did he break your heart? I told you to be careful of him! I told you, didn’t I?”
“We weren’t even together, silly!” She shakes her head with a pensive smile. “Besides, he didn’t break my heart. I broke his first.”
She doesn’t know what she wants, she simply doesn’t but after a while of lying inside her head, she’s maybe to the point of accepting that it was best to have broken it apart before it got worst (Kris taught her that, too).
22.
She flops barely conscious on Krystal’s bed after drinking at a nearby bar and she reeks and stinks of alcohol it stirs the younger Jung awake. When she gets home, it’s almost sunrise, and she’s crying, half-cursing. It also happens to be the first day of school. Krystal gets up immediately, a weakness for murdering a blood relative if only it weren’t illegal but later on understands when the older girl calls on his name.
“Geez, why’d you even break up with him if he’s that important?”
Jessica mourns. “Because I didn’t want to get hurt. It felt like we were going in circles and I mean… I just want to be with someone I love and with someone who loves me and would it be wrong if I dreamed too big for us ‘cause -”
“Then why’d you let him go? You’re the stupidest person… ugh you’re such an idiot! Now get out and make me breakfast!”
23.
6:00 am, Monday - First day of school.
It’s finally goodbye to Krystal, goodbye to the undeniable pain in the butt. It’s also a goodbye to Donghae, because he has work on outskirts of the neighbour town, where he also rented an apartment he once told her about.
“Drive me to the college?” Krystal asks her, and indolently Jessica agrees. She knows Donghae hasn’t left yet then, because he isn’t an early bird and he just admits it. She laughs at the thought, remembers their first kiss, and then promptly turns to Krystal again.
“Can’t I just sit and you drive? I want to sleep.”
Krystal tsks and gets into the driver’s seat when her sister passes on the keys. After packing two of her roller bags, they finally leave Seoul.
24.
“You know, the other station also gives advices on relationships. But their time slot is in the morning, like now,” Krystal starts the conversation, but Jessica’s stubborn, partially listening to what she’s saying.
“What about it?”
Krystal finally sees the university gates, some students in their uniform walking now to school with their bags right behind them. It makes her smile as she turns on the radio and watches the magic catch the girl’s eyes.
“I’m sending this letter to a girl named Jung Jessica,” breathes the DJ just in time. “Isn’t she the one who handles… what was it? Dear Love Doctor on the other side?”
Jessica, wide-awake, groans. “This girl’s actually Jinki’s first love, you know. Such an annoying bitch, if you ask me.”
Krystal keeps quiet, parking as they listen. “To Jung Jessica, if you’re listening, I’ve got this confession to make. You suck wearing heels and you can’t cook to save your life…”
Krystal laughs, clapping her hands while her sister glares at her. “What? It’s true.”
“You’re really annoying and high-maintenance and I can’t keep up with a wallet of a newly hired instructor. I mean, you’re sweet and adorable and I think I’m in love with you still, so if you’re listening, please understand. And just tell me why we can’t be together when you know exactly we were meant to be from the start, after I nearly killed you. Signed, Babo Bada.”
“Babo Bada’s Donghae, right?” Jessica asks slowly, unable to believe her ears.
Krystal points with her lips and honks with her horn, while Jessica turns around to see, just walking up the curve of the parking lot, is the man she still hasn’t been sure of until this morning. That exact feeling of having to flip a coin, and hoping it’s side heads because side heads means she’s really in love but screw this stupid method of tossing coins, she knows she is anyway.
“You’re mumbling again,” he peeks by the window and she’s just staring.
And then he smiles, the same one she has missed. So she smiles back, and then a conversation between their eyes starts, something they share and only they understand.
“You’re really pathetic, Jung Jessica.”
“Please,” she drops a kiss on his lips, to last him the day. “Call me Sooyeon.”
((25.
Krystal’s already out of the car before things got mushy, and at the rear end leans Sehun with her bags, looking at his shoes when she nears him.
“You look miserable, Sehun,” she lets him take her bags, like how it always is, and he closes the distance between them, little by little, and eventually displacing an arm over her shoulder. She locks her hand around his waist.
They walk into the campus for their third year in college, and for their third year as a couple.))
Donghae-Jessica (Sehun/Krystal with Onew/Jessica) ≈ 5,769 words
Romance-Fluff, pg
It's always a matter of where we stand and how much that person means to us
→ the setting is around early 2000-2003s when we relied much on the radio more than other social media for entertainment.
Happy Anniversary to sutekimizu It’s been one year! Thank you for watching/joining this little place of ours because it means so much to both of us, me and Valerie. I’d like to thank Valerie as well for agreeing to be part of this with me. We’ll try to write more if we can and if we both have time to do so, so please anticipate more from us. I’ll get those requests done as much as I can so hang in there guys. It’s been such a long time since I’ve written Haesica.
1.
“We can always learn to love again.”
A minute left, she hears herself beg.
The room is a freezer and no amount of warm latte eases Jung Jessica at a corner. She wraps her legs up, rubs her hands together, and watches the man of the hour from here. She tries not to fall asleep -it’s the least she can do for now.
“As you all know, DJ Sica will take over Dear Love Doctor starting tomorrow,” he winks at Jessica’s direction, to let her know he isn’t neglecting promotion. “She’s going to be the new love guru, so please show her your support! This has been your last night with DJ Kris. Have a good night everyone!”
“And we’re done!” says the scriptwriter from behind, him and two others instantly clap their hands as Kris pulls away from the table, gets out of his headset and turns to Jessica who starts kicking off her stilted legs and dead arms, shaking her head from the drowse.
She looks at him painfully once her vision cooperates, and she pouts because it’s impossible to look too happy at a time like 2:00 am in the morning. “Must you really go?”
“Canada needs Kris, so...” he smiles and moves away. “The real question here is will you actually handle this shift?”
About to collapse, Jessica nods in response. “I think I’ll manage.”
“Of course you can,” Kris adds on, the two exiting the studio. “Considering the number of boyfriends you probably had, I’m sure giving advices will be easier compared to my skills.”
Boyfriends. Advices.
She thinks she lacks pep talks about certain things.
2.
“Krystal.”
“Hmm.”
“Krystal, wake up.”
The younger girl, petulant and near to throwing a fit, flips her plaid covers and cringes when she sees 7:00 am on the clock. It’s a Saturday, third week of her summer break, and the weather outside has been lighter than last night.
Jung Krystal hates breakfasts and mornings and birds chirping by her windowsill. Most humans like it though, which once made her thought she was a vampire.
“What?” She’s as half-resigned as to going back to sleep.
“I need help.”
“What?”
“Well, I’m getting Kris’ job. Dear Love Doctor, you’ve heard of it?”
She starts combing her hair, without giving Jessica the slightest hint of care. “So?”
“So...” She’s not even listening. “Since I’ll be giving advices and you know I’m not that good with it, I might really need your help on this since you’ve -”
Krystal rolls her eyes, hiding again under her sheets.
“Please, Krystal? I really would appreciate it if you help me with this!”
Krystal heaves her biggest pillow straight at her sister, shouting, “Get a boyfriend!” and so Jessica leaves, a little pissed at her sister for answering two-three words each time.
Getting a man for herself is a very good idea but she isn’t sure if they are auctioned at a nearby garage sale for spare change either.
3.
On her way to work, Jessica stops her car. Alien grumbling transpires from underneath its hood, and it lives on even after the engine dies. It isn’t much, she hopes, or someone’s going to walk all the way to the station tonight.
She dials some self-help service on the phone, when she opens the front sizzling and steamy like barbeque and she isn’t some mechanic but she assumes it overheated.
“Yeah? I can’t be late I have work. My car broke down and I’d like to -”
Taken aback, she jumps back when a motorcycle nearly hits her, and then she screams a little too late out of reaction and sits down, cowering for defying death - just the hospital really but Jung Jessica likes exaggerations - before seeing a man and his toothed sneakers, asking if she’s all right.
That’s about the stupidest question of the night and she hasn’t even been to the station to read the rest of the love letters.
Words at ready, Jessica stands up. “You could’ve beaten your horn to death, you know!”
The man doesn’t say anything at her sharpness, still eyeing her from head to toe. “But you are all right? You didn’t get hurt, right?”
She breathes heavily and in silence, trying to find out the question herself, and then shakes her head.
“Just watch where you’re going next time!”
“You could’ve stayed on the sidewalk next time too,” he suggests, walking away and putting his helmet on again.
He mounts his motorbike and adjusts his mirrors, Jessica reflected there still in disdain.
She’s pressing buttons on her phone so very angrily as if desperate to call the police about the accident, he observes. She catches him watching her so she crosses her arms, glaring.
He wishes he could just race off right away from this but leaving her like that seems harsh enough, which he thinks is not really his character.
“Pathetic,” he mutters when he goes to her side, and Jessica snorts right after. He checks the car himself while it cools, while Jessica cools down. She sits on the curb, still trying to contact anyone, if there is anyone out there other than him.
“Well, you’re in some bad luck,” he tells her.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
4.
He’s starting to hate her immensely.
“Haven’t cleaned the car in years, have you? Or had an expert check it out, maybe for - what, a couple of decades?”
She scowls. “Are you the mechanic they sent or -”
“No, but I used to work with cars when I was a kid so...” he turns now to her, the way she sits so probably tired with her makeup and coat and ponytail and stockings. “On your way home or something?”
Tired, Jessica gets up in lethargy, stretching now. “No, I have to get to work. My shift starts at ten and it’s... less than thirty minutes.”
“How far?” He says, looking in a distant. Jessica stares back at him, in wonder whether luck has changed its course now for her, or if she’s just terribly terribly desperate to get there.
“The radio station? Star Struck Studio? Around ten minutes to fifteen by car, but an hour by foot.”
He shrugs, going to his motor and taking an extra kiddie helmet with flowers on it and rubber straps. He hands it to Jessica not a second later, and she stares in deep horror at the expectation gone wrong.
“Well?” He asks while backing his bike. “Put it on.”
“Don’t you have other helmets? One that can actually protect my skull from any more accidents?”
It’s the first she’s seen him smile or chuckle, and it feels the warmest. Kind of like a kid from kindergarten, the one who’s willing to share his yellow crayon when yours broke while coloring the sun for arts and crafts. That sort of kid, that after awhile with him, Jessica realizes she’s been in safe hands all along.
She wears it, smiling when he turns away and she gets on very slowly, carefully, holding his shoulder for support. He wears his own helmet, still smiling when her reflection again bounces back on his mirrors and makes room for her to move closer.
Jessica holds onto his shirt very tightly as they take off, turning the bend in a flash.
He’s fast.
And her heart as well.
5.
“Jessica, you’re live in fifty seconds! Where have you been?”
“Calm down, Jinki, my car died on me, can you check it out?” She replies, rushing now inside the studio as an S.E.S song approaches the last chorus in the background.
An intro about being the best radio station in Seoul markets in while she prepares quickly. She fixes the headset and nears the mouthpiece, adjusts some more technical input for later because she can’t sound too hyper or even too languid on air.
His clipboard pressed under his pits, Jinki’s hands are up from behind the glass door: 5, 4, 3...
“Coming to you live,” she says softly, as how Kris does it to attract the active listeners, “from your favorite FM radio station, here to bring you the latest and hippest music on the block. You’re tuned in to Dear Love Doctor with me DJ Sica, good evening faithful listeners and welcome to another night of magic and love and whatever else DJ Kris likes to say. We do miss Kris already, don’t we?” She flips through the script, wishing to give Kris some good kicking for leaving her behind with this shit.
6.
“I forgot to thank the motorcyclist guy who drove me here, which... I think I didn’t even get his name. Whoever you are, thank you so much for helping me out. It means a lot, stranger.”
“Lee Donghae,” he responds, fiddling with the unpaired heart earring that was stuck on his jacket. “DJ Sica, it’s Donghae.”
7.
The next morning Jessica wakes up to Krystal’s giggling in the kitchen, the first time she has heard her sister do so since the start of the month. The younger Jung apparently is having cereal now, for what is, she calls as brunch, other arm crossed over the other. What gives Jessica the surprise though, is Krystal happens to have company over.
Jessica knocks now hoping not to interrupt them but of course, she already has.
Krystal’s smile fades while the boy gets off from the high seat and bows his head as Jessica enters.
“Good morning, noona.”
“Sehun! What are you doing here?”
She moves past Krystal and pokes her for a second to stop slouching, and then Jessica heads for the cupboard to get herself her breakfast.
“Well, you see...” he stammers, his lisp tripping him just a tiny bit. “Mom wants me in NYC for the summer but I said I don’t want to. I drove back here from the university just this morning.”
“And you’re going to stay in Seoul, right? For the rest of the summer?”
The boy doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t imply it much either. “Just three weeks, ‘is all. Mom is forcing me to still leave afterwards.”
Sulky, Krystal plays with her candies, and drinks milk and then exits to leave the two to talk, heading to her favorite armrest to watch some Sunday morning cartoons. After the short interview, Sehun immediately disappears to the living room, shuffling his feet towards Krystal now by the couch organizing her M&Ms.
Smiling, Sehun pushes her to the side to make room for him, and eventually Jessica after dishes finds her baby sister on Sehun’s lap, even more comfortable than her own bed while he segregates red M&Ms from blue, yellow from green, brown from orange.
That is then that she herself, even though being the older sister, understands a bit of what love is.
8.
“DJ Sica, I think I’m in love with a stranger,” she continues reading some of the messages while off air, and then turning to Jinki as he enters the room, passing the girl her bottle of water. “Dude, how many messages have I read something like this, come on!”
Jinki peeks at the paper with interest. “It reminded me of something. Just read it.”
She frowns. “She has the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen. She looks so high maintenance and annoying and our first meeting wasn’t quite the best as I had hoped but there was something. I think I really like her but I don’t know if I should go tell her about it. She’s working at the radio station too, so maybe you can help me out. Fighting! Love, Handsome Guy.”
“Well? What do you think?”
“Did you write this, Jinki?”
“Excuse me?”
Jessica chortles. “Please, wasn’t she your first love at the university?”
“I got over her quick,” Jinki answers, Jessica as always unconvinced. “Stop it! And just tell me what advice you’re going to give already because you’re going on air!” When she refuses to say anything after a minute, he scrambles with his things, the pencil, his sketchpad, his phone, and goes out as the red light over the header blinks ‘on air’.
She proceeds now with the letter at hand, reading it aloud to her listeners, a quarter now before midnight, fixing her headset. “Dear Handsome Guy. I want you to think about it. If you really like her and she’s not tied to anyone, then why not go for it? Date her, get to know her, maybe you’ll change your mind at some point but that’s why you’re going to try okay? I hope this helps. Just go walk up to her during her broadcast or something, it’ll surely surprise her!”
Jessica wonders if one day someone will try this on her. She hopes it’s not Jinki. That’ll be the day.
“Our next letter...”
9.
She arrives at work the following night, noticing at once the bouquet of daisies perched on top of her desk. Her eyes are wide as saucers going from it and then at Jinki, who coolly folds his arms while gazing at her, smirking because he knows a secret she is dying to hear.
Jessica picks up the card that comes with the present. It reads, “You told me to just date her and to date you I shall. Meet you at the Oriental tomorrow at 7. Love, Handsome Guy a.k.a Mr. Stranger.”
“Am I really annoying and high-maintenance?”
“He’s not your type though,” Jinki adds.
“What do you know about my type?”
“Don’t come running to me if he breaks your heart, all right?”
Jessica smiles and punches him lightly on the arm, if ever there is some guilty truth behind his words. She hopes there isn’t.
10.
She arrives at the restaurant with an uneasy heart, looking from table to table, trying to picture each guy in her head, in her memory if ever she has seen someone like them, in middle school back in the states, in high school where she has been crowned prom queen, in college with Jinki and the media arts. Nobody rings a single bell.
“Hey!”
Jessica stares and finds the voice right behind her, looking at him up close and recognizing him as the motorcyclist guy, her eyes glistening in sheer interest because for some reason, she has expected this to happen. Maybe just a little bit, but she knows they’ll see each other again. The first meeting can’t possibly the last.
“Oh, it’s you,” she says, shrugging and searching the room. “I’m look for a handsome guy. He sent me a bouquet of flowers at work, you see.”
“Oh,” he replies, taking her with him. “I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”
Jessica laughs. “I’m not, it’s just that it’d be rude to decline such an offer.”
He nods as they sit down together in the table, he hands her the menu while she tries not to be too distracted.
“I’m Lee Donghae by the way.”
“Jung Sooyeon but you can call me Jessica, I mean everybody calls me that long before I can remember and it’s practically my given name since forever and since we went to America where I used to live, you know? I grew up there and just came home after junior high and and -”
He smiles to ease her, and she smiles because it works. His smile. All the damn time.
11.
She’s not exactly a high-schooler anymore; her baby sister’s already in college, her mother’s getting ready for retirement, her dad’s still somewhere in the world signing his best-selling novel.
She’s stuck in Seoul, trying to clean bird poop off the balcony.
And she’s never been really truly in love.
“How did the date go?”
“I didn’t find handsome guy,” Jessica answers nonchalantly, scraping her tiled floor clean when Jinki enters. “Just motorcyclist guy and his wolverine hairstyle. We talked while I waited for handsome guy but he didn’t come. At least motorcyclist guy fed me.”
“He’s a music instructor at some college -”
“He’s name’s Donghae and he told me handsome guy stood up the date -”
“I don’t really believe him to be honest -”
She’s running around now, back and forth, with a bucket of water and a brush, bottle of dishwashing soap - pitiful really but she has her pride to keep, and while he offers help, she replies, “Yeah, I can do this. It’s just shit.”
Jinki watches her and blinks, once, twice, a couple of times, leaning against the glass door and wondering why he has never dated Jessica back in the days.
Maybe it’s because he knows it’s risky to have his heart pound in a manner she will never let hers do in return.
12.
They are unexpectedly getting closer and closer with surreal explanation.
When Jessica happened to drop by the video house to rent some aging DVDs, Donghae is there, apparently spotting something of her favorite. When Jessica made a bank deposit the other day, he on the other hand with his motorbike withdraws some funds.
“I’m gonna report you.”
“For what?” He has that stupid smile again. You must ignore.
“For stalking me,” she walks faster, but he catches up. He always does.
“I am not stalking you,” he denies as fast.
“Then what are you doing here? Skateboarding at the park? Renting the same exact DVD I wanted? ”
He laughs, folds his arms and stares at her while she does the same, impatient. “Can’t we call it fate?”
Jessica rolls her eyes out of disdain, unfriendly and not a second later she steps on his foot as harshly as she does with her breaks, he cringes and loses her again to something uncalled for, something unreturned called curiosity.
Because Jung Jessica isn’t in any way interested in knowing him.
13.
They’re just strangers, both know that.
But sometimes even Jinki overreacts at the smallest changes Jessica’s been showing while she’s at work. She smiles more, that’s for sure, and maybe it’s a contagious one because he catches himself smiling at her in the worst of timings, and she glares back when that happens. He laughs it off, and shakes his head and tells himself he’s not in love with Jung Jessica the ice princess.
Most things are easier to deny, though.
“We have to cancel that movie date on Saturday.”
“Why?”
“We watched it earlier.”
“Wow, aren’t you a sweet girlfriend.” Jinki of course has instincts as a man, and he can tell its Donghae.
“Excuse me I have no interest in...” her voice fades, and then whispers, “Donghae. We hangout as a group, I even brought Yuri. It just so happened that we were in the movies together, and his friend is dating my other friend. It wasn’t planned.”
“And you didn’t call me? I wanted to watch it!”
“Just shut up and tell Krystal to heat up the meat loaf tonight. She’s not answering my calls.”
14.
Donghae runs into her again at the mall, sorting out some jeans and trying them on. He doesn’t like to scare her that much but he sits on the chair closely near where she seemed to be mindlessly strutting about and indeed gives her one of the best shocks.
“Shit, what are you doing here?”
“Shopping?” he chuckles and raises the sweater he bought. She calms down a little, maybe she just went overboard, but her eyebrows are still knitted together in doubt, a little frightened by him.
Jessica looks at the mirror and he’s right there. “Do you think this make me look fat?”
“It does.”
Her mouth hangs wide open, scoffing afterwards. “You’re not supposed to say that to a girl!”
“Weren’t you asking for an opinion?”
They seem to interact more and more, which Jessica just finds awfully entertaining. Donghae runs out of gas so she gives him a lift, drops him off at his apartment after stories from his high school and the job at the university as a substitute teacher later absorbed in. She also finds out he’s older by three years which has things turned upside down.
“Donghae.”
“It’s nice when girls call me oppa.”
“I’m never going to call you, oppa.” She promises, her eyes down on the unfamiliar street.
She knows she will, and he knows that too, if ever they cross paths again, and they both are pretty aware they eventually will.
15.
It has been about three weeks since the very first time and Jessica fussily paces the kitchen here and there, grabbing a bowl for her salad, draining some meat by the sink, cutting them carrots and peeling the potatoes all on her own.
Krystal enters and takes out a carton of milk, plugs everything down to her mouth, bloating her face as Jessica stands behind the fridge’s door with arms crossing.
“It’s eleven and you can’t even manage to wake up earlier?”
“You be a college student then.”
Jessica clicks her tongue. “Yeah, in case you forgot it’s summer that’s why you’re living with me.”
“And in case you forgot, I’m paying back sleepless nights from last semester,” Krystal answers, leaving her sister to attend to her meat.
“I called Sehun to have lunch with us today.”
She glares back at Jessica. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Problem?”
“I don’t, but he has,” Krystal replies, turning away. “He answers your calls and ignores mine.”
“Aren’t you two gonna celebrate your 1000th day today? And isn’t he going to leave for New York tomorrow? Why are you always harsh on Sehun? The boy’s doing his best -”
Krystal squishes the milk box, throws it to the trash bin quite unkindly before again leaving Jessica to work her ass off by herself. Neither one speaks right after.
16.
“You’re here,” she says, opening the door wider.
“A little late because Hyukjae’s printer jammed and the poor guy won’t let me leave,” he says a little embarrassed, entering and noticing Krystal by the couch. Jessica calls her sister, who at first is reluctant in getting up, but eventually does when Donghae comes over and reaches for a handshake.
“This is my little sister Krystal,” she says.
Donghae bobs his head. “She’s my student at the university. You’re in journalism, right?”
Krystal, who is as wide-eyed because this happens to be unmentioned earlier, looks at Jessica in question, wondering if this will turn out to be one of those double-date scenes that her older sister can’t picture out quite well without Krystal’s help. And has lured the youngest to her plan by calling Sehun over, just to make it look like those chick flicks. Genius.
“Small world,” Krystal tries to smile when they shook hands. She curses inwardly.
The doorbell rings and it’s Sehun with a pink teddy bear half his size.
17.
That same night after work, Jessica finds Krystal on the couch, hugging a throw pillow; half-sobbing, half-asleep while the TV ran a SpongeBob episode, Soojung’s phone so close to her heart.
She doesn’t speak when her older sister approaches worriedly, not a simple hi, or bitch where’s my milk or something Krystal will usually say.
She stares blankly, infinitely.
“What happened?”
Krystal closes her eyes to lock back the tears, and for five minutes, she holds back an answer that obviously was at the tip of her tongue. She gets up suddenly; Jessica pulling her hand at once.
“Did you and Sehun fight again? I thought I told you to be nicer. Remember your first? With that Jongin, was it? Boys appreciate it when girls show how much -”
She snaps her hand back, cradles it while her face stays stoic, corner of her eyes glittered with the pain, noticeable even through the mere television’s light.
“Just because you can give advices to other people about their fucked up relationships, doesn’t mean you can nag me in mine. I never asked for them.”
18.
“She said that?”
He passes the milkshake, looking at her in full concern while Jessica sips to calm her nerves. It’s the following week, school’s gonna start soon, her bond with her sister isn’t any better either.
“I tried but she’s…”
“She just doesn’t like it when you’re trying to be your mom, I guess.”
Jessica shrugs. “But that’s just it, I’m not trying to be mom. I’m trying to be her sister but ever since high school, she’s been distancing herself I mean I’m used to it, then again I’m not because we’re sisters we always talk to each other about these things.”
“Maybe she just likes Sehun a lot,” Donghae answers. “That’s why she’s bottling up things. You know how teenagers are.”
But Jessica doesn’t. She thinks she time-skipped that stage of her life when hormones run amok, when you desperately want to be appreciated, when you never had a clue about what it’d be ten years later. She wonders if she’s gotten amnesia or some sort of memory eraser; she can’t remember a single thing about any of those.
Ages 13 to 19 were very very swift years.
Jessica simply nods. “I like Sehun for her too. They’ve been best friends since forever.”
“But maybe that’s why they’re fighting a lot because they’re not ideally meant to be together? You get what I’m saying?”
“What does ideally-meant-to-be-together mean? In what context?”
Donghae sighs and smiles. “And you’re the love doctor.”
She kicks him under the table, hitting his knee and he makes such a face. “Come on, tell me.”
“Let’s take you and me for example,” Donghae begins, their heads nearing each other, the strawberry drink being the only wall.
“If you and I were together, we’d be an ideal couple. I mean, I’d be the hot professor, your inspiration when you give love advices, while you’re the pretty DJ who works overnight in some radio station. It’s the perfect, ideal love story. I mean we met by accident - literally - for crying out loud! How’s that for fate?”
She squints and thinks about it hard, moving away when he finishes. After a minute, she calls him closer again with her finger and whispers, “If you were flirting with me just now, I’m gonna tell you it didn’t work.”
Laughing, he shakes his head and busies himself with other things, a little red.
“So this is rejection.”
“Aish!” She stands up and messes his hair before leaving. She catches on pretty good, Donghae decides.
19.
“Dear Love Doctor, what do you do when you’re in a state of transit? Like, you’re more than friends but not yet a real couple? But you do feel like you are, it’s just that you don’t want the official recognition as one because maybe you’re scared? You’re afraid to get hurt when it all ends? Or something? Please help me! Love, First Timer”
Jinki just happens to pick out probably the best letters for broadcasting, and she sighs wearily before she gives her answer as honestly and as whole-heartedly as she can, as if it is her own.
She remembers Donghae, then pushes him at the back of her mind. Not now, you idiot.
“Take some time to understand what you two really feel about getting into that level of relationship,” Jessica explains. “The advantage of being boyfriend-girlfriend is, in my understanding, you have a more right. You have a right to cry when he leaves, a right to scream at him, a right to get jealous. That sort of stuff you can’t really give justice to something in transit. The disadvantage on the other hand is this level is risky, but if you love them, why not?”
“There’s nothing wrong with staying with what you have now,” Jessica rebuts her own stand, picturing the first time she and Donghae held hands. “If you’re happy, then why be committed? Advantage: you’re free to flirt, you don’t have to reply to everything he texts, you can get even without hurting one another. Something like that…”
She searches Jinki from the other side of the glass window but he isn’t where he usually sits. He must be off to get coffee or something, because the night’s growing colder by the second.
“But this type of relationship will hurt, because you’re playing with what you feel.”
20.
Ever since then she hasn’t urged herself to talk to him, call him, text him - any interaction detained for some reflection time Jessica really hasn’t mind for the past weeks. School’s just around the corner, so Krystal’s bound for leaving in a few days and Jessica too might never see Donghae again because of it.
But isn’t it what she wants? That is, until she sorts out everything she feels?
Not exactly, her phone, vibrating for the nth time, begs to differ. She doesn’t pick up. No matter what as long as it’s him, she doesn’t.
She doesn’t have the will to.
But one day, after vacuuming the living room clean of floor popcorn Krystal chucked, Donghae finally leaves her with a statement shaming her understanding about how love can be defined by fucked up destiny and princely bank accounts.
“Do you like me Jung Jessica?”
Jessica flips the phone open and types, “No, I don’t Lee Donghae,” and throws it down the bin along with the rest of its crude kind. She remembers exactly now why she skipped being an adolescent.
21.
DJ Onew, looking bothered than usual, enters the room. “I’ve been getting messages from that Donghae.”
“Burn them.”
“Did something happen?” Jinki automatically wonders, sitting next to her as she adjusts her system for her segment. “Did you guys break up? Did he break your heart? I told you to be careful of him! I told you, didn’t I?”
“We weren’t even together, silly!” She shakes her head with a pensive smile. “Besides, he didn’t break my heart. I broke his first.”
She doesn’t know what she wants, she simply doesn’t but after a while of lying inside her head, she’s maybe to the point of accepting that it was best to have broken it apart before it got worst (Kris taught her that, too).
22.
She flops barely conscious on Krystal’s bed after drinking at a nearby bar and she reeks and stinks of alcohol it stirs the younger Jung awake. When she gets home, it’s almost sunrise, and she’s crying, half-cursing. It also happens to be the first day of school. Krystal gets up immediately, a weakness for murdering a blood relative if only it weren’t illegal but later on understands when the older girl calls on his name.
“Geez, why’d you even break up with him if he’s that important?”
Jessica mourns. “Because I didn’t want to get hurt. It felt like we were going in circles and I mean… I just want to be with someone I love and with someone who loves me and would it be wrong if I dreamed too big for us ‘cause -”
“Then why’d you let him go? You’re the stupidest person… ugh you’re such an idiot! Now get out and make me breakfast!”
23.
6:00 am, Monday - First day of school.
It’s finally goodbye to Krystal, goodbye to the undeniable pain in the butt. It’s also a goodbye to Donghae, because he has work on outskirts of the neighbour town, where he also rented an apartment he once told her about.
“Drive me to the college?” Krystal asks her, and indolently Jessica agrees. She knows Donghae hasn’t left yet then, because he isn’t an early bird and he just admits it. She laughs at the thought, remembers their first kiss, and then promptly turns to Krystal again.
“Can’t I just sit and you drive? I want to sleep.”
Krystal tsks and gets into the driver’s seat when her sister passes on the keys. After packing two of her roller bags, they finally leave Seoul.
24.
“You know, the other station also gives advices on relationships. But their time slot is in the morning, like now,” Krystal starts the conversation, but Jessica’s stubborn, partially listening to what she’s saying.
“What about it?”
Krystal finally sees the university gates, some students in their uniform walking now to school with their bags right behind them. It makes her smile as she turns on the radio and watches the magic catch the girl’s eyes.
“I’m sending this letter to a girl named Jung Jessica,” breathes the DJ just in time. “Isn’t she the one who handles… what was it? Dear Love Doctor on the other side?”
Jessica, wide-awake, groans. “This girl’s actually Jinki’s first love, you know. Such an annoying bitch, if you ask me.”
Krystal keeps quiet, parking as they listen. “To Jung Jessica, if you’re listening, I’ve got this confession to make. You suck wearing heels and you can’t cook to save your life…”
Krystal laughs, clapping her hands while her sister glares at her. “What? It’s true.”
“You’re really annoying and high-maintenance and I can’t keep up with a wallet of a newly hired instructor. I mean, you’re sweet and adorable and I think I’m in love with you still, so if you’re listening, please understand. And just tell me why we can’t be together when you know exactly we were meant to be from the start, after I nearly killed you. Signed, Babo Bada.”
“Babo Bada’s Donghae, right?” Jessica asks slowly, unable to believe her ears.
Krystal points with her lips and honks with her horn, while Jessica turns around to see, just walking up the curve of the parking lot, is the man she still hasn’t been sure of until this morning. That exact feeling of having to flip a coin, and hoping it’s side heads because side heads means she’s really in love but screw this stupid method of tossing coins, she knows she is anyway.
“You’re mumbling again,” he peeks by the window and she’s just staring.
And then he smiles, the same one she has missed. So she smiles back, and then a conversation between their eyes starts, something they share and only they understand.
“You’re really pathetic, Jung Jessica.”
“Please,” she drops a kiss on his lips, to last him the day. “Call me Sooyeon.”
((25.
Krystal’s already out of the car before things got mushy, and at the rear end leans Sehun with her bags, looking at his shoes when she nears him.
“You look miserable, Sehun,” she lets him take her bags, like how it always is, and he closes the distance between them, little by little, and eventually displacing an arm over her shoulder. She locks her hand around his waist.
They walk into the campus for their third year in college, and for their third year as a couple.))