Friday Fix

♚ | twelve

“LET me stay.”

Jungkook flipped a coin, the metal glinting in the air. “Give me a good reason to.”

I opened my mouth, only to falter. What could I say? What could I say when we both knew clear as day that we hated each other’s guts, a fact that neither of us had bothered to hide since the first day we had discovered we were each other’s roommates?

What could I say, after the utterly humiliating spectacle Jungkook had made of me?

After dropping that line in the bathroom, I’d turned white, while his smirk had only grow wider. Just like that he stepped away from me, his face turning as cold as the marble floor beneath my feet. His eyes trawled the length of me with a clear look of derision, and I knew in that moment what he had done – he’d make me a hot, squirming, embarrassed mess, while he was cool as a cucumber and had the clear upper hand.

He dropped the necklace in the basin of the sink and I watched it clatter. Through the reflection of the mirror I could see myself and it was mortifying; my face was flushed red, my hair dishevelled from Jungkook’s touch, my breathing hard and fast as the result of his skills. I’d succumbed, letting my guard down, while all along from the beginning since I walked into the room he had been playing me.

The blow it dealt to my pride hurt. Worst of it all was that I had actually enjoyed it.

Kisses on skin, and breath against ear . . .

Now we were sitting down, and every inch of me refused to scrape and plead at his feet, while every inch of me knew that I must. I must, if I wanted to stay.

But what could I say?

“I don’t like you,” he said pointedly. “And you don’t like me. Though after that little bathroom encounter of ours I’m not quite sure, hmm?”

My face flamed in equal parts anger and shame. I had been right. The boy did not know how to be nice.

He will not let me stay, I realized with despair.

“And I’ve been dying to kick you out of the room since you first came,” he continued. “You know that. I know that. So why should I let you stay?”

My fingers trembled. My words shook. “I – I worked really hard to come here – ”

He cut me off with a bark of laughter. “Please. Everyone works hard to come here. It’s one of Korea’s most famous dance schools; everyone who enters its grounds has worked their asses off for it. The only difference between them and you is that they entered legally. Without breaking the rules.”

“My father – ”

“I don’t give a f**k about your daddy issues,” he snarled, eyes suddenly flashing. “I don’t give a f**k about why and how you came here. All I know is you’re no boy, and that means you don’t belong here. I want you f*****g out.”

“I can’t,” I whispered, feeling the tears well up. Don’t you dare cry, Lee Haneul! Not in front of him! “I can’t go. I can’t. I have to stay, I – I have to dance. Dance is the only thing I’ve ever loved.”

If I thought a rousing speech about passion would move Jungkook’s stone heart, I was sadly mistaken. The look he gave me told me I was about to bore him to death, and when he stood up as if going somewhere – the dean’s office, maybe – my heart wrenched in panic and I cried out, desperation in my voice,

“Anything! I – I’ll do anything – reasonable – for you, if you let me stay. Anything you want. Anything that I can give. I’ll give it.”

The look he gave me was something one might give to the chewing gum at the bottom of one’s shoe.

“But baby girl,” he said mockingly, “I already have everything’s that worth having. What more can you possibly give me that I don’t have?”

It became painfully clear I didn’t have the answer. His face locked onto an ugly sneer, and I could hear the vindictive triumph in his voice as he said,

“You’re done for, Lee Haneul. Either get the f**k out by tomorrow – or get the f**k out when the whole school knows.”

Jungkook sauntered out, and as the door closed behind him the first of my tears slid down my cheeks.

♚

“You want to come home?” A suspicious edge crept into Ha Yul’s voice, and I didn’t blame him; after all the fuss I’d made about entering dance school, here I was suddenly quitting.

But what choice did I have? My secret had been found out, and not only that it had been found out by the worst person possible to find it out in the academy.

I stood in my room, hugging myself, suddenly feeling as if everything was alien. There was a hollow throbbing in my chest, and it ached.

“Yea,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t gave away the fact that I had been crying for the past half hour. “I just – I don’t think it’s working out for me.”

“What do you mean? What’s not working out?”

“The environment. The pretending. My roommate.” The last word grounded out through my teeth but it lacked its usual venom somehow. It was as if I didn’t even have the strength to properly summon up dislike and detest anymore.

“Haneul.” My brother’s voice turned soft and somehow it just made everything worse. “What’s wrong? Tell me. I thought you loved it there.”

I do. I still did, I realized. These past weeks, despite all the frustrations and the physical exhaustion, had been among the best weeks of my life. I was doing what I loved. I had friends. I might even have a crush. But it didn’t matter now, did it?

Because Ahn Jungkook had caught me. He’d caught onto my secret, and he could and would expose it to the world within a heartbeat.

“Haneul?”

“Just come and get me, Ha Yul,” I said, and I hated how my voice cracked. “Just come and get me. Please.”

A pause. “Okay. Okay, I’ll come and get you. When?”

“Tomorrow morning. Now would also do. As soon as you can,” I whispered. “Just get me out of here.”

♚

I woke up at 10 in the morning with the beginnings of a headache and muted pain thudding in my chest. It took a moment for me to register that the pain came from disappointment and dejection, rather than any serious bodily malady. Lucky me, I thought bitterly.

Jungkook didn’t speak as I got up and about, and for a moment I thought he would leave me alone.

I should have known better.

“When are you leaving?” he asked, curt.

I looked at his back, clad in a white shirt. “Can’t I . . . can’t I stay till the end of the week, at least?”

His head turned sideways a little and I could see his lip curl. “You want me to wait two more days till you’re out? f**k no.”

I turned back to packing my bag, furious at him, hurt at his tone, and furious at the fact I was hurt. Why should I let a bastard’s opinion affect me so much? Why?

“Ha Yul is coming in the afternoon,” I managed to choke out. “That’s the earliest he can do, he’s got work.”

“Not early enough,” I heard him mutter.

And that was it. That was the last straw. I snapped, whirling around and screaming,

“I get it, okay? I f*****g get it! You found me out, now you want me out, and I’m going, okay? I’m f*****g going! Do you have to rub my face into it while you’re at it?”

The tears came quick as how tears are wont to do in this situation; I had always been the type of girl who cried when they got mad.

“I’m not giving you trouble, am I? I’m not even pleading – Lord knows I would never beg someone like you for mercy. I would never ask you for a little bit of kindness, for sympathy, because you don’t know, do you? You, the rich fuckboy who’s had whatever he wanted with a freaking snap of his fingers, who’s never had to work for anything – you don’t know, do you?”

My chest rose and fell and I felt stupid, so stupid for crying when I’d told myself I would never allow him that satisfaction. But it was too late now, the dam had broken on both my grief and resentment, and everything was gushing out.

“All I wanted to do was dance. And it seems that all life wanted to do was to stop me from doing it. I tried and I tried and I kept trying and never gave up because I believed. The whole perseverance is the key to success s**t, I believed.” I let out an almost hysterical laugh. “Bet my father’s thinking just where in hell did he f**k up to get a daughter who’s into gyrating in skimpy clothes while he’s got four sons with sensible jobs.”

My breathing grew jagged. Jungkook had not turned around to look at me but I knew he heard every word I was saying.

“And as for me disliking you – how the hell could I not? Our first meeting you told me to get the f**k out, even when I had done absolutely nothing wrong. You don’t clean up after yourself, choosing instead to perfume our whole room with Eau de Leftovers, and you don’t respect a single one of my boundaries. You f****d someone on my bed. Have I ever even touched your bed, Jungkook, after you made it clear it was yours? I think the f**k not.”

My voice grew harsher, spiking my words in cut glass. “You’re not just a fuckboy, you’re a complete motherfucker, and if putting up with you wasn’t proof enough just how much I loved dancing, then I don’t know what else will.”

Grabbing my purse and phone I slammed the door on my way out.

♚

It wasn’t even winter, but the wind felt cold against my cheek. The tears had dried out, leaving streaks behind, streaks I didn’t even tried to wipe away. What’s the point? That was the question that kept ringing in my head. What’s the point?

The pavement was crowded with people waiting to cross the street, and I waited with them. Opposite, a large screen on the side of a building was displaying a kpop group’s latest comeback, and I watched.

Watched how agile their feet moved. Watched the way their colourful jackets bounced with every shake of the shoulders. Watched the way they grinned with every wink.

Most of all, I watched them dance.

I knew if I go back now, my father would hold onto me with a steel grip that would never relax. And I would not be able to return to dancing ever again.

Could I do that? Could I let go? Give up everything – just like that?

My phone rang and I picked it up, fingers stumbling and clumsy. My voice didn’t sound like mine, not today. “Hello?”

“Tell me what’s wrong, kid.” There was no prodding in Haru’s tone, just a gentle question.

My eyes overflowed immediately. The pedestrian light turned green and the people walked but I stood where I was, saying nothing, doing nothing. Finally,

“Everything’s done for, oppa,” I sobbed. “Everything.”

“Tell me.”

And so, between gulps and gasps, I told him everything. Everything I had been through, everything I had done, from beginning to the end.

Everything about Ahn Jungkook.

♚

Jungkook slammed down his mouse in irritation as on his laptop screen the words “Defeat!” loomed large and ominous, as if mocking him. The game music started playing and for some reason the melody he had looked forward to every day was now irking him.

“Shut up,” he muttered to no one in particular, taking off his headphones.

As he took a sip of his water, there came three sharp raps on the door.

Jungkook frowned. Haneul had left earlier, and even if this was him – her – there was no need for her to knock. She had the key after all.

The knocks came again, harder as if impatient. Frown deepening, Jungkook got up and opened the door.

The first thing he saw was three men. Tall, taller than him, and all dressed impeccably in different variations of the suit. The second thing he noticed was that the man directly in front of him was wearing a beige beanie over tousled hair.

“My my, you’re better looking than I expected,” Lee Hyeong-gon remarked, a devilish smile playing on his lips.

❈

Team Jungkook or Team Lee Brothers?

Yours in seduction,

Lady Godiva.