CHAPTER NINETEEN
( Baby, You're No Good For Me )

HEARTBEATS TELL A story. Just like the unyielding rhythm steadily thumping through one's chest, rushing through the bloodstream, and aching a shock of life to a body, it tells a story.

Jaehwa thinks that perhaps hers is of a stagnant state, never truly heard through the enactment of a false being residing in her carcass of a soul.

( It is unbearably still, a dull tha-thump that rings through the silent air every few minutes. A reminder that she is there but certainly not alive ).

She sits awake, listening to the empty melody through her ears, feeling the cold envelop her senses and dig deeper into her pillow, as though her heart is lying there, allowing itself to be heard.

Tha-thump. Silence. Tha-thump. Silence.

A never-ending struggle between the creeping chill of a worn body and its still bleeding warmth, a tug of war between life and death.

Jaehwa rattles out a hollow breath, frowning through the flutter of her eyelids even beneath the permeating dark abyss.

Sleep does not beckon in the way it has so vehemently done before, yearning to hold Jaehwa in a fetal position as her heartbeat settles into a faint reconnection to its deadened state. She cannot sleep.

The blankets and thick duvets that shroud her shivering body feel like thin sheets of straw and paper against her frame, little warmth exuding from their shields.

Jaehwa turns her body to the other side in an attempt to reposition herself comfortably, ignoring the jutting ache in her hip bones as they drag against her mattress only to settle and sink back into place when she puts her knees close to her chest.

Still, sleep does not come.

The young girl opens her eyes with a dull fury, twisting her brow heavily against her smothered skin and messy hair. She brings up a clammy palm to scratch the back of her neck, smoothing out the jumble of old stitches still left. Half of the zigzag pattern has dissolved over the months, leaving behind a razor-thin line that crawls up Jaehwa's neck like a tiny centipede.

The bitter song of the nightingales outside Jaehwa's bedroom window sings softly, a melody once useful for lulling her to sleep, now deterring the act.

She wonders whether she is the only soul awake at that very moment, because she feels so very alone in the growing silence.

Soft muffled snores ring in her ears just after the thoughts come to her mind, and Jaehwa knows that her father is just a thin wall away, peacefully dreaming, alive. She knows her mother is right by his side, using his large frame as her own personal heater.

The thought elicits a small smile from her lips. She turns once more, this time facing the wall. Her fingers grace the thin wallpaper gently.

Jaehwa's eyes flutter shut, and she dreams of being enveloped by her parents' love and warmth, and her body begins to leave behind the biting cold in exchange for sweet warmth.

Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

Cha Jaehwa knows for a fact that no matter what, she is alive.

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MUCH LIKE THE boy himself, Oh Beomseok's house is unsettling. It's a gut feeling that ripples through Jaehwa's bones as her hand finds Ahn Suho's amidst their stupid decision.

He looks at her through the corner of his eyes, acknowledging her touch with a reciprocated squeeze of his own rough palms. From beside them, Yeon Si-eun looks straight ahead at the doorbell.

"Why'd you bring me along?" Jaehwa mutters as they wait for entry, or even confirmation that Beomseok really is home, half-glaring at the tallest of the three.

Ahn Suho thinks for a moment — Or he pretends to, anyway. The boy has never been good at things that required more than a minute of his concentration — And shrugs.

"Because you're his friend, too." He says simply. Jaehwa doesn't have the heart to confess she's never thought much of the boy, particularly because they are too similar in all the ways that she dislikes.

"Right." She sighs, letting go of the boy's hand. He seems to sag after that, sneaking glimpses at Jaehwa's arms as though she plans on reaching out for him again.

( He's too bright, Jaehwa thinks. If she gets too close, she might just get burned ).

Suho finally presses the doorbell, and everyone goes silent, watching, waiting.

The door opens slowly, as though the person behind it carries himself with lethargy and heavy burdens. Oh Beomseok lifts his gaze from the floor to his guests, and his glasses slip lower down his nose at the sight of his three friends.

( He counts Jaehwa simply because she seems to be a leech that latches onto all he wishes to claim for himself ).

"What are you doing here?" He asks, voice thick and almost quietly afraid, as though his address is some big secret meant to stay hidden.

Ahn Suho clicks his tongue in disapproval. "Why is your phone turned off all the time?"

A thin silence spreads between them. Beomseok clears his throat, a habit Jaehwa is beginning to realize has more to do with him being flustered than anything else.

"I didn't know." He says simply. "Come in."

Ahn Suho begins his barrage of questions, removing his shoes quickly as he inspects the pristine house.

"Why didn't you come to school?" He ponders, peeking into the living room. "Your house is fancy as hell."

Jaehwa looks out of place beside the white uniforms, wearing some old jeans and a black sweater. Beomseok seems to notice as well, his sharp eyes snagging on her different appearance.

"I didn't feel good." Beomseok dismisses, then asks, "Did you guys come here straight after school?"

Suho shakes his head. "Nah, me and Si-eun picked up Jaehwa after doing a bit of training first."

The bespectacled boy's teeth grind together silently. Once again, he is always one step behind her, no matter what. He hates it.

The girl says nothing, only slips into a pair of indoor slippers before trailing behind Si-eun, the only one who stays silent amidst everything.

"No wonder you're so thin," Suho's voice echoes from the hallway. "You probably lose all that weight after walking around this giant ass house."

Jaehwa shares a look with Yeon Si-eun, whose eyebrows crumple slightly in annoyance. As endearing as Ahn Suho is, he can be unbearably annoying.

"Are you feeling really bad?" Si-eun steps closer to Beomseok, trying to keep his voice level enough so that only the two of them can hear. Jaehwa pretends that she is out of earshot, when in reality their conversation is all that echoes in her head.

The taller of the two boys thinks for a moment before settling with a half-lie. "Not anymore."

Jaehwa blinks, and Ahn Suho is now halfway across the room, staring fixedly at a framed family portrait in the hall.

"Wow," He says with an air of curiosity only idiotic boys like himself still hold dear to their hearts, "Your mom is beautiful."

"Your family looks so happy in this picture." He adds mindlessly, and honestly, Jaehwa wishes she didn't love the boy as much as she does, if not to smack him upside the head to get him to shut up.

"And you guys all look alike."

Beomseok turns to stare at the frame Suho points at, a heavy emotion — Something not quite sinister yet not anything else — Swimming in his hardened gaze.

"They're not my family," Beomseok utters. "My father publicly adopted me when he entered into politics. To improve his image."

Jaehwa frowns. The more she learns, the worse the ache in her chest grows. She should know better than to pity Oh Beomseok, but they are made of the same cloth, and Cha Jaehwa has long learned how to be sympathetic to her own faults.

The silence stretches thinly throughout the cold house, and Jaehwa tucks away her brittle fingers into the warmth of her sweater. Once more, Beomseok clears his throat, the haunting sound echoing through the otherwise empty house.

"Want something to drink?"

He's gone before anyone has the chance to say a word, and Ahn Suho joins Jaehwa and Si-eun with a puzzled expression. Jaehwa slaps his arm as quietly as she can, giving her best friend a withering glare.

"Ow!" He winces in an angry whisper as her palm makes contact with his arm. "What the hell was that for?"

"Read the room." She mutters, and Suho feels as though as the days pass, Jaehwa becomes more of the blunt, annoyingly sarcastic girl he had known eons ago.

The three take a seat on the couch, Jaehwa taking the middle seat purely for her own selfish reasons. She feels more comfortable in a foreign house when she sits between her two friends. Their warmth eases her icy Winter temperature into something more mellow.

Oh Beomseok returns carrying a tray of four glasses filled with orange juice. He places it on the small glass coffee table with a soft clatter, and hands each person a glass.

Surprisingly, Yeon Si-eun is the first to speak up. His eyes glitter with a melancholy only a lonely child can have, gemstones of amber dust and chocolate shavings.

"Is something wrong?" He says the words softly, as though they are sharp knives that he wields but does not want to use.

Beomseok looks surprised. He stutters out a small "No", but Ahn Suho is quick to call him out on his obvious lie.

"Yah. Stop lying. What is it?" He asks, leaning closer to the bespectacled teen. "Tell me."

Beomseok takes his bottom lip between his teeth, pulling the appendage harshly as his mind whirls a thousand miles an hour.

"Is it because of those guys at the karaoke last time?" Si-eun's gaze pierces into Beomseok's cowardly heart, and he knows that even if he lies, Yeon Si-eun already knows the truth.

But as always, Ahn Suho is oblivious to everything.

"Karaoke? What karaoke?" He looks between the two boys, searching for an answer in their dark eyes.

Jaehwa's narrowed eyes are enough to get his mouth to pinch shut.

Beomseok takes a deep breath, as though to wind himself up for a long, troublesome explanation.

"I was bullied at my old school." He confesses bitterly, eyes trained on the white tile floor.

The boy shrinks into himself. He looks smaller, like a younger, scrawnier version of his already thin self. Jaehwa stares at the sight without saying a word, her eyes sharp and her ears wide open.

"I had to go to the hospital many times," Beomseok draws a sharp, shuddering breath. "Because of them."

"That's why I moved schools. After running into them at the karaoke, they keep calling me, asking me to meet them."

Si-eun presses his lips into a thin line, his sad eyes falling onto his friend's shaking form.

"That's awful." Suho spits in anger. "Why'd those scumbags do that to you? What did you do wrong?"

His words seem to chill the already freezing air. Jaehwa feels an invisible hand clamp around her heart painfully.

The answer will always be Nothing. He has done nothing wrong, and yet . . .

"That's just what they do." Beomseok's voice grows higher. Suho's words seem to trigger a breaking and crumbling mind waiting to be unleashed. "Bullying one kid to get closer to one another and to raise their own status."

And Jaehwa finally understands why Oh Beomseok is the way he is.

( He simply has been made that way by the world's cruel and unrelenting hand ).

"I didn't do anything wrong." Beomseok cries. "I just went about my life."

Yeon Si-eun nods. "It's okay, Beomseok."

He stares at his friend for a moment. "You didn't do anything wrong."

And Oh Beomseok finally allows himself to break under their eyes. His skin finally loosens, and Cha Jaehwa catches a glimpse of the beaten little boy hidden behind all that anger and jealousy.

( If she had helped him since the beginning, would his fate have changed? Would their fate have changed? )

Ahn Suho grits his teeth. "Call those scumbags."

His eyes blaze with fury, and Jaehwa knows that there is nothing anyone can say to stop him from doing what he is about to do.

She prays he knows the ravaging emotions beneath Oh Beomseok's heart, and that one wrong move will shatter him into a million glass pieces.

Cha Jaehwa knows better than anyone how sharp those shards can be.

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THE AMNESIAC VOTES out of their ploy for revenge, feeling as though her presence contributes a near nothing when it comes to satiating Oh Beomseok's brimming rage.

She waits just outside the karaoke room, and if she were to strain her ears, the girl might be able to hear the sound of yells and laughter beneath the pounding noise.

Jaehwa pulls herself together on the elevated sidewalk, picking up all her doubts and stuffing them in her pockets for later. She has always known that Ahn Suho and Yeon Si-eun occupy a different world from her, a different planetary system where Cha Jaehwa is nothing more than a mere spectator.

They talk through their fists when words are no longer enough, leaving behind angry yells and disapproval in the form of black and blue bruises and red blood that steadily drips down small cuts on their opponents' faces.

Jaehwa doesn't understand their reason to do so, but she has long accepted that when it comes to those two, she lets more slide in terms of morals than acknowledge it.

If they don't tell her, it must mean they don't want her to know. She doesn't want to know anyway. Just the thought of seeing either boy in danger sends shivers down Jaehwa's bony back, a needle-like feeling that takes over her body with fear and doubt.

Cha Jaehwa does not resent Oh Beomseok. She feels for him, from the pits of her rotten heart. All he needs is to learn how to move on, to wretch his hands from their need to tighten around necks and break windpipes to steal the laughter that once mocked him.

It is a foreign emotion, feeling sympathy for the boy. She dislikes him, dislikes the feeling, too. But it sits in her stomach, acidic and ravenous, clawing its way out through her mouth and overtaking her being.

A small exhale leaves her shaky lips, and Jaehwa peers down at her feet. She doesn't want to be here anymore. It's cold, and empty, and so familiar.

"You're coming to my match, right?"

She blinks. The memory resurfaces thinly, coating her brain in fluff, but the sentiment still sends her heart racing. It is always something terrifying, when she remembers small fragments of details that she hadn't known before.

( Will she hate who she was before, or will she mourn her old self? )

A migraine splits Jaehwa's head in two, the way it does when she has spent all day not caring for her own body, not putting anything in it for the simple reason of forgetfulness. Her stomach rumbles.

Jaehwa sighs again. Nothing more comes to her mind, no matter how hard she strains. The attempt is futile.

She pulls her sweater closer to her body with a shiver. The night air has grown colder. If Ahn Suho hadn't begged her parents for permission to spend the day with her, Cha Jaehwa would've been on her way home now, phone filled with calls from either Cha Si-woo or Moon Boram.

The girl lifts herself from the small elevated piece of sidewalk with more effort than it should've taken, and looks at the karaoke building. After a few short seconds, she walks in, scanning the rooms in search of her three friends.

The sight that greets her isn't pretty. Ahn Suho has Oh Beomseok cornered, his hands gripping the taller boy's uniform in a crumpled heap. Yeon Si-eun desperately tries to pull them apart, but the looks in their eyes are feral.

Jaehwa feels dread sink into her body like sediments, and she knows that the worst has come to pass. Ahn Suho did not do what Oh Beomseok wanted him to, he did not satisfy his hunger for revenge.

( That, among the many mistakes they had made when it came to Oh Beomseok, would be Ahn Suho's downfall ).

Beomseok searches for something in Suho's eyes, perhaps an invitation for forgiveness. Not one that he should use, but one that comes out of the prideful Ahn Suho's. Beomseok wants an apology from Suho, the boy he admires and craves to be close to. The boy who simply does not understand him.

"Damn it." He grits out, smacking away Ahn Suho's arm.

He passes Jaehwa, and he glares at her, as though her presence is the reason for this mess. She doesn't blame him as much as she should. Instead, she watches him go with a small frown before turning to those that are left.

And suddenly, they are no longer four, they are reverted to three.

( Jaehwa hates that losing a friend doesn't make her feel as upset as it should ).

"What happened?" She asks, and it is her voice that alerts Si-eun and Suho of her presence.

The music is too loud, too disorienting. Jaehwa decides she doesn't like karaoke anymore.

"Nothing," Suho says through gritted teeth, still glaring at the spot where Beomseok had previously stood.

"Ahn Suho," Jaehwa repeats. "Stop glaring at the wall and tell me what happened."

In a short exposure of her true emotions, her eyes soften and she takes a step closer. "I hate being left in the dark."

Suho's glare falters. He turns to finally look at Jaehwa and lets out a small breath.

"It's nothing. Just an argument between friends." He says simply.

Jaehwa purses her lips, but knowing she will get nothing else from the boy, doesn't ask any more questions.

"I'll go get Beomseok." Si-eun mutters, just loud enough to be heard over the muffled music, and squirms away from them quickly.

He never likes how brightly their eyes shine when they look at each other, but he knows better than to be upset by it.

Jaehwa does not bid him goodbye, because Yeon Si-eun always comes back when he says he will.

"I was just trying to help." Ahn Suho says through gritted teeth. "That ungrateful bastard. . ."

"Suho," Jaehwa begins. "He just faced his bullies. It's normal to be upset."

The boy stares at the floor silently.

"Quit moping and let's go find Beomseok. We can go watch a movie or something before going home."

Jaehwa offers the boy her clammy hand. Ahn Suho takes it as though it is second nature, a frown still on his face. Nonetheless, he squeezes her hand, and their temperatures even out from their conjoined fingers.

Jaehwa smiles up at the boy. He finally smiles back.

"Okay." He agrees finally. "Let's go."

‎‎( They never find Oh Beomseok. And they never end up watching that movie, either ).

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‎ ✧ AUTHOR'S NOTE !

finally back in the groove who cheered !!!!!

little to no interactions except for at the end but honestly i think i needed to write this chapter because now i finally have a better grasp on all the character's and their personalities so im not even mad !

wanted to make this chapter a little longer butttt the ep ended off with bum joining the bullies and since none of the other main characters were there, i decided to just end it off w a little ominous foreshadowing mwahahaha 😇 also this chap almost reached 4k words so im not too upset over the content since i got to analyze all my characters

still iffy on who i want jaehwa to end up with since both sieun and suho are the cutest ever and i love them both sm (and so does jaehwa) .... my writing keeps leaning more towards the childhood friends to lovers trope but my heart keeps wanting angsty cuties who learn they are worthy of love, aka sieun and jaehwa buttt idk what's gonna be endgame and the longer i prolong it the more chance that she's gonna end up with neither of them and i honestly dont want that 😣

i love jaehwa and i love analyzing bum's character sue me ☹️ there's something so interesting about him that i can't help but understand and want to know more about !! no doubt he ends up being a bad person, but i like showing the buildup of what led to that so yeah

next chapter is the start of ep 6 which is basically a school-centered chap and will make it difficult to add in jaehwa but i'll see what i can do bc i js love the friendship angst and she's already excluded as it is LMAOOO but nothing is set in stone cuz im always just coming up with new ideas as i watch the show so u guys will js have to wait until the next update to see what bs i come up with 😇

chap is dedicated to my faithful voters commenters u know who u are i love u all so much yall acc make my day 🤗

if u guys have any suggestions for next chapter lmk PLEASEE bc i actually have no idea what im doing 😊 also opinions and so on would be appreciated xx

other than that pls lmk if there are any mistakes in the spelling or anything so i can fix it !

also don't b afraid to vote or comment, i will probably (very likely) reply!!!! and if you don't understand something, plsplspls lmk!! i want yall to fully understand what's going on

happy reads!

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─── ANNIE