╰┈➤ ❝ [ I've been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night ] ❞

THE NIGHT OF THE PARTY LEE SU-HO NOT ONLY TOLD JI-AN THEY COULDN'T BE TOGETHER, but after their tears had slowly ceased, Ji-an told him about what her family had been pressuring her with, feeling guilty about it even if her intentions weren't the same as her parents. Lee Su-ho reassured her, saying he'll make sure his father resumed sponsoring her family's company so they could leave her alone. For the most part, Ji-an avoided her parents as much as she could until she was ready to face them again. She still hasn't forgotten about her mother's unnecessary comments at the party. It was like the woman just enjoyed making her life miserable at any given moment.

After coming back from the river, Ji-an knocked on her parents office. Her father told her to come in so she did, carefully closing the door behind her. The girl almost let out a sigh of relief at the absence of her mother in the room. Removing his gaze from the pile of papers on his desk, the man asked, "What can I help you with Ji-an?"

Kim Ji-an placed her hands inside the pocket of the hoodie, the air from inside the office colder than usual. "I won't be getting back with Lee Su-ho."

There was a beat of silence as her father raised an eyebrow at her statement. "And why is that?"

Shifting uncomfortably in her spot, Ji-an thickly swallowed. Just formulating the sentence in her mind had her wanting to kick herself for being so naive. Fairytales weren't real, the perfect outcome she was expecting didn't happen. Instead she was forced to the cruel reality that you not always get what you want in this life. "He said we can't be together." Before her father could say something in response, she continued. All she wanted was to get the conversation over with and go to her room. "But he said he'll convince his father to sponsor the company again."

Right when she finished explaining, the door to the office opened, and her mother walked in with Ji-hun trailing behind. Her mother's cold eyes stopped on Ji-an's figure standing by the door. The pair walked further into the room until they were standing in the middle of the room. Hae-woon asked, "What's going on?"

Ji-an avoided her mother's gaze while her father answered the question. "Ji-an was talking to me about her situation with Lee Su-ho."

"Oh, it's that right?" Her mother said, a smug smile taking over her red tinted lips as she looked at her daughter. "And what's that situation Ji-an? You two seemed to be getting along pretty well at the party."

Kim Ji-an wasn't stupid. The almost taunting tone in her mother's voice, gave away her intentions. "We both agreed to continue as friends. That's all." She was not going to reveal how everything truly went down.

Her mother scoffed. "The one thing we tell you to do and you can't even do that right. Yet another disappointment coming from you Ji-an."

The hands that were inside the hoodie clenched as Ji-an did her best to stay composed. She didn't want to get slapped again. "Actually, i'm more than happy to disappoint, mother." She grinned as she looked at her parents. "I long stopped caring about what any of you think of me. I only came here to inform you guys that Su-ho will talk to his father to have him sponsor the company again."

Her father leaned back against his chair. "We know."

The girl frowned. "What?"

Taking off his glasses and carefully placing them on the desk, her father elaborated. "Yesterday, Lee Joo-heon told us he'll sponsor the company again with the condition to give him twenty instead of fifteen percent of our gainings like we did years ago."

Hae-won nodded. "Yes, so we don't really care about your little sob story about only being friends with Lee Su-ho. The only reason why I'm letting all of this pass is because we still ended up getting what we wanted." The woman took a seat across from her husband. Her posture impeccable as she continue speaking. "You're free to do whatever you please now. If you want to go be with that low life guy you've been spending time with feel free to do so."

"Mother." Ji-hun said, a warning tone in his voice. He noticed how fond Ji-an seemed to be of Han Seo-jun and their mother's words would only aggravate the already tense moment. As much as he loved his mother, he knew she could be a lot to deal with many of times.

Just like Ji-hun thought, Ji-an didn't stay quiet. "You can insult me and embarrass me all you want but don't involve Han Seo-jun. He's not a low life."

Her mother smirked. "I never mentioned his name."

The only thing Ji-an could do was stare at her mother in complete disbelief. A few seconds of silence passed, then she looked at her father. "That was all I had to tell you. Have a nice night." Before leaving, Ji-an stole a glance at her brother and she was surprised to find an apologetic expression on his face. Seemingly, he was acting nicer after Min-gi had a 'talk' with him.

  ↶*ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷

The following day, Ji-an woke up feeling a little better than the day before. Exhaustion covered all of her body, although she was able to sleep an hour or two extra than the last couple of days, Ji-an hadn't had a full night of sleep in a while and it was beginning to catch up to her body. She pushed aside the thoughts about staying in bed, and forced herself to go take a shower and wash her hair. Kim Ji-an is someone who has always embraced her looks and enjoys taking her time to work on her appearance. It was just something she took pride in and made her feel good. In times when she went through difficulties in her life, she'll at least make sure she looked good while it happened. It made her feel in control.

But this time it was different. A part of her wanted to show on the outside she was okay even if on the inside she felt like dying. Then the more overpowering part, didn't want her to do anything. Suddenly, all the things she stood by were gone. She didn't care one bit about it, she just wanted to get the day over with and repeat everything again. Be in the comfort of her room, Chin-sun would bring her food, cry, go to school, repeat. But she had promised to herself she'll get better. The whole situation was pitiful in itself, her and Su-ho weren't dating so it couldn't be called a break up, but it felt like one. Not even a week had passed since everything unfolded, but to Ji-an it felt like an eternity.

After she had showered, Ji-an dressed and detangled her hair. Again, she didn't put any efforts into her appearance, leaving the house with her hair wet and barefaced. Not that she had any problem with not wearing makeup. Often times she would be too lazy or she had woken up late and opted to go without makeup. She liked to wear it but it wasn't a thing she had to do every day.

Once she got to school, she immediately was approached by her friends. They had given her some time for herself but their worry had increased the more they saw her way of behaving. Soo-ah wasted no time to embrace the girl, squeezing her body in a warm hug. Ji-an reciprocated it, the comfort of the action being something she really needed.

"You've had us worried." Soo-ah said, her voice soft and gentle.

"I'm sorry." The apology was muffled as Ji-an hid her face on Soo-ah's neck. Slowly the two pulled away, before the girl was once again pulled into a hug, this time by Jug-yeong and Soo-jin.

"Do you know how hard it was to stop Soo-ah from bombarding you with questions yesterday?" Soo-jin said as she and Jug-yeong let go of Ji-an. "We had to constantly remind her you wanted space for yourself."

Jug-yeong nodded, "It was hard."

Ji-an frowned, realizing she should've handled the situation better. When Se-yeon died, the girl had been more focused on Su-ho's grief that she never really focused on her own feelings. Then not even a week after the break up, she left Korea. While she was in the states she spent most of her time alone so she got used to ignoring everything around her while she tried to figure out what was going on with her mind.

"I'm sorry, I should've at least talked to you guys." Her apology came along with a defeated look. She felt like she was messing everything up.

Soo-jin dismissed her apology. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Everyone deals with stuff differently."

"You're here now and that's what matters." Jug-yeong said.

Soo-ah looked over Ji-an's appearance. "How are you doing?"

The girl shrugged, she didn't even had that answer right now. "Just living."

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Soojin asked, her usual strong gaze a lot softer as she stared at her friend.

Ji-an readjusted her grip on her backpack strap as she looked around at the students walking past them. "Not right now. Maybe at lunch, hopefully I have more energy by then."

Her friend nodded in understanding. Soo-ah being the usual ball of sunshine, decided to try and lighten the mood by changing the topic. "You missed some important stuff while you were absent last week." They began to make their way to the main entrance as Soo-ah spoke the most recent news. "Did you know our girl Jug-yeong has Hyung-gin head over heels for her?"

Ji-an's eyes widened, turning to look at Jug-yeong. "Really?" The girl nodded with a shy smile. A pink blush was slowly but surely making its way into her cheeks.

"They even have a date this weekend!" Soo-ah couldn't contain her excitement making her voice go higher in pitch.

"That's amazing, Jug-yeong." Ji-an exclaimed, genuinely happy for her friend.

"Thank you."

"Also, apparently your math teacher is not going to be here for the rest of the week. Isn't that great?" Soo-ah continued her attempts to lift Ji-an's spirits, but the only thing she got in return was a short nod. Usually, the girl would've been over the moon by the news.

Soo-ah sighed and gave Soo-jin a look. Understanding what Soo-ah meant, Soo-jin spoke, "So Ji-an, would you like to go to the cafe after school? You could get some coffee and one of those cookies you like. It'll be on me, you don't have to worry about paying." 

Ji-an thought over the offer, it did sound tempting but lately she's barely been eating. She didn't want her friend to waste money on her. "I'll have to pass, but thank you. I appreciate the thought."

Soo-jin, Soo-ah, and Jug-yeong sighed in defeat. It didn't seem they were going anywhere with trying to lift Ji-an's mood, but it didn't mean they wouldn't continue to try before they arrived to class.

  ↶*ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷

"How are you?" Han Seo-jun asked, his large figure comfortably leaning back against his seat. His desk and ji-an's were facing each others just like everyone else's inside the classroom. Their classmates had already began working on their projects, some more ahead than others. Each pair had a big white poster where they would be making their presentation.

Searching through her bag pack for her pencil case, Ji-an replied to Seo-jun's question. "Could be better, could be worse." She placed her pencil case on her desk and made eye contact with Seo-jun. The boy took note on how tired she looked. He wondered how many hours of sleep she was actually getting. "I'm just surviving."

Her answer was honest. She couldn't say she was fine because she wasn't, but she did feel a bit better compared to the day before. Despite all the tears she cried the day prior, her appearance did improve a little, at least that's what she liked to make herself believe just to feel better.

Perhaps, a small part of herself had been left at the river. The piece of her heart that belonged to Lee Su-ho was safely placed on the flowing waters of the river, on the initials carved into that old tree, the greenery of the forest, and the passing breezes. That safe place would always be a part of her, just like Su-ho would always have a special place in her heart. This didn't mean she'll never move on from him, she knew she could do it. Moving on was maybe the key factor for a new beginning, for a new opportunity. Ji-an was determined and she'll do her best to grow out of that chapter of her life, and she hoped Lee Su-ho could do the same.

"Earth to Ji-an." Han Seo-jun snapped his fingers in front of Ji-an's face, causing the girl to get pulled out of her thoughts. The skeptical tone on Seo-jun's voice didn't go undetected by the girl in front of him as he continued. "Are you sure you are surviving? I can just continue doing the project by myself."

"What. No. I said, I'm surviving." Ji-an whined crossing her arms, then her brows furrowed, a frown taking over her face. "Since when do you do projects by yourself? Actually, since when do you do work?"

"Since yesterday." Seo-jun opened his laptop and began typing something on the keyboard. "I already looked for most of the information we need. If you don't trust my skills then you can double check if the facts are right, but just know that would be defeating the purpose of me doing all of this." He looked up from the screen to look at her. "I only did it to save you from doing the hardest part. I wasn't sure if you'll feel okay to be working on this, so I got a head start."

Lips parting, Ji-an's eyebrows raised at what Seo-jun said. At this point, he was a box full of surprises. The girl thought she knew what things to expect from the boy, but it seemed lately everything had been changing. She didn't know how to feel about that. Lately, Seo-jun's actions were full of kindness and thoughtfulness. This wasn't the same Seo-jun she spend years arguing with because of how much of a jerk he was.

"I saw a fly close by the window, so close your mouth. You look like a dead fish." Seo-jun said before going back to his laptop.

Ji-an slapped his arm in annoyance before the most unexpected thing happened, a small laugh left her lips as she imagined the expression of a dead fish. Like the sun coming out on a cloudy day, her face brighten up as she grinned. Seo-jun didn't look at her but a small smile formed on his lips at the sound of her laughter. On the other side of the room, Su-ho watched them. Since the night of the party, thoughts full of doubt clouded his mind, wondering if he had taken the right decision. Now that he watched the pair interact, he knew he had done the right thing even if he felt like his heart was being ripped apart at the sight.

"Can you blame me? I'm sorry for being surprised about you doing actual work instead of sleeping, sir." Ji-an protested. "I don't even know what the project is about."

Han Seojun turned the laptop around so she could see the information he had gathered. "We have to choose a Hispanic country that in some way helped Korea. Doesn't matter in what area, just that they helped. Now we just have to organize it in the poster and print out the pictures we have to glue on it."

Ji-an nodded, her gaze set on the poster as she began visualizing where they should write each information. "This is weird you know? You giving me instructions about the assignment. I know I'm not in the best mindset right now but didn't know it was this bad. Maybe I should go to the hospital."

Seo-jun gave the girl a deadpan expression. "Just keep working."

"Yes, sir." The girl saluted him making him roll his eyes in return.

  ↶*ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷

"I knew something happened but I didn't expect all of that." Soo-jin said, as they all sat down on the lunch table each with their own trays, except Ji-an who didn't have any appetite.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Jug-yeong asked, her wide eyes scanning Ji-an's expression. Had she been in Ji-an's position, Jug-yeong didn't think she'll ever recover. The girl had read a lot of romantic books, movies, and tv shows. She has watched many break up scenes and not a time did it fail to make her cry. So just the thought about experiencing something like that in real life had her baffled.

Kim Ji-an sighed, she seemed to be getting that question a lot. "I'll be fine. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out what exactly it's going on in my life. Everything it's such a mess, Su-ho, my family, my friendship with Seo-jun, it's like ever since I came back, I haven't been able to live a normal life. All the lies and problems are messing with my head. Then the night of the party was such a roller coaster of emotions. A lot of stuff went down and I'm trying to find the best way to cope with it." The girl swallowed the lump in her throat. "It's hard."

From beside her, Soo-ah reached for Ji-an's hand. "And that's okay. Nobody said it's going to be easy. We'll be here for you whenever you need us. Don't forget that."

Ji-an smiled almost feeling like crying again. "Thank you."

Soo-jin smiled before she gestured down to her plate. "Are you sure you aren't hungry? I can give you some of my food if you don't want a lot."

Ji-an's expression scrunched up, and she shook her head. "I'm not hungry. I know it sounds unbelievable coming from me but it's true. Thinking about food right now makes me nauseous."

Soo-jin didn't seem convinced but she let it slide and reassumed eating. Ji-an watched her friends, her eyes shining with gratitude. She truly was thankful for having them in her life. She didn't know what she'll do if she didn't have them. Currently, they were the most stable thing in her life. Even Lim Jug-yeong who she first had a rocky beginning with, now became an important person for her. Jug-yeong was a sweet girl, caring, kind, and incredibly talented. Ji-an was happy they were able to place their differences aside and build a real friendship.

Ji-an turned to Soo-ah, her voice filled with curiosity. "I know you've had many boyfriends so I just want to know, how did you cope with the break ups?"

Soo-ah placed her chopsticks on the tray, as she thought over the question while her friends looked at her expectedly. "Well, for you it's a little different as you and Su-ho have known each other for years and you also decided to stay as friends. So it's not like you can try and completely erase his existence in your life. He was your first love and you'll never forget that experience."

"I know." She sighed.

"Moving on will take some time just don't dwell on the what ifs. Don't let the break up damage the view you have on Su-ho. Think of the good moments you had together and stick with them. If you have to put away things that remind you of him, don't be scared to do it. All of this is a process, it'll get to a point where this memory won't make you cry but instead you'll see it as another experience you learned from. The best thing I can advise you is to surround yourself with people that make you happy. Maybe experiment with new things, every once in a while it's nice to get off your comfort zone."

Ji-an listened intently to Soo-ah's words, taking them to heart. "Yeah, a change does sound nice."

Soo-jin made a sound of agreement. "I know you said the whole fake relationship it's over, but you should keep hanging out with Han Seo-jun."

"Why?"

Giving the girl a look, Jug-yeong spoke, "He makes you happy."

Ji-an blinked a few times, wondering if she heard the words correctly. "What?" She looked at her friends questionably. "Where is this coming from?"

"Come on, Ji-an. We aren't blind. We saw you guys talking earlier. When you got to school this morning you looked like you wanted to be anywhere but here. Then it was like your mood skyrocketed while you were with him." Soo-jin raised an eyebrow. "You were even laughing."

Ji-an shook her head. Her friends were being dramatic. "He just said something amusing that was all."

Soo-ah gave her a look. "Sure, amusing. I'm actually hurt that our attempts at lifting your spirits failed, but Seo-jun was able to do it so effortlessly."

A groan left Ji-an's lips. "Okay, maybe you're right. It's just strange, because when I'm with Seo-jun I just tend to momentarily forget all my problems." Then she chuckled with an amuse look. "Maybe because the problem itself it's with me."

Soo-ah gasped, pointing a finger at her friend. "See you're doing it again!"

Ji-an let a breath of exasperation at her friends comments. No way were they having that conversation with Seo-jun only a few tables away. "I think it's time to change the subject. Let's talk about something else. Where's your boyfriend, Soo-ah?"

The girl rolled her eyes at the reminder. "His alarm didn't went off today and when he woke up it was too late so he stayed home."

"That happens to me all the time." Soo-jin said, taking the last bite of her food.

After that talk, Ji-an's mood continue improving for the rest of the day, she came to the realization sometimes it was better to not keep stuff for her alone. Sharing what happened and the way she felt with her friends made a weight get off her chest.

——————— ↶*ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊ—————

—Joy

How are you enjoying the book so far? Do you guys like the way the story is flowing? Is this what you had in mind when you began reading the book? I'm curious 🤔

I kinda hate this chapter. But good news is, the book only gets better after this 👀

I haven't made any memes because the mood of the last chapters wasn't fitting. But I promise I'll make some next time lol

Take care guys! 💜