JAEMIN

I had successfully avoided Haeun for a few days now. At one point, she just stopped asking me if something was wrong.

Now, I know I'm making a terrible mistake, but I think it's better we learn from our mistakes, right? Except, I was miserable now.

I was even more distracted and my energy was always so low. Every time we saw each other in the hallway, she would ignore me and walk away.

The members kept saying I deserved it because I decided to be a scaredy cat instead of being a man and admitting my feelings to her. But it's not just me being a scaredy cat. It's me being a good friend to Donghyuck.

"I'm telling you, you're going to regret this, Jaemin." Jeno said.

"No, I'm not." I said.

"You will once you find out that you gave up your chance to be with her just for some other guy to take it up." He said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Oh, so you haven't heard?" He raised his brows.

"Heard what?" I asked. "She's not...she's not going out with anyone, is she?"

"Not yet, at the least." He said. "But Aespa's manager has been hitting on her for the past few days."

"How did you know?" I asked.

"She told me, duh." He said.

"You guys talk?" I asked.

"Yeah." He shrugged.

"Does she talk about me?" I asked.

"Well, not anymore." He said.

"What do you mean 'not anymore'?" I frowned.

He groaned, "Jaemin, are you that dense? She was obviously worried about you but then you just straight up abandon her, so she stopped caring."

And that's when realisation hit me like a truck. I had fucked up badly.

I ran out of the practice room to go and see her in her office. But she wasn't there.

I ran out to the cafeteria and that's when I saw her. She sat alone at a table, scrolling through her phone.

As I was about to approach her, I saw a man sit down beside her, and hand her a glass of lemon iced tea. I stopped mid track.

"Haeun?" I called out.

She turned around to look at me, and her smile instantly dropped. "Jaemin?"

"Who's he?" I asked, looking at the guy.

"He's a friend." She said.

I looked at the guy, "Can I borrow her for a minute?"

The guy shrugged. Haeun hesitantly walked up to me.

"So you finally decided to talk, huh?" Her tone was cold.

"Haeun..." I sighed. "I need to tell you something."

"Oh, right." She smiled, but I knew it wasn't genuine. "Jaemin, listen. I don't have time for all of this, okay?"

"Haeun, I don't understand why you're getting so mad about me not talking to you for a few days." I said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to an empty practice room.

"A few weeks." She glared at me.

"Yeah, fine, a few weeks." I said. "But, come on, Haeun, why are you getting angry?"