Maybe not entirely objective.
He took a moment to reply. “Yes.” But then he frowned slightly, shaking his head like he was weighing it up. “Mostly.”
I nodded. I didn’t know Lee Hyejin – had never met her – but I’d always felt slightly jealous of her. Maybe more than slightly, on occasion. She was the kind of pretty that seemed like it would make everything better – because sometimes that was simply how it worked. But she was also living proof that sometimes, being pretty wasn’t enough to shield you from all the ugly in the world.
I’d never hated her, not even when it had looked like she’d gotten everything I’d ever wanted. But now I couldn’t even feel jealous.
My arms were wrapped so tightly around myself that it had stopped feeling like a way to stand, and more like a way to stop myself from falling apart.
“It was all a lie?” It sounded like a question, but I just needed to say the words out loud.
“Yes.”
I laughed, just a tiny flicker, inappropriate, like a giggle at a funeral.
“But you broke up with her?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug, and irrationally, so irrationally – it irritated me.
“She ended it.”
“Why?”
“Her boyfriend does not like me.”
I blew out a harsh breath.
“Holy hell,” I groaned.
I walked away. The air between us was sticking to my skin. I needed space. I moved over to the padded bench at the foot of the bed, slumping down onto it without grace.
Even now I couldn’t be free of him. He followed me as if he needed to stay in my orbit. He crouched in front of me, looking up from under lashes so dark they ringed his eyes in shadow.
“Kaiya…” His gaze held mine, like he had to force himself to look at me, and maybe it was because he was scared of what he would see, but I suspected it was more to do with how he saw himself. The thought made my chest cave.
I dragged my hands through my hair, feeling like my thoughts were too big for my skull.
“Kaiya,” he tried again. “I am so sorry, you have to believe me.”
I let my hands drop to my sides as I blew out a breath.
“I believe you, Jihoon.”
His eyes widened, and he straightened a little.
“Then–”
“But I don’t know if I forgive you,” I said tightly, cutting him off.
He frowned, and I guessed that to him, believing his relationship was fake, and that Hana had fucked us over was the same thing as forgiveness. It wasn’t.
“Tell me,” I said quietly, “when did you stop wanting to make it work?”
His frown deepened, brows furrowed, each line drawing his confusion all over his face.
“I don’t understand.”
“When did you stop wanting me? Somewhere towards the end of summer? Because that’s about when I placed it.”
