I Like Your Friends and I Didn't Like You
This isn’t how Jiwoo thought the night was gonna go but she isn’t exactly mad about it. Most of Jungeun’s party guests were drunk, if not getting there.
They were both not planning on drinking because they figured they’d leave the party early but they were having fun! At first, her girlfriend was rejecting drinks that were offered to her but Jiwoo gave her an encouraging smile and secret pat on the butt to give her the go ahead.
This was Jungeun’s party after all and Jiwoo wanted them to have fun. It’s not everyday that their friend group could let loose like this. And Jinsol seemed a little tense since the beginning of the party, maybe it would loosen her up.
“You are literally so adorable.” Haseul lets out a squeal and squeezes Jiwoo’s cheeks with both her hands.
Jiwoo beams at the compliment even if it was drunk talk. She wraps her arms around the older and gives her a quick squeeze, excited to be pampered.
“Right?!” Heejin babbles, her hand shaking her cup around. Some of her drink spills on the tiled floor and splatters around their shoes. Jiwoo holds her shoulders to calm her down “Oops, my bad.”
“Don’t worry I’ll clean it up. Just stay-“
“No I’m good, I can do it. I’m not drunk I swear! Look!” Heejin straightens her back, neck stiff and face serious trying to show how not drunk she was. Her face was showing signs of drowsiness, eyes focusing before quickly unfocusing.
Jiwoo laughs and nods her head “I believe you but I wanted to grab me something to drink anyway.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She pats Heejin’s hand, trying to tell her not to worry about it and leaves before the younger could start babbling again. Jiwoo makes her way through the small crowd that was hanging around the space between the living room and kitchen, tearing a paper towel off its roll and grabs 2 water bottles from the island.
She comes back to the two girls giggling and Jiwoo hands them the waters, wanting them to start hydrating before they’d regret it. They take it with big smiles and Haseul brings her in for another hug “You are like the best. Ever.”
There’s a quick tap on her shoulder and she turns her head in that same direction. There was nobody there so she quickly turns to the opposite way, her girlfriend gave her a goofy smile and Jiwoo playfully shoved her “Ugh, you know I hate it when you do that.”
Jinsol smiles even wider “But you look cute every time!”
Jiwoo bends over to clean the spill up but it was starting to get sticky from the juice. Jinsol squats down, tilts over a little to regain some balance before laying her hand over Jiwoo’s “I’ll do it.”
“It’s okay. I got it.”
Jinsol shoos her away with a wave of her hand “I’m fine. I promise. Let me do this for you.” Jiwoo pats her hand and ends it with a squeeze. “Love you.” The younger murmurs, voice soft over the loud music being played.
“I love you too.”
Jiwoo stands up, back immediately feeling sore and Heejin grabs her by her wrist “You guys are so perfect. I love you too.” Jiwoo laughs and watches as Jinsol walks away to throw the bunched up, wet paper towels into the trash.
Jinsol comes back soon after, taking her by the hand and pulling her away from Haseul and Heejin. “Where are you taking me?” Jiwoo looks back at the two girls they left behind.
“I want to show you something.” Jinsol interlocks their fingers and takes her down the small hall, into a dark room and closes the door behind them. The music playing from the living room was still heard loudly from the inside of this room.
“Where are we?” Jiwoo puts her hand on the wall, moving it up, down and sideways trying to look for the light switch. She eventually finds it and flicks the switch up. The lights turned on and there were four medium sized storage boxes and a broom leaned against a wall.
Jinsol comes from behind, wrapping her arms around her waist and pulls her flesh against her stomach. She leans her head forward, laying her chin on Jiwoo’s shoulder “This is my old room. They don’t really use it anymore.” She nuzzles her face into Jiwoo’s neck “And I really wanted to spend some time with you alone.”
Jiwoo puts her hands on top of Jinsol’s and leans back into her hug. They didn’t really spend a lot of time together during this party. Jinsol kept getting dragged to do stuff with the other guest and although at first she tried to include Jiwoo….it wasn’t her scene. Besides, Jiwoo wanted her girlfriend to get some outside interaction with friends other than Jungeun and Yerim. She already takes up most of her time and she knows they need to have other friends that aren’t mutual.
It was nice seeing her shy, awkward girlfriend step outside her box.
“I missed you.” The blonde kisses her neck, shakes her head and blows her lips trying to get Jiwoo’s hair that stuck to her lips off. She moves her hair to the side with her chin before planting a real one just below her ear.
Jiwoo moves her hair to her other shoulder, not wanting to suffocate Jinsol. She hums when Jinsol adds a couple more kisses “I missed you too. I just wanted you to have fun.” She brings one of Jinsol’s hands to her face and kisses her knuckle. “Haseul kept me company so it was still fun.”
“I missed you too much to have fun.”
Jiwoo throws her head back with a laugh and squeezes her hand again “You seemed like you had fun doing those shots ten minutes ago.”
“They tasted horrible.” Jinsol digs her face into Jiwoo again. “I almost threw up.”
“Are you gonna stop drinking?”
Jinsol hums, hand roaming under Jiwoo’s shirt and the other reaches blindly on the wall. Her hand finally finds the switch and turns it off, the room filled with darkness with the exception of some light coming from the window.
Jinsol’s hand finds its way back on Jiwoo’s waist and turns her around. A quick peck on the lips and Jiwoo wraps her arms around the taller’s neck, hands clasping in a lock.
“Did you bring me here so we could make out?” Jiwoo asks in a teasing tone.
Jinsol kisses her again, her smile growing into the kiss giving her answer away. Her hand gropes Jiwoo’s waist and snakes towards the small of her back to pull her closer. She kisses her lips once again before dragging her lips Jiwoo’s jaw.
She closes her eyes, relying solely on her senses but immediately pushes Jinsol away. She tries to find the blonde’s face in the darkness “We are not doing it here.” She says with a blush quickly rising from her neck up.
She uses both her hands to clasp her bra back “Also, how did you do that so fast?”
Completely disregarding the question, Jinsol pouts and tries to pull her girlfriend back into her embrace “Why not?”
Flabbergasted, Jiwoo motions her arms crazily to the room knowing Jinsol couldn’t see what was going on. “Babe. Seriously?” She scoffs “There’s nothing here except for those dust bunnies that have eyes on them and like a box of cereal.”
“Besides.” She puts hands on Jinsol’s chest. “We’re at a party with ten other people here. They’re gonna notice that we’ve been gone for a while.”
“Can we go home already.”
Jiwoo smiles and shakes her head “We can’t just leave. It’s Jungeun’s birthday party.”
“She’s already asleep on the couch. I saw her.” Jinsol whines and Jiwoo feels the older’s hands on her shoulders, running down until they meet both her wrist “I love you.”
Jiwoo bites her lips in thought “Let me just make sure the girls have rides home.” She tiptoes to kiss Jinsol but misses and kisses her on the side of her mouth “But after.”
“After?”
“After.” She confirms.
-
Jiwoo doesn’t know why she’s a little scared about Chaewon and Hyeju finally meeting her girlfriend. It’s been way overdue and it’s not like Hyeju doesn’t absolutely adore her girlfriend already but she’s still nervous. In fact, this makes her two times as nervous.
Jindori 💙:
what?
don’t think they’re gonna
like me??? 😛
Me:
think they’re gonna like
u too much 🤔🤔
“When did she say she was gonna get here?” Hyeju says in an almost worried tone that Jiwoo has never heard in her life. Hyeju has non stopped started cleaning since ten in the morning and it wasn’t even her house.
The taller was even dressed nicer than usual. She hasn’t seen her dressed this nice when she first started dating Chaewon. Jiwoo puts a hand on Hyeju’s, stopping her from wiping the counter again “You know she’s been here when it was dirty, right?”
“You let her see the house like that?!”
“You’re not gonna act like this when she gets here, right?”
“Act like what?”
“Babe, you’re stressing Jiwoo out. I didn’t even act like this when I got to meet ⅓.” Chaewon walks into the living room, hair flipped behind her shoulders and hands fiddling her ear trying to put her earring in.
The oldest looks down to her outfit, casual shorts and one of Jinsol’s old shirts. Why was everyone dressed better than her?! Was she thinking too little of this or were the two thinking too much? Should she change? No, her girlfriend has seen her in worse.
There’s light knocking coming from the door and Hyeju jumps into action. The taller throws her napkin in the trash can, grabs all the spray bottle filled with cleaning solution and runs to the bathroom to put it all away.
Chaewon even looks at her girlfriend like she’s crazy before looking back at Jiwoo “Should I get the door or you?”
“I’ll get it. You just do…” she twirls her finger around “…whatever you were doing.” Jiwoo walks to the door and opens it. Jinsol doesn’t normally knock anymore but maybe she feels like she has to this time.
The door is pulled open and Jinsol is wearing that adorably silly bucket hat she loves to wear. In her hands is a bottle of wine that Jiwoo mentioned Chaewon liked to drink. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Jiwoo steps aside to give her girlfriend some room to come inside “You didn’t have to bring anything over.” A quick peck on the cheek, running her hand down her arm and her girlfriend leans into her lips.
Jinsol shrugs her shoulders and smiles, followed by a wink “Brownie points.”
The shorter laughs and shakes her head “I promise you they already love you.” They walk into the living room, Chaewon sitting on the sofa. “Chae has literally been in love with you since those tickets you got for us.”
Chaewon stands up and fixes her hair, almost awkwardly before she realized she was supposed to be intimidating? She can’t just hand over Jiwoo like that. Or was she supposed to give her graces because this was the girl that had Jiwoo happy and she should be happy for her friend?
She forgot what role she was given when she had discussed it with Hyeju a couple of years ago. Her girlfriend already broke character the moment she found out exactly who was dating their friend. Looks like she’s going to have to play both roles.
“Jinsol, this is Chaewon. Chae this is Jinsol.” Jiwoo motions between the two.
Chaewon doesn’t make a movement with a judgmental look and this makes Jinsol nervously smile, obviously wanting to get on their good side. She extends the wine bottle out “Hi, my name is Jinsol. It’s nice to finally meet you. I hope you enjoyed the concert.”
Chaewon grabs the white wine, pretending to inspect it like she hasn’t seen this certain bottle a hundred times “Chaewon. And thanks for the tickets.”
Jinsol looks around the room “I thought you said her girlfriend was supposed to come too.” She says to Jiwoo, confused.
It had been some time since Hyeju had left. The restroom was only a couple steps away so Jiwoo shoots her best friend a look. Chaewon immediately sees it, does an awkward side step and hands the bottle over to Jiwoo “I’m going to grab her. I’ll be….right back.”
“Is everything okay?” Jinsol looks at her with a concerned frown, hand reaching over to rub Jiwoo’s back with small circles.
“Yup! Fine! Great! Haha want to sit down?” She nods her head in the direction of the kitchen island, where the stool was tucked under the counter.
There’s a deafening silence between the two as Jiwoo nervously taps on the counter. She’s debating on if she should see what’s going on because there’s no way that this should be taking this long.
“You know what! I’m going to check on them too!” Jiwoo shoots out of seat, planting a quick peck on Jinsol’s cheek as she passes by her.
There’s bickering coming from the bathroom and then closer she gets she can actually make out words.
“I can’t go out there. I used to make fan fiction about her. I was making fan fiction about Jiwoo’s girlfriend.” Hyeju moans out of embarrassment.
“And they were wonderful stories, babe but right now they’re waiting for us so we need to get out there.”
“Is everything alright?” Jiwoo cracks the door open and pokes her head in. It was cringy to think that’s what Hyeju does in her free time but the voice in the back of her head is telling her to get over it. It’s not like she didn’t have a Taeny phase in middle school because that would off character of her to do, right? Yeah.
Hyeju looks terrified to see Jiwoo “I can’t do this.” She immediately says.
“You were the one harassing me to do this!”
“Well undo it!”
“I can um go and we can do this another time?” Everyone snaps their heads behind Jiwoo’s head as Jinsol shyly puts her hands behind her body and nervously bounces on her feet.
“No!” Jiwoo squeaks and then clears her throat “I mean, there’s no need. You’re already here so let me just introduce you. Jinsol, Hyeju. Hyeju, Jinsol.” And she just introduced them to each other in the bathroom….great.
“You’re the one who likes games, right?” Jiwoo is so thankful that her girlfriend was trying to take charge of this conversation because she’s never seen Hyeju look this stiff.
“I love games! Ow.” Hyeju rubs her arm and Chaewon acts like she didn’t just elbow her to calm down.
“Anyway, how about that wine?” Chaewon says anything to get away from the bathroom. For some reason Hyeju decided to bleach the bathtub because Jinsol might need to use it and now it was giving her a headache.
Jiwoo has an uneasy smile until she feels Jinsol hold her hand and swipes her thumb back and forth. They can do this. Jinsol was being supportive even after she was almost kicked out of the house before they even started so they can get through this night.
They all sat back on the island and they made sure that Jinsol got one of the two non wiggly chairs. Jiwoo pours everyone a glass and she takes a deep breath, needing to address the elephant in the room “So, Hyeju is a big fan.”
She’s mentioned it before to her girlfriend but she doesn’t think she truly knows the extent of it. Jinsol thought it was cute, a little worried even but Jiwoo assured her that Hyeju wouldn’t tell a soul about them.
Hyeju blushes a deep red that made Chaewon amused with a slacked smile. This was hilarious for her and Jiwoo wanted to remind her how she acted when she met ⅓.
“I heard.” Jinsol smiles, “I also heard that I’m not your favorite.”
The youngest looks betrayed and looks at Jiwoo like she’s crazy. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Because I don’t see how you wouldn’t pick her.” Jiwoo gives Jinsol her glass and starts on Chaewon’s “Look at this face.”
“I love all the members equally.” Hyeju tries to claim it with a small wave of her hand. Chaewon snorted and now it was time for her girlfriend to elbow her to be quiet.
Jinsol scoots her chair closer to Jiwoo wanting to be close enough to touch “That’s a great answer but it’s okay I already know it’s Yerim.”
It was the second betrayal of the night and Hyeju never thought it’d be Jiwoo doing this. They get a good laugh out of it and Jiwoo could see that Hyeju’s shoulders were a lot more relaxed.
Once they got past Hyeju’s little fan session the conversations seemed to roll more naturally. They didn’t talk about Jinsol’s idol life after that and talked more about their lives outside of Jinsol’s. Jiwoo was the main subject for most of it, the only common topic they all could share about.
Jinsol laughs at how they thought Jiwoo was lying about having a girlfriend to the point where they would just nod at anything Jiwoo had to say about it.
Chaewon couldn’t keep up the good cop bad cop act anymore and Jiwoo could tell that she genuinely enjoyed having Jinsol around. She hasn’t interacted this well with any of Jiwoo’s previous girlfriends.
Soon the night ends but the couple doesn’t call it a night. Jiwoo leads Jinsol back to her room and doesn’t miss when Hyeju mutters a small ew.
They lay down in her bed after they both changed into Jiwoo’s pajamas and sleep shorts for Jinsol. The older was laying on top of her, head in Jiwoo’s chest while Jiwoo played with her hair.
“Your friend was nice. I think she’d get along with Yerim well.”
“Thank you for tonight. It really means a lot to me. I know this isn’t in your comfort zone so thank you for being here with me tonight.”
A rumble of content comes from Jinsol’s chest “I know they’re important to you. I don’t know why I was so worried in the first place, they’re great and I can tell they really care about you. Chaewon was scaring me a bit at first.”
Jiwoo laughs and runs her hand through her hair in different strokes. “I told you not to worry because she already loved you before she even met you. I mean, you did save her life with those tickets.”
“Those tickets haven’t done me wrong yet.” Jinsol yawns and digs her face deeper in Jiwoo.
“Are you tired?”
“A little.”
“Go to sleep. I love you, goodnight.”
“I love you, too. Goodnight.”
Like any good girlfriend would, she stalks Jinsol online. Well, that isn’t exactly the right word she would use but more like keeps up with Jinsol.
Ever since she looked up Odd Eye Circle and Jinsol together in the same sentence she keeps getting articles related, if not about Jinsol. Jiwoo absolutely loves it because now she has something to ask about when inquiring about her girlfriend’s hard day at work.
She even follows the group’s official page, pages dedicated to Jinsol or her group and the tv show that her girlfriend frequently stars in. Jiwoo loves the airport pictures and seeing that Jinsol indeed made it to her destination (and always seeing her wear their couple shoes or scarf she had gifted her).
Laying around in her bed while on her phone was a normal nightly routine for her, what was surprising was seeing an article written about herself.
[Mystery Woman Always Seen With OEC???]
It was an innocent tap on her phone to read the fan article, something to waste some time before going to sleep. It was a picture of her with Jinsol going inside a bookstore, one with Yerim when Jiwoo treated her to a meal and the group picture that Jungeun had posted from her birthday party and her figure circled.
This was…weird.
A trainee from BBC? This girl is always seen with Odd Eye Circle members. She’s even seen in a picture with ⅓ members ViVi and Heejin. She seems like she’s good friends with all of them and after doing some research I found her old instagram CHUUO3O. Her name is Jiwoo and I think this might be the girl Jinsoul wrote the song as a gift to.
There was a photo attached to the bottom, where the song credits and Thanks To section was from the album. For Jiwooming.
[+97 she’s pretty]
[+4 was wondering who she was…always in a lot of celebrities pictures]
[+1 Her family must have a lot of money]
[+78 is she single??? i can clean and cook btw]
No one seemed to figure out that they were dating yet and that’s a win for them…kinda? It was still odd to think that there were people actually paying attention to her, going as far as to search up her social media.
Jiwoo slides her thumb up on her phone and taps on her old instagram account. She already has a couple more thousand new followers so she quickly puts her account on private. She doesn’t have anything bad on there, she hasn’t even logged into it in over a year before she started dating Jinsol.
Me:
[link]
do u think this is concerning? 🥺
She sends the article to her best friend. She thought about sending it to Jinsol but this might stress her out along with the other million things that she’s doing.
Chaewon might not even answer, she’s probably playing games with Hyeju or asleep right now.
Jiwoo goes back to texting Jinsol, who was currently at her company. She had been there for a while now, mentioning something about an end of the year performance. Jiwoo has it as a note in her calendar, not wanting to miss out on seeing her girlfriend sing.
Chae:
Mmmmmm not really?
Keep it up ‘friend’ 😉
-
It had been a busy night, well as busy as a late shift can get. There are days where she gets a total of seven people throughout the night, maybe even less. Tonight there had been waves of groups walking in, there must have been a nearby event or something.
It seems to have died down but Jiwoo was still pooped. Night shifts are supposed to be slow and easy but today totally kicked her butt.
She reaches under the counter and grabs her water bottle, seriously dehydrated after a long day of drinking just juice. The door opens and Jiwoo hurriedly tries to swallow so she could greet the customer.
Her voice dies down the moment she saw who walked in and she tries to save herself with a tight smile instead. She was hoping to avoid Hyunjin for the life of her. They could totally do the fake smiles and act like they got along thing around their friends but how’s it supposed to work when it’s just the two of them.
Hyunjin barely looks her way and quickly goes to the ice chest, scanning the clear window to figure out which ice cream she wanted. She doesn’t look all too interested in being friendly-ish with Jiwoo even if it was just out of politeness. It had been about two or so months since she last seen her at Jungeun’s party.
Jiwoo tries to make herself look busy by fixing the medicine cabinet displayed behind the cash register. This is terribly awkward and she almost starts picking at her work apron like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
The ice chest door slid open and there were very loudly, distracting crumpling sounds from the plastic wrapper as Hyunjin grabbed a couple of different flavored bars.
Just get through this. Just get through this. She’s going to pay and then she’s out of here.
She tries not to fault Hyunjin too much or maybe it’s the people pleaser in her that is trying to make up excuses. Hyunjin was only trying to be a good friend. A terrifying, intimidating friend to her girlfriend. Hyunjin was loyal and it’s not like she owes Jiwoo any loyalty by association. She’s just some random girl that’s dating her friend. For a year. It’s been a year now.
Would Chaewon and Hyeju have her back? Chaewon definitely! Hyeju….she’s starting to question.
The door is slid shut and Jiwoo wipes her hands on her pants as Hyunjin makes her way over. “Hi, how are you?”
There’s a long silence as Hyunjin places her ice cream on the counter. She doesn’t seem like she intends to reply to her question and this makes Jiwoo somewhat upset. She doesn’t know why the younger doesn’t seem to like her. You can’t win them all but Jiwoo definitely wanted to try.
She unknowingly exhaled hard through her nose, trying to keep her frustration in her head. The only noise filling the silence was the beeping coming from the gun as she scanned through seven flavors of ice cream.
Tapping from Hyunjin’s impatient foot was soon included along the beeping and this makes Jiwoo miss the awkward silence.
She takes a quick glance, a flicker with her eyes and realizes that tapping wasn’t coming from Hyunjin’s impatience but rather the girl looked uncomfortable. Her arms were crossed to her chest, eyes looking anywhere else but her and lips thinned.
“Are you okay?”
Hyunjin looks back at her, hand tightening around her arm with a squeeze and she takes a deep breath “Yeah.”
Jiwoo quietly bags the desert and she kind of gives up on making conversation with her. This was going nowhere and now she’s accepting the fact that the girl wants nothing to do with her.
“Did you really not know?”
Jiwoo gently pushes the bag across the counter for Hyunjin to take “Know what?”
“You know…” she makes a gesture with her hand “That Jinsol was in Odd Eye Circle because I’m finding it hard to believe.”
Jiwoo is trying to calculate in her head where this was going. She didn’t know that Hyunjin knew that she didn’t know. So she hums, it’s a soft hum and Jiwoo is still trying to figure out why Hyunjin felt the need to ask “I didn’t know. I thought she was just some insanely attractive customer that ate all my sausage sticks.”
This gets a laugh out of Hyunjin as she swipes her card in the reader and Jiwoo finally smiles back “It took me a while to figure out you were an idol too, you know. The only reason why I figured your group out so fast was because my friend was a fan.”
Hyunjin grows quiet again and she figures the small chat was over before the younger asks a different question “What changed after finding out?”
It doesn’t take long to think about an answer and Jiwoo does a small shrug “Nothing much but I think finding out did make things easier. I-“ Jiwoo takes a deep breath “I don’t know if Jinsol ever told you but we were going through a rough patch in the beginning of our relationship. She was always so busy and didn’t have the time for me like I wanted her to.”
She leans her arm on the counter “I couldn’t understand why she was always canceling on me or was too tired for a two minute phone call. She was always traveling and just never here. I’m not blaming her for not telling me about work because I guess it was my fault for never asking. Now I feel the effort that was always there since the beginning knowing what was really going on when she says she had a hard day at work.”
Hyunjin grabs her bag and pulls it to her side. “I’m sorry.”
Jiwoo looks at her with a confused face, needing her to elaborate on why she was apologizing. “I didn’t like you for Jinsol.”
“Oh.”
“I um told her this at Jungeun’s party and she hasn’t talked to me ever since.” Hyunjin shuffles uncomfortably in her spot “I told her you were a risk to date and that she should just date another idol, actress, you get what I’m trying to say.”
“Why would you say that? You don’t even know me?” Jiwoo asks angrily. You’re telling her that Hyunjin was purposely putting things into Jinsol’s head to try to convince her to break up with her?
“I know, I’m sorry. I thought she was dating a fan and it was going to end horribly. Jinsol’s history with women ….hasn’t exactly worked out for her. I was worried for her and it was really shitty of me to do because if you’re anything Heejin says you are…then I think you’re actually really good for her.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry and wanted to clear the room.”
Jiwoo stares and stares at nothing. There was the unsettling feeling in her stomach that she isn’t used to having and the more this conversation was going the worse it felt. “I didn’t like you either.”
Hyunjin doesn’t say anything and does a slight nod of acknowledgment like she had expected that. “I thought you were mean and fake or maybe you thought you were too cool for me and I couldn’t figure why you hated me when I wanted you to like me so much.”
“Jinsol talked about you like you were her best friend and you were so sweet that she knew we’d get along right away. I couldn’t figure out if you were the same girl she was seeing. I’m still mad about what you told Jinsol at the party but…” Jiwoo nods her head towards the entrance door, a que that Hyunjin figures out that she was no longer welcomed in the establishment. Hyunjin pushes the door open without looking back “-but for what it’s worth, I think you did it trying to be a good friend. I’ll talk to Jinsol about it.”