emotions | love alarm

29 ~

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A few things happened after Sun-oh and Ae-ri's interaction this week: one—prying ears had somehow managed to tell those willing to listen that Sun-oh had finally confronted Ae-ri on her hypocrisy and that they hadn't talked since then so tension was still in the air, two—people were beginning to pick up on a forming love triangle in the way In-ho glared at Sun-oh every time he could, and three—Ae-ri realized something deeply important.

She was being a complete and total bitch.

It came to her as soon as she turned over Sun-oh's words in her head and truly let them sink in: "I don't think it's fair you get to say you miss me and not expect a reaction."

He had said the equivalent of showing Ae-ri a reflection of herself.

She was being a complete hypocrite.

And she didn't know how to express this and apologize to Sun-oh. She almost feared it would be too late if she did. It had been months of this undetected behavior and she had a strong feeling it had something to do with the guy who sat before her browsing something on his laptop.

In-ho, currently her one and only friend had somehow rubbed off on her, affected her, and done something while she had been healing that made it so she indeed reinforced their likeness in the worst way. Everything had gone to shit since he had entered their lives; she had tried many times to dislodge this truth from arising but alas, the truth always comes out.

"You could wear this?"

Ae-ri snaps her head up to meet In-ho's eyes, her inner reflection interrupted by his suggestion. She lingers on the sincerity behind his eyes before finally slipping her gaze over a red dress on his laptop screen. She huffs and looks back up at his content, awaiting face, her brows narrowing.

"Why do you want to match so badly?"

"I think it'd be cute."

"It's the equivalent of us wearing matching couple sweaters."

"And?"

"I'd rather shit on my hands and clap."

He turns the laptop back to him, the airy mood between them suddenly gone and replaced with a heavy one. Silence fills them for a few minutes and Ae-ri is just beginning to slip back into her contemplative state, into her mind palace, when In-ho speaks again—this time his voice quiet.

"Is the idea so awful?"

"What idea?"

"Of being with me."

Ae-ri looks up from where she was looking at her hands and stares at In-ho who seemed irritated but also maybe hurt. She didn't know how to reply because truthfully, yes the idea was abhorrent to her but she also could see how with someone else he could be ideal.

"Why are you irritated?"

"You make it seem like it's such a bad thing."

"No. Something else is bothering you."

In-ho huffs.

Ae-ri blinks, waiting.

"You make it seem like I'm not ideal for you when I'm literally your carbon copy, Ae-ri. I know I'm not Sun-oh but what's the difference anyways? He's nothing like you-"

"-and that is why I love him," she cuts In-ho off sharply. "He is nothing like me and that is why he is so beautiful, that is what makes him so special because he thinks differently. He doesn't spiral from his own thoughts and he is kind. Too kind."

In-ho stares at her from across the table in the library they sat at, and Ae-ri doesn't back down from his gaze.

"Sun-oh and I are no longer together but do not think for a moment I will tolerate any ill sentiment directed towards him. He is everything."