chapter seventeen: excuses

Jaehyun froze, staring at his sister with wide eyes. He left his finger back up to his lips to quiet her. Jae Ah bit her bottom lip to hold back her cry of pain and reached up to place a hand on her throbbing head. She wasn’t sure how she had managed to hit her head so hard but she figured her bad luck would run that way.

Jinwoo and the girl both froze, their conversation halting. Jinwoo turned his head slightly to the source of the noise with a hard expression on his face. “Hold on.” He muttered to the girl as he stood up, his chair scraping against the floor loudly. He turned his body towards the shelves, narrowing his eyes to them.

Jae Ah shut her eyes tightly, knowing that they were about to be caught. She wasn’t sure what she would tell her boyfriend when he found out that she had been spying on him. Even more so since the conversation she had overheard was obviously not one meant to leave the two of them.

Just as Jinwoo took a step forward to circle the shelves, he heard another loud noise come from his left. His head snapped in the direction and he saw a male student reached forward to pick up his fallen books. The student turned away after he had and walked to the tables on the other end of the library without a second glance to Jinwoo.

The girl rolled her eyes and turned back to her partner, “It’s just the other students. You did choose a pretty public place, you know.”

“Public doesn’t seem as suspicious.” He answered her, taking his seat once more.

Jae Ah and Jaehyun let out similar looks of relief towards each other. Jaehyun pointed in the opposite direction of where Jae Ah was facing and she nodded before turning around and walking back to where they had come from. They both made sure not to make any noise while walking but as soon as they were hidden halfway down the staircase, Jaehyun let out a loud sigh of relief.

“That was exhilarating.” He grinned, a hand on his rapidly beating heart.

Jae Ah gave him a look of disbelief but couldn’t help her smile, “We didn’t do something that great.”

“But, really,” Jaehyun’s smile fell, “what was with that conversation?”

“I don’t know.” Jae Ah mumbled back, replaying the words in her mind. “He had someone check up on Mark… I guess he must have been talking about the others.”

“The others?” Jaehyun repeated, raising an eyebrow at her. “How much do you know about Mark anyways?”

Jae Ah averted her gaze, as her cheeks blushed slightly, “Not much. But he lives with his friends. I met them.”

“Well, he doesn’t get along with Mark’s friends so that would make sense.” Jaehyun continued, ignoring his sister’s reaction. “But Mark…” He glanced at Jae Ah, “He lost his parents?”

Jae Ah didn’t answer right away. Her gaze slowly fell as a frown set on her lips, “I guess… I didn’t know that. He doesn’t talk much about himself. I wonder how hard that must have been. We lost Dad but we always had our Mom…”

“You should tell him.” Jaehyun said after a moment. He pressed his lips together as his expression tightened, “I don’t know what was up with that conversation but it didn’t really sound well, Jae Ah. You should tell Mark what we heard today.”

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