#GODDDDD when are you people gonna learn that fiction is what we want it to be? đ€ đȘ
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STFU about how people write their readers. damsels in distresses, hardasses, fighters, lovers, scaredy-catsâif you donât like it, write it yourself, iâm sick of people getting angry about how a writer purposefully writes something.
#THATS WHAT THEY FUCKING WANTED TO DO !!!!!!!!!!#SO THE FIC ISNT FOR YOU THEN#like ????#i can write my reader however i want why are we debating how they SHOULD be written?#its FICTION#thereâs no fucking rules#if i want to make my reader a damsel in distress getting saved every time#thatâs my business and i can do what i want and thereâs nothing wrong with that#GODDDDD when are you people gonna learn that fiction is what we want it to be? đ€ đȘ#anyways
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ahem ahem. *taps mic*
hello, here i am with another long reblog because one of chocoâs stories has absolutely crushed me (in the best way possible). *SPOILERS AHREAD*
let me start off with my initial thoughts going into reading:
if iâm gonna be honest i didnât want to start this till the last part was posted and ended up reading it during the weekly updates because i got too impatient đ
i was so immersed into Wonwoos character while reading the first two parts. he was lowkey miserable but the contrast between Wonwoo and Her had me by the throat. there is nothing i love more when the couple consists of a girlboss and a shy man who would do anything for said girl boss
back to Wonwoos character:
i found it very enjoyable to read everything in his pov. every emotion he felt, i had felt it too. im ngl i cried during a few parts of the story just envisioning how he views the world and how he works through all his emotions.
Herâs character:
i loved Her so much. you dek. she reminded me so much of myself. The outgoing, outspoken, and sometimes can be perceived as intimidating to those who arenât very close to her. the jack of all trades yet master of none. my god. thatâs how i portrayed her at least, getting hyper fixated on one thing just to abandon it the next day to try something else. her relationship with mingyu made me raise my eyebrow once or twice. i knew from the very moment that fight between her and bells happened at the party, that mingyu was cheating on her with bells. it was clear as day, and my heart went out to her. she deserved so much more. iâm not sure if itâs character development or maybe we just got to see more of her true personality once the story came to an end, but Her is so much more than what people made her out to be.
if thereâs one character i could yap on about its MINGYU:
god. iâve never felt so heartbroken for a fictional character until i learnt about how he was when he first started dating Her. He had become so brainwashed by Herâs parents and the need to become some successful man for the future that he forgot what his past self truly wanted to achieve. the way Her described mingyu made my heart hurt, because when Wonwoo described Mingyu it was like he was a shell of the person he used to be. Going thru the motions to satisfy everyone but himself? maybe iâm just yapping but thatâs how i saw him. He used to have his own aspirations, he used to be in love. HE WANTED TO BE AN ARCHITECT đ damn it i just felt like he lost so much of himself and so did Her, they both did. and in my head they become happier after their break up and Mingyu decided to do what he truly desires and is happy.
the plot:
honestly, iâm glad that i read this when the parts were posted once a week. it gave me time to reflect on everything that happened in the story. watching Wonwoo overcome his last relationship and also finding better ways to regulate his anxiety thru the help of Her just made me so happy for him. I really felt his emotions at the beginning almost as if I was the one really feeling that way, and it made me so upset. Seeing the way Wonwoo had changed for the better with Her in his life made my heart melt. you could see the obvious changes. and same with Her! they both had become better versions of themselves the more time they spent together. although i do think that the fight they had was very needed. it seemed like wonwoo had so much piled up inside him, and he needed to learn how to just let it all out, albeit yelling at Her probably wasnât the best way, im glad he stopped bottling up his emotions. theyâre honestly perfect for each other, and the way this was written is just so damn good. THEIR TENSION! especially the night she slept in his room and the first time they had sex. goddddd the smut scene was just so satisfying, cathartic almost after all that pent up TENSION!! i was so happy with how it went. they really match each others freak Aifkskhdskjdjfjek. anyways i loved how every character was written in this story but if i commented on everyone i would probably be typing in this google doc for about 5 hours. so iâll end it here.
thank you choco, for writing this, for taking the time out of your days to write this masterpiece and post it on tumblr FOR FREE. youâve really outdone yourself. all your stories are great and i will definitely be reading this one again. the way you described the characters feelings, their actions, everything. iâm in awe and as a writer i aspire to get become this poetic in telling a story. thank you for allowing everyone to be graced with your writing, i cannot describe how appreciative i am of your existence!!! 𫶠im so happy weâre mutuals btw :â)
p.s vernon was my fav character ever! i wouldâve done an in depth analysis on him AND seokmin if it wasnât almost 2am rn hhehe
HER | part one.
â§â synopsis: wonwoo, a heartbroken and burnt out writer nearing the end of his math degree, wants nothing to do with the seemingly perfect, intimidating girl who has everyone under her thumb. you. unfortunately, his literary talent has got him shoved him between a rock and a hard place when you want to write a book and require his expertise. you two are the furthest from compatible. wonwoo canât see this going well. at all.
pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 23.5k genres/tropes:Â writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (iâm coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.
(!) warnings: drug use (weed, coke, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.
â§â a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!
the fic is told from wonwooâs pov, not the readerâs!Â
all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates
potentially triggering scenes within the fic are NOT MARKED in advance
the content is already quite mature, so pls heed the warnings!
bolded and italicized text implies characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesnât happen often!
the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts
everyone's patience and understanding has been endlessly appreciated! you have no idea ;_; i give you all shining stars đ
âą part two | part three | part four | part five | part six âą soundtrack for those curious! âąÂ read at ur own pace! :)
âMARCH 19TH.
âI have a relatively big favour to ask of you.â
 No. Wonwoo didnât want anything to do with favours.
The fact that Seokmin had actively picked out his presence in the coffee shop like he was some shiny contortion of plastic had actually offended Wonwoo. He came here for two things: to not be bothered, which his friend knew, and to work on the book he was halfway through typing and had been halfway through typing for the past six months. Call it writerâs block, or an inspiration drought, or an absolutely depressing lack of driveâit had been hanging over the writer with an annoying persistence and it seemed that no number of lemony scones or cold coffees were going to make it vanish.
âUh, Wonwoo?â
âSorry⊠what?â He forced his gaze to shift from the blank page on his laptop to Seokminâs apologetic, softly expressional face, slightly flushed from his time outdoors in the chilled March weather.
âI was just wondering if youâd be up for a favourâa pretty big oneâand I know this is your special creativity spot, but sheâs been like, breathing down my neck about it and I canât put it off again.â
âWhose been breathing down your neck?â
At first, Seokmin didnât say a word, or even make a sound. His lips twitched for a moment, but then he pressed them together and his chest visibly sucked in with a breath. God, Wonwoo hated the suspense and he hated Seokmin for interrupting him when he had been so stupidly close to putting a sentence down that he probably would have back-spaced in frustration a minute later. Â
âYâknowâŠâ he trailed off, âHer.â
Her.
No, not her, you.
But most peopleâif not everyoneâreferred to you by an alias that had seemed to stick so well the majority believed it actually was your name. When people said her they meant Her, and so in a confusing mess of finger-pointing they really meant you. Come to think of it, Wonwoo had no idea where the nickname even came from or who gave it to you or what it even meant.
And he was perfectly fine with never knowing.
âWhat?â Wonwoo deadpanned. âWhat on earth could she want to do with me? She doesnât even know me.â He slid down in his chair, fingers pulling at his circle-lensed glasses so they tilted uncomfortably across his nose bridge. âOr, is this a joke?â
âOhâno! Absolutely not!â His friend was insistent on proclaiming, vigorously shaking his head. âIâm being serious.â
âWhy donât I believe you then?â
âOkay, well, if you let me explain everything, itâll all make sense. I said I know someone who writes really wellââ
âMeaning me?â
âYes, meaning you. And the only reason that was even brought up is because she wants to write a book.â
Wonwoo couldnât help it. He laughed a very short disbelieving laugh that flashed a transient smile to his face as he readjusted his crooked glasses. You were the last person he would ever envision wanting to write a book. He then navigated the trackpad on his laptop, deciding to close the document simply titled, 01, that harboured the fleet of pages to his own current work in progress.
âYeah,â Wonwoo disregarded, âsounds like bullshit.â
âIâm telling you the truth!â Seokmin exclaimed, gripping onto the metal back of the cafĂ© chair like he was squeezing someoneâs taunt shoulders. âShe wonât tell me about what, okay? Just that sheâs been thinking the idea for a while now. Itâs not like I didnât try to get details. But she refusedâsaid the only person who can know is whoeverâs going to help her. Look, yâhave to understand, she was pestering me about it nonstop. And youâre my only writer friend!â
âWell, youâre about to have none.â He answered, reaching for his coffee cup but stopping it just short of his lips. âHow serious is she about this, anyway?â Wonwoo sighed. âDo you know how much fucking time you need to dedicate to writing a book?â
He stomached a slow, somewhat grimacing sip as he tasted the coffeeâs coldness, meanwhile Seokmin swallowed heavily, and at last pulled out the chair heâd been white-knuckling to take a seat.
âYes, Iâm aware it takes time. I know that. And she is serious or else I wouldnât be here, bothering you. She takes everything seriously.â The boy began unbuttoning his sleek black jacket. âReally, who knows whatâll happen? Maybe youâll meet her once and sheâll decide she canât stand you, and then youâre off the hook for life.â
âYeah, well have you ever considered what might happen if I canât stand her? Are my feelings even being considered? Minutely?â
âMinutely, they are being considered.â
âLiar.â
It wasnât that Wonwoo disliked you.
In actuality, you scared him more than anything. But to be associated with you was to be drawn into your life and caught like a firefly in a glass jelly jar. The proof was right in front of himâto Wonwooâs eyes, Seokmin was basically your little mailman that scrambled around in hectic nature to do your bidding, because most tasks apparently werenât worth the time or effort.
âI canât believe youâre trying to rope me into this. You know I can hardly write my own shit, right?â Wonwoo said bitterly, wishing it was the opposite, âmy mind is a desolate, blank canvas of fuck-all and if she thinks Iâm writing it then she needs a reality check.â
âNo, noâof course you wonât write it!â Seokmin reassured him with his big, opalescent smile. âReally, youâre just giving tips, maybe guiding her process, helping with the planning⊠you know, this could be facilitated so much easier if you spoke to Her yourself!â
âSo, my nightmare?â Wonwoo huffed, shaking his leg.
In an instant, Seokmin had whipped out his phone, tapping around the screen quickly using his thin pointer finger.
âIâm just going to pull up her schedule. Itâs always pretty packed, but more into the summer break, it thins out a little. â
Wonwoo exhaled, staring off into the warm, afternoon sunlight that hailed in through the windows, striking all the shimmering flecks and pieces of dust afloat in the cafĂ© air. When he breathed in again, he could smell the luxurious coffees brewing in their rich and distinctive notes. It was such a beautiful dayâstill chilly as the snow outdoors began to thawâbut pleasant nonetheless.
âThis is such a fucking waste.â
And Wonwoo spent it being miserable.
âNo, itâll be useful. Trust.â Seokmin chirped.
âYouâre trying to dip me in your optimism gloss again.â
His friend smiled affectionately, tilting his head.
âThis will be good. Youâve been a hermit since Iâve known you.â
âYeah,â Wonwoo scoffed, âso you think itâs a good idea to shove me with the person I relate to least on the entire planet?â
âReally? The least? So, what youâre saying is, you relate more to serial killers? Or animal abusers? Or like, literal fascââ
âStop.â
âYou want to do this. I can see it in your eyes. Iâll set you up.â
A part of Wonwoo knew there might be no wriggling out of the situation, especially with Seokmin sitting across from him, characteristically eager and brightly pushy as always, like a goddamn salesman. For now, it could be easier to let himself get cuffed.
âCan I at least have some time to think it over?â
âUh⊠well⊠the thing is⊠the thing with that isââ
âYouâve cornered me?â
âI wouldnât word it like that.â
â⊠Okay.â Wonwoo removed his glasses, shoved his knuckles tender but deep into his eye sockets, massaging through flashes of white as he came to accept a fate he didnât know even existed in his astrology. âJust, I donât knowâfuckâschedule me in wherever.â
âHa! It doesnât exactly work like that.â
âI really donât give a damn how it works, Seokmin.â
âRight,â his friend laughed nervously, âI promise that Iâll get back to you pronto. Sorry for the disturbance. And, uh, good luck.â
 âWith what part?â Wonwoo grumbled, fixing his spectacles back on to clarify Seokminâs sympathetic face, the light bouncing off his head of brassy hair like a disco ball. âMy incapability to write a goddamn thing or the fact I have to help your perfectionist friend whoâs probably going to chew me up and spit me out?â
 âBoth parts.â Seokmin grinned. âIt can only go up from here.â
Wonwoo had one very distinct memory of you: creative writing with Mr. T. It had been an elective class he took amongst all his compulsory maths, and at the time it was a much appreciated break when Wonwoo grew apathetically bored from looking at matrices and confidence intervals and equations that engulfed the length of his notebook. Professor T was late one day in the fall.
And thatâs when Wonwoo remembered you walking in.
There was a sort of sharpness about your presence that pulled everyoneâs spines straight. People tended to angle themselves away from you, though they did it subtly, feigning an adjustment in their seat or a plunge into their bookbag for something that wasnât even there. Wonwoo lacked the words to describe you. To be honest, he most likely could if he put that infinitely expanding lexicon of his to work, but even then, he feared that everything would fall flat.
Some scruffy looking guy had made the mistake of sitting in your seatâsomeone who probably skipped most lectures and only happened to find himself near Gildan Hall purely by chance.
It was the seat squat in the middle of the small auditorium.
He remembered the hand propped on your hip as you sashayed up to himâyou always sashayed places. Wonwoo found it funny, like there were paparazzi stuffed behind potted plants and vending machines waiting to spring out with their blinding flares, just to capture you picking up a half-empty bag of flavourless popcorn.
âOh no. Oh no no no no no no no.â
âHm?â
âExcuse me? Yes, hello. Youâcan you get up please?â
âUp...? Why?â
 âWho are you?â
  âIâm sorry⊠whatâs this about?â
 âAre you a first-year or something? Never bothered going to class until now? All the moshing and beer pong and ending up in some random basement of a friend of a friend of a friend is done so youâre deciding to actually get your moneyâs worth? Well, let me tell you thisâIâve been showing up to class punctually, and this is my seat. I always sit here. Itâs my unofficially-assigned-assigned seat, which seems to be a known fact to everyone in this room except for you. Everyone has one. Everyone knows youâre not supposed to sit in other peopleâs seats. I don't care who you are. You could be my own mother. You could be my best friend, even. President of the universe. That doesn't make it okay, 'cause itâs a respect thing. It's one of those assumed societal rules and you just fucking kicked dirt all over it.â
Whoever he was, he never came back to another lecture.
Since then, Wonwoo had dually made it his mission to never cross paths with you, look at you, or even so much as huff one single carbon-dioxide filled breath in your general direction, just in case that was some degree of unbeknownst personal law he might violate.
Seokmin had royally screwed it up for him.
What could you possibly want to write a book about, anyway?
âMARCH 26TH.
Wonwoo didnât know how he was expected to find you in this gigantic mall. As he brushed through the streamlines of people, bumping their shoulders and mumbling the driest, most insincere apologies, he couldnât stop looking at his phone. Seokmin had given him your number with the instruction that he could find you, here, on a busy Saturday afternoon. So far, Wonwoo had sent you four texts, none prompting a response or the grey-dotted bubble, even. Fuck, why did he agree to this? He couldnât stop thinking it.
Why did he agree to help you, whom he was beginning to not even like, or want to be aquatinted with, write a book, when heâd been struggling to fill the same page of his own story for months?
Squeezing the phone tighter in his fingers, Wonwooâs broad shoulder then smacked into someone else while he was busy steeping in his misfortune. It earned him a wildly disgusted look.
âMaybe watch where youâre going," the stranger grumbled, some man with an engrained scowl and big, bewildered eyes.
But Wonwoo ignored him.
He didnât fucking care, and he was sick of wandering through this mall. It made him feel overstimulated, like his clothes were sticking to his skin differently, like the back of his head was swelling, and like all the smells in his nose were somehow making him warmer.
The stranger just stared at Wonwoo as he walked away.
Ding!
A text, but not from youâSeokmin, instead. Apparently, you were in some clothing store on the second floor. Wonwoo stepped onto the escalator, pressing himself into the barrier to make room for the especially speedy people who couldnât simply stand and wait. He felt a random touch on the back of his head. Scrunching up the glasses on his nose and turning around, Wonwoo stared at the downward escalator, locking eyes with a pretty dark-haired girl heâd never seen before. She wiggled her fingers at him with a flirtatious smile, the scent of her perfume still lingering. Fresh roses, he thought.
He blinked at her once, twice, then turned back around.
Never in a million years.
It was funny, though.
Once Wonwoo stopped outside the clothing store you were supposedly inside, he felt the myriad of distractions and scents and noises dampen behind him. The irritability he couldnât shake was slowly transforming into nerves. Heâd never met you before, unless half-glances controlled by fear from across the small, basement auditorium that hosted creative writing counted.
Focusing on one breath, and then another, followed by a deep, self-soothing inhale, Wonwoo attempted to convince himself that he was in control, not the emotions quivering at his fingertips.
He cracked his neck and walked in.
After a minute or two of confused isle-pacing, Wonwoo rounded a corner, his eyes immediately fixating on a girl who was picking through a neatly assorted dress rack, her head tilted elegantly and her lipstick glimmering under the sterileness of the lightsâyou.
He gulped. Just suck it up.
She canât be that bad. You canât be that bad.
âUh, sorry to bother you. Iâm Wonwoo. I know we have a mutual friend in Seokmin. Lee Seokmin. Heâs in one of your seminar classes or something, and, uhâŠ. anyway. I believe Iâm supposed to help you with a book youâre interested in writing⊠thatâs what I was told, at the very least. And⊠I know weâve never met but⊠um⊠I guessâŠâ he trailed off upon noting your lack of acknowledgement.
Suddenly, he was taking a step back, letting you progress further along the clothing rack, your fingers hopping between each hanger and your eyes scanning their corresponding fabrics.
Wonwoo jerked on the inside with panic. He hated the situation already, though he somehow found the resounding courage, or perhaps, humility, to address you again, even if heâd rather die.
âSo, Iâm not sure if youââ
âCan you move, please? Over here or something? I want this dress.â
He kept his mouth shut in order to avoid spilling out any obtuse nonsense, instead watching with a nervous, analyzing gaze as you removed the hanger and shook out the purple, wine-coloured fabric, its sparkles rippling when you stroked your hand along it.
âWoah. This is too pretty.â
Wonwoo cleared his throat, unsure if you were speaking to him directly. You already had a bundle of dresses tossed over your arm. Why would you meet up with him when you were clearly busy?
âHey, what did you say your name was?â
âMe?â He found himself echoing.
âNo, the mannequin wearing that hideous plaid mini skirt. Of course Iâm talking to you. Should I get you a q-tip or something?â
âNo... I don't need a q-tip. Itâs Wonwoo.â
âWonwoo?â You exercised the name slowly on your tongue.
âYeah.â
âOkay, well, just so youâre aware, itâs 11:35. You were supposed to meet me outside the boutique at 11:30. I can see youâre not very punctual, so thatâs notedâŠâ for a moment, you stood back, and the searing line of your gaze judgmentally raked him from top to bottom. âAnyway⊠youâll have to assist me with some things now, thanks to your big delay. I got all bored waiting for you, so I decided to do a little self-indulgent shopping."
It could have been wiser to continue biting his tongue, but even Wonwoo, who had practically vowed to avoid you for all eternity due to his fear, felt compelled to challenge your unorthodox logic.
âBig delay? I donât mean to be rude, but I did take the bus to get here, and their timing is never right. I feel like five minutes is a reasonable time to wait. Not that Iâm saying youâre impatient.â
âWell, hereâs the thingâŠâ your back turned to him as you took a few slow steps down the clothing rack, probing between the different, pricy materials for anything exuberant you might have missed. âThat is what you said, isnât it? That Iâm impatient? I meanâjeezâwhy bother dancing around it when you can just say it?â
He watched you face him again, except he was keeping perfectly silent, clutching his hand into an anxious, balled fist.
âWell, I suspect you lack urgency, making you apathetic, so therefore you have no sense of initiative. Iâm sure youâre already aware, anyway. I can be slow, too, with certain things. Like, when Iâm icing a cake. Or painting my nails. But I donât walk slow, ever. Thatâs for unmotivated, pointless people who will probably go nowhere in life.â
â⊠Pardon?â
âHold this, please.â
Suddenly, you draped the wine-coloured dress over Wonwooâs shoulder. And he left it there for a second, still gobsmacked, chest shuddering from the pressure of his pumping heart, and wondered how you were even a real person. Once you began walking elsewhere in the store, Wonwoo questioned a very understandable escape toward the exit, though, for some reason, he snapped from his stupor and quickly paced after you, now folding the dress more straightly over his arm. He realized he was too afraid to surrender.
âIâm supposed to help you write a book,â he stated, feeling his lungs dig deep for air, âSeokmin said you needed help.â
âOkay, Iâm tired of holding these two. Hereââ you again blanketed the dresses into his arms, ââplease keep this olive one in good shape, no crinkles. I have yet to find this colour anywhere else.â
Swinging back around, you began heading toward the change rooms, your uncomfortably tall looking heels clicking with each step. Wonwoo stuttered, and he couldnât stop doing itâjust, absolutely baffled by you and your consuming sense of worth. He didnât know what to say, he could only follow, producing bits and pieces of sentences that you were either ignoring or genuinely hadnât heard in comparison to the monologues in your own head.
âAt what point will we discuss why Iâm here?â
Finally, he spat out something coherent.
You paused, and for a fleeting moment, flicked your very intense eyes up and down in an examination of Wonwoo, who felt like he was being intrusively picked apart under a microscope.
 He swallowed tautly, âIâm just wondering⊠thatâs all.â
You pressed your wallet against the top of his shoulder, guiding him to sit down on the white leather stool placed just outside the fitting rooms. He sat, too, fighting the urge to wipe his clammy palms on his jeansâeven worse, the dresses youâd dumped on him.
âLetâs talk after I try these on, âkay?â
There was something different about your voice. It fell lower, sweeter, and he shivered with the thought that you had quite possibly just hypnotized him. He looked up at you, nodding his head.
âGood. Everyone calls me Her, by the way.â
âI know.â
He held his breath as you reached out to take a dress, the wine-coloured one, which was more like a dark, nightly amethyst now that Wonwoo was observing the fabric up close. So, what the hell was he supposed to do? Just sit there, twiddling his thumbs and shaking his knee while you busied yourself with fitting into all those wildly sumptuous dresses? There was a plethora of other things heâd rather be doingâtoo many to name, in fact. But he wasnât going to bother slithering away now, chiefly because you petrified him too much and he wasnât in the mood to be further guilt-tripped by Seokmin. Â
Throwing his head back, he blew out a tired huff and looked at the ceiling. Why the fuck was he doing this? He just couldnât stop thinking it. What on earth could he possibly gain from being terrorized by your weird authority.
âHey, Iâve been there, for sure.â
Wonwoo noticed an older man waltzing past him, probably in his early thirties or so, whoâd spoken in a sympathetic tone. He seemed very polished and clean-cut, made apparent by his sleek suit, and as a university student who was routinely on the verge of going broke after most rents, Wonwoo knew money when he saw it.
âPardon?â
The man stopped and smiled.
âWaiting for your girlfriend, arenât you?â
âOh, no. Iâm justââ
He was interrupted by the squeak of the change room door.
âBe honest. How does this look?â
You had stepped out to examine your silhouette in the large, full-body mirrors against the wall, taking advantage of the heavier lighting to scrutinize every divot and ruffle that textured the amethyst dress. Wonwoo wasnât sure what to say in the moment, and the man he was explaining himself to had wandered off into another aisle to answer a phone call. He watched your fingers pick and pull at the material so it could be readjusted in certain places, your bottom lip pursed as you angled your hips and tensed a leg to make a pose.
There were at least three other dresses strewn in his lap, and you were most definitely going to make him sit there and judge each one. Now, he could be honest. The dress was glittery yet sophisticated, something like a gloaming, purple-stained sky and its first emergent stars encapsulated into fabric, though he wasnât completely sold on it. But he also wanted to leave the mall as quick as time would allow, so rather than being verbose, he shaved it down.
âItâs pretty, not great. I donât really know.â
âHmmâŠâ you mumbled, keeping your eyes fixated on the mirror, ânot great? Whatâs not great about it? The frilly parts?â
âYeah, the frilly parts.â
God, he wanted to go home so bad. Warm tea would be nice right now. There were crinkle-cut fries in his freezer.
âUgh, but I love the colour. Iâm getting conflicted. Maybe Iâll toss it aside and think about it again later. Yeah, Iâll do that... okay, let me get the white one next. Itâs a little short but I can make it work.â
 Wonwoo carefully pulled out the white outfit from the bottom of the pile and handed it off to you. The skirt was notably cropped.
Again, you strode back into the change room and softly clicked the door shut behind you. Wonwoo pulled out his phone almost immediately, navigating to his texts with Seokmin. His thumbs blasted against the screen, tapping out literary warfare that expanded into a decent sized paragraph Seokmin would most likely respond to with an apologetic smiley face. It might take a day or two for Wonwoo to cool off, but he always forgave him. Mr. Sunshine.
When he heard the door rattle, Wonwoo quickly hid his phone back in his pants pocket; however, he severely regretted that decision because holy fuckâthat vinyl white skirt was indeed short and tight and the winding, crossed straps of the top were just maintaining your cleavage. He needed something to help avert his eyes because Wonwoo felt them itch with the urge to stare at your body despite how uncomfortable he was. The floor tilesâcount the floor tiles, or count the lightsâsomething, anything to distract his brain.
âOkay, this is likeâif I bend over, Iâm flashing someone.â
He prayed you wouldnât ask him his thoughts.
âBut likeâokay, I can make this work, right? This has potential. If I stand really straight, and proper, and, just⊠pull this down a bit hereâokay, fuck, that was too much. Donât look for a second⊠donât lookâŠ. donât look⊠mâkay, fixed it.â
Wonwoo wanted to cradle his head in his hands. And, right when he swore that the situation couldnât sink much lower, the wealthy, black-suit man returned from his phone call. He paused the second he saw you in the mirror, watching intensely as you fiddled with the vinyl and attempted to adjust the x-shaped top a little higher over your cleavage. Except he wasnât exactly modest about his gaze. It was drinking you in like some sort of insatiable alcohol.
âThis is tough,â you huffed, pressing your hands against your chest, âthe top is super sexy. I love how open the back is. But itâs such little fabric considering the price. It sucks that I look so hot in it.â
Horrendously, Wonwoo noticed a jewel bracelet slip off your wrist onto the tiled floor. Even more horrendously, he watched in the tensest position possible as you began to bend over and grab it.
No. No, no, no, no way.
The last two dresses spilled in a silk and cotton heap off his lap, nearly tripping him during his rush toward you. He managed to cover your backside in the most heart-hammering nick of time, his hands accidentally brushing in static sparks against yours to help you pull the tight fabric back down your hips. Knowing the man was still watching in the mirror, Wonwoo clasped onto your arm and dragged you back toward the fitting room, his cheeks turned to rubies.
âFuck, you need to be more careful,â he rasped, âthe skirt is too short for you to bending over like that, alright?â
âIâm not leaving a gifted two-hundred-dollar bracelet on the fucking ground. Should I have just kicked it into the change room?â
âGoshâŠâ Wonwoo rubbed along his neck with tire and lowered his voice. âBending over in a skirt that short, especially when thereâs a fucking weirdo watching you, is not the best procedure.â
âSo, itâs my fault heâs a creep?â
âOkayâthat wasnât what Iâumââ
âDo you even like this outfit?â You deadpanned.
Wonwoo chuckled in disbelief, âIâm not answering that.â
âThis is useless." Your eyes agitatedly rolled. âIâm changing.â
âGreat, whatever. Do that.â
He gently pushed you further into the change room and closed the door with a smooth, loud shutter. His heart was still racing.
âYeah, I wouldnât let my girlfriend wear that either.â
âSheâs not my girlfriend.â Wonwoo didnât care that his tone was snappish and clearly tired as he collapsed back onto the stool, making a point to ignore the perverted bastard until he left.
âWonwoo!â You called his name after a few minutes of silence from the fitting room, âplease bring me the green one!â
He wanted to utterly vanish, have the building collapse and crush him in a pile of dust plumes and rubble. Sliding the dress through the small gap in the changeroom door, Wonwoo found himself pausing.
âWhy donât I just hand all these to you?â
âBecause, Iâm using the hangers in here for my clothes.â
âWhy canât you just puââ
âThank you!â
Impatiently, you nabbed the dress and shut the door.
However, that dress was the last one you tried on, and Wonwoo couldnât have been any more relieved. Talking to you seemed like it might give him heartburn or a hemorrhage.
He thought the shiny colour of olive green suited you best.
The dress was silken and long, slightly form-fitting, with a slit cut far up the right thigh and thin spaghetti straps at the shoulders.
You picked the first three dresses to take home, and left the last shimmery one on the rack.
âWeâre leaving now?â Wonwoo asked, cracking his fingers.
âYes, after I pay. Donât seem so eager.â
âWith all due respect, this place isn't really my scene.â
âYour attitude isn't really my scene.â You swiftly corrected him.
He stood next to you at the counter, observing as you zipped open your small black wallet to pull out a credit card. If you were shopping at a store like this, you must be making bank. But Wonwoo was somewhat nosey, and when you set the card on the countertop, he glanced at its embossed name. It definitely wasnât your name.
Kim Mingyu.
It was your boyfriendâs.
[ Wonwoo | 1:15 pm ]: Goddammit Seokmin answer me
[ Wonwoo | 1:15 pm]: Iâve sent you at least ten texts
[ Wonwoo | 1:16 pm ]: Truly how do you do anything with this girl? I feel like sheâs somewhat psychotic and you just fucking had to flash your sad mopey eyes at me in that cafĂ© so I would break and help her write her book. Iâm sitting here with dresses in my lap, pretty much acting as her unpaid personal assistant. Why the fuck is she asking me about dresses, anyway? Did you help her orchestrate this bullshit? Iâm actually pissed at you. I want an entire paid lunch.
He wasnât all that surprised you made him carry the matte silver shopping bag (with these twine handles that he absolutely hated because of how they suffocated around his fingers), and by a certain point, Wonwoo just didnât give a damn any more. What little social battery heâd maintained since leaving his apartment had officially depleted, for he could feel it weighing in the plaza air around him like an imperceptible mist. Unfortunately, you werenât lying about being a fast walker. Heâd never seen someone stalk with such vigor.
It was nearly an endurance test to keep at your swaying hip, and the few times he fell behind, you would pause and beckon for him.
But Wonwoo discovered that even you needed to stop, to eat and drink like a normal human rather than the disguised cyborg he fleetingly speculated you were. Your touch was so abruptâa hand had curled around his bicep and suddenly Wonwoo found himself being jerked into a cafĂ© on the bottom floor of the mall. Of course, you had to pick the most expensive place to buy food in the entire fucking vicinity, and since Wonwoo was penny pinching at the moment, he opted to stand back and let you order.
But then he saw you flick open your wallet, waving Mingyuâs sleek yet flashy credit card between your fingers with blatant enticement.
âI can pay for you.â
He shook his head, muttering a careless, âno thanks.â
âDon't BS me. What do you want to eat?â
Wonwoo couldnât stop staring at the credit card.
âWhatâs the limit on that thing?â
âEnough.â
âYou havenât burned through it already?â
âThese openly snide comments youâre making arenât appreciated, you know. Now, please give me an answer before I break off the temples to your glasses so I can use them to stir my drink.â
â⊠What?â Wonwoo mumbled, completely lost.
âPick something!â
âOkay, fuck. Iâll just get a coffee, then.â
He took a step forward to examine the menu boards that the employees were wildly scuttling around underneath, browsing down their chalk-written cold brews until he picked one at random.
That was all Wonwoo asked for.
You bought a lemonade and some sandwich he didnât catch the name of, toasted on panini bread. It felt amazing to sit down. Wonwoo let the silver bag slide completely off his arm and hit the floor, to which he could sense your gaze stinging over him in disapproval. He should have gotten a sandwich himself, but Wonwoo still wasnât sure how he felt about using the money on your boyfriendâs credit card.
Wonwoo relaxed in his chair, angling a glance down at his phone that he kept below the table, checking for any Seokmin texts.
None. He was supposed to be Wonwooâs stupid life preserver in this situation with you, and so far, heâd been left for dead. Taking a lengthy sip from his drink was the only way he could stomach it.
âYou should put your phone on the table. Screen down.â
âFor what reason?â Wonwoo responded in a dull tone, quickly checking his social media with impatient swipes of his thumb.
âSo we can have a conversation.â
At that, he almost gagged, slapping down the coffee cup heâd just picked up.
âNow?â Wonwoo laughed, his deep voice reverberating louder than he intended around the cafĂ©, âyou want to talk now?â
âUh, yes,â you answered, picking up one half of your sandwich and readying it before your mouth, âwhy is that shocking?â
âBecauseâyouâah, whatever.â
âYou seem crabby. Is that your normal shtick or are you just hangry? Are you sure you donât want anything to eat?â
He was in a worse mood than usual, but that could be blamed entirely on the mall and how exhausted it made him feelâeverything about its environment sucked out his soul. It was most likely the reason he was even daring to act so impatient. You took another bite as you waited for him to answer, and the delicious crackling sound of the toasted bread managed to fissure something inside him.
âYour eyes tell all. Hereâs the other half.â You offered.
Finally, heâd experienced his first flares of contentment that day, though he wasnât expecting it to be from a panini sandwich with what he could taste to be lettuce, mayonnaise, tomato, and different types of melted cheese.
âThanks.â
âWell, Iâll at least give us time to finish eating.â
[ Seokmin | 2:30pm ]: I can do one paid lunch :)
[ Seokmin | 2:30 pm ]: Herâs not psychotic sheâs just uhh
[ Seokmin | 2:31 pm ]: She probs did it to mess with youÂ
[ Wonwoo | 2:37 pm ]: She thinks being 5 mins late warrants putting me through one of the worst experiences in my life.
[ Seokmin | 2:37 pm ]: Awwww
[ Seokmin | 2:37 pm ]: Who doesnât like a little shopping??
[ Wonwoo | 2:39 pm ]: It wasnât shopping it was torture. You owe me so much more than a fucking lunch.
âMARCH 29TH.
Unfortunately, Wonwoo never got the opportunity to discuss your book that Saturday. In the middle of eating, your phone buzzed with a brief call that had interrupted your peculiarly passionate rant on the different cup sizes at the movie theatre (Wonwoo had listened without saying anything, mostly because he dreaded the circumstances that may come from peeping a word when you were so fixated on explaining that âthe medium is too much but the small is too little and theyâre both obnoxiously pricedâ).
He then watched cluelessly as you launched up from the table, collecting every little belonging between your fingers, babbling about some wax appointment that had escaped you.
It was just that simpleâyou were gone.
In the beginning moments of your absence, Wonwoo had sat there without much inclination of what to do next.
Heâd worried it was another test, and that he was supposed to dutifully follow you to said wax appointment and continue bending to your every endeavour with no retaliation throughout the day. He had also found the silence across from him unsettling, in a way.
Nonetheless, if you werenât there, then Wonwoo figured he didnât need to be there either. So he left, taking the fifty-six back to his apartment, and you hadnât contacted him since.
Wonwoo actually knew his landlord quite well.
Her building was comprised of four apartments, which sat above her pottery shop on the ground floor. She wasnât a very bothersome landlord and it was fairly easy to connect with her whenever something broke or caused problems.
When he first moved in three years ago, Wonwoo had ardently adored living there, constantly studying the shelves of shiny glazed vases in addition to the beautiful water colour paintings that were created by his landlord or her students. It had been an inspiration supernova in terms of his personal literature, and he was able to start writing his book. Though, at the time, Wonwoo hadnât been living alone in his apartment, and it was an inescapable fact that the only reason he began writing his book was with the hope of eventually presenting it to his old girlfriend-slash-roommate.
Now, it was just him.
And as Wonwoo pushed up from his grave of rumpled bedsheets, feeling lethargic and empty, he tried concerningly hard to pinch those thoughts from his mind. It was nearly lunch. He knew damn well he shouldnât have allowed himself to rot that long in bed, but the other half of himself, the self-sabotaging kind, just couldnât be bothered to fucking care. Wonwoo reached for his glasses that lay half-opened on the nightstand, raking them onto his face while brushing the hair from his eyes. The first thing he properly saw was his tall, skinny, orange bottle of venlafaxine. No. He was ignoring it.
Wonwoo had been ignoring it for the past few months.
Whenever he got particularly sick of staring at the bottle, heâd shove it in his drawer, making sure to bury it deep under old, amply-scribbled notepads and inkless pens that heâd worn to the bone. At last getting up from the bed, Wonwoo experienced his entire body sway and he caught the room spinning at the distant edges of his peripheral. But he walked through it without a care in the world, utterly too used to the feeling of imminent nausea even without his medication. He decided on a shower, then dressing himself, one Poptart, a swig of water from the kitchen tap, and almost walked out the apartment door with the minty toothbrush still in his mouth.
After walking three blocks down from his apartment, Wonwoo stepped across the dead, spiky grass and into the lacklustre parking lot behind the bowling alley that always smelled like stale pizza.
He knew the vanilla Camry well enough to identify itâstalled smack and centre amongst the emptinessâthe licence plate being chiselled into his head like his old locker combination from high school (16-12-24, because Wonwoo for some reason liked fixating on prehistoric details that were glaringly useless in his present).
Early two-thousands R&B was blasting from inside the outdated-looking car, though it was thankfully turned down once Wonwoo threw the door open and shimmied inside.
The odor permeated Wonwooâs lungs in a heartbeat.
âI thought you were getting this dry-cleaned,â he sighed to his friend, Vernon, who was busy rifling through a backpack.
âUh, didnât happen. Didnât wanna pay all that. Mâgonna find someone else to do it thatâs not taxinâ my ass. Air fresheners are all dried nâshit so youâre gonna have to deal. My bad, Glasses.â
Glasses. That nickname had always made Wonwoo huff a little half-chuckle, and almost instinctively, he pushed the glasses a bit higher back up his nose. He was introduced to Vernon at a New Yearâs Eve party he was forced to attend back in December, though it had been difficult to speak with him because he was blitzed out of his fucking mindânot to mention the choking pain of ignoring the girl who had been sliding her hands along the divots of his shoulders and chest from behind, kissing at his neck.
But Vernon was branded in tattoos, and had all kinds of metal in his face, and was blessed with concupiscent, honey-burnish eyes magnetized every woman in the vicinity straight to him.
Somehow, Vernon had become Wonwooâs plug in the mix.
âNow, what are you gettinâ, Glasses? The usual quarter ounce, right?â Vernonâs tongue poked between his blistered lips as he dug a heavily-inked hand further into the backpack seated in his lap.
âYeah, quarter ounce.â
âOh, fuck yeah. Found it. This one.â Vernon exchanged the plastic-bagged ounces of weed with Wonwooâs cash. âGimme, gimme. I know itâs all here, but let me check⊠â he flaked out the tinted bills with a satisfied head nod. âPrettier than a princess. Youâre golden.â
âDid you just say princess?â
âYeah. Thatâs what I said⊠what?â
âIâve never heard that.â
âItâs not princess?â
âItâs picture, isnât it? Prettier than a picture.â
âReally? Oh. Thatâs not how I rememberâwhy the fuck are we even talkinâ about this? Doesnât fuckinâ matter. Now, thatâs gonna last you if youâre cute,â he said, throwing his notorious bag into the seat behind him, then tapping at his busted radio with a thick strip of tape across it, the next song rasping through the speakers, âdonât go crazy on it with your meds and shit. Do you still got enough papers?â
Wonwoo scoffed dryly at Vernonâs assumption while he hid the plastic bag within an inside pouch on his navy-blue jacket. A second later and his phone buzzed with a text message.
âFuck the meds, honestly,â Wonwoo grunted, shifting his hips up in the seat to remove the phone from his back pocket.
Vernon itched his dark eyebrow. âAlright. Just askinâ.â
Wonwoo opted to say nothing as he checked the text message without much expectation, and he was thankful that Vernon was the type to drop a subject easily. Instead his friend transitioned into a different conversation, something about another tattoo that heâd been debating, but in the kindest way possible, Wonwoo wasnât listening to a goddamn word. You had texted him. Finally. For the first time. After three days of radio silence. And Wonwoo didnât know why heâd suddenly exploded into such a fidgety, heart-pounding mess. You wanted to meet up again in order to discuss the bookâs details.
âWho the fuck is that? Jesus Christ?â
âNo,â Wonwoo laughed, clasping his right hand into an anxious fist, âum, I dunno. JustâSeokminâs got me doing this thing with a friend of his. Sheâs trying to write a book and he kinda threw me into helping her. Weâre supposed to meet up and talk about it.â
âOh,â Vernon answered, leaning his elbow against the window and sweeping a hand through his black tresses, âdo I know the chick?â
âMaybe?â
âShe got any social media? An Instagram?â
âYeah.â
âOu, let me see.â
Wonwoo wasnât following you. Then again, he was hardly following anyone. His Instagram had remained completely empty since his girlfriend left him, which had prompted Wonwoo to archive every single picture and delete all the ones that contained her, even the ones that captured mere traces of her in beaded bracelets and hair ties and white socks left on the carpet.
Wonwoo used Seokminâs account to find you. Honestly, he hadnât ever looked at your Instagram before. Without gleaning a single photo, Wonwoo thrust his phone at Vernon.
âOh, yeah, I do know this chick,â Vernon chuckled, thumbing through your profile with a growing smirk, âHer, right?â
âYeah.â
âMm, yeah. Know her. Tried to fuck her. Didnât work at all.â
Snapping his head to look at Vernon, Wonwoo gaped, âwhat?â
âYeah, I meanââ Vernon adjusted himself in his seat, pulling up his knee to rest a tattoo-coated arm across it, ââran into the chick at a party that some rich dude at your university threw. Sweet-talked her for a bit until I realized she had a stupid boyfriend. She told me a million different ways to kill myself. Yeah, sheâs somethinâ, for sure.â
âYouâre lying.â
âHaâa little. She didnât tell me to kill myself, just scolded me for about ten minutes. God, she was wired as fuck though. Her boyfriendâfuckinâ, Mingyu, or whateverâhe gets her coke. Iâve seen her take a line like itâs pixie dust, man. This was like, over a year ago, though. Dunno if sheâs still that loopy. I donât care. Sheâs pretty hot.â
Vernon then flashed him a picture from your account, a full body picture of you sprawled across sparkling white sand in a bikini, meanwhile Wonwoo could only stare at it with the blankest possible expression as his brain splattered with computing Vernonâs story.
âIs she still with him?â Vernon asked.
Wonwoo cleared his throat and sat with his spine rigid against the leather, nearly forgetting where he was and what he was doing.
âWith who?â
âLady Liberty. Mingyu.â
âOh⊠yeah. Theyâre dating, still.â
âNo fuckinâ way,â his friend lamented while he continuously plunged further into your pictures, thumb pressed to his chin, eyes glimmering, âyou coulda flipped this book thing on its head and actually got some fuckinâ head, especially with that deep ass voice you got there. I know itâs gotta feel good. I mean, look at her lipsââ
âYouâre being gross as fuck,â Wonwoo groaned, swiping his phone back and stuffing it away, âget a girlfriend yourself, man.â
âIâm tryinâ to clean up my act a bit before I do that.â
âThatâs definitely a work in progress, Iâm assuming.â
âAsshole,â Vernonâs voice was gritty as he coughed into a fist, slipping his knee back under the steering wheel and proceeding to crank his stereo until the music was practically suffocating Wonwoo, ânow get the fuck out. Youâre not my only deal today. Sorry, Glasses.â
âLater.â
Wonwoo pushed open the door and stepped outside into the cold afternoon breeze. He sucked in a long, relieving breath. At times the fresh air disgusted him, especially when he cozied into one of his mental ruts and everything in the world seemed so grey it was soul-crushing, but Vernonâs car smelled like straight fucking cannabis.
Fresh air was heavenly.
âDonât forget to text your girl!â Vernon laughed just before Wonwoo slammed the door shut to swallow up the melodic lyrics.
He wanted to make a snap comment before the boy drove off to his next endeavour, but he didnât care enough to think of one.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:35 pm ]: hey wonwoo, itâs her. I think we should finally settle a date to talk about this book thing. let me attach a pic of my schedule and you can pick any open slots
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:35 pm ]: 145_348.JPG
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:35 pm ]: Â seokmin isnât going to be our communicator anymore, so u can stop complaining to him about it
[ Wonwoo | 1:45 pm ]: Okay, thanks.
[ Wonwoo | 1:45 pm]: Iâll take a look soon.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:45 pm ]: Iâm excited to see you again
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:50 pm ]: no likewise?!
[ Wonwoo | 1:50 pm ]: Likewise.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:50 pm ]: ugh. thx
âAPRIL 1ST.
It was around six in the evening and Wonwoo was seated in the SRX building, the sky rolling with lambent, hazy-toned pastures of peach in the windows behind him. He had arrived about an hour ago, taking the staircase up to the third floor. It was much quieter there, making it easier for Wonwoo to endlessly stare with glazed, void eyes at his laptop screen and the cursed document he couldnât finish. After tapping his fingernails in a bored, repetitious pattern against the shiny white table, he felt the urge to delete each and every paragraph as if he hadnât poured months of earnest love into them.
You would be meeting him soon.
He could still remember looking at your schedule, pinching into the screen and examining all the different colour-coded blocks: dinner parties, SSA meetings, gym sessions, errandsâhow the fuck you managed to juggle those things and more left him marvelled yet terrified. You were pretty on point regarding your arrival time, to which Wonwoo could immediately identify you before even seeing your face due to the heel clicking and the sounds of tapping jewelry on your bag.
Emerging onto the floor with a very intense scowl and a notably crushing grip on your drink, you were to say the least, angry. Wonwoo gnawed slightly on his tongue as you sat down.
Your purse clunked like a cinderblock onto the table.
He watched you inhale a slow, shaky breath, raising your hand with the expansion of your chest in order to calm down.
 âIâm going to kill myself.â
Wonwoo leaned back in the chair, subtly trying to establish more distance between you. He flicked a glance at his laptop.
âDamn. Why is that?â
âBecause of stupid, incompetent people.â
âYeah?â
âI justâI donât get it!â You laughed, though it wasnât a particularly jovial sound and more than anything it seemed like you were going to start smashing glass. âI donât get how people are unable to understand that we donât do walk-ins unless one of the stylists are freeââ you dug a hand into your purse, pulling out a straw, ââwhich in the salonâs case, is almost never! I tell them we canât in my very sweet, established customer service voice: âIâm sorry, but the only way to receive a chair is to book online.'â
Wonwoo tilted his head, grinning a little.
âBlah, blah. I tell them the entire story in the kindest way I can, even though I want to grab them by their fucking neck and drag them over the counter to show them our website.â You slipped out your laptop next, accidentally dragging out a lanyard along with it that you agitatedly shoved back into the purse. âAnd then, they get all uptight and pissy when we canât wriggle them in! Sorry, our makeup artists are busy! Working with people who made scheduled fucking appointments! The world doesnât fucking revolve around you!â
You scraped the drink toward you, slamming the straw straight through the plastic film lid with such force that several people ended up turning their heads. After taking a long sip, you gulped and glared until they probably realized it was you and pretended not to care.
For a moment, Wonwoo didnât know what to say, so heâd folded his arms instead. Considering that Wonwoo worked the late shift stocking shelves at the pharmacy department, your predicament sounded like an entirely new world to him.
âUgh, Iâm sorry to bring all this negativity with me,â you apologized, still exasperated, âI donât need this fucking teaâI need straight vodka. Iâm seriously frazzled.â
âSeriously frazzled?â Wonwoo repeated, finding your choice of words funny as he resumed leaning forward, arms still crossed.
âVery, seriously frazzled.â
âIâm sorry about your day.â
Again, you sighed deeply while removing your long, warm jacket to drape over the chairâs spineâit was a rather elegant reveal of the strapless pearl dress underneath, tinted by the evening light, peach-pink as it rained from the ceiling length windows and framed your body like you were some sort of resurrected angel. Tension at last started escaping your shoulders. Wonwoo quickly realized that he'd been staring, and his fingers curled into a nervous fist.
âYouâre actually such a good listener.â
Wonwoo cleared his throat. âUm, thank you.â
âI like that you donât interrupt me.â
Settling his elbows on the table and ruffling the back of his messy black locks, Wonwoo felt himself panic a little on the inside.
âWell,â he heaved in, âI wouldnât dream of it.â
âI know," you chirped, posturing yourself confidently, âanyway, the book. We need to talk about it.â
âTableâs yours.â
Wonwooâs knuckles pressed softly into his cheek while he waited for you to prepare your laptop. His own document was glowing at him, and he swore the emptiness of the page made the screen brighter (in the absolute worst, most mocking way).
âOkay, Iâve got my ideas and such pulled up.â
He expected you to continue and introduce the concept, but you had suddenly stopped, and Wonwoo thought you appeared almost smitten and somewhat timorous. It was strange, because from what heâd known and gauged so far, you were nothing akin to that.
âWell, promise that you wonât think itâs ridiculous.â
âI donât even know what it is.â
âThatâs why I want you to promise!â
Wonwoo pushed up his glasses and sighed, âI will need to be honest at some points you know, depending on what kind of help you want from me. Not that Iâm going to be a straight-up dick.â
You scoured at him from over your laptop.
âWhatever.â
âIâll promise if it makes you feel better.â
âJustâshut up." You wiggled your hand at him dismissively and proceeded to tug the laptop closer. âI donât even care anymore.â
Once you spent a moment affirming the document to yourself, you looked up at him and smiled. âIâm going to write a book for Mingyu. Our fifth anniversary is coming up in the winterâitâs actually on Christmas Eveâthe day he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. I just want to write him a little memoire thingy that tells our story. I want it to walk through the events of our lives, and how I remember them. First encounter, first date, first kiss, stuff like that. Iâve already collected some good memories to include. I have⊠somewhat of an outline? But my problem is the writing. I can spew nonsense from my mouth at a million miles an hour, but when I try to actually write? Itâs crickets.â
You sat back, a hand poised thoughtfully at your cheek while one leg folded over the other. Wonwoo knew you were granting him the space to speak and at least offer a slice of his thoughts, yet, in that moment, he found himself to be drowning. He didnât believe in fate or destiny or anything of the delusional like; however, hearing you explain the exact premise of a story that he had been successfully writing until a certain breakupâit had shaken him, and Wonwoo felt like the universe was smearing salt fresh into his unsewn wounds.
âSoâŠâ your head cocked to the side. âCan I at least an âokayâ or a head nod or some sign of life? Or are you just too disgusted?â
What could he say? What was he supposed to say?
Wonwoo was genuinely clueless on how to help you write a story that heâd been utterly failing at writing himself. And, sure, maybe Wonwoo should just give up completely. His ex-girlfriend had ripped out his heart without a single indication that it would happen, and then exited his life in the blink of an eye, disappearing so fucking abruptly that Wonwoo could have said she was a shadow that he imagined in pure lunacy. But he hadnât dropped the story because there was this very stubborn, unwilling part of his being that could not move on from herâher, who had been his love, and breath, and bones.
Heâd decided to finish the story as a manner of easing into closure. If that closure never came, then so be it.
âAre you seriously fucking ignoring me right now?â
His silence had promptly disturbed your peace, and now you were glaring at him with the beginning licks of fire and hell in your eyes.
âI donât think I can help you.â
âWhat?â You pronounced sharply. âAre you kidding?â
âNo, Iâm sorry,â Wonwoo said while closing his laptop and sliding it back into his shoulder-sling bag, âI justâIâm not the right person to help you. Iâm not, and youâll have to take my word for it.â
âSeokmin told me you could write fucking anything. He made it out like you were some literature God with a golden quill. Andâgreat, youâre just packing up fucking everything. Are you serious? Am I even allowed more of an explanation or are you gonna leave it at that? Wonwoo, you couldnât have told me this at a worse time.â
âI didnât plan for it to be like that.â He could hardly push the syllables up his diaphragm. âIt canât be me. Iâm sorry.â
You didnât lift a finger to stop him from leaving, though the wavelength of your incinerating stare was felt like a hot, melting scratch down his neck. This was terrible, he was terribleâWonwoo already knew that about himself. He wanted to go home. He wanted to shut himself away in his room and sink straight through the sheets until he was swallowed. His anxiety was webbing around him. It was pulling him down into the soil and earth like he belonged there.
He truly hated this part of himself.
More than anything, he truly hated when other people saw it.
Especially people like you.
âAPRIL 8TH.
Wonwoo didnât think you would ever speak to him again, in person or over text message. In retrospect, he was fine with it. You were rather overwhelming and especially tiring for someone like Wonwoo who would be perfectly fine never seeing another human in his lifetime. Not to mention he was freed from helping you with your book, which he learned was a technical love letter to your boyfriend in addition to a romance he wanted a nonexistent part in. Going down that path once was already excruciating enough, and given his anxiety attack that saw him locked in a cold washroom stall last week, it was best you just forget about him. He assumed you already had, anyway.
After he stocked the last red bottle of sinus medicine onto the shelf, Wonwoo used his boxcutter to break down the cardboard package and fold it flat with the others heâd opened. It was time for his break, and then he would only have one more hour until the pharmacy section closed for the night. Once it hit ten oâclock, the store was automatically still and hardly anyone came inâminus the few student couples whom Wonwoo had to point in the direction of pregnancy tests or plan b. But it was a Tuesday night. He was at the bare minimum appeased he didnât have to console a sobbing, snotty-nosed eighteen-year-old girl imploring for a First Response.
When he collapsed down at his favourite seat in the breakroom, Wonwoo pulled out his phone. He had sent Seokmin a text yesterday evening about going studying at the SRX building for their upcoming math midterm, though Seokmin had yet to respond and Wonwoo couldnât evade wondering if you were pulling some strings behind the curtain.
He opened his bottle of juice and spent the remainder of his fifteen listening to music and jittering his knee.
Wonwoo took his earbuds with him back onto the floor, sneaking the wires under his shirt to pull out his collar. There were only a few boxes left on his cart that required stocking, and whatever didnât fit would have to be scanned into storage. That shouldn't take long. Wonwoo could almost taste the crisp atmosphere of the night air and feel the gentle chilliness soon to ghost against his face.
However, halfway into shelving the cough drops there had been a polite tap on his shoulder, and Wonwoo wanted to wither up and lose his head right there on the tiles like a sundried rose.
He didnât know who to expect when he turned around, pulling out a single earbud while the other continued to blast his music. Â
âOh, shitâI didnât know you worked here.â
Fuck. He wanted to kill himself.
âYeah, started a couple months ago, actually.â
Mingyu.
Itâs not that Wonwoo didnât like speaking with him, because they had definitely exchanged cordial conversations in the past, particularly when they both took that Probability Poker elective last semester and Wonwoo learned that Mingyu was a pretty decent bluffer. Unfortunately, Mingyuâs belief that he was a great bluffer was actually the one indication that he was indeed bluffing. It showed in his overly confident eyes before a twitch of the lips or a subtly shifted foot, meanwhile Wonwoo was able to sit there the entire time like he was an Easter Island statue incarnate.
Put simply, Wonwoo had always preferred to avoid Mingyu because he was your boyfriend, and per routine, he attempted to slip around most people that were associated with you.
âCool.â Mingyu smiled and the flashes of his pointed teeth caught the light. âStuffâs got switched around in here again.â
âNew mods came out last week,â Wonwoo answered, placing the last cough drop box onto the shelf and facing it straight.
âWell, donât know what the fuck that means,â his tone was brassy as he laughed, âI just came to ask where the plan b is now.â
 âTwo aisles down, check the endcap.â
âAppreciate it, thanksâoh, condoms?â
âNext aisle.â
âGot it.â
âJust come get me when youâre done,â Wonwoo said, grabbing his boxcutter and running the blade along the taped seam of the cardboard to satisfyingly slice it open, âIâm the only one in pharmacy right now, so I have to ring you up.â
As soon as Mingyu disappeared around the corner, Wonwoo tossed the flattened cardboard onto his cart with the loudest, most life-draining sigh that could be harboured. He wasnât the kind of person to cultivate those racing, panicky thoughts that consumed his brain like a merciless hurricane, rather it was typically one single thought that was an eternal black space to swallow him. But Wonwoo had to admit that seeing Mingyu had triggered something of the latter, and now he was feeling sick with the fact you possibly told Mingyu about his episode at the SRX building last week. To Wonwoo it had been the shackles of his anxiety, though it probably came across as a very ill-mannered, abrupt rejection from your perspective.
Mingyu didnât take long picking out his items. It was clearly a run of the mill routine for him at this pointâa mere grab and go.
At the register, Wonwoo mentally questioned why Mingyu had grabbed such a plethora of condoms. He didnât mean to be vulgar in his thinking, but how often were you getting fucking railed?
Either that, or Mingyu preferred being well stocked.
Vernon would be bruising his knuckles on his steering wheel right now, considering how devotedly he attempted to seduce you.
As payment, Mingyu pulled out that godforsaken credit card that you had borrowed during the dress shopping. Wonwoo felt nauseous just looking at the damn thing. He swiped all of the items into a small plastic bag which he then handed to Mingyu with a notable impatience, wanting to whisk the boy out as quick as possible.
âGânight, man. Thanks for the help.â
âNight,â he answered in a deep, tired sigh, watching Mingyuâs head of thick and bouncy black hair disappear toward the aglow exit.
Well, clearly you werenât wasting anytime thinking about him despite the dramatics pertaining to the situation last week, not even in the most marginal fraction. Mingyu must rail it out of you every nightânot that Wonwoo would be surprised to learn such a thing considering the tall boyâs physique and your openly lascivious nature.
Well, good luck to you both, he supposed.
At least it was closing time.
Wonwoo had always suspected there was something ever so slightly off kilter about his body, especially in the way it reacted to certain situations and emotions. He knew it probably wasnât the most mundane, ordinary actâlocking himself in his auntâs washroom the day of his sixteenth birthday, sliding down onto the cold, hard tiles, feeling his heart jolt, punch, and thump again his chest like a battering ram. There had been a pattern of rubber ducks on her eggshell blue shower curtain, and Wonwoo remembered counting them row by row, over and over, until his breath managed to steady.
Twenty-four ducks. He could still recall the number.
A doctorâs visit about three weeks later had granted him the diagnosis and a scribbled venlafaxine prescription. Wonwoo was already collecting his sweater off the tissue sheet bed, ready to leave.
In the beginning, he was strict about his medication. He organized them into pill cartridges and set alarms and always ate them with cooked, warm meals. Understandably, his habits dwindled every now and again, however, Wonwoo was quite pious to the routine for a good couple years. But then he met his most recent girlfriend in university. She was shy and reserved. All about the books.
Cute as buttons.
He fell in love.
And it was all such a rush of rose petals and sweet symphonies that Wonwoo became distracted from his healthy habits.
Of course, everything crashed and burned once she abandoned him. He capitulated in an instant, and the sight of the orange bottle made him paler than winter moonlight. Itâs not like he wanted to suffer, or despise the way his body put him through a neural hell beyond his own control. The fact of the matter was that Wonwoo just couldnât do it. He couldnât take those stupid pills.
It was a mountain. Every. Single. Time.
And for the third time that week, Wonwoo found himself awake at an ungodly hour, rifling through the black lunchbox he kept in his closet with his glasses about to slip off the fine point of his nose.
He pulled out the baggie filled with the quarter-ounce, his silver grinder, and his rolling papers. Moving to his desk, Wonwoo clicked on the small overhead lamp to illuminate his space, in which he tapped some of the weed into his grinder and began twisting the lid until he was satisfied. He liked preparing joints to smoke on the roof. It wasnât particularly hard to access, anyway. Right outside his bedroom window was a balcony with a short ladder attached to the brick, and once Wonwoo had discovered it, he made a habit of climbing up to spark his joints so that their pungent aroma could be carried away by the fresh winds usually stirred up at gloaming.
Honestly, it was the only thing he enjoyed.
Just before he slipped out the window, Wonwoo grabbed a pair of black jeans heâd worn earlier in the week, discovering the lighter heâd accidentally left in the back pocket.
The ladder shuddered slightly when Wonwoo gripped it, though if he were being candour, he didnât care whatsoever if all the bolts suddenly loosened and he were to splatter against the sidewalk like an uncooked pancake. In fact, the fall probably wasnât enough to kill him. Maybe a few broken bones and scrapes, some blood staining the street akin to little patterns of rain, bruises that signatured violets into his skin, but Wonwoo would still be painfully, vividly alive, enough to see the stars if the glasses didnât snap off his face.
It was a colder night, so Wonwoo made sure to tuck on his beanie and huddle into his thicker-sized coat. He sat with one leg dangling over the buildingâs edge, feeling the wind whiplash against his back and crawl in these chilly, indecipherable whispers from his shoulders to his neck, almost tickling him, like it had missed him.
An orange flicker popped to life from the butane of his lighter, which he used to lightly singe the joint perched at his lips. Wonwoo then tilted his head back, blowing the cloud and its loose, airy curls straight into the skyâs deepest purples.
He loved being alone.
Even when his ex-girlfriend had moved in with him all those months ago, there was an unyielding part of him that hadnât been ready to forfeit all his space and privacy.
But, over time, his love surmounted the sacrifice.
He would wake up to her sleeping face, and with thoughtful nudges, clear the hairs off her cheeks. He would spend an hour working on his homework or writing his story while waiting for her to stir so messily in the sheets that it became graceful. He would tease her with his cold hands as she boiled up tea in the kitchen, pinching at her hips with the utmost softness and giggling huskily into her neck when she would twist in the arms that bracketed her body against his chest. He would trap her between the counter, sunshine striking the room aglow in these nearly blinding seas of light, mouthing at her throat and tugging at her shorts and hitching his fingers so deep into her heat because all Wonwoo wanted to do was make her feel good.
Opening his eyes again, Wonwoo saw the stars rather than her face. The high was disseminating past his lungs and mingling with the pain that festered in his heart, concocting something that hurt so wonderfully, in all the right places, in all the right spots.
He was a fucking mess.
It wasnât sustainable. But he didnât care enough to fix himself.
 âAPRIL 15TH.
Why did Wonwoo keep coming back to that cafĂ©? The number of times heâd sat down with conviction that today would be fruitfulâtoday, the eloquence would flow from his fingertips like perfectly pitched music notes and the symphony would read as beautiful and mellifluous as it sounded in his mind. Today, he was going to write.
Except, he accomplished nothing of the sort.
Repeatedly tapping his index finger against the space bar, he waited for the right adjective or phrase to leap outâto grasp him in a headlock evenâwhatever it took, Wonwoo was willing to sit there all afternoon until one fucking word conjured in the infinite blankness that was his imagination. He reached for his drink, only to take a sip of dry air that smelled like his earlier cocoa. Wonwoo realized the cup was empty. Had he wasted this much time already?
It pricked similarly to a bee sting. His passions felt impossible. A sigh upheaved from his chest and fingers curled into his hair, musing up the already disarrayed strands and slowly warping himself to look more and more like a mad scientist. Wonwoo removed his glasses and slumped back in the chair, rubbing at the reddish prints left on his nose. Writing had soaked itself in agony and he was going to remain in the storm of it until the bitter, ungratifying end.
âTill death do us part.
 And then, something struck.
Though it wasnât what Wonwoo had hoped for.
Literallyâit was your hand hitting the glass of the cafĂ© window, which had jerked Wonwoo out from his self-pitying.
He scrambled to fix his glasses back on, your face clarifying in an instant. You smiled at him with your glossed lips, and he didnât like the nuance of your countenance one bit. Watching you enter the cafĂ© was jarring and uncomfortable and his fist immediately clenched, his index nail picking at the ruined cuticle of his thumb. Two weeks agoâthat was the last time you had spoken. At the SRX building.
âHey!â You sounded friendly. âCan I sit here?â
âWell, uhââ
âGreat, thank you.â
You pulled out the chair across from him, then set your bag delicately on the windowsill. Wonwoo watched with nervous, fluttering eyes as you smoothed out your cropped skirt before sitting down, ensuring it was tucked under yourself appropriately.
âHow are you?â
Gulp.
âFine.â
âGood. Thatâs really good. Iâm glad.â Your nails drummed once against the table. âI actually didnât plan on coming here, but I saw you as I was crossing the street, and I thought, âI should stop by and check in on himâ because, yâknow, we havenât been talking.â
Wonwoo furrowed his brow. âDo you always do that?â
âDo what?â
âSlap your hand against windows to get peopleâs attention.â
You swept something off the table with your palm, and this sunshine-like laugh turned your entire face to sweetness, but it wasnât entirely earnest, and Wonwoo bit into his lip because you fucking terrified him. He caught your sparkling eye and wanted to melt.
âDid I scare you? Iâm so sorry.â
âNo, youâre good.â
âWhat are you working on?â
âA paper.â
Obviously, he was going to lie. Whether or not you could pick up on his lie was beyond Wonwooâs control at that point. He didnât know what you wanted, or why you were interrupting the flow of your very organized scheduling system to seemingly toy with him.
You didnât respond to his paper comment. There was a thick silence between you despite the distant clattering of dishes, bubbling coffee machines, and conversations that coalesced into one big buzz.
Wonwoo bit the bullet.
âSomething you want from me, yeah?â
âNot⊠exactly⊠I mean, after you left me at the SRX building, I wanted to get very angry about the whole situation. My day was terrible, and you responding to my idea with that sickly look on your face didnât help. But I thought about it. You said no. I canât ask anything more of you, yâknow? I have to respect what you said.â
âOh.â Wonwoo unclenched his fist, stretched out his long legs a bit more. âYeah, sure. I get it. Thanks for understanding.â
âI just didnât think my idea was that bad.â
âWell⊠no. Itâs not bad. Itâs not bad at all.â
A twitch to your lip suggested you didnât believe him. Wanting to clear the air a bit, Wonwoo stopped slouching. He sat straighter and lowered the lid of his laptop, inviting the space between you.
His mouth opened, and then closed.
Fuck, just breathe you idiotâhe cursed at himself.
You did that little head tilt thing, half-smiling at him, looking radiant underneath the café sunlight and so oddly patient with his tied-tongue that Wonwoo was miraculously able to find his words.
âThere is nothing wrong with your idea. I made it seem like there was. Iâm sorry. I just donât want to help you write a romance story, for personal reasons that would be useless explaining. But you seem very confident in everything you do. Iâm sure youâll be fine.â
âHm, well, thank you for believing in me. Romance can be a touchy subjectâI didnât think of that, and I get it⊠I guess I felt more insecure about your reaction because writing is the one thing I canât ace. I do need help with my story, even if I donât want it. Well, itâs just the truth, isnât it? There are some things I canât do!â
You chuckled at yourself, and Wonwoo thought it to be actually endearing. All your hard edges softened in that moment.
âSo, I havenât made any progress in my story, which sucks because Iâm operating by deadlineââ reaching into your bag, you unveiled a small, compact mirror, using it to remove something invisible from your eyelash, ââdo you have any writer friends that would help me?â
Wonwoo scratched his nose.
âUh, with the book?â
âYes.â
âNone.â
âWhat?â The mirror snapped shut as you gagged at him. âHow do you have no writer friends? Isnât that your major? Literature? Do you even have friends that arenât Seokmin?â
âIâm a math major for fucks sake.â
âYouâre fucking joking, Wonwoo. Please, tell me itâs a joke.â
He leaned back, folding his arms and propping an ankle onto his knee. You were still gaping at him, and he wanted to smirk.
âWhatâs wrong with math?â
âNothing. Math is⊠math,â you gritted, shoving the mirror back into your expensive-looking, gold-buckled bag, âbut why math? Why straight math? I thought you wanted to be a writer.â
âMan, Seokmin really didnât tell you fucking anything, did he?â Wonwoo chuckled. Or, maybe you had only heard the things you wanted to hear, which was what Wonwoo assumed.
âLike I have space in my brain to remember the multiverse of information that constantly comes out of his mouth.â
âSo what is there space for then?â
âYou're toeing a dangerous line.â
âWell, I like math and writing.â
"And what kind of papers would you be required to work on as a math major? Did you stumble across some quintessential theorem that nobody else really cares about except for you and all the other pocket-protector wearers out there? Or is this a Good Will Hunting scenario? Even betterâare you waiting for someone to walk by behind you and see all that really complicated mumbo-jumbo on your screen and think to themselves, 'woah, this guy is really smart. He's working on a paper with numbers, and I only work on papers with words. Where did I go wrong in my life?' so you can develop some sort of alternative complex that writing just isn't giving you?"
Wonwoo cocked his head at you, perplexed.
âWhat the absolute fuck are you talking about?â He felt a laugh in his chest, but he pushed it down. Wonwoo had never met anyone like you before. âYou made up everything you just said.â
âYes.â
âYes, what?â
âI go on tangents. Itâs just something I do.â
âDamn. I can tell.â Wonwoo rubbed at the corner of his eye and slipped the ankle off his knee, further spreading his legs. âYou like hearing the sound of your own voice, yeah?â
He always hated when people bothered him at the café, especially when he was trying to write. Today, it was different.
âWell, thatâs true.â You beamed at him so matter-of-factly, like it was obvious. âThe most beautiful sound in the world, isnât it?â
âMm.â
âThought so. Ugh, I just canât believe you have no writer friends to hook me up with.â He watched you slouch forward, slapping your arms across the table. âIâll have to go wait outside Gildan Hall and start ambushing all the smart-looking literature majors.â
Wonwoo found himself examining your perfect nail polish.
âGood luck with that.â
âCan you at least try to sound more sympathetic?â
âYou donât seem like a person who appreciates sympathy.â
âPft. According to who? I like being comforted when the time is right, and youâre not being very comforting.â You groaned into the table.
âYou like being comforted?â He scoffed.
Your head popped up, and you were pouting. âAt certain times, yes. Most times, no. Itâs a complicated system. No oneâs really cared enough to learn it except for Mingyu, and that was by force, and I think even he hates it. But Iâm not asking for the moon. Just a reasonably sized chunk of it. I have to be worth something, right?â
âWhatâs life without someone catering to your every whim at the drop of a hat, huh?â He couldnât help but mutter with sarcasm.
âYes, exactly! Seeâyou read my mind.â
Wonwoo bit his tongue.
âUgh, now whereâs my stupid phone?â
It was in your purse. Immediately, your eyes lit up.
âJesus Christ. Iâm gonna be late to my electrolysis!â
Like a burst of lightning, you shot up from your seat and quickly fixed the cream-white purse back over your shoulder. It reminded him of that time at the mall. One second you were engrained into a tangent, and the next you were scrambling about, attempting to recover the lost time in your meticulous schedule.
âIf you think of anyone, please text me!â
Wonwoo nodded his head.
Now, there was a vacant seat before him, left slightly tugged from the table due to your hectic departure. For a moment, he just sighed, feeling the breath emerge from somewhere so deep in his chest that it ached. That was the thing about youâin a confusing turmoil, you managed to fill him up when he felt empty, but then empty him once he felt full.
He didnât know what kind of person you were.
But there was an odd thrill to it that Wonwoo couldnât articulate.
âAPRIL 18TH.
Sat with Seokmin at the boyâs dining room table, Wonwoo popped a purple grape into his mouth while flipping a pencil between his fingers. The two had been staring plainly at their last problem from the math homework, but the question was horribly long, and his handwriting had morphed from legible penmanship to the most slurred hieroglyphics. Wonwoo wanted to dump a ramen packet into some boiling water and call it a night. Heâd devoured a whole stem of grapes. His head was pounding and his stomach growled for a meal.
âOh! You seeâthis is what gets me every time!â Seokmin exclaimed, leaned over his scattered papers, shoulders hunched with strain, âI mess up one multiplication in a matrix, and it screws me all up! Now I have to go overâuh! My fucking pencil just snapped.â
âGood,â Wonwoo mumbled, pressing a hand along the groove of his stiff neck, cracking it, âtake it as a sign to give up.â
âWeâre so close.â
Scooting the chair back to stretch his legs, Wonwoo then snatched his phone off the table. It was nearly ten at night.
âIâm hungry, and I donât care anymore.â
Seokmin sighed, âare you going to eat now?â
âYeah. Any ramen left?â
âItâs in the box sitting on top of the fridge. Soup broth is in the cupboard beside the microwave. I think thereâs some eggs, too.â
Wonwoo easily grabbed the noodle packet off the fridge. He asked his friend if he wanted a bowl as well, and Seokmin agreed, abandoning their math homework after his defeating pencil-snapping incident. While they waited for the water to start bubbling over the stovetop, Seokmin had joined Wonwoo in the kitchen, though he leaned against the counter, holding his phone six inches or so from his face. Wonwoo had never seen anyone text that fast.
Goshâhe didnât even need to ask who it was.
Noticing a few smudges on his glasses, Wonwoo lowered them down to the hem of shirt, beginning to massage the marks away.
âOur math final is the twenty-eighth, right?â Seokmin asked.
âShould be, yeah.â
âThanks. If itâs on the twenty-eighth then I can definitely go.â
Wonwoo slid the glasses back onto his nose.
âGo to what?
TaptaptaptapâSeokminâs fingers were practically electric.
âUh, this thing that Her is having⊠at her parentsâ house⊠like⊠a big dinner party⊠Iâm helping her plan it⊠just need to make sure⊠Iâm free those days⊠there! Okay, all settled.â
At last, Seokmin had clicked off his phone and slid the device back into the pocket on his sweatpants. Wonwoo folded his arms, staring at his friend with a deeply furrowed yet confused brow.
He sucked in a helpless breath.
âI donât get you, Seokmin.â
âWhatâwhy?â
A few hot droplets of water had leapt from the pot, slightly scalding Wonwooâs arm. He promptly ripped open the ramen packet and submerged the noodle brick, poking at it with chopsticks.
Wonwoo cleared his throat, âare you obsessed with her?â
Seokmin laughed, sounding astounded.
âNo, Iâm not obsessed. Iâm just helping. Weâre friends.â
âRight.â
âYou donât believe me?â
Setting the chopsticks beside the stove, Wonwoo turned around again, habitually crossing his arms low along the chest.
âI guess I donât understand what you get out of that relationship.â He admitted. âWhy canât she do shit herself?â
âHa!âThatâs an interesting question.â
âYou donât want to talk about it?â
âNo, itâs not that.â Seokmin lifted himself onto the kitchen counter, his head thumping back against the wooden cupboard. âI just wasnât expecting you to ask that. AndâI meant itâs interesting to see your interpretation of it. Like, my friendship with Her.â
Wonwoo nodded. He wasnât going to coax anything out of his friend that he wasnât already willing to say. In fact, Wonwoo had only begun talking to Seokmin back in the early, rainy days of September, since they ended up in the same discrete mathematics course and happened to choose seats right next to each other. Their bond had formed fairly quick, but they never really conversed about topics more intimate than school work and their own interests.
âIâm sorry,â Wonwoo said, âI shouldnât have asked.â
âNo, donât apologize. I mean, I totally get why youâre curious.â
Seokmin glanced down at his knees, scratched his chin.
âUhâwell, what did you say, anyway? Why canât her do shit herself? I mean, her life is super busy. Her momâs a writer and editor for that popular fashion and beauty magazine you always see at all those glamour storesâStunning Monthlyâsomething like that. Herâs dad is this business tycoon guy. He works with my dad, actually. Iâve known Her since high school. Our families are close, so naturally weâve spent a lot of time together. Her family picked up all their stuff and moved into Hillcrest on account of her dad needing to relocate for work.â
Wonwoo remained silent at the revelation, even though he was urged by curiosity to badger Seokmin with questions.
âBut, uhâwithout all my non-essential ramblingâthe relationship with her parents is tumultuous. Who doesn't have a shaky relationship with their parents, though? A few lucky souls, probably. But they've set things up for her quite well, in my opinion. Her mom got her a job at the Milestoneâthat fancy beauty place down Bank Street? She has a makeup chair from time to time and works reception. Sheâs definitely gonna graduate Cum Laude with some big fancy scholarship. Not to mention the little power couple thing sheâs got going on with Mingyu. She just tends to beâŠâ Seokmin winced, massaging his shoulder, âsheâs just a bit unpredictable. It would be way too easy for things to start falling all over the place. Sheâs a busy girl so I figure itâs nice to help her out. Keep things organized.â
Wonwoo bobbed his head, thinking.
âI guess Iâm curious about the book thing. I mean, if everything is so perfectly laid out for her, and sheâs so busy all the timeâŠ. why write a book? That takes months, extreme dedication, planning out the ass⊠itâs loving everything youâve written and then hating it so atrociously⊠I donât know,â he sighed, shrugging with confusion, âif I were her, writing a book would be the last thing on my mind.â
Folding his arms, Seokmin leaned back against the cupboards and agreed. âI know. But sometimes she just lurches onto random things out of nowhere. One year she practically turned her entire living room into a freakinâ art studio and I slipped on an open tube of paint on the floorânearly popped out my tail bone. To be fair, her passion projects never last long. She never has the time, as you said⊠I know youâre not helping her anymore. Sheâll probably drop it without help.â
âReally? Just like that?â
âYeah,â Seokmin answered, smiling, âjust like that.â
For some reason, Wonwoo gritted his teeth. He would hate for you to discard the feat so readily, just because he couldnât pitch in as initially planned. Yes, writing was not always a fruitful cherry blossom tree and sometimes chalking down one sentence was equivalent to a month of effort and squeezing out all the creative fibres in oneâs brain, but there was so much worth and occulted beauty to it at the same time. It was the art of expression.
Wonwoo thought it was quite cruel to deprive oneself of the ability to express and articulate things as they coursed through the fragile skin and the warm veins, and chiefly, the heart.
âAnyway, maybe I didnât really answer your question,â Seokmin laughed, âbut, yâknow, donât worry too much about turning down the book. Youâre right. Sheâs got more important things to focus on, as I was telling her over and over, andâoh! Fuck, the ramenâs bubbling!â
Wonwoo quickly twisted around as the water began spilling over the edge and sizzling like fried meat. He lifted the pot off the piping hot, orange element, to which Seokmin joined him, twisting the stove dial to a much lower heat. Blowing at the white froth, Wonwoo waited a precautionary minute before returning the pot.
Once dinner was ready, they gathered back at the dining table, entwining the noodles with their chopsticks and hardly allowing a second for the ramen to cool before they were shovelling in burning mouthful after mouthful. The bite in Wonwooâs stomach was gradually appeased. He soon felt warm, and full, and less tempered.
âSeokmin.â
âHm?â His friend glanced up from his phone.
âSoâŠâ Wonwoo leaned back in the chair, his fist clenched. âI guess whatâfrom what I understandâif I donât help Her, or if she doesnât find someone who can, then the book just wonât happen â
At his observation, Seokmin nodded, seeming unbothered.
âUh, yeah. Pretty much.â
âThatâs sad.â
âHey, you two just arenât destined for each other,â he replied, slurping his noodles, âyou were right back at the cafĂ©.â
Picking up the white and blue patterned bowl, Wonwoo prepared to drink the broth, feeling the delicious heat fan back against his face. Once he finished eating and helping Seokmin with the dishes, he planned to catch a late-night bus back to his apartment above the quaint pottery shop. He didnât know if he would sleep or not.
Maybe, however, that would give him time to rethink some choices, even if he shouldnât trust the musings his brain happened to curate past nine at night. Especially any musings concerning you.
[ Wonwoo | 11:45 pm ]: Sorry to message you this late.
[ Wonwoo | 11:45 pm ]: Iâll keep it brief: Iâve given your book idea some thought, and if the offer still stands, Iâd like to help you write it. Though, I understand if you want someone elseâs help.
[ Wonwoo | 11:50 pm ]: Goodnight.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:35 am ]: AHHHHHHHHHHH
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:35 am ]: good morninggg
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:35 am ]: no thatâs so perfect
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:37 am ]: okay. OMG. thereâs just so much we have to sort out. Iâm trying not to overwhelm myself lol
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:37 am ]: thank u for giving it more thought. Iâm excited to plan everything and see u again ofc :)
[ Wonwoo | 12:55 pm ]: Likewise.
âAPRIL 24TH.
Since last November, Wonwoo hadnât invited many guests to his apartmentânot even his older brother, who had never stepped foot into the building after Wonwoo originally signed the lease. Seokmin visited once or twice, but everything was curt, and while there had been one time that Vernon slept overnight on the couch, it was hardly notable.
Knowing that you were going to be at his apartment in a few hours was a very daunting thought. Consequently, Wonwoo had done something he hadnât properly completed in months: clean.
It wasnât like he just threw out the garbage and wiped down the kitchen counter either. He legitimately cleaned, picking over his apartment with a fine-tooth comb, not allowing one coffee cup or coaster to seem even vaguely incongruous. He fluffed out the couch pillows and vacuumed the floors. He went through his entire room, tidying up piles of clothes on the floor and aligning every book on his shelf. For the first time in months, Wonwoo threw open his heavy curtains, pure sunlight engulfing the space in such a bright glare that his eyes stung and he hardly recognized his own bedroom. Most importantly, he remembered to hide the pill bottle in his nightstand.
After all the anxiety-driven cleaning was done, Wonwoo collapsed onto the couch and stared plainly at the ceiling, the reality of what he just accomplished beginning to sink into his pores.
What the fuck?
He doubted you would care even microscopically if his apartment wasnât perfectly swept and polished and artistic like a photo from an interior design catalogue. But at the same time, it would have been impossible for him to leave it alone. The burst of productivity undoubtedly left Wonwoo rather hot and sweaty, so he opted to take a shower before you arrived. Standing beneath the cool water and taking slow, languid breaths helped ease his nerves.
And, for the first time in what he imaged to beâmonths, Wonwoo dried himself off with this feeling that everything was okay.
Not good. Definitely not great. But okay.
While he buttoned up a pair of blue jeans, Wonwoo heard his phone ding from his desk. Reaching over, he tapped the screen.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:05 pm ]: hi, Iâm almost there
His chest fucking lurched.
Roughly jerking open his drawer, Wonwoo pulled out the first shirt he saw, tugging the white long-sleeve over his head before he wiggled his feet into a fresh pair of socks. Once Wonwoo found his glasses, he sat on the edge of his bed with his phone.
[ Wonwoo | 12:08 pm ]: Okay.
[ Wonwoo | 12:08 pm ]: Would you like me to come down?
Godâhe felt like his stomach was going to collapse.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:08 pm ]: no thatâs okay :)
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:09 pm ]: itâs really pretty down here
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:12 pm]: sorry I was looking at some of the pottery / painting stuff. itâs the staircase down the hall, right?
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:12 pm ]: unit 102?
[ Wonwoo | 12:12 pm ]: Yes.
He reminded himself to breathe. Calm and slow and lifting the pressure that dug so bluntly into his lungs. The webs began to burn away. It had been a narrow escape, but it was successful.
[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:13 pm ]: heyy, Iâm outside
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Wonwoo walked to the front door. His fingers brushed the knob in a flash of doubt, though his mind had already committed and now the door was pulled open and you were there, just as you said.
âWell, hello.â
He nodded at you, and then gestured for you to enter.
âWhere should I take off my shoes?â
âThereâs good,â Wonwoo answered, pointing to a textured mat in the corner that you proceeded to leave your simplistic heels on.
How absurd was this? Never in his life would Wonwoo imagine you at his apartment of all placesâthe one girl whom he adamantly tried to avoid because you were his gleaming opposite, and everything that you were, certain and in control, scared him. You were gazing around with your hands politely clasped together, ignited in the fulgurant sunlight, a small smile on your mouth.
âWow, youâre very clean.â
Wonwoo stepped after you, maintaining a shy distance.
âIt doesnât normally look this neat,â he admitted, watching you readjust the strap of your tote bag, âI did clean for you.â
You turned to face him, and your laughter filled the space with a refreshing, long lost tone that made everything brighter. His fist clenched up anxiously and he knew his cheeks were pinkening.
âUm, cleaned or power-washed?â
He merely stared at you. Why couldnât he fucking speak?
âJeez, donât look so afraid. Iâm joking. And I obviously appreciate the effort.â You spun back around, continuing to walk past the coffee table and toward the kitchen. âItâs a lovely place, and itâs definitely got your personal touch. Ohâthis is a cute mug.â
He breathed out, unfurling his hand and stretching his fingers until the air in his knuckles popped. You began wandering in the natural direction of the bedroom, and so Wonwoo followed, his eyes drifting up the jeans that hugged your legs and your sashaying hips, to back of your delicious-smelling hair. What was that scent, anyway?
Manuka honey?
But it was just a trivial glance, really.
Nothing meaningful.
âIs this your room?â You asked, stopping at the doorframe.
âIt is.â
Biting your lip, you peaked inside and started to grin.
âDo you care if I go in?â
 âNo.â
He tried not to crumble right there on the floor. Wonwooâs room was his sanctuary, a fortress, something that barred out everyone but himself and granted him the freedom to do whatever he pleased (whether it was self-detrimental or not). The thought of others in his room was a gash in that perfect sanctuary, in which he could see the walls bleed out all their comfort and familiarity. His ex was the last person to be in his room, typically sprawled across the bed with a good novel in her hand.
It was a sour, sour reminder.
âOh, and thereâs the bookshelf,â you pointed out, âhow fitting.â That penetrating gaze of yours roamed his desk and his bed and all his knickknacks in between. âHey, whyâs there a balcony outside?â You then asked, settling your hands onto the window frame and leaning out, the wind fluttering minimally through the layered curtains.
âJust a remodelling error,â Wonwoo explained, âit was supposed to be removed, I think. Never happened.â
Allured by curiosity, you leaned further out, examining the ladder that led up to the buildingâs roof. He looked at you again, specifically the arch in your back and the way your arms were planted so firm at the windowsill. He looked at the sunlight rippling on your cheek and your lips that appeared to sparkle, like you had kissed glitter.
âYou definitely go up there, right?â
âYeah.â
Half-shutting the window as to keep the breeze flowing, you chuckled. âI figured⊠so, I guess we should stop dawdling and get to the meat and potatoes. Is here a good spot? Or do you want to go back to the living room?â
âWeâre in my room anyways,â Wonwoo commented, pulling out his desk chair and promptly sitting down, âso, why not.â
âCool. Let me get my laptop.â
You slipped the tote bag off your arm and sat on the edge of his freshly made bed, being careful not to rumple the sheets.
âOkay!â Your hands echoed a series of soft claps. âIâm all ready now. Iâll try my best not to rambleâoh, and please, please donât interrupt me until Iâm done. Iâm going to be very pissed if I lose my train of thought and Iâd like this meeting to remain pleasant.â
Wonwoo nodded. âI know.â
You flashed him a brief smile.
âSo, as you know, Mingyu and Iâs fifth year anniversary is coming up in December. My gift to him is this so far nonexistent book. Weâve been through a lot as a couple, and as individuals, and I want the book to fully capture this journey weâve been on and how much I⊠appreciate him. Also, Iâm going to introduce a second, special elementââ a hand plunged into your tote bag and suddenly a video camera was revealed, ââI want to record some of our brain sessions, and, like, our voyage of figuring this shit out. I like mementos. I hope thatâs okay.â
â⊠Do I answer?â
âYes.â
âOh. Then, yeah. Iâm okay with it.â
âSecondlyyyââ you lilted while scrolling a little ways down the notepad on your laptop, the video camera stuffed back into your flower-and-honeybee-patterned tote, ââthere are a few places weâll need to visitânot the actual places that Mingyu and I went to since we grew up nowhere near hereâbut places that more so have a strong resemblance to the ones in my memory. I feel like it will help me with visual aspects of the writing. Iâm a very visual person. Yâknow, setting up the scene and technical things like that. I like touching and feeling and seeing and breathing everything in. I want all my senses on fire, basically. Like⊠the way your lips feel after eating insanely hot noodles.â
âYeah, thatâs fine.â
Wonwoo didnât really care. He just agreed.
âLastly, I want to make a schedule for us. So, Iâm kindly asking you to set up a schedule of your ownâwork shifts, doctorâs appointments, testsâthe like, so I can incorporate them into my own hectic life and make us one colourful, super writing schedule.â
And then, with a big, winded sigh, you shut your laptop.
âThatâs it. Done. Thoughts?â
Honestly, the entire premise didnât sound all that terrible. He had braced himself for the worst, but you were unsurprisingly organized and had pinpointed all your desires quite clearly. Of course, he knew it was going to be sheer hellâflames up to his knees and desert sun beating on his skin like a hot skillet frying butter. You were structured and dedicated and Wonwoo was none of those things.
No doubt, Wonwoo would have to learn to deal with you.
You would either be his trigger or his pulse.
But, even worse, you would have to learn to deal with him.
âIâm just following your lead on this,â Wonwoo announced, lacklustre of much interest, resting his hands against his stomach while he rotated back and forth in the swivel chair, âwhatever you want me to do, Iâll do it. How soon do you want the schedule thing?â
âLike, as soon as possible.â
âOkay.â
âDo you really have no questions?â
Wonwoo scratched the side of his head.
âUh, have you got anything written down yet?â
âYes,â you propped open your laptop again, âan intro.â
âOh, really?â
âDonât question me. It was already difficult enough to write it, and I agonized over it for hours.â You pouted, slumping slightly.
He shifted up straighter in the desk chair.
âIâm sorry. I was just wondering. Itâs good you started.â
âOh. Thank you.â
Wonwoo tilted his head at you. âDo I get to read it?â
Your feet crossed and twirled together. He didnât think you had any nervous ticks, but that was something easy to pick up on.
âUm, not yet. Not until we officially start.â
âOkay.â He answered with a gentle voice, noticing your swaying feet still again and a bit of rigidity dissipate from your body.
Well, he didnât really know what to do at this point. Wonwoo suspected you were constrained by more tasks for today and your time with him was limited. Itâs not that you were sitting in an awkward, stifling silence, but he would rather occupy himself with something rather than nothing, because nothing left his heart to race.
âAre you hungry?â He asked.
Glancing up from the laptop, you shook your head. âI ate before I came here.â
âAre you going to be leaving soon?â
At that, your face crinkled with laughter. âSick of me already?â
Wonwoo crossed his arms. âNo. Just asking.â
âWell, I have a wax appointment soon. Iâll be leaving in ten minutes or so.â Finally, you looked up, and your eyes clicked with his in a way that made the fine hairs along his neck prickle coolly. âDoes that answer your question?â A subtle grin pulled at your soft lips.
âIt does, yes.â
âYou donât like having people in your room, do you?â
He huffed at the observation and delved a hand through his black hair, feeling the dampness slide against his fingers. âNot particularly.â
âYou should have just said that.â Rising off his bed, you closed the laptop and shoved it back into the tote bag.
Wonwooâs entire chest jerked. It felt like a ten-story drop.
âAre you leaving?â
âMm, I donât want to intrude.â
âYouâre not intruding.â
Why did his throat close up just then? Why did his vocal cords abruptly feel so coarse and tight? Why was his heart hammering? He didnât mean to project the wrong impression. He didnât hate you in his room. It just felt misplaced, and new. Like picking up a puzzle piece from the box and attempting to jam it into a different puzzle.
âItâs fine. Seriously. I should be early, anyway.â
Wonwoo stood up, realizing he needed to breathe. âUm⊠would you like me to walk you down?â
You stopped on your way out, faced him with a pretty smile.
âThatâs okay.â
But then you did something rather strange; your hand sank into his firm upper arm and suddenly you were leaning into him, so carelessly close that he could feel the fanning, light warmth of your breath against his neck. Wonwooâs head started to spin, and he thought a cloud had enveloped the room because his vision fuzzed.
âSorry,â you took a step back, removing your hand, âyou just smell really good. Like an ocean or something. It reminds me of this beach in Puta Cana. But your hairâs all damp and fluffy so thatâs probably why. That was weird. Iâm sorry.â Again, you laughed.
Why the fuck did you do that? He was almost angry. But not at you. At himself. For reacting in such a giddy, stupid way. Your touch and breath had burned him and there was this sharp, cutting flare inside Wonwoo that didnât want to let you leave.
âAll goodâŠâ he mumbled, sounding groggy and slow.
âIâll see myself out then. Bye!â
And with a final chirp, you left, the front door closing in the distance while he could only stand there, shuddering and strangely hot and beyond confused. Wonwoo moved to swing the heavy curtains shut, the entire room succumbing into its usual shadiness. He sat on the edge of his very neat bed, removed his glasses, and buckled over while rubbing his veiny, pale hands through his hair.
The feeling was so lost and suppressed to his memory.
Wonwoo didnât even know what it was.
He was relieved you were gone, but he also wished that you were still there, leaning out his open window with the wind and sunshine in your face. It was a sight so sweet and equally intimate.
Who are you?
What are you doing in his meaningless life?
âAPRIL 28TH.
Wonwoo had finished his math final with half an hour to generously spare, and now, he was sitting, bored, sketching his pencil against the last page of the thick packet. The professor wouldnât care.
Hopefully.
On one hand, Wonwoo knew he should really just stand up and hand the damn thing in, but on the other hand, he hatedâno, abhorred being the first person to return a test, especially an exam at that. Wonwoo was pretty smart. He knew that about himself and he never bothered to maintain the guise he wasnât. Still, Wonwoo wasnât pretentious. If he had to wait until the final fucking minute to hand the packet in, solely to avoid being the first student up, then so be it.
Besides, there wasnât anything too pressing that required his immediate attentionâminus the pertinent schedule he was supposed to make and have sent to you approximately three days ago. You had called him last night, to which the phone crackled with a loud, static bark of his name as you admonished him for his lateness.
âI told you three days ago I wanted the schedule! Three days! I canât believe this. Whatâs so hard about making a schedule? Beep boop, you press some buttons on your laptop and itâs done. It would take ten minutes tops! Ugh, Iâm so done with you, Wonwoo. In fact, donât call me backâdonât even text me until you have the schedule!â
And then the line had collapsed, leaving Wonwoo to stare rather expressionlessly at his phone screen, the boy huffing out a breath of tendrilled smoke while he relaxed on the apartment roof. That had been his first experience sat on the receiving end of your seasoned quips, and it left him with this very profound emptiness, like his insides had been scooped out and the shell of his body was nothing but a wooden nesting doll. It had been such a long time since he genuinely cared about disappointing someone. Wonwoo had grown far too complacent with the feeling of disappointing himself.
That would never motivate him to do anything.
But you were different. In the sense that Wonwoo mostly remained proactive out of fear you might bite his head off.
From somewhere near the back of the room, Wonwoo heard chair legs scraping, and he eagerly flexed his fingers while observing a girl with the slickest ponytail heâd ever seen march past him to the professorâs desk. She set her packet down. He thanked her. She left.
Jesus Christ. Finally.
âAll finished, Wonwoo?â His professor mumbled in a tone that hardly escaped his own lips, glancing up at the boy expectantly.
Pushing up his glasses, Wonwoo nodded.
âI suppose itâs harder for you to sit there and wait than it is to write the actual exam, isnât it?â The professor noted with an almost undetectable smirk as he slid the test packet inside a tan-coloured folder, to which Wonwoo turned January cold.
âI donât know.â Wonwoo shrugged, pretending to feel unbothered when in reality his skin was slithering like a snake pit at the thought of being even marginally perceived. âMaybe.â
âYou have a good summer, alright?â
âThanks. You too.â
Wonwoo swept a quick glance over the classroom right before he left, noticing that Seokmin was sat beside the wall, one hand tangled tight into his black, ruffled tresses as his pencil scribbled all over the paper like he was writing pure nonsense. He probably was.
And Wonwoo meant that in a nice-this isnât really your sweet spot, but youâll manage nonetheless-way. After leaving the classroom, Wonwoo thought he might go home and plunge head first into his oasis of bedsheets and flat, foam pillows that he loved so much, and permit himself to decay until it was physically impossible to lie down any longer. But he decided against it at the last minute, turning up at the cafĂ© instead with his shoulder-strung book bag and the timely urge for a scone. He then sat down at his favourite table.
Pulled out his laptop.
Opened the document he was at incessant war with.
The last scene heâd written was breakfast.
âUh, okay. Orange juice⊠or orange juice?â
âDid you say orange juice?â
âI did.â
âSo⊠chocolate milk?â
âHa! Funny... is there any sort of correlation between being a complete nerd and making such well-woven jokes?â
âNot sure. But Iâll get back to you when I find out⊠thanks. Your tea is sitting on the island, by the way.â
âThank you, Won. Ohâyou even put it in my Woodstock mug!â
âYes, why are you so surprised that I remember?â
âBecause itâs always hidden at the back of our cupboard, behind ten other mugs that we certainly donât need and all our plates. I mean, I guess itâs my fault. Half of them are from my mom.â
âItâs sweet.â
âIt takes up too much space. But I canât tell her no.â
âThat, youâve got to work on.â
âThe Christmas thing isnât happening anymore, if that helps. I think the thought of having to cram all my family into our living room for a night was what motivated me the most. My mom said sheâll send us poinsettias instead. I think thatâs way easier.â
âOh yeah?â
âYes. Believe it or not, I can assert myself. Sometimes.â
âNo, no. I do believe you. Iâm proud. Okayâbottoms up.â
âHowâs the combination of venlafaxine and orange juice?â
âI donât know. Juicy?â
âBetter juicy than anxious?â
âYou could say that.â
Right, back when Wonwoo actually had the willpower to make himself breakfast rather than slapping a mixed berry Poptart into the toaster or worse, nothing at all. Back when he could wake up before noon without feeling nauseous enough to curl into a ball and drape the sheets over his aching head. Back when he actually took his medicine. Her face beaming at him from across their table had always been like a glass of sunlight and citrus. She had been his own vitamin.
Wonwoo knew he wasnât going to write. He was just going to stare and mope and ensnare himself in the pinwheel of memories that blew over him whenever he had the gall to reread his past literature.
The Woodstock mug. Sheâd taken that with her. Â
He decided it was strange and sometimes irritating how love, broken or not, could suture itself into even the most mundane things. Orange juice was just thatâjuiceâthe carton he used to pick up and impetuously drop into his grocery cart every so often. Now, it wasnât juice at all, but slow mornings, steaming tea kettles, and reading together on the couch with legs all tangled up until lunch time.
Now, Wonwoo couldnât drink it at all.
Breaking the lemon raspberry scone in half, Wonwoo dropped a flaky piece into his mouth before it got too cold, and then proceeded to close the document. There was no way in hell he would write, and while he loved drowning in his own misery in order to snuff any glimpse of productivity more than the average individual, he thought it might be worthwhile to finally start that schedule.
[ Wonwoo | 8:20 pm ]: schedule.pdf
[ Her | 8:56 pm ]: thanks
[ Her | 8:56 pm ]: donât piss me off again
âAPRIL 30TH.
For an April morning, it was surprisingly bright. The sun was out in full and glistering warmth by the time Wonwoo stepped onto the sidewalk and began pacing down to the park, practically needing to squint the entire way. He almost hated it. Early mornings were not his friend, nor were the blades of light cutting across his glasses. But today was his first writing session with you and Wonwoo knew it was more than crucial that he was the furthest thing from tardyâit would be akin to willingly setting his hands inside a burning fire if not.
You agreed to meet at the park since it was roughly equal distance between Wonwooâs apartment and some breakfast place you wanted to stop at. He thought it was uncharacteristically thoughtful of you to shoot him a text asking if he wanted anything, though Wonwoo declined nonetheless. It was damn near impossible for him to eat a bite of food until lunch time, hence his expression softening in confusion when he at last climbed into the passenger seat of your sleek silver car and was greeted by you passing him a cold tea.
âAm I⊠holding this for you?â He wondered, sitting still.
You shook your head. âNo. Itâs yours.â
âI didnât ask for anything.â
âYes, I realize that. I can read, thank you.â
Wonwoo wasnât going to argue. He simply shut his mouth, clicked on his seatbelt, and set the tea into the cup holder. He then began looking around at your carâs interior. Everything was exceptionally clean and smelled sugary, like iced gingerbread.
The thing was, Wonwoo still wasnât very sure how to talk to you, and most often there was the stiffest frog in his throat whenever he sat around you in silence for too long. Your thumbs were tapping against your phone at light speed. It reminded him of how Seokmin was texting you back at the boyâs apartment when they were studying for finals. Wonwoo couldnât help but wonder if Seokmin was naturally more inclined to respond to you out of friendship or fear. Maybe even a pinch of both if that was possible. Another quiet minute passed by.
âOkay, fuck, sorry,â you suddenly spluttered at random, quickly slotting your phone into the GPS holder, âjust some shit with my mom. Um, okay. Yeah. We can get going.â
âAll good," Wonwoo answered.
âYou know where weâre off to?â
âVaguely. The track by Caldwell High School.â
He watched you flit him a smile. âThatâs the place. Iâll explain more once we get there. And, by the way, I am expecting you to drink that tea. Itâs not anything crazy. Itâs oolong. Only a bit of caffeine.â
âI drink coffee, you know.â
âYes, and it probably makes you jittery and insufferable.â
Wonwoo preferred not to comment.
The car ride wasnât too long. Actually, Wonwoo did love a good car ride. He remembered the long trips he used to take with his family to the water park when he was a child, the sensation of the breeze blowing into his face and how different shades of green would scatter in through the windows as the sun hit the tree leaves like emeralds. There was something so limerent and sadly distant about the memory that Wonwoo felt his chest hurt. Even if he were to take that same road, and smell the same breeze, and see his skin glow with the same hues of the forest, he doubted it would feel the same.
His mouth had gone awfully dry. Wonwoo then reached for the cold tea sitting in the cup holder and took a sip, suddenly very appreciative that you had thought to get him something, anyway.
And while he couldnât be too certain, Wonwoo wanted to think that maybe this would be a good memory, too.
After the half-hour long car ride, Wonwoo made sure to stretch when he stepped out into the empty parking lot. It was cloudier now, a bit more of a breeze to help counteract the warmth that remained in the air. You came around to join him, twisting out a cramp in your leg while adjusting the purse over your shoulder.
The walk to the track field wasnât long, no more than a few minutes, and Wonwoo obediently trailed at your side until he witnessed the bleachers slowly coming into view. It resurfaced memories from his own high school days in PE, which Wonwoo had actually been quite successful at despite his distaste for sports and their atmosphere in general. He remembered liking kickball the best.
You sighed in a wistful tone while staring across the marked asphalt and fresh April grass. âAll high school tracks look the same, donât they?â Then, you carefully set your purse onto the bleachers.
Wonwoo rolled his shoulders, taking a more observant look around. It wasnât strikingly different from the track at his high school.
âSure. I guess.â
âI mean, there are some differences. We had ditches by our track. Come to think of it, I honestly believe they put them there for kids to hurl in from heat stroke or over-exertion⊠thatâs what I did, anyway. It was right before I had to do triple jump. I hated it because you had to really build up speed. I didnât want to run. So, even if I hadnât thrown up from heat stroke, I probably wouldâve made myself throw up some other way. Straight to the nurse. She gave me a popsicle.â
He glanced at you sideways. âSeriously?â
âMmhm.â
âYouâd rather throw up than hop, like, three times?â
âI said it was the running part I didnât like.â
Wonwoo couldnât imagine purposefully making himself upchuck in order to get out of something. If his anxiety was terrible enough, then he wouldnât even have to worry about it, really.
That was its own mechanism of disaster.
âRunning is eighty-percent of Activity Days," Wonwoo said.
You clicked your tongue at him. âExactly. And Iâd do anything to never run. I tried to sit in one time with the seventh graders. They were in their art block and they were doing painting under the trees; birdhouses or something. But their teacher kicked me out. And she didnât even let me take the fucking birdhouse that I was painting.â
âThe nerve,â Wonwoo answered, scratching his temple.
He proceeded to take a seat on the metal bench, rubbing his hands together. He still didnât know how Mingyu fit into everything.
âSo⊠whatâs your plan, here?â
You sat next to him, folding one leg over your thigh and proceeding to reveal a journal that you had stuffed inside your expensive bag. The tips of your fingers skimmed through a few fluttering pages, until you stopped on one in particular that was ink-abused with cursive scribbles. Wonwoo assumed you did most of your planning on a laptop, hence his surprise to learn that you actually used a journal. He had a journal himself, though it hadnât been touched in months. It mostly contained small poetic excerpts.
Next, you pulled out a pen.
âThis is how I first ran into Mingyu. At my schoolâs track field. He was new and good at all the activities. I swear, his name spread like wildfire. Anyways, I havenât figured out all the bits and bobs. I want to really soak in the feeling ofâoh!â Suddenly, you grasped the journal back onto your lap, the pen hitting the paper in a cursive ribbon that Wonwoo could hardly read. âI just thought of a great line. His eyes, I wanted to soak in them, like an oasis.â
You stabbed the paper again to make a period.
âNot bad,â Wonwoo commented.
âOkay, here it is!â A black case was pulled from your purse, and once you unzipped it, Wonwoo realized it was the video camera that you had initially shown him at his apartment. âOkay, I want you to film some stuff. The field, obviously. I need it from different perspectives. It will help me with setting the scene later on.â
âWhy do I have to film it?â
âBecause, Seokmin told me youâre quite handy with film equipment stuff, and I donât want to drop it. So just do it, please?â
Accepting the video camera from your hand, Wonwoo sighed in agreement. Flipping open the side-screen of the camera, Wonwoo began clicking some buttons and adjusting the focus. Luckily, he was familiar with the particular camcorder thanks to a film education course heâd taken outside of school.
While you busied yourself at the bleachers with starting up your laptop, Wonwoo began collecting footage, slowly panning the camera across the vast length of the gravel track and the grassy soccer fields situated beyond. He kept a concentrated eye on the side-screen to ensure the lighting wouldnât change too drastically. A wind had picked up from over the forest, and he could see how the clouds were consequently being pushed along like herded sheep in the sky.
Once he brushed back the floppy, black hair that kept tickling his face, Wonwoo lowered the camera and turned to you.
âSo, where else should I film?â
You were typing something, and didnât bother looking up.
âGo across the field. Film from the other side.â
âSeriously?â
âYeah.â
âI have to go all the way over there?â
âYes. Walk, crawl. Skip, hop. I donât care. Just do it, please.â
âJesus Christ,â he huffed out, feeling tired and yearning to go home, âI hate how seriously youâre taking this, yâknow that?â
Your fingers continued blitzing against the keyboard.
âNobody likes a complainer.â
Ironic, he thought, but obviously kept to himself.
There wasnât a point in expecting any sympathy from youâthat, he already knewâwhich engendered Wonwooâs long, trudging walk from one side of the track to the other, the wind irritably blowing his grown-out locks over his glasses every time he attempted sweeping them back. Hoisting the camera back up, Wonwoo adjusted the side-screen and began his same ritual of steadily panning the camera along the landscape.
You appeared in the view, still sat on the bleachers, though nothing about your face or figure was too discernible. It felt like you were a background character in a painting, just a little glob of acrylic.
âAll done?â
Finally, you had glanced up at him with a smile.
Wonwoo nodded. âUnless you need anything else filmed?â
âNo, that should be enough. The track is most important.â
âRight.â
He tried giving back the camera.
âActually, do you mind keeping it?â
âUm, okay. But how will you look at the footage?
âDropbox. Weâll share one. Upload the clips there.â
Wonwoo plopped himself back down on the bench, fitting the camcorder into its black case. He pulled the zipper along the seam.
âHow much longer do we need to be here?â
âNot that much. Just let me finish this paragraph.â
There was a dull pain throbbing at the front of his skull, edging down to his templesâacross his nose bridge where his glasses pressed in more tightly than usual. He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled a deep breath, trying to escape the feeling, the nausea, the chills that were beginning to seep up his neck as the wind blew turbulently against him. It would be embarrassing if this happened here, right in front of you. The hard lump had suddenly lurched forward in Wonwooâs throat but he leaned his head down last minute and swallowed it despite the roughness. No, everything was okay.
âHey, whatâs wrong?â
Wonwoo opened his eyes, staring down at the trembling hands buried in his lap. Subtly, he pulled the sleeves of his cardigan over them. He assumed his face was reflecting a sheer, sickly opacity.
âNothing.â
âUh, sure. Now look me in the eyes and say that.â
Again, Wonwoo swallowed, but he managed nonetheless.
âNothingâs wrong. I get headaches sometimes. Thatâs all.â
â⊠Oh. Well, Iâm basically done here. I was gonna ask if you wanted to walk a lap around the track with me, but maybe we should just go home. I mean, how bad is it? Your headache?â
Yes, yes. Home. Wonwoo wanted to go home. He had only been away from his apartment for a solid two hours, and yet all his mind and bodyâs energy had completely drained. He felt dried out, withered, fragile as tempered glass. Going home sounded cosmic.Â
âItâs getting better. I wouldnât mind walking with you.â
âOh! Cool. If it gets really bad, just tell me.â You then spent a minute collecting your belongings back into the cream purse.
Wonwoo immediately looked the other way, dragging a frustrated hand through his hair, mouthing a string of guttural curse words directed at his discombobulated head. Because what the hell was he doing? All his relief and peace had just suckled itself down an invisible drain. Why on earth did he agree? Why?
âI think this will help me, too," you said, having left the shiny bleachers behind, instead kicking the pebbles at your feet, âif we walk the entire track, then itâs like we did the four-hundred meter.â
âYouâre supposed to run the four-hundred meter.â
âWell, I know that.â
âIâm surprised you hate running. I mean, you walk so fucking quickly sometimes.â
He heard you snort, clearly amused by his observation.
âItâs because Iâve mastered the art of sashaying. To have a perfect sashay, you canât walk too slow, but you also canât walk too fast. Itâs like a strut. You need to have confidence while you do it. It lets people know that youâre serious and professional. Iâm not dragging my feet, but Iâm also not in a rush. Itâs the perfect pace.â
Wonwoo sniffled and scrunched the glasses up his nose, continuing alongside you at a pace that was rather aimless.
âI didnât realize there was a science behind sashaying.â
âNow you know,â you declared.
Wonwooâs upper lip quirked slightly, and a small grin appeared on his face, which was starting to dapple with colour.
âI donât sashay, do I?â
At that, you laughed, âno, you amble.â
âYeah, Iâm an ambler⊠which basically means Iâm an unmotivated, pointless person who will probably go nowhere in life.â
For a moment, you stopped walking, and you merely furrowed your brow at him while your forehead creased with thought. Wonwoo stopped as well. He raked back his fluttering, windswept hair and smirked, flashing his teeth. The behaviour was uncharacteristically snide and a bit of a dig at your bluntness, but he couldnât help it.
âDonât remember, huh?â
âNo⊠but it sounds familiar.â
âYou told me that, the day I met youâthat people who walk slowly are unmotivated and pointless. Their life is a waste, basically.â
He noticed your eyes shift up toward the right, as though you were pulling the memory forward from the intricate files of your brain. And then you started to smile, and it made Wonwoo smile, too.
âOh, I do believe I said that.â You started walking again, and he followed. âHa! Wow, youâre right. I said that. Iâm so funny. I mean, I was right. You only walk slow when you have nowhere to be.â
âI did have somewhere to be. I was going to meet you.â
âWell, then you just didnât care.â He felt your elbow press shallowly into his rib. âSee what I mean? Unmotivated and pointless. And, honestly, I would have taken your apathy as more of an insult if it wasnât for the fact that you seem to treat most things like that.â
âSo, Iâm just supposed to accept that youâre calling me a loser? How do people normally react when you say things like that?â
âThings like what? Theyâre just my observations about the world. You are a person in this world. I was making an observation about you. Albeit, it came across strongly. But I donât know. No one ever cared about being gentle or sugar-coating with me. Gives you tough skin, yâknow? Metaphorically, of course! I always moisturize.â
 Wonwoo scoffed, smiling at your nonchalance. âThe way you word things is honestly fascinating.â
âPsh. How do you even remember that?â
âI donât know. Doesnât seem that hard to remember. It was a pretty memorable, somewhat awful experience, to be fair.â
âAwful?â You retaliated in unprecedented disbelief, pushing into his arm until he allowed his tall frame to stumble. âTry again.â
âInteresting?â Wonwoo substituted, his heart thumping.Â
Your eyes were narrowed at him, glimmering with a sharpness that made his fingers clench into anxious fists.
â⊠Thatâs a little better.â
He exhaled a soft breath of relief.
As you began nearing the full circle, Wonwoo realized his head had eased from its horrible aching and the chills dampening down his neck were gone. Everything didnât feel as awful compared to before. He was still tired, and his energy was sputtering in tiny, dying sparks, but at least his desire to crawl under the earth and degrade to his bare bones had subsided into something less morose.
âI heard you were having a get together next week,â Wonwoo decided to ask, rounding the last bend in the track.
âOh, the dinner party?â
âYeah. Seokminâs helping you plan it, right?â
âHe is. Which I appreciate. My mom is usually the one in charge of everything, and she loathes it. But, I mean, when we try to help her, she just ends up fretting even moreâsays weâre basically getting in the way and ruining it. I donât know. Sheâs such a snappy perfectionist. Seokmin can have fun dealing with that.â
Wonwoo almost made a thoughtless comment in response to your storyâheâs probably had eons of practice with youâthough the pieces connected just in time and his mouth sealed shut.
âYour dad canât help either?â He questioned instead.
âHa! No way. My dad helping is a recipe for fucking disaster if Iâve ever seen it. Heâs painfully bad at decorating, can hardly be trusted to cook or invite anyone from the guest list. The most my mom allows him to do is set the table.â You then scoffed, shooting a pebble forward with the tip of your shoe. âI swear, he knows exactly how to push my momâs buttons. The faster he does it, the quicker she kicks him out and heâs absolved of all chores. What a cheat, huh?â
âHm, yeah⊠is Mingyu going?â
âOf course.â You smiled. âHe always goes.â
At that point, you had circled back to the bleachers. Adjusting the bag strewn over your shoulder, you heaved out a longing sigh.
âWell, thatâs four-hundred meters in the books.â
âIs it everything you hoped and dreamed it would be?â
You cackled, ânot even close. I think I was right to avoid it.â
âMAY 3RD.
Wonwoo slid his pharmacy badge through the time-machine until he heard the beep. After an eight-hour shift, he was hungry and tired, but Wonwoo also knew the second that he got home, his urge to eat and desire to sleep would be gone. Instead, he would spend his midnight staring up at the ceiling, thinking. About anything and everything, and nothing at all. When the first cracks of dawn light would spill in from under his curtain, then he would close his eyes.
It was all very typical.
He stood outside the store, phone in hand, waiting for Vernon to pick him up because Wonwoo hadnât felt like walking home despite the softness of the nighttime wind and the alabaster moonâs shining ambiance. The mirage was pretty and he enjoyed it, but his feet were too sore to inch him another step. Luckily, Vernon didnât take long.
Luckily, he was the only one of Wonwooâs few friends with a sleep schedule just as horridly fucked up as his. It was eleven at night, but on a weekday? The dead, empty street testified for him.
âHeyy, Glasses,â Vernon sang in his throaty voice as Wonwoo climbed into the passenger seat, âyou look like a prostitute standinâ there, waitinâ for me to come get your ass. But a sophisticated one.â
The interior didnât smell heavily of weed, he noted. Thank fucking god, Vernon had finally paid someone to dry clean it. Either that, or he took the initiative into his own hands.
âI highly doubt you have ever seen a prostitute in your entire life. And the fact you think theyâd be standing outside a pharmacy at one of the quietest parts on this block attests to that.â
âGod, I hate when you get all technical nâ shit. Such a stiff.â
âIâm tired.â
âYeah, well. Youâre always tired. Nâ for the record, I have seen a prostitute, outside Room 319. It was a week before Christmas; she had this huge coat on, walkinâ up to people in her pink heels and this crazy eyeshadow that made her eyes pop. I bet sheâs a nice girl.â
âMhm. I bet she was.â
âOh, youâre a cunt, yeah? You donât believe me.â
âDoes it matter?â
âIâll take you one day. Room 319âs got a table with your name on it. Theyâve got this one shot, the Stabilizerâ itâll put you down like a fuckinâ sick dog but it gets you the best drunk of your life. Maybe weâll even run into Pink Heels lady. Sheâs our Halleyâs Comet.â
âHalleyâs Comet only comes once every seventy-five years. â
âYou know what the fuck I meant.â
âNot interested.â
Vernon blinked at him for a moment in the dull light, and then he sighed, forfeiting. He placed the tip of the key in the ignition, but he quickly removed it as though he remembered something.
âWait, Iâve gotta askâhowâs it going with Her?â
Biting down on the inside of his cheek, Wonwoo reached for the seatbelt and pulled it slowly across his chest, debating how intelligent of an idea it would be to entertain Vernonâs curiosity. But he could also understand the allure. You were like this enigmatic myth that people craved to know about, even if it frightened them.
Wonwooâs head collapsed back against the seat.
âItâs going well.â
Vernon spat out a boisterous laugh, a hand slapping down on his knee. âJesus Christ. Youâre so dry, man. Thatâs it?â
âI mean, itâs true. Weâve started the book. Or, she has.â
âOkay, and?â Vernon attempted to engage him further.
âAnd, what?â
âWhatâs she like, obviously? Is she actually a fuckinâ psychopath? Is she normal? Can she walk on her hands? I dunno!â
Wonwoo rubbed underneath his glasses. He didnât really want to talk about you when you werenât there. It felt like a Bloody Mary situation, where youâd magically conjure in the backseat to sinch your cold hands around his neck and wrangle him limp and lifeless. But then there were Vernonâs shimmeringly prying eyes that just wouldnât stop burning Wonwoo no matter how hard he bit his tongue.
âI have nothing to say. Sheâs cool.â
âOh my fuckinâ God.â Vernon slacked back into his seat, clutching at his steering wheel. âYou just donât wanna talk about it⊠oh! Shit. I just remembered. Sheâs having a dinner party tonight, isnât she? In Hill Crest. Or as I like to call it, Rich People Neighbourhood.â
âYeah, thatâs where her parents live⊠how do you know that?â
âShit!â Vernon immediately shuffled up in his seat and delivered a hard smack into Wonwooâs shoulder. âWe should drive down and check it out! Right fuckinâ now!â He was lit up with excitement, even though Wonwoo considered it a terrible idea.
âNo. Absolutely not. And answer my question.â
âWas sittinâ behind Seokmin at Solar Pop, he talks really loud, happened to overhear some thingsâdoesnât matter. I think we should go! Câmon, allow some spontaneity into your life! Why not?â
âWhat the fuck do you mean, why? Itâs a family party. With some close friends, whichâin case you havenât noticedâneither of us are. You canât fucking crash a family dinner party. Who does that? Not to mention the fact that it's eleven at night. They're probably washing up. Sending people home. By the time we get there, it's lights out."
âArenât you her friend?â
âNo. Iâm just someone whoâs doing her a favour.â
âFavours are from friends.â
âWeâre. Not. Friends.â
âOkayâfuck, Glasses. Fine. We wonât crash the stupid dinner party. But donât you wanna go for a drive or something? Iâm tellinâ you, the houses are insane. Last time I went down there, it was for a big fuckinâ party some dude at your university threw. I think I ran this by you already, when I talked about tryinâ to chat up Her. I stopped by with my old friendâyâknow, Dots, the guy that died from the overdose and everything. That party was crazy. It was in a mansion.â
âVernon,â Wonwoo had just finished massaging the throbs at his warm temples, âwe are not going to Hill Crest.â
His friend swung his head in disapproval, making a tsking sound with his teeth. âSuch a fuckinâ stiff.â He started the car. âItâs the fact I know you have jack shit to do tonight, or tomorrow.â
âIâm not gonna do some stalker drive-by on her house.â
âYou donât wanna do Room 319. You donât wanna judge a bunch of richies sittinâ up in their ivory towers. I mean, itâs not like weâre egginâ them or spray painting fuckinâ curse words on their eight-door garages. What do you wanna do?â
Wonwoo rolled down the window and leaned his face toward the moonlight, to which he could feel the wind brush up against his skin in feathery strokes, as though it were caressing him. He knew that Vernon meant in a general sense rather than in the heat of the moment. But in a general sense, Wonwoo would rather not be anywhere at all. He would rather do nothing, or even exist.
âCan you just take me home? Please?â
Vernon exhaled a defeated gust of breath and began to angle his tires away from the curb, the pharmacy lights pulled behind them.
âYeah, âcourse. Mr. Boring.â
â01:49
Wonwoo hadnât been able to fall asleep since Vernon dropped him off a couple hours ago. Heâd anticipated that. Usually, Wonwoo wouldnât do anything. He wouldnât toss or turn, or pace circles around his bedroom, or count down from one-hundred, because even if he did, none of it would work. His mind would still be wide awake.
Hence Wonwooâs decision to grab his phone. Staring at a lurid screen definitely wasnât going to help, though he wasnât trying to sleep, anyway. That conversation with Vernon was repeating in his head like a chattering bird, pushing him, pushing him, pushing him to find your Instagram and dig into your pictures because now Wonwoo was thinking of your dinner party and how vehemently you seemed to hate it. He saw that you had posted something quite recently, around the same time Wonwoo had left the pharmacy.
For a moment, his thumb hovered over the post.
He didnât want to press it because he didnât care.
Or, maybe he did.
There were multiple pictures in the set, and Wonwoo flicked through all of them. Some were of food, close-ups of your jewelryâyou even included a picture with Seokmin. But then Wonwoo had settled on the last photo and something in his stomach convulsed.
He recognized the dress like a flash of lightâthe sapphire one with the glimmering detail that you had modelled for him at the expensive boutique in the mall. Of course, that arm hanging cheekily low around your hip belonged to your boyfriend, Mingyu. He had a champagne glass pressed to his lips, fitted in his black suit with his hair neatly combed and styled into place. The smugness in his face was stifling. Wonwoo rolled onto his stomach, his eyes refusing to drift from the picture for even an instant. He just kept staring.
Staring and thinking. Staring and thinking.
One minute spent staring at your smile.
The next minute at the low placement of Mingyuâs hand.
Another minute staring at your sparkling dress.
The next minute at Mingyuâs brutally cocky expression.
He would switch back and forth.
But Wonwoo didnât really care. He was just bored.
And alone with his thoughts.
âEND OF PART PART ONE.
NOTE! while i truly cherish & adore all comments, pls refrain from remarks such as "pls post part x" "i need part x" "when are you posting part x" while i do understand the sentiment, i find these comments very dismissive & kinda disrespectful! i don't prefer to post series fics and so i don't receive these often, but pls note that if you comment this i will delete the comment!
the fic itself is completely done, so all i have to do is get the parts ready for posting. however, bc this is the first part, i don't have a set posting schedule just yet. i think it will depend on roughly how long those who read the fic take to finish it! but i will be sure to make a post about it or include the schedule in part two once i figure it out!
again, thank u so much your ur patience :3
much luv!! đ
#wonustars ⧠ïŸ. {fic recs}#wonwoo x reader#wonwoo smut#wonustars ⧠ïŸ. {mutuals: choco âĄ}#sorry if thereâs any typos iâm so tried so if i donât make any sense sorry im advance hehe
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HOW AMAZING WAS THAT EPISODE!!! So many good things but I just want to talk about how much I loved AkgĂŒn encouraging Soner to dream. Like he is passing on that same advice that YaÄmur gave him and I love it so much. I love that this show actually shows character growths by bringing back moments or conversations that they had. It's not just telling but actually showing as well.
AkgĂŒn's dream to be a girls dad was the most sweetest, wholesome thing ever. Here we have this young guy who grew up in the mafia world and has seen and lived horrible things but all he wants is a wife who achieves her dreams and him at home taking care of their daughters. No toxic masculinity ftw!!! And Selim FINALLY accepting Akmur. THANK GOD!!! Could not deal with him interfering again.
Cansel are one of the best "older" couple in a dizi I have ever seen. The way I don't get bored of their scenes ever and am excited for them just like with Akmur. And LMAOO to them eating AkgĂŒn's ice cream
Boo Eray!!! Cannot believe he did that
Hats off to the Son yaz team. They delivered an amazing episode even with everything that happened. And yeah fuck the ratings
The episode was soooooo good!!! Iâve watched it like 3 times already! I absolutely adored the scene with AkgĂŒn and Soner. AkgĂŒn wanting to be a girl dad and him unabashedly being willing to stay with the kids while Yagmur lives her dreams is just everything to me. And Soner genuinely listening, wanting to hear about AkgĂŒnâs dream, and taking that advice to heart made me so emotionalllllll. Seeing how they really and truly have become such close friends to the point where theyâre sharing their deepest feelings and secrets and opening up and comforting each after everything theyâve been through and their past like wowwww. Similar to what you said, these are two big bad mafia guys who are really learning to forget that toxic environment they were born into and to do away with that toxic and stoic masculinity that was ingrained into them. Theyâre learning how to be vulnerable and open and I love the show for showing us that.
This is a bit of a tangent but when I was watching that scene with AkgĂŒn and Soner, I couldnât help but think of just how far AkgĂŒn has come. Like when he first came to ĂeĆme he had no one. His mother was dead, his father had been in prison for the last 8 years, he had no friends, the closest person he had was Ahmet and he ended up betraying him in the first episode. Now look at him. He has a father figure out of Selim, a mother figure out of Canan, he has the love of his life Yagmur, and he has Soner who used to be his enemy and is now his best and closest friend. He really has developed this lil family after years of being without one. Heâs been on his own since he was a kid (really since his mother died since his dad was terrible to him and constantly on the run), heâs had to fight and fend for himself for so long and now heâs finally found these people that he can depend on, people that will fight for him, people that love him as he is, in spite of his mistakes. And like not to get too deep into a fictional character, but because he found those ppl he finally wants better for his life. Itâs almost like he feels loved and nurtured enough to the point where he feels comfortable and secure enough to dream and start planning for a future. Iâm gonna start crying in a sec, because it is truly just so beautiful.
Anyway, both akmur and cansel were just beyond adorable. Seeing both couples being happy and going on dates was just so damn satisfying. I had a huge grin on my face for 2hrs straight watching this ep.
You know whatâs crazy though, when Gökhan first came I was never really that interested in seeing AkgĂŒn and him develop a relationship. I know some ppl were hopeful that Gökhan would end up being a good guy or at least redeemable so that AkgĂŒn can have a brother, but I was always kind of indifferent towards the idea. But let me tell you, after that scene where AkgĂŒn tells him the rest of the story and theyâre crying about their mom, oh my goddddd my heart broke. In that moment, I suddenly wanted them to be the closest of brothers, I wanted them to develop such a strong bond forever and ever. And the fact that theyâre not going to be able to once the truth about the crash comes out HURTSSSSSS. And that part where Gökhan wanted AkgĂŒn and YaÄmur to use his car because he regretted what he did like đą (I donât wanna say that heâs my baby now esp since we donât know if heâs actually going to be done with Halil Sadi but he might just be my baby now)
Speaking of hurt, next week is going to hurt soooo bad. Iâm not prepared to see AkgĂŒn freaking out about YaÄmur and worrying about if sheâs dead or not. Like Iâm excited to see him fret and worry about her, to see him stay by her hospital bed holding her hand, but I am NOT ready to see the pain that heâs going to go through. And Iâm not ready to everyone, including himself, blame AkgĂŒn for what happened. Ä°nĆallah, they donât go down that path and everyone quickly realizes it was a setup for AkgĂŒn and Yagmur getting hurt was just an unfortunate accident (but letâs be honest it probably wonât happen that way đ)
#sonyaz ask#xinging-unicorn#sonyaz spoilers#i feel like i sound a little insane when i went on that tangent about akgun#but i just love this fictional character so damn much#and these are the thoughts i have about him at 3 in the morning#so if i have to suffer through it every night then so do you guyssssss#đđđđ
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