#of course the end of the semester is getting like this

[yuragiku]

mine to miss | jung sungchan, song eunseok

pairing: jung sungchan x fem!reader x song eunseok

plot: you were done with love. you said goodbye to your best friend at his behest, and now, you were a lost soul in a bustling city. your mantra was to divert, avoid, and ignore—and it would've worked well until the end of the year had a spunky, friendly, and absolutely loud-mouthed soccer player barged into your lone seat at a restaurant.

"psst, i need you to pretend you're my date. i don't have any money right now, but i'll pay for all your lunches here from next week onward."

alternatively, the one where the campus hotshot tries his best to make you forget about your best friend back home.

wc: 44.1k

genre: melodrama, coming of age, slow burn, e2l kinda

warnings: R18+ DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE A MINOR OR IF YOU THINK YOU'RE NOT IN THE RIGHT MENTAL HEADSPACE TO READ ABOUT THE FOLLOWING; heavy depictions and mentions of depression, anxiety, and mental illness; heavy discussions of death and s*uicide; heavy depictions of substance abuse (alcohol and party drugs); graphic depictions of anxiety attacks; heavy depictions of rehab and therapy; EXPLICIT SMUT (UNPROTECTED SEX WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT, public sex, nipple play, oral m receiving), heavy discussions of sex; existential dread; hospital imagery; graphic depictions of mild violence; mentions of food and water; a lot of tension really; political discussions of 80s korea

extra notes: THIS IS PART TWO OF never meant. I REPEAT. PART TWO! PLEASE READ THAT ONE FIRST. heavily inspired by norwegian wood (haruki murakami), and american football's lp2. as always, NEVER SKIP THE WARNINGS PLEASE !! YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT YOU CONSUME AND CAN BACK OUT AT ANY TIME !! she cooked but i don't know if she delivered. anywho, thank you so much for reading mine to miss, and as always, i don't know when my next story will come out but she'll come out when she has to !! most likely a PART THREE because this has gotten a lot longer than i would've linked :////

COPYRIGHT 2024 YURAGIKU. DO NOT STEAL, COPY, OR TRANSLATE.

During the summer holidays, the riot police were everywhere, seizing all buildings and quickly arresting students and professors in quick succession. This was nothing new. Places for the intelligentsia to prosper always had its fair share of dissidents, and they were the most difficult to dismantle in terms of rebellion groups owing to the amount of funding universities get from the government. Even if Yonsei had been known to be a liberal school, there was always the other half of the staunch conservative faculty who may or may not have served in the electoral college. Around the start of September, the dawn of a new semester, this normalcy had died down. There were no more police everywhere you went in Seoul; you didn’t need to go to the office to bookkeep for the New Korean Democratic Party, and work at the campus library became your main priority. To your surprise, everything in the library was untouched. Each book was still confined in its respective shelf, the reception desk was unscathed and pristine, albeit dusty from a lack of use, and nothing on campus was burned. 

Of course, violence didn’t equate to a passionate, successful demonstration, but you were a little confused at the cleanliness of the university past the June struggles. Books were usually a target during riots, often burned in a bonfire by dissidents who disagreed with authoritarianism. Still, when you walked around the politics section of the library, you found everything in place, as if nobody had entered the library at all since the demonstrations began. 

Upon announcing the June 29 declaration, things returned to normal in a snap of a finger. The same people who were the most vocal during the protests sat at the very front of the lecture hall, seen as martyrs or assholes, depending on who you ask. As if nothing had ever happened, they took their notes in silence, never bringing up the core reason for resistance to a professor who openly admitted his support for the Korean Army’s coup in 1961. The sheer hypocrisy of it all left you awestruck, to say the least. It’s not to say you were avidly passionate when participating in the riots, but consistency was the least you expected from the forerunners of the student demonstrations. Even if things had arguably ended and all their demands were met, a military officer was still elected. Shouldn’t they be mad? What was the entire point of calling for a democratic constitutional amendment and fair elections when a complicit military officer, who was a part of the elite that wanted all of South Korea under a dictatorship, won the elections supposedly “fair and square”? When you dared to ask some of the protest leaders, whom you also worked with at the New Korean Democratic Party office and frequently saw in secret Marxist lectures, why they were doing anything about the election of Roh Tae-woo, they shrugged. 

“There’s no foul play as far as we know,” One of them said. “We can’t really scream about paper tigers.” 

What a joke! At that point, they should’ve just told you they were afraid to lose participation marks! To think that they were the same idiots who passionately beat police officers up, closed down the campus, and led a sit-in hunger strike for a week! 

For a while, you faithfully attended lectures, staying quiet when the professor would ask for your name in attendance. Participation marks meant nothing to you anymore, and to a certain extent, university education started to make less sense. You concluded that people only really went to university when their parents could afford it or when it benefitted them. Nobody went to school to pursue knowledge anymore, and it wasn’t like you had the passion or the drive to pioneer a new school of thought. There was nothing you wanted to accomplish in society that required you to drop out of university, so you had no choice but to attend lectures every day, take notes, read when you could, and spend your free time in the library before and after your shift there. Nonchalance made you an extremely diligent student. 

You kept Eunseok’s room clean in his absence. When you had the chance, you asked the landlord to remove his name from the mailbox and the apartment door, telling him that Eunseok was never coming back. You returned from your shifts at the library and your lectures to clear Eunseok’s belongings bit by bit, repackaging them in neat, large boxes that you dragged to your apartment. You began reading through his books despite having a distaste for fiction, spending each morning with a different novel in hand alongside your regular routine of coffee. With the help of the janitor, you moved Eunseok’s prized bookshelf to your apartment, arranging your furniture like Eunseok did when he was still living next to you. Even if you missed him dearly, the only way to keep him in your heart is through the homage of his book collection. You didn’t know why he left it in Seoul when he would most likely need it for his treatment at the mountainous sanitorium, but you digress. Things unfolded the way they did, and now, you were alone again. 

Directly after your shift, the sun began to set, adding a warm vibrance to the fallen Zelkova leaves trailing along the pavement. You decided to eat dinner outside instead of opting for your usual meal plans after Mirae had told you about an excellent Western place that served delicious seafood pasta and salad for a cheap deal. The restaurant was a little challenging because it was strewn across many intersections and alleyways, but the quiet, faint location made you sure you could relax once you got inside. 

Once the waitress took your order, a group of four students came in, taking one of the bigger tables with velvet armchairs on the edge of the restaurant. Two men and two women in their young twenties, all stylish and had an air of money to them. By the time you finished your appetizer, the group was still arguing over what they wanted, only for one to call the waitress to relay the same lunch deal for everybody. 

Your pasta had arrived, and in between picking up a copy of Heidegger’s Being and Time while slowly twirling pasta on your fork, you noticed that one of the men kept glancing in your direction. Apart from the curvature of his doe, deer-like eyes, he had a sloppily cut mullet that suited his face—the kind that looked good no matter what he wore or how he presented himself. Despite the weather, he wore a white fleece Addidas pullover and baggy jeans. You had no idea who he was, so you went on with your lunch, twirling the pasta on your fork in the same rhythm and timing as your progress on Heidegger. Before you knew it, you placed your book down, twirled another small serving of pasta on your fork, and had the mysterious man sitting in front of you, neck leaning closer and closer until you could see the hazel shine of his big doe eyes. 

“Hey! It’s been a while,” He said with an exaggerated jubilee. You took your copy of Heidegger, playing with the book’s binding while examining his features up close. Even then, you couldn’t remember seeing him at all. If you had met him on the off chance, you would surely recognize him. He was the kind of man you’d notice from afar, especially with his choppy mullet. 

“Are you expecting someone?” He asked, his voice suddenly changing to a low whisper. Uncertain, you shook your head, remaining still while his breath tickled your ear. 

“No, I don’t think anyone’s coming today.” Heaving a sigh of relief, he slumped himself on the chair before you, reverberating a grating thud that made his companions stare. He moved closer again, eyes directly in front of your food, then looked up to give you a smile that was too bright to handle. 

“Looks good,” 

“Your table got the same thing,”

“Oh,” He panicked. “Right… about that.” 

“I don’t think I’ve met you anywhere around campus, and I’m not even sure if we go to the same university,” You blurted. The man in front of you heaved a dejected sigh, extending his long arms around the circumference of his chair. There was a genuine tinge of hurt in his breath, and you put your fork down, taking your copy of Heidegger and stuffing it in your bag. This was the type of conversation that demanded your full, unbridled attention. 

“We were in the same calculus class in first year, then basically took the same courses in the second, and now, we share advanced macroeconomics and econometrics,” 

“Econometrics with Professor Goo just ended, though.” You replied, peering deeper and deeper into his twinkling eyes. He tried his best to do a middle part with his extremely short bangs, making you finally remember who he was. A drastic change in hairstyle had prevented you from recognizing him, 

“Were you in Choi’s seminar? The one that always brought a huge hockey stick to class?” Sungchan vehemently nodded, a bright smile etched on his face.

“I play soccer in the summer, and it bothered me to have hair on my face, so I just got some scissors and cut the front.”

“Looks nice on you,” You said, picking your fork up to twist a few bits of pasta and shrimp together. 

“They don’t think so,” He scoffed. “I thought it looked okay initially, but all the girls don’t dig it. They told me I looked better when I had a clean cut without anything trailing past my neck, saying I looked like the mentally ill son of a war veteran! Could you believe that? The audacity of it all, my god! Why do all girls think a clean cut with a middle part makes you look refined? Because I, for one, know that all those assholes with the same haircut belong straight to the sewer.”

As far as you can remember, you meant it when you said he looked good. It wasn’t just the hair or his bright, doe eyes. He exuded the organic inertia, a force of life, as he sat in front of you. He was like a large deer with strong antlers running around the forest, galloping in the serenity of lush greeneries. His entire being moved with bursting energies of joy, laughter, annoyance, and despair—as if he were the embodiment of explosive emotion. You hadn’t seen such vibrance and color in ages and must admit that you enjoyed seeing him like that. 

“Aren’t your friends waiting for you?” To this, a flip switched inside him, snapping him back to reality. His eyes widened, taking in all the light the sun had given him that afternoon, redirecting all of it back to you in pure, blunt force. 

“That’s why I came here!” He exclaimed, his eyes turning up into shiny crescents. “You see one of those girls there?” He pointed at a girl who wore her hair in a short bob, her white cotton dress barely covering her thighs. You nodded, watching her tall nose go up and down as you predicted the flow of their conversation in your head. 

“My friend, Jaemin, is trying to set me up with her, but I’m not really feeling it. She’s a little too uptight and bitter for my taste, and she would never stop talking about her ex. Like, I get that it scarred her, but why is she here right now, trying to get with me, if she knows she needs time to sort things out on her own?” 

You averted your gaze from the girl, then stuffed your hands in your pockets. You instantly saw a flash of Eunseok in the girl, sensing the same brooding loneliness and desperation he had when he held you. You called the waiter and grabbed another cup of coffee, refraining from adding milk or sugar. The man stared at you in disgust, making a snarky remark about how much of a tryhard you were. 

“Look at me, I’m so cool! I drink black coffee and I read German philosophy!” 

You pressed your mouth in a neat, thin line, opening the book and picking up where you left off. You left a few bites of pasta on your plate, and the man in front of you dragged your tray and your fork, using his long, slender fingers to push the book down until you could see his eyes, which were staring at you with a frightening intensity. 

“Anyway, I need you to act like my date for a bit. I told her I was already seeing a girl, and luckily, you were here before me!” 

“I don’t even know your name.” You said dryly. You were ready to take your bag and leave a tip for the waiter. 

“Sungchan, Jung Sungchan, the most unholy relic you’ve ever seen,” He grabbed his chair and stood up, shocking you a little with how tall he was. You rarely come across people that were his height, and in a sense, you liked that he was tall enough to obscure you from his group of friends. You wanted to dine here alone, after all. 

“What if I turn your offer down?” 

“Then I’ll cry right here, right now.” 

“Cry about it.”

“You sure?” 

“What’s that got to do with me?” 

The determination in Sungchan’s eyes stayed undeterred. Before he could cause a scene, you paid your bill to the waitress, went outside the restaurant, and dragged him along, making a quick, sharp turn on one of the alleyways across the road. You took a deep breath, sharply inhaling and exhaling through your lungs. Sungchan’s innate enthusiasm flickered slightly, but he still looked like he was about to burst with energy. 

“I’m not really in the right headspace to fuck around right now, so please try your luck with someone else.” 

“I can’t.” He blurted. “I already told them your name. Besides, it won’t be too difficult. All you have to do is be with me all the time. That would get Jaemin to stop worrying, and I would basically have an impromptu restraining order on its own,” 

“Restraining order?” 

Sungchan nodded, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, a restraining order. If people saw me with you all the time, started spreading rumors, and have that circulate around campus, then I’m sure I could get a few admirers off my back,” 

By now, Sungchan’s food should’ve arrived at his table, but he didn’t move. He simply stayed put, eagerly waiting for your answer. You didn’t give him any. 

“Come on!” He complained. “I’ll buy you lunch every day. I have no money now, but I should be able to get it soon since I have to coach a children’s match next week,” 

Judging from his stature, it was natural to infer that he played sports. In first year, he had a hockey stick with him at all times, his blades sticking out of his bag like a walking hazard. 

“How did you even get my name?” 

“I looked at our class roster and thought, ah! She’s someone I’ve known since first year!”

“That’s it?” Sungchan nodded, hands still in his pockets. 

The midday sun strewn with his sweat made his mullet stick right onto his temple, giving him the same look as Peanut’s yellow “safety helmet.” The question now was whether he would dye his hair blonde, but you found the dark, jet-black on him a good look. 

“Yeah, and you’re not so bad yourself, you know? I think we could make a cute campus couple,” He joked. 

“The free lunches sound like a good deal, but I’ll pass. Go find another one,” 

“Are you always alone like that?” Sungchan asked. The intenseness in his gaze had softened, and his hands were out of his pockets. You nodded, and before you could leave the alleyway, he blocked the road with his tall stature, head standing right in front of the sun like a golden halo. 

“Nobody likes to be alone, but I’m just tired of it all.”

“Woe is me; you can definitely publish that in your autobiography or something,” You muttered a small ‘thanks.’ Then, you tried to leave again. This time, he walked around to your side, neck leaning down to meet your eyes, keeping a close distance between you. 

“Tell me, do you always wear such tacky clothes?” 

“Yes, I do.” You snapped back patiently. 

“Yes, I do, I love the way you talk. It’s like there’s no bullshit to it. No flare, no theatrics—not even any poetry! It’s so… smooth? Something like a calm river instead of a thrashing sea. Has anyone ever told you that?” 

You shook your head again, trying to hide how taken aback you were by his sudden monologue. He gave you a wide, ear-to-ear grin, taking his pinky out and putting it right in front of your lips. 

“I need to take you out for dinner, that’s non-negotiable. But think the offer through. I know you like being in your own little, solitary bubble surrounded by pretentious books, but if you change your mind, let me know.” 

He ran back inside with his friends after who you assumed was Jaemin came out of the restaurant, nagging him about his food getting cold. He ignored his friend for a little while, keeping his eyes on you as you clutched your bag, ready to take the summer trek along the river to head back to your apartment. He seemed to be mulling over something, then he quickly took your hands in his, squeezed them, and went back inside the restaurant. He had his eyes on you, trailing your silhouette as you disappeared through the back alleyway near the restaurant, using a shortcut to get to the main bridge of the Han River.

In the following week, Sungchan didn’t keep his promise. There was no sign of him in the restaurant, and you thought of waiting for him over the same pasta and salad set, but the place started to fill up, prompting you to leave and go somewhere else. Sungchan was also not there when you attended your afternoon econometrics class. Upon asking your professor where he was, he shrugged and said he didn’t get any word of Sungchan’s absence. 

“He’s the type of kid who always skips, you shouldn’t waste your time with someone like him.”

Walking to the receptionist, you booked an appointment with student affairs, searching their records for a “Jung Sungchan.” Sure enough, his name was listed in three classes you shared this semester: econometrics, quantitative analysis in public policy, and advanced macroeconomics. Then, you found the address to his house and a telephone number. He entered the university in 1984, living in the suburbs of Western Seoul with her family. 

When you dialed the phone, a woman answered. “Jung Records, how may I help you today?” Jung Records? You balanced the receiver between your cheeks and shoulders, twirling the cord around your fingers. 

“Sorry, is Sungchan around?”

“No, he’s not.”

“Do you know where he might be? He’s missed today’s class, and I wanted to see if I could give him my notes.” You lied, hearing some rustling on the other end of the line. 

“He’s most likely at the hospital.”

You thanked and hung up, wondering what he could do at the hospital. Was he injured? Is it from soccer? Was he sick? Many scenarios swirled in your head, and the mysterious calm on the other end of the line worsened your unease. How could he say such a thing so nonchalantly, as if he was just going out to get groceries? Was he the type to always get sick? The questions didn’t seem to end until you reached the door to your apartment. Your body sank onto the couch, and you continued your debate with Heidegger. 

The following week, you faithfully attended the econometrics lecture, sitting at the front of the lecture hall. You still saw no signs of Jung Sungchan, and after scanning the entire room, you took some letter paper from your bag and began drafting a letter to Eunseok. You wrote about the protests, your activities with the New Korean Democratic Party, and the people you had met during your political tenure. 

After filling three sheets, you folded them inside an envelope and addressed them to Eunseok’s house in Jeju. By then, the lecturer had arrived, dabbing his face gracefully with a handkerchief as he began to take attendance. He was a tall, lanky man who walked with so much authority that the class stopped whatever they were doing when he came inside the room. Despite his strict and well-prepared nature, he could do nothing to make a subject such as econometrics fun. Without preamble, he starts the lecture where the class left off last week, explaining the concept of multivariate regression. When the door opened, he had written some formulas and statistical variants on the chalkboard for twenty minutes, revealing a disheveled Sungchan. He was wearing a blue Adidas tracksuit and some loose-fitting joggers. After making a quick bow and smiling at the professor, he sat beside you. Then, he took out his notebook and a small notepad, tearing one of the pages to hastily write something. 

Sorry about yesterday, are you angry?

You shook your head and kept your eyes on the tall, lanky professor filling the chalkboard with more equations, filling your notebook with the same formulas. Sungchan kept his eyes on you while you copied everything down, watching your swift fingers seamlessly jot down everything the professor wrote at lightning speed. 

“Mind sharing the notes with me later?” He asked. You nodded, keeping your eyes on your notebook. 

There were about thirty minutes left of the lecture when you saw two students enter the door, both carrying the same political smell that most of your colleagues at the New Korean Democratic Party had. One of them, a stout, round fellow with prominent cheeks and dopey eyes, took a quick glance at you before going in front of the professor and asking for the room to be accessible for a political debate. 

“I know you assholes are used to the school running a muck for your liberal agenda, but I don’t care. This is my class, and if you’re not fine with that, go leave and find another classroom to bother.”

After clearing his throat, the professor turned to your direction to ask if you had a part in this. You kept your eyes between your notebook and the chalkboard, shrugging off any suspicion the professor may have for you.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Sungchan whispered once the class had ended. You gave the stout one quick wave before they stormed the classroom, passing handbills to bystanders on campus election fraud. While you were technically a part of the crowd, you had to admit that the movement had been getting uninspired since the June 29 declaration. Free and fair elections were back as you knew it, and despite local politics, you realized student government didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if the union benefitted you in any way, and most of your insurance was paid for by the government, not by any union efforts to safeguard dental or dermatology. Besides, you couldn’t care less about having perfect teeth or smooth skin. It wasn’t the end of your world if you had to pay a couple extra just to have pearly whites and glass-like, porcelain skin. 

“Do you think they’ll kill us after the revolution?” Sungchan asked when the two of you were outside of the lecture hall. 

“I’m technically part of the problem,” You replied, dodging through a crowd of people to swiftly get to the exit. Sungchan followed suit, using his long arms to push past people who were getting in your way. 

“So you’re a communist who likes German philosophy because you wanna be oh-so-cool, that’s funny. I like it.” 

“I’m gonna go eat lunch,” 

“There’s a place I wanna take you. It’s not that far from here,”

Sungchan took you to the bus to Dongdaemun and showed you to a Russian restaurant with specialty pierogies in a neatly sheltered spot just behind the market. The minute the two of you sat down, they served you some borscht and the lunch of the day in large plates. You had never had Russian food before, but the distance was worth the meal. 

“This is great,”

“And cheap, too. I came here before the Russians when it was still some sketchy, run-down marketplace. This used to be a dumpling place run by some old guy when I was still going to school, and we all had to sneak out since they were so strict about these things.” 

When Sungchan wasn’t busy finishing his borscht, he would rub his sleepy, heavy lids, which looked much more languid than last time. When he wasn’t playing with his chopsticks or hounding the Russian waiter for more soup, he would incessantly rub the corners of his eyes, careful not to put any borscht residue on them. 

“Tired?” You asked.

“Sorta. I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, but it’s okay, don’t worry about me.” He replied. “Sorry about the other day. Something important came up, and I couldn’t ditch it. I thought about calling you at the restaurant, but I couldn’t remember your name and didn’t know your home number. Did you wait too long?” 

You shook your head amidst a cup of warm tea. “No worries, I’m a woman with a lot of time.”

“A lot?” 

“Yes, way more than I need, to be honest. I wish I could give you some to help you sleep.” 

Sungchan rested his cheek on his palms, a vast, crescent-eyed grin forming. “Aren’t you a sweetheart?” 

“I don’t think so. Like I said, I just have too much time to kill.” 

You thought about telling him you called his house but decided against it. There was always a time and a place for anything, and if he wanted to tell you about it, he would at a particular time in a specific place. While Sungchan was a chatty person, there was a meticulous way that he picked and chose what type of conversation he wanted to have, almost as if directing the flow of his words solely to avoid something he didn’t like to talk about. You felt the hospital was sensitive to it, so you dropped it altogether. 

He took you to his old school, a short walk from Dongdaemun. Passing through the bus stop and the train station, you thought about Eunseok and your endless walks with him. It had all started back home on the beaches of Jeju, and it arguably ended here in the city. If Eunseok had never visited you in Seoul, your life would have been different. Then, you changed your mind. No, even if he never visited Seoul to see you, your life wouldn’t change. He was meant to come to see you; if not, he was bound to visit you some other time. There was no logic to it; it was just a feeling. 

You and Sungchan sat on a park bench together, looking through the tall gates of his old school. Vines of old-growth moss clung to the walls, and pigeons huddled under the rooftop, resting their wings. While the building looked nice, something was brooding and ominous about it. 

“I really didn’t wanna go to this school,” Sungchan started. He shook his head until his eyes had hit the ground. “I wanted to go to a normal State school with normal people where I could just be myself and have fun like a normal teenager, but my parents thought it would look good on me to go to this stuck-up, fancy place. They’re the ones who sent me in here, and I suppose that’s just what happens when you do well in primary school. The teacher tells your parents that you have more potential, and they start considering it too, even if they didn’t have the budget to send me here. I went here for like, six years, and I absolutely hated it. All I could think of then was to leave, and you know, I’ve gotten awards for never being late or having missed a day of school. That’s how much I hated this place. Do you get what I’m saying?” 

“No, not really.” 

“It’s because I hated this damn place so much, that I wasn’t going to let it beat me. Because if I let them get to me even just once, I’d be finished. I was scared I’d just keep slipping down and down. Even if I was sick, I’d crawl to school, teetering at my last breath with a temperature of 39 degrees. When the teachers would ask me if I was sick, I would always shake my head and go to class. When I left, they gave me awards for perfect attendance and punctuality, plus a tennis racket for being one of the best tennis players in the school. That’s why I’m never playing tennis at university ever again. I didn’t wanna owe this school anything.” 

“Why did you hate your school so much?” 

“Did you enjoy going to your school?” 

“Not really, but I didn’t hate it. I went to a normal State school, but I didn’t really think about it at all. 

“Well, this school,” Sungchan explained, using the tip of his index finger to rub his eyes. “Had nothing but upper-class boys, almost four hundred boys from a prestigious background. Rich boys. They all had to be rich and stay rich to survive. Expensive tuition, donations, and extravagant school trips. If we went to Busan, they’d book the most expensive hotel and serve us the best seafood on lacquerware, then take us to a fancy hotel in Seoul to teach us some table manners. This wasn’t an ordinary school at all. And out of a hundred boys in my class, I was the only one from a middle-class background. I looked at the class register to see where everyone else lived, and they were all from a rich area like Gangnam. One boy from Incheon was an heir to a farm that I became friends with, and he was really nice. But can you imagine him feeling embarrassed about living in Incheon? I mean, this was the type of kid that got driven around in a Benz by a chauffeur! And still, he had this inferiority complex. Can you believe it?” 

You shook your head in disbelief. 

“I was the only one in the whole school who came from a suburb like Ichon. My parents were the only record shop owners in there, and when my classmates would say I was lucky to have all the records I wanted to listen to at the tip of my fingers, I would laugh at them! Of course, they expected something big like an HMV, but no! Records have been dying since the Walkman was created, and they would’ve never expected a small, poor, little Jung Records. From the entrance to the cash register, there is nothing but old records from pop stars you’ve never even heard of! The only people who still shop there are the widowed ahjummas who don’t know how to use a Walkman or a Boombox! No Beatles, no New Order, not even Wham! Do you think I’m lucky?” 

When you closed your eyes, you could see the type of place Sungchan was talking about. A cozy, run-down record store in the middle of an alleyway in suburban Seoul, welcoming regulars in the neighborhood who were too old to adapt to a newer, digital age.

“What I will tell you, though, is that it’s not bad business. Everyone in the neighborhood has known who we are for some time now, and we always deliver. Also, we make more than enough to support a family of four. No debts, two sons in university, but that’s it. There are no extras, and they should’ve never sent me to a school like that. It was a recipe for disaster. I had to hear them complain about the uptick in tuition every year when they thought I was asleep, and whenever the school would ask for a donation, they scrambled everything they could to provide even just a tiny amount. I never made friends, nor did I hang out with anybody after school because I was always so scared of running out of money in case they wanted to go someplace expensive to eat. It’s such a miserable way to live. Anyway, is your family rich?” 

You shook your head. “My parents are white-collar working-class people who’ve been working as auditors for a cargo company in Jeju. We’re not rich or poor, and I know it hasn’t been easy on them to send me all the way to Seoul, but it’s just me, so that’s not really a big deal. I work part-time to take the load off them, and our house back in Jeju is just a regular two-story home with a little garden for our dog and a Toyota Corolla parked in the garage.”

“Where do you work, and what do you do?”

“I work at the library in Yonsei. There’s not much to do other than sorting books out and hounding the people that have books overdue.” 

Sungchan’s mouth was agape, doe-eyes glimmering in the sunset as he shifted closer to your frame. “You’re joking, right? I mean, you just seem like someone who’s had an easy life, you know?” 

“It’s not like we ever suffered financially, but it’s not like I had tons of money growing up, either. I’m just like everyone else.” 

“Well, everyone else in my school was rich,” Sungchan replied, squeezing his knees with his palms.

“Now that you’re out of that environment, I’m sure you’ll have a lot of chances to see the normal people you craved so much, you know?” 

“I hope so… I mean, university’s going great so far! It’s full of normal people!” He smiled with the slightest curl of his lip and smoothed his mullet with the palms of his hand. 

“Do you have a job?” You asked.

“Yeah, I work at the campus radio. I make little playlists and recommendations for people who ask, with descriptions of what makes each song special or something like that. We also play songs on the radio depending on what people request, whether they want something romantic, sad, or happy, because those are the three moods that only exist when it comes to music. It’s so easy! Takes zero time and no effort at all. I can come up with an entire playlist and burn it on a cassette tape in a day. All you have to do is master a couple of secrets about the trade, and all kinds of work, regardless of the type, comes your way.” 

“And what are these secrets?” 

“Say, you take the entire mood of heartbreak, for example. Sure, there are many songs about heartbreak, but you need to know what type of heartbreak the person requesting a playlist or recommendations is going through. It doesn’t have to be anything big at all, just some tiny nuance like that. People also love graphic sentimentality, so make sure you’re curating songs and artists that really speak to them, and the money comes decent.” 

“Yeah, but don’t nuances get a bit too tedious? And doesn’t it require enough knowledge of musicians, artists, etc.?” 

“True,” Sungchan replied, tilting his head so that his choppy bangs flowed back and forth between his forehead. “But if you look for them, you usually find them, say, in like a gossip magazine or a music almanac. And if you don’t, there’s really no harm in making stuff up. I never get caught.” 

He said he wanted to hear more about you, so you told him the usual stories you would tell in the first year about Peanut and Mirae. You would tell him precisely about Peanut’s’ neat freak tendencies, her yellow “safety helmet” that she wore alongside several layers of surgical masks, safety goggles, shin pads, and UV-repellant clothing. Peanut especially made Sungchan laugh, wishing he had a chance to look at the dorm back then.

“Now, it’s just me alone with my coffee and my daily paper next to the Han River, either going to lectures, going to work at the library and sitting on my secret spot during breaks, sometimes going to the party office to do some bookkeeping for them sometimes, or sometimes organizing and attending riots.” 

“Does every girl just casually mention that one day she’ll either be a martyr or get arrested by the government for treason?” 

You laughed, crossed your legs, and stared at the clear, open blue sky. “Yeah, I think so. We all love to talk, as quiet as we may be.” 

“Even something as top secret as government insurgency?” 

“Maybe? But what we do at the party, at least as far as I know, has nothing to do with government insurgency. Things have been relatively calm since the June 29 declaration, and although people are somewhat angry at the results, there’s nothing we can do when there’s no foul play in the presidential elections. He won fair and square.”

“I don’t really know much about this sort of stuff when I should, I mean, I don’t know. I couldn’t care less about politics, to be honest,” 

“Well, I guess those ahjummas stopping by the record store don’t talk about it enough,” 

“Not at all!” He replied, laughing. “Anyway, how’s Sunday looking this week? Are you free?” 

“Yeah, I should be. The library’s closed, so I shouldn’t have work, either.” 

“Why don’t you come visit me? At Jung Records? The shop will be closed, but I have to hang around there all day to watch a few things. I also might be getting an important phone call, but that’s beside the point. How does lunch sound? I can cook for you,” 

“I think I’d like that,” You said with a smile. 

Sungchan tore a page from his notepad and wrote the address and the nearest train station and bus stop to his record shop. 

“Really, once you walk straight from the station to the residential area, you can’t miss it. There’s a big sign that says Jung Records. Come at around noon. I should have something ready for us by then.” 

After thanking him, you put the page in your jacket pocket. “I should be getting back to campus now; my shift starts in an hour.”

Sungchan said he had somewhere to be as well and took the train from Dongdaemun.

When Sunday morning came, you woke at eight, made coffee, read the daily paper, did your laundry, and hung the clothes on your balcony. You picked out a lovely, long black maxi dress with thin straps that gracefully went over your shoulders. It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining brightly over everything it touched, adding a spiritual iridescence to things so banal. Ladybugs fluttered everywhere, sitting atop your stretched-out duvet hanging on the balcony. With no wind, the river looked flat from where you were. Despite being a student, the area you lived in housed more families and entry-level graduates, so Sunday wasn’t dead quiet. In fact, it was quite the opposite. While most shops were closed, children were still running around the riverbank, playing hopscotch or tag while their parents watched on picnic mats. Another group of kids just across the pavement were throwing rocks at empty cans. A flower shop was open right next to the train station, so you went in and bought some daffodils. You knew it wasn’t in season, especially with the dawn of autumn, but you’ve always liked daffodils. 

Three old women sat across you on the train, looking at you and your flowers. One of them gave you a smile, and you smiled back. You sat in the train’s last car, watching the ancient houses stack on top of mountains like piles of dominoes. The train was a little slow and flimsy today, but the speed was enough for you to see the laundry deck out of each resident’s window. One of the windows had a small garden with ten juicy, ripe tomatoes beside a big calico cat stretched out in the sun. In the window of another house, a little girl in ribbons was blowing soap bubbles with her mother. You heard a distant Lee Sunhee ballad through the radio from somewhere, and you could catch a view of old men doing stretches at the park below the train tracks. After snaking its way through a large tunnel, a few more passengers got on. Despite that, the three old women stayed still, talking intently about something while huddled together in their seats. 

You got off near Ichon station and asked a staff member if he knew the quickest route to the residential area, as written in Sungchan’s notes. When offered to walk with you, you politely declined, simply asking for directions so you have a good idea of where you were. Any street signs, turns, or landmarks were all you needed to ground yourself in this part of town. 

As you began your journey, the shops you passed by didn’t look too well; they were housed in old buildings with gloomy interiors and faded writing on some of the signs. Judging from the age and style of the buildings, you believe that this area was spared during the bombing raids in World War II and the Korean War, as whole blocks and districts were still intact. Some buildings had been rebuilt, with giant apartments erected in an old neighborhood. Besides, most houses had been enlarged or repaired in certain places, giving off a shabby or tacky look. The entire atmosphere of the place gave you the impression that the original residents had given up on the taxing toll of city life and moved to the suburbs, leaving nothing but cheap, run-down apartment blocks, empty lots, and a few stubborn families who clung to their long-time family businesses. 

A few minutes of walking uphill brought you to a corner shop, where you turned left into a small, albeit dead, market on the right side in the middle of the road, which hung a large sign for Jung Records. While it wasn’t a big shop by all means, it wasn’t the tiny, mom-and-pop locality Sungchan had described. It was just a typical neighborhood record shop, the same ones you used to pass by on your commute to school. A wave of nostalgia hit you as you stood in front of the place, and you grazed your hands on the big, metal shutter that covered the entrance to the shop. You were technically ten or so minutes early, but you didn’t know how you’d kill your time in a neighborhood that seemingly didn’t have a coffee shop, so you pressed the buzzer and kept the bouquet of daffodils snug in your arms. Only a few seconds had passed, and you looked up to see Sungchan leaning over, long arms waving at you. 

“Come in,” he yelled. “Just lift the shutter with the other button there.” He pointed at a button next to the buzzer marked with an ‘x’ over masking tape. 

“Is it okay if I come in? I’m kind of early?” You shouted back.

“No problem. Come in and make yourself comfortable. I’m busy in the kitchen right now.” He left the balcony in a hurry. 

The whirring of the shutter made you drop the daffodils on your arms as soon as it lifted itself up. It flimsily stopped midway through opening itself entirely, so you used the chance to duck inside the shop, then pressed the button with the masking tape again to see if it could close it back. To your surprise, it did, and you swiftly picked your daffodils from the ground and covered your nose with a handkerchief as you traversed through the store. The shop was pitch black inside, and you managed to find your way around by feeling through shelves and piles of records, tripping over square-shaped vinyl jackets on your way to the staircase. You kicked your Mary Janes off and climbed the stairs to the dining table. The only light source entering the living area was a small opening in a matted curtain, making the interior dark and gloomy. 

“Over here,” Sungchan called. To the corner on the right of the room was the kitchen, with all the windows opened. The entire building was old, but something new about the kitchen made it stand out from the rest of the shop and the rooms in the house. You didn’t know if it was because Sungchan regularly polished the counter, or if it was due to the shiny luster in the sink taps, but the kitchen was the only place that felt like it belonged in the current era, while the rest of the building was a bygone relic. Sungchan was preparing food, busy pacing around with bubbling pots and the smell of grilled fish. 

“There’s beer in the fridge if you want,” he said, taking a quick glance in your direction. 

“Make yourself comfortable. I should be done in a few,” You nodded and took a can of beer from the mini-fridge. The beer was so cold that it might have been in the fridge for an entire year. There was a small white ashtray on the table, the daily paper, and a couple of condiments. There was also the same notepad that Sungchan used when he gave you the directions to his place with a pen, a hastily written phone number, and what appeared to be a shopping list written on the side. 

“Wait, I lied. I should be done in about ten,” He said, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his tank top. “Can you wait, or are you so hungry that you could devour a three-course meal in one go?” 

“I can wait,” You replied. 

“Good.” He said with a smile. “Get hungrier, then. I’m making a lot.” 

You slowly sipped your beer and focused on Sungchan as he continued cooking, his broad shoulders and muscular back on you. He worked with quick, nimble movements, handling four cooking utensils simultaneously. He tasted a boiled dish in one pot, and the next second, he was rhythmically cutting vegetables on the cutting board; then, he was crouched over on the fridge, and before you knew it, his back was on the sink washing a pot that he had just finished using. You watched in awe as he was immersed in his craft, never missing a beat or his sense of balance as he gave the illusion of having eight limbs. 

“Do you need help with anything?” You asked, standing up from your seat with an empty can of beer in your hands. 

“Oh, no! No, no, NO! Sit back down,” Sungchan demanded, abruptly turning the stove off and shoving you back into your seat. Then, he returned to his cooking, turned the stove on, and tossed some spring onions in a large frying pan. He wore a slim, loose-fitting pair of joggers that hung snugly on his hips and a tight tank top that went just above his abdomen. The light pouring in from the kitchen window gave his figure an almost Promethean outline, making it extensively clear that he frequented the gym or was extremely meticulous about his health. 

“You really didn’t have to put an entire feast together, you know?” 

“What, you’re calling this a feast?” Sungchan joked. “I was too lazy to do any shopping today, if I’m being completely honest with you. I’m just throwing around what I have in the fridge. Besides, it’s a family tradition of ours to treat our guests well. I don’t know what it is, but it’s kind of like we’re born to entertain. It’s like a sickness because it’s not like we’re especially nice, or we love people or anything, but if someone comes over, we have to treat them like the king of the castle.”

“Does that explain the beers in the fridge?” You asked. Sungchan vehemently nodded.

“My stupid father hardly ever drinks because it’s bad for him, but he stocks up on a lot of alcohol to serve guests! So please, drink as much as you want. It would make him happy knowing his stock is going to be of good use.”

“Thank you,” 

You took the daffodils on the table and handed them over to Sungchan, who immediately grabbed a tall, slim glass from one of the cupboards and placed the flowers in it. 

“I’m not much of a flower person, but these are so pretty,” He marveled, doe-eyes gazing over each petal with gentle care. “What are they called again?” 

“Daffodils,”

“Is it the same as narcissus or something?” He asked. You shrugged your shoulders. 

“I’m not the best at the language of flowers, but I think daffodils belong to the same family or is a part of a family of flowers called narcissus,”

“That makes sense then. I once played piano for a classic Korean production in my old school about daffodils.”

He hummed the melody to Narcissus while plating the food. 

Much to your chagrin, Sungchan’s cooking was far better than what you’d expected. A diverse, fantastic assortment of grilled, marinated, fried, boiled, roasted, and cured dishes using mackerel, radishes, seaweed, mushrooms, pork bone, and sesame seeds, all cooked in the intense flavors of the Southern Jeju style.  

“Wow, this is really good,” You said with your mouth full. 

“You didn’t expect my cooking to be good, didn’t you? Based on how I look or something,” 

“Not really, no,”

“You’re from Jeju, right? So you like this kind of flavor profile, don’t you?”

“Did you seriously change your cooking just for me?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course not! We always eat like this!” 

“Are any of your relatives from Jeju?” 

“No, we’re all born and raised in Seoul, as far as I know. There’s not a single person from the South. We’re all from around the area.” 

“I don’t get it,” You continued, heaping more food from your chopsticks into your mouth. “How can you make this super authentic Jeju dish? Were you taught, or did you go to any classes?” 

“It’s kind of a long story,” He replied, taking apart a piece of grilled mackerel. He used the other end of his chopsticks to start deboning a small piece on your plate, feeding it to you once he was finished. 

“My parents never really had the time to cook, and we always had the business to think about, so it was either take out or eat at a restaurant. When we didn’t have money to eat out, we bought ready-made lunches at the convenience store or nearby butchers. Even when I was little, I couldn’t stand the lack of fresh food, and it wasn’t like my mom cared about changing things up. We just kept eating the same, ready-made lunch boxes, and I grew so tired of it that I taught myself how to cook. I went to the big Kyobo in Gwanghwamun and bought the thickest cookbook I could find, mastering it from cover to cover whenever I had the time. The author also turned out to be from Jeju, which explains why much of what I cook is in the Jeju style.”

“Wait, so you’re telling me you taught yourself how to cook? Just you and a book?” 

Sungchan nodded, pride brimming widely in his grin. He took another bite out of the grilled mackerel in front of him, took a large heap of rice, and swallowed the rest with some seaweed soup. 

“It was only until I turned twenty that I had the money to go and eat at a real Jeju-styled restaurant. My dream is to go to Jeju one day and try the real thing there, but I think the restaurant I went to here in Seoul was close enough and helped me understand most of the nuances and flavorings that I needed to master my dishes.” 

“Wow…” You exclaimed, taking a piece of shrimp into your mouth. “I could never have taught myself how to cook. I mean, how do you do it? Especially when you weren’t able to see how it’s done right before your eyes?” 

“It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows,” Sungchan explained, sighing while chewing on a slice of fried eggplant. “Especially when I grew up in a household where nobody gave a single crap about food. I would beg my dad for a better knife or a decent pot, and he’d tell me to spend my money on something else! I mean, the audacity! You can’t possibly debone a fish properly with cheapass knives, and how can you expect me to sous vide meat without an immersion circulator or some vacuum sealers? Every time I’d make these requests, they’d just look at me like I was crazy for trying to sous vide beef at home. It was hopeless trying to tell them that all the money was worth having good food in the house, so I took it upon myself to save as much as I could and buy the equipment with my own money. Little old fifteen-year-old me spending my entire allowance on nicer pots, higher quality knives, strainers, whatever you can think of. Can you imagine? Other boys are buying cleats and nice jerseys of their favorite baseball players while I’m here, spending every buck I can on cooking utensils! Isn’t that nice?” 

You nodded with every word, swallowing a mouthful of bright red soup drenched in gochugaru with tofu and spring onions. 

“I know this sounds a bit disgraceful, but I’m happy my mom died,” Sungchan continued, putting his chopsticks down momentarily to wipe his mouth with his arms. A bright, orange stain smeared his forearm, leaving an outline of his lips where it touched his skin. 

“Why is that?” You asked. Sungchan’s doe eyes widened, staring into your pupils as if communicating his thoughts to you directly. 

“Because now that it’s just me, my brother, and my dad, I get to take control of the family budget. I bought what I wanted, and that meant completing my set of cooking tools. My dad doesn’t know a single thing,” 

“When did your mom die?” 

“When I was seventeen or so, somewhere around my last year of high school. Some nasty tumor did it for her, but it’d probably be distasteful to joke about which one she had on the table. She was bedridden for about four months, was taken home because she seemed better, and then spent the last six months of her life with chemicals injected in her. I already knew that a part of her had died the moment the diagnosis came in, but by the end of it, she wasn’t even a human being anymore. Hardly spoke, looked like a shriveled-up raisin, had no hair, and didn’t even know who me or my brother were. I think that type of death is the worst kind, where both the patient and the entire family go through a different kind of hell. It wasn’t just awful watching my own mother become a vegetable, but it took every Won in our pockets. I mean, every session was 200,000 down the drain, and it wasn’t like the nurses were there for free either, you know what I mean?” 

Sungchan stopped for a moment, mouth agape and hanging in thought. With his chin resting atop his bone-like knuckles, his doe-eyes formed crescents, bright brown turning into a spectrum of hazel under the rays of the seeping sun. 

“How did we get here?” He laughed. 

“I think it started with the budget and how you’re happy your mom died,” 

“Finish your food and think about my little sob story, will you?” Sungchan said, his smile quickly fading into a solemn, thin line. 

After that, Sungchan barely touched his food, prompting you to put your chopsticks down as well. You thought you would ask him to take some of the food home, as it was too good to waste. 

“Cooking makes me less hungry,” Sungchan started, taking a slim, pristine cigarette stick between his lips and lighting it with a match. His eyes wandered until it hit the bouquet of daffodils resting neatly in a tall, slim glass. 

“They look nice like that,” He said. 

“I guess I rescued them from being stepped on at the riverbank,” You replied. 

He chuckled airily, smoking half of his cigarette and dumping the rest in a small, wooden ashtray. Rubbing his eyes, he grabbed the bright red box of Marlboros and fiddled with its corners. 

“Do you smoke?” He asked. You shook your head, gathering the empty bowls and plates before Sungchan stopped you to dump them into the sink himself. 

“I stopped in the summer,” You replied. 

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I just hated running out of ‘em in the middle of the night.”

“You make it really obvious whether you like things or not,” Sungchan said. 

“I think that’s why people never really liked me,”

“You show it, that’s why,” He continued, resting his head on the curves of your neck. “You show that you don’t care about people, and that type of attitude makes them angry, especially the ones that think they’re important.”

“But that’s what also makes talking to you so enjoyable,” You felt him grin as his lips touched your neck. You dragged him up and pushed the small of his back towards the sink, helping him dry some of the dishes as he began washing them with an abundance of bubbly dish soap. Standing next to him, you did your best to wipe everything in a spick-and-span state, stacking each plate and utensil carefully on the drying rack. 

“Are your parents out today?” You asked. Sungchan nodded, eyes focused on a stained plate. 

“Well, my mom’s six feet under,”

“You told me that,”

“My brother’s on a date with his fiance, probably on a drive somewhere off the coast nearby. They both love going to the beach, even if the weather is horrid up here.” He then kept his lips pressed in a thin line, gripping the sponge until it oozed with more white bubbles. You did the same and focused on scrubbing the plates with a tea-stained cloth. 

“Then, there’s my dad,” He whispered after some time had gone by. You nodded, eyes still on the plates that were now neatly lined up against each other on the rack. 

“He’s off to Thailand, has been since last spring.”

“Thailand?” You asked in shock, as if to ask him what and why his father was in Thailand out of all places. 

“Didn’t really say much about him, but he’s an eccentric one. A friend of his was in Vietnam during the war and deserted to Thailand, running off with a woman. He now has a farm there, and my dad just got on a plane and told us he was settling there. My brother and I tried to stop him—we told him he couldn’t speak the language, didn’t know a single thing about the customs, and how he wasn’t used to a place like that after being in Seoul his entire life. He didn’t seem to care and wouldn’t listen to a single word we said. I guess losing mom made him go a little bit insane.”

There wasn’t much you could say except stare at Sungchan, mouth agape in bewilderment. 

“Do you wanna know what he said after mom died? He said he would’ve much rather lost us instead of her. I mean, how was I supposed to respond to that? You don’t say such a thing to your kids, you know? For sure, he lost the love of his life, his life partner. I get that it’s a super painful thing to go through, something that makes you sad for the rest of your life, but you don’t tell your own sons that they should have died in her place. That’s just terrible, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah,” 

“Honestly, I don’t think that wound would ever close inside me, even if my dad took it back,” He said while shaking his head. “In some ways, everyone in my family’s odd. We’ve got something strange in us, even if it’s just a little bit.”

“I think I’d react in the same way if my dad said something like that to me,” You replied. 

“But despite the harshness of it all, I still think it’s a wonderful thing for two people to be in love like that, no? I mean, for a man to love his wife so much that he tells his sons they should’ve died in her place, then runs off to Thailand as he dumps the two of us right here in Korea.” 

You wiped the last plate without replying, while Sungchan swiftly put everything back in their respective cabinets. 

“So, have you heard anything from him at all?” You asked. 

“On a postcard sent to us back in the fall. The only thing he tells us is the difference in whether or how the fruits tasted better there. I mean, seriously? Give me a break! One dumb photo of him riding an elephant! He’s lost his goddamn mind! He didn’t even tell us the specifics of how he met the guy—the deserter who owns a farm there or whatever. He didn’t even tell us about sending us there once he’s settled, and he’s ignored our letters to him since.” 

“What would you do if your dad told you to come to Thailand?” 

“I think I’d go and tour a bit of it, I mean, by the sounds of it and the guidebooks I’ve been looking at, it sounds like a nice place to be. My brother, on the other hand, would absolutely refuse. He can’t stand dirty places.” 

“Is Thailand dirty?” 

“I don’t know? Maybe? He thinks it is. Like, the roads are full of elephant shit or something, swarming with flies while the toilet is an entire forest. He saw a documentary of the sort and made that conclusion. He can’t stand flies, either, and all he wants to do is drive through nice beaches in expensive cars.”

“No way…”

“I mean, to hell with him! What’s wrong with Thailand? I’d go for sure!” 

“So who’s running Jung Records while he’s gone?” 

“My brother technically, but he hates it. We have a neighboring aunt who helps around here and there, and I help, too, when I have time. A record shop isn’t exactly the hardest thing to manage, so it’s fine. And if it’s too much, we can always sell the place.” 

“Do you like your dad?” Sungchan stopped for a second, then vehemently shook his head. 

“So how can you go with him to Thailand if you don’t like him?” 

“I believe in him, that much I can do.”

The two of you then went up to the balcony of the building, where he rested his palms on your cheek, caressing it before giving you a chaste, slow kiss. A fire had broken out in one of the buildings nearby, causing smoke to go up as he rushed out to see what was going on. Soon enough, sirens began to wail in the empty, suburban air of Seoul, and he nonchalantly made coffee for you while talking about Thailand. You couldn’t recall its proper location, but you knew it was near Vietnam. 

“The Lee family’s building burned down,” He said. “They traded silverware and porcelain if I could recall correctly, but they went out of business some time ago.” 

You leaned over the railings, head resting on his slow, beating chest. A large apartment unit blocked the view, but you could see flashes of red trucks flowing into the streets, about three or four that were parked nearby, dousing the flames with large pipes. 

“Maybe you should evacuate,” You said to Sungchan. “The wind’s blowing in the other direction, but it could always change its course. You can always stay at my place, and I’ll help you pack whatever you need.” 

“Fuck that,” Sungchan spat happily. “I’m staying here. Ride or die. Even if this place burns down, I’ll be right here. I don’t mind death.” 

He looked straight into your eyes, and you couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. The only thing that you felt was the warmth that his arms exuded as he continued to hold you, long, slender fingers caressing the surface of your skin. 

“Alright, I’ll stay here with you, then,” 

“You’re gonna die with me?” He asked, eyes shining brighter than the radiant sun.

“What? No way! I’ll run if it starts to get here, you can go die alone.” 

“Ouch, that’s cold, you bitch!” 

“I’m not gonna die with you just because you made me lunch. If you added dinner on the itinerary, though, then I might consider it.” 

“Anyway, let’s stay here for a while. We can talk about you now if you’re interesting enough.” 

Sungchan brought two pillows from his bedroom, several bottles of beer, and some snacks from the kitchen. He says they were leftover cookies from the week before, but the dough tasted fresh enough that you inferred he made them in the morning. The two of you drank together and watched the thick, black smoke rise from the building. He asked you more questions about yourself that you couldn’t seem to answer, and you slumped onto his shoulder while he gently played with your loose hair. 

“When my mother died, I didn’t really feel sad or anything,” He started, hands now looping through your scalp, as if searching for something valuable. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I didn’t feel a thing.” 

“Does that make me cold like you?” He asked jokingly. You shook your head, burrowing your face onto the comforts of his chest. 

“I’m sure you had your reasons.” 

“I do, I really do. Things were always complicated in this household, but I always thought that I’d be sad if they died, I mean, they’re my parents, you know? But that didn’t happen. I hardly felt anything when my mom died, and now, I hardly even think of them at all. Sometimes, I dream about it; I see her glaring at me and lecturing me about how ungrateful I am for being happy that she died. But the thing is, I’m not happy at all, I’m just not sad about it. And to tell you the honest truth, I didn’t even cry at all. I cried when my dog died, though, when I was like, five or something.”

The only thing on your mind at the time was how much smoke there was despite the abundance of fire trucks that squeezed into the small boulevard. You couldn’t see any flames spewing out of the area, and it didn’t seem to be spreading anywhere. There was only a column of black smoke that continued to rise into the sky. What could’ve caused it, and why was it burning for such a long time?

“I think if they—my parents—had loved me a bit more, then I would’ve been sadder, you know?” 

“Do you think they didn’t love you enough?” Sungchan tilted his head, leaning over until his forehead touched yours. Then, he gave you a subtle nod. 

“I don’t know, it’s somewhere in between being loved and not being loved, I guess. I mean, I was always so hungry for love, and I always thought about what it felt like to truly be loved, to be fed so much of it that I’d be filled with it inside and out. They never gave that to me. Never. Not once did they pamper me or beg me for something, they’d just push me aside and yell at me, complaining about how much I’d spend on cooking tools. That’s all I’ve ever heard from them. So, I made up my mind. I told myself that I was gonna find someone who would unconditionally love me forever. I was still very young at the time, probably in elementary or so, but I made up my mind and have been searching since,”

“And did you end up finding it?” 

Sungchan watched the rising smoke for a while, pensive in his own thoughts. “I don’t know, I’ve been waiting for so long that I’m looking for the perfect person. That makes it a tough ass search for me.” 

“Waiting for the one?” 

“No, even I know that doesn’t exist. I’m looking for a girl I can be selfish with, like, a girl who will drop everything in a heartbeat just because I said I wanted some cake or something. Then I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window, while she is still there, completely content with the fact that I made her do something for me. That’s what I’m looking for.” 

“I don’t think that has anything to do with love,” You said in utter shock. 

“It does!” He replied, insisting in his odd fantasy as he continued to twirl your hair between his fingers. “You just don’t know it because you’re not a man.” 

“So finding a girl who willingly buys you cake and watches you throw it away is love to a man?” 

“Something like that. And when I throw it out, I want her to apologize to me, telling me that she’s sorry because she should’ve known that I would lose the appetite for cake, and had the intelligence and foresight to refuse my initial request knowing that I would get sick of cake, then go out again to buy me something else, asking me what I would like next.”

“Then?” 

“Then I’d give her all the love she deserves for what she’s done for me.”

“You’re insane.” 

“Well, that’s what love is to me. Not that I think anyone can understand, though.” Sungchan replied, giving his head a little shake. Now, he was lying next to you, eyes twinkling as he held your head into his chest, caressing the small of your back with a soft, gentle touch. 

“I’ve never met a guy who thinks like you,” 

“I get that a lot,” He said, resting his chin on the crown of your head. “But I guess it’s just how I think. Like, I’m honestly just telling you what I believe in. I’ve never really cared or realized that how I think is different from other people. I’m not trying to be different, but whenever I say something that I mean, people just think I’m doing it for attention. When that happens, I just feel so hurt.”

“And you’re letting yourself die in a fire?” 

“No, that’s different from this whole thing! I’m just curious,” 

“About what it feels like to die in a fire?” 

“No, I just really wanted to see what you’d say or something,” He said, resting his forehead against yours again while letting the tip of his nose brush against yours. “But if I’m being completely honest with you, I’m not afraid to die. Like, I’d just be consumed with all the black smoke and lose consciousness in a snap. Just like that. The thought of it doesn’t scare me at all, because it’s not as harsh as the way my mom died. It’s not a long, slow process of pain and suffering. A fire’s quick.” 

Sungchan put a stick of Marlboro between his lips and lit it with another match, watching the black smoke from his lips swirl into the sky. 

“That type of death scares me. The type that slowly eats away at you, taking everything you’ve known and loved until it pulverizes it into a dark abyss. I couldn’t stand something like that.” 

Another hour went by, and the fire was completely put out. The firefighters kept it from spreading out into the neighborhood, and all but one fire truck remained in the streets, whirring its orange siren around the streets, its bright, neon light spinning. Sungchan seemed drained of all the energy left of him, and he barely spoke. 

“Are you tired?” You asked. He shook his head.

“I think I’m just spaced out.” 

He looked deep into your eyes, head slowly tilting until his lips met yours. You felt his tongue slowly swirl into yours, the same sense of hunger and desperation felt between the caverns of your mouth electrifying you to the touch. The slightest rush kept him rigid, but he succumbed to deep relaxation and closed his eyes, hands searching across your back until one rested on your shoulder blades while the other, with a firm grip, felt the curves of your ass. The setting summer sun rested on his cheek, emitting a radiant, otherworldly glow in his trembling lashes. He pulled away as if something told him to stop, and then he held your hands, mouth twitching with difficulty, as if what the two of you did had an element of danger to it. 

“Is there someone you’re seeing right now?” He asked. You nodded. 

“But you’re always free on Sundays, no?” 

“It’s… complicated.” You replied, eyes cast down to your feet. 

And then, the summer had set into early autumn, its breeze casting a cold, lonesome touch to your bare shoulders. You told Sungchan you had to go back home to complete some assignments, asking him to come with you for some tea. He said he needed to stay home in case the phone rang. 

“I’d been here the whole time, waiting for the phone to ring all alone. Sometimes, when I’m like that, it feels like my flesh is rotting by the minute, little by little until I melt into this giant puddle of nothingness. That’s how it feels to be inside all the time, waiting for something that will never come,” 

“I’ll be with you next time,” You said. “As long as you make me lunch again.”

“I’ll start another fire in the neighborhood if it means you’re staying for dessert.” 

Sungchan didn’t come to the econometrics lecture the next day. Instead of eating lunch at the cafeteria or the restaurant, you went straight home from your shift at the library, opting for a light, frozen meal of pasta while you continued reading the daily paper with a cold cup of tea. Then, you stood out of your balcony and watched the glimmering moonlight reflected on the river, flowing with a harshness that you see during high tide. You saw a group of high school girls commuting on bicycles, each with a large sports back nervously balanced on their little baskets as they pedaled as fast as they could. One of them had a stack of CDs from a band you weren’t aware of. A couple was walking near the embankment filled with Zelkova trees, hand in hand as the girl adjusted her scarf to protect her from the cool breeze. Near the bench, there was a group of old men feeding pigeons with stale bread as they talked about inaudible qualms about recent politics. It was, in essence, the usual evening scene by the river, but you sat on your balcony with a newfound attention to detail, seeing the gleam of happiness in everyone’s eyes. Whether they were truly happy or just looked the part was something you couldn’t tell, but they did look happy on this quiet, pleasant autumn evening, and due to that, you felt a sense of loneliness that was new to you, as if you were the only outsider to this picturesque evening. 

Come to think of it, the last scene you could remember being in was with Eunseok and his late girlfriend, playing board games in his room with a wafting feeling of true friendship. His girlfriend had died that night, and ever since, a cold, rigid border was placed between you and the rest of the world. This girl, who you weren’t even that close to, what was her existence to you? There was no adequate answer to such a question. All you knew with absolute certainty was that Eunseok’s girlfriend’s death had robbed you of a crucial part of your adolescence. But what that death meant to you and how it impacted you went far beyond your understanding. 

You sat by your balcony for a long time, watching the people passing through your apartment, hoping, with the same loneliness, that Sungchan would be one of the people passing by. He never appeared, and when the next day came, you woke up early, read the papers, and went to campus early for your accounting lecture.

The next day, you ate a light lunch near the campus library, then used the telephone by the reception to call Sungchan to see if he was alone waiting for another call. You let the machine ring about fifteen times, but no one answered. You tried again in ten-minute intervals with the same outcome. Then, you took the bus back to your apartment, finding a letter written by Eunseok in your mailbox. 

Thank you for your letter, Eunseok wrote. My family forwarded it to me, and it made me really happy. I’ve been making progress, and I’ve gotten to a point where I can write one back to you. 

You quickly took off your jacket and sat at the foot of your bed. You left the windows open when you left, hearing the caws of crows sitting idly by the telephone poles near your building. The cool, autumn breeze swayed your sheer curtains, and you held the four pages from him under the moonlight, studying every word that was addressed to you. The colors around you suddenly gleamed with a spiritual vibrance, painting the dull stillness in your life with life the more you read into his letter. You closed your eyes and spent some time collecting your thoughts before picking up the next paragraph. 

It’s been about four months since I’ve been here, he continued. I thought about you a lot, and the more I did, the more I began to feel that I was unfair to you. I think I should’ve been a better person, seeing the way I treated you was cruel. 

This may not be a normal way of looking at things, though, since boys my age never see things as cruel or unjust. Young boys like me are quite indifferent about these things, and rather than being cruel, they care more about what satisfies them. I think these types of questions are often asked by women like you, but I can’t help but feel that it applies to me now as well. Because questions about satisfaction have become rather difficult for me to navigate now, I find myself asking questions about cruelty, like whether or not things have been a bit too cruel for me or if the world itself is unjustly cruel, to begin with. In any case, I think I was cruel to you, and because of that, I led you on and hurt you. 

In doing so, I’d also led myself on and hurt myself just as deeply as I did to you. I don’t say this as a way to make myself feel better, but because it’s true. If I left a large wound inside you, just know that I’ve also left a wound in me as well. So please, don’t hate me. I’m a flawed person, much more flawed than you’ll ever realize. Which is why I don’t want you to hate me. Because if you were to do that, I would really fall apart. I can’t do you what you can do, letting things pass and waiting idly. I often envied how strong you are, which is probably why I led you on like that. 

I might be looking into things a little too much. The therapy they do here is not anything too over-analytical, but several months of it makes you question things with a certain precision that you can’t find outside in the real world. I can’t tell if this type of analysis is making me see things a lot easier or making it harder for me, but regardless, I feel that I’m getting closer and closer to full recovery than I was before, and people here are telling me that it’s true. This is the first time in a while that I was able to simply sit down and write a letter without biting my fingernails about each word I think about. The one I wrote you about four months ago, before I underwent treatment, was something I had to force out of me (was it a bad read? I don’t know, I don’t remember much of it). This time, though, I’m calm. Very calm. The mountains have been doing wonders for me. It’s clean, it’s quiet from the hustle and the bustle of the city outside, and I’m completely cut off from everything, on a daily schedule of group therapy, personal therapy, and then doing some outdoor activities like hiking and calligraphy to take my mind off things. I think I needed a lot of those to fully function again, and I’ve missed you dearly—missed talking to you, and missed conveying all my thoughts to you, my only person left. I used to dread the feeling of going through my thoughts just to pick out a few things to say, but now, the thought of feeling so much again over one person overwhelms me with so much joy. So now, I’m writing to you. It’s about nine in the evening, and I’ve just had my dinner and my bath. Everything is quiet, and there are no lights outside. I usually see stars out my window, but the clouds make it hard to see. 

People here are different. They talk of stars and constellations because they have nothing else to do, and they also talk about different kinds of birds, flowers, and insects that are in the mountains. When I talk to them, I grow aware of how ignorant I’ve been about the world around me, which is humbling, to say the least. 

There are about forty people in this building, alongside twenty more for in-house staff and doctors. It’s such a vast, wide, open place, so this isn’t big at all. It’s so vast that the place might’ve been empty, filled with nature and quiet living—almost so that you feel that this is how people should’ve truly lived, not in the cramped life of the city or even our small town back in Jeju. I mean, of course, it’s not, but I suppose I get to live this way due to certain conditions. 

In my free time, I do calligraphy with the other patients. I don’t really like moving my body as much as I used to when I was a teenager, and despite the beauty of the mountains, I find that I’m still a bit unwell to hike. Sometimes, the characters start to seem a bit jumbled up in my head whenever I try to paint a word or two, but I don’t know if it’s the medication or if it’s just the state that my mind is in when I’m concentrating on a specific word. Today, I tried “acceptance,” which ended up in a blotted mess. I told my doctor about this, and he told me that this blurriness I’m feeling sometimes is not something to be afraid of. It’s not a deformity or an issue I have to fix, but rather, it was something I had to get used to, that we have to accept these blurry visions that we see. Just like each person carries their own quirks and traits, people have their own little ways of feeling things, even if you think you have to correct them. You can’t force these things or else they go funny. Of course, he didn’t go into much detail and simplified a lot of the details, but I think what he was trying to say reached me. This blurriness might be permanent, and we all come here for some clarity in certain ways. As long as we’re here, we can live our lives without having to spread such blurriness to other people because we know that we are blurry in our existence. That’s what separates us from those that are outside: most people are unaware of things going blurry, while in this small, little mountain villa, it’s a necessity to have that blurriness in us. We are open about it all, and we live in peace and quiet so as to not inflict or spread this pain on each other. 

Calligraphy aside, I also join in growing small crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, and spring onions to make the dishes the chefs serve us. We grow everything ourselves, and the people that are here know a lot about farming. They even read books on cultivation, and we have experts come by to give us talks from morning to night about how to properly harvest and take care of our crops. I’ve grown to love this little part of my life, and it’s been a great happiness of mine to watch what I planted grow into something more, getting bigger and bigger each day. Have you ever grown tomatoes? They sprout flowers and then turn into this small, green bulb just before becoming juicy and bright red. 

The one problem about this place is that it’s so picturesque that you don’t want to leave, or rather, you’re afraid to leave. I feel like I’d lose the peace and calm that I’ve had here if I ever left, and even if I think I’ve recovered, I know that I’ll lose all that once I come out of it all. My doctor has been urging me to talk to other people—normal people in the normal world where you live. When he tells me that, the only person I see is you. I don’t really want to see my aunt or whatever family I have left. They never felt like that to me anyway, and hearing about them puts me in a bad mood. I have many things I want to say to you that cannot be put aside any longer, and I hope that you won’t feel burdened by what I have to say. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, and I can sense how you feel about me. You make me very happy, and I hope that my happiness about your feelings for me has been conveyed in this letter. It’s what I need in my life. You’re what I need in my life. Please forgive me if I’ve written something that upsets you in this letter. As I’ve mentioned, I’m more flawed than you think I am. 

Sometimes, I wonder. I wonder if I never moved out of our neighborhood, wonder if I never met my girlfriend, if we stayed in the same school and lived our lives together, commuting day to day from our houses to school and back. What would’ve happened? Of course, hindsight is never accurate, but I’m trying my hardest to not be cruel to you anymore. It’s all I can do, and I hope I conveyed at least some of my feelings through this letter. 

This place has free visiting hours, unlike a normal hospital. As long as you make an appointment through the phone, you’re welcome at any time. You can even stay with me in my room. Please come and see me whenever you can. I really miss you. 

Attached to this letter is a map of the place. I’m really sorry if this letter got a bit too long. 

You read Eunseok’s letter through and through, reading it again until the sun rose. After that, you went out onto your balcony, watching the sun rise as you sipped a cup of coffee, ignoring the daily paper to read Eunseok’s letter again. You put the pages of his letter back in an envelope and neatly laid it on top of the dining table. Your name and your address, along with your apartment number, had been written out in perfectly messy handwriting, too messy, in fact, for a man who had been practicing calligraphy for about four months. You sat at your dining table, looking through every crevice of the envelope under the dim glow of the rising sun. The return address on the back was Ujeong Inn. An odd but appropriate name for a sanatorium, especially considering that ujeong means friendship.  Leaving the letter on top of your dining table with a half-empty cup of coffee, you slipped on a loose shirt and went out. You were afraid that if you continued staying within the vicinity of the letter, you would lock yourself in your apartment and read it until you’d memorized its entire contents. You walked across the embankment of the Han River without a single destination in mind, just as you would when Eunseok was still in Seoul. You took many sharp turns, keeping the river within your sight, picturing every word that was written out in his letter while pondering each sentence in your head. When the sun fully rose up, you ran back to your apartment and made a call to Ujeong Inn. The high-pitched, nasally voice of a male receptionist answered and asked what you were calling about. You asked for Eunseok and if you could visit today or tomorrow, leaving your name and your address so the receptionist could call back later. The same man called the phone after thirty minutes. Eunseok was available, he said. You thanked the receptionist and hung up, shoving a few clothes and a copy of Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory in your backpack. Then, you opened the envelope again, reading Eunseok’s letter with a glass of wine, waiting for sleep to seep in. You stayed up until three in the morning, washed your face, and waited again while reading Eunseok’s letter until it was five, leaving your apartment to catch the first train to Gwanaksan.

You took the 5511 bus to get to Gwanaksan before noon, following the instructions that Eunseok put in the envelope after getting off at the Engineering building at Seoul University. Initially, you believed that Eunseok’s facility would be housed under Seoul University’s psychiatric department, but upon realizing it was an independent inn that acted under another medical center that specialized in psychiatric care, you were somewhat relieved. Most university hospitals operate under strict, often rigid conditions, and from hearing about Eunseok’s activities and the freedom he experienced at Ujeong Inn, it was a relief on your end to know that he was in good hands. The trip took a little over an hour, and before you knew it, the ridges and cracks of a great mountain range rose over your tiny little frame, an overwhelming sense of the power of nature striking you stuporous against its vast superiority. The autumn winds, which were calm in the city, seemed to roar and wail with the rustling of dense trees, home to a flora and fauna that was extinct in the asphalt and tar of the city. You began your twenty-minute hike up the inn after stopping by a small bookshop across the road, leaving with a pamphlet that showed specific landmarks around the mountain’s main trail, which was a straightforward, linear path that went uphill to the peak of the mountain range. Along the way, lush, large oak trees lined up the dirt path and the bridges that led to the inn, coupled with a plethora of loons and petrels that added a dash of color to the bright, blue sky. Most of the sun’s light was filtered through the foliage of greeneries, reflecting its pigmented tint in the shadows that cast downward onto the surface of your sneakers. No wonder it was such a quiet place, because the inn itself was basically deep inside the mountains!

A large, mounting metal gate covered the inside of the inn, along with thick oak tree stumps that acted as pillars to the entrance. The fact that the inn was situated in the middle of the forest made it seem like the whole world had been buried under it, lost to the civilization and rush of the busy streets in Seoul. Troughs and hills of mountain ranges continued to stack onto each other, giving you an image of an endless visage of scenic nature that you could never find elsewhere. On the left side of the gate, sparse fields of rice that were turning into a light shade of yellow spread out in all directions, cutting through a pristine, clear river that played with the rays of the sunlight. There were no houses around the area; the only thing you could see was a large sign that read UJEONG INN PRIVATE NO TRESPASSING. 

At the crook of the gate was an empty post made of wood, its once bright yellow paint stripping off to show the bare, splintered ends underneath. The presence of a freshly crushed cigarette in an ashtray, a steaming tea cup, and a silent radio on the desk gave you clues about the guard’s whereabouts, and you gave yourself ten minutes to wait for anyone to come back. Soon enough, a guard dressed in a knockoff security vest slipped into his post and asked for your last name and the patient you were seeing. When you replied with Eunseok, he used the pager strapped onto his breast pocket, lifting the gate with a single button that whirred and disturbed the natural silence of the forest in quick succession. 

Once you were inside, you were greeted with a small car park that had a minibus, a large Range Rover, and two dusty Toyota Corollas near the front door. The car park looked like it could hold around twenty cars at maximum, but for today, it seemed like there were only three vehicles there. 

The actual inn itself resembled an old, Korean-styled house made with rustic, pointed clay laid out in a geometric, square pattern. It had a well-maintained Zen garden with shiny pebbles as floors lining a small footpath with stone lanterns. Your guess about the place was that it was once a country house for Japanese or Korean aristocrats during the occupation period, considering the vast, four-story height that it boasted. There was something simple and sleek about its design, but there was also a slight tackiness in the bright red and green paints that adorned its walls. 

Upon reaching a large, stone gate, you were greeted by a woman in a nurse’s scrub. “Are you here for Eunseok?” 

You nodded, and she smiled while guiding you inside the building to sit on a small, beige sofa. As she left to use the plastic answering machine on the reception desk, you took the straps of your backpack off your shoulders, slumping it right next to you as you surveyed the place. There was an eerie cleanliness to it, an uncanny luster that reflected your face in all the furniture and the items strewn around the lobby. The paintings were minimal in color, sometimes having none at all, showcasing simple shapes on a white background. The floor was polished to perfection, almost as if a shiny, waxy sheen had been above your soles to ensure that you wouldn’t leave any dirt as you walked along, absorbing all the dirt and mud that you accumulated to hide it from the cleanliness of the entire building. 

“He’ll be here soon,” The nurse reassured you with another gleaming smile. You nodded, taking note of the deathly quiet that surrounded you after you finished speaking. There were no sounds of any kind, only a white, static silence that murmured underneath your ear canals. In this building, the people, animals, insects, and every microorganism were all sound asleep, even in what should’ve been a busy afternoon. 

Before long, you heard a pair of weak, rubber soles gliding through the slippery floors, and Eunseok was in front of you in a loose shirt that was buttoned halfway. He sat next to you on the beige sofa, its weight only slightly shifting from the impact. At first, you thought he was a hallucination that you conjured up from the fatigue of traveling all the way up into the mountains, but it was the real Eunseok. 

“Tired?” He whispered. You shook your head and gave him a gentle smile, head still shaking slightly from the apparition that was Eunseok. You wanted to reach out to him, feel his fingers against yours to truly confirm that he was real, but you decided against it. You still didn’t know if he was in a state to hold your hand, let alone be here right next to you to talk to you, but an unwavering calm aura that wafted around him gave you the reassurance that you were at least allowed to converse with him once more. 

“How have you been, Eunseok?” 

“Good,” He replied with a little, ghostly smile. “I’m sorry, but I’m not supposed to be here right now. I’m supposed to be back in one of the recreational rooms to do some calligraphy. I just slipped out for a minute, and I have to go back right away, so I’m sorry if I look like a mess right now.”

“Not at all,” You said, doing your best to reassure him with a gentler, softer tone. “I think I like your clean cut.” 

Eunseok’s hair was perfectly trimmed to ensure none of his strands reached the collar of his shift, bangs pristinely sliced just above the edge of his eyebrows. It suited his face very well, framing his angular features and accentuating the roundness of his eyes. He looked as if he had always worn his hair that way, a handsome rendition of an aristocratic schoolboy during the height of the occupation period. 

“I had one of the nurses cut it for me, but do you really think it looks nice?” 

“Yes, I do.” 

“My aunt said it’s too… childish.” He ruffled his hair and let some of the strands topple over each other, creating a mop of disheveled, black hair that was tousled meekly. 

“I wanted to see you just as you came here, not that I had anything urgent to say, but I just wanted to see your face and get used to having you around. If not, then I might have some trouble getting to know you again, even if we’ve practically known each other since birth. I’m just so bad with people, and I think the desolate nature of the mountains made it worse for me. I can hardly recall my aunt’s face now, and I don’t even know what my parents look like anymore,” 

“Well, do you think the treatment’s doing you any good?” 

“I think so, yeah,” He replied, fiddling with his hair again. “But I have to go.” 

You saw him off to the recreational room, and before he slid the door open, he took your hands in his, studying each crevice and line in your palm with his slender fingers. 

“I really wanna thank you for coming all the way here to see me. This makes me very happy, but I don’t want you to feel like I forced you to come here. The last thing I wanna be is a burden, and this is a special place far removed from what you’re used to. If you feel uncomfortable or lost in here, please tell me and be honest about it. I won’t be hurt by it at all. In this place, we can be completely honest with each other.” 

“Of course, I’ll be honest,” You said with certainty. 

Eunseok’s hands trembled as he gently took your shoulder, pushing the small of your back in his direction until your head was leaning on his chest. When you circled your arms around his back, he took his chin and softly placed it on the crown of your head, staying like that for a time and absorbing your body’s temperature into his cold touch. Holding him made you feel warm in your chest, and he suddenly stood up without saying a word, disappearing into the recreation room as quietly as he had come down to the reception desk. 

With Eunseok gone, you went back to the reception and took a nap on the sofa. You didn’t intend to, but you fell into a deep sleep that you hadn’t been able to experience in a long time, filled with a sense of Eunseok’s presence. In an instant, you were transported back into the small comforts of his apartment, in the bathroom where his toothbrush and toiletries were, with the library of books that were on his shelf, and in his sparsely decorated bedroom, lying next to him in his bed. Sleeping soundly in his apartment, you felt the fatigue from your body disappear bit by bit, dreaming of an albatross flying in the distance, in the dim glow of the summer sunset in Jeju. 

When you woke up, the clock on top of the reception desk points at six in the evening.

The lights had changed into a dim, yellow glow, the wind had died into a silent stillness sans the ruffling of tree leaves, and the shape of the clouds was distorted into lines and streaks that symmetrically bordered the moonlight. You wiped off the sweat on your forehead with the hem of your shirt, quickly changing into a long-sleeved sweater in the absence of people. You went into the kitchen by following the signs, getting a paper cup, and filling it to the brim with water while watching the night sky fade into a dark abyss in the absence of light in the forest. There was no sign of anyone around, and no sound penetrated the thick walls of silence that surrounded the entire building. It felt as though you were isolated in a void. 

“Hey, sorry for being gone for a while,” Eunseok’s voice was barely a whisper, and it startled you to the point where you dropped your cup. He tried to pick it up, but you swiftly bent down in a panic, using a crumpled pile of paper towels to soak up the remaining water that spilled out of your cup. Your copy of Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory slipped out of your backpack’s front pocket, and he picked it up to hand it back to you. 

“How could you bring such a book in a place like this?” He joked. He was right, of course; all you could do was shrug. 

“I don’t know, it reminded me of the sort of books you would read back when you were in Dongguk.” 

To this, he chuckled—the first you’ve heard in a long time. Almost so that it shocked you to the spine, giving you an electrifying tingle every time you heard a tingle or a shift of pitch in his voice. He took your hand and dragged you to a large dining hall on the main floor, passing you a tray filled with lush, green salads, boiled vegetables, rice, and seaweed soup. 

“I’m sorry, did you want something else?” He asked. “There’s some pasta, and you can always go eat outside if you wanna go for a smoke,” 

“I’m alright, Eunseok, I quit in June.” You replied with a small, soft smile. His eyes widened with an unreadable expression. Then, he pressed his lips in a firm, thin line, averting his gaze back to his tray of food. 

Twenty other people entered the dining hall, while a handful began to pack their trays and left. Apart from the variety of ages, you pictured Sungchan’s private all-boys school in the dining hall, filled with men in hospital gowns instead of uniforms and speaking in a much lower volume than a large room of electric adolescent boys. There were no loud voices or whispers, nor was there anyone laughing out loud or crying. There was no yelling, and the only type of conversation that was present in the room was hushed and serene, with people either nodding to each other or softly humming with interest. You couldn’t tell what anyone was saying, but the way they spoke reminded you of the secret conversations you would see among girls in your time at the dormitory in your first year, confiding deep, dark secrets in the form of low whispers. You wondered if Eunseok spoke like this with the people he did calligraphy with, and you felt a twinge of loneliness mixed with jealousy at the proximity that the people here had with Eunseok. 

Two doctors sat behind your table with Eunseok, one a sheepish, nervous balding man with glasses in a white, neatly-pressed lab coat and the other a much younger-looking man with slightly greying hair, donned in bright blue scrubs and a surgical mask resting on his chin. The two were immersed in a battle of nodding at each other, with the occasional ah and oh really thrown back and forth. You listened to the way they spoke, and the more you allowed yourself to be a part of their conversation, the more it became apparent to you that the bald man was a doctor and the younger man was on his last leg of residency. 

Nobody in the dining hall paid any special attention to you, nor did they realize you existed at all, almost as if your being there was a natural part of their daily lives in the mountains. It was either that, or the sheer vastness of the nature around them that made people seem almost insignificant—small and irrelevant. 

Just then, the balding man in a white lab coat was now behind you, tapping you on your shoulder. 

“How long are you here for?” He asked. 

“Only two nights,” You replied firmly. “I’ll be leaving via the first bus in the morning on Sunday.”

“Well, if you ever come back, then do so in the winter. It’s really nice here in the autumn, but the snow caps on the mountian ranges adds an even nicer touch to the scenery.”

“I’ll probably be out of here by then,” Eunseok interjected with a forceful, yet gentle smile. 

“But still, the winter makes the place really nice.” He repeated. You weren’t too sure if he was a doctor anymore. 

Once the bald man left with the younger man in scrubs, you turned your attention back to Eunseok, who finished what was on his tray. His slender fingers trembled as he fidgeted with an empty bowl, unease written all over his face. 

“What do you talk about up here?” You asked. Eunseok hummed, pondering your question as if it was a bizarre one to ask. 

“What do you mean? We just talk about normal things like our daily routine, the books we’ve read, tomorrow’s plans, stuff like that. Don’t tell me you think people here talk about crazy things while jumping up and down with an imaginary marching band!” 

“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” You replied hastily, but Eunseok didn’t seem to stare at you the way he did whenever you felt you said something gravely wrong. Instead, he folded his arms and smiled at you, leaning his back on the plastic railings of the chair. 

“If you’re thinking about the noise level, then it’s just what it is. People talk quiet here, and there’s no need for you to talk so loud or draw any attention to yourself.” 

“I guess not,”

You took Eunseok’s tray and stacked his empty plates with yours, clearing the table as he dabbed his mouth with a folded handkerchief. When you put the trays back to a small window into the chef’s kitchen, you found yourself surprised by how much you’ve missed the low hums of people or the white noise that buzzed in one ear and out throughout your daily life. You wanted to hear boisterous laughter and people screaming for no reason, saying ridiculous things that only made sense after a few bottles of beer. Sure, it was the kind of environment you lived in since moving out of Jeju for university, but sitting with Eunseok in an eerily quiet dining hall made you uneasy and anxious. You couldn’t relax, and the more people began to leave the dining hall, the more you likened the experience to that of an empty art exhibit, where the people eating were caricatures of what an alien species thought human life was like. 

Instead of going back to the guest room in the left wing of the inn, Eunseok insisted that you stay in his room while he finished his bath, which was located in the opposite side of the guest rooms. He had his own shower in his room, but he insisted that you use his. 

“The thing is, most of the patients here are men, and I’m not too sure about using the staff bathroom since I don’t know where it is.” He explained, before making the trek to the other side of the room with his toiletries. 

After he was gone, you decided to play the first record that was on his shelf, unaware that it was his own copy of the Johnny Cash album that he gave you for Christmas—the very same one that he cried to on his birthday. To think that it had only been six months since you celebrated Eunseok’s birthday and slept with him was a puzzling realization. It felt more remote than it was. 

Maybe it was because you thought about it too much, distorting your sense of time and rearranging the timeline of memories in your head. 

The moonlight’s low beam was fluorescent enough for Eunseok’s room, leading you to turn his lamp off, legs streteched below his study desk as you immersed yourself into Johnny Cash’s voice. Shadows danced around the white walls of Eunseok’s room, playing with the items that were on his table and turning them into random blotted patterns across the room like a Rorscharch test. Taking a shiny metal flask from your backpack, you allowed the taste of warm wine to sit on your tongue, swirling it around and letting the warmth spread throughout your body. After a few sips, you slipped the flask back into your backpack, body slightly swaying with the shadows that continued to dance in Eunseok’s room. 

“It’s so dark here,” Eunseok suddenly murmured. Instead of standing up to greet him, your arms and legs felt heavier than usual, sticking like glue to the edge of his wooden seat. His light, wispy chuckles echoed back and forth between your eardrums in a trance-like reverie, making it harder for you to believe that Eunseok’s presence was indeed, real. 

“I wanted to turn the lights off because I haven’t seen such a bright, full moon in a long time,” You explained, feeling the apples of your cheeks for more warmth. 

Eunseok brought a large, white candle from the kitchen, striking a match to light the wick. Its bright, orange glow swayed with the shadows that it illuminated, further distorting the lamp and books strewn around Eunseok’s room. As the two of you sat facing each other and the candle amidst the disquiet silence of the mountain, it slowly began to feel like the candle transported you and Eunseok to the edge of the world, far, far away from anything that could disturb you. Eunseok shifted closer until his arms touched yours, causing you to flinch. 

“You smell like wine,” He laughed, resting his head on the crook of your shoulder. 

“I still have some in my flask if you’re allowed to drink in here,” You replied with a blase hint of surprise.

“We’re obviously not allowed to drink in here, but it’s fine. If the nurses and doctors can smoke, then we can also break the rules, no?” 

“Right,” 

“I even have drinking parties sometimes with the guy next door,” Eunseok murmured shyly, concealing a hint of mischief in his tone. 

You took the flask out of your backpack again and handed it to Eunseok, who slowly took the cap off and placed the opening of the flask between his lips. When the record ended, he took the flask in front of your eyes and shook it, signaling its emptiness. You took the flask back into your backpack, and Eunseok began humming the tune of a nursery rhyme that was all too familiar to you. 

“I still think Johnny Cash’s version is the best one,” you remembered him saying at fourteen, messing up the English lyrics to “My Grandfather’s Clock” so badly that it came out in a jumbled mess. A year later, when he turned fifteen, his voice was a little too deep to reach the higher parts of the song. Since then, he opted to hum it every now and then, leaving a distant performance of intimate warmth blended with a sorrowful loneliness that could only be heard in the timbers of his voice. 

He hummed the song again, closing his eyes as he buried his face closer to your neck. Eyes on the candle, feeling the wine circulate across your veins, listening to Eunseok’s peaceful humming, you felt all the tension inside you slip away. When he finished the song, a sheer silence engulfed the two of you in the stillness of the moonlight. 

“I don’t know why, but for a nursery rhyme, the song always makes me feel so sad,” said Eunseok. “I think it’s because I can see a giant, tall, old clock, just me and the thing in a vast, empty room with nobody else.” 

Eunseok, as per the letter he sent you, did look a lot healthier than before. Instead of the ghastly pallor that you were used to, his skin was kissed with the sun’s golden glow, his body firm and rigid with oozing vigor from all the exercise and farming he does in the inn. His eyes still contained the same, deep pools that always put you in a reverie, and his plump, luscious lips still trembled with hesitance, but there was an overall change in him that evolved him into a mature man. The sharp, thin edge of his jaw had disappeared into a more inviting, soothing calm. You couldn’t put a finger on how you felt about this newfound view of Eunseok, but it moved you to think that someone could change so much in just under half a year. You felt even more drawn to him than ever before, and never again would he have the brooding mystique of his former self, one that set him apart from the rest of the pack wherever he went. 

Eunseok had asked you about how you spent the last six months, demanding every detail of your life since she was institutionalized. You discussed your political activities in detail with Mirae, and how the riots have subsided since the June 29 declaration. While Mirae was a recurring topic of conversation between the two of you, you never told Eunseok about Mirae’s involvement with the New Korean Democratic Party or the underground Marxist lectures. To him, Mirae was simply an eccentric roommate notorious for sleeping around with as many guys as she could. Explaining this new side of Mirae to Eunseok proved difficult, especially with the complicated nature of her unique philosophy and what she believed in. Despite it all, the way you wanted to describe Mirae seemed to reach Eunseok, and you hid any mention of Sungchan from him. 

“Wow, I didn’t know Mirae was a staunch Marxist,” Eunseok cooed. “Do you still like her after all that?” 

“I don’t know,” You replied. “I don’t think I do, and Mirae is beyond liking or not liking. She doesn’t try to be liked or unliked, and I guess her honesty drew me in, but I wouldn’t say I like her.” 

“Honest while sleeping with all those men? You’re weird for that,” Eunseok said, stifling a loud chuckle. “How many boys has she slept with?” 

“God, I don’t know. I haven’t been getting updates from her lately, but last I’ve heard, she’s nearing one hundred.” 

“And you call that honest? Is she being honest with those other men?” 

“Yeah, for her, it’s sort of like the increasing number makes the crime less meaningful in some ways. Like, if she told a guy from the get-go that she was sleeping with other people, then to her, that nullifies whatever personal attachment that she might’ve had with the man she was sleeping with.” 

“I think she’s a lot more flawed than me,” Eunseok murmured after thinking about your description of Mirae. 

“I think so, too,” You replied with a nod. “But she’s the type of person way too logical for her own good. If you brought her here, I don’t think she’d last a day. She’d crack the code, tell the doctors she knew what they were doing, then leave after lecturing them on how she already understood her flaws and how to fix them. People don’t like her, but people definitely respect her in some way or another.” 

“I guess I’m the opposite of her, then,” Eunseok said. “I still don’t understand what they’re trying to do to me here, which makes me think that I don’t understand anything about myself.”

“It’s not because you’re not logical or clever.” You explained, grazing your fingers on his tanned arms. “I think you’re quite normal, and even I have things that I don’t understand about myself. I think everyone does to a certain extent, and that’s what makes us normal.” 

Eunseok rested his head on your lap, the same pearly eyes staring straight into yours. His thumb grazed the edge of your lips, but instead of leaning forward, he remained still, head firmly pressed on your thighs. 

“You’re the first person I’ve ever slept with,” He whispered, watching you with clear eyes. You kept your lips pressed firmly, rigid in your seated position. Sweaty palms seeped through the carpeted floor, becoming one with its acrylic fibers. 

“I was ready to sleep with her, I really was.” Eunseok started, fiddling with the ends of your hair, making your body slowly lean closer to him. “We wanted each other, that much was real. We tried everything we could—lube, moisturizer, oils—but it never worked. I don’t know if she was afraid of losing her virginity, but I wasn’t. Even then, I couldn’t get hard, and she couldn’t get wet.” 

You were now lying next to Eunseok on his bedroom floor, a flash of his room back in Jeju fusing with visions of his apartment in Seoul scattering through the white walls around you. 

“It always hurt me because she was always dry, and of course, because I couldn’t get hard, there was simply no way I could get inside her. We tried masturbating; she would jack me off, and I would use my fingers to play with her, but even that started to hurt, so we stopped.”

You nodded in silence. Eunseok cast his gaze at the moon, which started to look bigger and bigger between the shiny luster of his pearlescent eyes. 

“I never wanted to tell you this, but I came here to be honest. That night on my birthday, I was rock hard when you walked into my apartment. I’d been getting hard every time I saw you. I just wanted to hold you in my arms, take off our clothes, touch you all over, and fuck you then and there. I’ve never felt that way before, and I guess it confused me because I loved her so much.” 

“And not me, right?” You said, trying to hide the bitterness and pain in your throat. “You want to know why you were so turned on by me even though you didn’t love me like that, right?” 

“I’m sorry,” Eunseok repeated. “I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but she and I had a special bond, almost as if we were conjoined to the hip at birth. It was like we couldn't let each other go when I moved out of town and into her neighborhood. We were always together, and we understood each other perfectly. When we kissed, I knew we were connected somehow, maybe through an invisible string or a spiritual destiny. She ran to me and cried like a baby when she had her first period, and she was the first person I talked to when I had my first wet dream. After she died, I didn’t know how else I could’ve been able to relate to other people—including you, and I’ve known you longer than I’ve ever known her. I didn’t know how to love another person the way I loved her.” 

Eunseok remained silent for a while, then suddenly burst into tears, trembling in spasmodic tremors. He buried his face under your chest, gripping your waist tight as his hot breath tickled your abdomen, sporting the same suffocating violence that he had brought with him on the night of his birthday. You caressed his back, smoothing the loose wrinkles of his shirt as he clung to you like a baby. For what felt like a few hours, you held Eunseok in your arms, soothing his back every now and then whenever he would wail or hurl, his cries piercing your heart in palpable agony. His candle was now extinguished, and the moonlight was covered with thick, dark clouds condensed in the deepest shade of navy. The night was chilly with silence, slicing through the air with a whir of disquiet that spoke louder than Eunseok’s cries. The mountains were so quiet that they seemed to drown out any noise that stirred its way, the winds flowing from the curtains swaying all sense of sound back to its earthen ridges, to be absorbed in the soil as nature hurls back in a stupefied haze. Eunseok slowly climbed up, tugging at your shirt before planting a soft kiss beneath your ear amidst sniffles. 

“Sorry,” his voice barely a whisper. “Sometimes, I get so confused that I don’t know what’s happening.” 

“I’ve been getting that a lot recently, too,” You replied, returning the gesture by grazing your lips on his cheek. You felt his lips curve into a small smile, and then he placed his palms on your temple, attempting to massage whatever fear and anxieties you had. He gently twisted his hands into yours, intertwining his fingers in the webbed crevices of your palms. Then, he softly tugged at your arm, leading you to his bed, where his entire body lay languid, clinging to your side.

“I’d like to hear more about your life here. What you do, who you meet, everything. Of course, if you’re not tired.” You asked. 

Eunseok smiled and began talking about his daily routine in the inn, speaking in short phrases that were crystal clear. Wake up at six. Feed the cats before breakfast. Go to the cafeteria and eat. Clean out the hallways. Water and tend to the crops grown in the garden. Trim the garden’s bushes. Pick some ready vegetables. Before his lunch, he would have an hour and a half with his doctor. In the afternoon, he spent most of his time reading or doing calligraphy as a group activity. Sometimes, he would dabble in cooking classes. 

“I started playing the piano again,” he said. “There’s a music teacher that comes from Seoul University every week, and sometimes, we all take turns as teachers or students depending on our expertise. I don't have any, but I teach literature to some patients when I can. Some of the patients who specialize in a language like French or English step in to teach for an hour or so, and I’ve picked up some techniques on how to knit, so if you could bring the scarf that I gave you last Christmas, I can adjust it so it won’t be too big for you.” 

“That sounds fun!” You exclaimed in a whisper. 

“What do you think you’d teach if you were here?” He asked. You pondered at the thought, realizing that economics wasn’t necessarily the most therapeutic topic to teach at a place like Ujeong Inn. Ujeong was home to those who wanted to be tethered from the real world, and something like economics was too tied to real events that broke the facade of a peaceful commune—a society of its own that didn’t need to worry about money or value. 

“Honestly, I don’t know. I think I have nothing to offer,” you finally replied. 

“I’ve been putting a lot more effort into studying here than I ever did when I was a student at university. I work really hard to understand new concepts and even complete whatever homework I get on time. It’s nice, and I’ve grown to enjoy it.” 

“So, what do you do after dinner?” 

“Read books, talk with some of the patients, go to their rooms, and play board games. I also go to the music room and play piano, and at night, I like to sit down and work on my autobiography,”

“Autobiography?” 

“No, I’m just kidding. We sleep at ten sharp. It’s a pretty healthy lifestyle, no?” He laughed. You stared at the small, analog clock on top of Eunseok’s desk. It was a few minutes before nine-thirty. 

“Isn’t your bedtime coming soon?” 

“We can stay up late today. I haven’t seen you in so long, you know? I wanna talk more, so please, talk.” 

“Sometimes, when I’m all alone, I think about the old days,” you explained. “When it was the three of us in your room. Do you remember when I had your girlfriend struggling to ride the back of my bike to visit you at the hospital near the sea? I know we pretty much live right next to it, but that one was right next to the shores.” 

“Yes! It was for my appendicitis surgery!” Eunseok recalled with a smile. “I saw you struggle to pedal through my window, and you brought me cake, but it was all smushed up! It was practically inedible, but I tried to smash it up even more like baby food and swallowed it all up! God, that seemed like such a long time ago,” 

“I think you were trying to write a novel then. Your desk was filled with loose-leaf paper, pretty much scattered across the room!” 

“I like to think that there’s a time in a boy’s life where all he does is write and think,” Eunseok nervously uttered. “What made you think of that all of a sudden?” 

“I guess I just miss the smell of the sea a lot. This year, it rained a lot more in the autumn, and for some reason, I can just smell the salt of the sea every time it rains. Before I knew it, I would spend my mornings thinking about that specific hospital visit. Did she ever visit you afterward?” 

“Absolutely not! We had a huge fight after the two of you visited, and that was it. She never showed her face in the hospital again. Terrible! Something about hating hospitals did it to her.” Eunseok laughed. “She was always a kid about it. Nobody likes hospitals, but you swallow that feeling if it means making the one that’s actually stuck there feel better. I don’t know, she just didn’t get it.” 

“But she wasn’t so bad when she was with me.”

“It’s because you were there,” he said, a growing edge to his timbre. “I know it may seem like the two of you weren’t that close, but she was very fond of you. When it was just me, she struggled to keep her weak side hidden. Something to do with your presence made her hide that side of her very well. With me, her mood switches with a simple snap of a finger. She let her guard down in front of me a lot, and she could go from talking about the weather to throwing a long, screaming tantrum. It happens all the time, and has been happening since we met. She did try her best to change, though.” 

Eunseok readjusted his position, lifting his head from the crown of your head to face you. His arms went loose around your waist, and his palms were no longer firmly pressed on your back. 

“She tried hard, but it was no good for her at all. It’s like the more she tried, the angrier and moodier she’d get. She was already a beautiful person, but she never found the confidence to realize that. It was always ‘I need to change, and I need to change fast,’ always thinking about how to better herself every single second. How awful!” 

“I don’t think I’m the best judge of that, but now that I think of it, she did always show her best side when I was around. Whenever I’d come visit your room, she was always smiling, doing her very best to join and play the board games you’d pick out. She wasn’t a sore loser at all, either, and took punishments with grace.” 

Eunseok’s smile grew brighter, eyes crinkling between his lids and his cheeks. “She’d be thrilled to hear that, you know? Even if she never made it obvious, you were her only friend—apart from me, of course.” 

“And both of you were my only friends,” you replied. “I don’t think I can call anyone that now.” 

“That’s why things felt so right when the three of us were together. I was with you, and I could see her best. Whenever you’re around, I can stop worrying about her and relax, see her have fun like a teenage girl. Our board game sessions were my favorite moments in life. I don’t know about you, though.” 

“If I’m being honest, I was restless. I could never tell what she was thinking, and I was always worried if she didn’t want me there or anything. Something about being a third wheel and making things more awkward, I guess.” 

“Well, to me and her, it was the perfect circle. So perfect, in fact, that we knew it was never going to last forever.” 

He sat up, back resting against the bedframe. There was a shadow cast over his eyes from his bangs, which hung loosely on top of his brows. The moonlight illuminated his cheeks in a way that showed its hidden sorrows, dyeing him in blue hues as he put his thumbs together, circling them back and forth. He started, then stopped, his breath falling short whenever he opened his mouth. Then, he looked at you with a sad smile, eyes filled with an ocean of sorrow wallowing within the single tear that rolled down his cheek. 

“Sorry, can we talk about something cheerful now?”

Having moved out of your dorm in first year, nothing you could talk about was cheerful anymore. Peanut was most certainly out of your life, and Mirae had gone from an odd roommate with a penchant for sleeping around into a tour de force of complex, contradicting ideals. The best you could do now was talk about the people you would observe through the balcony that you and Eunseok used to share by the Han River: the group of old men who would feed pigeons and talk about their life, the joggers who brought dogs without leashes to run across the embankment with them, the vibrant high schoolers in bicycles who did tricks with tennis rackets strapped on their backs, and the plethora of oddballs you’d see at night, drunkenly singing hymns from a bygone era. To you, they were nothing but a routine, but the little tidbits of life you encountered made Eunseok smile. To think that he once shared such realities that were now foreign and new to him baffled you. After that, Eunseok attempted to impersonate some of the patients he encountered at the inn. Then, a giant yawn preceded his collapse into a deep, peaceful slumber.

The room continued to glow white from the moonlight, illuminating its rich, heavenly light on Eunseok’s face. Whenever you closed your eyes, you could still hear the faint echo of Eunseok’s low hum, the tune to “My Grandfather’s Clock” faintly leaving your eyes, lingering with a slight reverberation until it completely disappeared into the empty silence of the dark night. That night, when sleep finally carried you in Eunseok’s arms, you dreamed of the sea. It wasn’t the same one in Jeju, with its calm, gentle waves, the smell of brine and wet sand wafting through your nose, and dark skies that swirled into a misty pastiche of white, ocean waves. The breeze that the waves carried was cold to the touch, wrapping its layers of chills around you in a shrill, almost lifeless temperature that made you taste what death would’ve felt like. No matter how much the winds howled and the waves crashed, though, the sea itself remained calm. Why was that? Your ears could hear the roars of crashing waves immolating into a cacophony of distant cries, and yet the sea was flat like a river, calmly carrying its waters back to shore. You tried to throw a stone, and it only skipped three times before sinking into the deep end, bouncing back to the sand where your feet were. 

When you opened your eyes, you felt as if you were still within the world of your dreams, Eunseok’s room drowning in the calm waves of the sea. The dark skies trembled with the wavering shadows cast by the bright moonlight, and on reflex, you stirred up and got out of bed, searching for the stone that you had just thrown into the ocean. What you saw instead was an image of Eunseok, who was also awake, sitting out the windowsill. He had drawn his knees up to his chin, shoulders relaxed in a hunched state. Judging from the glow of the moon and the color of the skies, you assumed it was about dawn, perhaps four in the morning. A violent thirst clutched your throat, but you remained still and watched Eunseok by the window. He wore the same, blue pajamas that he wore before the two of you went to bed, and his hair was held in place by a small, glowing hairpin, reflecting the glow of the moonlight with his forehead. 

Eunseok stayed frozen in place, his pearlescent eyes directly staring at the moonlight. In his hunched state, he looked like a vulnerable prey hiding from a formidable monster in the sea. The outline of his nose and lips were accentuated with the shadowplay of the moon, forming a fragile, yet crystal clear imagination of his dreamy features, almost pulsating with the gentle beat of his heart. His lips pursed open, as if he were murmuring his deepest secrets to the night. The hungry thirst you felt was drying up your throat, but in the stillness of the night, every single noise you made was bound to reach his ears. A single sigh was all it took for him to quickly spin his head towards you, feet gliding back to the bed as his large, pearly eyes were fixated on you. You stared back at him, but there was a ghastly transparency in his eyes revealing a portal to another world, and the more you peered into him, the more you began to realize that the portal led you into an empty husk of nothingness. Your figure was no longer reflected in his pupils; he was light years away from you. 

When you reached out to touch him, he trembled, quickly running away and disappearing into the shadows. Then, he was on top of you, all seven buttons on his blue pajama top unbuttoned, revealing a lanky, tanned chest bathing in the soft light of the moon. His body had the heartbreaking shine of newborn flesh, the shadowplay revealing all the details of his skin in perfect clarity; the curves of his nipples; the hollow lines of his collar bones; the depth and pulsating muscles of his arms; the soft indent of his navel; his protruding hip bones; shapes which keep morphing with the light and shadows that danced on the surface of his body. He was simply nothing like the body that you held when he cried with agony that night, all imperfections no longer marring his flesh. He was beautiful, of course, but there was a fragile rigidity that clamped him shut, making the act of holding him alone awkward. Even if all you were doing with him that night was joining your body with his, there was an inkling of thought that consumed you. For no matter how much you had him inside you, Eunseok could have never shared his imperfections with you. The only thing you could’ve done was hold him tightly, feel what he truly felt inside you, letting all of his sorrow and heartbreak out into your caverns. 

Eunseok’s body before you was different; reborn through the many phases of the moon. All sense of boyishness had been stripped away since his girlfriend’s death, replaced by the metamorphosis of a mature man. There was nothing sexual about it, and you could only stare in astonishment at the perfection of each detail that he showed you—a spectacle of raw authenticity. He stripped his pajama pants down, exposing his naked truth. Then, he disappeared once more, this time out the door, leaving it swinging ajar. 

You stayed sitting upright on the bed for what felt like a very long time, until it occurred to you that you had to leave. You took your jeans on the floor and hastily buckled them to your hips, silently rushing to the kitchen in the main hall for a glass of water. You took the time to stretch your amrs and legs, letting the tension of your dream go while you thought of the vivid richness of what you saw. You went back to bed and found Eunseok sleeping soundly, careful not to stir anything. Sleep never came until dawn gave you a taste of the first orange luster of sunlight, letting all the shadows from the moon disappear all at once.

“Good morning,” You felt a cold hand touch your cheek. 

“Good morning.” You replied. Eunseok had to hold your hand and support your weight all the way down to the dining hall. Your eyes never met his, and you tried your best to feel the touch of his skin, comparing it with what you saw that night. 

“How did you sleep?” He asked.

“Alright, I guess,” you said. He tilted his head in concern, hesitating before rushing to the start the kettle. Next to him was a large box filled with teabags and instant coffee pouches. “Your eyes are red, though, did you not get any sleep at all?” 

“I woke up in the middle of the night,

“Oh no, is it because of me? Did I snore?” Eunseok asked with concern. 

“No, not really, I just had a weird dream about you. Something about us on the beach back in Jeju, this time as adults.” You lied with a smile. At first, you thought that Eunseok had caught on, acting embarrassed about revealing his body to you, and then, you realized that the transparency you saw was gone, your silhouette hazily etched into his irises. 

“What was it about?” 

“I don’t know, just us walking down the beach as usual when we were children,” 

“Did anything happen after that?

You shook your head, letting the discomfort of the dining hall’s plastic chair ground you to the earth. Eunseok brought a tray of toasted bread, butter, and a salad, and you couldn’t bring yourself to touch your food. 

“We should go back to Jeju together sometime, when we’re both not like this,” Eunseok said hastily, as if he was in a rush. 

“I think we should,” you replied, not knowing what to say. There was a slight hesitance upon Eunseok bringing Jeju and the past up a lot more than he did before, but you supposed Ujeong was a place where he had to confront all of that—even if it hurt him in the process. 

“I know it isn’t much, but would you like to go to a picnic with me? There are no seas out here or anything, but it might make us remember a time when everything was alright, you know, when we were both just kids growing up in Jeju,” He asked almost pleadingly. 

“I’d love that,” you replied with a smile. 

“I have to tell the superiors that I want to cancel my schedule for you, though, is that alright?”

“Of course, take as much time as you need,”

After breakfast, Eunseok took you to a room on the other side of the building. It was a spacious enclave with scratching posts on every corner, scattered around with many cat toys that had vibrant colors of feathers on them. Two men who looked a little bit older than Eunseok were already present, feeding the cats and playing with them. One of them was rolling on the floor while a large, tabby cat had tangled its claws in his hair. Eunseok muttered a small good morning to the pair, and they returned the greeting with glee. The windows were large, encompassing the entire room as the curtains were drawn to reveal the back garden, which was well-manicured with a varying flora of flowers. Spotting Eunseok, a slim, black cat began to strut towards him, rubbing its head on his ankles. He crouched down and gently patted the cat’s head, watching it roll over to reveal its pale underbelly with low purrs. 

“Do you do this every morning?” You asked Eunseok. 

“Yep, the facility says petting cats or any animal is good for you, so they try to make it the first thing we think of when we wake up,” he explained, scratching the cat on the bottom of its chin.  “I don’t know why, but the entire inn has a fondness for cats. I was indifferent to them before I came here, but I see why they’re so loveable now. They’re not like dogs who demand love, they just come to you when they know they can get love.”

After quickly telling the cat to go away, he went to one of four litter boxes and scooped up its droppings, shoveling them into a large, plastic bin nearby. He then replaced the litter box with new, clean cat litter, his task quickly disrupted by a beige white berman with deep, blue eyes. When you tried to pick it up to assist Eunseok in his task, the cat retaliated by scratching your hands. 

“Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you, even if he looks like he would. Kokuma is one of the friendlier cats here.” He picked Kokuma from you, its demeanor immediately changing upon being held from Eunseok. Rather than the slanted, deep blue hues of wariness that Kokuma gave you, the black, shiny luster in his pupils grew to encompass its entire eyes, softening into large pools of twinkling yearning. Eunseok’s smile at you while he stroked Kokuma’s chin was so radiant and blinding, carrying an infectious weight to it that made you grin from ear to ear. You were still wondering about your dream and whether that was the real Eunseok or not, but you still weren’t certain if the Eunseok that was in front of you, filled with the vibrance of life, was the same one that coldly showed his raw nakedness that night. 

“I’ve started to like mornings a lot more, you know?”

“Yeah? I remember you used to hate them back home, and I had to go all the way up into your room to wake up and go to school together. Then, when you moved out, I would sometimes cycle to yours just to wake you and your girlfriend up!” You said, picturing a perfect scene of your younger, uniform-clad self, clutching a backpack and kicking your bike down Eunseok’s garden to barge into his room, incessantly banging on his door until he got up to open it. 

“Yeah, I remember that,” he replied with a smile. “Mornings used to be so bleak, like a reminder that you’re alive for another day. Now, it’s a reminder of anything fresh and new, and I start to get sad around the afternoon, when the sun starts to go down.”

“I think it’s just a reminder of us getting older, no?” You interjected. 

“I guess, but I don’t think I mind. Getting older is also something fresh and new in its own way,” Eunseok continued playing with Kokuma until it went away to drink some water out of its bowl. He whistled to the tune of “My Grandfather’s Clock,” attracting two cats his way with his low lullaby. Whenever you tried to pet one, it retaliated and demanded nothing but Eunseok’s touch. 

I envy you, you sly, sly cat, you thought, watching the gleaming grin plastered on Eunseok’s lips as he toyed with two cats at the same time. 

“Do you wanna come eat lunch with me?” He suddenly asked, eyes perking up to you while trying to distract the cats who began meowing for his attention. 

“No thanks, I have to work on some schoolwork. I’ll join you when we go out, though,”

You slipped out of the room and went to Eunseok’s bathroom, washing your face and trimming your nails with the inn’s nail clippers. You expected his bathroom to be simple, but the hospitality of the inn added an impeccable array of expensive soaps, facial creams, and moisturizers by his sink—almost to a point where you wondered if he was truly alone in his room or not. While most of the patients were male, there were a few female patients who were often situated by the music room, either playing piano or guitar as they sang songs that were at least a decade old. Albeit a taboo, you also thought of a nurse coming in past ten in the evening. All speculations disappeared the moment you rinsed your face with another splash of cold water. Eunseok wasn’t the type to sleep around, especially now that he was tangibly confused between his feelings for his girlfriend and you. Closing your eyes, you thought of her, and how relaxed she was whenever with Eunseok. It was a new form of trust that transcended everything you knew about emotions—something that was likened to the fusion of two entities into a cellular level. She never needed to worry whenever she was with Eunseok, because he always got straight through her, reading her mind and understanding her on a molecular level. 

Tell me, did you ever get jealous? Of me? Of anyone that Eunseok was with? Did you ever speculate if he was with others when the two of you were not by each other’s side?

No way! You can hear her respond in your head with a vigorous shake of the head. That boy can hardly go on without having to worry about me all the time. Do you think he has the capacity to create space in his mind for other people! No! No way! 

You must be lucky, then! Because he still worries about you even when you’re dead! 

When you blinked, you saw her outline through the mirror, still wearing the school uniform that she shared with Eunseok. She still looked the same as she did then, with an innocent youthfulness that paled in comparison to what you and Eunseok went through in the throes of young adulthood. Almost as if flaunting the permanence of her age, you can imagine her laughing with good, yet prideful intentions at the thought of Eunseok seeing other women in the facility. 

You know, you’re stupid to think of such things! Don’t you believe in him wholeheartedly the way I do?

I don’t know, really. I want to, but it’s a little difficult right now. 

Entering the kitchen, the image of Eunseok’s dead girlfriend nodding and waving goodbye transferred into the ripples of the coffee you made. As you swirled your mug, she would swirl, too, swimming in a black pool, sloshing away until you pressed the mug onto your lips. You took your macroeconomics textbook open, quickly tossing your sweater aside in favor of a white tank top in the sunny kitchen. It was a little odd trying to memorize graphs on a kitchen table that wasn’t yours. 

Eunseok came back from his calligraphy lessons ar noon, taking a quick shower and changing his clothes. He joined you in the dining hall for lunch, then walked you to the front of the gate. The absent guard was now in his little post, listening to a static-ridden radio while reading a book. He waved at the two of you as you walked past the gate, and you returned the gesture with a friendly sentiment. Eunseok went to the logbook and wrote the details of his outing while entertaining the guard with casual small talk. 

“It’s gonna rain later in the evening, so make sure to come back by then. The valley gets very wet and muddy during those times.” He said, mouth stained with the residue of nicotine gum. “Take care,”

“He seems nice,” you said, looking behind you as Eunseok placed his hand on the small of your back. 

“I think he’s a little bit like me,” he replied, tapping his head.

The guard was right about the weather—almost so that the sky’s piercing blue hues served to hurt your eyes. The only trail of white clouds that was left was a limp cluster that looked like torn-up cotton balls stuck to a technicolor backdrop on a child’s art project. Instead of taking the dirt path down the hill and into Seoul University’s engineering building, Eunseok took you up on a hike, traversing through large oak trees leading to a steep, narrow hill. He climbed with a confident stride, legs maneuvering the area with perfect, crisp memory. With hardly a single word uttered between the two of you, Eunseok concentrated on his hike, his bomber jacket hoisted up his left shoulder. 

You watched his frame solemnly move from side to side, his jacket miraculously staying in place despite the nature of the hike. Sometimes, he would look back at you and smile, ensuring that your eyes would meet. 

The trail ended after another ten minutes of upward walking until the two of you reached a flatline. Near the edge of the path, there was a small bench situated at another town’s entrance, and you rested there, wiping your sweat with the hem of your shirt while dousing yourself with water. Then, the two of you got back to walking, this time on a dirt pavement that lined an empty neighborhood of old, Occupation-era houses designed for cheap, communal living away from the main hub of the city. The dead, yellow grass reached your waist and covered a quarter of the houses’ height, alongside dry grubs of pigeon feces that lined the tarnished clay finish of the roofs.

“There was a farmland around here, as you can see with the barren fields. They used to grow rice here, but all of that’s been cleared out since. It’s not really that easy to grow anything out here when the winters get too harsh, and the soil’s been degrading because the weather hasn’t been too nice to it. Everyone migrated towards the city, abandoning this place into an empty wasteland of sorts,”

“Some of the houses here still look like they can be used, no?” You asked. Eunseok peered at one of the bigger houses next to a barren, empty field marred with nothing but dry soil, then snapped his head back to you, as if remembering a crucial detail. 

“There are rumors that the Unification Church used it as one of their communes, but I think they’ve moved down South since. It’s either they couldn’t handle the weather, or they got sick of the mountains. After all, most of the people in that cult are city folk.”

A little beyond the moat and the barren fields was a clear, pristine view of Seoul’s city skyline reflected in the deep depths of the Han river. From the corner of your eyes down to the scope of your peripheral vision, you began to mentally trace the vastness of the city with your pupils, black dots going back and forth as each building merged together with the blurry haze of the autumn sun. Eunseok continued to follow the fence that lined the abandoned houses, unfazed at the city in front of him. With downcast eyes, he continued to trot along, light steps posing symmetry with the rustic, worn-down fences beside him. 

“This reminds me of the old days, just without the sea,” Eunseok whispered. He tilted his head, glassy, beady eyes meeting yours. Somehow, his eyes blinded you more than the beaming sun.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, we did try to revive this ritual when you moved from Jeju to Seoul. We were practically walking back and forth between the entire city!” You cheered, jogging to his side to match his steadfast pace. 

“Even that feels like ancient history to me now.”

At that time, you couldn’t muster a response. You wanted to stop dead at your tracks and pull him into a hug in the middle of the dead roads, holding him with all the delicateness you had in your heart. You wanted to tell him that ancient history is always relevant in the present, and that the past doesn’t have to continue to define your trajectory with him. 

Eunseok-ah, we can go on those walks again—hell, even walk through all of Seoul once more, but it will be different once you’re out. We’ll be walking and revisiting history like a sacred, respected tourist spot, full of all the things we’ve learned and understood about each other. 

Then, Eunseok walked further again, and you felt that he was too far away from your fingertips. No matter how hard you chased after him, he was always two steps forward, only looking back to flash you a fragile, broken smile.

The dirt path came to a halt, and what was beyond the two of you was a lush forest filled with the coos of distant autumn birds and a flora of old growth trees expanding into the edge of the mountain range. There was nothing beyond the point that Eunseok began walking, and yet it was endless all at once. The city you were so familiar with slowly turned into a green haze, and once you looked back past a point where the green, prickly grass began to reach your waist, the beige finish of the dirt path disappeared completely. Eunseok continued treading onward, then stopped to slowly sit down on one of the barren, empty hills that expanded into an infinite illusion of greeneries.

“Sorry about last night again, I don’t know what got to me. All of a sudden, I was this giant ball of nervousness, and I couldn’t control the tears anymore. It was a bit selfish of me to unleash that after you’ve come all the way from Seoul.” He began, eyes focusing on the piece of grass he twisted between his fingers. You took the empty space next to him, maintaining a loose, spatial distance between him. Whenever Eunseok was like this, he was always difficult to get close to. 

“It’s all good.” You reassured, flashing him a warm smile.  “We both have a lot of things and feelings we want to straighten up and get out into the open. So if you need anyone to spill everything on, then spill it all on me. After that, we can understand each other better.” 

“What will happen after that? After we’ve understood each other?” 

“It’s not a question of what then, it’s just a little selfish thing of mine. People have certain fixations, like how Peanut is focused on being a neat freak, and Mirae has her own rigid, albeit complex philosophy that she wants to follow. Mine just happens to be trying to understand you as best as I could, and as best as you’ll let me.” 

“So it’s like a hobby?” He asked, widening his eyes at the prospect. 

“No, not really. I think most people would call that friendship or love, but if you want to think about it as a hobby, then that’s fine by me.” 

“Why do you always end up liking weird people like me?” 

“I don’t see you like that, to be honest.” After a few seconds of silence, you pursed your lips in a long, slow sigh. 

“But I am weird. I wake up in the middle of the night so scared, even when I don’t have any nightmares. I don’t know why, but it’s this feeling of never getting better again. I’ll always stay in this weird, blurry haze, never having a clear head, and grow old like this, wasting away in the inn and the mountains. When I think of that, I get these horrible chills that make me stay up all night.” Eunseok replied, the fragility in his voice grating your ears like grass. You cautiously shifted closer to him, leaning your head on his shoulder as your wrapped your tiny arms over his broad, wide shoulders. He remained frozen, eyes staring into a blank fixture of green hills as he unconsciously unwinded the twisted grass from his fingers. 

“Sometimes, I feel like she’s calling to me in the darkness, haunting me because death parted us. I can hear her voice calling for me, calling me out to join her because she can’t stand being alone. I don’t know what to do,”

“What have you been doing?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, please.”

“I won’t.”

“Sometimes, I go to the bathroom and stare at myself. Then, I stare at my penis, thinking of you. And I cry, cry so hard that some of the tears drop while I stroke myself to feel any sense of warmth around me. Is that sick?” 

“No, I don’t think it’s sick at all. I just wish I was there for you,” you replied. 

“Be here for me now, then. Right here.” 

Eyes looking deep into his for answers, you began shifting your weight to his side, slowly laying his head on the soft grass. He laid flat on the ground, hands shivering as his fingers explored the small of your back, searching for something that can never be found. You dipped your head towards his temple, forehead grazing his as the tips of your nose touched. Your eyes found his, silent permission awaiting his imminent approval. Once he gave you a quick nod, you closed your eyes and kissed him, the edge of his mouth feeling light as a feather. The apprehension in your bodies quickly started to fade away, and a lonesome desperation consumed Eunseok. In an instant, he grabbed your body close to his, letting all of him fuse with you in a microcosmic level. A sweeping breath from his lungs tingled in your ears, reassuring you that this was what he wanted. This was what he needed. And yet, the hunger in his tongue delving deep inside the caverns of your mouth made you apprehensive. He responded to every single inch of your body with a bottomless hunger that was difficult to keep up with. Hands threading your hair, tangling within your locks, he pulled you in deeper—and in an instant, it was almost as if he dyed you with all the dark colors that plagued him since you last saw him in Seoul. 

“You don’t need to hold back,” you whispered, trying to hide the nervousness that overwhelmed you. As if knowing this, a deep stare engulfed you within the prison of his psyche, enveloping you into his austere smolder. 

He slid further down into the hem of your dress, tugging at it and pushing it upward to expose your bare skin to the gentle, autumn breeze. He was warm yet cold at the same time, fingers grasping your waist and never letting go. His rough tongue never left an inch in your stomach, appetite increasing as he found his hands under the cups of your bra. In a quick motion, you raised your torso up and helped him unclasp it, slender fingers desperately squeezing each line and curvature of your breasts. His free hand made its way to feel the cotton of your panties, sneaking past the binding elastic to feel the soft moisture of your slit. 

“Tell me something,” He whispered. 

“What?” You replied with bated, agonizing breath. 

“Will you wait for me until I get better?” 

“Of course I will,”

“Will you do me a favor and stop saying of course to everything I say?” 

“Sorry, I’ll stop.”

He continued to play with your clit, thumb pressing lightly on its surface while his fingers found its way into your entrance. His lips found its way to your perked up nipples, grazing his tongue around its shape to memorize its outline in perfect clarity. You grabbed his hair, shaky fingers desperately trying to unzip his jeans. 

“You’re still wet,” He smiled. 

“You’re warm,” You replied, gaining the courage to meet his eyes as you pressed your palm on his crotch. 

In one, swift motion, you gently slid his trousers down to his knees, with Eunseok awkwardly kicking them to the side. As his fingers entered your walls, searching around them as you clenched yourself tightly to his electrifying touch, your hands played with the hem of his boxers, casually slipping your fingers in and out until a heaving, longing snarl escaped his hungry lungs. 

“Do you want me to touch you?” You asked. A flimsy nod was enough for you to take his girth within your fingers, thumb placed at his tip as you slowly moved up and down, feeling him grow underneath your grasp. He sucked his breath in with your every touch, occasionally losing focus and pulling his fingers out of you. 

Gently, you stood up and laid Eunseok on the grass bed, licking his abdomen until your tongue found its way to the tip of his penis. With two hands, you continued to clasp your fingers around his member, one tightly held at his shaft and the other firmly gripping his length. You took him all in, breathing in his intoxicating scent as you let him reach the entrance of your throat. 

“Stop,” he murmured. “I want to make you feel good,”

“You don’t have to,” You whispered with a smile, your breath tingling beneath his girth. 

“We can make each other feel good, Eunseok.” 

Intertwining your fingers with his, you led his stiff length to your core, slowly bucking your hips in response to every jolt and jitter from his member. He held your hands tightly, throbbing and crying with lustful pain as you continued to move your hips to a pace that didn’t overwhelm him. Soft cries of desire and loneliness filled the barren, empty fields of green, and the uncomfortable prickle of grass disappeared, replaced with the needy warmth of Eunseok’s body inside yours. He sucked in a breath, hips rocking forward in a desperate attempt to follow the motions of your hips. Your chest heaved, and your breath began to run out, but you continued to ignore the beads of sweat that trickled from your chin down to his exposed abdomen, wet palms gripping his in the damp grass surrounding the two of you. He whispered his girlfriend’s name underneath his breath, eyes covered with locks of deep, jet-black hair. Despite this, you continued to move your hips, adjusting to every single twitch that you felt inside you. 

“Eunseok-ah,” 

The immense pleasure building up between your legs loosened into static bliss, feeling Eunseok beneath you, attempting to unlatch himself from your feverish grasp. Now, he was on top of you, firm hands gripping your body tight while your fingernails scratched into his bare back. Just when you thought the wild tensions in your legs began to fade away, the sensation was suddenly replaced with a wave of euphoria. Being filled with Eunseok’s warmth gave you a mixed temperature that blended his cold loneliness with his aching, yearning heat. The rise and fall of his chest and the faint heartbeat that reverberated with it fused with yours; this was the closest you had ever been to Eunseok. 

“I never told you about how my dad died, didn’t I?” Eunseok said, breath hazy and interrupted with quick pants. 

“I think you did. It was during the war, right?” You replied, removing his limpness outside of you as you watched some of his cum trickle down your thighs. 

“Yeah, but I never really went into detail about what happened after that.” 

Eunseok cleaned up after himself with his shirt, zipping his jacket all the way up to his neck to defeat the cold. He offered the piece of cloth to you, and you did the same. 

“After my mom found out my dad’s body got washed up in Vietnam, she was never the same. Of course, I was a kid, so I didn’t really know what was going on, but I was old enough to understand what it meant when she would lock herself in her room every night, crying and praying all the time. We always fought and bickered before that, but since then, she has never fought with me. She was always so quiet, serving me my meals and picking me up from school.”

To your recollection, Eunseok’s mother was someone inviting and chatty, always updated with gossip looming around the parent’s association. Unlike the other housewives who were often lonely at home, Eunseok’s mother was a radiant beam that shonen even brighter once her husband came home. 

“It was the day I had to go home with you, because my mom didn’t show up. The moment I went home, I could smell something vile in the air, kind of like rotting meat. It made me sick to my stomach, but I went inside the house anyway, calling for my mom, who, by this point I was already used to not answering me. I called and called, I even stopped calling her mom and called her by her full name, but she never replied. With my little hands and feet, I tried to open the door, and when I finally saw it, I didn’t know what to think. My own mother, was suspended in tacky bedsheets that she tied together to the main light in her room. By then, she was so frail and thin that the bedsheets didn’t snap or break the lights. After that, I lived through everything like a blur. Maybe that way, the image of her being strangled to death wouldn’t be in my head forever. I then lived with some relative who I never knew existed, and she was alright. She was a little too old to take care of me, but she made my meals on time and even sent her neighbor to pick me up from school. That was when we started walking to the beach a lot, because no matter how much I told myself that this will be my new normal, it never clicked. I was always going to come home to my dead mother, and that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Going to the beach instead of going straight home was the only way I was able to add a new routine to my life, something that will make me forget about it all.” 

Eunseok stopped at his tracks, taking a few seconds to breathe before moving forward again. 

“The way she killed herself reminded me of how my girlfriend died. They couldn’t stand the grief of losing someone in their life. With my mom, it was my dad’s death that did it. The same could be said about her, even if there was no evidence or indicators that made me understand why she did what she did. I’m not saying she had a perfect upbringing; she was far from it. That’s probably why we got along so well when I moved into her neighborhood after that relative died, and my aunt took me in. From the first day of school, she latched onto me, saying we had the same eyes. Then, I found out her dad died in the war, just like mine, and we seemed to have an automatic, almost spiritual understanding of each other. The more I was with her, the more she reminded me of my mother before my dad died. She liked to read a lot, stayed inside most of the time, and talked. Talked so much that sometimes, it made me forget that my mom had died at all. Her words had a way of filling my brain with things to think about, things to distract myself with. She was the kind of person who told stories that came to life, and I don’t know why I tortured myself the way I did, but whenever I came across a writer who spoke life into their characters, I’d cry. I cried a lot.” 

Whenever Eunseok paused, his fingers would twirl into the tall grass, often picking at them to make long ribbons that decorated his hands. Whenever he was finished or if the grass began to snap with the pressure he put on them, he would discard them immediately. 

“I never found her when she died, but I can still remember it vividly. I came home from the beach with you, and all of a sudden, two police cars were parked outside of my aunt’s house. They came to ask me a few questions, and then told me that they found her dead on the island’s only highway, sprawled out on the road and flattened by large tires. They took me to the coroner and had me examine her body to identify her, and it took me a while, but I think I was there the entire night, looking at her mangled corpse. I tried talking to her, to see if, by some miracle, she was alive and would respond to me. But the more I conversed with her, the more I felt that I was just talking to myself, so I left and went home. She had the school uniform that we wore, and her dirty bag was sealed in a plastic bag with scribbles and labels that I couldn’t read. I demanded to look through her stuff, but the police had told me they found nothing. No suicide note, no plans to die, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was just her schoolbooks and a board game that she wanted to play. For the longest time, I believed the incident was an accident. I just thought she took a wrong turn and happened to exit the highway, since it was en route from the school to our neighborhood. Of course, that’s an illusion I fed myself with. How the hell could she turn to a blocked-off highway with large, concrete walls around it to make sure nobody dumb enough would climb it and end up being run over like her? The police later came to me that week and told me they found a grappling hook! A grappling hook! Disposed at the edge of the highway! Why the hell would she have a grappling hook!” 

With this, Eunseok slowly shook his head. 

“I haven’t seen you since then. I just couldn’t talk to anyone at all until the funeral, when I forced myself to meet you.”

The two of you were back at the entrance to the dirtpath, the marmalade glow of the setting sun dyeing the entire, empty neighborhood in warm hues. 

“I’m telling you, I’m a lot more flawed than you think I am. This sickness that I have is a lot worse than you think. It’s not just my girlfriend, but it’s everyone around me. It’s like I kill everyone that I end up getting too close to. And that’s why I want you to move forward, without me. Please don’t wait for me anymore. Sleep with other men and live life. Don’t let thoughts of me hold you back. Otherwise, you might end up dead, too, and that’s the one thing I don’t want to do. I don’t want to interfere with your life like that. I care about you too much to ever want to tarnish you like that. All I want is for you to remember me and come see me when you can. That’s it.” 

“But that’s not all I want, though,” You replied. 

“You’re wasting your life away by being involved with me,” 

“How do you know that? I’ve known you since I was nine, and I’m still here, alive and well, right next to you,” 

“But I might never recover. Are you still gonna be there then?” He asked. You couldn’t tell if he was desperate or curious anymore. 

“You’re letting yourself get scared by all these things: the dark, the dead, the sickness. You have to let go and forget them to recover, and I’m sure you will.” 

“That’s if I can,” Eunseok replied, shaking his head. 

“Once you’re discharged, do you wanna live with me?” You suddenly asked. “Then I can protect you from everything. I’ll be there for you when things get too hard, and I will always be right next to you so you can hold me whenever you’re feeling lonely. It’s no sea or anything, but it’ll be just like Jeju. We’ll walk up and down the Han River until we reach the end of it.” 

“That would be wonderful,” 

Eunseok pressed his languid weight against yours, lacing his fingers underneath your palms.

The last thing Eunseok said to you was a faint “goodbye,” and then, your time at Ujeong Inn ended just as swiftly as it had begun. It rained when you had to leave, and Eunseok didn’t see you out the door. He was right about the inn and its facilities, for it took a while for you to adjust to the “real world.” Unlocking the door to your apartment and entering what was supposed to be your home suddenly felt unfamiliar. Sometimes, apparitions of Eunseok would start to appear at the kitchen table that the two of you shared when he still lived next to you, listening to his meager record collection while making dinner on a Friday night. Now, you lay in bed in a daze, watching a stream of abstract colors wash and waver around your eyes. It took a few blinks for them to disappear into your empty, white ceiling, and before you could sleep, the ungodly hour struck at three in the morning with fifteen-minute intervals of blaring sirens outside your open window. The ghost of Eunseok’s presence was felt strongly in the empty spaces of your bed, as if any minute now, he would come crawling next to you, resting his head on your chest while sharing each other’s warmth. You could feel his tender, jolting skin next to yours, the ebbs and flows of his shaky breath coming up and down with each contraction of his chest. In the darkness of the night, you returned to the inn and the visions of your dreams there, smelling the fresh, lush greeneries a distance away. You thought of his naked, frail body, picturing him playing with the cats at the inn or drawing beautiful renditions of calligraphy with his slender fingers gently gripping the tip of the brush. Your fingers slowly made their way to your entrance, pushing more fingers until you could fill yourself up with a loose pastiche of his girth until you came. That managed to help you sleep a little, but before you knew it, your alarm clock rang in your ears, signaling your true return to the real world. 

The next time you saw Sungchan was a week later, after you had eaten lunch at the cafeteria on your way to your macroeconomics lecture. Sungchan was with a group of other boys, presumably soccer players, as all of them had been wearing cleats. When he saw you, he approached you alone. 

“So, what’s going on with our deal?” He asked.

“You mean your so-called restraining order?” 

“Ditch macro and come eat lunch with me.” 

“I already ate.” 

“So? Don’t care. Order a coffee or something. Just come with me.”

The two of you ended up at a nearby cafe, where he ordered a giant plate of pork cutlet while you had a serving of coffee. He still wore a sweaty, soccer jersey with shorts and knee-high socks tucked underneath a pair of tightly-laced cleats. He seemed to enjoy the cutlet and took three or four bites at once while quickly drinking a glass of water. 

“Things haven’t been good at the record store, sales have been rough and I practically had to be home waiting for calls. Something about negotiating the building being sold off and my dad from Thailand calling at weird times to talk about it,” 

“Any fires lately?” You asked. 

“That was fun! We should do it again,” Sungchan had another glass of water, took a breath, and stared into your eyes for a while. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Sungchan said, snapping his fingers around your eyes. “You look like you’re not here,” 

“I’m alright, I’ve just been tired from a trip.” You replied. 

“Where did you go?” 

“Gwanaksan. Just over there.”

“Why?” 

“For a hike?” 

“Did you meet other boys there?” 

“What’s that to you?” 

“I don’t know, I can’t stop thinking about when we kissed.” 

“That’s nice.” 

“Not even a proper reaction? God, you talk so weird.” 

“Do I?”

“Yeah, anyway,” Sungchan snapped, taking the menu in his hands while holding his free arm up high to call a waiter. “I was thinking, right, that if I could switch things in my life around to make it more ideal, then I would’ve absolutely been happier if my first kiss had been with you. Then, I would wonder later in my life about you, asking about that one first kiss, not knowing where the hell you went off to. Wouldn’t that be nice?” 

“I guess?” You replied. In a few minutes, a large pint of beer was slammed onto the table. Sungchan gave a quick wink to the waiter before gulping half of the glass down, careless of the white foam that lingered around his lips. 

“Why are you so spaced out?” 

“I don’t know. Probably the mountains and nature doing things to me, but I just feel like nothing’s real anymore.” You replied after another round of silence. 

“People are strange when you’re a stranger,” 

“The Doors? Really?” 

“What? It’s my job to know many songs, and you just happened to perfectly describe this one request I’m working on for the radio: something about loneliness and isolation in the city.” 

“Right,” 

“You really need to come to Thailand with me,” Sungchan said. You’ve always known him as the type to take charge of the conversation and mold it into whatever he wished, but you found it difficult to keep up with him. 

“I don’t think that’s a bad idea at all,” You replied, chuckling lightly as your eyes scanned the drinks menu. Though it was still midday, you realized that a drink or two could ease your apprehensions about the inn and Eunseok. 

“Come on! Ditch everything, I’m sure it’d be a nice, wonderful change to go somewhere where you don’t know a single soul.”

After calling the waiter for a cool mojito, you turned your attention back to Sungchan. 

“Sometimes, I feel like doing that. I just wanna escape life, get whisked somewhere far, far, away. Live like those super-rich men who have a ton of babies everywhere they go, and I’d live happily with them, watching them roll on the floor and coo with their little big eyes.”

“Babies…?” 

“I guess you don’t want a lot of babies yet,” Sungchan groaned, eyes tracing the plate of fries that was freshly placed in front of him. He took a handful and stuffed his face until his cheeks puffed out, leaving you in a laughing fit. 

“I don’t know, motherhood doesn’t sound too bad, but not right now.” 

“It’s alright. You don’t want to have them, so there’s no point.” Sungchan took another handful of fries and loudly crunched on them. “What’s the point of going to Thailand anyway? All they have there is elephant shit. Elephant shit everywhere. A shit here, and a shit there. Hey, do you want some of my skewers? Take my skewers.” 

Sungchan was especially enigmatic today. You couldn’t put your fingers around why, but it slowly helped you pull yourself out of the lingering memories you had with Eunseok. Now, you were here, with Sungchan blabbering on about whatever came into his mind. You had a cool glass of mint mojito next to you, and the more you drank its chilled contents, the more your throat responded positively. Perhaps you were just parched, or perhaps it was something more. Regardless, you were coming back in the now, chin resting on your knuckles as you watched the plate of fries and skewers quickly disappear, its contents successfully transported inside Sungchan's mouth. 

“Sunday was too nice to me, almost like a dream I never wanted to wake up from. Watching someone’s house get on fire, drinking beer—I don’t know how long it’s been since I felt something so relaxing. People are always forcing me to do things, like, the minute they see me, they ask me, ‘Hey Sungchan! Do this!’ or ‘Sungchan! Can you sub for a left-back today?’ The least anyone can do is not force things on me like that.” 

“I don’t think I know you enough to force you to do stuff for me,” You replied. Once the plate of fries was empty, Sungchan popped a few ice cubes in his mouth, crushing it beneath his teeth as he whistled at the waiter for another heaping of chicken skewers and two bottles of strong rye whiskey. 

“You mean, if you knew me better, you’d force me to do things like everyone else?” He asked, eyes staring straight into yours. This was the third or fourth round of drinks, and the waiter seemed visibly annoyed at the growing pile of empty glasses next to Sungchan. He rested his chin on his large palm, fingers tapping his cheek to the rhythm of Echo and the Bunnymen playing in the background. Once you finished your glass, you kept still, quiet as ever. Closing your eyes, you immersed yourself in the soft strums of “Lips Like Sugar.” The restaurant began to pile up with more customers, but it was only your table that had begun drinking alcohol. 

“I mean, isn’t that how life is? People build relationships by forcing stuff onto each other.” You explained, after ordering another glass of mojito. 

“But you wouldn’t do that. You’re not the type.”

“How are you so sure of that?”

“I can just tell. I’ve become an expert in these things, seeing if people will force things on you or not, and you’re nothing like that, which is why I feel so relaxed when I’m with you.”

“What kind of things do people force on you?”

“Do you wanna get to know me better?” 

“I just asked,”

“What kind of answer is that?” Sungchan exclaimed, angrily popping another ice cube in his mouth. 

“Okay, yes, Sungchan. I do wanna get to know you better.”

“Really?” 

His crunching halted, a few drops of melted ice trickling down his chin, dampening his palms in the process. 

“Yes.” 

“Even if what I might say ends up getting you in prison?” 

“Seriously?” 

“Are you free on Sunday again?” He asked. 

“Didn’t I tell you I was always free on Sundays?”

“Okay, come hang out with me on Sunday, then.” 

“Sure,”

“I’ll come to your apartment, then we can go somewhere from there. I’m not sure what time, though, but I’ll be there when I’ll be there, ringing your doorbell.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s no problem.” 

“Do you have any idea what I wanna do right now?” He asked in quick succession, a fresh batch of chicken skewers sliding onto his side of the table. With a clean swipe, he took a piece and used his teeth to remove all the meat from the burnt, wooden stick. 

“No, my head’s blank right now, if I’m being honest with you.” 

“Okay, so first, I wanna lie down in a bigass bed, wide and comfy with fluffy blankets. I wanna get so drunk and cozy, not having to think about elephants and their shit at all, and I want you to be there, right next to me.”

“And then?” 

“I think you know the rest,” 

“Oh boy…”

You couldn’t count the amount of drinks the two of you had, but you were sure that Sungchan was not in the right headspace. He was staggering from his seat, eyes squinting at the bill as he complained that the text was too small for him to read. Regardless, he slapped several five thousand Won notes on the leather casing that held the thinly-veiled receipt. 

“It’s okay, think of it as a treat. I was the one who asked you to skip class for me anyway, unless you’re true to your party’s goals and have a credit card, refusing to let a man pay for you.” 

“No, I’m not like that. It’s fine, really.” 

Lifting Sungchan out of the restaurant was already a hassle in itself, but his staggers worsened as soon as the two of you began to walk outside. You couldn’t tell if he was tipsy or if he was already drunk, but he almost missed one step, and you did your best to carry his weight on your shoulders, making sure that you didn’t fall back into the hard, concrete wall with him. The layers of violet in the sky were now embedded in a deep, dark glow, emanating the low dim of the crescent moon that flickered with the neon lights around the alleyways. The two of you wandered around for a while, ending up in a small parkette with a few swings and benches. 

“Do you think if there were any tall trees in here, I could climb it?” He asked. 

“Yeah, I mean, you’re athletic and all, I’m sure a tree would be nothing to you.” 

You looked around the parkette to ensure that your eyes didn’t fool you, and you hummed in vague concern upon realizing that there weren’t any trees at all in the parkette. The only thing that remotely resembled such a tree was the neatly trimmed bushes that lined the entrance of the parkette, exaggerating in size with the shadowplay of the night. Sure, some of them had outlines of twigs and branches sticking out of them, but in the end, there was nothing that Sungchan could climb—especially given his stature. 

“Well, too bad. All the trees here are too damn short for me.” 

He got up and grabbed your hand, fingers clasped tightly on your wrists as he led you into the main shopping district. The more you were engulfed in the bustle of the city, watching each mannequin outside of a store feel more alive and in tune with the world than you were at the moment, the more concrete everything around you began to feel. The streets felt real, even more real than before when you had just moved to Seoul. It was a stark reminder that you were no longer there, but here, in the city, with a woozy Sungchan flailing his arms as he walked with an invisible tune in his head. 

“I’m glad I ran into you.” You whispered under your breath.  “I think I’m back in the real world now,”

“That is true,” Sungchan replied, stopping in his tracks while peering straight into your eyes. “You finally look like you’re here. See? That contract of ours is doing you wonders. I get to have a restraining order so I don’t get any creepy stalkers anymore, and hanging out with me does you good by pulling you all the way back to the ground from whatever sky you’re at.”

“Sometimes, I hate that you’re right,”

The large clock looming at the center of the intersection in the shopping district pointed at six in the evening, and Sungchan said he had to go home to make dinner and prepare for a match tomorrow. You told him that you would also call it a night, allowing him to walk you to the bus stop. 

“Do you know what I want to do now?” He asked, taking the seat next to you in the waiting area. 

“What?” 

“I want to go to Somalia. Get captured by pirates, you and me. They’d tie us together in tight ropes and make sure we can’t escape.” 

“Why the hell would you want us to get captured by pirates?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe fucking you in captivity is a hot fantasy I’ve let myself think about a bit too much,” he said. 

“Pervert.” 

“Then, the pirates, even though we can’t understand their language at all, would tell us we had an hour to go before they would either shoot us or, by some miracle, have some coastal guards from the US find us and save us.”

“Then?” 

“And then we would use that hour, rolling around while trying to take our clothes off, me trying to put it in with our hands and legs tied together,”

“That’s what you wanna do now? Really?”

“Yeah,”

“Good lord, Sungchan,” you said, shaking your head. By this point, Sungchan was sober enough to get up and walk back to the station. As the door to the bus opened, he reminded you of your meeting tomorrow, staying seated in the waiting area until your bus took a turn to the other lane.

It was seven in the morning when Sungchan visited your apartment. You had just woken up and had time to fetch the daily paper at your door, but you didn’t have the chance to wash your face or properly start your day with a cup of coffee. Before you could go back to the kitchen table or take a glance at today’s headline, someone loudly pounded at your door. Tucking the paper underneath your arm, you peeked through the door viewer to find Sungchan peering straight into its small, circular lens. His form wavered and swirled each time you blinked, the glass reflection of his eyes seemingly spinning in graceful pirouettes. 

“Hurry up and let me in, or else I’ll get hit on by all your neighbors! Including the ahjummas who were totally staring at how nice my face looks!” 

Once you opened the door, you were greeted by Sungchan’s beaming smile. Beads of sweat lined his furrowed brows as he used the hem of his shirt to wipe down the mist that gleamed under the rays of the summer sun. 

“Was I too early?” He asked. 

“No, not really. You came here right after the guy delivered my morning paper, come in, and I’ll make you some tea.” 

Sungchan kicked his shoes off, lining them neatly next to your sneakers before entering your apartment. 

“Nice place for yourself, is that the bed where you finger yourself? Or do you do it on the couch over there?” 

At this point, you were used to his crudeness, but the level of crass he can muster always leaves you with a second of stalled thought—almost as if time had stopped whenever something dirty came out of his mouth. 

“Come on, Sungchan. It’s like, seven in the morning. Don’t you have anything better to say?” You replied

“No, not really.” 

Before the kettle on your stove could hiss and breathe steam, you rushed to turn the switch off, hastily opening the window and fanning the smoke out into the open. Sungchan sat on one of the chairs of your dining table set, eyeing the stacks of newspapers you’ve saved somewhat morosely. 

“Tea’s ready, what kind do you want?” You asked. 

“The same one you’re having,”

“Okay,” 

You added an extra portion of milk into his tea with a cube of sugar. Normally, you’d prepare a pot of orange pekoe or rose hip, unbothered by the periodical cool of the tea whenever you would leave it to brew for too long to head to the university. Rather than out of practice or habit, it was more so a neglectful absence that didn’t require atonement. To you, it was just a pot of tea. If you were so eager to have it nice and warm, you could just pour a cup full into a saucepan and add a little bit of milk or fruit jam, stirring it and drinking it with a spoon instead of transferring it back into the pot. There was no routine to it at all. Tea was tea. 

However, the man in front of you, crass as he may be, was your guest. Even if it were at his request to have whatever you were having, it would probably be wise for you to brew him a fresh cup. After all, he was a guest, not a customer. It’s not for him to know how you like to have your tea—cold and bitter. 

“So tell me, what do girls living alone like you do?” He asked, ceaselessly blowing on the tip of the mug as he waited impatiently to devour the drink. 

“I don’t know, that’s a very creepy question to ask, you know?” You replied between sips of hot tea, placing your mug down on a coaster as you crossed your legs, dangling them on the side of the chair. “Also, don’t you have a girlfriend to ask this to?” 

“Just like you, we’re a bit complicated right now.” He said, eyes looking at the slow, rising steam wafting back and forth from his mug. “Besides, she’d yell at me if I asked her these things.”

“That’s perfectly normal.” 

“I know, but I’m just curious, and you seem to answer all my questions, no matter how bizarre.”

“That’s because you won’t shut up unless I do,” You retorted. Sungchan took the mug back into his hands and towards his pursed lips, giving the rim a light peck before drinking half of the cup and jingling it around to swish the leaves that rested at the bottom of his mug. 

“So tell me, what is it that you do here all alone?” He asked again. His doe-like, brown eyes protruded through you as if you were transparent—practically invisible. Rubbing the goosebumps off your arms, you cleared your throat and took the mug between your lips, gently blowing at it before taking a sip. Once you let it down, his bright, brown eyes glistened into a greenish hazel you as the sun hit his frame through the sheer slip between the curtains. You pushed your seat back and continued to hold your mug, this time anchoring your elbow to the table to increase the distance between him. 

“Well, I get up, read the daily papers, drink tea or coffee, depending on what I have, then take the train to school. When I go home, I take a shower, brush my teeth, study, and then go to bed.”

“What about your sex life?” 

“That hasn’t been active lately,”

“Isn’t it easier for you to just bring men here?” 

“Yeah, but I don’t feel like it,” 

“Am I not hot enough?” 

“No, you’re a hunk, trust me.”

“So then, why don’t you invite me here more often?” 

“Because, dumbass, I think of you as a friend. Why would I want to invite you over and—”

“You have someone else waiting to be invited back here,” Sungchan retorted. You could feel your chest tighten at every second that passed in silence. 

“Well, yeah, I guess,” You replied, exhaling each word as you turned your gaze to the fuzz of your worn-out slippers. “You’re surprisingly proper when it comes to these things,” 

“That’s what I like about you. But still, you couldn’t even invite me over for a quick fuck? Something to let some steam off? I wanna be here even just once, helping each other relieve our stress or something. I’m asking you because we’re friends. Who else can I ask for something like that? I can’t just walk up to anyone and say, ‘Hey, do you live alone? Can you invite me over so we can fuck for a second?’ It’s because I see you as a friend that I’m asking,”

You let out a sigh. 

“If you’re that desperate, you can come over again next week, and we can sort something out. What do you like?” 

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression or anything,” You said, watching him stand up through the corner of your eyes. “You already have painted yourself as a sex-crazed freak,”

Sungchan began pacing the room, letting his loud steps echo throughout your walls and back into your ears, equally matching the quickening thumps of your heart that rendered you deaf. He then turned his heels with a screech, and you watched his toes' heavy, languid steps draw closer to the tip of your slippers. He took a finger and lifted your chin to meet his gaze, a swirling depth of hazel underneath the glimmer of the sun. Before you could lean, he took his finger back and stuffed it in his pocket, hunching back into his seat with a ‘thump.’ 

“Whatever, anyway, I’m just curious. I was in an all-boys school my whole life so I really don’t know anything about women, even if people have spread rumors about me being this playboy. I want to really know what women think, not just through gossip and stories from other boys.”

You tried to suppress a groan, but allowed him to continue with his ridiculous train of thought. 

“The thing is, the girl I’m seeing right now doesn’t really like it when I ask her these things. She gets angry, calls me a nympho or a crazy person, and she wouldn’t even let me eat her out. Something about being a hardcore Christian makes her want to wait and see these things as impure,” 

“Right,”

“Have you been eaten out before?” 

“Yeah,”

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, but can we please talk about something else? It’s such a beautiful Sunday morning, where I was meant to sip coffee in the sunrise while reading my morning paper. I don’t want it to be ruined by talking about fucking and getting my pussy eaten out. Let’s try to talk about something else, like your girlfriend or something. Is she in the same university as us?” You asked. The cup clasped onto your hands was empty, and you didn’t have the appetite to offer pastries that you’d left in your bread box two days ago. 

“Okay, pause. She’s not my girlfriend. It’s a little more complicated than that. She goes to the women’s university nearby, and we met after I played at her school for a soccer match. We started to talk more after exams, but she refused to put a label on it,”

At some point in the conversation, you began to allow the rest of the world around you to blur in a dream-like haze, wafting back and forth like the steam that has now fully evaporated out of you and Sungchan’s mug. You let your head hang lightly by the headrest of your chair, feeling the wooden spine trudge deeper and deeper into your neck. In these thoughts, you tried to picture Eunseok’s face, but it was rather difficult when Sungchan’s voice would continue to permeate in and out of your ears. What did Sungchan’s girlfriend look like? Would she be a better fit for Eunseok than you were? Why should any of that matter? You didn’t even know the girl.

“Hey,”

“What?” 

Just as your eyes began to adjust to the slow, menial details of Sungchan’s face, the cup on the coaster tipped over to reveal scatters of tea leaves strewn across your dining table, coated in thick, dark hues of deep, foreboding maroon. You hastily searched for a napkin or a tea towel, and Sungchan tossed a pack of tissues crumpled out of his pocket. 

“Just once on a Sunday.” He repeated, and you lost his train of thought at that very moment. 

“No,” You answered, but a part of you failed to recall his initial request. 

“At least think of me when you finger yourself, please?”

Ah, there it is again.

“Fine. I’ll give it a try and write you a detailed report, is that enough?” You said, throwing the empty pack of tissues to the bin by the kitchen counter. 

The two of you took the commuter train to Jongno. When you transferred to Daegok, Sungchan offered to purchase a small, tuna-filled kimbap from one of the stands in the station to make up for the breakfast you hadn’t eaten. The tea you had with him was over-brewed and tasted of the autumn falls blasting in your mouth. The trains on the weekends usually consisted of students in large groups of more than five and families who wanted to take the line straight to the park. There was an odd assortment of bookish girls in long skirts and boys slinging tennis rackets on their backs, rushing to leave the train to the nearest exit. Underneath the fluorescent lights of the carriage, Sungchan’s tank top was so sheer that you could see the outline of his chest and abdomen without any sense of imagination. Occasionally, he would pull the hem of his top-down, tightening its fit to enhance the way his sweat and skin clung onto the transparency of his white top. Some people in the car began staring at him, making you uneasy. This continued until the two of you had to get off at Bulgwang to switch platforms. 

“Do you wanna know what I’d like to do now?” Sungchan whispered while you quickened your pace. 

“Not here, Sungchan, we’re in the fucking train for god’s sake,” You hissed. “What if someone will hear you?” 

“Too bad, this fantasy’s a wild one,” Sungchan replied, clearly disappointed. 

“Why are we going to Jongno?” You asked, attempting to change the topic. 

“Just come,”

Jongno was sparse on a Sunday, full of empty houses that toppled over each other with equally vacant garage slots imprinted in thick, black tire marks. Sungchan slid through the downward slope of the residential villages resembling ancient homes with sleek, angular woodwork, keeping one of his hands in his pocket while interlocking his fingers in yours with the other. 

Without warning, he asked you. “Can you explain the concept of speculative attacks and why that causes a currency crisis?” 

“I can, but you should know the answer to that if you paid attention in lecture,” You replied. 

“Okay, here’s another way to frame it. How could that stuff be useful in our day-to-day life?”

“Unless you’re working in public policy or economics, then no, you don’t really need to know that stuff in detail.” You said after a brief pause to collect your thoughts. “It doesn’t necessarily serve a concrete purpose, but having that extra information in mind is useful for you to grasp things in a more logical, systematic manner.  Say, a currency crisis. It’s a thing that impacts our daily lives. If the government is running a budget deficit, then that means they’re gonna hike up taxes or cut spending. What this means for us is our lives might be harder because we have more taxes to pay, or facilities that we need might not be built. Things like that can give us more pieces to fit in this large puzzle we call life.” 

He continued to hold your hand down the slope, only letting go to carry you up once the two of you reached a point where all the greeneries and mountain ranges looked as squishable as a colony of ants within the palm of your hand. Your breath hitched for an instant, taking in the soft breeze gently caressing your cheeks while staring down into a part of the city that suddenly made you feel so small. Cars and trucks parked down the pathway felt like toys you could animate to life with one push of your finger; families hand-in-hand could be plucked out like dolls; the sky and clouds swirled with the swirl of your finger; the green of the mountains was so vibrant you felt yourself inching closer and closer to the metal railing’s edge. 

“Wow, aren’t you amazing.” He said, keeping his firm, long arms on your waist. “I never really thought about it that way. I’ve always seen what I’ve learned in school as totally useless, a pain in the ass, if you will, so I always ignored them. Now, thanks to you, I have to rethink my whole life. See if I was thinking about things the wrong way,”

“You ignored them?”

“Yeah, like I just thought they didn’t exist. I know money exists because it’s something tangible, but I couldn’t care less about sine curves or differential calculus. Those are just things to me, things I write on paper that I just throw out when I’m done with them.” 

“Then how did you get into university with a mindset like that?” 

“Don’t be dumb, you don’t need to know everything to pass exams! You just need luck and intuition. Most of the time, it’s just picking one option out of the three. One of them usually looks off, so it’s picking between the two that you think is right—and I’m usually right about the answers.” He exclaimed, leaving light kisses on your neck. 

“Unlike you, I don’t think I have too good of an intuition, so I have to be systematic, kind of like how ants work together to carry food back to their colony. It’s a step-by-step relay of going from point A to point B, until I reach the end.” You laughed under your breath, taking the chance to turn and free yourself from him. You leaned on the metal railings, feeling the cool touch of the metal replace the warmth that his arms had left. 

“Is that any better?” He asked curiously. 

“I don’t know, I think it’s easier to understand some concepts that way,”

“Like what? I need examples here,”

“Languages?”

“What good does learning a new language do?” He asked. Sungchan always had a habit of curling his lips inward when he was in deep thought, accentuating the apples of his cheeks and making his sharp features rounder. 

“Depends on the person trying to learn it. It serves some people a purpose to understand French because they’re either going to France or any French-speaking country for work, and others might be here in Korea their whole lives. The main thing, though, is training your brain to dissect things piece-by-piece, making it easier to absorb. It’s not necessarily about the purpose it serves, but often the skills you gain.” 

“You know, you’re really good at explaining things to people,” Sungchan finally said, seemingly impressed with you. He took your hand in his again and took you even lower down the slope. 

“Am I?” You asked. 

“Yeah. I’ve asked everyone in class what the hell a currency crisis has to do with everyday life and why we need it, and not one of them gave me a good, clear answer. Not even the professors are supposed to be experts in this stuff! They go on this winding path of just explaining difficult concepts and never getting to the root of my question, or they just laugh it off and tell me that I should know because I decided to enroll myself in this program. If I had met you a lot earlier, then I would’ve been interested in so many things! Damn, what a life I’ve missed.”

All you could do was hum in response. 

“Did you ever read Das Kapital?” He suddenly asked. 

“Only parts that were assigned, but I never got around to finishing it,”

“Did you understand what Marx was trying to say?” 

“A little bit. I feel like you have to have more knowledge on economics to read a book like that, far beyond what has been hamfisted up our asses by the professors,”

That was a lie. Your first encounter with Marx was with Eunseok and his girlfriend in high school. Being the contrarian she was, she always enjoyed provocative books that got her in trouble. Naturally, after being suspended for three days for carrying a copy of Marx and Engel’s The Communist Manifesto, proclaiming her unyielding devotion to Juche in front of the whole class, the next step for her was to bring a copy of Das Kapital, tactfully ripping some of the paragraphs and stuffing them inside her History notebook upon submission to the teacher. You had only read a few pages of Das Kapital then, but to this day, you could never understand what this book had to do with communism. It was a benign, sometimes aggressive critique of what is now blooming into a consolidated economic system written at a time when there were many avenues that the world could’ve taken. Marx shouldn’t be faulted for what the future thought of his words. 

“Do you think, say, a first-year student who has never been educated in economics would be able to understand Das Kapital just by reading it?” Sungchan asked. 

“No, that’s just a Sisyphean task. Outright impossible.” You responded without preamble. 

“You know, when I joined the soccer team, I expected to simply play soccer. But no, that wasn’t the case. Most of the people on the team were either socialists or those from a more working-class background, people who had been invested in the student demonstrations about inequality and political fraud. And so, whenever we finished practice or ended a friendly match, they would always talk about Marx in the locker room, saying that his view on labor was important for the future of sports. I tried to get a copy and read a few bits of Das Kapital at home, but I couldn’t get it at all. So, when I went back and told them I didn’t get it by the next week after practice, they treated me like an idiot, saying that I had nothing going on in my head. ‘Oh, Sungchan, you’re in the economics program but couldn’t even understand Marx! Hah! That’s funny! That’s what the orthodox system does to you!’ They called me a fraud for playing a working-class sport as a private school kid, all because I had told them I didn’t understand a piece of text. That’s horrible!” 

“Yeah, that is horrible,” You repeated. 

“The thing is, though, their discussions were terrible, too. Empty nothingness by using big words to sound smart, when in reality, they probably misinterpreted what Marx wanted to say, too. Whenever I asked them to explain things to me, they never bothered to. Instead, they’d just get angry, as if expecting me to know all these things by default. Can you believe it?” 

“Yeah, I can, that’s the type of crowd that the underground lectures and student movements often attract,” You replied. 

“Our former captain, who’s now graduated, called me a dumbass with nothing but brawn for my brain, asking me how I live my life the way I do now? That did it. I know I’m not the smartest, and even though I went to a private school, I was also from a working-class background. I am well aware that it’s the working class that keeps the world running and that the working class gets exploited by the bourgeoisie. I don’t think Marx envisioned a revolution where people just throw big, fancy words at each other that others can’t understand? That’s a shitty social revolution if you ask me. How the hell are you able to move people with difficult words that they can’t understand? I believe that if a certain group of people are being exploited, then we have to do all we can to stop it, that’s why I keep asking questions, to know more and to understand how the world works so we can try to make it a better place. Do you think I’m stupid, or what?” 

“No, you’re very much right.”

“A-ha! Those guys are total frauds! All they have in mind is using these big words to impress girls that they run into after our matches. When they graduate, they won’t give a single crap about the class struggle or whatever socialist mumbo jumbo they were preaching! They’d just don a suit and find work in large companies! They’d marry pretty, upper-class wives who have never read a single word of Marx in their life, get kids, drive fast, fancy cars, and give them Western names that are so ridiculous that it makes you want to laugh. Smash the education complex? Fight against election fraud? What bullshit! The newer recruits were just as bad. They didn’t know a single thing about Marx. They just sat there silently in the locker room and pointed fingers at me whenever I asked a question. Then, they told me, ‘Hyung, just agree with whatever they say, it’s easier that way.’ Makes my blood boil.”

You laughed, watching the sparkle in his eyes fester with vigor. “So, what happened after that?” 

“Most of the upperclassmen had graduated by the time I got the position of vice-captain. Since then, I told the new recruits to never talk about things like Marx in the locker room and to treat each other with respect. ‘Ask Hyung if you need anything, and I won’t haze or bully you about it.’ I told them that. Things have been better since, but the captain still wants to keep the so-called revolution going. Something about keeping the original root of the sport and the integrity of the game aligned with the class struggle. Shut the fuck up. God, if ever any of those assholes ran into you, they’d probably beat you up or shoot you because you understood Marx far better than they did.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, believe me. I know what I’m talking about. I’m working class. Revolution or not, the working class will always be the ones scraping by. I mean, look at those communist revolutions happening in Africa! I don’t know too much, but tell me why they’re still poor even after some big guy comes in and says he can change the country! It’s because he uses stupid, big words that nobody can understand! Then, they’d hike up taxes for so-called ‘government expenses,’ when in reality, they’re just inflating their pockets with more money and gold. Tell me, have you ever seen the taxman?” 

“No, never,”

“Well, I have. Too many times. They come in barging into your door with their stupid papers, acting like big game. ‘Oh, how is take out a business expense? Show me all your receipts right now!’ And we can’t even say anything back, or else my dad will go to jail! We even have to give them nice teas and snacks! No matter how cruel they are, though, I will tell you one thing: My dad is an honest man. He has never cheated on his taxes, and he keeps records just as well as he’s maintained the shop since it was handed over to him. If you tell that to the taxman, though, he won’t believe you. He’ll just dig and dig and dig. ‘What’s this ledger?’ ‘Isn’t income looking a little low in this quarter?’ And I wanted to scream to them, scream so loud: Hey asshole! Income isn’t looking too good because we’re not making any money with this stupid business! Go dig into our shop when we make some real cash!”

“The worst part is that they won’t change even after a revolution,” You signed.

“Exactly. Fuck the revolution. It’s just a bunch of bullshit. The only thing I’ll ever believe in is love.”

“I got somewhere to be,” Sungchan said. 

“This early?” 

“Yeah, I have to go to the hospital. My dad’s there, so it’s my turn to look after him,” 

“Wait, I thought he was in Thailand?”

“I lied.” Sungchan said flatly. “I mean, he’s been screaming about it, but he’s not even in a condition to leave Seoul.”

“How bad is he?” You asked. 

“I don’t know, give it a few months? Maybe two?” He replied. The two of you walked on in deathly silence. It was a matter of time until the two of you reached the bottom of the slope, head first into the large, glass doors of Seoul National University Hospital. 

“He’s got the same one my mother had,  just with a different genitalia because he’s a man. God, I don’t know if you can sexually transmit cancer, but can you believe it? Four years after cervical cancer, my dad suddenly gets testicular.”

Once the two of you entered the corridors, the stench of antiseptic wafted in the air. The hospital was busy and crowded for a Sunday, with several lines in the reception and elevators consisting of weekend visitors and patients walking about in wheelchairs or IV drips. The sweet scent of flowers slightly permeated the air, with an inkling of urine and old mattresses. Nurses walked past the two of you, pushing large trays of food, the soles of their shoes rubbing into the floor as they quickened their pace. 

Sungchan’s father was in a room shared with four other patients. His bed was right by the large, open window. Upon inspection, it was difficult to tell if he was breathing and even harder to tell if he was human. Though he was stretched out, the rest was shriveled up like a raisin, cheeks hollow to the touch and eyes covered in folded lids that were always closed. 

Today, he was lying on his side, skinny, bony arms limp and flat on the white bed covers. There were several tubes and needles attached to him, and it was difficult to see him as the kind of man who was once as tall and mighty as his son. The constant drip of the plastic bags only gave you the impression that he could only shrivel up more than he already endured.

For a brief second, you saw his eyes fling open as if aware of Sungchan’s presence and only keeping them open as a greeting that was established between father and son. It didn’t take a doctor or a medical practitioner of any sort to know that he was going to die soon. At least, in part, all it took for you was, in brevity, seeing the rims of his eyes glow a shade of pinkish red, drifting back and forth with the blur of cataracts in his pupils that refused to show him the colors and lines of the world he once saw. There was absolutely no sign of life or direction in his second-long gaze, and even if you were to inflate him like an air balloon with life, it felt to you like there was a punctured hole somewhere in him that oozed out life no matter how hard you tried to pump it in him. It was a short stretch from here to the end—a waiting game of slow decay and demolition. Despite this, though, his thin, white goatee continued to grow like stray bristles on a brush, and you wondered why he grew an impressive one when all other signs of life escaped his body and mind. 

Sungchan greeted each patient by popping his head through the curtains. One lady of about sixty with all her curtains open nodded and smiled in return, dry, flaky lips sealed with a lack of moisture. She tried to suppress a cough a few times, then returned to her bed to shift her weightless form to face the door. 

The view from the window was bleak in comparison to the one the two of you experienced in the middle of the residential area’s slopes. The only thing you could see from Sungchan’s father’s window was a large, electricity pole that covered the sky. 

“How are you feeling, dad?” Sungchan asked, leaning closer until his lips were right next to his father’s ear. His father shook his head and muttered a groan, as any word he formed in his head remain stuck in his throat, choking him dry. 

“Headache?” Sungchan asked, touching his own head. His father nodded in return, trying to open his mouth but to no avail. 

“Well, no wonder,” he muttered. “You’ve just got your balls removed, and they’ve injected you with so much medicine that your head will pound. Of course, your head will hurt. Too bad, but please, try to be brave. Oh, and this is my friend,” 

“Nice to meet you,” You said. Sungchan’s father tried to open his mouth, then proceeded to close it shut again. 

Sungchan pulled a seat from his father’s foldable table and gestured for you to sit. You hesitated a little until he grabbed your arm and pulled you into one of the plastic chairs next to his father’s bed. Sungchan then gave his father a few sips of water, asking him if he would like any food. His father shook his head, and when Sungchan stubbornly insisted that he needed to eat, his father opened his eyes briefly, moving his pupils to point at the food left at the head of his bed. 

Sungchan hoisted a large duffel bag under the table, taking out a change of clothes and underwear, straightening them out, and putting them inside a drawer by his father’s bedside lamp. Once he reached the bottom of the bag, he fished out two packs of dried seaweed, a couple of fruit jellies, and two slices of cream-filled sponge cakes. 

“Fucking hell, really? Cake?! Feeding a man pumped with chemo cake?! I told that asshole exactly what I wanted him to buy! Porridge with vegetables, not cake!” Sungchan exclaimed, angrily shoving some of the food back into the bag. 

“That’s… a weird mixup.”

“Weird indeed. God, he’s insufferable.” Sungchan said. “Dad, want some cake?” 

His father didn’t respond. 

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” Sungchan repeated louder, resulting in a firm no that his father was able to mouth. 

“How about you?” Sungchan turned to ask you. 

“I’m also alright,” You answered. 

After sitting with Sungchan and his father for a while, Sungchan took you to the smoking area outside of the hospital and slipped a cigarette between his lips, crossing his arms tightly as he held the filter with his fingers. Some of the patients in hospital gowns were also outside, smoking while counting the cars that passed by the entrance’s driveway. 

“That old woman in the wheelchair keeps looking at me. The one over there, with the glasses and a pink nightgown,” Sungchan whispered, eyes twinkling. 

“I don’t know, what more do you want me to say? ‘Oh, Sungchan, you’re so handsome that all the ajhummas in the hospital want you!’ Do you want me to say that?” 

“Maybe seeing a handsome guy such as myself keeps them with things to think about. You know, get them all excited. I be they haven’t felt like that in a long time.” 

“Seriously?” You sighed. Sungchan stared at the smoke that swirled from his cigarette. 

“You know,” Sungchan started, fishing his hands in his pocket and slipping another cigarette from the pack into his mouth. “He’s not so bad. He can say terrible things, but deep down, he really loved my mom with such intensity, even though he’s a little timid and cannot run a business properly. People don’t really like him because he can be blunt at times, but he’s definitely a lot better than the frauds out there who go around thinking they’re tough shit for knowing big words or being in a gang. I’m just as stubborn as he is, so we tend to fight a lot, but he’s not a bad guy.”

Sungchan took your hand as if it were fragile, carefully placing it on his lap. He used his thumbs to rub your palm in repeated circles, eyes looking into yours for over a minute. 

“Sorry to bring you here out of all places, but can you stay with me for a bit longer?” He asked, a soft tinge in his voice begging for you to stay. 

“I can stay with you for as long as you want. I mean, I did say I’m free on Sundays.” You replied with a smile. 

“What do you usually do? You know, apart from reading the daily paper and sipping coffee at five in the goddamn morning.” 

“Laundry?” You replied. 

“What about your boyfriend?”

“Same as you. I don’t really know if I could call him that, and it’s really complicated right now. I don’t really know how to explain it,”

“That’s alright, but do you mind me asking what I think is going on?” Sungchan asked. 

“Sure, I bet it’s miles more interesting than the truth,”

“He’s married, isn’t he?” Sungchan said, unwavering confidence in his voice that convinced you otherwise that his grand fantasies could maybe become a reality. “Forty or something, rich, and was once handsome. Drives foreign cars like a Benz or a BMW and wears shoes made of pure leather, with suits hand-tailored for him from the most expensive department stores here in Seoul. He’s hungry for lust, and he’s into super kinky things. The two of you meet after your shift at the library on weekdays and do all sorts of things to each other's bodies: he ties you up in crazy positions, puts a gag on you, has different kinds of whips, and you sit there enjoying all of that. His wife and kids have Sundays to themselves to eat big dinners and spend time together. That’s why he can’t see you then. Is that correct?” 

“Interesting,” 

“He loves taking pictures of you, too, and has a really expensive camera that he uses to take all sorts of pictures of you in many positions, including when he puts all sorts of weird things inside of you. It’s like every single time you meet him, he gets kinkier. He’s always planning what type of toys and liquids he’d use on you, and he makes you come at least three times in crazy positions that break your legs and twist your body. He then talks about how because he’s older, he’s more experienced, and that you’ll never ever find the same satisfaction in younger boys anymore because he’s satisfied you so much. Makes you feel good.” 

“I think you frequent the porn cinemas too much,” You flatly replied, dreading the next few words that would come out of his mouth with a twisted, mild curiosity. 

“I do, actually. I was kind of worried that I come off that way, but if you want, we can go to a screening sometime soon,”

“Alright, when you’re free,” You said. 

“You’re not joking?” Sungchan asked with an ecstatic shock in his voice that you had never heard from him before, as if you were the first person who had acknowledged his presence in his whole life. 

“Nope. Show me what sort of things you watch.”

“Alright, there’s a BDSM one with pee and shit everywhere. Some pirated German one they found. I’ve never seen it yet, but I do like watching the ones that are a bit more deranged. It’s interesting.” 

“Sounds fun,”

“My favorite ones are the gang bang scenes, because you think to yourself ‘How the hell do they get seven people to fuck each other like that? Swallowing cum and pee at the same time?’ It’s like going to a cafeteria and having people all drink water super loud at the same time!”

When the two of you returned to the hospital room, Sungchan filled the air with his chatty voice, only to be met with a dead wall of silence. The only thing he could get out from his father was a firm nod, a shake, or a grunt—and, if he was lucky, a string of groans. Two hours had passed, and an old, healthy man, presumably the old woman's husband with her curtains all opened, came inside the room to change her gown and peel some fruits for her. Despite the signs of age, he was a tall, athletic-looking man—somewhat stocky but firm in muscle. His face was inviting and kind, and his smile emphasized the lines on his cheeks, brightening him back ten years or so. He shared a lot of small talk with Sungchan, and by the time the two had started talking, a nurse arrived with a tray of needles and medicine, speaking to Sungchan while the old man excused himself out the door. Your eyes wandered around the room towards the window, tracing the trajectory of the electricity pole’s power lines. Every now and then, crows would perch on the lines, elongating their necks in surveillance of the whole neighborhood. Sungchan talked to his father and wiped the sweat around his body, helping him spit phlegm into a trash can occasionally while chatting with the old man, who came back and exchanged pleasantries with you. 

The doctors usually did their rounds at the hour, so you stepped outside with Sungchan in the corridor. When one of them came out, Sungchan’s eyes widened, and he rushed to his side, greeting him with a firm bow and asking him how his father was doing. 

“He seems fine after the surgery, obviously drained from energy, but we’ll still need a few days to assess him and evaluate the results of the operation. If he’s alright by then, he can probably go home, and if not, we’ll discuss further with your brother,” The doctor said. 

“Are you not gonna take his other ball?”

“If you put it that way, then it depends. We can’t know until we’ve seen the results,”

A patient’s condition and prognosis were challenging to tell with doctors. Though you didn’t know too much, it was always the impression that you got from them. Armed with a clipboard that tells you more about yourself than you will ever know in your entire lifespan, yet shrouded in ciphers, you must decode through medical language and terms you would’ve never encountered. There was simply no easy way to tell if you were doing well or not when the doctor couldn’t even give a concrete answer. It was always the good news followed by the bad or the bad followed by a string of intricate phrases and words that you couldn’t care much about as soon as you left the hospital. 

With Sungchan’s father, though, everything was transparent. It was almost as if you could see his fate through the reflection of the glasses that kept inching closer and closer to the doctor’s nose. No matter how much he pushed it up, it always slid down the bridge and onto the tip of his nose, where it dangled until he had to push it up again. He should probably throw those out and switch to contacts. 

After the doctor finished his rounds, a nurse entered the room, pushing a trolley with trays stacked on each other. Sungchan took one and carefully balanced it on his long arms, placing it down after reclining his father’s seat upright. He gently took the hot bowl of congee onto the makeshift table, then used a butter knife to slice up some fruits and debone the boiled fish that came with his father’s meal. With each spoonful he gave to his father, the life that had been drained out of him slowly came back. After four or so spoonfuls, he had enough to slowly raise his hand and stop the spoon from entering his mouth. 

No more, he mouthed. 

“God, you're hopeless, aren’t you? If you don’t eat more, you’re gonna die! You need to have your intestines functioning at least, so you can shit properly and not get constipated,” Sungchan complained, but to no avail. His father fervently shook his head, and Sungchan gave up, proceeding to turn his attention back to you with a tired frown. 

“Come, let’s go down to the cafeteria,” he requested. 

You promptly nodded and followed him down the elevator, letting your nose adjust to the stench of antiseptic that wafted across the entire building. Once the two of you reached the cafeteria on the ground floor, he offered to buy you some sandwiches and rice balls, but you declined. You couldn’t bring yourself to have an appetite when the entire cafeteria was packed with doctors, nurses, patients, and visitors. All the conversations that wafted and stayed in the air all talked about sickness, never health. It passed through you like a tunnel, where one after the other, another form or fragment of injury seemed to fill your head with the worst fate that terminal illness could offer. Every so often, the PA system would slice through the cafeteria with screeching static for a patient or a staff member. 

When Sungchan returned with two portions of rice, cabbage stew, and ban chan, you tried your best to chew half of it, leaving the rest for him to finish. He didn’t look up throughout his lunch, nodding with glee as he hounded his meal to the last mouthful. 

“You barely touched your food,” he asked. This was the first time he’s looked up since he came back with the meals. 

“I don’t know, I’m just not hungry,” you replied. 

“I get it. Hospitals don’t really equate to hunger, especially when you’re not used to the place. I mean, god, the smells! That antiseptic or whatever they use sure keeps you full. Being in an environment with so much stress, anxiety, disappointment, pain, and fatigue—that’s what does it to your stomach, grabbing your appetite and beating it to a pulp until it’s dead. The thing is, though, it’s not a problem once you get used to it. And you can’t really take care of someone when you’re hungry. I know this. I was on an empty stomach when my grandpa was at the hospital for cancer, and then I ate a little when my grandma was here. By the time it got to my mom, I got the routine in my head and ate before going to the hospital. Now, it’s my dad. By this point, I’m too used to coming here, and I can eat here just fine. You never know when you’re gonna have to basically live here, so it’s important to eat when you can.”

“That makes sense,” you nodded. 

“Whenever our relatives come to visit, they leave their food just like you. Then they tell me that I’m strong because I can eat despite being upset. What a load of crap! I’m the only one taking care of him! All they have to do is come every now and then and drop their faux sympathies! I’m the one who wipes his ass and makes sure his balls don’t hurt! I helped change his IV drips and fed him! If sympathy were all it took to clean his shit up, then he would be better by now! Instead, they see me eating here and say all that crap about me being strong. What the hell do they think they are? I mean, they’re old enough to know how this world works, so why are they so dumb? It’s so easy to talk big unless you’re not in the position of wiping some old guy’s ass up. Like, do they not think this hurts me just as much, if not more? Do they not think about it hurting so much that I just want to cry? How do they think I feel when I watch a horde of doctors cut my dad’s balls up, doing it again and again? To top it all off, you see your savings depleted. I was lucky enough to make it to my third year, but what then? He’ll surely die before I graduate, and that’s one more year! At this rate, I don’t even think my brother can afford to get married!” 

“How many times do you come here?” You asked, taking a soup spoon to stir some of the cold stew in your tray. 

“Depends. Usually four times a week, and they do promise all-around care from the nurses, but there’s too much for them to do around here. It’s an understaffed hospital. Some of our relatives come here to help. My brother’s got the shop, and I have to finish university. Even then, he comes here three times a week, and we sneak in past visiting hours when we can. It’s a full commitment, I tell you,” 

“How do you have time to spend with me when you’re so busy?” 

“I enjoy spending time with you,” Sungchan said with a smile. 

“Get out of here. Take a walk or something, I don’t know, just leave. I’ll take care of your father,” you demanded. At this point, you were already stood up. You had both trays in your hands with all the rubbish piled up on Sungchan’s empty bowls. He remained seated, eyes widening enough to encase all the fluorescent lights’ reflections into his brown, swirling irises. 

“What, why?” 

“You need to leave the hospital. It’s not helping you relax,” you explained, sighing. “You need something that can clear your mind up, even just by a little bit,” 

As he prepared his body to stand up from his chair, he sank again, allowing his back to merge with the flimsy plastic touching his bare neck. After a minute, he stood up again and nodded. 

“Do you know what to do, though? It’s a lot of work,”

“I think so. I’ve been watching you do it, and I think I got it. Check the IV drip, give him water, wipe his sweat off, and adjust his oxygen mask occasionally when he coughs, making sure they collect the phlegm. If he gets hungry, I feed him some jellies or the rest of his lunch on the bedside table. If I don’t know what to do, I’ll just ask the nurse,”

“Perfect,” Sungchan replied, grinning from ear to ear. “There’s just one thing, though: he can say weird shit because of all the medication, some jibberish that no one can understand. If he says anything that hurts you, try to ignore it. It’s not him, it’s the medication.” 

“Got it,” you saluted. 

Once the two of you were back in the room, Sungchan told his father that he had someone from the soccer team to phone and that you would be watching him while he sorted things out with the team. His father didn’t move or open his mouth. You figured it didn’t concern him if it had nothing to do with him. He remained lying on his back, eyes shut while his head was cocked up to the white ceiling. Had he not periodically opened his eyes to blink once in a while, you could’ve sworn he had flatlined. 

Whenever he did muster the courage to open his eyes, they were stained with swirls of red, making him look hungover. His nostrils noticeably flared up and down whenever he breathed, and his eyebrows would twitch whenever he had to open his eyes. Besides that, he had little to no movement, and he never tried to respond to Sungchan. 

After Sungchan had left the room, you didn’t know what to say to his father, let alone how to start a conversation with someone who didn’t give you a response. So, you kept quiet for a while, watching him slowly succumb to sleep. You took one of the chairs by the window and leaned closer to look at the way his nose twitched, hoping that he wouldn’t die while you were here. How would it feel to have a strange woman your son had brought to die by your side?

It was easier to sympathize with the dead than a vegetable. 

He was, alas, not dying. He was simply sleeping peacefully, with gargled breath and a twitching nose. You brought your ears closer to his face, hearing his faint, weak breathing. Heaving a sigh of relief, you got up and greeted the husband of the old woman next door. The only thing that came out of his mouth was any good word about Sungchan, assuming you were his girlfriend. 

“Sungchan’s a really good guy,” he said. “He takes care of his father, and he’s so kind and sensitive. To top it all off, he has a face of an actor. I’m sure he treats you right, and always be by his side. He’s going through a tough time right now, and I’m sure you won’t find anyone like him.”

“I try my best to treat him right,” you replied casually. 

“I have kids at home. One’s eighteen, just out of high school, and the other, twenty-two, probably around you and Sungchan’s age. Neither of them want to visit! They said the hospital smells, and the minute they’re out of school, they never think twice about visiting. They just play around, go on dates, go on with their lives. They only come around to ask me for some pocket money.” 

About an hour had passed, and the man got up to wave goodbye. You didn’t know if he would come back, but you could see that both Sungchan’s father and the old woman were deep in sleep. The gentle, marmalade rays of the sunlight poured into the room, and the warmth that wafted in the air made you feel like you were slowly drifting into a benign, mindless nap. The faded pink of the Dahlias by the old woman’s bedside drawer signaled the end of the summer, and the remnants of boiled fish swirled around the room. You could hear the low chatter of the nurses just outside in the hallway, sneakers squeaking and squealing with the wagons they had to push back and forth throughout their shift. Every so often, one of the nurses would poke her head into the room, quietly sliding the door to glance around. Then, they would flash you a small smile. You wished there was a magazine or a newspaper that you could pick up and read to kill time, but there was nothing of the sort nearby, and you didn’t want to bother any of the nurses when you weren’t even a patient at the hospital. 

Oddly, the hospital reminded you of Eunseok. Perhaps it was because of Ujeong Inn, but you could picture him wearing nothing underneath the blanket in one of the beds. You thought of the softness of his jet-black hair and the lean, bony muscles that felt fragile between your fingertips. Then, you wondered why he was here, of all places. The more you thought of him, the less apparent his existence seemed—almost like a wavering, hazy fantasy you conjured up in a daze. And the more you thought of him, the more uncertain you became of the night you spent with him at Ujeong Inn. If you told yourself that it did happen, then it did, and if you thought of it as a daydream, then it was just that, a daydream. Some of the details felt too real for it to be anything you could think of, but too ethereal to have been based in actuality. 

Eunseok and the moonlight; an trick of the eye that trickled to the hairs of your skin. 

Sungchan’s father suddenly stirred up, raspy breaths accompanying a dry heave. You quickly snapped out of your daydream and helped him spit his phlegm out into a handkerchief, disposing of it before coming back to wipe his sweat with a fresh towel. 

“Would you like some water?” You asked. He responded with a weak, but firm nod. You poured some of the water from a plastic bottle into his glass, and controlled his sips a little at a time. 

It was difficult for you to discern if he wanted more or if he wanted you to stop. It seems that larger movements physically hurt him. 

“More?” You asked. He shook his head. 

“Are you hungry? What about some fruits?” 

He shook his head again. You wiped his mouth with the same towel and adjusted the bed flatly before taking the trays and cutlery onto the visitor’s table. 

“Was the food good?” You asked. He fervently shook his head, then deepening the wrinkles of his eyebrows. 

“I know, I know,” you tried to sympathize with him. Sungchan’s father indecisively opened and closed his eyes as he lay completely flat on the bed, turning his head to face you. Did he know who you were? Had Sungchan talked about you to him on his last visits? He seemed quite relaxed to be laying next to a stranger, and he was definitely quieter with you than he ever was with Sungchan. Perhaps he thinks you’re Sungchan? Or someone else? 

“It’s a nice day out,” you started, resting your chin on your palm as you crossed your legs. “Winter’s coming soon, but the temperature hasn’t dropped significantly. It’s still warm enough for me to do my laundry outside, and you’re better off here than out in the city. The pollution’s getting worse because of more factories built up in the East, and the crowds! My god, they’re exhausting to deal with. I’d rather stay home and iron my clothes. I used to be bad at it, almost burning my shirts, but I’ve gotten better. Now, I can make things look perfect, and none of my clothes have any wrinkles on them at all! Spotless and brand new! Today was a perfect day for laundry and ironing, but that’s okay, I can wake up early tomorrow morning and take care of it all. Sundays are always free, and I always have nothing to do.” 

“When I sort out my laundry tomorrow, I go to class with Sungchan. We take a lot of classes together, but econometrics is the one we’re taking tomorrow. It’s nothing really interesting, and I don’t particularly enjoy it. It’s just statistics adapted to fit economics, and most of the stuff we do, like regression analysis, has already been done and mastered in some of the more math-intensive courses.” 

“What I enjoy in most of my courses is reading essays by economists who think beyond the scope of what we think the economy encompasses. I find that economics works better with the math all removed, even if most scholars say it’s the math that adds a solid foundation to it. Sure, I do agree to a certain extent, but you can’t quantify real-life behaviors. I mean, how are we supposed to calculate every one's utility when every person has a different level of satisfaction? People also don’t seem to take into account the difference in culture. I mean, yeah, the American model of capitalism and consumerism relies on so-called notions of freedom of choice, but Korean society consists of savers. We have been taught to save for a very long time, and that’s one thing we can’t erase. It’s rude to spend, and because of that, we can’t just adopt capitalism as a structure. We need to be aware of what makes us different from the rest, and then think about adapting to a new type of accumulation that stimulates overall growth without throwing away the lessons that we’ve been taught by our ancestors. That has nothing to do with econometrics, but that’s pretty much the kind of stuff Sungchan and I study at university,” 

Sungchan’s father had said nothing, keeping his dim eyes on you the entire time you were talking. Of course, it was difficult to tell if he actually understood anything you said to him. 

“Alright, I’ll go now,” 

Sungchan’s father responded in a way that made you remember that he was once a human capable of speech. 

“No, please stay,” he whispered through the lumps of phlegm on his throat. After conversing with yourself, you nodded and returned to your seat, feeling parched and starved. You didn’t eat anything for breakfast and ate half your lunch. Now, you regretted not being able to finish your portion, but you realized quickly that feeling sorry for yourself wouldn’t help you at all. You stood up again and reassured the man that you were staying put, unzipping the large duffel bag by the foot of his bed for something to eat. Rummaging through the pockets and corners of the bag, you only fished out some cough drops and an unopened pack of instant congee. Then, your eyes flicked back onto the slices of cake that were just beside you on the table. 

“Do you mind if I eat this piece of cake? I’m getting a bit hungry,” you asked. Sungchan’s father didn’t answer. You took a slice of chocolate cake and pulled a small, heaping piece with your fingers, careful not to leave any icing between your nails. 

“Delicious, but decadent. Too much cream, and it’s a little too sweet! I think they got this from the French bakery that just opened near the station,” you remarked. You scraped off more of the icing and siphoned off a second heaping—this time, a larger mouthful than the first. The only thing you could hear in the room was your teeth gnawing at the soft sponge. After this mouthful, you decided to take a break, taking another fresh towel from the bag to wipe your fingers. You boiled some water in a kettle by the end of the corridor and made tea for the two of you. 

“Do you want something to drink?” You asked, coming back with two mugs filled with corn tea. 

“Cake,” he whispered. 

“Alright, a small slice like that will do. What side do you want? The end bits with more cream, or the middle with more sponge?” 

“Sponge,” he replied with a nod. You adjusted the bed again to how Sungchan had left it when he felt his father. Then, you used a pair of disposable chopsticks from the duffel bag to cut the cake in quarters, flying it into the patient’s mouth like an airplane. After a stern, unreadable expression, Sungchan’s father’s mouth moved from cheek to cheek, finally swallowing the piece after a while. 

“Is that good?” He nodded. 

“Things are better when food tastes good, no? Tasting good food and feeling good about it is kind of proof that you’re alive,” 

He had an entire slice of cake. After he was finished, you filled his glass with water and controlled his sips. He motioned for the bathroom as soon as he was done with his glass, so you took a cup from the foot of his bed and held it under his penis. When he signaled to you that he was done, you emptied its contents in the toilet and washed the cup clean. By the time you came back, you could only throw the tea out where his urine went. 

“How are you feeling now?” You asked. 

“Head… hurts.” He replied. 

“I mean, you did have an operation. I’ve never had one in my entire life, so I don’t know what it’s like.”

“Gongdeok ticket to Sungchan,” he suddenly whispered, saying more than you believed he was capable of. 

“Gongdeok,” he repeated. “Sungchan,”

“Gongdeok?”

“Please,” he said. “Sungchan” 

You couldn’t connect or decipher what he said, so you kept quiet. He, too, was silent for a while. Occasionally, he would muster the exact words again: Gongdeok, ticket, Sungchan. He opened his eyes, peering at you as if demanding your full attention. You knew he was trying to tell you something, but you couldn’t begin to imagine what was so important for you to know. 

All you knew then was that any sign of lifelessness was suddenly animated in his deep, pressing gaze. He now had the strength to raise his arm at you and gripped your wrist tight. This must have had an incredible effect on him, so you returned the favor by slipping your hand in his. With what little remaining strength he could muster, he squeezed your hand and mouthed the word please, now even quieter than a whisper or a secret. 

“No worries, I’ll go take care of Sungchan and Gongdeok,” you responded haphazardly. Then, he suddenly fell flat, chest heaving up and down as a faint snore drifted into your ears. You put two of your fingers next to his lymph nodes to check if he was alive, then, once you felt a pulse, headed out to the hallway for a quick walk. The moment you slid the door of the room shut and allowed the change in environment to settle within you, you realized that you’d grown a liking for this old, shriveled man on the verge of death. 

The old man came back a few moments later, greeting you in the hallway to ask if everything was alright. The only thing you could give him was a frail nod, then excusing yourself to meet Sungchan outside. 

Before you could descend the stairs, you saw him extend a wave toward you at the bottom of the staircase, quickly jogging up to catch up with you. 

“I was just in the parking lot, counting the cars until I fell asleep.” He started. “I did what you told me to do. I just sat there and let my head get empty.”

“How are you feeling now?” You asked. 

“Much better. I’m still tired, but I feel lighter than I ever felt before. I think I’m more tired than I realize.” 

Sungchan’s father was now fast asleep, and there was nothing for the two of you to do, so you went back down to the cafeteria to buy coffee, then stepped out again to smoke. You filled Sungchan in with what happened after he left—that his father slept soundly, then woke up to eat his lunch and a whole slice of cake, then peed. 

“No way, no fucking way.” Sungchan said, startled. “You got him to finish his dinner tray and have him eat half a piece of cake! That’s amazing!” 

“We were all out here going nuts over him starving himself and refusing any food he gave us, but you got him to finish his food!”

“I think he just saw me enjoy the cake and wanted some too,” 

“Either that or you have this thing in you that just relaxes people,”

“Doubt it, I think a lot of people say I’m unsettling,” you laughed. 

“So?” Sungchan asked, shifting the bottle of canned coffee between his hands. “What did you think about my dad?” 

“He’s nice. I mean, I couldn’t have a proper conversation with him, but he seems nice.” 

“He was quiet, wasn’t he?” 

“Very.”

“God, he was much worse a week ago. He went wild in there! Throwing his food around and shit. Telling us that he hoped we’d die. Cancer does that to people. It’s probably the fact that chemo literally kills your cells, but it was the same with my mom. At the last part of her illness, when she was on the brink of death, she yelled at me and said I wasn’t his son. Deep down, I know it wasn’t her, but it affected me so much that I couldn’t bring myself to see her for a while. To think your own mother would say something distasteful, right?” 

“I get it,” you replied, then suddenly remembered the string of words that Sungchan’s father had uttered. 

“A ticket to Gongdeok? What the hell is he trying to say?” 

“Then he said ‘Please’ and ‘Sungchan.’ He either meant, ‘Please take care of Sungchan,’ or he wanted you to go to Gongdeok and buy a ticket. It was such a mess that I couldn’t understand any of it, but who knows? Does Gongdeok ring any bells?” 

Sungchan pondered on the collection of words for while. 

“The only thing I can think of was running away from home, then going to Gongdeok to take the airport link to Gimpo. Back then, when I was ten or so, I was stupid enough to think I could just buy a plane ticket at the desk. I’d heard about a nice aunt who lived in America, so I went to the airport, went to a desk, and asked for a ticket to America, but she refused! Said she would call my house, and I refused to give her an address! Soon enough, though, my dad came to pick me up from Gimpo and then bought me lunch at the airport. He talked to me about all sorts of things, like the war and how he was exempt from conscription because of his astigmatism but still served military service when he was young. Come to think of it, that was the only time I’ve ever had a long conversation with him. God, I wonder what he was like in military service. Lord knows if I’d be like him when I serve.”

“Aren’t you supposed to serve now?” You asked.

“Who knows? I haven’t been called on yet. I think it has something to do with my mom dying, and now my dad being ill. My brother was unlucky, though, he finished his service right as my mom got diagnosed, so he came home from all of that chaos only to find more at home. Anyway, on the train, he told me all sorts of stories. Stuff about the Japanese in Korea, the Americans coming to Seoul, and then, Vietnam! I didn’t even know where that was as a kid, but all his stories always ended with him saying something like, ‘Sungchan, the world’s the same everywhere we go.’ A bit of a depressing conclusion to say to a ten-year-old, but his stories really impressed me.” 

“I see,”

“See what?”

“Why your dad said that,” you muttered under your breath. 

“Did you ever run away from home?” Sungchan asked, cocking his head to the side. 

“No,”

“Why not?” 

“Never thought about it,”

“God, you’re weird!” He exclaimed, as if impressed by your every answer. “Every kid has that point in their life, no?”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“So, what did you say to my dad after that?” 

“I just said I’d take care of you and Gongdeok.”

“Really? You told him you’d take care of me?”

Sungchan looked you straight in the eyes with a grave expression. 

“Yeah, I did, but I really didn’t know what he was saying, and—”

“Don’t worry, I get what you’re trying to say,” he laughed. 

After Sungchan had finished his cigarette, the two of you returned to the room. His father was still fast asleep, and you could still hear his faint snores falling up and down into your ears, as if you had pressed them near his mouth. As the skies turned violet, the lights in the hospital flicked to a dim shade of yellow, reflecting the colors of dead leaves. The flock of birds once perched on the utility pole had all fluttered away. You and Sungchan sat by the window next to his father’s bed, trying your best to exchange words in low conversation. He took the empty mug where you dumped out your cold tea and attempted to read the fortune written in the black specs that adorned the white ceramic, and told you that you would go past a hundred, get your heart broken in a divorce, then die. At the same time, everyone watched you get a heart attack in the grocery store. 

Sungchan’s father woke up at dusk, and Sungchan took his chair, moving it next to his father’s bedside drawer. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, gave him some water straight out of the bottle, and asked him about any pains in his body. A nurse had come by a few moments later to take his temperature, record any of his vitals, and check the IV drips for any faults. You returned to the cafeteria and watched the news on the television. 

After an hour, you returned and told Sungchan you were leaving. To his father, you told him that you had to go back home to study. He turned his head towards you and twitched the corners of his mouth. 

“Thank you so much for today,” Sungchan said when he walked you to the exit. 

“I mean, I didn’t really do anything at all, to be honest, but I’ll come by next week. I’d like to see your father again,” you said. 

“Really?” 

“Being alone in that apartment can get to me from time to time, and who knows? Your brother might bring cake again,”

Sungchan folded his arms and tapped his feet. 

“Well, I’d like to go out with you again,” he said, a valiant smirk etched on his face. 

“What about the porn cinema you promised?”

“We can do that first and then go out to eat while talking about the usual disgusting things that we talk about,”

“You’re the one who brings it up!”

“Sounds like a plan, no? Get super drunk in the afternoon and then pass out in bed,”

“What other fantasies do you have in mind?” 

“We’ll see,” you replied defeatedly. “But I’ll pick you up next week. I’ll try to beat the daily papers, and we can come here together.” 

With that, you bade Sungchan farewell.

post mortem: THIS IS PART TWO OF NEVER MEANT. I REPEAT. PART TWO! GO READ THAT ONE IF YOU HAVEN'T YET. PART THREE COMING SOON

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | last part — next part

pairing: modern!college!steve harrington x fem!reader, bestfriend!eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 3.8k words

warnings: explicit language, mentions of drinking and being hungover, a bit of angst

summary: a delayed flight back home leads to an abrupt realization that ultimately feels stupid because everything between you and steve is supposed to be over

CHAPTER FOURTEEN | ❝𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒊𝒕’𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖❞

Fall Semester 2016

The music was loud and the bar was crowded but you didn’t mind it all that much. 

Robin cupped a hand around her mouth and leaned toward your ear so you could hear her. “Do you think there’s any chance that he’ll make it back here before the show starts, or at all?”

You pushed up on your toes to see if you could spot Eddie anywhere, specifically his mop of curly hair, but you couldn’t. He’d been tasked with grabbing drinks almost thirty minutes ago at this point. You looked back at Robin and leaned in toward her. “I’m starting to doubt it.”

“Well,” She started. “RIP, I guess. He will be missed.” 

“Truly,” You joked back, placing a solemn hand over your heart.

As if on cue, Eddie’s voice broke through the noise. “Finally!”

He was balancing two drinks in one hand and holding the other as he joined you both back at the small table that you were surrounding.

“Just in time, Edward,” Robin said. “I think the band’s about to finally go on.”

“You guys are welcome for the drinks that I almost died trying to get. The bar’s a shit show because some new guy just started.” 

“We’d already mourned you, though, so you being back now is a little awkward,” You told him teasingly and Robin laughed. 

“I guess I’ll just take this back then,” Eddie responded, reaching over to grab your glass. 

You playfully swatted his hand away. “Hey, hey! What I meant to say was you’re the best for getting these for us. You’re so awesome.” 

Robin nodded. “I agree.”

He smiled then. “Thank you. That’s what I like to hear.” 

The three of you waited for the band to come out— this small group that Robin really liked. She had found out about the show at the last second and, of course, asked you and Eddie to come along too. 

She and Eddie had been friends for the past month; they were in the same advanced music theory class, even though she was only a freshman. And you and her had only been friends for a little over a week, but it felt like longer. The long overdue introduction came in the form of Eddie inviting her along to the midnight showing of an Indie movie you and he were seeing. Aside from Eddie, there was no one that you’d been able to hit it off with so easily. 

It was a little after eleven when the show ended, and you all were still somewhat tipsy as you walked back to your dorm— you had done the second drink run in the middle of the show and made it back in record time. Since you lived alone, it was unspokenly decided that they’d stay with you for the night, it always just made the most sense. Robin had a roommate that she didn’t like (it reminded you of your own situation freshman year), and Eddie had two now that were actually present most of the time. 

The twenty-minute walk didn’t feel too long or unbearable. There was a cool breeze that was completely comfortable and made sense for the end of September. You lingered just a few steps behind Robin and Eddie, humming a specific part of a song from the show that had gotten stuck in your head and not at all focusing on the conversation happening between them. But then, a certain part of it stood out to you.

“I still don’t understand how you’re dating someone whose music taste is so different from yours,” Robin said to Eddie. You weren’t sure how the conversation got to that, but you had to admit, you did agree with Robin’s statement because it had never fully made sense to you either. 

Eddie and Chrissy were great together, you could see that clearly, but the how of it all was what confused you at first because they really did seem quite different. You eventually just accepted the fact that not all things were meant to make a whole lot of sense.

“Our love runs deeper than her bad taste in music,” Eddie answered. “Opposites attract and all that cliche shit.”

Maybe it was the slight inebriation, but you weren’t even fazed by how happy and completely content he sounded right then. Your feelings for him were gone— well, maybe not exactly gone, but at least far, far, far away.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Spring Semester 2018

Delayed flights were already one of the worst things ever. But delayed flights with a hangover felt like an entirely new version of hell.

A version that you were currently living in. 

In hindsight, it probably would’ve been for the best if you stopped at your third glass of champagne last night, but you didn’t, and neither did Steve. Instead, you both had more than you should’ve at the wedding reception, and then when you returned to your shared room, you two raided the minifridge for every tiny bottle of alcohol it had. 

From what you remembered about the majority of the night— the smiles and laughs shared between you and Steve and the drunken storytimes about the most random topics— you honestly didn’t regret most of it; even though you were now sitting in a chair that was too hard to get comfortable in and stuck with a four-hour flight delay. The bright fluorescent lighting in the airport only made your headache worse and you promptly stole Steve’s sunglasses, and he thankfully didn’t protest. 

“Robin thinks that you’re kidnapping me,” You told him as he sat back down next to you and handed over the water he got for you at one of the shops. You two were only one hour into the long delay. 

“I hope you’re endlessly defending me,” He said, giving you a smile. It was almost annoying how fine he seemed, barely any after effects from last night. 

“Of course I am,” You said, eyes back on your phone as you sent her a picture that you’d taken of a lizard from when you and Steve were at the beach on Sunday. The random picture felt like the perfect response to her ridiculous text of “He’s trying to kidnap you!” when you told her about the flight delay. “I feel like I especially have to defend you now because I owe you for last night.”

You didn’t look at him, not even when your phone was pocketed back in the front pocket of the hoodie you were wearing. It had been around one in the morning when the night came to somewhat of an abrupt end, and it was one of the two parts of the night that you did regret. When you and he were on the couch in your room— sharing a plate of room service french fries and watching an old kid’s movie because it was the only channel that had English subtitles— and you suddenly felt sick. Steve saw you puke (luckily you managed to make it to the bathroom) and he’d been way too nice about it, in your opinion; rubbing your back as the fries and everything else from that night came back up and grabbing a water for you— the only drink that was left in the minifridge aside from two bottles of soda. 

“You actually don’t owe me anything because you finally gave me a song last night,” He told you, and you could practically hear the smirk in his voice. 

You closed your eyes as you sighed. “I hate that you just brought that up.” 

You had tried your hardest to forget about the moment he was talking about when you woke up. But, you remembered it way too vividly, and it quickly became the other part of the night that you regretted. It felt worse than the puke moment, even though it happened before that, and it was the one thing that you wished you had blacked out on— you drunkenly pulling up the instrumental version of Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen, and using your phone as a microphone to sing it for him in your room. The memory of you jumping around on the couch as you did your very lively performance was almost too crystal clear in your head. The only thing that you were glad for when you woke up and sadly remembered that that happened was that there was no video proof of any of it since Steve’s phone had been dead. 

“That moment was supposed to be never spoken about and only taken to our respective graves,” You told him. “I’m gonna tell Robin that you are kidnapping me now. I hope you enjoyed twenty years of living because your days are now numbered, Harrington.” 

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” You could still hear the smile in his voice, which only made you roll your eyes.

“Don’t forget that you also sang to me,” You reminded him, your own smile tugging at your lips as you remembered pulling up a song for him on your phone when you were done with yours and forcing him to sing. “And I truly loved the way you sang Since U Been Gone.” 

“I only did the first minute of it because I forgot how high it gets,” He said. “You gave me the entirety of Don’t Stop Me Now.” 

You groaned and pulled the hood of your hoodie over your head. “Don’t remind me.”

You heard his soft laugh in response and ignored it, knowing that things would feel a lot less embarrassing if you let the conversation shift to anything that wasn’t this. The sounds of everything else happening in the airport right then, couples and friends and parents with their kids moving around, filled in the silence as Steve took a sip from his own water bottle. 

“You hungry?” He asked. 

You shook your head. “Just tired.” 

You leaned your head against his shoulder then because all you really wanted to do at that moment was sleep. The way he was sitting made it a little awkward, your head resting more so on the point of his shoulder rather than in the curve of it. It definitely wasn’t the most comfortable position, but it wasn’t the worst. 

As if sensing your slight discomfort, Steve shifted a little, scooting a bit lower in the chair so that your head could rest a lot more comfortably on his shoulder. “That better?”

Your eyes were shut as you spoke. “So much. Thank you.”

He hummed in response. “Yeah, no problem.” 

Somehow even with all of the romantic couple stuff that you two had to do these past few days, it was this moment that actually managed to completely change things for you. This was the moment where your stomach did a weird fluttery thing that made you see things differently. This was the moment that made you want to kiss him for real. This was the moment that made you wish that this relationship wasn’t entirely fake and that there wasn’t an expiration date to this ruse that was quite literally tonight. This was the moment that made you realize that you were in way too deep. 

Although, maybe that feeling had been lingering and begging to be noticed the entire trip— during that moment in the pool, during that kiss at the wedding reception, during that slow dance. 

But still, it was right here in this stupidly bright airport that it all hit you like a freight train. And it only made your headache a thousand times worse.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

You had three more hours of a flight delay and another handful of hours on a plane to reevaluate your feelings; to accept them for what they were or convince yourself otherwise. But, you didn’t do any of that. Instead, you pushed it away entirely. You let yourself fall asleep on Steve’s shoulder for an hour and a half, and then took him up on his offer for food because you figured it would probably help ease away your headache.

You had tried your hardest not to look at him any differently as you two sat across from each other at a restaurant that had really good burgers. You talked about the most unimportant things, spending what was probably too much time ranking TV shows you used to love as a kid and letting Steve go on random tangents about history topics. You’d never been a fan of History, but the way he talked about it actually made it sound interesting for the first time probably ever in your life, and it also helped you not think about anything else. And then you two were finally getting on your flight back home and you slept the entire time of that too. 

Now you sat in his car that was parked outside of your apartment building, and your maybe feelings for him were thankfully still the last thing on your mind. 

Both of you knew what was coming— the inevitable “break up”— but it seemed as if neither of you were ready to pull the trigger. So instead, you both were saying anything to prolong the conversation and keep the night going; you had even brought up the weather of all things just to give yourself another few minutes in his car. And almost an hour later you were still there, sitting in his passenger seat and waiting for the worried text from Robin that felt inevitable given how long it’d been. 

You were in the middle of trying to think of something to say, a question to ask, but Steve was speaking before you could. “Remember when you talked about maybe wanting to teach?”

You kind of forgot that you mentioned that to him before, and you silently wondered what brought up that question, but you nodded anyway. “Mhm, yeah.”

“Sometimes I think about doing that too,” He told you. “Teaching History. But, I know my parents would absolutely hate that.”

The first part of his words made a lot of sense to you because you could actually see that for him, and the rest of his statement made you frown.

“Yeah, but it’s your life at the end of the day, though,” You said. “You’re the one that has to live it, so you should do what you want.” Your mind was then reminding you of who his parents were, and how intense they were, before Steve got the chance to. “And I know that’s definitely easier said than done, and I’m probably making it all sound much simpler than it actually is, but it doesn’t make it any less true, y’know?”

It was quiet for a second and then he was nodding. “Yeah, you’re right.”

You looked away from him then and focused your gaze out the window for a bit. You could’ve kept the conversation going and let a random question fall from your lips, but there was only one thing left to do, and you knew that you had to finally do it. 

“Okay, and on that serious note, I think it’s time for me to make things even more serious,” You said, even though you were actually about to do the opposite. You reached over, looking down to find his hand in the semi-darkness and then meeting his eyes. “Steve, this last month has been amazing and I have truly felt honored to be your girlfriend. But, I think that we need to break up.” You took a brief pause; to make things more dramatic and also to think of what else to say to make this as cheesy as possible. “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m just not ready for a relationship. We’re getting too serious. I think we both want different things. Our lives are moving in such different directions…” You trailed off, trying to see if there were any cliches you were missing. “Yeah, I think those are all of the reasons that I have. Anyway, I’m sorry, but it’s over.”

He smiled at you, and you could tell that he was trying to hold back his laughter at how sincere your unserious words sounded. “It’s okay. I understand.”

“Thank you for understanding,” You said with a nod and a small smile on your face. “That was really hard to do.”

It wasn’t until your joking words came out that you realized that they weren’t that much of a joke at all. You were smiling and holding back your own laugh, but you actually felt sad about this entire moment.

You told yourself that it was the friendship that you were already mourning right then rather than anything else; this friendship that you’d accidentally but so easily developed with him. And you knew that it was over— "separate ways" and all that, just like it was written in the rules.

You didn’t really like Steve in any other way. You couldn’t. You refused to, actually, because you could sense that it would lead you down an all too familiar path of pining and unrequited feelings for obvious reasons— he didn’t want anything real or serious with anyone, and you were the opposite. 

You decided then that it was the act of fake dating that made you think that you liked him. The lines of it all abruptly became a little blurry because, of course, acting like you’re dating someone and pretending to be in love would lead to thinking that you actually had feelings for them. You quickly convinced yourself that there was no way there was anything real between you and him, and the only reason why it had suddenly felt that way was because you two had been acting like it for the past month and these extra two weeks. 

Steve was the one who initiated the hug when you two were standing outside of his car. It was a quick thing, nothing too dramatic or drawn out, which you were glad for because it made things less confusing.

“And you’re sure there’s nothing you want me to do for you about Eddie?” He asked when you both pulled back from the brief embrace and your hand found the handle of your suitcase. 

With everything else running through your mind at that moment— all of the conclusions you were coming to and the things you were convincing yourself of— you’d completely forgotten about the Eddie part of this. The complete truth still felt too hard to tell Steve, so you only gave half of it.

“I’m positive. It’s okay,” You said and gave him a small smile. “I’ll be fine. Me and Eddie are just supposed to be friends. I get that now.”

“Okay,” He responded, and you could tell that he was attempting to read you, see how much you actually meant your words. Inwardly, you knew just how true they were, and saying them right then finally didn’t even make you feel sad anymore. “Then, I guess we’re about to fulfill the final rule of the agreement right now.” 

Hearing him saying that pretty much confirmed everything that you had just been thinking. The timer was up and you two had to go your separate ways; even if the rule was scrapped it would be pretty impossible to be friends now anyway. There was no way you could be friends without telling the whole truth to everyone, so this was just much easier. 

And with what he just said, you knew that he didn’t see you two as actual friends or anything else, anyway. At the end of the day, you two were essentially just business partners. You thought back to that group project analogy that you came up with what felt like forever ago. The “project” was finally completed and now you two could go back to how your lives were before you’d been paired up. 

“Yeah. It was nice doing business with you,” You said and held out your hand for him to shake before realizing how dumb that probably was.

Steve laughed, though. A genuine sound that managed to make you smile and not feel like a complete idiot as his hand took hold of your outstretched one. “You too.” 

You walked away once his hand dropped from yours and when the final goodbyes were said, rolling your suitcase with you toward the entrance of your building and deliberately not looking back as you stepped inside because you didn’t know what you would feel if you turned around. 

Talia was the only one awake and in the living room when you walked into the apartment.

“Hey, glad to see you weren’t kidnapped like Robin thought,” She smiled at you. “How was the trip?” 

“Good,” You said, smiling back. “But, it feels even better to be home right now and not stuck in an airport. I missed my bed.” 

It didn’t feel like the right moment to drop the “break up” news, and plus, you weren’t in the mood to make up answers to the slew of questions that the news would bring about.

“There’s some cookies on the counter if you want them,” She told you and you immediately took a look over at the counter and noticed the clear container. “I tried out this new chocolate chip recipe that turned out really good, and everyone went crazy for them, but I managed to save you three.”

“God, that sounds amazing. I’ll be right back,” You said, heading to your room to drop off your suitcase and then take a quick shower.

You joined her on the couch after grabbing your cookies from the kitchen and didn’t even mind the unsettling true crime documentary she had playing on the TV. It was a moment that was so normal and familiar and just for a second it made you feel entirely at ease. Until you realized that this was how things were going to go now.

Solely back to moments that resembled this one— reality TV nights, game nights, enjoying Talia’s cooking with everyone, moments where none of you could sleep so you stayed up and talked about anything. What your life was before Steve. Back to normal.

That should’ve felt completely okay, but it didn’t, and that really confused you. 

Steve was someone who wasn’t in your life a month and a half ago so what would be the big deal about him not being in it now?

None of what happened this past month was real, you understood that, but for some insane reason, you already missed it. It had been a bad idea, but you missed it. It had been a waste of time for you, but you missed it. You’d felt like an idiot because of it all, but still, you found yourself missing it. 

It was so contradictory but also so true. And right then, it was hard to decide or even figure out what exactly that meant. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

next part!

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[lvlybin]

𖦹 ̼   ᮫   DUMB AND POETICᘞ̸⠀ ׁ ₊ KIM JI WOONG

૮ ྀི◞ ⸝⸝ ◟ ྀིა when you received your assignment for the professor you would study under for your student teaching, you were ecstatic. and when you met Dr. Kim, things got even better. he was intelligent, helpful, kind, and not to mention extremely handsome. he also seemed to not care about the fact that you were supposed to have no romantic relationship with him. and Jiwoong also seemed to think that you were too dumb to notice all of the things he was doing behind your back. but God forbid if you ever tried to leave him in the same fashion he never hesitated to do with you 18+ MDNI

( short n sweet mini series )

wc 12082 ! 🎧ྀི ♡⸝⸝ kim jiwoong x f!reader , teacher x student teacher, university!au

an a/n 🧾 thank you for all of your guys’ support and patience! didn’t expect to get this carried away with this fic, but o well. this IS NOT PROOFREAD lol, I wanted to get it out so I’ll come back around to editing it soon!

warnings VERY oc Jiwoong (he would never act like this), toxic!Jiwoong, cheating, manipulation, age gap of 5 years, self-doubt, my attempts at writing angst, there’s some lowkey messed up things in this so be warned

18+ warnings unprotected p in v sex, dry humping, nipple play, Jiwoong really likes kissing, lowkey a possession kink

The amount of effort you put into everything was one of the qualities you admired most about yourself. Being hardworking was so satisfying to you, following the rules, and doing what was right. Those things set you on a solid path to follow your dream. Sure, you had never thought you would’ve wanted to become a teacher, but as you got older, you found yourself thriving whenever you spent time with kids. Surprisingly, instead of finding it draining, you were rejuvenated by helping them, and the thought of having a positive impact on such young minds was what ultimately drove you to pursue teaching. Everything that everyone has ever told you about the profession: “The pay doesn’t match the workload,” “You’ll get tired of it before the end of the first year,” “Are you sure you have the patience to work with kids?” never deterred you from it. 

You wanted to teach kids about the qualities that were so important to you.

The years of schooling passed by quickly for you, concentrating on becoming the best you could and spending time with your friends to make sure you didn’t miss out on the university experience. And it was fun, the time of graduation seemingly so far away. Until it wasn’t, and the program was beginning to sort out the final hurdle that your class had to get through–student teaching. Teacher assisting, whatever you wanted to call it, the assignments were slowly passed out, and while your peers received locations at surrounding primary and secondary schools, you were one of the few who would work at a university. 

“We think that a higher level of education would suit you better. You’re one of the best students we have in this program.” Was what your professors had told you when you’d requested to switch to a primary school. You were flattered, of course, your hard work was being recognized, but you didn’t understand why you would be working with an older group of students that might as well be as old as you when you were studying to work with younger kids. 

And your plans to switch anyway were rudely interrupted when the email from the professor you would be working under came through. It was the basics: excited to be working with you, this is what we’re doing this semester, here’s what I need you to prepare for… etcetera. Signed Dr Kim. Maybe it was a bit immature of you to complain to your friends about this opportunity, but you proceeded to despite it. 

Giselle’s eyes widened when you mentioned who you were studying under.

“Are you being serious?”

You had furrowed your eyebrows and nodded, confused at her surprised tone. 

“YN-ie, Dr Kim is like, a big deal– didn’t even know he took student teachers…”

You huffed out a breath, annoyed as you scribbled over your notes a bit. “Yeah, well, then you can have him. All I wanted was to work with some primary students but nooo–”

“Older kids won’t be half the trouble little kids will be,” Giselle mumbled, and you figured she was probably thinking about her own assignment.

“Little kids wouldn’t judge me half as much as these older kids will,” you countered and that was that. 

The thought still circled around your mind as you arrived at the university for your first day, nerves practically eating you alive as you navigated your way to Dr Kim’s classroom. Your parents had always taught you to be earlier than necessary, and thank goodness for that, considering it took you a good twenty minutes to find the room. You knew this place was big, but you thought that the online map would’ve been at least a bit more helpful. After asking one janitor and two other professors where Dr Kim’s room was, you finally approached the door. 

Softly, you tapped your knuckles against the wood a few times. On the other side, a warm voice called out, “It’s open!” Another rush of adrenaline ran through you as you sucked in a deep breath, gripping the papers of the requirements for your program in one of your hands as you pushed open the door. 

That breath was instantly stolen from you as you peeked inside, the man sitting at the desk in the corner of the room was more attractive than any other person you’d met before. Like an idiot, you stood in the doorway for a moment, eyes trailing over his sharp facial features, the curve of his pale pink lips, the way his glasses were sat on his nose, and how his dark hair was pushed back in a way that was clearly careless to him but looked anything but. You tried to ignore how his white button-up shirt clung to his arms and chest as he turned in his chair to look over at you. Suddenly, you felt very self-conscious about the black blouse and brown dress pants you were wearing. 

“Ms Kang?” You blinked harshly as his uttering of your last name snapped you out of your thoughts. 

A smile forces its way onto your lips as you take a step into the hall, closing the door gently behind you. “Yes, hi, nice to meet you,” you say, tilting your head in a small bow. You think your brain short circuits as he smiles back at you, but you can’t really tell. 

Dr Kim leans back in his chair, “Nice to meet you too. Are you excited for your first day?”

No, you think to yourself as you remain across the room from him.

Instead, you keep the smile up as you nod slightly. “I’m excited. Mostly nervous though.”

He chuckles as he gestures for you to come over to his desk. The sound of the heels of your shoes clicking on the floor resounds throughout the space as you approach him. Unfortunately, he’s even more perfect up close. “Don’t be. You’ll be great, not that I’m having you do much today anyway.” You do your best to follow his words, eyes flicking everywhere but his own. 

You miss the way Dr Kim tilts his head a little. “Hey,” he says, his voice the epitome of comfort to you already, and your eyes finally move to meet his. It’s difficult for you to decipher what he’s thinking, to tell if the caring gleam in his dark irises is real or not. “I’ll be here to help you. You’ll be great,” he repeats and you nod a little. 

“Not to sound ungrateful, but I was supposed to be working with younger kids,” you laugh softly and the smile on Dr Kim’s lips doesn’t fade in the slightest. 

“You want to work with primary students then?” You nod and he lets out a little sound of acknowledgment. “Well, Ms Kang, from what I’ve heard about you is that you’re exceptionally bright for your age.” 

“I’m not–” 

He cuts you off, “Ah, none of that.” Dr Kim extends a hand towards you, gesturing towards the bag on your shoulder. “You can just put that in my office and then come back out here. I’m excited to begin working with you.” 

You don’t think the flush on your face goes anywhere for the rest of the day. Dr Kim told the truth, for the first day you barely did anything except pass out materials and help him organize things, but it was plenty for you. Thankfully, none of the students seemed to be too interested in you, all focused on the material of the class. And you found yourself falling into the same trap. 

It was easy to understand why Dr Kim had the reputation he did, the way he spoke captured everyone effortlessly. You could tell he was intelligent and he was so well-spoken that he made even the most boring material seem interesting. The end of the teaching day was there before you could process it. 

Small talk was made between you and Dr Kim as you stood at the podium at the side of the room, collecting and sorting through lecture notes from the day as he sat at his desk, grading something that according to him was from the previous week. As you finish, you glance over at him, collecting the papers in your hands before walking back over to his desk. 

“All done,” you say quietly, setting the stack down on the corner of the furniture. Dr Kim looks briefly over at you as he nods his head once. 

“Thank you for helping me with that.”

You laugh a little, “It’s my job.”

He smiles, “I know it’s your job, but I wanted you to know that I appreciate you helping me with these things.” Dr Kim pauses for a moment before continuing. “Good job today, I’ll have you get more involved as the week goes on. Hopefully, by next week you’ll be ready to teach some of the lessons.”

“Sounds good,” you agree. A beat of silence.

“And… I want you to know that I’m here to help you if you need anything,” Dr Kim says and when he looks up at you, you have to push away the way your heart speeds up. “I want to know if you’re struggling, if you don’t understand something, if you have any worries.” The soft look in his eyes appears again, and you can tell this time–it’s true. “This can be a hard career to be in, for many reasons, and I want to be someone for you to lean on.”

You nod again, feeling your face warm up just a bit, and you hope he thinks it’s just the blush that you’d put on that morning. “Of course.” 

There’s a satisfied look on his face as he turns back to his monitor. “You can head home for the night, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Slightly dazed, you quickly retrieve your bag from his office before going to leave. 

“See you tomorrow, Dr Kim! Have a good night,” you call to him as you open the door to his classroom. 

“You too,” you hear him say. “And YN?” The use of your first name stuns you a bit, for more reasons than one, and you glance over your shoulder to look at him. 

“Yes?”

“Call me Jiwoong.” Suddenly, the students judging you was no longer your main concern. 

The rest of the week passes by in a blur, and you find yourself meeting those expectations that Jiwoong was hoping for. Students began letting you help them with things they didn’t understand, Jiwoong was letting you sit next to him and watch as he graded papers (no matter how boring it seemed), and you found yourself becoming comfortable. Any doubts you’d had about working with university students melted away because, not to jinx yourself, but it was surprisingly easy. Especially with Jiwoong helping you every step of the way.

You weren’t faring any better with his presence, every little compliment he gave you only made your cheeks warm as you would try to stifle a smile and avoid eye contact. Not that you would see the way he didn’t bother trying to hide how the corners of his lips rose. Because if you did, the small crush you had would only grow. You hated admitting it, but yes, it was a crush. A small, tiny, school-girl crush that you were positive at least half of Jiwoong’s female students had on him as well. It almost couldn’t be helped–he was so kind, he handled you with such ease, and he was so knowledgeable. 

There was one night when you’d stayed with him in his classroom as it grew dark outside, expressing your worries for your future. Maybe it was wrong to open up in the way you had to someone who was supposed to be your mentor, your superior, but you had anyway. There was just something about him that made you feel so comfortable, so safe. You trusted him easily, and you barely began to notice the way things were progressing. 

About two weeks after you’d begun student teaching, Jiwoong had messaged you late on a Saturday night. 

The text itself wasn’t anything that should’ve been suspicious or out of the ordinary, just an update on a task he wanted you to complete over the weekend, it was the time he’d sent it at. Almost one in the morning. Against your better judgment, you’d asked him why he was up so late.

Dr Kim, Student Teaching Program

Sometimes I lose track of time when I’m grading things.

Sorry if I woke you up.

His response comes quickly, and you roll over in your bed as you think of how to respond. 

No, it’s okay. I was up anyway

Dr Kim, Student Teaching Program

You should be sleeping.

The smile that fights its way onto your lips almost makes you forget that this man is five years your senior, and technically your teacher. 

Too many assignments that I don’t understand that need to be done by Monday.

Dr Kim, Student Teaching Program

Call me.

So you did, and for half an hour he did help you with the work you had been struggling through, but eventually, the topics began to change. What did you do that night? What did you have for dinner? What are you doing tomorrow? 

Jiwoong spoke to you like you were an old friend of his, and you hated the way it made you feel. It made you feel important to him, like he was telling you things he wasn’t sharing with anyone else and confiding in you. Even if it was just the type of wine he’d been drinking that night. The hours ticked on, and eventually, his voice grew just a bit husky, cluing you into how he was probably getting tired.

“I’m gonna take your advice and go to bed,” you say softly into the device, your phone lying next to your head on your pillow. 

The noise he makes almost sounds like a protest. “What? It’s only… almost four in the morning, jeez–” You laugh softly, feeling your eyes droop. A moment of silence passes between the two of you. “Stay on the phone with me. Please.”

Somewhere in your dazed mind, you know if you were more awake then you would probably be kicking your feet while your heart would beat wildly. “I don’t know…” you mumble, eyes closed now.

“No, please, YN. Just… I like talking with you.”

You sniffle softly, not completely processing his words as you think about how your allergies must be acting up again. “Okay,” you breathe, giving up easily. Jiwoong lets out a breath of relief from the other side of the phone. “‘M gonna go to sleep, though.”

There’s a hint of a smile in his voice as he speaks up again, “You can go to sleep, sweet girl, I’ll stay on the phone with you.” The nickname makes your breath hitch. It feels like those two little words have erased almost every boundary between the two of you, and you nod even though he can’t see you.

“Good night, Jiwoong.”

“Sweet dreams, sweet girl–” You drift off before you hear the rest of his sentence. 

The next morning, when you wake up, your phone is dead and you curse at yourself a little for forgetting to plug it in before you fell asleep. As you get up to brush your teeth and wash your face, you plug it in, and when you return, you notice the single message from Jiwoong from about an hour ago.

Dr Kim, Student Teaching Program

I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night. It won’t happen again. 

The words are sweet and they make you feel giddy as you unlock your phone.

Not at all! It was nice, my phone just died cause I didn’t have it plugged in :(

Was the frowny face professional? Absolutely not, but neither was falling asleep on the phone with the professor that you were currently studying under. And when he sends back a smiley face, you can’t help but let the thought of him possibly returning your small crush grow a bit. 

A little bit of worry creeps in as well as you think about the consequences that could come along with this, but you brush them off before you can consider it for too long. You trusted Jiwoong, he knew what was right and what was wrong. After all, you recall an hour-long conversation the two of you had had about his love for self-help books. If something went too far, he would stop it. 

Repeating that thought to yourself is what helps you pluck up enough courage to accept his request to call again that night. And the night after that after you had stayed till almost eight at night in his classroom with him. The two of you hadn’t even gotten any work done, opting for talking about anything and everything as he skimmed the same essay at least ten times. 

White noise from your ceiling fan fills your room as you stare at the blades, watching as they spin around and around while you listen to Jiwoong talk about some movie that is coming out soon that he wants to see. 

“Is this wrong?” you ask him abruptly when he finishes his sentence. On the other side of the line, he’s quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“For us to be on the phone like this…” you trail off as Jiwoong chuckles a little. 

“No. I’m making sure you’re getting the proper amount of sleep you need, remember?”

You scoff, smiling as you roll your eyes. “Cause you’re so boring.”

“You would not still be talking to me the way you do if I was boring.” There’s a double meaning to his words. You’re not dumb, you can tell, especially after working with Literature majors for what was nearing a month. 

“...You know what I mean.”

Jiwoong hums, “I do.” His effortless acknowledgment of the subject has you reeling. How could he be so casual about this? Like he couldn’t get in trouble if someone found out about the way you two had been interacting outside of the workplace? “It’s not wrong. We’re both adults.”

“But you’re technically my teacher…” 

You feel like you said the wrong thing as soon as the words leave your mouth. Like acknowledging it was making it all seem too real for him, and you hear Jiwoong sigh softly. “Not really.” 

You open your mouth to speak but before you do, Jiwoong continues. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with, and I know this situation isn’t… ideal. That is, if you feel the same way I do.”

It was like everything else was forgotten for you. Everything about how this shouldn’t be happening in the slightest, how either one of your careers could be ruined if someone ever found out about this leaving your mind because it was just you and Jiwoong now. Jiwoong. Not Dr Kim. 

Your heart is racing as you speak softly into the phone, “How do you feel?”

The way he doesn’t say anything at first tells you he’s thinking deeply. Probably considering how to word things without making things seem more taboo than they already were. For a moment, it’s almost like he’s there with you–you can see his dark brown irises and the thin curve of his upper lip, and you can smell one of the custom blends of cologne he loves creating so much. You close your eyes and listen to his breathing, pretending that he’s lying right next to you. 

“I like you. A lot,” he says plainly, the man that you know to be so poetic with his words suddenly gone. “You’re the highlight of my day, the person that I rely on to make everything better even though you don’t realize it. I want to see you all of the time, not just in the professional setting.” 

You don’t know what to say, don’t know what to think, your thoughts a muddled mess of everything you believed to be right and everything that you had deemed wrong. This didn’t feel real. You must’ve fallen asleep. You pinch your thigh softly as you continue staring at the back of your eyelids. There was no way this wasn’t a dream. 

“I keep picturing you across the table from me at a nice restaurant because a girl like you should be spoiled. I want to experience new things with you, I want to watch you achieve your dreams and grow as a person. I… I want to see you when I come home in my t-shirt with dinner ready, and I want to watch you fall asleep, and be there when you wake up–”

“Jiwoong,” you interject. “Come pick me up.”

When he arrives at your apartment, you don’t bother changing out of your pajamas as you lock the door behind you, rushing to the elevator and out into the parking lot. The air feels heavy with humidity as you spot Jiwoong’s car. Every shred of hesitance you have is gone, as you get into his car, breathing heavily as you make eye contact with him. It wasn’t just the temperature that was making you feel warm anymore, it was this feeling between the two of you as he put the car into drive and took you back to his place. 

You couldn’t even describe it. Tension wasn’t the right word because it felt like so much more than that. Like you had found the right place to fit your soul and it was being kept from you. Like you were the positive end of a magnet being pulled away from the negative side. You never thought you’d be able to feel so deeply for someone, but as Jiwoong’s hand slips into your own and he guides you into his apartment, the concept of loving someone more than yourself suddenly makes sense to you.

Regret is the last thing on your mind when your back hits the door and his lips are meeting yours. The rim of his glasses knocks against your nose a bit, but all you can feel is his hands gripping the skin of your waist. Jiwoong kisses you like he’s done it before, handling your body against his like you’re all he’s ever known. His tongue gently explores your mouth, his teeth biting down a little on your lower lip as he pulls away to rest his forehead on yours.

“Do you want this?”

You let out a deep breath, “Yes.”

He kisses you deeply again, and you taste the wine he must’ve been drinking before calling you. Jiwoong’s hands are careful as he pushes you back towards his bedroom, laying you back on his bed and the look in his eyes is one that you don’t want anyone else to see as he removes your shoes. 

They’re practically glowing as they trail back up to your face, his cheeks are the same color as rosebuds and his lips are swollen from the way he’d been working them against your mouth. Hesitantly, you reach up, fingers removing his glasses from his face. The action is almost domestic, as if it was something you’d done together countless times before. When he blinks softly, you can tell his vision is adjusting, probably a little fuzzy without the aid of his prescription. 

His pupils are blown and his lips are slightly parted and, yeah, you don’t want anyone else to see him like this.

Jiwoong lowers himself back over you, body already acting on instinct as he leans to kiss you again. The feeling of the minimal amounts of your skin on his, his scent filling your mind, his hands coming up to hold your face to him as he deepens the kiss has you clutching onto his glasses still in your hand pathetically. His tongue practically licks into your mouth and your heart races at the feelings coursing through you. 

“So good… You taste so good…”

“Jiwoong–” He wraps his arms around you, pulling you closer to him as his lips continue moving against yours. His taste takes over you as his tongue slowly flicks over your lower lip, gently requesting entry for an even deeper kiss.

“You’re so good. I can’t get enough of you. My sweet girl,” he says against your mouth, each syllable muffled by the gentle press of his tongue against yours as his hands slowly glide down your sides, softly tracing over your frame.

All of your rationale is consumed by desire as you press closer to him, his hands trailing down to your hips as he flips over, helping to maneuver you onto his lap. When you feel his fingers dip beneath the waistband of your sleep shorts and dig into your flesh over the thin fabric of your underwear.

“I tried, I tried so hard to resist you. But I can’t help it, YN, I want to enjoy you. Want to feel you.” Jiwoong’s voice is thick with need as he looks at you. 

You nod softly. You’ve never wanted anything so badly before. “Please,” you agree.

Jiwoong smiles as you speak. “Do you really want this?”

Trying to think clearly for a moment, you do your best to think of what this could result in. This wasn’t just going to be a one-time thing, you knew that, and you still had a few months left for your student-teaching. But you cared about Jiwoong. You cared about him and you knew that you could make this work. You weren’t dumb.

So, you nod a little again, “I’m sure.”

“Okay,” he breathes. “Promise to tell me if you want to stop?”

His nose bumps against yours as he speaks, arms encircling you tighter, his body slowly pushing up to you. Your hands find his face again as he leans back against the pillows by his headboard. “I promise.”

Your heart flutters when his hands slip under the bottom of your shirt. “I’ll be gentle, and I’ll stop whenever you want, I just want to hold you and– and feel you–”

He cuts himself off with a low groan, your hips subconsciously rolling down onto his. You’re glad for the thin layers of clothing you’re wearing as you watch his head tilt back. Jiwoong’s breathing quickens as he moves his fingers down your spine, body continuing to push closer to you and you can feel the outline of his dick through his sweatpants, his length pressing up into your clit easily. 

“You want me?”

Jiwoong responds instantly, bodies still moving gently against one another with an underlying need. “I want you. I want this, I want more–” He seems to regain a bit of his control as he lifts your shirt over your head, your skin bare beneath it and his fingers go up to flick at your nipples instantly. You jerk against him, the added sensations making your body move desperately to get more friction on your clit. 

“From the first time I saw you,” Jiwoong begins against your skin as he moves his lips from your cheek to your neck, teeth grazing your skin. “I knew you were going to drive me crazy because I couldn’t have you but– God, but you’ll let me have you anyway right?”

You moan weakly, feeling the wetness begin to build up in your panties, “Yes!”

One of his hands leaves your tit to go to your neck, tracing over a bite mark he’d left on the flesh. His voice has a hint of a tremble in it as his breathing becomes heavier, “I’ve never wanted anyone or anything more than I want you. I can’t resist you, can you feel it? Can you feel how much I want you?”

You can, you’re grinding down onto him and it must be painful–how much he wants you. 

“I want to hear you, sweet girl, I want to hear you moan, and cry out.” He pinches your nipple softly and you yelp, feeling that coil in your stomach begin to tighten. “I want to see you come undone.”

His hands push you further down in his lap as you let out a plea of his name, teetering right on the edge. It’s pathetic, honestly, he’s barely done anything and you’re still so close. But you’re so pent up from his teasing and his words and how beautiful he is. His smell, his words, how easy this all feels. 

“Don’t hold back, YN, it’s okay… I want you to feel good.” You grip at his shoulders desperately, eyes squeezing shut as your orgasm hits you suddenly. “There we go, baby, come for me. You’re doing so well.”

Jiwoong doesn’t give you a moment to breathe, moving you so you take his spot against the pillows while he removes his clothing. If you didn’t feel so dazed, you would be able to appreciate the sight of his bare torso more, the way the muscles ripple under his skin as he moves on to his sweatpants. When he’s just in his boxers, Jiwoong presses his lips to your neck again.

He continues to kiss and nibble against the skin, taking his time and enjoying you, just like he said he would. The thought makes your thighs press together, another wave of arousal already passing through you again. You press your face into his hair, breathing in his scent as his teeth meet your neck. Jiwoong lets out a soft, shuddering sigh as you press your nose into the strands, his hands going back to traveling over your bare torso, circling your nipples. 

“You’re mine?” His voice is thick with emotion, his words almost slurred as his mouth travels downwards to capture one of the buds in his mouth, suckling it softly and making you whine. You press a hand over your mouth, biting against it and muffling a moan as his hands move over your stomach and near the edge of your panties. He squeezes your hips, biting the bundle of nerves he has between his lips softly. 

“Don’t muffle it, baby, I want to hear you.”

Everything about this feels so intimate. Like you’ve never reached this level of connection with another person, and all you can do is continue thinking of him. Your thoughts simply being: Jiwoong, Jiwoong, Jiwoong.

He’s removing your shorts along with your panties, “That’s a good girl… I want to feel more, come on, sweet girl, are you okay? Do you want to go further? You’re doing so well.”

“Yes, I want more,” you respond instantly. You’d be a fool not to and your heart steadies when you glance down to see the smile on his lips. 

“You’re doing so well, my sweet girl, I’m so proud of you.” Jiwoong places one last kiss on your stomach before he leans up to kiss your lips again. Your head is swimming with desire, from being with him, from tasting his skin, from feeling him close to you like this. 

You suck in a deep breath when he parts from you. “You can keep going.” His fingers brush over your ribs as he holds your face again, mouth pressing firmly against yours, exploring every inch of you as your bodies meld together. Everything feels so warm and it’s getting hard to breathe, but you wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Please, Woongie, I want it–” The only thing separating your entrance from his cock is the material of his boxers, and you reach down to fumble with the waistband. Jiwoong chuckles softly, lips moving over your jaw. When you finally succeed in pushing them down enough to free his length, he slowly pulls back to look at you.

Jiwoong’s thumb runs over your lips at a speed that truly shows his control. “I want to be the only one who can make you feel like this.” You part your lips, taking the digit into your mouth. He lets out a low, soft moan as you swirl your tongue around his thumb, his eyes closing briefly before he opens them again. His gaze is the darkest you’ve ever seen it as he slides his finger out and away from your tongue. 

“I want to be closer to you,” he trails off as he pecks your shoulder, and you groan when you finally feel the thickness of his tip run through your folds a few times before it finally gets caught on your entrance. “I want to know everything about you, want to explore every inch of you, to feel every part of you… I want to know what makes you feel good, how you like to be touched… kissed, every sound you make when I make you feel good.”

His mouth kisses over the shell of your ear as he speaks, “You’re mine. I want you, I want you so badly.”

“I know– I trust you.” It’s the last thing you get out before he’s stretching you open. The thickness of him fills you perfectly, every movement from him making you want to forget taking a moment to adjust and let him fuck you. His mouth is right next to your ear and you can hear every little breath, every little strained whimper leave him as you clench around him, shaping yourself to the shape of his cock. 

Finally, after a moment of letting his hips sit against yours, enjoying the feeling of being connected, you whine. “Move, move, you can move–”

It doesn’t take him long to listen to you, thrusts beginning slow and deep as you cry out. His hands trail up and back down your side as he pushes into you at a pace that makes you want to sob from frustration. You feel your head spin as his mouth travels over your neck, lips pressed against your cheek before he kisses you again. 

He starts moving a bit more, thrusts sharp as he quickly finds that little mushy spot inside of you, rubbing against it again and again to the point where you’re feeling the tears well up in your eyes.

“I’d do anything to have you like this. Always.” You barely register his words, the sound of skin slapping and the wetness of your juices almost drowning them out. Weakly, your fingers curl into his sheets as his pace slows, hips rolling against yours. “I want to be closer to you– closer, I need to feel you more.”

“How–” you get out before Jiwoong’s pulling you up towards him, holding your body against his tightly as his dick gets even deeper inside of you. His movements are shallow, but it feels like he’s in your stomach, and your moans are getting more and more strained as your throat begins to feel raw. 

“Look,” he breathes, hand in your hair as he forces you to see where your bodies meet. The sight has you squeezing around him, the build-up already beginning in your lower abdomen again. Your poor clit looks so swollen as your walls stretch to swallow him with each of his movements, a ring of white settling at the base of his cock each time he fully enters you. “You’re so good for me.”

Your body continues pressing against his, and you cry out loudly, eyes squeezing shut. 

“S’good… Lift your head back up– I want… I want to be able to–” He stops mid-sentence, his movements beginning to speed back up as he grips you tighter. You try to listen to him, but you think that your muscles are spasming as his mouth meets yours in a messy, passionate kiss. You can feel his body shaking, and you know he’s getting close too.

Jiwoong’s hands release you, and you fall back to lay against the pillows again, lower back arching to try and find his touch again. “Can’t–”

“You can, sweet girl… It’s okay, my baby, be good for me,” he speaks slowly, his words heavy with lust. “Be a good girl– Do it for me.”

“Okay,” you cry a little. Another soft moan slips from Jiwoong’s lips as he tries to get as close as possible to you again, moving his mouth near your ear.

“I’m almost there– Can I… Do you want–”

“Yeah, inside,” you breathe, chest heavy with the labored movement of sucking in air. And it’s barely a few more seconds before your high hits you. The sensation is so strong that your vision goes black for a moment, missing the way that Jiwoong’s eyes lock onto your face, hearing his name spill from your throat as his hips push against yours one last time. His hands grip your waist and his mouth opens with a loud groan of your name as he comes, body shaking lightly as he continues to hold onto you. 

You feel warm as his body collapses, the weight comforting as the fuzziness from your orgasm begins to morph into exhaustion. You feel safe, like nothing could hurt you as he laughs shakily, kissing your cheek before he gets up to clean you up. You feel loved when he gets back in bed with you, cuddling you against him.

You don’t feel any regret at all when you wake up the next morning. 

Later that week, Jiwoong takes you out on a date. Well, you can’t call it a date. He calls it a “professional meeting” as a joke because nothing about it is professional at all. Not the expensive restaurant he takes you to or how he pays for your meal or how the conversation is much too friendly for a teacher assistant and the professor she’s studying under. Especially not the way he fingers you as he drives you back to your apartment.

The nightly calls continue and so does staying later in his classroom. Things feel like they’re progressing at the normal rate for a relationship. Things feel like a normal relationship and suddenly, a month has gone by. 

And you decide to bring it up.

“Are we dating?” you ask him one night, sat next to him at his desk per usual. You had just begun to grade small assignments from students on your own, Jiwoong checking over them once you were done, and he glances over your shoulder at the piece you’re working on. He doesn’t say anything. “Jiwoong.”

“I heard you,” he acknowledges before falling silent again.

Confusion enters your emotions as he continues working, completely ignoring your question. “So…” Suddenly, he groans, removing his glasses and rubbing over his face with one of his hands in a very dramatic fashion. You’re surprised at the reaction, to say the least, feeling your face scrunch up in the way he whined like a child. “What?” you press.

“YN, you know that’s not possible.”

You feel like you’ve been shocked. “So you’ll fuck me and take me out on dates but you won’t make me your girlfriend?”

“First of all, those aren’t dates–” You scoff, leaning back in your chair as you stare at him in disbelief. “And second of all, I’m technically your teacher– it just, a relationship wouldn’t work right now.”

You remember using those words towards him. You hate how he’s using them back towards you, it makes a weird feeling settle in your gut that you can’t really explain. What makes you feel worse is the way he slips his glasses back on and goes back to work like it was nothing. 

“What about after I graduate?”

“That’s a ways away.”

“Okay… well, I want a future with you and I want to know where things stand–”

“And I told you where they stand, so drop it.” His tone is sharp, a timbre he’s never used on you before. Usually, he was so gentle with you, and the rudeness in his voice is something you’re not used to, making you shrink back a little.

After breathing heavily for a moment you continue, “Fine.”

“Don’t get short with me.”

Maybe you’re being a little petty. “I’m not being short, Jiwoong, I’m agreeing with you.”

You go back to the paper you’re reading, gripping your pen tightly as you consider what needs to be fixed. Anger is an emotion that you’re not fond of, you hate the way you let it control you, and you try not to focus on the emotion as Jiwoong sits silently next to you. Things feel cold all of a sudden, like a wall had been put up between the two of you. 

“I’m sorry,” Jiwoong says abruptly, voice soft. You look back up at him to find him holding his hand out to you. Your eyes flick down to his outstretched hand, then back to his face. “Obviously I’ve never been in this situation before. I want to be careful with how we go about this, and I don’t want to date you privately–I want to show you off. It’s what you deserve.”

“It’s okay to have reservations, but I don’t want to waste my time if you can’t see this going anywhere,” you explain, voice matching his. Jiwoong nods in a way you think is supposed to show he understands you. 

“Let’s give it a bit more time, okay? There’s no need to rush into things,” he says. And then he smiles a little, and you hate the way it instantly comforts you. Fighting back your own smile, you bite your tongue, which he notices, and proceeds to smile wider. “I care about you, and you care about me. Isn’t that all that matters right now?”

Begrudgingly, you place your hand in his and his fingers wrap around it, squeezing softly, “I guess.” 

Against your better judgment, you stop fighting the smile. “Let me take you out tomorrow.” And you agree, because you think you’ve fallen in love with him. 

When you arrive at his classroom the next morning, Jiwoong’s speaking with another one of the girls in your program. From the way her hair flows behind her perfectly and her tall height, you know it’s Xiaoting. You haven’t spoken to the girl a lot, but you know she’s very intelligent, or else she wouldn’t be assisting at the same university as you. Quietly, you slip into Jiwoong’s office, setting your bag down while trying not to interrupt their conversation. You stay in the room as you try to watch them through the crack in the door, trying to not make it apparent that you were attempting to eavesdrop. But she’s not there for much longer, and the blush on her cheeks is telling enough, along with her smile as she nods farewell. 

That sinking feeling is back in your stomach again, and your heart feels heavy as you exit Jiwoong’s office, trying to look casual as the ugly feeling of jealousy grows within you. He greets you as usual, and you decide to take that as enough reassurance that everything is fine.

Everything is fine as the two of you joke throughout the day, as the two of you talk and work together. Everything is fine as he drives you back to your apartment, telling you he’ll pick you up at eight. Everything is fine as you get ready to go out and everything is fine as you sit on your couch, watching as the clock hits the time he’s supposed to meet you.

Maybe it’s traffic. Maybe he got held up with something else. You try to think of every possible scenario as you sit and wait, letting your mind run wild as you watch the hands of the clock hit nine. And then nine-thirty. When two hours pass you finally get up, trying not to cry as you go get ready for bed. 

He hadn’t forgotten. There was no way. He had told you when he was going to pick you up. So what had happened? You want those feelings from the previous days to come back: the anger, the jealousy, but instead all you feel is embarrassment. You feel bad for yourself, and saddened at the fact that the small action that hadn’t even been explained yet chipped away at your trust for the man. You go to bed that night with a heavy heart, a sensation that was slowly becoming familiar to you. 

The sound of your alarm is severely unwelcome the next morning. You lay in your bed for a bit, staring at your ceiling fan whirl around hypnotically. It’s easy to debate calling in sick, to want to lay in your bed for the rest of the day and to be dramatic over the fact that you had been stood up. You don’t want to see Jiwoong, but your curiosity gets the better of you. So, you go through the motions of your morning routine, make the drive to the university by yourself, and enter Jiwoong’s classroom to find him alone. You’re silent as you begin preparing the room for the day, even after he approaches you in the confines of his office and tries to give you a quick morning kiss. 

A rush of satisfaction goes through you when surprise reads on his face after you dodge his attempt, pushing past him lightly. “YN…”

You don’t respond to him, pretending that you didn’t hear him as you go back into the main section of the classroom. 

“YN,” Jiwoong calls again, following you. “Please, what’s wrong?”

Scoffing slightly, you turn to face him. “You really don’t know?”

The clueless expression he sports tells you enough and you press your lips together, nodding slightly. He’d always made you feel important and seen, and now you felt like the complete opposite. “I– wait, YN, I know. I’m sorry–”

“No, you don’t know!” you argue back. “Don’t act like you do, that makes it worse. Standing me up is bad enough, but you can’t even remember the fact that you did it? Do you know how embarrassing that is, Jiwoong?”

He shakes his head softly, trying to approach you again. When his hands try to hold onto yours, you rip them away from him, crossing your arms over your chest. 

“No, of course I remember, sweet girl, of course I do– and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. The last thing I want you to feel is embarrassment.” You sniffle softly as you listen to him, and this time, you don’t push him away when his hands go to hold your face. “Something came up, YN, and I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t.”

“I want to trust you, Jiwoong, but I can’t–”

“Please believe me, YN, please, I can’t lose you.” Your eyes search his irises for anything that might tell you he’s lying, but all you can see is fear. He might not be telling the truth about what had happened, but he was scared. Scared that you weren’t going to hear him out.

You suck in a deep breath, “What happened?”

“Some teachers decided they wanted to get together and I couldn’t tell them that I already had plans and I didn’t want them to see me texting you and I… I’m sorry, I know it looks bad, but sweet girl, I swear I didn’t do anything to betray your trust.” You weigh his words for a moment as you look at him. If that scenario was true, you could understand where he was coming from. Anyone finding out about this relationship would get you kicked out of the program and cause Jiwoong to probably lose his job. 

But that was the thing, you couldn’t tell if this scenario was true.

You wanted to believe him. After all, you loved him and you wanted to believe he would never do anything to hurt you. People always told you you were too forgiving, but you simply just put yourself in their shoes, trying to consider how they were feeling. This was just one mistake Jiwoong had made and when you thought about it, you knew he cared about you. He deserved a second chance.

“Fine.” His entire body relaxes instantly as he lets out a deep breath, pulling you into a tight hug. You feel his nose bury into your hair, inhaling deeply. “But don’t let it happen again. At least text me. Please.”

“It won’t happen again, my sweet girl, I swear.” 

His lips press against your hair as he repeats that sentence over and over. And you believe him. 

Jiwoong lives up to the promise. He showers you with his affections after that morning, getting you little gifts and taking you out more often. His words are sweet and sound like they could come from Shakespeare himself when he tells you he loves you. Buzzing with excitement and giddiness, you had told him you loved him too. But the thought of you still not being official with him was still planted in the back of your mind. You knew the reasoning, but that didn’t make you feel any better, even as you laid on his chest in his apartment while wearing his shirt. 

It became customary for you to spend nights at his apartment after you both said the ‘L-word’. All you wanted to do was see him and to be with him constantly, it didn’t matter what you both were doing. And it seemed like the feeling was returned from him. Jiwoong bought things according to your preferences now and you had a toothbrush that sat next to his. With him, you felt safe, and as time passed, you felt more and more needed by him. 

With the weekend finally arriving about three weeks after he stood you up, you had packed a bag, as usual, to go to Jiwoong’s for the weekend. Originally, you had told him you were going to stay back at your apartment and study that night, but as the night went on you missed him more and more. So you’d figured you’d surprise him. Was it crossing a boundary? You couldn’t tell, but you thought that he’d at least be okay with saying hi considering you might as well be his girlfriend at this point. And especially since he loved you. 

Standing in front of his apartment door, you knock softly on the wood, forgoing the spare key so you at least wouldn’t barge in and scare him. For a moment nothing happens. You count to ten slowly before knocking again. In his apartment, you hear movement, before there’s the sound of the lock and Jiwoong’s peeking his head out into the hallway. 

Your face lights up instantly at the sight of him, hair wet and face flushed. “Hi.”

“YN…” His smile looks forced as he keeps the door mostly shut. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were staying at yours this weekend?”

You take a step closer to the door, waiting for him to let you inside. “Well, I was, and then I was missing you, and I was hoping that you’d let me spend the night, but if not that’s totally fine–”

“No, no, of course, it’s alright, sweet girl, just give me a second to go put some clothes on.”

You think you see a flash of red hair as Jiwoong moves away from the door, closing it behind him quickly. Awkwardly, you stand in the hallway for another five minutes, playing with the strap of your bag as you glance up at the door every now and then. You play up the red hair you thought you saw to your imagination. And from how tired you were. Because who else would be in Jiwoong’s apartment this late at night?

When the door finally opens again, Jiwoong opens it fully, and to your relief, it’s just him. Him in a gray sweater and some pajama pants. He reaches for you, wrapping an arm around you as he kisses your hair. “You tired, sweet girl? It’s pretty late.”

You furrow your eyebrows as he closes the door behind you both. “I guess I could sleep… I was kind of hoping to spend some time with you though–”

“If you’re tired you should go to sleep.”

You laugh a little at the statement, following Jiwoong to his bedroom and dropping your bag on his floor. “Yeah…”

He goes over to his bed, pulling the covers back and motioning for you to crawl in. So you do, cuddling up to his chest like you usually do as he turns on the TV for background noise. For a while, it’s just the two of you talking about whatever, like you usually do, and slowly the tiredness does begin to set in, your eyes drooping as you listen to him ramble on. The soft sound of his voice always does wonders to calm you– a small bump from inside his closet rips that sense away immediately.

“What was that?” you ask, slightly scared. 

Jiwoong laughs, pulling you back down to lay on him. “Probably just some shoe boxes that fell over. I’m going through my clothes right now… Why? D’you think it’s a ghost.” 

Weakly, you hit his chest, “Very funny.” He chuckles softly once more, grabbing your hand to hold it against him. The lull of his heartbeat gets you to settle back down. Your eyes stay on the screen of the TV as he reaches over to shut off the bedside lamp, casting the room into darkness except for the blue glow from the device in front of his bed.

“I actually have a question for you,” Jiwoong says as you begin to drift off. 

“Hmm?”

He pauses, and you know in typical Jiwoong fashion he’s thinking of how to phrase something. “If you’re okay with it… Would you like to officially be my girlfriend?” 

The grin finds its way onto your lips easily, and you glance up to look at him. He’s also smiling. 

“For real?”

“For real,” he repeats back to you, voice slightly mocking.

You laugh, a sleepy yet loving feeling taking over your heart. “Of course, I’ll be your girlfriend.” Jiwoong leans down, kissing you softly, and you bask in the sensation of his lips on yours, tongue pressing against yours in a way that somehow feels fond. 

He pulls away, resting his cheek on your head, “I love you.”

As you fall asleep, those are the last words you hear, and you quietly repeat them back to him before slipping into unconsciousness. That night, you dream of Jiwoong going back to the entrance of his apartment, hearing him say goodbye to a woman with red hair. When you wake up, he’s still lying right next to you.

You feel so unbelievably happy as the two of you spend the rest of the weekend together and as you both get ready for the day when Monday rolls around. Jiwoong makes breakfast which you happily eat, only for you both to brush your teeth together and for him to sit and watch as you fix your makeup and hair before he drives you both to the university. You feel like you’re floating, like nothing could bring you down as you drop your things off in his office and as he kisses your cheek while you go off to one of the bathrooms. 

In the girl’s bathroom is Xiaoting, standing in front of the mirror doing her makeup that she honestly doesn’t need in the slightest. You smile at her briefly, her returning it before you use the toilet and go back to the sink to wash your hands.

She flicks her hair over her shoulder, “Are my eye bags gone?” You glance at her face in the mirror, her skin practically flawless. 

“I don’t think they were there to begin with.” The two of you laugh a little as you go to dry your hands.

“Well. I had a long weekend, so I was just double-checking.”

Going back to standing next to her, you watch as she fluffs her eyelashes with one of her fingers. “Was it at least a good weekend? Something about you looks different.”

“Ah, I got my hair done. Red’s cute, but I wanted to go darker for a little.”

You hate the paranoia that shoots through you at the mention of red hair, reminding yourself to trust your boyfriend as you maintain your smile at the older girl, “It’s pretty on you.”

“Thank you,” Xiaoting says sweetly, expression warm. “But, yeah, I had a good weekend. You?”

Subconsciously, your smile becomes a true one. “Um, yeah, the guy I’ve been talking to for a while asked me to be his girlfriend.” Xiaoting lets out a cute gasp that makes you laugh a little.

“Oh, that’s so exciting, happy for you.” She pulls out a lip liner, removing the cap before lifting the product to her lips. “Me, personally, I am taking a break from relationships right now…” she trails off, focusing on her makeup. 

You hum softly in acknowledgment, “I thought you were seeing someone though? That’s what Sieun said.”

Xiaoting smirks a little, putting her lip liner away. “Ok, so, don’t tell anyone but I’ve actually been hooking up with one of the professors here.”

“Oh– wow,” you giggle, slightly stunned as Xiaoting nods.

“It’s nothing serious. I think he’s seeing another girl or something, but like– he’s hot and the dick is good so I can’t complain.”

Very girl’s girl of you, you think bitterly, but you can’t blame her. After all, she’s not the only one in a relationship with one of the professors here. “Can I ask who?”

The look she gives you has your stomach turning in a way that makes you almost feel nauseous, “Actually, it’s Dr Kim–”

You don’t hear the rest of the words she says. Everything feels like it goes silent as panic flares up in your chest. Not anger, not sadness, just pure panic because–what did this mean? You think that your hands are trembling as you nod robotically along to her words, cheeks hurting from the way your lips are uncomfortably turned upwards. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening, Jiwoong wouldn’t do this, there was no way. He wouldn’t betray your trust like that. No, Xiaoting was lying, she had to be because Jiwoong loved you.

“YN?” Her voice does little to break you from your thoughts, the shakiness of your panic and nerves still evident as you clasp your hands together.

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna get sick.”

“Ah…” You felt like you were going to be sick. You didn’t want to think about this anymore, but everything was starting to make sense: that night he stood you up, the red hair. Had he made you his girlfriend as a distraction? Is that what he was trying to do? You needed to go home. You had to get out of here, you didn’t care about figuring out if the girl next to you was lying or not, you just needed to get out. “I’m… yeah, I’m gonna go home.”

You don’t say anything else to her as you exit the bathroom, everything passing by in a blur as you rush out of the school. Unsure of where you’re even going, you start walking in the direction of the way you think leads to your apartment. You don’t really care though, because that’s when the tears begin to well up.

What had you done? Did you do something? Were you not good enough for him? Was your love not good enough for him? Sucking in small, shallow breaths while trying to calm yourself down, you can’t find it in yourself to care about the rest of the world as people on the sidewalk pass you, looking at you like they were scared of you. Tears slip down your face as you continue walking for an amount of time that you’re not even sure of. You feel your phone vibrating in your pocket, but you leave it there because you know who it is and you can’t talk to him. You can’t hear his voice because you know it’ll make everything seem fine again and it wasn’t.

There were small signs. You can’t believe you were dumb enough to ignore them. 

You don��t know what time it is when you reach your apartment complex, but when you ride the elevator up to your floor and stand in front of your door, you realize that your keys are in your bag. And your bag is in Jiwoong’s office. It’s like that’s the final straw, and you're sobbing as you struggle with the doorknob. Nothing was fair. Eventually, you pick yourself up enough to go back down to the receptionist to ask for the spare key and she must feel the right amount of pity for you to give you the key without question. 

Being in your apartment is a comfort you haven’t felt in a while. Partly because you can lay in your bed for the rest of the day and partly because there’s nothing that reminds you of Jiwoong here. It was always you going to his apartment. The apartment he took all of his girls to. 

You don’t bother with checking your phone for the rest of the night, not caring about the way its vibrations have begun to slow down or how it rings before you put it on silent mode and leave it on your kitchen counter. Instead, you use your laptop to email the head of the program that you had left early that day because you were feeling sick, not having time to tell anyone else. You don’t care if she doesn’t believe you, you just want to lay in bed and feel sorry for yourself. 

You fall asleep early that night, body exhausted from the amount of crying you’ve done and now numb to the hurt you feel. What pulls you from your dreamless sleep though, is the loud knocking on your apartment door. Sluggishly, you pull yourself out of bed when the knocking doesn’t stop after a while, looking through the peephole to find the one person you didn’t want to see. But that doesn’t stop you from cracking the door open a bit, and you suddenly get deja vu from the previous weekend. 

“YN–”

“What do you want,” your voice is flat as you watch Jiwoong try to reach for the door. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you feel the first flames of anger begin to ignite. He didn’t have anything to say? He wanted to act dumb? “What do you want, Jiwoong?”

“Please, you just need to hear me out–”

“Hear what out? When did you start sleeping with her?” He doesn’t even try to deny anything, knowing he’s been caught and the thought makes you want to scream in frustration and pull at your hair. “When?” you repeat angrily.

Jiwoong sucks in a small breath as he runs his hand through his hair, “YN, you have to understand, Xiaoting doesn’t mean anything to me–”

“Clearly neither do I!”

“YN–”

“When, Jiwoong.”

He hesitates before speaking, “A week after you and I had sex for the first time.” He looks ashamed. You never thought you’d see a man like him look like a kicked puppy, but that’s what he did look like, and the sight didn’t even satisfy you in the slightest.

“I trusted you–”

“You still can–”

You push the door open, revealing the full sight of him. “Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Let me talk, not you.” 

Instantly, he nods, complying with your wishes. Trying to control your frustration, you breathe slowly. “I trusted you, considering everything. I gave you multiple chances, and you still did this, and honestly? I don’t even care why.” That’s a lie, you do care, you care a lot. You don’t want to cry, but all of the emotions are too much, and as you speak you feel the tears begin to fall down your cheeks. 

“I don’t want to see you again. I’m going to transfer to a different assisting job, and I don’t want you to ever try to contact me again.”

Jiwoong’s gaze hardens, and suddenly, the man who looked so sorry just a few moments ago looks scary. His eyes look dead, mouth sat in a firm line as he stares down at you, rising to his full height. 

“You don’t want to do that, YN, really.”

“Don’t threaten me, I’ll call the police,” you warn, not backing down despite the feeling in your stomach that’s telling you to slam the door in his face. “I want my bags back. For all I care, you can give them to Xiaoting and have her bring me them.”

His chuckle has a wary shiver running down your spine. “Don’t leave me, sweet girl, it won’t end well for you.” 

When you look in his eyes, you don’t find any of the Jiwoong you used to know. Nothing of the Jiwoong you’re in love with and your heart somehow breaks even more. “Good night, Dr Kim.” You close the door, ignoring how angry he sounds on the other side of it as you lock it behind you, going back to your bedroom before letting the rest of your tears out into the sheets. 

Peace is hard to find, you conclude as you take the next two days off from your student teaching, staying away from all and any forms of social media as you tried to heal as much as you could in such a short amount of time. You still loved Jiwoong, there was no way feelings as strong as the love you had for him would go away in two short days. The thought of it made you angry, but ultimately, you just wanted to ignore anything to do with the man for as long as you could. So on that third day, you had opened your laptop to request a change in who you were studying under.

You weren’t sure if that was even possible, changing your assignment, and you weren’t sure of what excuse you could come up with, but you figured you’d think of something. 

“What…” you say softly to yourself at the email from your program already sitting in the inbox. 

As your eyes skim over the first few words, your heart falls to your stomach. 

“No, no, no,” you repeat softly to yourself, desperately clicking on the box frantically, trying to convince yourself that you were just having a horrible dream.

…Due to inappropriate advances made towards staff, you have been removed from this program… Your life is ruined in one email. In six words. You don’t feel anything and all you can think of is: How did this happen? But deep down, you know, and as the first sob leaves your throat, you hear his voice in the back of your head: “You don’t want to do that, YN, really.”

The air was humid as you entered the small bookstore, the heavy feeling in the atmosphere cluing you into the warm summer’s rain that was on its way. You fix your bag over your shoulder as the smell of paper and coffee fills your nose, a sense of safety grounding you as you look around the small space. Few customers are there, considering you weren’t working the busy hours that day, just from dinner time till closing. 

“Hi Ms Park,” you greet the owner behind the checkout counter softly, and the old lady smiles at you as you pass behind her to hang your things up before you begin your shift.

Life was hard after you were expelled from your education program. You had been left to try and figure out where to go from there. Thankfully, you were able to find another program that would accept you. It was through a smaller school, and you would always have that expulsion on your record, but after a hard month, you could finally see your life getting back on track. And you were working in your favorite bookstore during the meantime, trying to save up money for your future. 

You adjust the nametag on your top before going back out, asking Ms Park what she wanted you to do first and she was quick to direct you towards a cart of new material, kindly telling you to shelf the books. Doing work like this was good for you, you had concluded. The monotonous actions that you repeated over and over again silenced your mind, pushing those thoughts away that would try to creep into your still-healing mind. And heart. 

Hours pass as you continue working, completing little tasks that the sweet owner asks of you, and as you tidy up one of the back corners, you hear her voice. “YN?”

“Mhm?” you hum, glancing at the mess you still needed to finish picking up as you turn around. 

You think your heart stops when you see him standing next to your frail-looking boss. You feel yourself freeze, the fear that even just the mention of his name causes you magnifying by the thousands. When you catch yourself, you do your best to snap out of it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing you so timid. 

“Jiwoong’s looking for something? Would you mind helping him find it?”

You grit your teeth a little, “Of course, Ms Park.” The old lady smiles as she looks up at Jiwoong, patting his arm softly before leaving you alone with him. 

You do nothing except stare at him for a moment, not convinced that this was really happening. 

“It’s good to see you.” You don’t say anything. Jiwoong smirks as he steps closer to you, head tilting to the side. “I don’t think you’re supposed to give customers the silent treatment.”

Pushing down your anger, you do your best to keep your face expressionless. “What can I help you with?”

The sight of his smile makes you resist the urge to hit him. “When do you get off?”

“What can I help you find?” you try again, shifting back a little as he moves forward again.

“You know… I’ve been going to this bookstore for a long time, and only recently did they move the poetry section.” You swallow harshly. “Care taking me there?”

Shakily, you lift your hand to point in the direction of the genre he was speaking about, “Head in that direction and they’re behind the shelf and to the right.”

“Mmm, you should come with me.” You don’t say anything, avoiding his gaze. His light touch on your chin makes you flinch softly and he coos a little. “Don’t be scared, sweet girl, I wouldn’t hurt you. But if you need another lesson, I’d be more than happy to give it to you.”

“Don’t–”

“I heard you’re entering a new program? One of my friends works at the place you’re going to.”

The combination of fear with the distant mix of love is something you thought never would’ve been possible. But even after everything he’s done, after the time you’ve spent away from him, you can’t ignore the love you’d once felt towards him.

Jiwoong smiles softly, “Come to dinner with me tonight.”

“No,” you reject softly and his grip on your chin tightens slightly.

“Come on, YN, I apologized for the whole Xiaoting mishap, didn’t I? I would hate to have a talk with your new program coordinator about… the things you’ve done. After all of the time I’ve given you to think about things too.”

You feel humiliated as your cheeks warm. Despite it just being the two of you in the back corner of the store, you feel like there are so many eyes on you. Most of all, you feel ashamed over the little flicker of excitement in your heart at the thought of seeing him like that again. Intimate. On a date. With you.

Your throat feels swollen as you nod slightly. 

“Ah, there’s my girl,” Jiwoong says, and the happy tone of his voice is something that would’ve tricked you in the past. You don’t know what he’s doing. You don’t know why he’s still holding onto you like this. “I’ve missed you, my sweet girl. I knew you weren’t dumb enough to make the same mistake of leaving me again.”

Jiwoong’s hand runs over your hair, “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

But you feel dumb as you silently agree with him, falling back into his trap and sealing your fate as he grins.

[studentbyday]

week 3: let's get this bread! (famous last words...)

Omg I can't believe it's only week 3, sm has happened, I swear more time has gone by than actually has 😅😮‍💨🙃 Starting this week feeling a little discouraged because I still have a backlog of schoolwork to catch up on, but let's see if I can get my hopes up again by the end of this week! 🙏🏻🤞🏻If I want to achieve my goals, I need to drastically reduce my screen time. Here's to only using my phone for essential communications and for music, guided meditations, and pilates/yoga videos this week! 😤

mid-week update: this week has been a f*cking mess. mentally, emotionally, physically, existentially. i have not touched the db course so far which was my main goal for this week...every week i'm trying to add something new. i had my reservations about keeping on my original plan for this week, knowing i ended the last one still behind on school, but i went ahead with it, wondering, hoping if it was at all possible. well. we'll see where i'm at by the end of this week. at the very least i'll be closer to caught up.

end-of-week update: posting this early so i don't have to on sunday. i'm making progress but it's still slower than expected. insomnia is a problem. my nerves feel pretty frayed. must find ways to decrease the stimulation. time to reinstate the no-phone mornings (probs should add to my “bingo”) and a social media detox... not sure if i'll have time to post again next week. i find it hard to keep up. i'll probably come back if/when i get things under control...so bye for now (and i sincerely hope your semester is going better than mine 💗) 👋🏻

Academics:

Check and send pathology assignment!!!! ✅

Confirm immunology discussion due date!! ✅

Watch documentary on Wangari Maathai ✅ (glad i did this first thing on monday after sending the path assignment because it was really inspiring and lifted my spirits enough to keep going 💗)

Meet for pathology assignment ✅ (2 members in my group are like...really high-energy and gung-ho. i'm glad cuz that means it's a lighter load for me but woah was that overwhelming at first 😅 and the thing is...these guys aren't the first i've encountered like this. and i'm low-key jealous of them... they're the kind of people who give off the aura of “i'm capable of doing it all” because they're that driven...and based on what i've seen of them, i don't think they're faking it.)

Read all assignment descriptions for global health before you... ✅

Email chosen essay topic to TA by Thursday ✅

Finish M1 pathology by Wednesday ✅

Complete pathology M1 case questions

Finish half of M2 pathology by Sunday

Start pathology M2 case questions

Finish half of M2 global health by Friday ✅

Finish half of M3 immunology by Sunday

Finish M2 microbiology ~ (made some progress but not finished)

Start M3 microbiology

Participate in global health meeting ✅ (wasn't bad but also...not sure when this happened but i've gotten quite nervous speaking up in class and then in my overstimulation, forget some of what i had intended to say, ughhh just gotta keep practicing...)

Complete immunology discussion ✅

Send other pathology assignment ✅

Complete global health discussion ✅

Health:

Meditate x1

Journal x3

Yoga x2

Cardio x1

Pilates x1 (the first time i made it through a 30 min class in one sitting whooooo!!!!!)

Other life things:

Change bedding

Laundry

Music in My Head:

andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante

study music // 1 // 2 // 3

a strange playlist for strange people

piano trio no. 4 in e minor, op. 90, b. 166, “dumky”: i. lento maestoso / ii. poco adagio

pavane op. 50

Things I'm looking forward to:

end of the semester

the height of autumn

christmas

My not-bingo bingo (thinking I'll recycle this every month lol):

[landinrris]

Sitting down for the first time since Monday night to proof this fic 🫠😭

[nocofamilyau]

I sure hope Hijotee is doing well wherever they may be... (21/24)

[hella1975]

i passed all my exams

[bumblingbabooshka]

Young Teacher Tuvok Patreon | Ko-fi

[paperbag1999]

i’m someone who sees things in like constant shades of grey and i quite often try to see the light side of things and i think i’m constantly reminded of all the great stuff i have in my life. also i am full of gratitude all the time and also every time something bad happens to me i’m like yknow what this makes sense🫶 all these bad things suck but they lead to so many amazing things i’m hyper aware of the butterfly effect. so uhm i’m a pretty resilient person if i do say so myself. so today when i came to the realization of OH. i’m having a BAD YEAR!

[handweavers]

idk if it helps at all but seeing your journey w uni has been really comforting in a weird way. even people who talk abt finishing it later always seem to mean it as “you took a gap year” lmao. i dropped out of my first course in 2021, didn’t go last year, was going to go this year but that doesn’t look like it’s happening. maybe i’ll go in 2024, maybe i won’t. but, it’s nice to know i’m not alone. and i really appreciate you being so open about it even though it can be such a miserable, isolating experience

love u ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[batemanofficial]

i'll have all my DOUBTERS know that i got up at 11 this morning and studied for my econ exam 😌

[quicksilversquared]

The semester hasn't even started yet and I already know that the second week is absolutely going to flatten me because not only do I have the two lab sections I TA and also my two classes that I'm taking, I also will be taking over another lab section that week because the usual TA has either an appointment or a committee meeting then, will (more than likely) be jumping in as an assistant on two more (three-hour) labs, and need to have a committee meeting sometime between all of that.

also I'm in the middle of being trained in on lab stuff, so I'm pretty sure that any time not spent either teaching, assisting, or studenting will be spent trying to get the rest of my samples through.

[siena-sevenwits]

:-)

[polygondotcomvideoproducer]

Uni lecture is making me think about my future for a minute and auuuggghhhh the agonies

[theduchessofnaxos]

This paper is actually going quite well.

Too bad it's complete bullshit.

[drysauce]

how do i say wyjebałem się na ostatniej prostej in english