WAVES

             ( EMOTICON MEME: ACCEPTING! )

they’re in her bed with her pastel pink sheets entangled around them, everything bathed in the warm, yellow luminescence of her bedside lamp and their shadows large and looming on her dorm room wall. bitna is sitting with her knees to her chest, sheets pulled up to hide her torso and her long waves of hair covering her bare back. she’s trying to craft poor shadow mimicries of animals on the wall with her fingers ( “does that look like a duck to you, minjae?” ) and minjae is watching her, elbow propped up on her pillow, silent and pensive as always.

she’s in the middle of attempting a very complicated shadow bear when bitna feels the brush of minjae’s fingertips on her back. she shivers from the contact and shifts her body over to give him a quizzical smile from over her shoulder; he responds by taking the ends of her hair and brushing it aside. “wanna learn how to braid it?” she says after a prolonged period of silence; minjae shrugs in response, pushing himself upward and positioning himself behind her.

for a long time, it is just bitna’s voice softly uttering directives and minjae’s hands not quite following her orders; all his fingers seem to be doing is making their way through her hair and leaving ghostly imprints on her back. bitna tries hard to ignore the way her heart beats faster every time minjae’s hands ‘accidentally’ land on the sensitive parts of her neck, or how good it feels when he tugs softly on her hair to play with it – tries to uphold ignorance on how affected she is by his ministrations by laughing at his lack of skills ( “you’re honestly the worst, minjae!” ) or babbling nonsensically. eventually, though, bitna falls silent, chest rising and falling quicker than normal and her cheeks flushed with feeling. 

she should’ve chosen truth. because then, at least, bitna could’ve lied about anything, and her mates wouldn’t have had a clue ( they weren’t any of the people that she regularly hung out with, anyway ). but no; she was dumb, had downed two vodka shots, and thought it would be a good idea to pick dare. and goddamn it, byeon bitna would go through with her friend’s awful idea, because she is byeon bitna and she never goes back on her word. another burning shot later and she departs from their gaggle of friends, feeling their eyes stabbing into her back as she shuffles resignedly over to amber’s bar. she slides smoothly between the loitering bodies of clubgoers to position herself right in front of the nice, handsome bartender wiping some freshly-cleaned glasses. nice bartender boy gives her a bright, polite smile, and -- oh god she is going to kill the motherfucker who told her to do this. “no, i- i wasn’t going to ask you for a drink,” she stammers out to quell his questioning gaze, “i, um...”

what was she supposed to say again? some sort of line, right?

“i’m jealous of your shirt!” bitna nearly yelps at him -- yes, bitna, so smooth. she tries to make up for it with an attempt at a sultry smile, but honestly she’s not that good. what was the punch line again? oh, yeah. “because it’s touching your body, and i’m not.”

                                MOODBOARD 1% / FT. @BNMINJAE

bitna’s going to admit: there are many, many nights of the week that she cannot completely remember. but everyone always commends her on her very upright, vivacious, and all-around enticingly vibrant drunk persona; she’s usually never one to be a source of trouble, or embarrassment, and always the one who brings all the fun and excitement. except, it seems, for last night, of which she, as usual, remembers spottily, but even bitna knows that her escapades were inexcusable. she thinks she got into some sort of scuffle, got carried away by her favorite bouncer to somewhere, and also spilled her heart and soul to some random girl about the tragedy that was her love life.

yeah, last night: not the best portrayal of herself. which she’s at amber again tonight -- sober, thanks very much -- intending to apologize fully to the bouncer for her rowdiness, because really, minsoo-oppa didn’t deserve her sloppiness last night. she spots him loitering outside the door and barrels right up to him, stopping just before collision to bow deeply and apologize frantically for her drunken self. “it isn’t really me you should be saying this to, bitna. it’s eunsu you gotta talk to.”

she hears the cheery wind chime of the doorbell from beneath the countertop, so with some haste and even more clumsiness, bitna scrambles from underneath the register to greet her unknown customer with a bright ‘hello!’. “welcome to the book-- oh,” her effervescent greeting sputters to an abrupt death on her lips, the grin on her face dies with it. and who can blame bitna for the way her throat dries up and her stomach drops uncomfortably at the sight of actual demon succubus kim danbi entering the sanctuary that is her own workplace -- and she had been having such an enjoyable day, too. “hi, danbi,” she tries to inject some of her regular cheer into her voice, but it falls flat -- just like how her hair probably is, compared to danbi’s constant voluminous locks.

( she’s not jealous, she’s just -- having a bad hair day. )

“no!” bitna had just barely made it underneath the bus stop’s awning before the first raindrops had hit. the torrent was immediate, and it was strong, gargantuan droplets of fierce, angry rain pounding on the plastic roof without a shred of mercy. even bitna, as safely tucked into the awning as she was, was not fortunate enough to escape a few stray splashes that the wind directed her way, the water staining her jeans and muddying her already-dirty white sneakers. the syllable leaves her lips with a sigh of despondence; it looks like she’s going to be here a while. normally, she wouldn’t mind roughing it out in the rain -- even a monsoon like this one -- to her dorm building, but today she’d brought her laptop along and finished her final project for her graduate-level film production class; she was not going to risk having to start all over and disappointing her professor (who she’d been constantly amazing with her prowess despite being  only in undergrad) because she’d falsely believed that her flimsy purse could protect her laptop.

she’d almost parted ways with ‘tobi’ without hearing this golden nugget of information; bitna had raised her hand to predate a large, grateful wave goodbye when her dealer had spilled a valuable token of information. ‘i don’t really know why you’re buying the regular shit when daehan got the good stuff off of me earlier today.’ bitna had stitched together a poorly fabricated excuse as to her unknowing faux pas and quickly removed herself, rushing back to her dorm with only one goal in mind: to tackle kang daehan to the dirt for his crimes against her.

she slams her bedroom door shut, throws her bag to the ground, and whips out her phone to hastily text the object of her (dis)affection.

sms – king daehan ♡:

hey asshole

tobi spilled the beans

YOU GOT THE GOOD SHIT WITHOUT ME?!?

I’M SO OFFENDED

I’M COMING OVER, DON’T MOVE, DON’T BREATHE

WHEN DID YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME ON MY PHONE

amber’s bouncers aren’t even phased anymore when she rolls up in this week’s fan merch glory -- they just give her a rating out of ten on if they’d buy it or not (and today it's a nine!) and let her slide right on by. she’s the only one of their little fanclub that has the guts to proudly enter the club wearing a homemade merch t-shirt; and, probably, the only one who can actually manage to pull it off anyway (some of them are truly horrendous creations). her and her fellow fans have spent the last few weeks concocting various slogans and designs for sellable fan goods, and finally, bitna feels like this is it -- this is the one that’s going to get the approval from the almighty byungho.

it’s the only convenience store within a reasonable walking distance that sells the particular canned coffee that bitna likes best, so she’s here a lot. strangely enough, though, she does not seem to be the only one of her kind -- in fact, every single time she comes to this store she sees, without fail, the same exact person sitting on one of the bar stools by the counter munching lackadaisically on his instant ramen like he’s got all the time in the world. bitna had, at first, not thought much of him -- he was tall, reasonably cute in her eyes, but also it was a convenience store and she never looked ten out of ten going to a convenience store, so she had never thought to say hi.

but after a while, bitna’s picked up a couple of things. first, the perpetually worn-out state of his clothing (she’d thought the ripped jeans thing was just him joining the fad but come on, every single time? it had to be something more); second, the fact that he always seemed a little bit unruly; and thirdly, there was always dirt on some part of his body. she ponders this scenario -- the enigma that is mysterious cute bar stool guy -- until, one day in a flash of knowing, she figures it out.

he’s homeless. that explains everything!