soft hours; vanilla twilight

“Horrible?” He said, leaning forward. “You’re like obsessed with him?”

“Okay,” I rolled my eyes. “Obsessed isn’t the word.”

“You write thirst poems about him.”

“Shut—” I glared, “they’re not necessarily about him! Just inspired by him. I’m not delusional, it’s not like I’m writing out my daydreams—he’s just—just a muse.”

“A muse,” he mused.

“Yes.”  

“But you agree that they’re thirst poems?”

“Just this one, and the prompt was ‘infatuation’ get over yourself.” I rolled my eyes, looking Doyoung up and down from his neatly combed hair to his converse sneakers. “Your shoes are untied.”

He kicked his feet underneath the graffiti-fied desk, looking under. “No they’re not.” Gottem. The boy blew air from his cheeks, exposing his bunny-like front teeth and sweaty forehead. His bangs fell down and stuck to the beads annoyingly. “You’re awful. I take it back, I’m not helping you no matter how much you ask.”

“Luckily, I’m not gonna,” I clicked my tongue, mouth dry. “But your hoodie string is uneven and it’s bothering me. Don’t look at me like that—I’m telling the truth this time! Fix it.”

Doyoung sighed, pulling at his hoodie string. “Where are the other kidos?”

“Dunno. Did you check the group chat?” I said.

"One person said they were at their second cousin's funeral, the other two said they had to celebrate their 100 days, and Renjun just slept in."

The first one was definitely a lie.

"Of course he did. I could never double major, especially in astrophysics—and what did he have yesterday? A 9pm lab class?"

Doyoung grimaced. “Horrible.”

“What was the point in coming to class if everyone was going to make excuses not to?” I slumped on the desk, running my fingers over the grain of the paper. “Did you even finish?”

He smiled, glasses without lenses lifting with his cheeks. “No?”

I swatted at him, “guess we’re just going to meet at a cafe again sometime this week.” It wasn’t a big deal. For me, it was more time to write whatever I wanted. For Doyoung it was more time for him to run his mouth about gossip, acting like we were actually discussing something about the class.

“So…”

“So what is it this time? I’m all ears,” I rummage through my messenger bag, feeling around for my writing journal’ s leather binds through folders and books and paper.

“So, I was talking to Taeyong the other day…”

My hands skimmed the canvas of my pencil case, and the pens strewn around lazily, and the tubes of lipstick. I brought out a pen with golden etchings that you’d twist to open.

“Oh, so you’re talking to him again?”

“I’m telling you, I swear to god it was him that touched my code at the club room.”

“Yeah, yeah…but you’re delusional, though? What if your code was just messed up from the start?”

“Are you going to listen or should I leave you alone?”

“I’m listening,” I searched pockets and zippers, bringing my bag up to my lap and peering into its void-like opening. I squinted, delving in once again in my search, looking for its red cover. It shouldn’t be hard to find. Everything else I owned was black or brown. Or white. Or grey (if it was a gift from Doyoung.)

“As I was saying, Taeyong and I were having a conversation, and we see Yuta—Yuta Nakamoto. He’s also in the sharehouse. So he has these tarot cards—”

My hands and eyes skimmed through surfaces. A book. A pencil case. Lipsticks. A wallet. Some wrappers of gum—oh, I still had some gum! And, finally, there should be… 

No fucking way.

“What?”

Did I say that out loud?

“Yes.” Doyoung said roughly. “And you keep interrupting my story.”

“Doyoung.” No fucking way. “I lost it.”

“Lost what? What did you—” his face dropped. “No fucking way!”

“Shut up!” I elbowed his side, glancing over at Jaehyun, who of course didn’t spare a glance back even with Doyoung’s ruckus. “I was at A Cup of Coffee earlier, studying, and lost track of time because I was enjoying my mint choco latte—”

“Enjoying a what?”

“I. Was. Feeling. Adventurous,” I glared, aggressively unzipping my jacket. I ran my hands through my dampened hair, hoping to find some solace of cool breeze on my skin. There was none to be found. Doyoung fanned himself with the collar of his ex-crisp white t-shirt. It was already a hot and humid day and it just got a lot warmer. “I had all my shit on the table because I was writing in the book earlier because you know that I have a deadline coming up for my anthology and I need to keep writing so that I can actually get something done. And I guess—I guess it fell out when I was rushing to pack and leave.”

“Were you sitting inside or outside?”

“Outside! There’s no room inside, like ever!”

“That’s as good as gone, then.” Doyoung knitted his eyebrows together, tapping his pen on the table. “It’s been a couple of hours, I’m assuming?”

“Yeah, a good four.”

“Wanna still check?” He looked up at the clock hanging on the wall, its ticking hand teasing its way through the last minute of class time.

I looked at him as students began pooling out the lecture hall, leaving a trail of body-heat. “God, yes. Please.”

Doyoung and I rushed over as the mid-day sun glared into our eyes. We glared back through the gaps of our fingers as we covered our sweaty faces.  Jisung Park was always kind enough to give me free cookies whenever I stopped by A Cup of Coffee. (Which was often). Hopefully he was kind enough to have picked up my journal when I left it because there wasn’t much hope of finding my journal when we got there. All the outdoor seating arrangements were squeaky clean. The metal chairs burned our fingertips as we tried looking all over for my journal. I shook my head.

Doyoung groaned as he tried to open the front door, “I think it's closed.”

“I got this—” I rushed forward, banging on the glass, too hopped up on adrenaline to worry about it shattering. “Jisung! Are you in there? It’s Hayoung!”

I knocked louder as I spotted a head of blonde hair. Jisung stirred from his nap at the register. He rubbed his eyes, grimacing at the sudden intrusion of peace. Definitely tipping him extra the next time I have a writing session here. He looked at me with furrowed brows, pointing to himself as if to drowsily say: Me? What?

“Yes, you!” I pointed to the door. “Can we come in?”

Realization must have set in for him. It only took a few seconds for him to unlock the door and usher us inside.

“Hayoung sunbae-nim, whats wrong?”

“I left a really important notebook behind.” I fanned myself. “It’s red leather. It has pretty much all of my writing that I’m considering for my exhibition piece.”

“Have you seen it?” Doyoung sat down, accepting the water Jisung offered us.

“I think I have? You had it out when you were working out there earlier.” He said, carefully. “But I don’t think you left it behind.”

“But this is the only place I put it down.”

“I think you packed it up, there was nothing when I cleaned outside. I would’ve called.”

“I still can’t believe you lost your simp book, Hayoung.” Doyoung took a large gulp of water. “That’s the one thing you always make sure you don’t do.”

“I know! And it’s not a simp book!” I snatched my water bottle and plopped down next to him. Jisung pulled up a chair to sit with us. “It just so happens that the contents of my pieces are inspired by a very specific thing—”

“Someone—”

“Look.” Maybe it was the heat but the tips of my ears felt like they were on fire. My stomach felt as if it was boiling, each bubble of acid popping, burning my insides. I found it hard to steady my breath and my voice grew louder every second from the building pressure in my stomach. “It’s not my fault I entered a slump. I just—it just comes so naturally now—writing. It used to be so hard that I wanted to even quit, and it tore me apart every day. And my professors tore me apart too. It was so hard hearing them lose interest in my writing. And now that I’ve finally found a way to enjoy writing again, I get distracted for one day and lose what was going to be my life’s work!” I wanted to swallow the words back into my mouth. Everytime I tried, the lump in my throat grew larger.

“My god, Are you crying?” Doyoung leaned in.

I flinched, slapping his arm. “If you ask someone if they’re crying then of course they will.” I said, now crying.

“Sorry.”

“I’ll get you a tissue,” Jisung coughed.

“Thanks.” I said.

Doyoung rubbed my back. “You know I didn’t mean it. You’ve showed some of them to me, and I agree—this is the best you’ve written in ages. It might be important for you but I know you’ll do fine without it. It’s okay, Hayoung.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Look, I’m sure nobody likes to read. Anything. So, the chances are that someone will snoop through is low. They wont want to steal a journal either.”

“What if I can’t write without it.” I sniffled.

Jisung brought over a box of tissues and a cookie. “I don’t know fully what this is about, but you’re always in here to the point that I have to kick you out so I don’t work overtime and I’ve already given up on kicking you out over breaks.” He gave me an awkward but comforting pat on the shoulder. “I’ve never read anything you’ve written but I can tell that you work really hard on it, and I don’t think that’ll ever disappear.”

“Jisung is right. Even during your writer’s block, you still were able to come up with some profound shit that I could never think of writing in my lifetime.”

“Thanks you two,” I picked up the cookie, breaking it into pieces to offer. They declined. “And Jisung, you always make the best cookies.”

“The batter is pre-made, but I try.”

“Wait, really?” Doyoung said. “Wait, no—Hayoung, I’m sure we can find it if we keep looking.”

“But I haven’t begun to transfer the stuff over to my laptop.” I nibbled on my cookie. Doyoung’s phone buzzed on the table. I watched the crumbs on the plate dance around.

“I’ve seen you crunch out a thesis-length paper in a weekend with nothing but Mountain Dew and coffee. I’m sure you can work something out.” Doyoung picked up his phone.

“I’ll look and ask around on my breaks too,” Jisung said.

“Hayoung, Renjun wants to know if he can meet up with us right now.” Doyoung said.

I looked at our resident part-time cafe worker for permission, dabbing my eyes with the tissue he gave me. 

Jisung sighed, ready to pull up another chair. “Just this once.”

When Renjun arrived, Jisung was wrapping up his break, making sure there was enough coffee in the back and preparing the newly discovered pre-made batter to make more cookies. Renjun didn’t question why we were in A Cup of Coffee during its break hours, or why Doyoung and I were so sweaty that we were fanning each other with our poems that we were supposed to workshop. He didn’t question why I had my stuff sprawled everywhere because I tried looking in my bag another hundred times, or why Doyoung had his stuff everywhere because I had convinced him that my journal could have fallen in his bag somehow. He did, however, do a double take after seeing my face.

“Rough day today?” He said, taking Jisung’s old seat. “Wait. Were you crying?”

“Doyoung you didn’t tell me my makeup was running!” I gasped, rummaging through our table of paraphernalia for my makeup pouch.

Doyoung picked it up and passed it to me. “You looked like you were going through enough. Oops.”

I whined at my racoon-like visage in the mirror, mascara accentuating my already heavy eyebags. I thought it was supposed to be waterproof. Never buying that again. 

Renjun took out his laptop, decorated in stickers so colorful it looked like a toddler’s scrapbook. But like, in a good way. “Well, I think you look very artistic.” He said.

There was a long pause filled with his typing and the sound of the blender going off.

“Thank you,” I said once Jisung stopped blending. It smelt like cherries. You know what else smelt like cherry? Jung Jaehyun. Oh god, I didn’t even like cherries. “I’m going to die if I don’t find it.”

“Find what?” Renjun said.

“The notebook!”

He stopped typing, “The notebook?” Renjun took off his glasses. “No wonder you were crying. Doesn’t that have all you writing from this semester?”

“Yes, and it’s also all about Jung Jaehyun.” I confessed. I trusted Renjun. It wasn’t like he went to lecture that often.

“Jung Jaehyun from our class?” Renjun’s mouth dropped open.

“Yes, Jung Jaehyun from our class—granted most of them aren’t directly about him, but if someone finds out, it’s going to be so… awful!” I groaned. “I don’t know where I dropped it. I thought I left it here.”

“I mean, as someone who didn’t know it was all about him—really, all about him?”

“Inspired, but yes. Exclude a handful.”

“I couldn’t tell.” Renjun said. “But, I do have to ask…why? How? You like him?”

“It’s complicated.”

His laptop was fully closed now. I could tell he wanted to know the juicy details of my deep, dark secret. I could also tell that Doyoung was hiding a grin at the story to come. Renjun gave me his puppy-dog eyes.

“Fine.” I gave in. “’ll tell you, but why weren’t you at class today? I thought you always tried to attend mandatory workshops.”

“It’s complicated.” Renjun echoed.

“I'll tell you my story if you tell yours? Deal” I said.

“Deal.” Renjun said.

We looked over at Doyoung who was trying to listen into our conversation. Not that we were trying to be silent about it anyway. Jisung even came over and told us he could hold the shop cold for thirty more minutes so that we could finish our conversation.

“Why are you both staring at me like that?” Doyoung put his hands on his hips defensively. “Why?”

Renjun clicked his tongue. “If we both have something to tell, then you have to tell us…” 

“What happened to the blind date your mom set you up on, and how is that related to why you can’t go to our favorite bulgogi place anymore?” I slammed my hands on the table.

“I’m not going to tell you that!” Doyoung mirrored my action.

“Then leave, hyung!” Renjun said, backing me up. “It’s only fair.”

“But I know about Hayoung’s thingy about Jaehyun!”

“I’ll tell you how I first met him—And it wasn’t during poetry.” I blurted out. “That’s the real start of it all.”

Doyoung glared at both of us. He sat back down cautious, looking like a cat with its hair raised. “Fine.”

Renjun and I high fived. I looked over at Jisung, who was shaking his head at the whole situation. Poor thing, he was going to get to know all of us against his will.

“And Jisung gets to know all this for free if he gives us an hour, and we’ll help him at the back later until closing.”