excuse me

it’s at the half-hour mark that he’s belatedly hit with a rational idea, so he whips out his phone to dial up a number and waits, waits until the other end picks up. “hey! everything okay over there?” in his other hand is a box of color changing jello marked half-off for the day. “and how do you feel about…” he has to squint to read the label again. “foods that have identity crises?” 

“who is this,” she says, before the caller id catches up with her, “what?” 

the dog is adorable and the cat is, begrudgingly, cute as well. this makes the standoff they’re engaged in probably the most vomit inducing thing olivia’s ever had to see. the cuteness stabs her viscerally. it radiates out from her guts to her hands and back again. she wants to throttle something. this can’t be legal. 

olivia coos, “bring me back a hot pickle,” the dog perks its ears up at her tone of voice, giving the cat the opening to strike, “cat, no!”

there isn’t enough fine motor skill in the world for olivia to hold a phone, console a dog, and restrain a cat at the same time. in the hospital, she practiced tying her shoes and writing her name so often she started doing it in her sleep and those things are still difficult for her. 

this is nothing like that. 

“beats me,” sungwoo throws back with a laugh. there’s other things he could’ve handed over just as easy. a puzzled look, a “what the fuck, liv,” half a xanax, maybe. he squints at her side profile from his periphery. maybe half of a half instead. “we’re not anywhere close to a beach, so i couldn’t tell you.” there’s an open bag of potato chips in his lap, which he holds up for her to take, a consolation prize. sea salt and grease, by all means, is the next best thing.

these chips are going to make her throw up but olivia takes them because they’re as good a thing as any to fill the gaping, metaphorical void she’s got rolling around in her skull. she’s either got wild animals for braincells or bojack goddamn horseman dicking around in there. which, makes sense. bojack is a horse.  “you didn’t think about it long enough.” 

her stomach aches approximately two seconds later which. while on brand, is absolutely the worst.

there probably aren’t rocks heavy enough to keep her down to begin with. where would she even finds rocks like that? do they sell them?

sungwoo could probably buy them. he’s got rock money. 

“i don’t think i’ve ever been to the beach,” she says, spraying little bits of salt and potato, forgetting that she’s supposed to swallow before she speaks.

she swallows now. 

“surely maths isn’t making you rethink your existence…” he says, slightly concerned. after all, it was quite presumptuous of him to assume everyone does maths in the maths library, because he sure wasn’t.

oh god. oh fuck. 

that’s exactly what her bullshit crazy people *~visions*~ would say. 

the library feels like an ice box and though it could 100% be because her body’s ability to self-regulate anything has been through a hydraulic press, she feels like it’s connected to this not-person-not-vision-maybe-not-anything??-fuck that’s haunting her. 

didn’t someone die in this building?

and if the soul is just a concept then maybe it’s not really dead? like, can a soul really die if it didn’t exist in the first place?

ah, yes. paranoia, her old friend. 

“um…” he blinks, pressing his lips together into a friendly line so he won’t laugh. “no, uh, i just wanted to let you know it’s dark out now,” he says, as if that explains anything about anything. as with everything, he doesn’t feel the need to elaborate, only to do what feels like the right thing, “are you waiting for someone?”

literally who the fuck could she possibly be waiting for? and who just sleeps in the quad waiting for anyone short of oprah goddamn winfrey?

olivia visibly starts, surprised with herself for knowing who oprah is. 

“no,” she mumbles, and wipes a face across her eyes. her hip hurts from the way she’s been carelessly laying on it. sometimes a gift is actually a curse. sometimes sleeping anywhere leads to arthritis, “i’m just tired,” she continues, like that makes this anymore normal.

there’s a brief dillemma while she tries to decide if she should risk trying and failing to get up in front of this stranger but quickly decides, fuck it. if a poor crippled girl is the worst thing this rich boy sees his whole life, olivia would consider it a favor. 

after months of trial-and-error, she now knows to put her bag on her back before she stands up lest she risk toppling straight over. her blood pressure’s so fucked. is there a part of her that isn’t a disaster? she’s yet to find it. 

“you’re olivia?” she doesn’t bother to wait for an answer as she puts her books and bags down and stares down the younger girl. “you should probably show up to tutoring sessions on time if you actually want to make the amount you plan to charge. my dad says punctuality is key in the world of business. shows the consumer that you, y’know, actually care.”

 the spine of her cracks quietly as seolhee opens the book, it’s never been opened before and the pages still carry the manufactured smell of the factory they came from. in a few months, god-willing, she’ll forget it in some corner of her room and never bother with it ever again. 

“anyways, let’s maximize the rest of our study hour. what’s so great about trigonometry?”

this is a lot of questions at once and olivia’s half-cocked brain struggles to keep up with the cacophony of sounds this half-human, half-witch is spewing at her. she blinks, slowly, frowning a little, “what makes you think i care?” she says, as the two geese she has in place of brain cells attempt to make noise into words she can actually process. it is difficult. 

okay. trigonometry. 

right, okay, “there’s nothing great about anything if you don’t like it,” she murmurs, “but passing is cool and probably, like, Super Cool for you, i think.” 

blue turns to yellow to orange to pink, then far too quickly, the day starts turning blue. jisoo glances at his watch, surprised to see that thirty minutes have gone by since he last checked (circa when he decided to give up on schoolwork.) time is strange like that, always running too fast whenever he’s walking slow. and he’s a slow walker. 

he packs his laptop into his bag and thinks about the rest of the night—how he’s going to spend it slouched over his computer screen because he spent the entire day throwing frisbees and playing guitar in the quad. the darker the sky gets, the more he feels like time is running from him. whoever said that the hands of the clock should be called hands instead of sneaker-clad feet clearly never spent an entire day procrastinating on an essay due in the morning.

he thinks about dinner, how he hasn’t eaten since lunch. he thinks about blowing off his assignment and faking a fever, how the new nurse at the student clinic has a crush on him and will definitely get someone to sign a medical certificate for him. 

he glances to the side and remembers the sleeping girl not ten feet away from him. he remembers seeing her sometime in the afternoon, while he was strumming strings and singing songs with a few friends and a handful of strangers. she was still there after he stopped playing and everyone left, but she’d already fallen asleep. at first, he thought she was waiting for someone, but it’s almost night time now, and he doesn’t think leaving anyone alone and asleep in the well-lit dark is a good idea.

he walks over, bag slung over one shoulder and guitar case in hand. he sets the case on the ground, crouches down and gently taps the girl’s shoulder to wake her. “miss…” he says as softly as he can. the sun has completely disappeared now, and there is nothing but dark blue and stars and light posts for miles.

it’s not like turning the human body into cucumber peels and back again comes with a litany of perks. if her doctor or her physical therapist or her regular therapist or her psychiatrist had any say, being alive is the perk. she lived through something very few do! she learned to walk again! she can talk now! she’s progressed so far it’s semi-safe for her to be alone!

thankfully, no one is asking them. as far as olivia’s concerned, only one thing has come out of her untimely transformation into casper the dumbass ghost:

no matter the background, no matter the time, no matter the place, olivia can go the fuck to sleep. 

her doctor says it’s because her body’s so exhausted from simply keeping itself upright it takes whatever solace it can get. olivia feels that and she respects it’s wishes by promptly knocking out whenever the opportunity arises. 

she dreams of her dog and yellow and heated pavement.