#jindallaebe

if there's one thing jindallae will do, it's cook way too much food.

he asked her if she wanted anything to eat, and she said nothing too heavy. that was her mistake. she should've just said no, i'm good, but knowing him, he might've cooked something for her anyway.

it leads them to now, sitting at a table in jindallae's restaurant after-hours, a pile of japchae, seafood, and vegetables in front of her. she's eating it, because she doesn't like wasting food, but she knows she'll have so much left. she'll bring it home and eat it tomorrow too, which is probably why jindallae did it.

"so, what's new with you?" she starts, unceremoniously slurping a noodle into her mouth. there's nothing new going on for nayoung, really. just her endless cycle of training. she went to see her dad over the short vacation sr media gave her after next gen, but she doesn't think there's much worth sharing about that, either. not that she would even if there was.

jay never thought himself as the average human being. it makes him sound cocky, brimming with arrogance to his bones—but circumstances lead him to believe this. that he's a wandering enigma that cannot be tamed, that there's no one out there who could bring him down. one day, he'd explode on a stage like a bright supernova; a fitting end to the chaotic force he makes himself out to be. so, he shouldn't have expected anyone to be able to handle him, to be able to hold him, to be able to love him, when his personality is too vivacious and vigorous to be contained by someone.

he's too unserious, he's too much, he's too chaotic. time and time again, a new person comes to a specific understanding about jay; his feelings aren't real, his feelings aren't enough, his feelings are a mistake. and now, it's happening all over again—but what was jay expecting? he should've known, really, that he'd never be able to achieve that type of blissful happiness. it's not like jay is blind and oblivious, he knows how he's perceived, even if he continues with his day-to-day as if it doesn't bother him. but what else can he do? if he ruminates in it for longer than a minute, he'd start feeling sad—but he's running out of options.

there's a particular sense of dread, whenever jay spares a glance into the mirrors in the training room he'd spend so much time in. his long hair, that peeks out against his neck. his sharper jawline, that he can see the outlines of. his broader shoulders, that's far from dainty and soft. the nonexistent curves in his silhouette, too. every little thing, reflected in the mirrors each day—lately, it makes his stomach churn. he'd never doubted his own identity, never wanted to be anyone else but himself; but sometimes, he'd wish... that his body, or his very self—would be someone more worthy of the affection he doesn't allow himself to admit he craves so desperately.

a heart that's already broken shouldn't be able to break again, but it's jay's fault for picking and prodding at the cavity in the middle of his chest. it grows, and grows, and he feels it in his entire soul—and there's only so many things he can do as a distraction. training helps, but he forgets to eat. practicing helps, but he forgets to sleep. he can't bring it within himself to care though—he'd never particularly gave a shit about his own body, and right now he wants nothing more than to let it crumble under the weight of his own careless actions and whatever else the world decides to throw at him. even after a series of complicated events, there is no escape.

still, he tries. on nights when no one will drive him home, where he only has his legs to take him somewhere foreign or familiar—he'd like a moment of reprieve. he'd turn off the gps tracker in his phone, and just wander, headphones stuck to his ears like glue as he loses himself into his chosen playlist of heartbreaks and delusions. whatever, he thinks to himself. maybe he can fuck himself up for good tonight.

he doesn't know whether it's his worn-out body calling for help, or a traitorous part of his brain telling him to confront his demons throughout all this—but he ends up somewhere familiar, a quaint restaurant long passed its busy hours. he almost laughs, at the irony of it all, at the ridiculousness of his situation. it could also be his starving stomach, but he doubts that, he'd ignored it for too long that he can't feel his hunger anymore. it's funny, though, that by trying to look for a moment of freedom from his crazy and inescapable woes, he'd run straight into a tight knot in his past.

but jay is tired, he'd gone about most of his day low on energy and physical resources. his eyes sting, with phantom tears he refuses to let run down his cheeks. his eyebags must be worse. he must look like utter shit, but that's exactly when @jindallaebe comes out. another reminder of the fact that throughout all this, jay is the common denominator—that jay is the problem, that he'd never be able to make anyone as happy as jindallae seems to be currently ( as he's heard from the grapevine, that is ). just like with every memory that he wants to forget, he remembers when jindallae started acting cold towards him too, a sudden shift in demeanor that's more like whiplash than anything else.

jindallae probably hates him—or worse, doesn't give a fuck about jay anymore in the first place. but he still smiles, waving a little to the other with a short laugh. "oh hey, late night?" he asks, casually, like he hasn't been walking on eggshells. if there's anything jay can do, is be friendly even when he knows the other party doesn't care about him in this instance. to jay, no matter how badly things ended—it's hard for him to stop caring; he never moves on in any traditional sense.

"well, you look pretty content!" jay comments, as if he hadn't been walking about trying to find something to destroy himself. "i've heard business is booming, but you've always been good at that... marketing... promoting... thing!" he laughs, again, because that's his default reaction to most things, even if there's a lump in his throat he can't get rid of. he doesn't know if jindallae remembers—then again, jindallae doesn't care. not anymore, jay thinks.

@jindallaebe

alex has experienced heartbreak before. he was a year removed and a whole ocean away and never truly got over sarang when they called it quits, which up until now might have been the worst heartbreak of his life. he's not even sure if he can even count this as his own heartbreak; it wasn't alex who was dumped or did the dumping in this situation. it was a breakdown of communication, misunderstanding after misunderstanding piling up between sarang and ren until it all boiled over into words that can't be taken back and actions that won't be undone.

all alex could do was sit there and watch as the two most important people in his life called it quits, leaving him somewhere in limbo in the middle.

he can't pick sides, yet he can't stay with both. he knows this about himself, the guilt that would eat away at him for being a bad partner to one or both now that they've split and are living in different households. and yet alex can't imagine falling asleep listening to two sets of heartbeats or waking up with arms wrapped around whoever snuggled in closest to him at night. where is he supposed to stay when his home had been with sarang and ren for the last six months? the bed feels empty—looks empty—with a body missing from it. and as much as he loves them both, he can't help the ache in his heart whenever he's around one or the other.

but is it fair to call it his own heartbreak?

the best thing left to do is for alex to just get away from it all, to take a break from both men and figure out his next move on his own. how is he supposed to just stop loving them? how is he supposed to make this choice? ren will always be his best friend, but now that they've been something more alex isn't ready to let that go. he turns instead to a friend, to someone removed enough from the situation that alex can simply flop on his couch and cry his eyes out until he feels better, or at least tired enough to sleep.

"thanks for letting me crash here," he sighs, his heart so heavy that he has to simply plop down in the nearest available seat. "i owe you one. or two, maybe three depending on how long i'm here."

joomi really should be tired of jinyoung.

after a whole week of training with him for over 12 hours a day, he should take sundays, the one day he can be free of him, as a holy respite from the obnoxious terror of a man that is moon jinyoung.

instead, he's in his car in the parking lot of the restaurant jinyoung works at, waiting for him to finish his shift so he can take him home. in joomi's defense - he was also working tonight, and he can pick jinyoung up easily on his way home anyway. it's not like he went out of his way.

the problem is, jinyoung is taking for-fucking-ever, and joomi just wants to go home and turn into the giant gay waluigi on couch meme. a while after his initial i'm here text, he sends jinyoung another: helloooo did u fall in the toilet if u aren't out in five mins i'm making u walk home

he doesn't mean it. but five minutes pass and there's no sign of jinyoung, and joomi is mildly worried at this point. he knows it's probably nothing. he also knows jindallae is taking good care of jinyoung the days he works here, and he's thankful.

still, he's tired of sitting in his car, so he hops out, and heads into the restaurant himself. there's still no sign of jinyoung, but there is an old couple lingering at one of the tables, eating at the speed of those sloths in the bmv from zootopia. jinyoung is probably stuck waiting on them still.

he also spots jindallae not too far away, and offers him a soft smile when he makes eye contact with him.

jindallae comes over. honestly, it's been a long time since they talked in person, so it's good to see him, too - especially under good circumstances. circumstances where joomi is happy.

"hey," he greets him. "do you know where my idiot--" boyfriend. he almost says it, but catches himself, because they are not that. something close, maybe, but not that. "-- is?" do you know where my idiot is? honestly, yeah. that works. he can't help but laugh at himself, though.

@jindallaebe

"so what's on the menu?" alex makes himself comfortable on jindallae's couch, flopping down and sprawling out as if he owns the place. honestly, he probably should have come to bother his good friend sooner but his first few weeks back in korea were... otherwise occupied. there was a lot to catch up on elsewhere! but the point is that he's here now anyway, demanding attention and food from a guy he knows is perfectly capable of supplying both.

jindallae might be alex's last remaining friend who hasn't signed his life away to an entertainment company and alex couldn't be more grateful for it. his days are shockingly quiet now, not at all what he remembered from the time before he returned to canada for a few months. he used to be busier too; the sudden trip put his studies on hold, his gaming career basically in shambles, and suddenly he finds himself with a lot of free time on his hands with no one to help him fill it.

@jindallaebe

his whole body aches. he doesn't feel it too much when he's moving, still on his feet and active even on his 'day off', but as jinyoung takes a moment for a breather, to take inventory of himself and check-in on his physical wellbeing, he realizes how bone-tired he is. adjusting to a new schedule has not been easy in the slightest. it's not like he isn't used to hard work—his previous lifetime spent in a practice room wrangling children and toddlers and trying to keep them on-task prepared him for a lot—but he's never had so many consecutive days where he's on his feet for so long. it wears on the body, that's for sure.

it's not even like jinyoung can take a break on sundays; the trainee pay is too meager for anyone to survive off of and he can't leave sooyoung to cover the entire rent alone. no, he needs this job, even if he was wary of taking it in the first place. he braces his palms on an unused countertop, leaning forward to take some of the pressure off of his back and legs, and glances over at the kitchen staff next to him. he only has a short break before he has to head back out to the front to greet and seat tables of guests. he can't help but let his eyes slide over to the supposed source of his apprehensions here; cho jindallae. he offered jinyoung the job, supposedly a nice gesture, but jinyoung keeps waiting for the other shoe to fall.

something about the other man still makes his skin crawl. he can't shake off words said in anger, even if jindallae tried to apologize for it later. that doesn't matter, not to jinyoung. if he felt brave enough to say it once, then it must be the truth. what's the saying? when people tell you who you are, believe them? jinyoung certainly tries to live by that. but when actions and words contradict one another, when the man who spit venom at him so viciously also offered to help him out with a job and food on the table, jinyoung doesn't know what to feel. perhaps it's the uncertainty of it all that still puts him on edge. he never knows which jindallae he's going to get that day, that hour.

thank god that their paths don't actually cross all that much despite working for the same business. if jinyoung was part of the back of the house and answering to jindallae, he's pretty sure that he wouldn't have lasted this long at this place. someone was bound to lose their temper eventually.

mattheo didn’t have a lot of friends in korea, not even after two years in the country. he loved being with other people, but the people he was most around was his grandmother, colleagues and the kids he taught, as much as he was happy to have them all in his life, he wanted friends, he wanted people to laugh with, to do things with. mimi was a friend of matt’s even before he came to korea, upon moving to korea the two had quickly become very good friends.

the male had been laying in bed today for a while, bored, nothing to do. he could go visit his grandma as he often would do when bored, but he’s not feeling like it today. he shoots a message to mimi asking if he can come over, no response. at last mattheo decides showing up to mimi’s apartment, is nobody home he can leave, it’s not that far away. so gets in his shoes and jacket, puts on music as he walks and then he shows up to mimi’s apartment door, stops the music and knocks.

nayoung is nothing if not cunning.

granted, she’s mellowed out in recent months, even on next gen; less cutthroat, more focused on herself than destroying the competition in whatever way possible. she’s still smart, though, and knows how to strategize for her own benefit, or in this case, her friends’.

of course, both jindallae and ren are her friends. ren is just different. ren knows the depressed, disheveled, grumpy gremlin gamer nayoung that has yet to really be seen by the public. jindallae knows the well-dressed, poised, charming nayoung that sat next to him at the bar. it’s not like she isn’t herself around jindallae; he doesn’t seem to be turned off by her slightly offputting personality even when she does speak her mind, which she appreciates. ren is just different.

maybe it’s because she knows ren is a gentle, ultimately inexperienced soul, and jindallae is...quite the opposite. well, he’s probably more gentle than most people give him credit for, but nayoung knows better than to assume jindallae and ren’s upcoming date and testing of the waters will be sunshine and rainbows. sure, ren is more energy drinks and neon backlit keyboards than he is sunshine and rainbows, but jindallae is...tall dark and handsome, emphasis on the dark, truly. jindallae has problems. nayoung, at this point, knows she does too, and maybe that’s part of why they get along. those problems are dangerous for ren, though, and judging by the amount of times she’s hurt ren’s feelings, if jindallae treats ren like he treats everyone else...that isn’t going to work.

so maybe she’s played both sides a little, and now, she has invited jindallae on a nice weekend post-training walk to “catch up,” and yeah, they can do that. she can also ask jindallae for details on his date, though, and give him a stern talking to, or a warning, or a threat, or something. 

“so, when is your date with ren again?” she asks him as they walk side by side by the han river. there’s some vague part of her, in the back of her mind, that realizes someone could get the wrong idea about them walking together like this, but she doesn’t particularly care anymore. dating isn’t banned in her contract, and if she gets more attention from the general public, then good. “are you nervous?” she jokes, as well as lee nayoung is capable of joking, because jindallae doesn’t seem the type. if he is nervous, then maybe she’ll have less to worry about than she thought.