#ju draft

You shakily inhale before starting, “I-I think the printer’s jammed again because I accidentally tried printing a million copies instead of ten, but I swear I tried to remember which buttons to press, I really did, and then it just…” your voice fades into an incoherent mumble that Sungyoon can’t quite catch but he does notice that you’re doing it again.

It being your habit of picking mindlessly at the threads of your sleeves. You tend to do this when you’re nervous but right now, nervousness is not an emotion that either of you have the luxury to afford feeling.

“Stop doing that,” Sungyoon says irritably, “and you’ve got to speak more clearly before the both of us lose our jobs thanks to your incompetence.”

He doesn’t mean to be rude and hurt your feelings: it’s just ridiculous that he can’t count on one hand the number of times you have nearly skated right over the line of getting fired this week and it’s only Tuesday. Your shoulders end up drooping even more than they were before and you nod dejectedly before forcing your hands to stay still by your sides.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

What makes all of this worse is that you genuinely mean your apology. It drives Sungyoon up the wall, the way he can’t seem to figure you out.

“It’s alright,” he finds himself saying, “we can fix this.”

Sungyoon has no idea what is prompting him to say this because he’s not usually the type to go out of his way to help people especially at work. It’s constantly on his mind, the fact that you getting fired or moved down to a different team would make his life infinitely easier.

But despite all that, he just can’t bring himself to let that happen to you.

“Show me which printer it is,” he tells you in a kinder tone, “and we’ll work from there.”

Your eyes light up like fireworks on New Year’s and something about the way your lips tilt up slightly gives Sungyoon a funny feeling in his chest.

He sighs as he follows you to the printing room.

11.32 am. Not even lunch time yet.

-

at first, you’d tried your best to play it cool. you’d been so cool about it that even your best friend, jibeom, had no idea you had started crushing on anyone at all. you thought you’d try to be his friend at first and eventually bond over a shared love of - well, whatever the two of you ended up finding you both liked.

you lean back in your chair and remember the first time you’d ever properly spoken to him. it had been after a particularly gruelling geometry test on a cold winter’s day.

“um - jangjun?” you’d stammered as you gently poked his shoulder.

and he’d turned, the dazzling grin on his face shining brighter than those stupid fluorescent lights in the new music rooms.

“need my test?” he’d asked, and you nodded as he was already placing it on the pile in your hands. “here ya go. thanks!” then he’d walked away, backpack slung over his shoulder and his free hand waving at some students from another class.

you’d just stood there for a few seconds, doing the best that you could to recover - clearly the results weren’t very good judging from the way you walked around for the rest of the day, head stuck in the clouds (while bane of your existence, jibeom, pointed and laughed as a baseball struck you in the forehead during p.e), but the point here is that you had tried. the stupider thing had been that this interaction even left you feeling optimistic.

and then you’d never really talked to him again.

it’s not fair. it’s not fair. you used to think you’d have the rest of your high school career to carefully strategize a plan you’d execute perfectly from friendship to best friendship to gradual flirting (you’d cross that bridge when you came to it) to the grand finale: prom.

but you don’t have until prom. you don’t even have until the end of this week.

you pick up the scorned pencil again and put it to paper.

i like you a lot. like, a lot a lot. in fact, more than i’ve liked anyone else on this planet except maybe my family. i know we’re not really friends and you’re moving really soon and this is like really late but i still really, Really-

you pause for a moment as your phone beeps with a new message.

my ugly bff kim jibeom, 5.24pm : hey LOSERRR u wanna g rab tacos tonight??:D

-like you, jangjun.

you slip the unfinished letter into a blue box that only you know about and start searching for your denim jacket amongst the mess of clothes on your bed.

dear jangjun.

you slide down the bannisters and put on a smile for your friend that hopefully masks the hurt in your heart.

you were my first true love.

-

and this time you really do laugh, covering your mouth with your hand and he really wishes you wouldn’t do that - wouldn’t cover your smile like that.

“idiot. i’ve had these shoes for months.”

jibeom throws a smile up at the sky, searching for an invisible shooting star. “i know.”

there’s nothing else to say but you don't say it.

not yet.

you’re something like halfway around the neighbourhood and the line you walk between tension and quiet is driving jibeom half-desperate.

maybe it’s the moon, except he can’t see it for all the buildings in the sky. he exhales more forcefully than he should, putting on a self-deprecating smile.

it has gotten to the point where he despises himself for his cowardice.

there are songs that go a little like this, books that discuss the ups and downs of a one-sided affection.

and the words linger around his throat only to die away when he turns to find that you've stopped walking and are now staring at him, an odd look on your face, lips quivering.

he stares back.

“kim jibeom.”

he swallows and takes a step forward.

“what’s wrong?”

“jibeom.”

he smiles a nervous smile, taking another step forward.

you take a small step back.

“i… jibeom.”

he waits.

come to think of it, he always has.

you drops your gaze to your shoes.

“why do we do this?” you blurt out at the ground.

in the distance, a train rushes by.

“what do you mean?” he asks, a sad look in his eyes, and you make a noise that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“why do you act like"- you have to take a pause to gulp in a big breath. "why do you act like you care too?"

then the ground blurs because you can’t see for all the tears and suddenly he’s crossing lakes and rivers and oceans and the milky way and one hundred and fifty centimetres to grab your hands and wipe your tears away.

“because i do,” he says simply.

-

“I’m not the one who ghosted my own friend after a party with zero explanation,” you hotly protest. You can’t believe Joochan is not already wielding a sword, offering to go after the blonde idiot you currently despise. It’s outrageous. Joochan is practically your twin at this point and you would absolutely do the same for him so he’s a pinhead for not doing it for you and you tell him as much.

“He’s my best friend,” he replies dryly.

“He’s not,” you shoot back, “i am.”

“You both are,” Joochan sighs, “and there’s a reason why Donghyun’s acting like this.”

“Then why won’t anyone tell me?”

You petulantly glare at the table, and Joochan tries reaching for your fries. You smack his hand away.

“You really don’t remember anything about the party?”

The party. The party. The big dumb stupid idiot moron party that everyone’s prattling about but you can’t remember because someone thought it’d be a remotely good idea to give you alcohol when you’d decided you would be responsible for your friends and then the next thing you knew, you were waking up in Joochan’s apartment with a supremely grumpy-looking Joochan throwing his clothes at you to change into.

He hadn’t said much except ask whether you wanted eggs (yes) and remembered what happened last night (no). More prominently, there hadn’t been any message from Donghyun like there usually was.

And then there hadn’t been messages for days, following that morning. Every response to your messages came a few days later and remarkably clipped. Every time you thought you’d seen him, you’d arrive and he wouldn’t be there.

This would have perhaps crushed your sensitive heart if you and Donghyun had really only been friends but everything hurt terrifically more because your sensitive heart had to go and develop feelings which of course Donghyun did not have to return. Except you two were still friends. And your sensitive heart had still been obliterated to bits.

Most noticeably, he was never around Joochan's apartment.

You don’t realise you’re on the verge of tears until Joochan starts tapping your hand, visibly alarmed.

“What was so big about that party anyway?” you sniff, voice wavering a little. “For the fiftieth time, I don’t remember anything. All I remember was drinking something that tasted awful and you know who else is awful? Donghyun! Kim Donghyun! What kind of idiot goes around ignoring his own friend for no reason?”

Your voice grows a little in volume and Joochan sits back, as if encouraging you to continue.

“If I did something wrong, then he has to tell me! If it’s something I did while drunk, then he still has to tell me what it was and most of the time, I wouldn’t have meant it because I don’t want to hurt him, he’s my…”

You trail off. You can feel that your voice will crack any moment now.

The sad awful truth is that you really thought Donghyun might even have been your best friend too.

“Why won’t he talk to me, Joochan? Why is he ignoring me?”

There’s a lot of traffic outside. Your coffee cup is empty.

“I can’t really say.”

You stand up.

“Where are you going?” Joochan asks.

“I have a class soon.”

“That’s a big lie. I know you don’t have any more classes today.”

“You don’t know anything, bighead,” you scowl.

Joochan sighs for the umpteenth time today and gives you a patient smile. “Want me to come with you?"

You shake your head. "I'll see you at yours later on."

And then you step outside the cafe, feeling the chilly breeze through your thin yellow cardigan.

You’re frustrated that Joochan won’t tell you since it’s obvious that he knows something. But deep down, you know that it has to come from Donghyun himself.

Things are just difficult right now because the dolt no longer acknowledges you exist.

-

not in physical danger - perhaps something that is more vicious. (this, however, is a conclusion you draw because there is no visible and tangible foe whom you would not think twice about hurling yourself at if it meant keeping daeyeol far, far from harm.)

the danger is one that you may single-handedly never be able to get rid of: a danger that lurks deep in his beautiful mind, showing its tendrils while he sleeps and manifesting itself finally in the vivid nightmares that, for some strange and mysterious reason, have you waking from your sleep, taking the thirteen steps (you’ve counted over the past few months) from your door to his and then gathering him in your arms before he can start crying.

“how do you know?” he’d asked you once on a very quiet, very grey morning after the third time it had happened - too many times for this to be mere coincidence.

you remember that moment very well - you were eighteen and he was nineteen and you were wearing his jumper, the yellow one with the pasta stain that no one had quite been able to wash out. you remember the anticipation you’d felt before moving into the apartment with the thought that this time, nothing would get in the way of you and daeyeol staying friends. you remember the fear growing in your throat: the one that wanted to know if things would ever be able to go back to being the way they were between the two of you.

and you remember shrugging, because you didn’t know how. you just knew. and you’d told him as much.

it hadn’t pleased daeyeol, the lack of information and process and cause. the slew of resulting questions hadn’t pleased him either - what now? and what next? what does this make us? will it always, always happen? and then, what happens when we’re apart?

for the sake of being honest with yourself, you prefer not to dwell on the third, fourth and fifth questions - especially the fifth. you think that it could break you, knowing daeyeol was in pain and you couldn’t go to him, but the possibility lingers in your head very briefly before you have to force it away.

instead, you let yourself be curious about other questions.

“it’s too loud, or too quiet, or everything just happens at once or there’s nothing,” he’d told you at first. you hadn’t dared ask him to elaborate but as time had passed, you’d come to see more and more snapshots into daeyeol’s mind that combine into a horrible, twisting, deceptive collage. it’s enough to make anyone too scared to sleep.

“i was for a while,” daeyeol confides in you, “but i figured i’d die if i didn’t sleep - and i didn’t want to die.” the last part is said almost candidly.

you pause for a little. “do you know why they happen?”

and daeyeol pauses too. “no.”

you leave it at that and get up to make breakfast.

-