#kofimission

-

Apparently, as you get older, you’ll finally have figured things out. People say it’ll fix itself, like the shore fills despite the waves, and they’re right: it’s all gonna be okay. You failed and succeeded. Got down and rose up again. Whatever happened—family issues, financial instability, lost friendships—they’ll make you stronger. You’ll be strong enough to handle what life dishes out. Having learned from all your past experiences, you’ll grow older, but all the wiser.

That apparently cannot be said for the decaying asshole of a landlady who’s playing a Taiwanese telenovela with the volume up to a hundred.

You glower at her. There’s the old burnout, sitting in her loveseat with frazzled graying hair and a mug that shakes as the show brings out revelation after revelation. The girl’s apparently fucking the charming boss, and her husband exercises every right to be angry. There’s the back-and-forth argument that you truly did not want to hear. 

And still, you stay in torment, trying to make sense of your notes for another exam.

You could watch the telenovela from just her eyeglasses. The volume isn’t the only thing upped to a hundred; the brightness had to take a dip, too. It joins the loudness to bathe the woman in a colorful illumination, making her look like the Man himself was about to drag her from the cushions and into heaven. 

Well, she certainly didn’t belong there.

It, of course, has to happen while you’re studying for your Korean exam. There’s a day to go before the official test and it’s going… great. What a good life. Really makes you want to keep on doing this shit.

The discussions you’ve printed out and the doc on your screen can’t be comprehended when all you hear is the wails of the voice-dubbed actress. 

Honey! Think about me. If you don’t care about me, that’s… that’s fine. But think about the baby. How do I tell her our family is broken?

Object of the verb before the verb… (sometimes)? Right? Right? Oh, this is torture. You could really use a coffee right now so you could slosh it all over the open electricity lines trailing from your landlady’s room. Housefires would love this place. It’s got loser landlady, miserable Mina, shitty Sejeong, and you. 

No, please, she says, stumbling over leaves and bushes. She reaches for the actor and turns him around. His steel gaze meets her desperate one. It’s a collision of dramatic force nurtured by the worst talents. I love you! Please believe me, I—it was a mistake, but I never hated you, not even once—

You bite your lip. Remind yourself that neo and no are, in fact, pronounced differently. Written differently, too. At least they both have the L-shaped character. That’s your favorite one.

“It’s over. Don’t make it hurt more.” A deeper voice. The husband? You can’t see him but you’re sure you’re right. After all, the boss has a rather more steady tone. Why can you recognize that, by the way? “I’m sorry. We’re just, it’s just not right.”

You scribble down harder in your ruled notebook. Almost write a suicide note instead of a Korean sentence. 

No, please! Don’t leave me! I’m never leaving you again, I promise, please love—

Your teeth grit. You slap your palms over your ears. Your hands are thick enough yet the high tantrums of the broken television couple reach you, a story you never want to hear again. It’s gossip that’s not even worth listening to.

“Honey!”

You don’t care about the house rules. “No slamming doors” your ass. You paid for this door, and you’ll be damned if you aren’t using it.

The thud of wood against wood almost blares out a ding from your phone. 

Your eyes open for the first time. Open your phone for the first time, too, once you lift your back from the door.

Stare at her profile picture seated next to her messages. You can’t remember the last time she sported black hair. The yellow on her is just… so right. It’s the way things have always been, something immovable and unchangeable, like the sky being blue. She pulls off the look so well even with her blinding white skin, which she isn’t afraid to show off in the circular avatar. 

Somsom 👀👺: yo 

you done reviewing for the exam yet ??

Yep, it’s her. 

Somi. She's like an Asian Rapunzel—long golden locks pouring down her shoulders, round eyes, fashionable even in casualwear. Still a princess in her cropped uni sweater. 

Behind fake black glasses, she puts up a peace sign, coupled with a flirty wink. She’s beautiful. Honestly. She’s got that shining smile, thick hair, and fine body that catches attention despite the modesty of her clothes. The sweater is conservative enough, right? So why are your eyes falling out of their sockets? 

You’re her friend; you have been for almost all the years you’ve spent in university—but you can’t deny how attractive she is.

That’s a secret you’ll never admit, not even anonymously.

Gulp. 

Me: I fuckin wish 

Somsom 👀👺: LMFAO, poor baby

You can picture her wicked smile from behind the screen, streets away from your rented place. You shake your head fondly. Somi loves teasing you, and you love teasing her. So, you reply.

Somsom 👀👺: have you tried pulling an oli london

Me: the fuck are you talking about

Somsom 👀👺: idk, maybe if you paid a hundred thousand to become korean, you wouldnt be suffering in hangul 101

Just my two cents

You’d rather strip naked in front of the school than admit this, but talking to Somi—it’s a natural thing, like breathing, like blinking, like everything else. Even if you force yourself to stop, you’d go back to doing it. She’s always got something clever to say. You talk, she listens. Maybe flirts, but that’s who Somi is. She’s young, wild, and free. You’re kind of envious of how she doesn’t restrain herself from doing what she wants, saying what she wants, getting what she wants.

Me: i don’t want your two cents.

Somsom 👀👺: :P

What? She can’t come over. Somi is a distraction. Instead of speaking wobbly Korean fragments to your language learning app, you’d be talking to her about anything. Funny things that happened in class. Weird freshman down the hall. Who knows what? Rather than keeping your eyes down on your notebook, you’d be looking at her.

Me: Im never passing this. i cant study because deafass Halmeoni’s watching her stupid show w the volume on 100

I need to go missing so I dont have to answer the test

Youll see me on the news 

And b4 that

ill post a video saying you kidnapped me

Somsom 👀👺: jesus lol

i’ll put up the missing posters o7

BUT

you’re not going missing jackass, by me or someone else

NOT ON MY WATCH.

so i’m coming over. ill be there in like five…..?? see you later k? ;)

And oh, she’s a lot more interesting than whatever it is you’re trying to get a hold of.

No one can keep their composure around Jeon Somi. You’re not an exception.

Five minutes feel like a decade. If the foreign words on your laptop screen didn’t make sense to you before, they still don’t now. Your mind’s a flood of thoughts that relate to anything but studying. Pretty, pretty girl with a smile that could attack your heart and a body that could finish the job. What are you even thinking? Even five minutes away, she’s a distraction already. 

Such a distraction that you close your laptop, and inch your hand to your crotch—

Rapid knocks that rush into ruining your door fill your ears. 

Guilt, a clarity-inducing drug, follows after you were supposed to jerk off to your friend. She’s just being herself. That shouldn’t elicit a lewdness in your head that twists itself into your idea of her.

Or maybe Somi’s just lewd. 

You sigh and open the door. 

“Hey, look at that,” she says with a beam, “you finally have a girl over!”

Trying to look bored upon seeing her gorgeous face is a one-way road to failure. You’re always happy to see Somi, yet you groan, “Get out.”

Somi holds up two plastic cups of milk tea. You immediately give in. 

The footfalls of her heels echo, each click reminding you that she’s getting closer and you don’t know how to react. 

“I know I come here like everyday,” she says humbly, “but your place is really nice.”

She observes the space you try to call your own. Cheap commissioned paintings on the wall; modest furniture that minimize cluttering; some closet that serves as your hideout in the combined living room/bedroom/dining room. Then there’s the piles of clothes, clean and dirty, surrounding you. That’s all your own doing.

You sit in front of your laptop and open it. Back to work, even if she’s here. “You don’t have to lie.”

“It’s good for a cheap apartment is what I’m saying.”

“Yeah, because I pay with my fucking sanity.”

Somi scoots beside you, thighs uncovered by shorts pushing against yours, and loops an arm around your shoulder. Her eyes scan the document you’re annotating before she clicks her tongue disapprovingly. 

She pokes your cheek. Her warm touch makes you burn up. “You look all the sane to me, gorgeous.”

She rips a page out of your notebook, pen in her mouth. It’s not designed to look like a rose but she looks like a lovergirl to you. If she swung the other way, girls would already be at her doorstep. Hell, you aren’t even one and your eyes cling already to the ends of her skirt.

You watch as the black fountain pen slips out from between her lips and writes the title of your lesson on the top. Why do you keep staring? She somehow makes everything look straight out of a film. Somi would be the beauty, the one whose role is deservingly main and the one they’d post on social media talking about how she was beautiful then and she still was now. Newer generations would yearn to be alive in her prime years so they’d bask in the moment they shouldn’t even have nostalgia for.

Yeah. In your head, Somi’s lived a thousand lives. The most impossible one is the part where she loves you.

On this campus in a galaxy that made everything seem small, she’s your friend. That’s both enough and too little for you. But she’s here, and that’s all that matters. 

“What happened to ‘dickhead’?” you ask. In this universe, you’re also an asshole. Sip mildly on your milk tea. You expected it, but the sweetness is over the top. You have to set it down on the counter. 

“My names for you change depending on my mood, so don’t take whatever for granted.” She starts to copy down the reviewer. “Like, not even a ‘Thank you Somi for the amazing milk tea’? Right now, my name for you is, and I quote, ‘an ungrateful pain in the ass.’ End quote.”

Conversational Korean fills the lines of your notebook. The subjects and verbs are underlined as well as the figures of speech. It doesn’t look like a headache when she’s writing it. The girl could use some penmanship coaching though.

You rest your arm on her shoulder and release a dramatic breath. “Thank you Somi for the amazing milk tea.”

“Where’s the part that goes, uh,” she begins, before clearing her throat, “‘Thank you Somi for being so pretty’?”

Oh, you thank her for that a thousand times. Not once have you said it out loud. But it’s sweet, telling someone they’re pretty. As if to thank that somehow, the world molded her into perfection, even if you’d stare just for a long while. 

“You’re so self-absorbed.”

“Alright,” says Somi, dropping the pen. It slams on the glass. “If that’s what you want. Stop me from being Mother fucking Teresa and being so kind to help you out with your school life crisis.”

“Wait, you’re gonna do my stuff?” 

“In exchange for mukbaps,” she offers cheerfully. She lifts her shoulders with a prudent nonchalance. “Math? Korean? Consider it done.”

She draws your laptop to herself and opens your canvas. Your missing assignment list isn’t exhaustive but there’s a reason why you can’t get to it immediately. These professors disguise their homeworks as short and simple, when in reality, their questions come with three bullets that require a fucking novel for an answer. You’re a writer but this stuff drains you.

She clicks your math task. Is Somi actually serious about this? She’s typing down formulas like a madman. Was she actually going to do it?

And are you… blushing? 

“T-thank you.”

What else can you say? You’d say a lot of things. But when a vacant thought enters the flow—something about a deeper sense of gratitude, about how you’ll never have another friend like her—it’s all over. You don’t want the end to come. Uni can go on in your life for ages just as long as Somi keeps coming to your place.

So that’s all you say: thank you.

Because you can tell her anything, but at the same time, you can’t.

“Don’t thank me. Seriously, I never know how to respond,” she says, laughing. You wonder how she manages to change her laughs from shy and sweet, to loud and unkempt. She’s a versatile girl. “You’re gonna make bank soon, too. You’re showing up to that interview tomorrow, right?”

Thinking of it makes you a little uneasy. Sure, writing’s been on your side since forever, but what if they don’t think it is? This is your only hope—the tall building in the flier, the smiling employees, the coaxing font. You won’t settle for any other job. It was yours, just not right now.

You trace your fingers on the back of Somi’s hand. “Yeah.” 

She smiles. “They’ll fall head-over-heels in love with you,” she says. A friendly(?) kiss to your knuckles is planted and bloomed. Hope she doesn’t notice the tension in them that comes right after. “I know it.

She’s so sure about it, too. How does she have this much faith in you? You don’t even believe that you’ll graduate.

“Seriously… thank you.”

“Hey, really,” Somi says again, “it’s no problem. Things can get real hard around here.” 

Don’t you know it.

Fucking algebra starts to flood your screen while Korean occupies your papers. Staring at them, you yourself start to fill with an unnerving sense of doom. You can’t run away. They said in kindergarten the sun would explode in a billion years. It seems like you've been studying for longer. Why aren’t you dead yet?

You’re not even drinking the milk tea greedily but your throat constricts, like you’ve taken a medicine that would do worse than better for you. See? It even makes your eyes water and your mind spill with thoughts that prophesize inevitable, ugly failure. You’ll fail and fail like a doomed scratch project, and none of it will be worth it. 

Somi pauses from explaining Korean grammar. It’s cinematic—the wind from your window brushes back her blonde locks as if they were drawn and animated, then presents a face that exudes natural beauty. Her large doe eyes—attentive, dancing with light—and slightly open mouth—pretty little mouth, impossibly soft lips—make you a little crazy. 

“You okay?” she asks.

Swallow. “Yeah. Totally.”

“Sure?”

“I’m not your dad, you know,” you sigh. “You don’t have to take care of me.”

But it’s all you yearn for. 

“Okay. I get it.” Somi rolls her eyes. “So, as I was saying, I suggest just saying the ‘neo’ character like you’re moaning. Like ‘ohhh—”

Balls of tapioca bounce from your mouth and on your keyboard. Somi’s shocked and noisy cackle bellows louder than the telenovela. You forget whatever your tears were for.

-

The tears come back a few days later. That’s when you remember you’ve got an interview and it’s not really ideal when the realization grips you like it wants you to die. You wake up that morning in a cold sweat, and the anxiety’s back—as if it ever left.

“You sure you got all your papers?” she asks. That’s Yunjin, and she probably shouldn’t be here. But she’s never played by the rules in her life. “I mean, you can’t rush back and tell them you forgot something. It’ll look pretty bad on your record.”

At least you don’t look bad. You rented formal attire off the local dress shop and it turned out pretty good. The jacket doesn’t smell and there aren’t wrinkles on your pants. Clothes, you’ve come to find out, leave a great first impression. For one: Somi thought you were a huge loser when you strolled into campus wearing a black shirt and loose pants. 

(“No fashion sense at all,” you remember her saying as she laughed over a cup of coffee. “It was almost pitiable.”)

It’s funny how the borrowed suit looks better than the shoes you actually own. There’s flaws running on the leather as they pave the way to the building. You’re pretty sure the sole’s a bit fucked, too. But you wouldn’t give them away. They’re too special a pair, just like you and Somi—

“Damn, they take offense to everything.” You return to the conversation. There you are again, going off track. Isn’t that what you always do? “I can’t even pass a document without some kind of divine judgment?”

Yunjin laughs humorlessly. “Welcome to the real world, kid.”

She says it like it’s something to be proud of. The real world isn’t all that nice. The bills are expensive and so are the food you need and the medications prescribed to you by a doctor who’s also fucking expensive. You don’t win in this game.

“You’re younger than me, Yunjin,” you say. “I think you should leave that talk to the grown-ups.”

She scoffs. “I know another person younger than you, and you don’t complain when she talks.”

You hate how only one name comes to mind. Block it out, like you do to everything. 

“Shut up.”

“Oh, that’s you.” Yunjin nods sarcastically. “That’s really, really you.”

What better interpretation is there to make? You, a foreigner to vulnerability or you, being a foreigner to thinking about anyone but Somi? Yunjin gives you this funny look—brows curled, lips pulling to the side—that tells you exactly which. 

You look away.

“Look,” Yunjin says, serious this time. “It’s gonna be alright. It might not seem like it but it will. You’re a good fucking writer, and you’re lucky enough to have people who believe in you.”

-

And if you don’t?

-

A good start: you ace the phys-ed class with your flexibility. Stretching really helps. You had to learn that the hard way.

You’re energized enough to pick up your things and go to class without dozing off on the bathroom floor. You’re optimistic about today. Let your positive thinking become reality: today, an actual step forward from the usual teaching. You’re speaking it into actual life when you say there will be no shitty professors, no bad encounters, and no loaded homework.

“Religion,” says your professor, a stout man whose beard opposes his actual age, “is a complex subject. You can divide it into polytheistic, meaning the belief of many deities, and mono-, the opposite.”

Your brow curls.

You look at the screen projected onto the empty space on the wall. The bright colors that border between unreadable and eye-scorching look familiar. Grumble softly through your teeth; yep, professor Chant taught this to you a week ago. Why is he repeating a lesson?

It’s funny how your first affirmation is transformed to mere wishful thinking. Nothing ever goes right here.

“There’s often a debate that sparks wars, as we can see from history.”

Obviously.

“We can trace it back to centuries ago, when the crusades still existed.”

Of course?

“Now, the rampage still goes on.”

Well, you never. 

Psst.

Not from professor Chant, but from a soft tapping on your shoulder. You turn around—it’s Somi. Suddenly, your breath learns how to do a disappearing act. You swallow, but it’s still not there. Where's the wand?

Somehow, you don’t hear your professor start to identify different faiths. All the faith you need is hers in you.

The look on her face tells you she’s as tired of this shit as you are. She points to your professor then twirls her finger beside her temple. You stifle a giggle at the dizzied eyes she makes as well. Sometimes, (well, a lot of the time—it’s happened more than you’re brave enough to fess up), Somi makes this uninteresting life at least be something worth laughing at. It’s not even that funny yet you have to compose yourself lest you’re caught talking during class.

Her thumb jabs in the air in the direction of the door. You know exactly what she means. It’s been days of meaningless repetition in lessons, each with little to no difference than the last. Nothing’s pointing to the possibility of things taking a turn for the better today. You might as well do what she’s hinting at: leave with her.

You’re still hesitant although you’d go with her to a haunted house if she asked. “Can we?” you whisper.

Somi clicks her tongue. “If we can’t,” she says, weighing her head to the side, “would you let me go alone?”

You’re on your feet before you even have time to think.

She has this smug look on her face that you’d love to wipe off, but it’s so attractive on her that you let it stay. “That’s what I thought.” 

Without bothering to make up a false excuse or trying to be discreet, you’re out of the classroom. It’s not your first time ditching classes anyway, and you only do those for the ones full of bullcrap. This class fits all the criteria for a shitty period that deserves abandonment.

“Remind me why I chose fucking ethics for my minor,” Somi says with a huff that inflates her cheeks. She steers you away from the clear windows of the other classrooms so that they don’t catch sight of your scholarly crime. Your cheeks burn as you feel her hold on your forearm. “It’s not like I wanted to be Socrates or some shit.”

Picture Somi’s face sculpted on a stone and her words taught to thousands. What quote would they like the best: “I’d rather jump off a cliff than wear flats” or “Food for thought? Where do they sell that?”?

“Yeah,” you say, “you already do enough corrupting of minds.” 

At least it isn’t raining today. The sky’s gray, but only a soft wind blows by. It almost takes Somi with it. Must be why she’s gripping you so hard. That’s alright; you like her. A touch from her is exactly what you need after that hellhole.

“I get that professor Chant can’t teach, but the whole point was that Socrates didn’t corrupt those kids, right? He just didn’t shut up.” She looks down at her watch. After duly noting you’ve got plenty of time to kill, she looks back up. Her long lashes are like butterfly wings, rising and falling under her eyes as she blinks. “He had good ideas everyone was scared of. It was like the majority’s opinion after he made us pass those essays about it.”

“Oh, really?”

“I mean, yeah.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t do essays.”

“Of course.”

Somi twiddles her pencil between her lips. She’s always had that kind—the ones that are naturally full, naturally kissable. They just fit the rest of her small, beautiful face that returns the favor of beauty reciprocally with a button nose and large eyes. It’s like her parents talked before they did the deed and said, “Okay, let’s make one that’ll grow up to be the prettiest fucking thing anybody’ll ever see.” You’d confidently say they were successful.

That pencil tapped you on your shoulder earlier. And now, it’s touching the lipsticked brims of her mouth. That’s the closest connection you’ll ever make with her. The knowledge is as Parnassian as it’s melancholic.

“You wanna get breakfast?” One blink from her makes her rephrase. “Oh, what am I thinking? You’re in college; you don’t eat breakfast.”

“I could use some right now. Where’s the nearest spot?”

She hums thoughtfully as she shoves her hands into the pockets of her high-waist square pants. Even the width of the fabric can’t hide how full her thighs are. “You mind going down Denny’s?” she offers.

You snicker. “I don’t swing that way, Jeon, sorry.”

“What? What are you even—” Her brows knot before releasing, the pupils below them throwing themselves to the sky. “Oh, shut up.” 

The victim of your dad jokes from the day you met, Somi’s the perfect girl to target. It doesn’t take a cleverly layered joke to get to her. She rolls her eyes so easily. But she’s been through it enough to bear the task of taking your wrist and walking to Denny’s. 

You shiver at the cold wind when you welcome yourself through the doors. Maybe you should have brought a jacket. On the bright side, there’s no storm today. Look around warily—okay, no tornadoes around here either. You’re still a little traumatized by that vision you had.

The restaurant is nicely clear. Only a few people are around, here to work on their computers or catch a snack after jogging. If only it were like this everyday, you would have gone here for breakfast all those years ago.

Somi pulls out her Gucci wallet and peers through the bills inside, as if she'd ever run out of cash. Her allowance goes up to thousands. There's no need for her to worry.

“I’m paying," she says finally. She jerks her head to the menu up in lights on the tilted ceiling. “Whaddya want?”

You shrug. “Pancakes?”

Somi smiles, brightly and beautifully. “Pancakes.”

Pancakes indeed.

A string of honey drizzles all over your breakfast. Cream on the top, too. Oh, and also some iced coffee, tailored to your wants rather than needs. This is an excessive and probably lethal amount of sugar for a college student to be consuming. For breakfast, too, at nine-whatever. But who’s keeping note? 

Definitely not Somi. She’s taking real advantage over the free syrup. Some of it gets on her lips and chin. 

“You're having way too much fun,” you say, your forking through your breakfast a hypocritical act. “Slow down. You eat the food, not the other way around.”

“I’ll eat yours if you don’t shut up.” Somi squirts (huh?) an unholy amount of chocolate all over her pancakes. It’s like a sugar bomb exploded on her plate. “And probably you, too.”

That glint in her eye. Must be the sunshine refracting from the glass windows. “I won’t shut up then.” Not like anything bad’ll happen if you play along?

Your place in the restaurant is more secluded. It’s near the corner, sheltered by four walls that consist of a window and some posters, which isn’t a problem. Like you said, you like Somi’s company, especially when you’re alone. She can go from bright and jokeful to seriously meaningful. She plays her game on both sides, and it makes you laugh and cry.

And soon, you're talking like there's no one around. Perhaps the volume of your voices is too notched up, but you don't notice. Somi's so easy to talk to that you wonder if it would have been that way if she were any other girl. She knows when to listen, keeping silent (a feat you didn't know she was able to perform) when it isn't her dice to roll, and talks so freely. 

You can't help smiling as she talks with crumbs on the sides of her mouth.

She's laughing when she says, “Oh god, I don’t wanna hear it. Spare us the pain. Like what my mom did when she said I dressed like a retired washed up supermodel in high school to first year.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I mean, it was.” Somi digs the prongs of her utensil into the pancake’s whipped cream heart and drives them through. “Senior year sours everything up.”

“I would've loved to be classmates with you back then.”

“Hah.” She makes a smug little sound. “I was an angry hormonal bitch, you wouldn’t want to meet me.”

“Eh. I could have handled you. Anything that happened before second year doesn’t count anyway.”

In the future, you’ll say that anything that happened before you were employed doesn’t count. Then it’ll move on to how the events before a certain age aren't judged, and so on. Life continues its run, its criterias and ideals change. 

Surprisingly, you're still chasing after it.

“Fair. Everyone’s angry and miserable in HS.”

Painfully accurate. “We all have those little realizations later in life. Youth makes us angry at nothing.”

She snorts on her hot chocolate. “You know, you have a better shot at being Socrates than me,” Somi says. “All that shit about food eating me. Like who the hell comes up with that?”

“Socrates?”

“Really funny.”

“Hey, who said ‘food for thou—’”

“I’ll show you food for thought, fucker!” 

Before Somi could pump a blastful of strawberry syrup into your hair, a soft cough makes itself clear just in your vicinity. Both of your heads turn.

Professor Jung. Statement vest and square pants, it’s impossible to mistake him for any other man. He’s always been asthmatic, so that phlegm-filled cough is a trademark for him, something you associate with the old man.

“You have a mouth on you, miss Jeon,” he says bluntly. He offers her a subtly reprimanding expression.

Shit, you’ve just been caught cutting classes. What do you do now? There’s the evidence all out on the table to pick apart on: the food, the time on Somi’s watch, the conversation. Look around and see that the place has no bathroom to hide in, or a back window to jump out of.

"Hi, professor Jung," you mutter.

“Not to be rude or anything,” Somi tells him, “but what are you doing here?”

Trust her to always be honest with an air of feistiness. You purse your lips to muffle your groan.

“I could ask you the same thing," Jung replies pointedly.

You could hear a pin drop in the wordless silence in the booth. It’s like time froze here and went on everywhere else. 

“Darn it.” Somi throws her gaze up to the ceiling. “Fine, we’re cutting. And you?”

"Teachers eat breakfast, too."

"Oh." She contemplates this. "Really?"

You whisper her name sharply, admonishing her: Somi, shut up, But she gives you her classic, disarming glare and twists her hand into a fist. It’s basically SSL (Somi Sign Language) for: Suck my dick and balls.

Your professor looks on, mildly… entertained? He chews on the inside of his cheek. “Normally, I’d cast a blind eye on absences.” He lifts his cup full of steaming black coffee to his lips, and somehow takes it in without wincing. “I was your age once, you know. But I need to talk to you.”

Now his eyes are directed at you. Yes, you, the only other guy in the conversation. His firm stare seals and locks on your face that there's no doubt whatsoever that he’s not referring to anyone else. The question is: why? Somi’s cutting, too—why do you have to take one for the team?

Swallow a chunk of honeyed pancakes. “Yes, professor?”

“Is it alright that I discuss this with you privately?”

Your nerves are getting the best of you. Maybe you shouldn't have ignored his message last night. What could he possibly be here for that's so urgent?

-

“Seventy percent, Jeon. Seventy percent.”

“I’m gonna make up for it!”

“Make up for it? Somi, there’s no going back from that! I’m failing!”

“Please?”

“No. No mukbaps for you.”

“Come on! It’s not rocket science,” she says, bundling herself over a book she “borrowed” from the library. She reads the text—all those symbols, large numbers, and complex formulas—and sighs. “But it’s not exactly ABCs either.”

It’s not necessarily up to you to try and make it easier for her to fix her mistake. You’ve got your own problems in a sack, and this one she made herself. But when she has those blonde brows creased together in frustration and a timer to keep herself accountable, you wish you were smarter. Tougher. Wiser. If you were, you would have figured a lot of things out before everything even happened.

But you’re not. You never have been. So, you say, “Something in the middle?” 

"Huh.” Somi pauses. She gives you a look. “Is it?"

"I guess so."

You sip on your own cup, then wipe the smear of brown it left on your upper lip. You had coffee at Denny’s but another cup wouldn’t hurt you. At least, not unless you’re seventy-five with a heart disease or something. (Ah, see here, with the way your back hurts if you twist just a little, you could qualify as a senior. Gotta collect those discounts.)

Anyway, the setting is this: it’s only afternoon, but you wouldn’t have guessed with the rain. You’re at your place, as you always are, with a visitor who welcomes herself at any time of the day. That visitor is Somi, and she has your spare key for herself. Although she’s not exactly unwelcome, you do get tired of her ransacking your fridge at times. But that’s just you—your usual, pessimistic self. 

And she’s… just Somi. Can’t be just Somi—another student among others—with a face like that. With all that beauty and wit going on for her, you don’t get why she isn’t hanging out with those sorority girls. You’re certain they’d be more than happy to welcome her. She’s better off practicing some witch rituals with them than studying with you. 

Actually, there's plenty of things she could do rather than be here. She could drop school to be a model since she’s got the height and face for it. She could audition to be an idol, just like the ones you see on television, and make a bigger name for herself.

And yet she stays.

You'll never be able to solve that mystery. It'll become a cold case in your drawer, one that'll haunt you forever because although your fridge tires of being raided, you like having her over.

"Can I say something to you?" asks Somi. She shuts the book and smiles at you tightly. You can see the irritability lining her lips. Oh, whatever for? What did you do to deserve that?

You'll bite. Carefully. "Yeah."

"Ugh. That's what I'm saying, what I’m about to anyway. It’s… I swear to god, you and your useless answers.” She slaps a hand on your table. “It's a rhetorical question, you prick. You aren't supposed to say something."

As careful as you were, you end up saying the wrong thing. Somi’s eyes roll up to the ceiling and she lets out the biggest sigh you’ve ever heard. Goddamn it, another fuck up. You never know what to say to her.

“Apparently,” you start, huffing out a breath that collects itself in a cold dust in the air, “I’m not supposed to say anything.”

Slap the pencil you’ve been toying with on the kitchen table. Fuck this.

You hop off the stool and start to occupy yourself with collecting your dirty laundry from the floor. One article of clothing equals one of the many burdens off your back. You’ve been stalling bringing them to the laundry shop for ages, and now it’s biting you back in the ass. Hey, that’s always how it turns out: you keep something for another day, and when that day comes you call bullshit and not do anything. Old habits die hard—you’re still the same bum you were in senior high.

Somi smirks as she twirls the Mongol you’ve abandoned with a shake of her head. “And it’d be a lot better that way, trust me.”

She’s right. If speaking to Somi were a course, you’d be failing it. You either come off as trying too hard or aggressive. It’s already a blessing by itself that you can even attempt to respond properly. 

Here you go again.

“You can either go fuck yourself, Jeon,” you throw a t-shirt at her that has coffee stains from weeks ago, “or you help me clean our house. You already fucked up my assignment.”

She’s surprisingly swift in grabbing it. Perhaps she’s realized that she has nothing better to do for she starts to clean up, too. Piles and piles of clothes disappear from the floor and into transparent laundry bags. Each gets filled to the zippers—that’s how long you’ve been winging it.

For the first time in weeks, your floor’s beginning to lose its mess. Save for the dust that’s accumulated in the corners, it’s relatively clean. As you and Somi pick up your clothes and paper bags, you come to your usual realization.. You see how easy it is to just clean up but still won’t learn from it. You’re a psychic—you can already see that this routine of avoiding your responsibilities will repeat itself in the future, until you learn and unlearn it again.

“Our house?” Somi folds a pair of denim jeans and slips it into a Ziploc. “If I remember correctly, I don’t even live here.”

You start to laugh loudly. What an absurd thing to take away from your remark. “You might as well be with how often you break and enter.”

“And I’m so glad you like my company.”

Well, it’s not like you initiate it. You’ve been friends with Somi since last year, and even from the beginning she was the one who made the plans, volunteered to be study buddies, all that shit about getting together. Your friendship grew and soon you made plans— 

Oh.

So it wasn’t as one-sided as you thought.

You can’t bite back another commentary. “I should call the cops on you right now. I’ll file a restraining order and you won’t ever see me or my house again.”

You moron. What’s wrong with you? You always end up saying the wrong things, a guise for what hides beneath all that fake confidence you have up for you. It’s what’s gotten you into fights and arguments before, some severe. One might think that with a tongue like yours you would have figured out a solution. Nope, they’d think wrong.

“Please,” she says, smiling at you once more but with a tinge of sass on it now. Somi never lets anything get to her. In fact, she mirrors back whatever you say with a stronger refraction. “We both know you can’t go a day without me.”

You’d tell her she’s flattering herself. You’d say that she thinks of her position in your mind too highly, but you can’t bring yourself to even mutter it. The syllables form in the corners of your mouth but they already feel wrong from the get-go. It’s like the mere act of replying would be lying or something.

You’ve lied to Somi a hundred times before. You said you couldn’t stomach your ice cream though you just wanted her to have it because you saw her staring at it. You said you did your homework and teased her about it when she said she didn’t. You said she was an asshole after she drew on your face while you slept on the sofa.

But saying that you could go a day without her was something you didn’t have the heart to do. 

Well, what if it isn’t a lie?

It melts in your mouth. Nope, you aren’t going to say anything stupid. You already have enough stupid falsehoods said and done.

“Didn’t I get this for you?” she asks, breaking your reverie and lifting up a hoodie. 

You study it. It looks familiar so she must have. Observe the statement sublimation-printed on it: “BEST DADDY EVER.” It's gotta be weird morally, ethically, whatever category it falls under. But somehow, you grin when you see it. Not weird at all to you. 

You look away, pretending to be very interested in the flowerpot by your window. "Yeah." 

"It's on the ground,” Somi says, deep in her thoughts, “with all the stuff you wear.” A simper fights its way on her mouth. 

"Uh huh."

“It’s with the laundry.”

“What are you getting at here?”

"So… that means you used it." Her cheeky Cheshire smile grows wider.

Reel back a few months, to the first Christmas you and Somi spent together. You were unwrapping your gifts from under the small tree of evergreen and red ribbons, and came to discover that she gave you that: 

A hoodie, with the kind of print that doesn't fade so everyone knows loud and clear, till the day you move on to the unknown realm, that you're someone's best father.

But it’s how it has double meanings that makes you crack up.  

"I'm not wearing this," you muttered, hardly containing your laughs. "What the fuck is this?"

Somi threw her head back and let out the most improper laugh ever. It bounced off the walls and echoed in your ears. "You like it!" she replied, bringing her hands together in satisfaction. “Come on, look me in the eyes and tell me you hate it.”

You jutted the hoodie out in front of you and looked at it in disbelief. It was an abomination—the color was a disgusting shade of red, the kind that tapered on the line between merry Christmas and murder, with a skeleton-like character on a motorbike below the words that declared you the best dad in the world. From the seams to the print, it was ridiculous, and you couldn’t stop laughing.

You scratched your head as if doing so would stop your healthy guffaws. "Somi. Somi, I'm serious, I'm not going out with this."

And yet here you are now, caught with the evidence of having worn it. 

"I had *nothing else to put on that day," you defend yourself.

*(You had plenty. You had just ordered a bunch of shirts from the local store and pants so that the school dress code would allow you reprieve from the weather that switched constantly between numbingly cold and the kind of sunny that burned your scalp.)

Somi nods mockingly, and packs the hoodie away. She knows your truth, but she'll let you have this one.

“You know,” she says thoughtfully, slumping on the floor with her back to the feet of your table, “I don’t really get what all this is for anymore.”

You're leaning against the cheap painted walls of your home. Sweat beads the sides of your faces and bags of clothes surround you. You look like a couple who just moved into a new home. Oh, what a fantasy. Not that you’d like it to actually happen. You swear with all the pinkies in the world that it’s just a stray, intrusive thought. 

She chews on her bottom lip, the one that’s so much more glossed than the other that you’re not totally dismissing the idea you could use it as a mirror. You aren’t observing your reflection when you look at it, however. Why? Oh, just another cold case, and you’re the worst detective.

Suddenly, the fantasy twists itself into your heart and squeezes.

Oftentimes people are afraid of their thoughts, of themselves. That’s the reason why they lash out and say things they don’t mean. So you’re saying another line that comes off more aggressively than you think. You’re always like this around her: a sarcastic, stuttering, alliterate mess. 

“Which one? You breaking into my house at midnight ‘cause your fan broke or… oh, you know, everything else?”

Well, it’s not like it isn’t true, despite the statement only being uttered since you got nothing else to say.

Maybe that’s why you and Somi are friends—her old habits take a lot of time before disappearing, too. One of hers is entering your house with no warning, not even a text that asks as politely as it could: hey, can i come over? or perhaps even crashing at yours 2nite,, just to let you know. Nope, none of that—what Jeon Somi does is fiddle with your doorknob like a scheming thief and let herself in like she owns the place.

And it always, always scares the shit out of you.

“I mean this school thing.” Somi twitches her mouth to the side as she looks at you. “It's like there's nothing going on anymore."

"Tell me about it."

"I came here thinking I'd finally have my life together," she declares. Head shaking, she smiles. "I didn't think I'd be just… older. Not stronger or wiser or tougher. Just old as shit."

"Yeah, well, I didn't think I'd have a brat who breaks in everyday."

"You’re not giving up on that, huh? You gave me a key, babe. Can’t keep a cow and not milk it.”

“That’s the worst way to say it. You haven’t even been on a farm.”

“Piss off,” she snarls, punching you in the gut. “Go fuck yourself in the ass or something. Whatever.”

She says all those things—things that basically tell you to fuck off, sodomize yourself, whatever you do, she doesn’t fucking care—but she’s smiling. Smirking? That tiny gesture has you confused again, like all the other times wherein you have no idea if she’s shitting you or not.

It’s what keeps you on the edge of your seat. Somi has that thrill about her that’s so entrancing that it’s only right that you’re dragged along. The road’s rocky, but the wind is amazing on your bruised heels.

“I would, but we have class, remember?” Point to the clock on the wall that tells you that there’s precisely twenty minutes until your next awful hour in a cramped classroom.

"Oh, alright, so you like it in there?"

"Nothing wrong with it, but not denying or confirming anything."

"There you go again." Somi glances at the time's thin hands, recognizes the schedule they foretell, then groans. She always expresses herself dramatically, so her eyes turn themselves north and her jaw drops to the floor exaggeratedly. “Oh, please, for the love of all that’s good, don’t tell me that it’s—”

“—Kim Chungha,” you finish, regretfully. You don’t like showing up to her classes either. She’s so uptight, so full of herself that her lectures turn into a grand narration of everything she’s achieved. You didn’t pay a tuition of thousands for that. You could eavesdrop on that for free whenever a TedTalk speaker goes to your mall.

Somi shares your hate wholeheartedly. Although the hour of the class isn’t too near by any means, she’s already hating it. She’s already living in what would be a hellish moment and deprecating herself for ever thinking to enroll in it.

You groan sullenly. Somi sighs instead.

“Sometimes, I like to think about if she came out of the womb talking about how successful she is.” Your friend pinches her nose and leans into your shoulder. “‘Something something the tight womb molded me into the conceited fuck that I am today.’”

“You forgot the part about how we haven’t suffered enough.”

“Oh, of course.” Somi plays with the ends of your shirt. “‘You kids got into this college because your parents paid for it. I had to go work for it and get paid.’”

“Of course she did. Tuition was like three dinosaur bones back then and a flame from her neighbor Prometheus.”

She busts out laughing. “She’s not that old!”

She’s right. Chungha isn’t old in any way. In fact, she’s a young prodigy for a professor, considering she’s training to be one. She’s only a mere couple years your senior, too.

“Well, she doesn’t fucking act like it!” you say defensively, but you’re laughing. You and Somi love to make fun of her and the rest of your teachers. “She’s like that kid who got spanked when she was a kid and talked about it like she was in the military or something.”

“Exactly. All that because she studied in America, what a fucking bitch.”

“A bitch who’s gonna torture us if we don’t pass that essay later.” You get to your feet. “We gotta get going.” You make a finger gun at her and wink. “Dibs on the shower.”

“Asshole.” 

And just like that, you ram into the shelves. A bag of clothes rolls off one of them. You grab it before it ends up on the floor. Despite it all, you still have your spidey senses.

-

You didn't get the job.

It should've been obvious that you wouldn't. You're a college student. Your best bet was an intern position or a position lower than that. But seeing the rejection printed finely, cruelly on the paper slipped in your mail still stings. You reread it to check if it really was for you (as if anybody else in this godforsaken campus applied) and your name is still there.

We've written to inform you that you' failed again. They might as well just type that. Their paragraphs of formality and sickening professionalism won't lighten the blow.

You shake your head and blink away your tears. You won't let this dampen your day. Today will be better, mark your words. 

You hope your optimism won’t be shattered. Things are going on well. You’ve paid Doyeon, the smartest girl in your class, to tutor you. She’s kind enough to give you a session for a student-friendly price, but when she starts to teach the math, you find that you don’t want fuckshit to do with it. You’re already regretting paying her with what you could have used to spend on a meal.

Because see, there’s Doyeon, beautiful and gentle, with her pencil top against her temple, asking: “Do you understand?” 

And then there’s you, a big fucking liar: “Yep. Easy peasy.”

Alright. Maybe that went bad, but you won’t let one bad moment ruin the rest of your day. You still have more than sixteen hours to make the most of it. Let’s hope you won’t screw it up.

As you walk to your next class, you find that your head doesn’t stop spinning. That’s what math does to you. Again, it’s supposed to be stupidly easy—you mean, how difficult can counting be? But when those mathematicians added letters into it your whole word fell apart. Nothing’s been right ever since you were in middle school.

“Dude,” and there goes Somi, bouncing down the hallway and bumping into your arm. A beat. “Hey, you okay?”

You blink. Your cheek feels damp and Somi, for all her beauty, looks blurry. You don’t realize you’re crying.

Pathetic. You're fucking pathetic.

Open your mouth to deny the tears. She doesn’t let you. She wraps her arms around you and just… holds you. Doesn’t even say anything. For the first time, Jeon Somi doesn’t say something crass or out of line—doesn’t even giggle when you snort a little too loudly. 

It’s in these little, tender moments that you’re reminded she’s your friend. And she loves you.

When she lets go, your throat feels tight. “Somi, I—”

“Shhh.” She presses a finger to your lips. “I’m not gonna ask. You know what’s gonna help you out?”

“What?”

“Drinks. On me.”

-

Somi always dresses like she's going to walk a fashion show. She doesn't dare show up with an outfit that doesn't reveal or at least show her curves.

That pretty much explains why she's dressed the way she is: a short, apricot crop top that could pass for a sports bra wraps around her impeccable bust while her long legs peek not all too shyly from the ends of a denim miniskirt.

You watch her try to keep the hem of her skirt right where they should be, but they steal your eyes to what shouldn't be revealed anyway—those full yet slim thighs pressed against each other making you jealous of the little space that gets to be squeezed between them. 

But as always, you’re pretentious. “You do know it’s raining, right?” you say.

“And?” Somi cocks a brow. She smooths the top down her tummy, and you can’t look anywhere else. When the eye sins, you have to pluck it out, but you can’t. You want to keep sinning. “It’s not like a storm’s gonna stop me from being hot.”

You hate how she’s right. Through thick and thin, rain or shine, Somi remains the most gorgeous girl you know. She’s always pulled together, not one speck out of place. She walks with a strut a runway model would be jealous of. It’s not your fault that you lust after her when she’s… like that. Or maybe that’s another lie—maybe you don’t really want her.

And yet another.

Click your tongue. “Okay.” 

Lift your bag. Stop in your tracks. You still have more to say.

Look at her. Look at the slopes of her curvaceous body, the smile in her lined eyes, the way the crop top shows too much but just right. Did she catch you? 

Not even you with your artificial nonchalance and indifference can deny that—

“You look good today.”

She smiles. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

-

So this is what happens: you drive, because (1) Somi can’t be bothered to, and (2) she can’t drive for shit. The last time you let her handle your car, she almost put you on the news. Oh, and (3) the bar is a little far from your college; you aren’t really planning to hike your way there.

Apparently, it’s a bad day for a lot of people here, too. A drunkard murmurs at the bar about how he loved her until she left him for someone better, and you could hear crying coming from the bathroom. Strangely fascinating how everyone’s here for different reasons, but for the same idea: some sort of relief. 

“I’m very sorry about the way I…. you know, cried.” You make the first conversation starter. It’s an awkward topic, but you suppose she won’t have a problem with it. Somi’s your friend, isn’t she? 

“Nothing to apologize for,” she says. Her eyes are lined with some sort of bright color that makes them look more enchanting. Makes the tears more apparent. “I’ve been breaking down too. Just in different ways.”

You wonder what’s beneath all that. All that blonde hair, flirty long lashes, the attitude. It only occurs to you now that you’ve never seen Somi cry. Maybe mockingly, when she doesn’t want to do her graphics, or for theater. But never in the raw sense of the word.

She’s stronger than one would think, you realize. Jeon Somi, more soldier than princess, though she doesn’t look the part. Perhaps her sword is the lipgloss ever present in her purse, the shield the smile she puts on everyday no matter the conflict. She deserves a lot more credit than what she’s given.

“What do you want?”

You can’t stop staring at the fake star tattoo on her chest. “You. Y-you can choose. It’s your money, not mine.”

You can’t tell if it’s the red, beaming lights or your imagination. You swear you saw her smirk. Quickly avert your gaze. 

You don’t know how to go about these feelings for Somi. Are they romantic? Platonic? Whatever? You won’t deny that she’s pretty. Just look at her, gorgeous legs crossed on the stool, eyes magnetic. It’s a fact, forever undeniable, kind of like common sense at this point.

Yet there’s this: you’ve been friends for so long. You’d hate to ruin that. 

“A martini, please.” Somi looks at you rather than the bartender, a glimmer in her eye as she adds, “Extra dirty.”

Okay, well-

You don’t speak for a while. It’s awkward, really, trying to divert the moment after you were pretty sure she had eyefucked you. Somi doesn’t seem to mind. She’s staring at her reflection in a nearby bottle, reapplying her lipstick. It makes her mouth look plumper. Poutier, too. You decide to discard that thought and train your eyes on something else. 

But it’s hard not to look at Somi. You’re sure every heterosexual man in this bar/club/crying lounge is staring at her. Hell, even a few girls. But it somehow makes your heart squeeze a little more when you remember you are the one she brought out to have drinks. You’re the only one in this lonely place she considers a friend.

“So,” she says. “We’ve both been going through shit, huh.”

Just in time for the martinis to arrive. You laugh roughly, quickly drinking one up. ‘That’s one way to put it.”

"To surviving another week of academia," she raises her shot glass, a glint of defiance in her eyes. ‘And to us, for being the tough fucking shits that we are.”

You clink your glass against hers, the sharp crack almost lulling through the music. The martini burns a fiery path down your throat. You wince; yeah, you need some of that beer later. Martini’s never been your forte, but hey, it does the job. Your shoulders have already lost their tension. And Somi’s paying anyway. Beggars can’t be choosers.

“Seriously, I thought professor Jung was going to kill me,” you sigh, leaning back against the cool metal of the stool. “Maybe one of these days.”

“Don’t go yet. I’ll miss you too much.”

“Thanks for the sympathy. For that, I won’t write you off in my will.”

“Good boy.”

You gulp. Take another long sip of the martini. She knows exactly what she’s doing. You know her intentions too. Nobody just goes to a bar and wears an outfit like that for nothing. So why is it only you who’s shivering with anxiety?

She turns to you, her expression softening. For a few precious moments, her eyes look less striking. They’re more concerned, glazing over you slowly. "You look like you need more than just a drink, though. You look… hollowed out."

“Don’t I know it.”

“Hey, I’m just saying. We need to find a way to de-stress before we both lose our fucking minds and we die before graduation.”

The corner of your mouth twitches upwards. “One vice at a time, Somi. One vice at a time.”

She giggles. “That’s what I like about you.” Her golden hair tosses as she shakes her head and she’s back to nursing her drink. “You’re funny. Hot. Yeah, you’re weird sometimes, let’s be fucking honest. But you’re my bestest friend in the world.”

Your chest warms up. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s told you all week. And it was said to you in a noise-polluted bar, after crying your heart out, and by Somi.

You used to dream of meaning this much to somebody. All your life, you’ve felt discarded. The floater friend. It worsened when you enrolled in college. What they don’t tell you about this time in your life is that it’s a dog-eat-dog world. You survive or you don’t.

And now you’ve got your bestest friend in the world, telling you that you’re her friend, too. You mean something to her. You’re the only guy she’d take out to a bar like this and spend thousands on. 

“Well… say something about me.” Somi suddenly stops drumming her fingertips on the counter and brings them to yours. The contact burns. It’s the tiniest arson ever committed.

Hey, you’re in a bar. It’s not supposed to be anything personal. You ought to drink and dance and hope you get tipsy enough to forget about everything. But you’re here, forced to cope with a dilemma of feelings, and the fact that beyond her loudness, she still cares about you. 

It goes deeper than personal.

“I—” How do you say this? Hope this easy smile gets you out of trouble. Or in trouble, whichever is best. “I think you’re the hottest girl I’ve ever met. Kind of… a little wild, too. I like that, you know.”

Somi smiles, slowly and painfully. It’s killing you in a thousand different ways—by knife, by fire, by self, by her.

“Wow,” she says, looking down at your drink. What’s worth studying about that dull glass? “You’re a real charmer, y’know that? Just know how to make my heart melt.” 

For whatever reason, there’s no sarcasm entangled in her words. It’s too much. You can’t deal with it. But you push it anyway.

“What about me? You say something about me.”

Somi blinks. Smiles for the first time in minutes. “You’re really my type, if that means anything.”

Your forehead wrinkles. “That’s all?”

“I don’t know.” Somi groans then downs another drink. This conversation makes her want to die of alcohol poisoning. She’s getting there—her ditzy eyes connect with yours and you know she’s pulling you down with her. “I talk a lot, don’t I? But you never really say anything. It kind of hurts.”

You don’t need the reminder. You’re so bad at communicating that you can’t even talk to your best friend. But then you look at her, and she’s just so pretty that you think it’s understandable. It’s understandable that you keep quiet rather than say the wrong thing, let her talk when her voice is like honey, silence your heart so that you won’t lose the sight of that pretty face. 

Your shoulders slump. You’re never going to figure this out. These odd feelings for her. This whole college thing, too. The jobs you can’t take, the qualifications you don’t meet. You’re never gonna make it.

“So,” she begins, like she’s about to make a proposal. “What’s it gonna take for you to shut me up? Or, better yet—” 

She lifts your chin before you could drink again. You can’t drink your way out of this. The last thing she’ll let you do is scamper away, like you always do. 

“What’s it gonna take to get your cock in my mouth?”

You shiver.

A warmth spreads through your veins. It’s not entirely from the alcohol. You make that conclusion as you watch her tongue dart out, moistening her bottom lip. The air around you seems to thicken. 

Her knee brushes lightly against yours. The contact is electric already. Nobody’s made you feel this way before. No, not before Somi. Her gaze drops, lingering on your lap for a beat too long before flicking back to your eyes.

Your breath hitches. The audacity of this girl, you swear. “Somi…”

“Not a lot then, huh?”

Somi’s hand continues its slow, teasing ascent. Her fingertips now brush against the sensitive fabric of your jeans. You feel the unmistakable hardening beneath her touch and honest to god groan.

“Good,” she whispers, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. “I knew you'd like that.”

Her nimble fingers find the zipper of your jeans. A wave of heat washes over you.

“Are you sure?” Your voice is a ragged whisper.

She doesn't answer with words. Instead, she slowly, painstakingly, pulls down your zipper. You flinch at the sound of the metal zipping against each other. Somewhere in those eyes you find a challenge. I dare you, Somi says, to tell me to stop right now. Tell me you don’t want me to blow you in a public place and make myself look like your cumslut. It’s your choice, you know. All up to you.

You don’t say anything.

Her fingers brush against the warm cotton of your boxers. You feel them wrap hard on the head of your cock. Somi starts stroking you slowly. 

“So big,” she murmurs. You feel the rush of blood, the immediate hardening, your cock springing free from the constrains of your pants.

You close your eyes for a moment. This cannot be happening. Jeon Somi, your impossibly hot best friend cannot be jerking you off. Maybe this is all a dream. Yet when you open them, her very real gorgeous face is still there.

A hot wet warmth suddenly wraps the head of your cock. Her mouth works its magic. You grip your seat. You try to think about other things despite the obvious distraction in your lap. How warm the bar suddenly is. How nobody seems to care she’s throating you. How Somi, you come to find out, is a woman who lives by a method. First, her tongue dances along your base. Then it’s gone only to return with renewed vigor. She has her hands on your thighs, pushing you down her throat and letting your cock slap on the flat of her tongue.

You let out a shaky breath as the pleasure intensifies. Somehow, the place becomes nonexistent. There’s no setting to this story. The bar is gone and so is the shitty music and the dancers. There’s no plot either. All it dissolves down to is the climax: the suction of Somi’s plump lips on your dick and the sight of her tits bouncing as she takes you.

“Fuck. Somi, I’m gonna-”

Seemingly determined, she takes it all. Her intense gaze never leaves you. Even as she deepthroats you, she seems to be smiling wickedly. Almost as if she planned this for the entirety of the day. 

She lets her tongue flick and it’s finally over.

You honestly black out for a few minutes. It’s hard to process it all. Just a few hours earlier you were crying about another essay and the cruelty of your professor. Now, you’re spilling your cum down Somi’s throat. And you’re watching her take it all, happily sucking the sanity out of you. Her hands are an oxymoron at this point, placed on your thighs to keep you from shaking so much yet her touch is too electric to make you stop. That’s just what Somi is: a walking contradiction. Too pretty to be tough but she’s stronger than you are. Too girlish to even pick up a tissue from a sidewalk but she got on her knees in this seedy bar for you. 

“See?” Somi says, sounding very triumphant. “Didn’t take much.”

-

The Uber ride back to Somi’s apartment is a blur of streetlights. The moon doesn’t even look real. The warmth from the drinks and the kissing makes everything feel softer, closer. Her head rests on your shoulder, her fingers tracing idle patterns on your thigh. 

You don’t resist it. You’re both pleasantly buzzed. Tonight, you’ll forget about your shitty college and your overflowing canvas. It’s all about you and her.

“My place is a fucking mess,” she laughs. “Don’t judge me, daddy, will you?” Somi catches on to the tension in your body and smirks. Oh, she’s got you all figured out, from the inside and out. "Oh yeah, I'm calling you daddy."

"Shut up." You roll your eyes, embarrassed. 

Somi smiles, eyes disappearing. "Make me, daddy."

The word hangs in the air like a question. It’s new, this game. It’s probably dangerous and holds a lot of repercussions you won’t be able to handle sober. But you find yourself following her inside, the door clicking shut to seal you both in the dim, cozy chaos of her living room. 

It’s not even that much of a mess. Or maybe the obvious old, lived-in wealth distracts you from the numerous shopping bags and parcels. Somi tries to kick off her heels but stumbles. You catch her by the waist. She flinches in surprise. Her abdomen is firm beneath your touch, soft in all the right places.

“You know what?”

Somi smiles. “What?”

You hold her closer. For the first time in this little, little life, you’re confident to say: “I think I’ve got it all figured out now.”

But she knows what you’re talking about. Her smirk is so proud, so full of itself that it makes Jeon Somi more attractive than she is. 

“I want you,” you confess. “I tried denying it, but I’ve always wanted you.” It wasn’t included in your initial script but it slips out anyway, boldly: “From the moment I saw you.”

“Yeah. I have to be honest first though.” She skates her hand under the curve of her chin before placing it gently on your wrist. “I don’t know how it happens, but when I look at you, I can’t think straight. You make my brain haywire, if you know what I mean. My thoughts… just don’t make sense.”

Perfectly aligned, the stars and your thoughts with hers. A spyglass can’t spot a singular difference.  “Same here, blondie.”

“Well?”

“Well.” You’re leaning forward as well, because there’s something you want to do before the sun rises and beats you up again. “We ought to do something about that, right?”

“Oh, trust me. know a lot of things we can do.”

That’s all it takes. The kiss isn’t gentle by any means. Nothing like the playful pecks you shared at the bar. Come to think of it, they aren’t like the sloppy makeout sessions you shared once the drinks got the better of you. This one is hungry and deep. The way she shoves her tongue in your throat reads like she’s been waiting to do this for years, probably even before you thought of doing this to her. Her lipgloss tastes sweeter than sugar.

Somi doesn’t complain about her designer skirt being torn. You don’t complain that this is your last good pair of decent clothes for another three days. Nothing about the outside world matters—no responsibilities, no consequences. You’re completely consumed by Somi’s lips and how she feels as you bracket your bodies together.

Before you know it, you’re in her bedroom. It’s even larger than the living room, walls painted bright pink and the bedclothes made of the softest fabric. The vanity table in the corner looks like it’s worth a year of your tuition. Lights bedazzle its mirror and an expensive figurine sits in front of it. Jesus, what does her father do for a living? Does he know his daughter calls you daddy too?

Her lips are swollen. You kiss them one last time before you undo her bra. The soft, full curves of her breasts spring out immediately. Her nipples are hard under your hot mouth and tongue. Lord knows how long you’ve thought about doing this. Her tits are heaven on earth.

“Yes,” Somi hisses. “They’re all yours, Daddy.”

You give her a sharp, open-handed slap to the side of her breast—not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make her gasp and the flesh bloom a beautiful pink. She moans, her head falling back. You do it again to the other side, the sound sharp in the quiet room. You lavish the stinging, reddening skin with desperate licks and sucks.

You wouldn’t dare put a finger on her if you were sober. You know that well. But the idea that she wants you to do anything you want to her is making your brain lose its logic. You’re operating like a broken machine on flimsy code. 

That’s exactly why Somi smiles when she kneels again. “Remember when we talked about Socrates?”

You roll your eyes. “Why are you bringing him up now?”

Tipsy Somi is still Somi after all. Her breasts rise and rest as she breathes, slick from your mouth’s worshipful rituals. 

“When you told me I was corrupting minds,” she says, blinking up at you deceptively, “did I corrupt yours, too?”

Turns out she doesn’t need you to answer. First contact: her soft tits squeezing around you. It extracts a groan from the depths of your throat. “Somi.”

“What's wrong?”

Nothing is. Not when she feels amazing wrapped tight around your shaft. The friction is incredible. It rides up from your base up to your swollen tip, then repeats in its overwhelming cycle. You’re already so close to the edge.

You can almost feel her heartbeat as she takes a deep breath in. Her deep cleavage welcomes you once more. You don’t know which is more explicit: the sounds of her flesh accommodating you and her soft pants, or the sight of it. Each low plunge ignites heat from the pit of your stomach. You can see light sweat form on her skin. She’s working so hard for it, so hard to make you cum.

It just might work. 

God, everything about Somi is so erotic. It’s like for one night, she conjured herself to be a fantasy only for you. No one at the bar could experience this no matter how much they stared at her. They’re not the ones who can see her nails dig into her own chest as she works you, or her biting her lip to cope with the labor. All they see is the perfect, dolled up Jeon Somi, the gorgeous woman at the bar who looks too out of their league to approach. 

Meanwhile, this is what you’re privy to:

Somi jerking you even harder, her nipples tight and her hair tossed to the side.

Somi asking you if you like it, although she knows very well that you do. How can anyone not like this? Only an insane man would deny it.

Somi looking like a doll although she’d look more a sex doll if you consider how she pressed her boobs together tighter. The pressure grows like a waiting tsunami.

You crash. 

With a final, deep stroke and a stifled moan from her own lips, you cum all over her. It’s messy—it gets all over her collarbone, the lines on her throat, her chin. This doesn’t stop her movements from becoming more urgent. The embrace of her tits feels more like a choke now that she’s determined to drain every single drop from you. 

After the last spurts come out, she gives you a teasing lick on your tip. She looks down at her skin covered with cum and gasps. 

“Look at the mess you made,” she says. “Won’t you clean it up for me, daddy?”

-

Somi’s bathroom, as it turns out, looks straight out of a suite. You’re sure she had maids clean this regularly, with how the tub shone and not a tile on the walls were chipped. It smells like strawberries when you stepped inside. The porcelain is cool under your feet.

“College was just a getaway vacation for you, huh?”

Somi shrugs. “Pretty much,” she says. She doesn’t bother to deny it. She only joins in on your “I’m broke” jokes to make you less lonely. This was her reality. “Could’ve gone to some Ivy League un, but at least I met you, right?”

You reach past her to turn the knob. There’s a clunk, a hiss, and then the water crashes down. You watch how the droplets slip into the curves and arches of her toned back, down her perfect ass. Of course, she’s ever the movie star: Somi arches into it, eyes closed.

You move into the warm spray with her. She turns to face you. 

Her face looks prettier without the makeup. As the foundation washes away along with each slicked contour, her bare face comes to view. In the steam, Somi looks like a goddess who made an apparition. No, actually. Her eyes are larger without the heavy lashes and her mouth soft without the lipliner. 

“Yeah,” you agree. You’re still stunned. “I have that going on for me.”

You lift her easily. She giggles, wrapping her legs around your waist without a word. All part of Jeon Somi’s masterplan, and you’re checking off each step.

The water hammers down on your joined bodies, background noise as you thrust in her. Both of you gasp. She’s so tight it knocks your breath out. You’re forced to rely on anchoring her weight on the wall, as featherlight as she is.

“Jesus, Somi. You feel so fucking good.”

She’s all slick and tight around you. Her overwhelming wetness lets you know how hard she was working for this. Somi is speechless as you start moving. You don’t bother for any buildup. It’s rare to see her so pliant, so willing. The sensation of being filled up was too good for her to run her mouth. 

You did say you were going to shut her up.

Her mouth hangs the whole time. Her doe eyes are large with want. Each time you enter her, her insides cinch tighter around you. You already came twice tonight; you want to hold out a little longer and make her feel good.

You place your other hand at the back of her head to dull the thrusts. Those gym classes were worth it after all. You have no problem hoisting her up with one hand and searching for the angle that’d make her shake. 

It takes a few different approaches, all with your mouth smothering her chest and neck, before her eyes fly open in shock. You smirk. Somi squeezes your shoulders tighter. From there, the moans you revel in seem to amplify. 

“God, yes,” she gasps, the blasphemy melting into steam next to your ear. She buries her face in your neck. “Don’ stop…”

A sudden rush of adrenaline runs through you, like you’ve downed caffeine instead of alcohol. Every sense is wide awake. You set a wild rhythm that you don’t think even you can keep up with. But each dip into Somi’s tight, weeping cunt makes it worth the effort. The lust melts into the steam of the shower, wrapping your endless moans and grunts into a hot bubble.

Her nails needle into your back like the spray from the shower. Somi’s moans border into shouts. You see the exact moment she cums. All of her being tenses up except her thighs, which stay at your hips, keeping you locked inside her. Each thud and stroke leads up to this very moment.

Honey drips down her legs. Somi whimpers while she cums around you. It’s sticky sweet. The water washes away both of your releases into the drain. You clutch onto one another for life. It might not be hyperbole either; the two of you are spent.

For a long moment, you just stay like that. You hold her up despite the weakness in your legs. You massage her hair through the shampoo. You wonder if this was the right thing to do.  There’s still the possibility that you’ll regret it in the morning, when the alcohol and daze are gone. This was just a way to get it out of your systems.

“Wow,” says Somi, voice hoarse. “I knew you deserved that Best Daddy hoodie.”