#m;ahri

The morning weather had thrown her for a loop. It'd fooled her into thinking it'd be a nice day with the misleading sunshine and sparsely clouded sky. She'd just left her house when the sky began it's unforgiving assault of rain. Luckily, she had enough time to grab her umbrella.

It was an absolute ridiculous color. She'd always found it too bright and tacky. Firetruck red. But, her cousin had given it to her as gift (as strange as that was), she didn't have much room to complain. Worrying that she'd miss the bus the girl hurried to her stop, nearly breathless when she finally arrived.

She was no where near late, though there seemed to be more strangers milling about than usual. Her gaze found the familiar male figure she'd observed every morning for the past year. They'd been boarding the bus on the same spot for so long and yet neither had spoken a word to each other. Today he was huddled within his clothes, nearly soaked to the bone from the pouring rain. 

"Eh? You kidding me right now?" 

The young man scoffs, tapping the edge of his cigarette against the rim of the ashtray. There’s a long period of silence as he takes a sip from the hite beer can, and one would normally question his reasoning for consuming such toxic combinations at all, but Jongin finds far too much pleasure into doing so. He’s quick to revert as he leans back against the sofa, the cancer stick hanging idly from in between his parched lips.

"I mean, if you’re going to complain, don’t ask at all. You’re wasting both your time and my time. I could have spent these past twenty minutes working on my novel, y’know that? You should feel grateful." Obviously his narcissistic selection of words put his arrogance onto blatant display, but he doesn’t give a damn either, because this isn’t the first time he has seen her and neither will it be the last. She might as well get used to his behavior and learn to deal with it, too. 

Jongin can see the change in her facial expression and he’s quick to silence her before she can utter her next protest. Shutting people up has always been a specialty of his: just use some sentimental bullshit to move them a little bit, and wala, job done. Oh, the perks of being a novelist of tragic romance novels.

"Just follow your heart, or some shit along those lines. You can’t control your feelings. You know that." He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly, flicking the remaining stub of his cigarette into the waste basket. "Whatever you do, I’ll be here when you come crying like a pansy. Deal?"

Tough love is the best kind of love, after all.

"I'm just saying I've been given better advice."

Her own arrogance prevented her from ever fully accepting another's guidance. Despite the numerous times she'd sought advice from others she'd always come out of it feeling dissatisfied and eventually making a bad decision. A vicious cycle she figured would take years for her to break.

"Well, I asked hoping you'd say something useful instead of the same old banal advice my dementia plagued grandmother would tell me." Harsh. She didn't like sugar coating things and she didn't have much of a brain to mouth filter, either. Her thoughts were preoccupied as her gaze lingered on beer can he brought to her lips. She gave her best attempt to mask the repulsion that threatened to twist her features. Alcohol had always appeared to her as a murderer, a fatal addiction. She couldn't stand it.

Of course, like most things, alcohol was fine in moderation. Her disapproval was unwarranted but it'd become an involuntary reaction. She'd never be able to even mention any such beverages without leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She blinked, shaking out of her momentary gaze to catch his final bit of counseling.