#thread:jinyoung

it is unfortunately not a first for garam to be drunk, wobbling her walk forth with bright eyes and blood tingling in her cheeks. ears and cheeks red, lips tingling from the amount of beer she'd ingested— long ago unwound the scarf around her neck as inebriated flush took over her, and kicked her body temperature up a notch or two.

jinyoung. yoon jinyoung. confusing man, really. she was busy thinking about how things never went as they should when she met him— and then she met him again, of course. isn't that how it goes? they're wandering down the sidewalk, her shoulders bumping into his elbow, bicep, all of him, as she unsteadily set the course for... somewhere. the music of the party and the lights and the noise slowly drifting behind them, she pouted beneath the cool night sky.

he's on her left side, which happens to be her better, clearer side, and yet she wants to watch just in case. so that she won't miss a word he says; gazes up at him with big, glassy eyes (too close, really).

her frown doubles as she peers at him. "uh." she begins quite softly, a lilt to her low voice that carries so much less embarrassment than it should. "i forget, why are we..." (her step pattern falters, she teeters away from him in such a way that she might fully tip over), "ohh, wait. home. ok." he might have suggested it, or maybe she asked if he was busy, could take her home; the moment is lost to time. 30 minutes ago is too far gone for her at the moment, and all she can think of is spotting him beneath the dull fairy lights and wondering if she was that drunk that she was imagining things.

suffering is, if anything, something garam is more than capital at. it's easy to get used to, it's easy to bounce back from, because it has to be. she can't sit around moping, not when the world around her is always out to get her. then it just piles on, of course. a lesson she learned early.

of course... that doesn't mean she's perfect. even she struggles to be positive sometimes. like when fate decides to push her down and then paint a metaphorical mustache on her face when she's trying so, so hard.

it's... it's probably all yoon jinyoungs fault and nothing to do with garam's terrible luck or bad karma.

she entered the rec room closet to retrieve the box of gloves and balls for baseball, stored not so far from the spare soccer balls and other sports equipment— on the top shelf of course, but that's just more suffering. he's already in here, tall enough to reach it, she marvels. han garam is about 99.9% sure he doesn't like her. she's basically 100% sure. so realistically, she shouldn't ask. there's a ticking time bomb in her stomach that tells her she'll get a stomach ache from that chemical concoction of embarrassment and yearning to be liked if she talked to him. but she does it anyway.

"oh!! hi, wow it's been a minute, huh?" she says, as though they're friends, as though there is any regular amount of time to be spent, or maybe as if she was keeping track in the first place (she was). "so sorry but, since you're like freakishly tall, will you get me the baseball bin?" she reaches to her tiptoes to try to make it easier for him to pass it to her. she nervously laughs, "it's nice to see you." she makes small talk in the stuffy, hot closet, with a little smile.

first of all, and this is so fucking important— park minjoon is hardly a human being without at least 4 cups of black coffee a day. he can make it work with 3, if at least one of them is swapped for an espresso. but that's going to be a bad day, probably. well, that or it's a debate day; in which he has 4 cups of coffee and an espresso.

second of all, even more crucial— he had better not get interrupted on his way to said coffee. really, there is never an excuse to interrupt the park minjoon. (is his ego big enough to call himself the? yes, unless he's lost a debate that day, and then it's better not to refer to him at all).

anyway, third of all, the golden rule— if your name is yoon jinyoung, you'd better just stay the fuck out of his way period. because it's the equivalent of a traffic jam; bumper to bumper barely creeping along because joon can't just walk away from whatever bullshit they would end up in, and while it was rare, the mornings it happened had essentially become nightmare fuel.

see, it's a week before the end of summer session, so actually, minjoon doesn't have much to do, comparatively. but it's the principle of the thing. when he walks in for his coffee (not the one from the broken and re-repaired ((twice)) coffee machine in the commons but actual, real, barista quality caffeine like the nectar of the gods), he can already feel the chill up his spine. it's like seeing the shadows in the corner of his room stretch when it's too late at night, and he has to double check. but it's not quite a trick of the eyes it's real. he frowns heavier (his resting expression is nearly a frown, so it wasn't much of a shift). there is a couple already at the counter ordering...

j-aebeom