Work Text:
Everything jumpstarts sometime after Nayoung takes on a new office position. It’s temporary work, something she applied for without really reading the description past bachelor’s degree. En masse clicking send, as it is. Getting one interview, which is all you need. And the pinned up hair, the plastered smiles, it’s fine, for a gap year. It’s not what she wants to do forever.
iny: hi
yjh: hi
iny: are you busy
yjh: i’m at work
iny: so am i
yjh: working hard, i’m sure. definitely working harder than i am
iny: you would think. i’d rather be studying
yjh: you can do my studying for me
iny: that won’t help either of us
yjh: so quit your job
yjh: come home
So that’s how it goes. She always texts him. And he always jokes about her coming home. But it’s not like he was ever home, or something. Not like they live together. Not like it’s ever been anything - so it makes her wonder - what home is even supposed to mean.
Jeonghan lives in the suburbs. It’s like twenty-five minutes away from her. Sometimes he invites her to his apartment without warning. “I don’t even know what I want in advance,” he says, when she complains that he never gives any notice, and sometimes she already has plans. “You can go through with your plans.”
“That’s not the point,” she says, and grabs a handful of potato chips from the bowl on his coffee table. Next to the bowl is a stack of textbooks. Jeonghan wants to go back to school too, eventually. It’s funny how things work out like that.
“You don’t have to cancel your plans to buy groceries and sweep your linoleum kitchen floor just to hang out here and eat chips on my couch.”
“I don’t think it’s made of linoleum-”
“I just said the first word that came to my head,” Jeonghan says.
“Well, who knows when you’re going to invite me again,” she intones. “Not you, that’s for sure.”
“Well.”
“You should make up for it by coming over to help me sweep my linoleum kitchen floor.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Consider it an open invitation,” she says, getting up to refill the bowl.
Nayoung only gets an actual call from him once every few months. When you know someone for ten years, there’s never any urgency to say anything. Just the inevitability of meeting again, sometime in the next few days, weeks, months.
[missed call (1)]
yjh: i got a second job! working at daycare
iny: omg i just saw this. was actually working today without checking my phone. also why would you call me during work
yjh: i was excited. first day was good. second day better. the kids are so cute.
iny: i’m really happy for you
The swings are kind of rusty. The chains don’t have any rubber covering, and the scent of metal gets all over her hands. Nayoung doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t like a lot of things.
“Try to pump. Do you know how to swing?”
“I’m not five, Jeonghan.” She kicks against the ground, then jumps off the swing. Stands in Jeonghan’s trajectory, and tries to grab at his feet, forcing him to twist and slow to a halt.
He grins, hands gripping the chains. “Force of habit.”
“I think it takes more than two weeks to form habits,” she says. Nayoung turns around. Across the field some families are barbecuing and their kids play fight with water guns.
“We used to do that,” Jeonghan says from behind her.
“Yeah.”
It squeaks in a cycle. Back and forth, back, forth, squeak. Jeonghan’s is louder than Nayoung’s but that’s only because Nayoung’s swinging is like inches, pushing her toes against the ground very slightly. And Jeonghan is going all the way out, all the way up high, like the kids would do when they were trying to do a 180 or whatever it was called, when you go over the swingset structure. Even though his legs are so long that he has to fold them completely when he reaches the point closest to the ground.
“I just feel lonely,” she says.
“It happens.”
“And we should just let it?”
“Sometimes you have to,” he says. Jeonghan never gives straightforward answers to questions. She gets it later.
ksy: you should come over
ksy: this is jh btw
ksy: oh but come to soon’s not my place
iny: i don’t even know his address
iny: HELLO?
She finds her way there eventually. When she arrives Soonyoung’s phone is on the edge of the kitchen sink, which grosses her out.
“Did you invite me here to do your dishes,” Nayoung asks from the door to the garage.
“You know me better than that, Nayoung,” Jeonghan answers while jamming buttons on a game controller, so she doesn’t know how to read that.
“I’m running the dishwasher after this round, don’t worry. Or after this tournament I guess. But don’t do the dishes. Jeonghan will kill me.”
“Fine.” She sets her wallet on the dining table and seats herself on the other side of the L-shaped couch. Jeonghan and Soonyoung are facing the tv and barely spare a glance.
“I feel really welcome here,” she remarks after a few minutes of this over and over again - yells and powerups and confetti noises.
“Race over,” Jeonghan announces, and tosses the controller at her so he can get a drink. It hits the bone of her wrist, and she shakes her fist at him where he can’t see.
“I could have gotten injured.”
Soonyoung slides on his knees in front of the tv stand and pulls out another remote. “Join. Well, use that remote so I don’t have to throw this at you. He can set this one up himself.”
Nayoung is selecting a character when Jeonghan flops down next to her on the couch.
“Heard you broke some hearts recently,” Soonyoung says nonchalantly. The thing about Soonyoung is that he never pays any attention. He has what Nayoung would like to call no sensitivity - if she was being nice.
“That’s wrong. Haven’t broken any,” Jeonghan says idly.
Nayoung knows for a fact that’s not true.
Once when they were a little younger Jeonghan accidentally poked Nayoung in the stomach. They were on the floor of Jeonghan’s bedroom.
Nayoung slides a decorative pillow under her hair so that it doesn’t have to touch the cream colored carpet, shuts her eyes to the ceiling, and says, “I’m sleepy.”
“There’s a bed right there,” he says.
“Yeah, no.”
“If you’re not going to help me finish this puzzle you might as well go to sleep then,” he says. “I doubt our parents are going to be done talking any time soon.”
“Don’t I know it,” she mutters, and scans the floor for an easy piece to slot into the picture. So far they have half of the border and a few middle pieces placed on the back of this poster board (Jeonghan’s 8th grade science project), and it was a 500 piece puzzle (that Jeonghan had dug out of the basement). They have time to kill.
“You could sleep in my sister’s room.”
“I don’t want to wake her up...”
“That piece looks like it goes in the orange flower. Hand it to me.”
“I’m tired.”
Jeonghan leans over. Nayoung screams. “That tickles!”
Eyes wide open, Nayoung pauses before reaching for Jeonghan. “Don’t do it,” he says, watching her hands. “It’s not too late.”
She moves like lightning. “Now it is.”
Five minutes later the little they had accomplished is back in broken fragments. Nayoung is all laughed out, lying on her side and more awake than she had been the whole night. Jeonghan is in a mirroring position across the board.
And when Nayoung is staring Jeonghan is staring right back.
“That never happened,” Jeonghan says after too long of an awkward moment.
“Yeah,” she agrees simply, and starts sweeping up the pieces.
Jeonghan has a kind laugh. When they were kids she thought he didn’t care enough about other people’s feelings for her to ever think he was a good person. When you grow up a lot of things change.
When the Marvel movie they were watching rolls credits, it’s 11:53pm. To be specific, when the third movie they watched that night on Jeonghan’s couch, littering popcorn all over the floor, ends, Nayoung is exhausted and too sleepy to even think about driving home. Except she does think, and she thinks that she doesn’t have a choice.
“I don’t think it’s safe,” Jeonghan says. “You’ll crash and die.”
“Stop being so morbid.”
“I won’t stop you. But you don’t have to go.”
It’s in the millisecond-span between those two sentences that Nayoung reflects on the criticality of honesty. Sometimes things just need to be said. And then like the tipping of scales, the balance favors a whole different outcome.
“Goodnight,” Nayoung says half an hour later when things are decently cleaned, and she lifts the blanket over her shoulders.
“Do you need another?” he asks, finger on the light switch.
“I’m okay,” she says.
The room goes dark. Footsteps thud against the hardwood flooring.
“Wait. I’m cold.”
They don’t stop, not until the hallway closet opens, and hands fumble in the darkness, and a heavy mass of fabric falls to the floor, encased in some plastic.
“To keep out the dust,” Jeonghan says as he unzips the bag, pulling out the long untouched comforter. It’s cool to the touch, but it’s okay -
“Do you never have any guests?” she asks when he drapes it over the couch. “Or - at least you don’t need a guest room.”
“Not overnight ones,” he answers.
Nayoung leaves before he wakes up. She leaves, but she comes back.
“I don’t remember what you like,” she says when he enters the kitchen to a twin set of medium drinks. “I’ve never known what coffee you like ever since you started to drink it.”
“That’s because I don’t really like coffee,” he says, raising the shoulder bag slipping off his shoulder.
“Oh. I’ll take both then,” she says. “I could use it.”
“No, I want one. Whatever the sweeter one is.”
“You can read,” she says, gesturing to the labels, and leaving to claim the bathroom.
“Good morning,” Jeonghan says vaguely in the vicinity of a few cubicles. Almost everyone is here already, because Jeonghan is late. Yewon is the only one that greets him with a “Good morning!” back. He can see why everyone likes her.
“How did that lipstick get there,” Jihoon says, rolling over in his chair to examine the cup in his hand.
Jeonghan looks down.
“How indeed,” he says.
yjh: i took your coffee
iny: no wonder i tasted sugar when i started drinking
yjh: your lipstick is so red
iny: it’s actually more like a tint but i agree
yjh: do you expect me to know the difference
iny: i am simply informing you
Jeonghan has only just logged into his computer when Seungcheol strolls over from the sales department and says, “I heard there’s lipstick on your coffee cup.” And Jeonghan doesn’t like that smile.
“People need to stop hearing things,” he says.
Choi Seungcheol can inexplicably fall in love with anybody, even a girl that he doesn’t know whose lipstick he saw on the lid of Jeonghan’s coffee cup. It’s because he makes up stories.
Stories like, “I bet he’s good at dancing” about this guy they passed on the street, and “she’s definitely a regular who orders caramel cheesecake every Tuesday” about a girl who was sitting in the booth across the cafe they’ve never tried before. But the worst part is he always ends these with a half-joking, half-sincere “I think I’m in love.”
“Gross,” Jihoon always says. And Seungcheol always clings to his arm after, because he can get away with it.
So Jeonghan tosses the lid into the trash below his desk without a second glance. The coffee inside is black.
Two months before Nayoung’s birthday Jeonghan demands to see her calendar.
“I don’t keep one,” she says.
He blinks. “I gave one to you. Last December. For your birthday?”
“You did?”
“A planner,” he says with exasperation. Desperation. Picking up the library book that was sitting on the corner of her kitchen table, waving it around as if it would jog her memory.
“Oh,” she says. And then “Ohhhhhh.”
“Well?”
“I thought it was a notebook.”
“Did you even OPEN it?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” Physical things hold no significance to her. “I was going to regift it, but I thought you would be hurt.”
“I’m hurt anyway. I even pre-wrote some dates in there.”
“I can go get it. It’s in my dresser, I think. I’ll start using it.” She moves to run to her room, but he shakes his head.
“Later.”
Nayoung has important dates in her phone calendar, so she hands it over and Jeonghan swipes twice, so she knows. “There’s nothing in there but I was going to go see my parents.”
“I see.”
“You know they live in town,” she says, unimpressed. He knows, and has been there more than a few times in the past year.
“You’re saying you’re free?”
“I can make myself free, for dinner,” she corrects. “I need a reason to.”
“A reason?”
“I won’t rearrange my plans for just anyone,” she says. “Just anything, I mean.”
“You offering to do something for me? I never thought I would see the day.” Jeonghan grins.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, everything in due time, right?”
Yoon Jeonghan - he sighs, and says, “I want to make memories with you.”
Nayoung has the nerve to laugh. “We have plenty.”
“More.”
“Fine. I ran out of ways to say no.”
And when Nayoung is staring, Jeonghan is staring right back.