“Jonghyun, get your out here!” A loud voice echoed through the apartment from the doorway.

Jonghyun, who was lying on his bed staring into space, jumped at the sudden noise and looked at his bedroom door in shock. That sounded like Eunji.

As he watched, the door opened and Jiwoong stuck his head into the room, grinning apologetically, “I’m going out, have fun with Eunji. Bye!” That said, he pulled his head out of the room, closed the door with a snap and could be heard walking quickly through the house. After a muffled word which was probably a ‘goodbye’ or a ‘good luck’ to their visitor, the front door could be heard opening and clicking shut.

If Jonghyun had ever doubted the girl was here due to Jiwoong, he was certain now. The other male spent a lot of time out of the house; even when the two roommates had guests, the artist would often beg out and leave Jonghyun to entertain alone. However, he had never acted so guilty for doing so. His roommate had likely told the girl about Jonghyun’s melancholy – probably telling her the reason for it, too – and he must have known that the girl would make it her personal mission to do something about it.

Jonghyun listened, not moving, as he heard two thumps from the foyer; the sound of shoes being dropped carelessly onto the floor. Then there was a lighter thumping and the gentler sounds of slippered feet moving across the hard wood floor. The sounds got louder as its source approached the room Jonghyun was in. They continued until they were right outside the door, where they stopped and waited in silence for a short time.

Jonghyun rolled over, turning away from the door. He wasn’t sure he was in the mood to deal with Eunji today. He loved the girl. She was one of his closest friends. However, she was a total busybody and could be a little overbearing at times. Honestly, he was tired and grumpy – as he had been all week – and he didn’t want to talk to anyone at all today. He had many plans for his weekend. All of which started and ended with a lot of sleep and may have contained a whole lot of nothing in between those two events.

The composer screwed his eyes shut as he heard his door open and sighed inaudibly. Maybe if he feigned sleep, the woman would leave him alone.

Sadly, that didn’t seem to be the case. The blonde felt the bed dip slightly as the slight girl sat down next to him and a small poke fell upon his shoulder. Getting no reaction, the girl poked him again, a little harder. Again, she got no response. Jonghyun would never admit it to the girl – for fear of injury, that woman could be scary  – but he found her huff of annoyance amusing and vowed to bug her just a little more before inevitably giving in to her demands.

“Jjong,” she said, her voice quieter and more soothing than Jonghyun would have expected. She sounded more concerned than he had thought she would. After all, he wasn’t acting that strange. Sure, he was a little out of sorts but overall he felt fine. He and Onew had planned it all out, it wasn’t like the break up was one-sided or anything. It hurt but he was fine. “Jjong, wake up.”

His vow to annoy her had flown out of the window the second she spoke. He couldn’t bear to make her worry any more than she clearly already had been. She may be insufferable at times but she was one of his closest friends and he really didn’t want her to feel sad because of him.

Rolling over, groaning slightly as his tired body protested the movement, Jonghyun looked up at his friend. She had a look on her face that conveyed nothing but concern and an earnest desire to make her friend feel better. He honestly felt a little bad for thinking of her as insufferable.

“Hi.” He mumbled.

“Hi,” She replied, equally as quiet. “How are you?”

“Good.” Jonghyun said, pushing himself up to a sitting position. From here, he was able to look the girl in the eyes as he spoke, “I’m ok.”

“Jiwoong told me about you and Onew.” She said, looking aggrieved. “I totally get it. But that .”

“It does.” Jonghyun agreed. “But it was necessary.”

Eunji reached out, gently grasping Jonghyun’s upper arm in a show of support. Squeezing gently, she then let go and stood up, her facial expression changing from one of concern and understanding to one full of determination. Clearly, the serious conversation was over for now.

That, Jonghyun mused, was the best thing about Eunji; she (usually) knew when to stop talking and when not to press a point. Through her one, simple statement, the girl had expressed all of her feelings to him and she knew not to push it any further.

“Now, get out of bed, Mr. We’re doing something fun today.”

Jonghyun looked up at the girl in confusion. Cocking his head to the side he asked, “Fun?”

“Yep,” The girl said, popping the P and sounding eerily like the main dancer from a certain kpop group. “I brought supplies and everything. Now get up.” Jonghyun watched as the girl proceeded to leave his bedroom, after a hand gesture that clearly told him to hurry up. “Oh,” The girl said, popping her head back around the door frame, “wear old clothes. I don’t want to stain your good ones.” That said, she vanished into the living room once more and the sound of plastic bags crinkling could be heard throughout the apartment.

“Old clothes...” The composer mumbled as he pulled himself out of his blanket nest. “What does that girl have planned?”

Shrugging and giving up on trying to understand the mind of his friend, the blonde moved across to his chest of drawers and rifled through, trying to find some clothes he wouldn’t mind wrecking. Finding an old pair of sweat pants – from his high school years – and a ratty looking T-shirt at the bottom of his drawers Jonghyun got dressed quickly. He wasn’t sure he trusted Eunji alone in his house, not when she was clearly in an odd mood, so speed was vital right now.

Stepping out of his bedroom, Jonghyun was a little concerned to see that the living room was empty. He had assumed that was where the girl would be. However, the entire room was exactly as he and Jiwoong had left it the night before – complete with old beer can on the coffee table and a suspicious coffee ring on the front cover of a three-month old fashion magazine. Following the sounds of plastic bags and the clattering of what sounded like many small pieces of plastic ware, Jonghyun entered his kitchen.

“What are you doing?” He asked, pausing in the doorway and cocking his head to the side.

It was a truly baffling sight. Eunji had set up a strange arrangement of furniture and miscellaneous items within the small room. A chair had been turned from its spot at the kitchen table, so the back was pressed against the wood-patterned plastic. The table itself remained unmoved, however a large amount of objects now littered its surface. The most obvious of these items was a large plastic tub, approximately twenty litres if Jonghyun had to guess, which was placed directly behind the back of the chair. Other objects included a couple of towels, appropriated from Jonghyun’s own bathroom, plastic gloves and a large number of small bottles that Jonghyun couldn’t identify from a distance.

“Setting up.” The girl replied, as if it was obvious. She didn’t even look up from what she was doing. She was currently mixing a powder from one packet into a carefully measured amount of liquid from another and stirring it with concentration.

As he moved into the room, Jonghyun worked out what all this stuff was for. “Hair dye?”

“Yep,” The girl said, looking up from her task. “I decided you needed a change. Blonde is so three years ago. Which,” She said, pulling an exaggerated thinking pose, “is about when you last mixed up your hair colour.”

“Whoa, what?” Jonghyun asked, “This is for me?”

“Well, of course.” The girl said, flicking her long, black hair over her shoulder. “Work would never let me dye mine.”

“And mine will?”

“Of course, I checked with Sungkyu.” She said, glibly.

Jonghyun regretted ever passing on the man’s contact details to his friends. Eunji had requested it whilst they were still attending university and Jonghyun had happily supplied it. Her journalism class had given her an assignment requiring her to conduct an interview with a person who was successful in their career and she had asked Jonghyun if Sungkyu would consent to be her interviewee. The man had agreed easily and hence, his contact details had been given  to the girl. Unfortunately, since that time, those details had been exploited more than once in order to learn something (usually embarrassing) about Jonghyun.

“Of course you did.” Jonghyun muttered, moving across and flopping down in the rotated seat. “So, what am I getting?”

“I wanted to give you a choice.” The girl said, knowing she had made the right decision in buying extra colours when the male shot her a look of thanks. It was clear he was ok with doing this but she knew he would feel more comfortable if he had some modicum of control over the look he would be sporting for a while. “So I prepared a slideshow of all the colours I think would suit you.” She said, holding out a device with the slideshow pre-loaded.

Jonghyun took the offered tablet and began to scroll through the pictures. The girl had been very thorough. Each colour choice sported a variety of images of different people, each with a different hair style and, in many cases, a slight variation in the shade of the colour. She had clearly put a lot of thought into this, as she was correct and each colour had a high chance of looking good against Jonghyun’s skin tone. Reaching the end of the slide show, he flicked back and forth between his favourites, not sure which to choose.

“Either this one,” He said, switching to one colour, “or this one.” He concluded, flicking to the second colour.

Eunji looked at him for a while, as if picturing him with each hair colour before nodding and flicking back to the first image. “This one.”

“Sounds good,” Jonghyun agreed. He couldn’t say he felt nervous about this before, bad dye jobs were easy enough to fix and he trusted Eunji. However, he did feel more at ease now he knew exactly what he was in for. He wouldn’t have put it past the girl to work on his hair without telling him what colour it was until the end, so this transparency was nice.

“Ok! Let’s do this.” The girl exclaimed, pulling her hair back into a neat ponytail to keep it out of the way. “You know, your hair being blonde already makes this easier. I’ll just touch up your roots first.” The girl commented, starting to do just that.

Jonghyun found it very relaxing to have someone else doing his hair. It had been a while since he had had it done by anyone but himself. He went in regularly to get the hair trimmed, not enjoying the feeling of overlong strands blocking his vision, however he tended to dye it himself. The last time he had it dyed professionally was probably when he first went blonde, not the three-tone blonde his sister had suggested for him, but the platinum blonde he had sported for a few years now. He hadn’t trusted himself to do it neatly and evenly that first time. Following that day, he had given up on paying all that money for a process he could do himself and had saved the money instead.

An hour and a half later – there were many, many delays to the dyeing process – and the former blonde was sitting in his kitchen, in the same chair as before, with a large amount of foils and, what he suspected to be, plastic wrap in his hair. The girl hadn’t let him see exactly what she was doing but he knew she had gone overboard for a one-colour dye job, which is what this was. Part of that was she was just that sort of person; the type to see something done and, in the process of imitating it, take it much further and, incidentally, take much longer. However, partly he was sure she took so long and acted so clumsy in an attempt to cheer him up.

“I’m gonna go and put all this stuff away.” The girl said, nodding at the many bottles and towels still littering the tables.

“Sure,” Jonghyun agreed easily. “Can you put the hair dye in my bedside cabinet, please? I don’t want Jiwoong using it by accident.”

“’By accident’” Eunji mocked doing bunny ears with her fingers and agreed easily, “Yeah, course.”

“He insists it’s an accident. Apparently hair dye looks a lot like acrylic paint in the dark.” Jonghyun said, struggling to keep a serious face as he spoke.

“Because everyone keeps paint in the bathroom cupboards.” Eunji muttered as she headed out the room with an armful of stuff.

“The perils of living with an artist.” Jonghyun called after her.

“And why I live alone.” The girl called back, her chuckles audible, even from the kitchen.

Jonghyun leant back against the table, closing his eyes for a second. This was more peaceful than he had felt in weeks. His friend had really succeeded in her mission of distracting him for the day. Letting his mind drift he listened as he heard his female friend walk past him once more, on her way to his bedroom. He then heard her walk back after depositing the small dye bottle where he had requested she did. Her footsteps sounded different now. They were lighter, more hesitant. Opening his eyes slowly, Jonghyun went to ask what was wrong before the words died in his throat.

“Jjong...” The girl said, looking concerned, holding something, “What are these?”

“Flowers?”

“Jjong...” The girl repeated, kneeling down in front of his seat, the vase still clutched in her hands. “How long have you had these?”

Jonghyun looked down, his eyes fixed on the flowers, using them as an excuse not to meet the girl’s eyes. It was clear that the girl wasn’t expecting an answer as she clearly already knew the answer herself. Her unwavering stare made him feel awkward, as if she could see right through all his false bravado – what little there was.

“Jjong, this isn’t healthy. These aren’t healthy,” She said with a weak chuckle, shaking the vase.

A single brown petal, long dried and dead fluttered onto the kitchen floor. Jonghyun watched its progress with his eyes. The flowers in the vase, previously bright and vibrant with life, representing the proud feelings his boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – held for Jonghyun, were long dead. Cut flowers didn’t tend to last more than a week and these were many days older than that at this point. He just couldn’t bear to throw them away. They represented the last good time he and Onew had together and he was scared that, if he threw the flowers away, he would forget how those times, the good times, felt.

He knew it was irrational and he knew it was silly of him. However, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take the step and actually throw them away. He had approached them multiple times with exactly that intention and aborted it every time. He was weak and he was clinging to an object well past its use-by date in order to avoid thinking about the bad things.

“Jjong,” The girl said again, placing the vase on the table and forcing Jonghyun’s eyes up to meet hers. “You don’t have to pretend you’re fine. You aren’t fine.”

“I know.” Jonghyun replied, feeling a little choked up. His voice came out a little strange sounding, even to his own ears and he cringed at the weakness in his tone.

“Oh, hon.” The girl leant forwards and embraced her friend in a hug, careful to avoid touching the still setting hair dye. “You’ll get through this. It’ll take time but we’re all here for you.”

“I will.” Jonghyun agreed, his voice muffled in her shoulder as he inhaled her scent. She was wearing a soft, floral perfume today that was incredibly soothing. “It’s just hard because it was neither of our faults. If he had hurt me… this would probably be easier. I could hate him and be done with it.”

“Hon,” The girl said, pulling back and his shoulder gently, “you couldn’t be done with him any more than I could be done with Youngho. You could never hate him and he could never hurt you.”

Jonghyun sighed, reaching up to ruffle his hair before catching himself and aborting the movement. “I know. But it’s still hard.”

“We’re always here for you. Me, Youngho, Jiwoong, Sodam, Sungkyu, your parents. You have so many people who want to help you. Let them, please.”

“I don’t-“

“Need help?” The girl asked. Pulling the blonde’s face around to face her fully, she spoke forcefully, “You do. Don’t deny it. Everyone needs help sometimes. Just remember, we are all here for you. Every one of us.”

Jonghyun nodded weakly and looked down at his lap.

“Now,” The girl said, standing up fully and grabbing the vase, “let’s clean up this mess.”

Jonghyun watched silently as the girl tipped the old water down the sink, a slight stagnant smell permeating the kitchen as she did so. With a screwed up face, the girl tipped the remains of the flowers into the bin and cleaned out the inside of the vase thoroughly. Jonghyun had thought watching this process would hurt but oddly, he felt nothing. No sudden sense of loss, no sudden loss of memories. Nothing. They were just dead flowers that had now been disposed of, nothing more.

Looking up at his friend, he smiled gently, showing he was ok. Neither of them chose to mention how his lips shook or his eyes darted away as he spoke. “I think it’s time to rinse this stuff off.”

“Oh!” The girl exclaimed, looking at the clock. “I completely forgot, of course it is. Head over the bucket please.” She asked, placing one of the clean towels (one of two she hadn’t cleared away when cleaning) around his neck and began to rinse his hair over the bucket with water from the sink. It was a long process, the girl having to walk to the sink to fill a plastic bottle each time she ran out of water, but Jonghyun didn’t mind. This whole endeavour would probably have been easier in the bathroom, but he knew the girl was deliberately dragging it out. She wanted it to last all afternoon because it gave her an excuse to hang around.

Twenty minutes later and his hair was completely free of the sticky product, although he was sure there was some residual conditioner he would have to remove in the shower later. He made a note to never wash his hair like that again, the method was really inefficient and they made an incredible mess of the kitchen. There were water splashes across the floor and the table and he wasn’t sure the hair dye stain would ever be removed from the wood of the chair he was sat in.

However, as he looked at his newly blue-grey hair in the mirror happily, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Sure, he would have to clean up this mess later but he had a new hair colour and strangely, also felt better about his life. Ruffling the coloured strands, he mused that maybe a change was exactly what he needed. Maybe he should take this new look as a new start.

Looking up at Eunji he was about to vocalise his feelings when he felt a vibration in his pocket and his ringtone echoed around the small room. Pulling out the device he looked at the screen and all feelings of wanting a new start rushed right out the window. The five letters of the caller’s name mocked him and he felt the blood rush from his face as nerves washed over him.

His facial expression must have given away who it was to the girl as she grasped his shoulder and said, quietly, “You can do this, Jjong. You broke up on good terms so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Ok,” Jonghyun agreed, pressing the accept call button.

 

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CHAPTER NOTES: Cliffhangers, I’m mean. I’m sorry.

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