memories

Kim Junghee x Kim Gwiboon ✩ 1599 words
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When Gwiboon wakes up she's convinced that today will be the worst of all days. It's going to fit the horrible weather outside her bedroom window perfectly.

It's only been a week since she broke up with her girlfriend of 5 years and she can feel the anger, the grief, the pain from the moment she opens her eyes. It wraps around her like a blanket and she blinks a couple of times, annoyed.

She doesn't want to cry anymore.

It wasn't her fault that the relationship fell apart and she doesn't want to feel the pain. In fact, she just wants to function like she always has, go to work and be perfect Kim Gwiboon.

That isn't that easy though and after 15 minutes of hiding under her blanket, she has to admit defeat to the tears that's collecting in her eyes and she cries for the next 10 minutes. God, she hates Eunsook so much.

When she finally wills herself out of bed her eyes are red from crying and she's sniffling. She wraps her robe around her and curls in on herself.

The only thing that's positive is that Taeyeon isn't trying to fix her with ice cream and disgusting tear jerkers anymore.

Gwiboon had enjoyed the one evening where they had been talking badly about Eunsook but not even 5 minutes after Taeyeon had left had she felt guilty and cried again for being even worse at handling the break-up than she had thought she would be.

Eunsook had broken up with her, said it hadn't worked anymore and that she couldn't do it. ‘It's not you, it's me’ she had said and Gwiboon knew it was all a lie. For all the years they had been together, Eunsook had tried to adjust to Gwiboon's crazy schedule. It had always been Eunsook who sacrificed for Gwiboon, never the other way around.

All in all – Gwiboon was a horrible girlfriend and she had to admit that that was what had happened. She had driven Eunsook away.

She flops into the kitchen and leans on the counter, exhausted from the few steps it had taken her to get from her bedroom and into the kitchen. Normally it would smell of coffee and Eunsook would be sitting at the table, reading a book or doing something on the tablet. Now it smells of nothing but the left-over food in the sink and Gwiboon shuts her eyes and tries to forget how her life has completely deteriorated in the weeks after they broke up.

She sighs and leaves the kitchen without her usual morning cup of tea, not in the mood to be reminded of routines and a life that should have been shared between two, not only one. Her apartment feels so cold without Eunsook in it.

It's five in the afternoon when Gwiboon finally gets dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of slacks and takes the stairs down to open her mailbox. She blinks when she finds the package in there. She's positive she hasn't ordered anything over the Internet in the past week that would've arrived already and she's positive Taeyeon hasn't ordered her anything either.

It cannot be Eunsook who didn't get a package when she lived with Gwiboon because as far as Gwiboon recalls, Eunsook hadn't ordered on the Internet for years.

So the only possible reason is that someone sent her something. She thinks it may be a mistake. She doesn't know anyone that would send her anything. But her name is right there on the package.

South Korea, Seoul, Yongsan-gu, Hangangro 2-ga 2-8, Kim Gwiboon.

She turns it to find the sender and raises an eyebrow when she reads the name. Gwiboon doesn't know anyone by the name Kim Junghee. She takes the package with her to the apartment, still in bewilderment.

When she shuts the door with her foot, she brings the package with her to the living room. The weather outside has only gotten worse, the rain is falling harshly and the thunder is roaring far away. It's going to come soon. Comme Des peeks at her from his place on his pillow and Gwiboon ignores him in favor of staring at the strange package, now sitting on her coffee table.

She wrecks her mind to find any connection to the name. At one point she considers whether or not it's a bomb but the package is soft and it isn't ticking so Gwiboon puts that thought aside.

Who is this Kim Junghee and why have they sent her a package? Why do they even know Gwiboon's address?

Gwiboon has ordered take-out and has just picked up her food when she returns to the living room. In the meantime she has forgotten about the package and it isn't until she pushes it away to make space for her food that she remembers again.

Garçons yawns as the thunder roars and Comme Des whines a little and jumps onto the couch and into Gwiboon's lap. She lets her hand run through the soft fur before she determinedly grabs the package. Whoever this Junghee person is, they wanted to send her a package and Gwiboon is right to open it.

When she finally gets the layers off she's looking at a sweater. It looks worn and it smells of laundry powder. She blinks. Gwiboon knows this sweater. It makes absolutely no sense, but she knows it. A small slip of paper falls off of the sweater when she unfolds it but Gwiboon doesn't notice.

She had a sweater like that when she was a teenager. It's ugly. It has Gwiboon cowering in shame when she remembers how she would proudly show it around and brag about the brand. She furrows her brows. Why have someone sent her an ugly sweater that seems to only bring bad memories and is definitely a decade old?

Garçons gets tired of being alone on his pillow and goes to join Gwiboon and Commes Des in the couch. When he lifts his front paws onto the couch and Gwiboon leans down to lift him up she finally notices the slip of paper.

Hey, you probably don't remember me but you lent me this sweater. I meant to give it back sooner but better late than never, ay?

Gwiboon rereads the note what feels like a million times but she cannot in her life understand why anyone would keep the sweater or who she’d even lent it to at the time.

Her food gets cold when Gwiboon sets on a mission to figure out who she lent the sweater to and how long it was ago. She looks through old photo albums and texts her mother to send her a couple of pictures from when she was a teenager. Just a couple. Her mother sends her 2. It's neither of those.

She finally finds a picture of a 16-year-old Gwiboon who is wearing the sweater. She doesn't recall the girl she's with but that's not important. The black ponytails she's sporting is more than enough to tell her that she's 16. Gwiboon doesn't remember many details from her teenage years and she definitely doesn’t remember lending anyone the sweater.

She gives up and goes back to bed and for once in a week she isn't crying herself to sleep.

Gwiboon has forgotten the sweater in the morning and spends another 30 minutes crying over what a bad girlfriend she was to Eunsook. It's Taeyeon that brings up the sweater when she comes to drag Gwiboon out of bed and outside. The sweater is still lying still where Gwiboon had left it on the couch and Taeyeon throws it in her face with a snicker. Gwiboon glares at her and clutches the sweater.

“I can't believe someone actually sent back your sweater after 12 years. At least they washed it.”

Taeyeon is laughing.

“At least someone keeps promises,” Gwiboon snarls but Taeyeon doesn't care about the jab when she pulls Gwiboon up and out of the bedroom.

“Do you know who it might be?” Gwiboon asks Taeyeon when they're sitting in a café in the mall and sipping their hot chocolates. Taeyeon sends her an incredulous look.

“I met you when I was 22,” she says and Gwiboon shrugs.

That's right, Taeyeon wouldn't know. Taeyeon didn't know her when she was 16. Gwiboon sighs before she takes another sip of her hot chocolate and forgets about Kim Junghee and the sweater again.

It's 6 months later when Gwiboon walks into a small Etude House shop to buy another lipstick when she sends the salesperson a smile and notices her name tag and gasps. Before her stands a, small girl with blond straight hair and smiles kindly at Gwiboon and on her chest is a name she recognizes.

Gwiboon suddenly remembers handing over a sweater to a shy, black-haired girl a late October evening when she was 16 and bold and the world was hers and demanding that she got it back.

The blonde girl before her blinks and asks if she can help Gwiboon with picking out the best color but Gwiboon is stuck on the name of the person in front of her.

She leaves the store without a lipstick but with a promise that she will come back. Gwiboon hopes Kim Junghee works again tomorrow.

author's notes

Gwiboon is my babe, but this drabble was written because of Junghee. Because I wanted to write a small drabble of Junghee with all the babes. (Obviously I snuck in Onkey too and I'm just ... what can I say, really?)

Thanks for reading.