_

Spring

 

“Oh. MY. GOD. EUNMIN!”

 

When I heard the staff only door banging against its frame, when I heard her sandshoes skidding across the ridged tiles, when I heard my lovely (lovely, lovely, lovely, I repeated to myself) little cashier making her way towards me, I braced myself for the worst.

 

And the worst did come, in the form of freshly made coffee splashing around my hands when she glomped onto my back and wrapped those boney arms around my body.

 

There goes my fruit of labour… a minute of my life completely wasted.

 

“What… what is it Jo?” I tried to put a smile on my face, even if the pain still stinging my nerves kind of distorted it so that it looked more like a menacing grimace.

 

Lovely little Jo didn’t notice it though, thankfully. Sometimes her utterly selective attention might serve to bring goodness to the world indeed.

 

“Taehyung told me you’re going on a date with your singer boy! A DATE!” Her legs were surely exchanged from being made of bones and flesh to pogo sticks when she practically bounced around the back of the cafe counter while clapping her hands in excitement. Thank god I closed the cafe 10 minutes early, my secondhand embarrassment was too strong just as is. She was hooting, and punching her fist to the air. It was a bit much, really, and even so when she was being happy for a false news at best.

 

“I… Jo, Jo wait.” Trying to stop her when she was feeling extreme elation proved to be a very challenging task, but she did finally plant her feet to the ground when I told her the truth. The speed of her smile turning into a sad frown was so drastic that I was surprised her cheek didn’t just fall off from its hinges.

 

“It’s not a date. I’m just helping him with some designing for his thing and stuff. You know Taehyung, he always lie.”

 

“But… your singer boy…?”

 

I could feel my face heating up just with the sheer silliness of the situation.

 

“Jo! You promised not to say those words out loud…” Although, after the tenth time of her breaking the promise, I should’ve known that it was one that was made to not not be broken. Singer boy… Silly. He isn’t anything special. He isn’t even mine.

 

But before Jo could open to tell me the same line of ‘I’m sorry, it won’t ever happen again’ that she’d always say every time she crossed me, the familiar sound of bell chiming caused my muscles to respond in such an automatic way, Pavlov would’ve been proud.

 

“Hello! Welcome to Vincent’s! How can I help you?”

 

By the muffled squeals of Jo and the sound of her rushing back to the staff room, I should’ve known who was waiting for me across the small condiment island.

 

“The store’s closed. You know you can drop your barista persona, right?” Of course, it’s Namjoon. Of course.

 

“H… habit, can’t help myself.” Of course, my face would turn red as a tomato, hot as a boiled lobster. Of course I’d stutter. Of course Jo and Taehyung would leave the door slightly ajar as they didn’t even try to be subtle about their act of eavesdropping.

 

Everything in my world were set up to give the maximum amount of embarrassment, weren’t they?

 

Namjoon slightly bent his waist, seemingly trying to seek my eyes who were hiding under the unruly bangs that’d escaped from the silly headband that every employee has to wear. But that only made me turn my back on him and yell some (hopefully discernable) words that basically told him to ‘wait a second and let me get my stuff from the back.’

 

The door closed behind me with a bang and there it was, two giggling manchilds with their twinkling eyes.

 

“Goodluuuuuuck,” Taehyung snickered, “I’m sure it’ll be fuuuuuun.”

 

I quickly untied my apron and let my messy tangle of hair down before grabbing my linen book bag, not wanting to spend another second in this stew of embarrassment.

 

“Tell me everything later, ok?” Jo said after she joined Taehyung on his gigglish heckling.

 

“Guys, please. He’s just a friend.” Even after I finished untucking my white blouse from the baggy jeans I had on, they were still going on with this idea that I’d finally gotten myself a date. And they called themselves my friends. Disappointing.

 

“He’s just a friend!” The more I deny, the louder they laughed. So, in the end I did the thing I should’ve done from the beginning and gave up trying to make them understand. I didn’t even bother to look them in the eye when I off handedly said my farewell.

 

“Come on, I’ll show you your designs somewhere else.” I wanted to add ‘my two friends are insufferable’, but I knew I would be lying, so I just grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the stuffy cafe. Wishing that the breezy afternoon wind would at least calm myself down.

 

And it did, for a while, before he nudged my arm with his elbow and I remembered how thin the walls of the staff room are.

 

“So… am I your friend then?” His laughter sounded free, just like the sound of the bells that’d started to be drowned by the buzz of this busy pedestrian street. I took a quick peek to see…

 

To see what? His face? If he was hurt? If he would be looking at me with some hopeful eyes?

 

But I took a quick peek and saw him staring ahead, arms folded behind his back, a simple smile on his lips and I knew I was hoping for too much.

 

Silly me.

 

“Of course you are.”

_

Summer

 

“Tell me. What do you really want right now?”

 

What I really wanted was my bed and the ability to never, ever have the need to interact with human beings ever again. What I really wanted was to find a place private enough to allow this sense of suffocation to pass. In the form of tears, or screams, or just laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and asking myself ‘why did I even bother.’

 

But I found myself taking the stairs up, through the dingy corridor lit with garish white LED, until my hand made contact with the tinted glass door and the sound of rubber stopper running against the carpeted floor filled my ears.

 

He might not even be here. This is not even his studio. He paid to record here. This is not his. He might not even be here. The place seems to be deserted anyway, why did I even do this?

 

But our gazes met when I glanced into the small window to the workroom, and his face lit up to a surprised grin, and I’ve never felt more stupid in my life than when I’d hoped that after all that I’ve been through, I’d find someone who can genuinely… like me.

 

Get a grip Eunmin. You know it’s Impossible. I know. You just got your belief reinforced like, 10 minutes ago. I know. Nobody will ever like you, with you looking like you.

 

I know.

 

He’s just a friend, don’t you remember?

 

“Hey! What are you doing?” His initially positive expression was quickly changed to a panicked shock when his brain seemed to turn ahead of himself and he started to stammer, “did I… did we have an appointment today? I haven’t done any concept work I’m so sor-,”

 

“I just uh… had a…” date had a date had a date had a blind date that went completely wrong come on just say it just say it just say it and embarrass yourself, “blind date that went completely wrong at the restaurant next door, and I figured, why not give you a visit!”

 

I capped my info dump with an awkwardly forced laugh and I didn’t even know why I said those words. Brain, am I right? Giving you the worst performance when you needed it to work the best. Typical.

 

The next five seconds were filled with an increasingly awkward silence, and I completely understand. Nobody would’ve known what to do, or say, after someone pointed the elephant in the room.

 

The elephant went on a disastrous date. What a shock indeed.

 

He finally broke the silence with a forced cough and asked, “are you… okay?”

 

“Yeah.” My answer to his question came a bit too quickly that it caused him to look at me with a slightly peculiar expression. Like disbelieve mixed in with concern. “Seriously though. I know it’ll be awful before I even went into the restaurant.”

 

“Why? Because he held a nerf gun in his profile picture?” I believed his intention was to steer the conversation to a more lighter territory, and I tried to accommodate him.

 

Hey, I said what I said next with a genuine laughter! (The genuine part is questionable).

 

“No, because it’s my first date ever and I’m me.”

 

I knew that exposing him to this uncomfortable situation without his consent was totally unfair. He found himself uncomfortable, and I was running the risk of losing another friend (and those thing come by very very rarely in my life). But I couldn’t help it. Even with my fists balled up so hard my nails were digging into my skin, I could still feel my lips trembling. My face heating up. My heart rapidly beating against its cage.

 

All because I was upset to see the truth bared to me so harshly. Angry that the world dare to open my eyes, as if they weren’t wide enough on the days where I actively tried so hard to avoid seeing my reflection in the mirror.

 

“I’m sorry.” His soft, unsure voice woke me up from my daze and I realized how stupid I must’ve looked, standing in the middle of a place where I wasn’t supposed to be, ranting about my non existent love life to a guy who had gigantic headphone hanging around his neck.

 

“No, no I’m sorry,” I hoped he caught the glimpse of my pathetic attempt of a smile because I was in no mood to repeat it as I made my way to dash out of the darkened studio.

 

I was banking on the fact that he was too dazed by everything to chase after me. He did, though, and I had to try my best to not let my tears of anger fall when his fingers wrapped themselves around my shoulder.

 

“Let me get you a drink.” When he saw that I did not budge from my position (one foot already on its way to land on the first steps of the narrow stairs), he added to his cause a really soft, really hard to deny ‘please’.

And so I nodded my head. Of course I nodded my head. The tears that was welling so dangerously close to the edges of my eyelids suddenly turned from something that was formed out of spite, into something… even more suffocating. Like when your mother told you it’s okay to cry after you vomited out your dinner when you had a stomachache.

 

I planned to stay just until I finished drinking the glass of water. Then, when he started to try to distract me from whatever demon he thought I was battling within my own mind with samples of his new beats, I figured I’ll stay until the condensation on the glass completely disappeared. Then, when he began to talk about plans for his summer break, I found myself trapped in a cage made out of the need for experiencing new adventure, and hopeless, stupidly childish hope.

 

“Tell me. What do you really want to do right now?” He asked while leaning on his swivelling chair, face far too close to my arms that I could hear the sharp blows of his breathing when he scoffed after I said that I only wanted to hibernate throughout the entirety of summer.

 

“Come on, let’s be a bit more fun!” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling (the genuinity of this one was undoubtable) as he did the thing that he always do when he wanted to tease me, nudge my arm with either his index finger, or with his exceptionally boney elbow.

 

“I want to go to a theme park.”

 

The way his smile bloomed into a wide grin like some sort of morning glory petals told me that I said the right thing. “Then let’s go!”

 

I told him that it was a stupid idea, it was 2 pm already and the sun was so high and I don’t bring that much money and…

 

He didn’t listen to my protests though, only spouting things like ‘OH COME ON IT’LL BE FUN!’ and ‘I’LL COVER FOR YOU, JUST PAY ME TOMORROW’, which I knew was his attempt at reassurance to get me to just go with his whims at ‘making my summer a bit more fun than hibernation’.

 

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