This is not how he pictures his Friday night would be.

Junhoe always have this one ritual on Friday night: watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix, mindlessly eating his favorite tteokbokki while laughing at whatever Barney Stinson said. Spicy tteokbokki and snarky Barney’s jokes are his healing, not a night out at the bar, listening to ty beats that sound like a group of church choir caught up in a drilling machine.

But his co-workers guilt tripping him to attend some work getaway at the bar and Junhoe does not have the heart to tell them that he actually has a better Friday night plan, so he it up and half-heartedly join them. Half an hour later, his colleagues have disappear into the crowd and he’s sitting alone on their table, wondering if he can sneak to go home without having them drilling him for being an unloyal friend. He stirs at his sweet ice tea that is neither cold or sweet enough, just to give himself something to do. There are a few glances in his direction, and maybe if he was feeling more sociable, he’d make some effort to look back and returning their smile, but he’s apathetic. He decides to open his notebook, and write something to keep him away from this uninspiring vibes.

It’s almost 9 pm when another featured DJ comes onto the stage, and more people waiting at the centre, buzzing with excitement. Junhoe looks up from his notebook, finding a familiar figure standing a couple steps from his table, his back facing him. He’s tall with dark hair, pulling all of the attention because of his height. He nods his head to the rhythm but the wide shoulder trips radar in Junhoe’s mind.

Wait.

He knows that shoulder.

He knows that back. He spent a lot of time observing them a while back ago, outside of the glass window of Yunhyeong’s cafe on the rain.

.

That’s Chanwoo. The pen guy.

The new moon guy.

Junhoe unconsciously spins the pen on his hand, then brings that pen to his lips so he can nibbles at them, before he realizes that he nibbles on Chanwoo’s pen, aka the pen he’s been (unconsciously) use for a while. Damn. He brings that pen closer into his eyes, trying to survey the damage he made under the dimmed light, and he curses himself internally when he finds so many chew mark at the top. He srunches his nose, disgusted, and wondering if the new moon guy would feel the same thing when he finds that the perfect pen that he kindly lent is now full of disgusting chew marks.

He looks out to the crowd again, and yes, that is definitely Chanwoo, the new moon guy he met last week in the rain. His heart must be recognizes Chanwoo too because if his heart could speak, it’d be chanting Chanwoo! Chanwoo! over and over.

Junhoe knows his subconscious must be too loud because Chanwoo suddenly turns his back and his doe eyes find his hooded eyes and he can see him slowly walking towards the table in his peripheral vision.

Moments later Junhoe feels a warm hand on his right shoulder. “Hey, I thought it was you!”

Junhoe tries to smile but he’s pretty sure that it’s a half grimace. “Hello, Chanwoo.”

“You remember my name!” Chanwoo’s smile is so big that Junhoe pretty sure he would look pathetic if he smiled like that.

He bites on his tongue, does not want to dwell on the fact that he remembers everything about Chanwoo. Right down to his left cheek’s dimple that appears when he smiles.

Chanwoo sits down next to him, looking around. “So are you here with someone?”

Junhoe flushes and curling up his fingers, somehow worried that he will start fidgeting anytime. He debates between telling the truth or lying but he knows himself enough that he can’t lie to save his own life. “I’m here with my co-workers but I lost them.” And I don’t care enough to find them.

Chanwoo hums, like he can relates to it. “Ah, me too. We went here for dancing but I kinda tired for that,” he scoffs, but suddenly snaps his finger, as if he realizes something. “Hey, are you hungry? Do you want to get some food outside?”

The rhythm accumulates when Junhoe voices his answer, drowning his agreement. So he nods, letting Chanwoo leads their way out, away from the sick beats that surrounding the club.

They later find a nice pojangmacha in a busy Myeongdong street and Junhoe is full, warm and slightly happy for so many reasons he can’t exactly explain. Maybe because he’s eating tteokbokki and sort of fulfiling one of his Friday night rituals?

Or rather than that, maybe because he fulfiling one of his Friday night rituals with Chanwoo?

Junhoe fastly shakes his head, diminishing his weird train of thought. He slightly tilt his head to see Chanwoo, whose thin lips is smeared with some spicy sauces, his cheeks flushed. He smiles to himself, wondering if he can’t handle spicy food or if the night doesn’t provide him enough cool air and shoves another tteokbokki into his mouth, suddenly realizes that tonight isn’t as bad as it was one hour ago.

“You like this?” Chanwoo suddenly asks him as he digging up his bag to find his notebook and pen, totally unexpected.

Junhoe glances from his ped bag for a short moment. “Ah, yeah,” he says distractedly. When he finally finds his notebook, he hurriedly flicks to his recent page, but the words are fall short into the half-blank page, making him uncomfortably spinning the pen—Chanwoo’s pen.

He looks up from his embarassing blank page to find Chanwoo looking at him, finding his doe eyes with an intense yet soft expression—another thing that he can’t explain tonight. How does one look so intense and soft at the same time?

Junhoe then realizes he is spinning Chanwoo’s pen, but then Chanwoo had his eyes on his eyes, not the damned, disgusting pen with bite marks.

He decides to rub the pen into his pants to rasp off whatever disgusting substance he left on that pen, and slides that toward Chanwoo. “I forgot to give this back the other day,” he says, hoping that his voice sounds apologetic. He sighs, makes another hope that Chanwoo is not cautious enough so he wouldn’t look at the chewed tip.

Chanwoo blinks twice, both as fast, as if he is confused. “Oh, thank you,” he says, almost non-chalantly.

Junhoe nods and get back to his tteokbokki, using one of his chopsticks to pin his tteokbokki so he could get extra sauce. He slowly devours his food, trying to identify what he really feels at the moment. He is very sure that he is not awkward though. Not awkward sitting across Chanwoo, who is practically a total stranger, and spending the night eating tteokbokki together. Yet, another thing that he can’t explain tonight, because if it is another stranger, he would feel so awkward sitting in silence while eating like this. Hell, he wouldn’t even say yes if some stranger asking him to grab some foods together like this.

Weird. So weird.

“Are you a writer or something?” Chanwoo asks, holding his pen with his two fingers.

Junhoe bobs his head. “Yeah.”

“Ah, I thought so too. I saw you write something at the cafe the other day and now you’re writing too.”

He realizes that he slightly furrowing his brow because he can sense the muscle on his temple reacts but he knows that he was doing it out of confusion: if some stranger asks him about his work as a writer, Junhoe would defensively trying to cover whatever he is writing so he doesn’t have to explain anything to them. But not this time. His notebook is wide open, showing a pathetic half-blank page, but he doesn’t get the urge to close them. Instead, he wants to say something. He wants to tell Chanwoo about his writing.

“I sometimes have the habit to write whatever crosses my mind, so...” he leaves his words hanging. “I was actually have an idea before but I couldn’t write it,” he abruptly blurt the words, confessing his dilemma. His eyes pinning Chanwoo’s eyes, so he can see that Chanwoo looks somehow emphatetic towards that. He looks as if he understands.

Maybe he understands.

“What were you writing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Junhoe slids his notebook, biting his lips as Chanwoo scan the half-blank page.

“Stay up talking to the moon, been feeling so alone in every crowded room,” Chanwoo recites his poem, his voice surprisingly tender. “This is beautiful.”

This time, Junhoe blinks twice. The expression on Chanwoo’s face are both earnest and kind that he believes he was saying that genuinely.

“I’m not a poet, but I know a good poem when I read one. And this is very good. This poem is short but very impactful,” Chanwoo begins to explains, his left hand moves animatedly while his right hand holds the notebook. “The sentence of this poem is super contrast with the sentence I read at work: this poem is short and beautiful, while the sentence I read at work is always short and stupid and lame.”

Junhoe laughs when he sees Chanwoo make a slight pout with his thin mouth. “Where do you work? Pharmaceutical company? They usually have the worst slogan.”

Chanwoo shakes his head. “No, I’m a software engineer. I write codes, but somehow my team is always included into the marketing department meeting, so I always hear my company’s lame sales pitch.”

He fiddles with the tip of his chopsticks, smiling. He silently notes every informations that Chanwoo says: he is a programmer, but his team always get into marketing department’s meeting. He thinks his company’s sales pitch is lame.

He’s a writer too—but instead than put words into a writing, he writes codes that put program together.

“I like the opening. Stay up talking to the moon.”

“Uhm, well...” Junhoe trails off and bites his lower lip. He doesn’t even realize that he wrote moon on the first place. He rarely put ‘moon’ into his writing. Rarely is an understatement as he never put moon into any of his writing.

In fact, it’s been a while since he even hear something about the moon. The first time he hear about moon in a while was Chanwoo’s explanation on the whole new moon stuffs that he found crap, but still intrigued him enought that he searched it on the internet for a few minutes. Then the second time he do something related to moon is today, when he writes that poem at the club.

And suddenly it clicks in his mind, as if someone flicks the switch on his head: two times with moon and always correlate with Chanwoo.

Another half an hour later, they head out, Chanwoo insists on walking him back to the bus stop while still holding his notebook.

Chanwoo slides his notebook back to him. “I think you’re a talented writer because it seems like you could write anywhere. Some people have to sit on the same, cozy and silent place before they write something but you don’t.”

Junhoe smirks. “Didn’t you hear what Yunhyeong said at the cafe? He said I am a leech. I mostly write things there beside my office,” he scoffs, waving his hands dismissively.

Chanwoo’s eyes shines, as if he’s excited. “Ah, that cafe!” he exclaims, sounds jolly. “I’ve been wanting to come but I never have time. I love the hot chocolate they served the other day and I want to try some other things there,” he adds. He then clears his throat. “No wonder you love that place.”

Junhoe catches earnest and genuine expressions that Chanwoo shows, so he nods. “Yeah. That place is the best.”

“I think I’m gonna hangout there on the weekend. Do you think we can leech him together?” he asks.

Panic rises in Junhoe’s throat. “Oh... I think so. I mean, you’re a customer so...”

“Good. So you would come on the weekend? Give me some pointers on menu?”

Junhoe bites his lower lip. Chanwoo’s expectant look makes him almost angry at how easy he can be manipulated by it. “Okay. I think I can come.”

Chanwoo lets out a relieved breath and Junhoe somewhat surprised to see Chanwoo never even bothers to hide these things, his feelings. Almost like he doesn’t care if Junhoe knows about him or deduces from his actions. He pulls out his phone to Junhoe, who takes it with a blank look on his face. “I need your number so we can come and leech him together,” he prompts.

Oh.

Junhoe put his number and saves it as Koo Junhoe. Just in case Chanwoo knows another Junhoe. His name is not a common name at all but he wants to make sure that Chanwoo gets to call the right Junhoe.

It’s not until he stepped on the bus and waves to Chanwoo through the dusty window that he realizes he forgets to ask for his number back. So he opens his notebook, and pulling out his old pen, somehow unfamiliar with the grip—Chanwoo pens has cold metallic grip that gives him cold, soothing feels as he scribbles—and begin to writes:

I’m a mess of unfinished thoughts.