The next day you were up, mind you it really hadn’t felt like the next day since you hadn’t slept at all. The entire night you had stayed up and kept vigilant watch over your apartment. Every small noise you reacted and went to check it out. You were terrified, there was a very real threat in your life of someone coming in and harming you. There was a threat on your wellbeing and you were not going to stand for it, as best as you could.

A ten on the nose, the phone started to ring. With a scream, you, who had been half asleep had jumped awake, nearly knocking your phone off the bed as you scrambled to catch it at the last second. Having stayed up all night, you had grown exceptionally tired. It was only natural that your body would wear out due to the extreme amounts of stress and lack of sleep you had been experiencing over the past few months. Groggily, you picked up the phone, and without being able to get out a full word, your friend cut you off.

“Where were you yesterday!?” She snapped loudly, calling you out on your sudden disappearance. “How could you just show up to my party and then leave with a total stranger without telling me? What’s more…” she took a break to inhale. “How dare you not contact me back? I was so worried about you! You can’t just disappear like that! You haven’t even been that mentally well recently! Now you’re going to get dressed, come out and have a coffee because I say so and you no longer have a choice. You’ve totally ed up, Olivia, making me worry like that! You didn’t even message me yesterday after you disappeared on me! No more magic tricks head, coffee shop, ten minutes.” With that she hung up, leaving you no room to speak. Apparently that was that, and so you changed and went to meet her at the coffee shop as you had been so forcefully instructed.

She was waiting with two piping hot drinks in front of her. That was always a good sign, still willing to buy you drinks. As it were, the friendship was still intact. It was true, she had a right to be mad at you. According to most, your stunt would have been called being AWOL. You dropped off the face of the planet, refusing to go out with friends most of the time. You were constantly shaken, checking over your shoulders, if not having a total aura of paranoia surrounding you. It couldn’t have been that pleasurable being around you. Even you knew that, but what you were supposed to do when you were fearing for your life?

“So you show up. I figured I’d be waiting hours for you jumpy.” She chided as you slid down in front of her. “So are you going to explain yourself?” She asked as she rested her chin in her palm, unamused as she waited for some sort of intelligent answer from you.

“Well about your birthday…” you figured you’d give her the juicy gossip before bothering to attempt to confide your real worries to her. As much as you were both very good friends, you weren’t sure how comfortable you were with sharing that kind of issue with her. You frankly had convinced yourself you were crazy on more than one occasion, what made you think she’d believe you? A small twitch perked your lips into a smile as you sat down, “Let’s just say Mr. Flirty turned out to be Mr. Charming, or so I found out the next day.”

“The next day—oh my god you didn’t.” her face, full of interest, hinted you to the fact that you had definitely given her the best reason to be interested. It was definitely a seemingly good enough reason for yesterday’s incident. “Is he good in bed? Wait no, what do you mean though by the next day? Did you sleep over? OH god that’s so taboo!”

Clearly, she wasn’t the type to keep shut long enough to let people talk… but no matter. Apparently you weren’t going to be here for a while either way if you were planning on finally coming out with the stalker information. “Let’s just say he’d be a perfect boyfriend if that was what I looking for.”

“… What’s been going on with you, you’ve been weird.” To say the least. Weird didn’t cover half of it, but you gave her credit for noticing. At least they were noticing that there was something wrong with your sudden drop off the earth as opposed to automatically assuming things.

Sighing, you rested your mug down in front of you, staring into the brown abyss as you tried to get your words together. “I know you guys joke about me right now, because I say I’m getting stalked but it’s true, Subin.” You started hesitantly, chuckling at how crazy it still sounded. “This is going to sound crazy, it still sounds crazy when I say it; but I seriously think I’m being stalked.”

“This again?” She asked, concern causing her eye brows to furrow. You were feeling elated ever so slightly to know your friend was showing concern for you legitimate issues. But that changed to anger faster than a blink. “You really need to stop thinking that. It’s crazy talk! You’re just imagining it!”

You were trembling, anger shaking through your system as you tried not to get sick. It felt as though you had been punched in the gut. Your own best friend didn’t even trust you on this. Opening your mouth to defend yourself, you were only cut off with more anger from your so-called best friend. “Yah! Stop it! You bring it up and I’m going to get you admitted at a hospital! You’re crazy! No one is stalking you! That’s just stupid, only celebrities get stalked and those people are crazy!”

Tearing up, you had to look down again. There was no way you could contain your anger, but you had to since you were in public. Why make a scene? What were you going to get out of it? Nothing. Your hands trembled and hot tears of anger dared to fall down your cheeks. You forced yourself not to blink in order to combat these threats, but ultimately you had to discreetly wipe your eyes with your sleeve. Getting up, you grabbed your bag and left, discarding your coffee and your offended “friend”. You knew she wasn’t really a friend if she couldn’t accept that this was your reality and insisted that you were crazy. All you wanted was comfort and advice. This was not what you came here for. Getting up, you walked out of the café with hot tears of heart break, embarrassment, and anger falling from your eyes. Leaving your drink and companion long behind you as you started to walk to work.

You had a shift, and it wasn’t like it was something you could call in sick on because you had cancelled work a lot recently out of your personal fears and lack of sleep. As you get into work, you silently bypass your coworkers, avoiding eye contacts and accidentally giving them an opening to greet you. You just needed to get the shift over with, as it was going to be one of your last. With luck on your side, you were going to move out of your apartment soon – as well as quit your job – in order to find a life of peace and freedom somewhere else. If worse came to worse, you were ready to leave the country, but you hoped dropping off the face of the planet would be pretty effective.

Crash!

You accidentally bumped a glass of beer off of the table and all over your legs and heels. Was this some sort of sick trick from karma? Because you weren’t already having ty luck… now you couldn’t even do your job properly. Though how could you? Thoughts floated through your head at all times of the night, you were exhausted, you were miserable… you weren’t yourself anymore.

A pair of hands come up behind you, rubbing your arms softly before holding onto your biceps, leaning forward and speaking softly into your ear. “Come on you, what’s on your mind.” The voice seemed to dismiss your actions and apologize for them before whisking you off with brisk steps to the back room. You were placed into one of the seats, looking over to find a bright mop of hair over the sink grabbing a towel. Jiyong. You quickly got out of your seat, a little startled by his sudden appearance and dragging you into the back room.

With a sheepish smile, he looked over as your heels clattered against the ground. “What’s wrong?” He asked, a small smirk gracing his lips. He tilted his head and gave that smoldering look that wowed all the fangirls. Admittedly even your heart skipped a beat seeing it. He was so handsome that sometimes you were not sure if humans could actually be so attractive. But your stomach churned as he stood up straight, his legs closing the distance between you. He was so close that you fell back into your seat with a silent gasp. Smirking to himself, he got down on one knee and lifted your leg up, slowly and softly dragging the cloth against it. “What’s on your mind, you’re acting weird today.” Half a mind screamed at you not to tell him, half a mind wondered how bad it could be. Your brow furrowed at the obvious internal struggle you were having and he chuckled. “I thought we were close jagi, you can’t tell me this?”

Jagi. The word felt weird to hear, especially since you knew it was meant solely for those in a relationship. You would have preferred him attempting to call you babe in English, as you saw that as the closest equivalent. There were not many pet names in Korean, and you could understand the struggle of someone who tried so hard to be… not very Korean. But as he pulled up a chair in front of you, you knew that there was no escape to this. Your hand came up behind your neck, rubbing slightly as you tried to find the right words. “Lately, things haven’t been okay at home…”

“… Like?”

Persistent er.

“Well… I mean, I’ll come home, and things will be used. I feel like someone is following me around. Whoever it was, they even got into my house and took my dry cleaning down for me! And they even followed me while I was on a date, and interrogated me over text!” You weren’t sure if that was enough information… but you knew it was enough to scare you. But when you locked eyes with him, you weren’t sure why he seemed to look at you with such confusion. His confident eyes wavered slightly with an air of confusion and guilt before he sat upright and stared at you straight in the eyes.

“Yeah, I know.” He said clearly. “That was me.”

So it seems I'm likely going to have this done by New Years! Woo! Sorry it's been taking so long, i'll finish it up now~

~ Alice