li. Holding, Everything, Together

She stared on at the white plumes that rose high above her, up and over the door before penetrating her lungs bitterly. Dryly. Stinging at her nostrils, at her vocal chords as she let out an audible sigh, she asked herself why. 

Why him?

A question she was beginning to get sick of.

This stench was something she was beginning to grow sick of as she knocked twice on the bathroom stall’s door, listening as he sang out, “Who is it?”

He didn’t take things seriously. He couldn’t see past the singular point in time he was living. He was rebellious and rejected anything that didn’t make him feel “good.” He was the “bad boy” type. 

The one who smiled in the back of the classroom like the world was his. Like he could win it over with a single word. Like he’d already won it all.

She loathed his personality and his smile. His voice and his tone. His lack of common decency and even more common intelligence as a 15-year-old boy.

Her expectations were higher than she’d like to admit, at times.

“The teachers make their rounds during lunch.” She deadpanned, only to be ushered a step back as the door opened almost immediately, revealing his lazy eyes and lazier gaze, fingers tapping against a cigarette, freshly lit. With a frown, she added, remaining as detached as she could, “You know that, Hyunwoo.”

“I know that.” He laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world, the sight of her in the boys’ bathroom, warning him he’d be caught smoking if he didn’t stop, stop all together, his plot to shorten his life, “You told me that last week, too.”

He was doing this on purpose, like he knew.

Like he knew she didn’t know the answer to her question of: why him?

Before he could lock her there with that grin she detested, that curled and knotted at her stomach violently each and every time he flashed it her way — and he did often — someone walked in.

Gasping, the boy pointed from him to her, from her to him again, “You guys dating or something? Woobin caught you two in here last week too.” 

“No.” She was quick to respond, turning to leave. “And we should all know by now that Woobin sees what he wants to see.”

“You’ve got that right,” their shared classmate agreed, only to partly disagree a split second later, “though you guys look good together, you know?”

“I don’t.” She shook her head, exiting without glancing back once. 

Not even when he called her name, intonations sending her fingers curling into the hem of her shirt.

“Byul, have lunch with me tomorrow!”

“No,” she answered, because he always seemed to have a way of hearing her, like he was listening intently for her own hard, stern intonations. 

“You got caught.”

He turned around on the step he’d taken refuge on in the school’s left wing staircase, finding her with her hands in her pockets, striding down the stairs with a kind of nonchalance he couldn’t help but admire, “Can’t hide the truth from the infallible Byul, now can I?”

“Mr. Haws is lecturing on about teenage drug abuse to every single one of his chemistry classes.” She informed him, greeting his friend Woobin at his side with a single nod of her head before directing her attention right back at him, with a kind of ease that had parallels forming between her brows, “Anyone who didn’t know by now would have to be deaf.”

“Really?” He tsked, empty fingers tapping against his knee manically, “I have him next period.”

She passed by him, approaching her group of four or so friends who were waiting for her, the lunch bell having rung long ago, and she’d yet to keep the promise he’d forced her into two weeks prior, “Prepare yourself for the scorning of a lifetime.”

“Thanks, Byul,” he stopped her before she could continue on, her friends suspiciously eyeing the two of them, whispering and giggling over things he only wished were true. Deciding to join in on the fun, teasing her one of his favorite teenage pastimes, he added an unnecessary, “for worrying about me.”

“I wasn’t worried about you.” She lied.

“I know.” He smiled.

Tuesday. 12 in the afternoon. Standing in front of the last stall of the boys’ second floor bathroom, she stared on at the sight above her. At the sight of nothing above her. Not a single speck or puff of smoke. Before she could knock, he excitedly tugged at the lock on the door.

“Happy Birthday, Byul!” He exclaimed, door opening wide, smile wider.

And he waited. He waited for her to say something first. To notice first. To praise him first. He wanted her to, even though he didn’t expect her to. Even though he didn’t know her well enough yet to expect anything.

“I stopped for you.” He decided to reveal himself in the face of her lingering eyes, stuck on his like glue. Mesmerized by his like a moth to a flame. Drawn to his like that trail of ill-boding smoke she’d seen too many times to count.

He noticed something for the umpteenth time as well, then.

She never looked away.

Fearless. Undaunted. Relentless.

Like she’d never run away from him.

“I noticed.” She answered, eyes still locked with his.

“It’s my birthday present for you this year.” He exclaimed on this Tuesday, 12 in the afternoon, December 10th, opening his arms, itching to know what it was like to hold her.

“I didn’t need it.” 

“I’d like it if you needed me.” 

To know her.

More.

More than her gaze that burned through him — as though he were the moth instead.

She didn’t have an answer for that as she turned and left, his echoing laughter nipping at her heels as she went.

“Fancy meeting you here.” 

He greeted, chance appearance at the convenience store just down the street from where she lived a bit too coincidental for her liking.

“Byul, wait up.” 

He called after her as she walked away from him, two pints of ice cream balancing in either of her hands, a pack of twizzlers on top of both stacks, poised and steady.

“You know, I get the sinking feeling you don’t like me.” 

He mused out loud, standing next to her in the check-out line, not a single thing in his own hands, as his shoulder brushed lightly against her own.

“I know.” She agreed for the sake of it. For the sake of retaining what was left of her patience regarding him. For the sake of resisting him for as long as she could.

At least, until he finally went away.

“That’s harsh, even for you.” He whispered the latter part of his sentence right over her shoulder, his growth spurt hitting him hard last summer. And his carefree mind had apparently done some growing, some maturing, too as he posed a question to her after a minute of silence between them that was so loud her ears rung.

“Do you ever wonder if there’s someone out there just for you? You know, like a gift from the stars above?”

She entertained his thoughts, mind enamored by the idea his own had thunk up, “I know we can choose who that person is. We can always choose.”

It was a singular moment of weakness — sprouting up like a weed among many others. Swirling away at the pit of her stomach with a single glance, like he owned the world and all the galaxies beyond it, he asked:

“If I chose you two years ago, would you have chosen me back?”

And he stared on at her.

On and on and on. 

Like tourists at an art museum.

Like he’d never get bored of it.

Like he liked her. 

And that was the problem. 

He was made up of an infinite amount of similes, and she couldn’t piece it all together coherently enough to answer her question of: why him?

At this point, she was fine with being weak.

“Probably not.”

“Byul,” he called out, hoarse and guttural, elbow brushing hard against her own, “it’s because you’re like this that you give me hope, you know?”

“I know.”

Showing up on her doorstep in the middle of the night didn’t earn him many points with her parents. Then again, he’d earned enough when he’d walk her home every night during middle school. More like followed her against her will, though her parents would argue that was besides the point.

The point was, he did it.

He did many things.

For example, showing up at her house during winter break only to inform her that:

“It’s my birthday today!”

Sighing, too tired to put up a strong front, she mumbled out, “You should be with your family.”

“I am.”

“I’m not—”

“I know.” He interrupted her, stripping his scarf, thick and black, from his shoulders, “But you are.” Circling his hands around her unflinching frame, “You worry about me. You watch out for me. You lecture me. You praise me.” Tightening it around her neck gently, even though she never asked for it.

He did many things she never asked for.

“You make yourself sound more like a dog than anything else.”

“A dog?” He laughed, though he didn’t disagree, “Can’t your pet be part of the family, too?”

“You’re a strange one, aren’t you?”

“I know.”

He smiled stupidly, and she mimicked it before she even thought to stop herself.

And she was saying it before she could have warned herself against it, “Happy Birthday, Hyunwoo.”

His grin got wider, hands retracting back from beside her face where they lingered, unnecessarily, “So, what’d you get me?”

“As a gift? You told me about your birthday pretty last minute, didn’t you?”

“A pretty gift can make up for your lack of diligence,” he frowned at the insulted expression on her face, correcting himself because insults were the last thing he wanted to give her, “on this one particular occasion.”

“I’m not something to be given.”

Knowing exactly what he seemed like, what he seemed to feel despite the fact that he hadn’t declared anything quite yet, she wasn’t willing to give herself. 

“I know.” He nodded, still smiling, “You’re someone worth giving to.” Her lack of a response had him adding, “Myself, if you'd hadn’t caught my drift.”

“So you mean to say my gift to you would be accepting your gift to me?” She felt his fingers reach out, tugging her hands out of her pockets, snaking down her wrists, “Are you calling yourself pretty, too?”

He shrugged, “Woobin thinks so.”

“Woobin’s stranger than you.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

She hummed in agreement, lips brushing against his scarf bundled around her neck.

“You have a natural tact for diverting the topic of conversations, Byul.”

He always said her name every chance he got.

“I appreciate the compliment, Hyunwoo.”

She rarely said his name, avoiding it at all costs.

“I want to like you,” he said, gripping her loose fingers tightly, “so let me.”

“You’re not my type.”

Just avoiding.

“I know.”

“You’re too carefree for your own good.”

And avoiding.

“I know.”

“You don’t know anything.”

And a part of her was tired of avoiding it.

A big part.

Smiling like a fool, like a content fool, he said, “Neither do you.”

Wrapping her fingers through his, feeling his warmth curling every part of her, they both knew nothing. They saw what they wanted. They did what felt “good” at any point in time. They compared each other to similes that failed to coexist. And yet they did it all because they knew nothing.

As time passed, the two tried to persuade themselves otherwise. 

But why?

Why when ignorance was truly bliss?

A/N: This is your last chance to submit questions for our lovely characters to answer here! (I will be posting an extra chapter with their answers momentarily.) I hope you enjoyed this peek into the past with Song Hanbyul and Park Hyunwoo (Hyunjoo's parents)! I also hope you enjoy this day, because I surely intend to!

All the feels for this nonexistent couple.

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Springfield/Illusory Discussion Forum Series: The Mysteries Involved, Sailing Ships, Solving the Love Polygon, & Help!