Nam Daeun was not the type of girl that woke up disheveled, hair a mess and dress strap sliding down her shoulder, in someone else's bathtub, floor littered with plastic red cups and an annoying, near relentless, pounding in her head. On days after the wild parties her best friend tended to drag her to, she usually found herself waking up on said best friend's uncomfortable couch to pots and pans banging in the kitchen and muffled curses that clashed with her massive headaches, typically caused by too much alcohol and loud music. So basically, the bathtub was new. And the tattoo on her wrist? That was definitely new.

It was more difficult than it should have been to pull herself out of the old-fashioned off-white tub, her heels struggling to find safe and solid ground amongst the discarded cups- was that a T-shirt she just stepped on? -and her slim fingers failing to grasp the smooth edges of the porcelain basin. After an unnecessary amount of time and a painful blow to her sensitive elbow that she did not appreciate at all, she was clutching rather desperately to the wet rim of the sink in an attempt to steady herself and peer at the small medicine cabinet mirror that hung on the bathroom wall. She found her skin to be looking more pale than usual, slight grey bags underneath her dark brown eyes, as she had expected, but what she didn’t expect was the red rash of skin on the side of her neck, clearly a hickey. Even more unexpected was the thick black ink decorating the inside of her slender wrist that she caught a faint glimpse of in the mirror’s reflection when she raised her hand to gently prod at the mark that marred her skin. She blinked, more than a little sluggish and unable to process everything at the moment, and that was when she first noticed the tattoo that would change her life forever.

The skin around the fresh ink was irritated, pink and blotchy, and tender to the touch- she had always had a high tolerance for pain, but pressing down on the inflamed skin left her wincing, despite its small size. The design was extremely simplistic in nature, just two initials no bigger than the width of the nail on her index finger scrawled out in elegant cursive that looked like calligraphy right in the center of the soft flesh on the inside of her wrist, directly over the pale blue line of a vein, making it not all that noticeable at first glance. That was part of its charm though, its simplistic nature making it all the more beautiful- or at least, she would have found it beautiful if she knew who the hell S.H. was, or, you know, if she actually remembered getting it. Since neither of those things were true though, she was more than a little confused and just the tiniest bit pissed off, and who better to take it out on then the boy currently fumbling to make breakfast downstairs who, admittedly, was probably partly at fault.

“No Minwoo!”

“!” The sound of pans and metal bowls crashing to the ground follows the muffled curse and the girl’s angered shout of her best friend’s name- which she regretted, shouting did not help her head after all, nor did the startled clatter of cooking utensils that came after.

Stumbling down the too steep staircase and taking special care not to trip on the last step, which was chipped and uneven from both poor carpentry skills and a few idiotic stunts courtesy of the house’s owner, the sight that greeted her in the cramped kitchen was exactly what she expected- a big ing mess. White liquid- god, she hoped that was milk- stained the ugly eggshell blue tiled floor, a cast iron skillet with what looked like half-cooked eggs in it- she could see that he still at not letting the shells fall in- its side, contents half on the lackluster tile, and lots of bowls, empty containers, and dull cutlery decorating the ground along with a fine powder of crushed crumbs she suspected came from the overturned box of Cheerios she spotted balancing precariously on the edge of the faded grey countertop. The best part? The sheepish male crouched in the center of it all, panicked expression and baby pink ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron to make the situation even more ridiculous. If she hadn’t of been the boy’s friend for over ten years, then maybe she would have been shocked at the disastrous state of the kitchen over a breakfast with such a simple menu of cereal and eggs. The fact of the matter though was that she had known him for that long and she knew him well, so she wasn’t really all that surprised. In fact, this was rather normal; she was used to it.

At the sound of her clumsy steps and the heavy click of her heels on the hardwood of the hallway outside the kitchen, the boy looked up, eyes wide and a nervous smile on his face. “O-oh, you’re awake!” All he received in return was a light glare, one that lacked any real venom in part because he was her friend and partly because she was still tired and felt awful, and his smile dimmed slightly in response. “I made breakfast,” he tried again, gathering a few of the broken crumbs in his cupped palms and offering them to her. Daeun sighed. Just what the hell was she supposed to do with him?

“Lend me some of your clothes and we’ll go out for ramyun.” It wasn’t really a suggestion, and he hurriedly scrambled to his feet to comply, roughly yanking the useless apron over his head and disappearing back up the stairs, expertly avoiding the trash from the previous night’s party and the hidden danger of the bottom step. To be honest, he had known that this was how things were going to end up, because this was how things always ended up, the inevitable outcome on mornings such as this one- sunglasses, cheap hangover cures, and convenient store cup ramyun from the place across the street. In short, the perfect Saturday routine.

Once they are comfortably seated at one of the little tables outside the store, ramyun in hand and Daeun appropriately dressed, they engage in the next part of their little ritual routine: the fun game called ‘What the hell happened last night?’ And this time, it was Daeun’s turn to begin, and she was not pulling any punches.

“Why the hell did I wake up in your guest bathtub this morning?”

Without missing a beat, “Because I didn’t want you dirty my private tub.”

Honestly, she could hit him.

“That’s not what I meant,” she hissed out through clenched teeth, still quiet and cautious of her headache, which was thankfully lessening by now, although it was sure taking its time. “I meant, why was I in a bathtub in the first place?” Seriously, he was a decently smart guy, did she really need to spell it out for him, or did he just enjoy playing dumb? Since she knew him so well, practically like the back of her hand, she knew that the answer was both.

“I don’t know,” her best friend shrugged, carelessly shoveling the burning noodles down his throat as if he had been starved for days- to be fair, with his poor culinary skills, he probably had. “You disappeared with some guy and then nearly four hours later, he comes and tells me you’re passed out in the guest bath and to let you rest.”

How could he say that so nonchalantly?

“What guy?” she stared at him in horror, unhealthy ‘breakfast’ forgotten.

“That guy,” Minwoo pointed at her neck with his sauce stained chopsticks, one eyebrow raised. Right, the hickey. “How hammered were you exactly?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” she muttered rather miserably, slamming her own chopsticks down on the table. She had only eaten half her meal, but she felt so terrible, both physically and mentally from all the stress of the situation, that she couldn’t finish it; it was a good thing that Minwoo could, which he gladly did without her even having to say a word- not that she even noticed, eyes squeezed shut painfully tight behind the dark lenses of the sunglasses that protected her sensitive eyes from the sun, yet another unwanted side effect from last night.

Last night…

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down before she did something she would regret, like, say, crawl across the table and strangle the inconsiderate stupid little thing sitting across from her out of sheer frustration. Seriously, she loved him, but No Minwoo, without a doubt, was one of the most problematic, annoying people she had ever met. From his nonexistent cooking skills- he even managed to burn ramyun and, once, a microwave pizza; she still doesn’t know how he manages to survive off his horrible culinary skills, though that probably explains the trash can overflowing with empty take out containers back at hi place- to his careless attitude, from his surprisingly obsessive perfectionist tendencies- only about certain things of course, and definitely not about the cleanliness of his home- to his abuse of his near perfect aegyo to manipulate others into giving him what he wanted, from his sometimes cold and mature exterior to his other times childish actions and clingy hands, No Minwoo was trouble. Trouble for her sanity, yes, but also just straight up trouble. He was the type of guy that your parents either loved (because let’s be honest, he’s adorable) or hated, the kind they warned you not to get involved with because of his less than appropriate afterschool activities. Every weekend he seemed to have something going on, whether it be a party at his house or someone else’s, VIP tickets to a club he wasn’t old enough or rich enough to get into, or just hanging out with some decidedly sketchy friends of his at the trashed abandoned factory on the bad side of town that everyone swore was either haunted or a gang headquarters- truthfully, it was neither, but the latter was almost close to accurate. He went out late every night and didn’t return home until the early hours of the morning, sometimes coming back with bruises, sometimes not; a part of a rebellious graffiti crew, he assured her that these were just a few occupational hazards, nothing to really worry about. He’s been arrested before, once back when they had been finishing their last years of high school- vandalism. Yep, No Minwoo was trouble, but trouble she was unfortunately stuck with, that naïvely simple commitment made all those years ago on that rusty old playground still fresh in her mind, a friendship of over a decade built on pinky promises and frosted white animal crackers.

She loved him, but her current situation was entirely his fault. It was his party, he had just let her go off with a stranger, he was the reason her head hurt and her wrist stung when she put pressure on it. Although she could admit that some of the blame should probably be place on the mysterious S.H, whoever the hell he was, and, as ashamed as she was to say it, her own stupidity probably played a large part in it all as well- okay, so it was mostly her fault, but she’d be damned if she said that out loud.

“Hey,” Daeun lifts her head off the table, momentarily pausing in her wallowing, and squints her eyes behind her glasses. Once Minwoo hums in reply, she s her right wrist in front of his face, wiggling her hand around underneath his nose. He blinks blankly, surprised by the abrupt move, but not too much since he’s just as used to her weirdness as she is to his. “Do you know anyone with these initials?”

“Wait,” the brown-haired boy grabs her hand with wide eyes to hold it still; she grimaces when he roughly twists it in order to get a better view of the two small letters inscribed on her skin. “Since when do you have a tattoo?!”

“Since last night,” she shrugs in a lame manner similar to his earlier on in the conversation, to which he responds with a flat look just as unamused as her had been. To say they had spent enough time with each other to pick up and adopt the other’s mannerisms would be an understatement.

He let out an impressed whistle, dropping her hand and leaning back in his seat to finish his (her) ramyun. “I have absolutely no idea. That guy last night didn’t seem familiar at all, and I don’t know anybody with those initials. Well, I mean, I do, but he couldn’t come yesterday, so it’s not him.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Shim Hyunseong,” he humored her. “He’s a member of my crew, though like I said, it’s not him.”

“Would he know anyone?” she asks, taking his word for it. After all, she was sure that he could recognize a member of his crew, one of his closest friends that he hung out with every nig