42: YOUR SKIN IS ROUGHENED

"Eat," by Zion.T

                “That will be 6,500 won. Thank you. Have a good day.”

                Naeil wasn’t having what you would call, “a good day.” Yes, it’s true, she now had a bag of tasty snacks to placate her foul mood, but it wasn’t sufficient. Nothing was sufficient to erase the fact that her mom was constantly worrying (nagging) about her decision to move in the summer, the fact that she couldn’t tell her mother why, the fact that the boys were planning on basically kidnapping Shin Juyoung sometime soon, the fact that Yoongi apparently still hated her, and most of all, the fact that her sacred spot—the church roof—had been invaded by various articles of junk for the past week.

                One of the church ladies had discovered a family of rats living in the attic, so it had been cleared and gutted of all its objects (most of which were just shoved outside rather than taken downstairs). Naeil was headed for the church now, in an attempt to clean up what she could. On her arrival, she found the roof still messy as ever, except now a tarp was haphazardly thrown over the junk to protect it from rain damage. The attic had already been cleaned and equipped with rat poison, but apparently no one had bothered to replace its old contents.

                “Well,” Naeil mumbled to herself, “I guess I’m in the mood for some menial labor anyway.”

                Accordingly, Naeil found herself shoving boxes of old paper and dusty Christmas decorations through the attic door, music from headphones thrumming in her head. It really had her whipped-up into a frenzy, and she was accomplishing a lot until chucked a box inside and slammed a very bewildered Yoongi right in the gut. She didn’t hear his muffled groan, but she did catch a glimpse of him doubling over and clutching at his stomach.

                “Oh!” cried Naeil, hopping inside and slipping off her headphones. “Sorry! I didn’t—”

                Yoongi pulled away, holding up a hand while he caught his breath.

                “You…you have a terrible habit of beating me up.”

                “Maybe if you didn’t sneak up on me so often, you wouldn’t get in the way of my brutish strength.”

                “Was that sarcasm?”

                Naeil shrugged. Walking over to the large, overstuffed armchair that had been left out on the roof, she plopped down onto its old, browning cushion. Yoongi followed her outside, pulling up a crate and sitting on it, just in front of her. He looked around

                “What’s going on up here?”

                “Oh, you know, the bicentennial attic cleaning of our church.”

                “Definitely sarcasm that time.”

                “But I think I’m okay if they keep this chair up here. It’s very comfortable.”

                Yoongi smiled a little at this. That was something Naeil hadn’t seen in a while. His head turned toward the edge of the roof, and for a moment, Naeil thought they might lapse into that comfortable silence they had experienced all that time ago. She didn’t want that again. It brought too many risky thoughts to mind, and she was still a little peeved at him for being such a jerk for the past few weeks.

                “So why did you come up here anyway, sunbae? I thought you didn’t want to be around me.”

                Yoongi’s eyes settled on her, and for a moment, he just stared. His gaze was somehow disquieting. Was it pessimism? Irritation? Wonder? Uncertainty? It made Naeil shift in the armchair and avert her eyes.

                “What do you want to do?" he asked.

                “What—”

                “I mean, with your life. Like a job. That sort of thing.”

                “Are you trying to provoke me?”

                “I’m serious.”

                It felt like a rock had fallen into her stomach. Yoongi’s dark, unblinking eyes were focused on her face, and she could swear he saw through her skin, into her veins where something akin to panic was coursing through her blood.

                “Right now I’m in business studies.”

                “Come on, Naeil-ah. You know that wasn’t what I was asking.”

                “I…I don’t know. I guess I want to get a good job that pays well, but not too much. I want to take care of my mom, and be happy…or maybe more like content. Sometimes that’s the best. Happy doesn’t usually last very long, but content might.”

                “Sounds like you’ve been disappointed too many times.”

                Naeil tried to scoff, but she ended up just her lips anxiously. “What the heck…”

                “Sounds like you’ve placed your goals at rock bottom so whatever reality comes, it won’t as much as it did every time you were disappointed before.”

                After several stuttered attempts at a retort, Naeil finally muttered, “You’re right, you crazy pyromaniac.” She nudged his knee with her big toe. “Yah. Aren’t you going to tease me? I just admitted you were right.”

                “I asked because I really wanted to know.”

                Aish, thought Naeil, when is he going to stop saying things that I can’t possibly respond to?

                In an attempt to maintain her cool, Naeil got up and retrieved her bag of snacks, offering them to Yoongi. “So, did you just come up here to dig into my personal problems?”

                Yoongi grabbed a package of egg biscuits and tossed a couple into his mouth.

                “Unfortunately, I have much more troublesome business than that. We’re meeting this Friday. There’s an old warehouse Shin Juyoung uses to hang out with his friends, which is just so like something he would do. Anyway, it’s out of public and police eye, so we’re going to get ahold of him at his next little party there. We’re gonna do the planning on Thursday, and then Friday we’ll meet at your place in the morning to prepare.”

                “Oh. Um, wow.”

                “Yeah. And, uh, I wanted to tell you, because this is your last chance to decide. After this, you’re really in with us, you know? You’ll be stuck in all this mess and there’s nothing you can do to go back.”

                “I…know. I knew that from the start.”

                “I just wanted to give you one more chance to change your mind.”

                “I’m not going to change my mind, sunbae!”

                “Okay! Okay! I didn’t think you would. I just thought—I thought I should let you know that you can, if you want to.”

                “Well, I don’t want to.”

                “Fine.”

                He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, making as if to leave. He stopped short of walking through the attic door.

                “Look. Uh, Naeil-ah—”

                Naeil looked up at him expectantly.

                “I…” Yoongi sighed, and he closed his eyes as if in pain. “You remember when I told you that I’ve done a lot of terrible things?”

                “Yeah.” Of course she did. In fact, she had been thinking about that quite a bit lately.

                “Once we start dealing with people in Sa Hyeo Pa, I won’t be able to hide that from you—or anyone—anymore. And I guess I…I…” Yoongi pursed his lips together and looked to the side, clearly frustrated. “Aish, just—just forget it.”

                He would’ve walked away too, if some crazy impulse in Naeil hadn’t pushed her to jump up and grab his hand. When his head snapped back to look at her, Naeil panicked. She didn’t know why she had grabbed his hand, and she certainly didn’t know what to say now. But she had to say something.

                “I…I know a lot of people who’ve made mistakes. All my friends…my family…” My mom. “…All the people I love, I love them even though they did those things. I love them…I love them because we all do terrible things, so how can I hate them when I’m just as bad? They’re just more aware of that, and they feel genuine regret, and, to me, that makes them more real than all those people who pretend, you know? So…so I don’t care about what you did, so long as you’re not that way now. O-okay? Sunbae?”

                Yoongi’s head was bowed as she spoke. Naeil kept on willing him to look up, but he only shifted his hand in hers a little. He brushed the tips of her fingers, and she caught a glimpse of something like a smile in the edges of his eyes.

                “You must be practicing the guitar,” he murmured, his voice a rumble in his throat. “Your calluses are getting stronger.”

                Naeil pulled her hand away, unnerved.

                He looked up finally, his expression unreadable. “I’ll see you Thursday, then. You should keep on practicing guitar. If you play it anything like you play the piano, I’d like to hear that.”

                He left her there: silent, confused, and ghosting a thumb over the fingers he had been holding only a moment before.

Author’s Note

These kids! So cheesy.

Well, anyway, this chapter came a little later than usual (which probably won’t surprise anyone by now). Good news, after next week, I’ll be done with finals/papers/everything yayyyyyyyy

Tomorrow I’m going to try and post something with a little recap info because I realized this story is freaking confusing and not just to me.