The alarm was set, the floors were hurriedly mopped, and the door was locked with one swipe of the key. Eunji and her coworkers stood outside of the store.

Kim Myungsoo didn’t bother saying goodbye to her. He barely gave her a short nod before he started walking to his car, his head bent at an awkward angle. His tired eyes were always glued to his cell phone screen.

“I bet he’s going to see his girlfriend--I mean, friend with benefit,” Nam Woohyun chuckled as he waved to Myungsoo’s disappearing figure. He had a habit of shaking his broad shoulders whenever he was overcome by a burst of laughter, which Eunji found endearing. He wasn’t too much taller than her, but she still had to crane her head up whenever she looked at him.

“It’s hard to remember that he isn’t dating that girl considering he’s always showing up to work with hickies all over his neck,” Eunji commented, her voice coated with mild disgust and amusement barely disguised. At her previous workplace, workers weren’t allowed to show up at work with hickies. They were required to either cover it with makeup or they were sent home for being unprofessional. But here at their current workplace, it was a casual environment where mostly college students worked. There were only three older workers who only worked morning shift, but only the manager was strict about the policies.

But Myungsoo would never be told to go home. He had been working there for the previous two years and would always show up to work late, but he was one of the only workers who was willing to work night shifts without requesting that he could be moved to morning shift. He could show up late, he could slack off and walk around the store using his phone, and he could show up to work with bruises all over his neck and no one would ever do anything about him.

Lucky him.

“I guess our red uniforms kind of matches his hickies,” Woohyun laughed and took out his car keys. He gestured to the left side of the shopping mall that only had one small clinic, so he usually liked parking there since he wouldn’t have to bother fighting other drivers to manage backing out of his spot. Woohyun tried to act like an older brother figure to her in a way ever since the day they had met on her first day of work. He trained her at the cash register and taught her how to order shipment, but his friendly demeanor was only an act. She could see right through him.

“Do you need a ride home?”

After every work shift, he would ask her the same question. He would never allow a girl to be stranded at night, especially when she didn’t have a car.

And she would always have the same answer for him. She didn’t trust someone who could smile so easily. She hated the way that he looked at her, as if every word she said was utterly fascinating and the way he asked her questions, as if she was the most interesting human being on the planet. She hated that about him.

Nam Woohyun, she thought, was a liar.

And so she usually turned into a liar whenever she was alone with him. “No thank you, I have a ride home.”

It wasn’t a secret that she didn’t have a car and the buses stopped running after they closed the store, but Woohyun refused to leave her alone unless she pretended that she had a ride home. She usually walked home after work by the beach. It was nice, quiet, peaceful…

Satisfied, he smiled, dramatically waved at her as if it was her final day at work, and trotted away to his car.

Another reason why Eunji disliked Woohyun, she hated to admit, was because he reminded her too much of the person she used to be in the past.

Well, her night walks by the beach used to be peaceful, anyway. It was a way for her muscles to relax after running around the store for hours and it was the only thing she looked forward to after work. During her shifts, time would pass by so slowly to the point and all she could imagine was taking that nice walk home so she could take a nice nap in her bed.

Who would have imagined that her life would have turned out like this? She woke up in the morning, went to her classes in community college, and would work at a supermarket at night.

Repeat, rewind, rewind.

While everyone else was graduating from college and returning to their hometown to live with their parents, she was still stuck in the same place. She was the only one who hadn’t moved forward.

She shouldn’t have been lost in her thoughts about how pretty the scenery was. She also shouldn't have been taking her time opening the package of her pocket warmer. She should have accepted Woohyun’s insincere offer so she would be home and not at the beach because she saw the two idiots who intentionally prolonged her painful encounter with them

Somehow she knew that the taller one was going to yell out her name before she had a chance to spin around.

The other one would never talk to her again, anyway.

“Eunji!”

Ah, she knew it.

Joohyuk was already moving towards her in a clumsy manner. “Eunji, don’t pretend that you can’t see me.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Eunji snarled at him as he moved closer towards her. She could smell the alcohol from his breath and she wanted to throw her hands out to prevent him from getting closer to her, but she was momentarily stunned from the smile that appeared on his face as he gently grabbed her hand.

“I’m happy to see you after all this time.”

I don’t want to hear that from you, Eunji thought.

“We’ve never been friends, so don’t talk to me like we’re friends,” she said loudly and looked behind him. She made direct eye contact with In Guk, who averted his eyes away immediately. He looked like he couldn’t care less about his friend’s interaction with her, but her lips quirked to the right and he knew that he was no longer uninvolved.

Her smirk didn’t belong to her. It was a habit that she had acquired from someone else years ago. The drunk man in front of her, on the other hand, didn’t matter. He could have been pushed into the beach in front of her and the most she would do for him was call the police for him.

“You should be taking care of your friend here,” Eunji called out to In Guk, who still had his head bowed. She was aware that he no longer resented her and didn’t care about her in the slightest, but she expected better from him. It had only been eight years since he was that clumsy and shy freshman, so why did In Guk turn out to be like this? “Do you often let him attack girls?”

Her narrowed eyes and the look of disgust reflected in them made Joohyuk flinch and In Guk finally look at her. He scoffed in disbelief and walked up to her, his face contorted in disgust. Eunji just looked at him as if he was merely a nuisance and shook Joohyuk’s hand off.

“You, of all people, don’t have any right to tell me what to do,” In Guk smiled sarcastically. Eunji crossed her arms and looked directly up at his face, raising her eyebrows in mock interest, but she still hasn’t forgotten the look on his face when she indirectly rejected him. When he had walked by her that day, she felt like she was the first girl to truly hurt him. “Joohyuk just wanted to see you again after all these years because he thought of you as a friend but you haven’t changed at all, have you? You’re still as rude and selfish as you’ve always been.”

Those were words that she couldn’t argue against. Those were defining characteristics of her that she hadn’t bothered changing, but she never wanted to hear those words from In Guk. Not him of all people.

She bit her tongue to prevent the flow of curse words and insults from flowing out. How had their relationship changed so much? They went from two teenagers who almost dated to young adults who ignored each other. And now that they were adults, they seemed to hate one another with an intensity that she would have never imagined.

“Let’s just stop talking,” she proposed in a flat voice. She still hasn’t forgiven herself for hurting that young boy, although the adult in front of her was unfamiliar to her. She didn’t have the energy to continue bickering with this stranger in front of her. 

He shrugged. “Fine with me. It’s not like you ever mattered in the first place.”

That was obvious from the beginning. She was merely someone who could disappear into thin air at any moment and no one would ever notice, but if he ever disappeared, the world would stop spinning.

In Guk looked at Joohyuk and tilted his chin up, gesturing to him that it was time for them to continue their way. The lamps were getting dimmer and dimmer. Eunji could barely see anything in front of her, but Joohyuk’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark as he nodded to Eunji and walked to friend’s side.

The duo walked side-by-side and Eunji felt awkward afterwards, not knowing if she should just wait underneath the lamp for a few minutes so she wouldn’t have to walk behind them.

Joohyuk wasn’t the one who she wanted to touch her hand.