T W O

Her name is Lee Byul; let that be the end of the matter. Hearing them calling her Gong Yoo was uncomfortable yet satisfying for Byul. She couldn’t exactly explain the satisfying part and correcting them seemed troublesome, in the end she couldn’t be bothered. Gong Yoo it is then. It’s not like they’ll keep on seeing each other or progress to anything other than acquaintances. They’ll found out sooner or later anyways. Time flew by so fast especially when you were busy with moving and admissions. She decided to move out from the only place tying her to the grieve of losing someone she loved with all her life and lived in one of the vacant rooms inside the dorm she was managing. Leaving behind the memories was not easy for her but it was a change of pace in her life. After a month living in, she still hadn’t met other occupants yet due to college admissions and such. She applied for a leave from study, taking this as a chance to close open wounds and letting go of the nightmares that had been haunting her. After yet another traumatic episode in her life, she debated whether life was worth living or not. She dreaded the thoughts of following her grandmother – that was definitely not what her grandmother wanted – so she was still searching. Searching for the purpose as to why she must live.

            The introduction between the dorm managers wasn’t exactly pleasant nor was it hostile. They just hadn’t known each other, and she intended to keep it that way. If meeting someone meant separation with them later, she felt it was better to be alone. Even her name, Lee Byul which meant farewell, was not a lovely name. Way to jinx it mom and dad. She let out a heavy sigh. The morning of her month-anniversary since she got this job was so peaceful, not a cloud obscured the blueish serene. Although, a month of experience living with the other unintroduced occupants certainly had made her cynical. I bet he is wrapped under the warmth of his blanket, Byul monologued. Not a second gone after she said that, a loud scream could be heard from the pantry. Oh, he’s up.

            “Dream!!”, a loud husky voice yelled at the top of his lungs. “We gotta dream, man!!”, he continued. He did this every morning, without fail. Byul dared to say the day he stopped yelling every morning was the day the world ends. The other occupants must be accustomed to the screams and yells because none of them even bothered to tell him to shut up.

            And here comes my morning milk. On cue, a loud thud could be heard from her room’s door. She opened it slightly, like usual, to retrieve the item that was given to her. A bag of warm milk bottle hanging on the doorknob of the door. Attached was a good morning note with an old school smiley on it. Byul pinned the note on her tack board along with the other good morning messages she received. Sipping her morning milk on the veranda of her room, she could hear almost all the chaos happening in each of the dormitories – one of the probability was maybe because her dorm was in between the other to dorms.

            The dorms were positioned in U-shape. The first dorm – 127 – managed by Taeyong. She vaguely remembered Taeyong said almost all of the occupants there were university students and two of them were foreigners. Out of all the 3 dorms, she’d pick 127 as the most peaceful one of all. Opposite of 127 was called Dream – managed by Ten. Man, I get shivers from saying the word ‘Dream’. I blame the male Maran for this. She knew Dream’s occupants were all high school students. Why were they staying at a dormitory instead of their own homes? She had no idea. Last but not least, United – the dormitory she was managing – was the most hectic one. Didn’t need to be Sherlock to know why the previous manager quitted.

            “But the one who sent me this bottle of milk is kinda sweet, I guess.” She took a sip from the milk when she saw Haechan running from 127 towards her veranda.

            “Good morning, Gong Yoo hyung! Did you sleep well last night?” He beamed brighter than the morning sun. He did greet her good morning, but she could see his attention was elsewhere. His eyes wandered around the 1^st floor’s balconies, as if searching for something or, perhaps, someone.

            “Yeah, I did. Good sleep. Great morning.” Her grandmother did teach her how to behave around the elderly but not the younger ones. She never had younger siblings, nor did she have anyone younger than her around the whole years she was growing up. She had zero simulation of this, let alone the theory of it. “Aren’t you late for school, 3^rd year?” After her first meeting with the dorm managers, Haechan came back to continue their little introduction. Her first impression of him being a high school freshman was wrong. Haechan looked so hurt when she told him but as soon as she apologised, his reverted back to his sunshine-self.

            He glanced at his phone, the screen lit up showing the current time. “Shoot! Goodbye, hyung! See you later.” He left as soon as he came.

            Weird kid. Byul chuckled to herself. Haechan had been greeting her all day for a month now. Be it weekdays or weekends, without fail he would come over to have small conversations with her. At first, she thought he was just doing it for courtesy because of their grandmothers but soon after, she noticed he kept glancing the upper balconies, so she thought maybe that was the reason he came. Concluding his intention was never on hers all this time, she never bothered to tell him her real name nor her gender. Let’s just keep it this way. I’m curious though, who is it he’s looking for upstairs? Byul stretched her body over the balustrade, eyeing the exact same spot Haechan was looking. By chance, her eyes met with a boy’s, perhaps around the same age as Haechan. He maintained the eye contact for a few seconds before breaking it off.

            “Doyoung hyung, I just made eye contact with the new manager.”  He spoke, taking a step back from the glass door.

            “What?!” Doyoung sprang up on his feet, throwing aside a thick, hardcovered book – darted for the balcony and stretched his long body for a good look on the new manager’s veranda. “I don’t see it.”

            “Doyoung hyung, you’re going to fall.” Mark was worried the older man would fall so he held on to Doyoung’s shirt, pulling him in.

            “So? What it looks like?” He was excited to gossip about the newcomer. A month into the job and none of them actually saw the person. He knew Ten and Taeyong met the guy but wasn’t it common courtesy to introduce yourself to other people too? They were going to be living together – a family – so shouldn’t family know one another?

            “The person has… two eyes and a nose. I don’t know. How should I describe him or her, hyung. I don’t even know should I use he or she to talk about the new manager. He or she looks human, at least.” Mark bounced, back first, to his bed. His daily routine of seeing Haechan off was done and now he’s hungry.

            “That’s good info! At least we know it is human.” Doyoung rubbed his chin, as if he just made a new discovery to a research he had been doing. He could just knock on the manager’s door and meet the guy in person but that wouldn’t be fun, would it?

            “Doyoung hyung. I’m hungry.” Mark whined as he made puppy dog eyes, unbeknown to himself.

            “Oh okay. What would you like to eat? I heard Lucas just now so Kun must be up too.” Doyoung made his way down to the kitchen, stopping by the pantry to get the ingredients he needed. The first time he came to the dorm, he was kinda surprised the dorm had separate storage for food and place to cook the food. I mean, don’t all household stash all the food in the kitchen? Not that I’m complaining though. He rummaged through the freezer, looking for sausages that they bought the other day. He glanced at the heating cabinet and like all other mornings, a bottle of milk disappeared.

            “Good morning Doyoung.” A tall, young man entered the pantry and greeted Doyoung. He leaned against one of the racks eyeing the ingredients in Doyoung’s hands. “What’s for breakfast today?”

            “Oh, mornin’ Kun.” Doyoung replied, “You cooked congee yesterday, so we’ll go western today. A hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast!” He delightedly showed the ingredients in his hands as he strutted past Kun to the kitchen. Being skilled in cooking, Kun and Doyoung were in-charge of feeding all five of them. They took turns to cook – if Doyoung made breakfast then Kun was responsible for dinner and breakfast for tomorrow. The cycle went on unless one of them was sick, then they’d either eat out or scavenge the other dorms for food.

            “What are you doing, hyung?”

            “Breakfast; scrambled eggs and toast. Lucas, can you do me a favour? Please wake Jungwoo up? Breakfast will be done in a minute.” Doyoung asked kindly, multitasking between stirring the eggs on the skillet and making sure the slices of bread weren’t burnt. Obediently, Lucas made his way to the stairs – passing by the manager’s room. He eyed the door to the manager’s room for a while, contemplating whether he should knock and greet the manager good morning or not. He cancelled the thought, fearing the person behind that closed door wouldn’t like him invading their privacy. Feared this new manager would just pack up and leave like all the other previous managers. He climbed the stairs, his eyes still fixed at the door. Just then, the door clicked open. Panicked, Lucas scurried up the stairs as Byul walked out of her room.

            Byul looked up the stairs, tilting her head slightly. Strange… I definitely heard footsteps just now. Welp, so much for ‘naturally bumping on to each other’ approach. I’ll try again later. The smell of crisply burnt toast and scrambled eggs wafted out from the kitchen makes me hungry. Byul rubbed her rumbling stomach and make her way out of the dorm.