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I normally don’t tag along to the parties my social butterfly roommate Naeun gets invited to, but tonight I’m making an exception as her birthday present.

(I know it’s lame to ask your friend to be their plus one on their boyfriend’s party as a birthday gift, but that’s just how Naeun is.)

It’s not that I don’t like to party—I ing love parties. It’s just that I don’t enjoy partying with college students. College students don’t know how to have fun—they just mix stupid drinks and call it a night, getting piss drunk after three shots of Jägerbombs before driving themselves home irresponsibly or ing any person who happened to stand next to them during the party.

I prefer a classier kind of nightlife routine, one that involves doing a line of coke in one of the top clubs in Seoul, or at least getting tipsy over few shots of Macallan. With men, preferably, in suits.

“You’re zoning out again,” Naeun yells over the loud third-rate music, hands closing in on my elbow to prevent me from running out of the poor excuse of a fraternity house, “come on, babe, you promised you’d have fun with me tonight. I have some guys I want to introduce you to!”

I try not to make a face, cringing at the thought that the “guys” she’s referring to must be Chanyeol’s frat bros that are standing in a group at the center the room, laughing their asses off like they’re the only ones in the damn room, even when it’s so painfully obvious that a lot of the partygoers have been staring at them longingly, wanting to be a part of the bunch. I don’t understand why anyone would want to join the annoying bunch. One of them is even dressed in a goddamn hoodie, for crying out loud. At this point, it’s the fifth hoodie I’ve spotted in this house, and I’m more than convinced that college parties are just an excuse to get drunk in your pajamas.

“I have to go the bathroom,” I say quickly. I absolutely do not want to be introduced to the bunch of obnoxious dudes, because as soon as I learn their faces I’d have to match their names to it, meaning that I have to make small talk with them if we ever cross paths in campus. I hate small talk. It’s no secret that I have been labeled as the campus’ ice queen, and I’m not keen on thawing that label for my roommate’s boyfriends’ friends. There’s a reason why I don’t try to fix my resting face. I don’t enjoy irrelevant social interactions I don’t benefit from. Every interaction will just end up keeping me up for the rest of the night because I’d be running over it again and again in my head.

Before Naeun can argue, I pull myself away from her grasp and walk into the nearest crowd I can push myself into. Naeun calls for me, but her voice disappears into the music, and I’m sure she’ll sink her claws into my skin if I turn around to answer her. So I go on—it’s my only chance to escape. I push through the throng of bodies as hard as I can, earning dirty looks here and there, which I return with a blank stare to show them that I don’t give a whether they had been making out or happily dancing. It’s their fault for getting in my way.

Finally, after what seems like forever, I escape the crowd and find where the bathroom actually is thanks to a drunk blonde girl who quickly pointed to the door next to the kitchen before I could even finish my question. The thought of being isolated from the noise excited me—never in my life I would have thought that I’d be this ecstatic over seeing a goddamn bathroom. I almost sprint to the door, throwing myself inside before even knocking—and thankfully it’s unoccupied.

It’s a pretty basic bathroom, with a showerhead on one corner, and a toilet seat on the other. A sink and a mirror immediately greet my line of sight as I step into the bathroom, and I meet my own gaze halfway. For a moment, I just stare at my face, looking at my fading make up under the harsh fluorescent light, my foundation breaking apart on a few parts of my face, and my eyeshadow not as dark and as colored as I remember applying it first. Even my mascara is starting to stain my under eyes. I look at the intricate design on the short black dress I’m wearing and think about how cute this dress is—I look like royalty compared to everyone else that came here tonight.

I sigh at my reflection. What a ing waste. Now I’m going to regret wasting my make up for the rest of the night. I turn on the faucet, putting my hand under the cold running water for a few seconds before splashing the water onto my face. I look at my reflection again, and this time my mascara is running down my cheeks, but I don’t care enough to wipe it away. I look better like this—now I finally look like I’ll fit just right in. I let the water run as I turn to leave—not before plugging the sink—it’s a punishment to whoever owns the house for letting a party this horrible happen.

When I reach to pull the door open, though, it swings open from the other side with immense strength, and whoever opened it rushes inside without even looking first, barreling into me with full force. I fall from the collision, my face bouncing into the attacker’s hard chest before my head hits the side of the sink and with a loud thud that sends shivers down my spine. I curse when my body hits the floor in an awkward pose—there is no way in hell I’m getting a concussion from a stupid sink in a stupid party.

The person who bumped into me screams, as if he’s the one whose head took a hit from the sink. I see a flash of red hoodie before everything turns pitch black for a split of second, and my vision returns in blurry intervals, the loud ringing in my ears making it hard for me to make sense of what is going on. All I know is that someone has lifted me off the floor into their arms, and it’s all a little blurry from there.

When the ringing slows to a stop and my vision returns, I realize that I’m sitting on a bed in a room with a tanned boy staring at me with a mix of fear and worry in his eyes, his face too close to mine for comfort. I place my hand on his forehead and push his face away.

“Are you okay?” he asks immediately, brows furrowed together, his full lips puckered slightly forming a pout. I recognize the red hoodie from the obnoxious bunch and realize that he must be one of Chanyeol’s friends. As if on cue, my head returns to feeling like it’s been hit by a ton of bricks, and I clutch my head in reflex. In a flash, the hoodie boy crouches to my side and puts his hand on my arm, spewing a slew of apologies and are-you-okays, rubbing his hands on my arm back and forth as if it would help.

“Get your filthy hands off me,” I say through gritted teeth, and thankfully, his hand disappears immediately.

“Should we get you to a hospital? Let’s get you to a hospital,” he frets, pacing around the room with his hands on his hips. My eyes snap open at the mention of a hospital, and I immediately yell no, surprising both him and I, before the pounding pain on my head returns and I’m back to clutching my poor head.

“Are you crazy? Why not? Come on, let’s get you—”

“Don’t you ing touch me,” I glare at him when he tries to get near me and it successfully stops him dead in his tracks. “You’re Chanyeol’s friend, right? Well, I’m Naeun’s roommate. If you take me to the hospital, I’ll tell her that you forced yourself on me.”

My threat is a little extreme, and I can tell by the way hoodie boy’s eyes comically widen at my words that he’s surprised, but the surprise quickly returns back to worry as his facial features soften again.

“I swear to god I’m okay. I just need to get some ice and sleep this off.” I tell him when he opens his mouth to argue, my heart pounding against my chest at the prospect of going to the hospital. My mind runs with all the drugs I took the past couple of days and at least a few hours before I got here, how my parents would react if they ever heard wind of their only daughter doing drugs. There is no way in hell I’m risking going to a hospital just for a stupid bump. The risks outweigh the benefits by far.

For a moment, he looks like he’s going to argue, but then decides against it with a sigh.

“Fine. But I’m driving you back to wherever you live, at least. I’ll tell Naeun that you’re piss drunk and I’ll take you home.”

I almost laugh. Naeun wouldn’t believe in the slightest that I’d be drunk over a few glasses of the drinks this party has.

“Slow down, hoodie boy,” I call for him as he’s already making his way out of the room, “what makes you think I’ll let a stranger drive me home? I don’t even know your name.”

He runs a hand over his hair exasperatedly but complies anyway. “It’s Jongin, Kim Jongin.”

***

“Did you just fall asleep on me?”

I wake up to Jongin… Jongin? Jongin’s face being up in my personal bubble, and he’s wearing an apparent look of disappointment.

Huh. What?

“Huh?” I reply, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, too confused to be able to form coherent words. Jongin blows a raspberry before flicking my forehead with his fingers with a loud “tsk”. When his face is no longer covering my face, the deep blue night sky greets me, and tonight it’s peppered with hints of stars here and there that seems to go on and on to no end.

“Where are we?” I quickly ask, knowing fully well that there is no way in hell that the night time in Seoul can look like this. Even the air feels crisp, cleaner than the air I’m used to.

“I know you just fell asleep and all that,” Jongin replies, tone the slightest bit skeptical, “but you literally just fell asleep for a couple of seconds. Thirty seconds tops. How could you forget where we are? We’re in the rooftop, obviously.”

I blink, finding it hard to believe that it had just been a couple of seconds, because… because I can’t remember anything before this.

“I mean, where are we… geographically? I… I just know that we’re not in Seoul,” I ask again, realizing how stupid I actually sound while I try to recall the events that led me here tonight. The events are a little unclear, but all I know is that I was never even this well acquainted with the guy sitting next to me right now.

“Are you being serious right now?” he frowns, and there’s a look of genuine confusion on his face, which confuses me even more.

“I’m a hundred percent serious,” I answer clearly, my brows mirroring the frown he has on his face, the fear of not understanding what’s going on starting to grow inside of me. I don’t know this boy, and the last time I remember is him giving me a concussion, that’s all. And…

“Wait!” I yell, surprising the boy sitting next to me, “Where the did you take me? Did you abduct me or something? We were just in Chanyeol’s party—you bumped into me and made me hurt my head?”

The uncertainty in my own voice annoys me, and this time it’s Jongin who looks scared. He rapidly blinks.

“That happened… like, more than a month ago? Oh my god, maybe the concussion caused an internal bleeding inside your head and it’s only clotting now and now you’re losing your memories I—”

“Did you just say weeks ago?” I cut him short, and the look on my face actually makes him scoot a little further away. I don’t blame him, though, because I can feel my own eyes increasing twice in size.

“Yes.” He answers curtly. I laugh. This must be a dream. There is no kind of head injury that would make me skip weeks of memories. It’s just not realistic.

“You know what? Never mind,” I tell him slowly, registering now that this must happening because of the new drug Hyuna gave me ing up my brain. If I try hard enough, I can now vaguely recall that a few weeks really did pass by since our first meeting. Looking at the look of pure fear on his face, I realize that I don’t want to worry about scaring this boy with my temporary amnesia tonight. “But tell me where we are, though. I… I forgot the name of the village.”

Jongin squints, head cocked to one side in disbelief, and I’d be lying if I said that he doesn’t look cute doing that. Something is definitely wrong with my head tonight.

“We’re in Darangee village.” He answers quickly. “Are you doing this to guilt trip me for bumping into you that day? Jesus, I thought we were over this. You’re petty. I’m sorry, okay? Please don’t bring me up it genuinely makes me feel like I want to throw up every time I remember it. I really thought you were going die,”

His eyes are still squinted, and he looks like an idiot doing so. The confused look on his face makes me laugh, and I find myself pulling the blanket that I realize have been lying on top of my thighs closer to my body, searching for warmth as I feel the wind getting chillier by the second.

“I’m not being petty. I just wanted to tease you. It was fun to see you panic like that.” I chuckle. I still can’t remember some details. Somehow, my memories feel lived in, like I hadn’t been myself when it had been happening in real time. “Now humor me, Jongin. Why are we up here?”

The said boy rolls his eyes, but he answers anyway. “I brought you up here because I could see how stuffed you feel down there with the boys. I know you like seeing the stars, so.”

 “I said that?”

“Not really… I just remembered you being super excited when you talked about constellations the other day. Sorry if you think I’m jumping into conclusions.” He’s blushing. I never knew that I had the ability to make a person blush.

“Not at all,” I tell him quietly.

For a moment, we sit there in silence, him looking at the floor and me up at the sky. He’s right—I really do love stars. There’s no particular deep, underlying meaning as to why I love them—I just love the way it twinkles and glitters in the dark of night. It’s simply beautiful.

“So, as I was saying,” he starts, breaking off the silence, “I think we should go check out the beach tomorrow. Don’t worry, I won’t tell the others. We should go before they wake up, though, so that’s a bonus for us if we can get there before the sun rises?”

The scenario feels incredibly cliché. I’m about to argue on how much of a morning person I’m not, but he beats me to the chase.

“I know you hate waking up early, but I promise you I’ll be the one driving so you can sleep in the car. The view is going to be worth it, I tell you. And you should know that the sound of waves crashing against the sun is actually really good for your anxiety.”

I blink. “I told you that?”

Jongin looks back at me with an unreadable expression.

“Yeah, you did?” he says it with a tone that pretty much asks if I had regretted mentioning that to him. “Sorry if I’m overstepping my boundaries here by mentioning it… but it’s nothing you should be ashamed of. I worry a lot, too, and even if it’s no where near how you feel, I can kind of picture it. The sea really calms me. But if it doesn’t do you justice, maybe sightseeing rice paddies can make do.”

Somehow, I don’t regret it. I don’t know what made me think that it was okay to tell him something so vulnerable about myself, but he doesn’t make me regret it.

“Rice paddies, right.” I scoff good-naturedly, if that’s even a thing.

He doesn’t take offense. “You know you’re not alone, right? I know you love being alone and all that, but you should know that there’s a difference in being alone and feeling lonely. Sometimes I think you blur that line. I can’t help but think you like feeling lonely. For some twisted reason.”

My heart skips a beat. “Why would you say that?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you have a way of talking that blames yourself a lot. I don’t know how to describe it. I just feel like… you think you deserve being lonely. You really don’t. You’re not a bad person.”

I beg to differ, but I don’t say anything. Normally, I know I won’t feel comfortable talking about vulnerable stuff like this. There’s just… something about him.

Jongin smiles. It’s not a big smile, definitely not a grin, but I can feel the sincerity in his smile, and it feels contagious.

It makes something inside of me flutter, in a positive, innocent way.

***

It’s excruciatingly bright where I come to, my skin feeling sticky and warm almost immediately as my eyes open. The sky is a bright shade of blue without a single speck of cloud to be found, and the sun is up and especially unforgiving to my eyes. I should get my sunglasses. Sunglasses? Oh, it’s in the bag Jongin insisted we brought down here before.

I reach down into the straw bag next to me for the sunglasses on autopilot, and I find it on the first try. It’s a rose-colored sunglass I recognize but don’t remember buying, and I put it on slowly, not sure if it would actually help with the glaring sun if the lenses are merely tinted pink.

“You’re right,” I find myself saying, turning around to face Jongin who is apparently lying down on the beach mat right next to me with his eyes closed and both of his hands behind his head, “These glasses really don’t work for the beach.”

Jongin opens his eyes and my heart skips a beat, probably over confusion and over a completely new feeling of warmth I’ve never felt before—because why am I in a beach with a guy that’s almost a complete stranger to me and I oddly feel like it’s completely fine? He’s shirtless, and his abs tighten when he pushes himself up, the muscles on his biceps defined. I find myself ogling. It’s the weirdest thing.

“I’m always right,” he tells me, his full lips stretching into a lazy smirk, “you’re staring, by the way. Like what you see?”

My heart skips a million beats. Confusion and lust run through my body—I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t usually find guys my age attractive, and Jongin literally looks like a baby.

“Of course,” I lean forward for some reason, teasing him, placing a hand on his bicep, rubbing circles on the inside of his arm with my thumb like it’s the most normal thing to do. I’ve never flirted with someone my age before, and definitely have never been to a beach for the last couple of years, but everything feels so right and natural I find myself unable to stop my own actions. Jongin apparently doesn’t like the teasing, though, because he captures my lips confidently, running a tongue through my upper lip before I can even comprehend that the kiss, his touch shocking me like a jolt of electricity. Except the shock doesn’t repel me away from his touch the slightest bit, it runs through my veins instead.

I kiss him back like it’s the most natural thing in the world, somehow knowing that he likes it when I bite his lip, and so I do. He places a warm hand on my waist, pulling me closer to sit on his lap, and I almost straddle him if it’s not for the fact that we’re in a public space—a freaking beach to even begin with.

“Wait,” I break off the kiss, eyes wide and heart thumping against my chest, “what are we doing? I’m so confused right now. I don’t even know you—I only know that you’re the hoodie boy that gave me a mild concussion and the next thing I know I’m here.”

Jongin looks at me in a daze, blinking slowly as if it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever said, one hand now resting at the small of my back and the other drawing absentminded circles on my thigh. For some reason, his touch doesn’t repulse me.

“What are you talking about? That was months ago, babe,” he replies through his half-lidded eyes and it takes everything in me not to jump him again right now. His answer brings reality back to me like a cold bucket of water thrown over my head, and the memories come rushing in. Oh.

“Oh. You took me home and somehow convinced me to let you in and nurse my headache with ice. Then you got my number and we started hanging out. Then we went on that trip with Naeun and the boys. You took me sightseeing in Darangee. Your favorite animal is a bear. You took me to the park with your niece and nephew and said that my eyes were pretty. You kissed me in front of the Han River. Oh?” I blink. Word vomit. How could I have forgotten that? “Babe? Why did you call me babe? Are we dating?”

Jongin laughs. He laughs in short breaks, hands clutching his stomach dramatically, his eyes shut tightly and his nose scrunches cutely, the smile lines on his cheeks increasing by tenfold. The sound of his laughter makes my insides feel warm and mushy, and I think I’ve found the favorite sound in the world. I have no idea how he does that, and what the hell is happening to me.

“We could be if you want us to be,” he replies smoothly, intertwining my fingers with his, “you said you wanted to take things slow, so I respected that. But if you want to say that we’re dating, I’m all up for it.”

Dating. Even when the word dating sounds like a foreign language to my ears, yet somehow it feels like Jongin has introduced me to a whole new definition of the word. I don’t even remember ever liking beaches—I know I hate when the sand gets in between my toes and everything I touch. I can’t even swim to begin with. But I’m in a beach now, and I’m actually enjoying it. I don’t take things slow, too—I and get things over with, and most importan

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Baembi
#1
Chapter 1: wow this is amazing! the last line “unfortunately i don’t want to be saved” felt like it punched me in the gut cause it was so bittersweet (?) i’d say.
the_exotic_angel #2
Chapter 1: This story is so trippy!! But i like it
anieysahlolly
#3
This story is so interesting yet sad :'( cant get enough of this one shot story
shae_stark
#4
Chapter 1: This story gave me chest pains... ugh... I feel sad... this is beautifully sad... Thank You for writing this story!!
Wufaaan
#5
Chapter 1: This have a great flow but it still have loopholes about Yun's life before meeting Jongin. Oh well, I just love the rawness of Yun's character which is so true for substance-related disorders even the ending is sad. I just love reading sad stories here so much. Hoping that there would be a sequel or an epilogue chapter would be great.
Moonlight_23 #6
Chapter 1: Yun don't want to be saved but can't she at least try to save herself? I wonder how she truly feels
I dont really know how to describe Yun's personality.She is not a wallflower.She totally not a prude.There's something about her that i dont know what to say.
But well she has a dream but well *shrugs*i wonder what happened to her brother.I'm kind of curious of how she get herself mix with hyuna.
Overall , i really like the story.I like the way you put gap between Yun's memories to show us,readers that there's something wrong with Yun.
shinelikeastar
#7
Chapter 1: First of all, I love that song. Never heard of it before but thank you for including it in here.
Second, the feels.....!!! I think my heart died a little...or maybe a whole lot.
DoubleDoublePark
#8
Chapter 1: This left an impact on me T.T
alayandra
#9
Okay, i'm quite confused at first but after reread it (omg, i'm so slow i know) actually this is so deep.
Yeah i know you put angst as your first tag, but HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO JONGINNIEE, WAEEEEE?!?!