honestly been feeling a lot of bad stuff lately, just wanted to write something kinda dumb that wasn't 8000 words long 
they just build a shelve, my dudes
no context
just shelves

 

 

A Few Loose Screws

 

“Donghyuk, what did you do?”

“Bought a new closet?” Donghyuk rolled his eyes, trying his hardest to keep the boxes from falling to the ground.

“I see. And why am I here?” Chanwoo interrogated his roommate, stepping side to side in the freezing weather. He knew something was up when Donghyuk urgently called him down from their apartment. He should've worn a hoodie, or at least a shirt. 

“Because it's too heavy to carry up!” Donghyuk whined, the largest box dangerously slipping off the floor. They were neatly stacked by the wall, Donghyuk not even sure how he managed to even drag the flat boxes inside. He never counted on the closet being this heavy. If he knew, he'd just keep his clothes thrown around the room, just as they were now. God knows how long it'll take them to assembly the whole thing.

Chanwoo couldn't hide the disappointment in his face when he lifted one of the boxes, no problem, carrying it up to the elevator. “Bro, do you... even lift?”

“You know, suddenly, I'd rather drag these up and rip off my hands than listen to your jokes.”

 

Chanwoo dragged the last piece out of the box, looking at the mess they made. He tried to ignore the ripped cardboard boxes and polystyrene granules. He was worried he'd have to be the one cleaning it up.  Donghyuk wasn't even in the room, as it was suspiciously quiet. Chanwoo was ready to leave the deconstructed closet on the ground, looking for an escape route. The room was such a mess, he suddenly understood why his roommate needed another closet. 

But Donghyuk stopped him dead in his tracks, blocking the doorway. He held his speaker in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. “This is the only one I found.”

“We have... one screwdriver.”

“I'm a college student, not Bob the Builder.”

 

Donghyuk defeatedly laid on the closet doors that were put on the floor, banging the screws in with the back of his screwdriver. It was hard enough trying to screw them in with a tool that was too big, let enough see if they're going in straight. They weren't. “Dude, I can't even screw!” he cried out, throwing the tool away dramatically. 

“Your ex would beg to differ.”

“Shut up.”

“I wish you two would've shut up. When my professor asked about the reduction in income tax revenues during a recession, I almost said ‘Donghyuk, faster.’ because that's what I've been hearing the. Whole. Damn. Night.” Chanwoo slapped his roommate's hand away from his fruit salad he took the time to prepare while Donghyuk struggled to even pick up the separate parts of his closet. He wasn't nowhere near done scolding him for almost making him fail his class. 

“There's no way you heard that from my room.”

“No, I heard that from the main room, you pigs.”

“Give me a bite,” Donghyuk reached for Chanwoo's bowl again, only to be slapped away one more time. 

“There is no bite. Because you don't deserve a bite. Work on your closet, you ding-dong.”

 

“Would you just hold it up?” Donghyuk tried to fit the backside of his closet into the crack it was originally supposed to go into but kept slipping out of. He wondered who wrote these directions. Somehow, Lego directions seemed clearer and easier and he'd appreciate if that were the case here too. Chanwoo was having a hard time holding the heavy shelve up, trying to put in all the screws and nut, a difficult task to be done with just one hand. He had the screwdriver in his pocket, poking him in his leg the whole time. The screws were rolling in his hand, some of them falling on the ground with an unpleasant clink. 

“I'm trying,” he hissed, looking to see if his friend already managed to finish his side. He didn't, no surprise there. What surprised him was the slew of curses that left Donghyuk's mouth when the shelve he was trying to secure slipped, hitting his friend on the head with just the right angle. It fell on the ground, Donghyuk holding his head just where the shelve hit him, precisely with its edge. 

Chanwoo was worried he might pass out for a second, grabbing his friend and navigating him to his bed. “Are... you okay?”

“I'm not bleeding, so that's cool,” he whined, wrapping a pillow around his head. He was almost sure he didn't have a concussion. But Chanwoo was still worried enough he decided to go make him a fruit bowl too. 

 

“Dude?”

“Yeah?”

“If it's always mango, when does it ever come back?”

“Pack your and leave.”

 

“The door doesn't fit.”

“What?” Donghyuk worriedly hurried over, leaving the shelve he was working on on the floor. He looked at the hinges and doorframe, seeing it didn't sit quite right. “Did you try to push it?”

“Yeah.”

“Kick it?”

“Yeah.”

“Pull?”

“I've tried to bop it, twist it, flick it and nothing works!” The bottom part wasn't sitting right and while it wasn't a problem, he had made a spiritual connection to his friend's closet and he didn't want to leave it like that. “Can you get inside?”

“The closet?”

“Yeah, we'll try to figure it out.”

Donghyuk fit himself into the closet, watching Chanwoo close the door and navigate him on what to do. Unscrew this. Hold this. Push here, bring this up. He thought he'd give up and just have his clothes in a mess like he used to. 

But then finally, after a torturous half an hour of trying, the door clicked and closed perfectly. “Okay dude, you can open them now.”

“I'm trying.” Chanwoo sounded worried, pulling on the handle. The door wouldn't budge. He thought he screwed his friend in, pulling on the handle but it wouldn't move a centimeter. He was worried if he'd pull a little more, the whole construction would fall apart. 

“You can't open it?”

“No!”

“I spent three years coming out of the closet and you put me back in just like that, huh?” Donghyuk yelled out, trying to push the door open from the inside. 

 

“How long has it been?”

“Four hours since we started,” he checked the time on his phone, noticing it's almost close to midnight. They both laid on the floor, using the last bits of energy to keep their body systems functioning. At least that's what Chanwoo was doing, Donghyuk repeating the same song on his speaker over and over.

“We've listened to Barracuda seven times in 30 minutes, my dude.”

“And I still haven't hit ‘Barracuda’ at the right time,” Donghyuk argued, repeating the same song over. 

“Listen, you fiddly-diddly , if I have to listen to th-” Chanwoo heard the guitar riffs start one more time and wondered it packing Donghyuk in the box he brought the closet in and returning him to the shop could work after all. 

 

“Do you think our lives have a meaning?”

“It's too early for an existential crisis, man.”

“I'll wait.”

 

“I can't believe we've done it.”

“This took years off my life,” Donghyuk groaned, putting his hoodies onto hangers. Chanwoo laid on his bed, refusing to even move a finger. He couldn't believe how much softer his bed was, it was like laying on a bed of feathers. Or maybe it was because he was so exhausted. 

“Hey, how many screws should we have left?” Chanwoo scrambled for the papers, looking through all seven of them while Donghyuk counted the screws and nuts left. 

“Five.”

“I have six.”