addiction 5. 

"Oh, it's you again," Jongie said, smiling. "And right after school, too?"

"What about you?" Woohyun countered.

"My school gets out earlier than yours. Duh."

They were leaning against the alley wall, smoking near the dumpster again. Woohyun leaned in to let her light his cigarette and inhaled deeply. It was his favourite place to take a relaxing smoke, even with the heaps of garbage right beside him. If he smoked, he couldn't really smell the garbage anyway. 

He had ran there as soon as classes ended, so he was still wearing his uniform. Jongie had evidently already changed out of hers, what with her loose skeleton hoodie and that same pair of peach-coloured skinny jeans from the last time he'd seen her.  He loosened his own tie and stuffed it in his pocket, feeling the hard barrel of his dad's gun poking his leg. Then he fumbled with his school backpack and dug out a slightly squashed box of Camels, offering it to her. "Yeah, so," he said, "this is for you."

Jongie raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. "Thanks. Wow. I can't believe you remembered," she laughed, low and fluttering. Woohyun thought her laugh was cute. Her voice had a unique alto sound to it. He liked it. 

"Mmhm." Of course he'd remember. He remembered things about people he liked, like the fact that Jongie also liked the dumpster as a safe haven, or the fact that Jongie liked Camels the best, or the fact that they were similar--although Jongie seemed to feel a lot more comfortable in her own skin than he did.

"So, how was your day?"

"," he said.

"Care to tell me about it?" 

Woohyun cocked his head, as if thinking about her offer, and blew out a cloud of smoke. "Well, I have this friend. Actually, he's not really my friend anymore." When she looked at him for explanation, he shrugged and scowled. "We had a fight yesterday. Kind of."

"Over what?"

"Smoking. He thinks he's all good--" and Woohyun almost crushed his cigarette between his fingers, "but he's just being stupid about it. I don't get him. I'm not addicted." He left out the fact that sometimes during classes, he got splitting headaches and dizzying pangs of nausea. They always felt worse whenever he saw Sunggyu, and lately, he'd been feeling this cramping in his chest, too, like an echo of an ache that wasn't quite there. No wonder he always acted nastier around Sunggyu. He couldn't think straight with a headache; it made everything hurt and throb and sting like the end of the world. 

"Maybe he's just worried. You kinda sound like you're trying to make an excuse for yourself," Jongie said. That made him bristle.

Woohyun scoffed. "If he was only worried, he would've given up a week ago. He keeps coming back."

Jongie blew a ring into the sky and grinned, saying, "I think it sounds like you've got a keeper."

"Don't say that." He closed his eyes. "Don't say that."

minimal revision. I just finished it today, hahaha. but it felt...surprisingly okay, even if it was really short (sorry about that, guys). thank you to my wonderful, wonderful friend papugai, who has been helping me revise my story from the very beginning. I'm sorry for distracting you from your work! but really, I can't thank you enough. <3<3<3 yoshilocks, too. I hope you still enjoy this birthday fic gone awry, hahaha.

edit: just wanted to say that although the chapters are short, they take a while to write. when it comes to short 'snapshots' like these, I have to wait for the right inspiration to hit me, and then I'll usually write most of it in one burst and put it away for a bit before coming back to it. for longer stories, I can keep chipping away and adding in, but for this one, that just doesn't work. so I'm sorry about the brevity! I'll try to make the next chapter longer to make up for it!

if you're confused about why I'm referring to Sungjong as 'Jongie' and using 'she' to refer to a him...Sungjong is in limbo about his gender. and uality. in chapter 2, I referred to him as a guy; now in chapter 5, he's making a comeback with his 'girl' side. although biologically, he would be a male. and here's a nicer side of Woohyun! he's not so mean when he's not craving cigarettes--especially because he's with 'Jongie' ;)

and, um, shameless advertising. well. not really, because the font is so small. if you like sweet slice-of-life OC stories, check out papugai's stories to see if they're your taste! or if you like a WW1!au or another adorable OC story, then maybe take a look at yoshilocks's stories!

also, if you like Myunggyu, watch out for my new two-shot, Wings. I'm going to post the first half of it soon. C: