Merry reading baby

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Routine were something that’s very convenient.

A heaven’s blessings.

For Yifan at least.

He couldn’t live without it. Moreover when there was so many thought crossing his mind all at once, every single minute, just like a very long train crashing on its full speed. It would break and scattered and messy and ended up with Yifan sleeping on the floor with emptied beers bottle on his carpet—because he had done nothing productive except overthinking every single thing that happened on his unlucky life.

Yes, Yifan was that kind of person. He was that overthinking guy who couldn’t share his mind with others. Like a strong guy he was, he kept that messy thought to himself. He always thought that he was very tough by doing that.

 

But later he ended up suffering alone.

 

So it’s like..it’s—he was tough yes, but it’s like…it’s—it’s just bad. Bad. BAD. He was going crazy if he had to keep his mind wandering alone wildly and made him paralyzed and forgot to feed himself and always late to office and his papers in a deep mess and he wanted to rant and just rant in full force to the poor work colleagues that he didn’t even know well because he just worked there for two months. Yifan was a hot mess.

Gladly, one miraculous day, he had blessed with this information from a very viral book about the importance of routine. He had been really into it and finished the book in two days. It was hard to apply routine, it really took time to get it going. But it’s doable, and all form of hardworks always came to fruition.

Yifan could function on autopilot now. He could just zone out with his usual train of thought from seven to ten in the morning and voila, he would suddenly arrived at his office with stomach filled with that toast and coffee, looking all neat and posh and his body already exercised by doing his usual 20 minutes of walk from train station to his office. His routine was a total perfection.

It was all perfect like every curves and details on the statue of David.

 

 

 

Until this one day arrived.

 

This one day, when December just started and everything start to get really cold in Seoul, someone bumped on his shoulder. Someone bumped to him on his 20 minutes walk to the office. He didn’t really mind it at first (even though it made him lag by 37 seconds on his routine), but it’s fine, accident did happen. And this small accident was not something harmful after all.

But it happened again the next day. And also the next day, and the next day, and the next. All happened in the same manner, in the same spot, in the same brute strength of bumping, and Yifan’s head start to boil.

Yifan thought that maybe his routine was colliding with the person’s routine so that thing just happened very naturally for the past week. He knew that he was not the only one with autopilot mode in this galaxy. So the next day he decided to pay attention to it. After he exited the train from the usual gate 3, he walked with full attention. It’s a mindful walking, his mind called it (because it’s not on autopilot like how he usually walked for the past three months).

Then that awaited bump come and Yifan turned his head to the person. A man, tall, not as tall as him, black hair swooped back into a nice pomade, coffee brown long coat. Handsome. And that man was three steps ahead of him, so he was able to cross the street while Yifan was stopped by the traffic light. Yifan eyeing that traffic light warily and the next moment that man disappeared between the crowds.

The next day, it was happening again. The same man, the same exact thing, then the man was three steps ahead again, and Yifan was stopped by the freaking traffic light. AGAIN. All because he was sticking to his freaking routine too much. His freaking perfect routine will get him a sore shoulder one day and this had to stop.

 

 

 

It’s been a long time since Yifan felt this way. He remembered that the last time he felt like this was when he was on that memorable basketball match, and he shot a nice slam dunk on the last minute, and he brought their team to win. That’s exactly how he felt today.

A victory.

Because today, for the first time ever, Yifan was ahead of that man. Yifan was ahead of him for the first time because he took some faster steps and managed to avoid the shoulder bump.

 

That was all victory and Yifan thought that he should just keep up with this new routine to avoid future shoulder pain. What he didn’t expect was that suddenly that man run to go in front of him, turned his head around with a smile full of dimple (it’s lowkey charming) and he goes, “Sorry, I’ve been winning for two months, can’t stop now, have a good day, see you tomorrow,” he crossed the street and Yifan was dumbstruck as he stopped by that traffic light. AGAIN. And Yifan wanted to scream.

That man had deep voice—wait, that’s not the main point. He meant—winning? What? Are they even in competition this whole time without even his consent? If he knew that this was a competition then that man would be crying for two months instead of bragging like that. Because of course Yifan going to win this frickin dumb sport game.

 

He swore to god that tomorrow he will wear running shoes to work.

 

 

Yifan really did wear running shoes the next day. He knew that his usual work shoes are not compatible for racing. It was really out of his routine to wear the running shoes to work, and Yifan swore to god, as he walked out of his house, there was Freddie Mercury behind him, singing We Are the Champion.

 

 

Apparently, that man, he was sitting in front of Yifan on the train, currently staring at Yifan’s running shoes and giving that dimple smile that Yifan saw the day before.

When the train stopped, they both already standing in front of the still-closed-door, standing beside each other, wordless, and every second the door sliding open, it felt like it went in slow motion. They came out together, walking casually, separately, until Yifan started to walk faster, then that man also walk faster. Then Yifan goes to a mini run and it was going crazy after that.

They both managed to cross the street long before the traffic light stop them because both been stupidly sprinting for dignity. They’ve been running, legit running through the length of the crowded pedestrian. And they arrived at the other end of the street in a panting mess, body bending down, hands to the knees.  Yifan needed water.

“no winner today huh?” Yifan said.

The guy laughed a hearty laugh, “not when tomorrow I wear my running shoes, see ya,” he bid his goodbye. Turn out, he go to the left while Yifan’s office was still straight ahead.

 

 

It’s weekend the next day and Yifan just stared at his running shoes.

 

 

Never been in his life that he looked up for Monday to come faster.

 

 

Yifan smiled from the corner of his lips as he stared at the other man’s running shoes. He sat in front of him again on the train. Has he always been there all along?

The guy tapped his feet and Yifan looked up to his face. The guy smiled to him and Yifan didn’t feel threatened at all, but now Yifan could boldly say that his dimple smile was cute, he wasn’t just imagining it. It was a 15 minutes train ride full of stolen glances before the race start again. As usual, they started to race after exiting that gate 3. Both running like a madman, bumping everyone on the street just like those action movie where a police was chasing the criminal. Some people were screaming at them but they only had one sore goal. To reached their finish first.

Yifan swore they’ve been running in slow motion with Freddie Mercury singing We Are the Champion along their run.

 

They both were in a laughing mess once they arrived at the other end. Their usual finish. The street after the traffic light. They were laughing so hard between the panting until they’re out of breath. No one could actually explain what they were doing. They never even spoken properly and they suddenly commit to this kind of death race. Though wait—Yifan could explain, they were doing clownery because that was what they were. They were a fool, a clown. But Yifan wouldn’t lie, he was having fun. And most importantly, Yifan won today.

“Well that was expected from those nice long legs, congrats,” the guy complimented. And was December always been this warm?

 

 

 

That day was five degree Celsius in Soul and that guy didn’t turn to the left after crossing the street, he walked straight ahead with Yifan. He treated Yifan to that danish cherry he been wanting to have. For the winner, he said. They sat outside of the bakery with warm coffee and talked about how efficient their walk was. They literally run all the way from the train station and now arrived earlier by 15 minutes.

“It’s good here, I don’t want to sit down in an empty office,” said the man.

“But now I have breakfast twice,” Yifan spoke while munching on his danish like he hadn’t eaten for month. He might get hungry again after all those run. Yifan was on his mind again, now thinking about how ed up his routine was today, and the past days. But nothing bad had happened yet so far, but maybe something bad will happened next, or he will die tomorrow when running, or—

“Let me get your phone number,” that man bluntly said, sliding his phone to Yifan. Breaking Yifan from his nasty train of thought. Yifan took the phone without hesitation, typing his number and gave it back to him. The man looked at the phone and sigh because only provided with numbers, “name?” he asked in that Severus Snape sarcastic tone.

“Yifan,” he answered shortly and peeked at the other’s phone. The man didn’t type anything and Yifan started to laugh. He loved doing this, there’s no ‘yi’ and true ‘f’ in hangul and he always loved to watch how those Korean people input his name to their phone, “or type Kris, in English,” he tried to help, “or Wu? Woo?”

“Chinese?”

“Yeah…”

Yifan didn’t get to see what the man named him on his phone because the phone already on the man’s ear. Soon after that, Yifan’s phone rang, it was his number. “Name?” Yifan attempted the same sarcastic Severus Snape tone, except his was sounding more like Squidward from Sponge Bob.

“Seunghyun.”

Yifan saved the number. “Seunghyun,” he repeated the name and Seunghyun smiled to him in that dimple smile that Yifan started to get fond of.

“Yeah, Yifan?”

Yifan smiled back at him.

 

 

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AUTHOR NOTE:

.____.

not a oneshot I guess