Kim Yukwon || U-Kwon

For a majority of his life, Yukwon had been running. Just running. Running away from the skeletons in his closet, running away from the harsh realities of the world around him – just running. He wasn’t the kind of person to stick around after something bad happened. He was a coward – he’d just run before he got in way too deep. That’s what Yukwon was good at. Running.

“Hey, watch it!”

Yukwon barely noticed the petite girl bump into his shoulder or the scattered books that lay at his feet. Then again, Yukwon barely noticed anything going on around him.

The girl waved her hand in front of his face, a grim expression on her delicate face. “Did you even hear what I just said? Are you deaf?”

Finally, Yukwon realized the situation he was in – he had managed to knock the towering pile of books in the girl’s arms all over the ground in the busiest district of Hongdae.

“I’m sorry,” Yukwon managed to utter, his cheek’s turning into a bright red that matched his outlandish, fiery hair.

The frown never left her face as she picked up one of the thick volumes and dusted the dirt off the book jacket. “You should be. Those books cost me more than a bloody apartment here,” she muttered.

Yukwon stooped down and picked up the remainder of the novels and then trudged over to the bench by a small coffee shop. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” she huffed, piling the books up again into a precariously high tower. “You’d better hope none of these are damaged or you owe me big time.”

Yukwon was surprised by her aggressiveness. He’d never encountered such a delicate looking girl who had just a brash mouth. The words that came out of didn’t match the floral print dress that draped her slight body. She was a whole head taller than him, and yet, he felt like a small child cowering from a raging pit bull. She looked like she have snapped under his fingertips yet the spark in her eyes suggested that she would have snapped him if any one of her books had been ruined.

“Isn’t it tiring keeping up that dazed expression of yours?” she mocked, heaving the pile into her thin arms.

He blinked at her, actually dazed by her fragility. Instinctively, he reached for the books that teetered dangerously in her arms. “Are you sure you can carry all of those by yourself?”

She rolled her eyes at him with a small grimace on her face. “I was doing fine before you decided to bulldoze me over.”

“I didn’t mean to; I was in a hurry,” he tried explaining, and he really was. He was running away, as usual.

She shrugged her shoulders and began to walk away from him. “I was in a hurry too but you don’t see me trying to knock people over like bowling pins.”

And for once, Yukwon didn’t feel like running away. Instead of leaving this brash girl to lug her books around, he found himself talking half of the pile and proceeding to walk ahead of her. “Where are you taking these?”

“Hey! You can’t just take those! What are you doing?” she exclaimed, catching up to the man with the bright red hair and the somewhat confused expression on his face.

“I’m helping you. Since I was the one who caused all of this, I may as well pay off my debt to you by helping you out.”

“I never said you owed me anything,” she huffed, attempting to take the books from his arms.

He smiled at her feeble attempt to recover the volumes from his hands but continued to walk along the path she'd been heading along before he's almost knocked her over. "Stop complaining and tell me where you're headed so you can get this delivery over and done with," Yukwon called over his shoulder.

She finally matched his pace and shot him an annoyed yet confused look. "Why do you want me to finish this job?" she asked skeptically – it wasn't everyday that a random man with bright red hair decided to knock you over on the busiest street in Hongdae and then proceeded to help you out. That kind of kindness was rare on the streets of such a busy city.

He shrugged, a small yet tired smile on his face. He was obviously more than a bumbling fool with obnoxiously red hair – there was something behind those soft brown eyes and that sad smile that told her there was something more to him.

“I could never run away from a lady in need.”

And Yukwon knew there was truth in his words – there was no way he was letting this abrasive young woman fade into the back of his mind. There was something about her that drew him in.

With a curt nod, she took the lead and began to direct them towards the address written on the books.

“I’d never expect a girl like you to be so… tough,” he murmured as the two pushed their way through the crowds of people.

She let out a soft, tinkling laugh that didn’t match her forceful act from before. “And I didn’t expect such a delinquent like you to be so kind as to help me lug around these books on a sunny day like this. You don’t even know my name and yet here you are, helping me out. I mean, don’t you have anything better to do?”

“I’m Kim Yukwon,” he smiled. “Now you know my name. And no, I actually don’t have anything better to do.”

“Well then, Kim Yukwon,” she said with a bright smile that made his head spin. “How about after we drop these books off, we grab a cup of coffee, and you can explain why the hell you were running like a madman along Hongdae.”

Yukwon knew he was done running. He knew that after meeting this vivacious woman, he’d lose all reason to continue running. He wouldn’t run away from his problems anymore, he wouldn’t hide away from the cruel realities of the world. Yukwon was done with running away.

“I’m Dari by the way.”

Yukwon had found his reason to stay.

How weird is it to think that the person who is destined to be your other half is walking on this Earth right now, living their own life? How nice would it be to just "run" into that said person one day and get to know them? That feeling of seeing the face of that person you'll end up with for the rest of your life? That seems pretty cool. Ahhhhhh, Yukwon feels (~ ; A ;)~ 

On a side note, 달리다 means "to run" and is used as an adjective. Hence, why I used the name "Dari". n_n