Jong Woon could barely make out the words and sly smiles among the disco lights and euphoric sounds in the club. His eyes were heavy and throat dry—he could always use the company of martini glasses and empty bottles. He knew it would make him dizzy and give him a headache the next morning, but he didn’t care.

“You see, the promotions are on-going for this new kind of cellphone. So I thought you might want to design--”

“Yeah, how much are you willing to pay?”

All that Jong Woon had registered in his mind, thanks to the alcohol, is the brand of cellphone he was going to make promotional ads for. And he wasn’t able to register it correctly in his brain. All he cared about now was the money he was going to earn from his sideline, or the motorbike he was going to show off someday. He’s getting there.

“Still listening, though?” the guy raised a brow and patted Jong Woon’s shoulder and woke him up. Who he was, where he came from, why he had to get acquainted with Jong Woon—it didn’t matter to him now. 

“Yes, I-I am. How much are you offering?”

Jong Woon made one last gulp of his drink, because his vision was failing him and he figured it would only take him twenty minutes before he’d get knocked down.

“Well, let’s say it’s double the pay you earn at work.”

The guy smiled knowingly, straightening the collar of his coat. Jong Woon hit back with a sheepish grin.

“I won’t go much with the details, but we assure you that this work will be easy for you.”

Jong Woon could only work best when things get difficult, but he could do away with a piece of cake.

“How will it be easy?”

“We will be providing the logo and logotype, heck even the brand name, and the rest will be up to you.”

“Are you kidding me? All that for double my regular salary?”

“Of course,” the guy replied as he stirred his drink with the straw. Jong Woon set down the glass on the counter, and his hands trembled as they made their way into his coat pocket.

“Th-then, I’m in for this job,” he said, pulling out a card from the pocket—he knew it was his business card because he could feel its glossy surface with his fingers. The guy proved Jong Woon wrong when he gave the card.

“Drunk, are we?” the guy gave a smirk, Jong Woon could really see it. He looked down at the card he was holding and chuckled, laughed, laughed too loudly that the bartender nearby wiped the glasses with a wrinkled forehead as a response.

“I don’t mean to intrude, but is she your girlfriend?” the guy asked pointing at the picture that Jong Woon was holding. He then gave another hearty laugh, trying to let back in the tears that welled his eyes.

“N-no,” Jong Woon answered, looking at the picture clipped between his fingers, “She’s—she is a friend.”

“But she’s beautiful.”

True enough, she was. The hazel eyes looked back lovingly at Jong Woon, her perfect smile mesmerized him, and her long, straight hair was something he would want to touch in just a glance. But at that moment, he held the corners of the picture tightly, crumpling them slightly, as if he was about to tear it into pieces.

“She said ‘no’.” 

If things like, “You’ll just be a very good friend to me” meant that way, then yeah, Jong Woon could say it again.

“Really?” the guy gave a plaintive smile, more like a fake one. “I think you’ll win her back again with this job we’re giving you.”

He could care less: she was a reminder that love wasn’t worth the risk, or so he thought. He put the picture back into his pocket, and, mustering the remaining sobriety he had left, he grabbed the right card from the pocket and gave it to the stranger.

“Here’s my contact details,” Jong Woon spoke in a rather slurred manner, “I can start tomorrow.”

Jong Woon knew that he wasn’t in the right state to agree to a stranger’s offer, and that he could lose everything with a wrong, drunken move. He was desperate though, and he thought that money was an easy remedy for it. 

The guy bit back a laugh. “Or maybe some other time,” he said, “You need to sober up first.”

Jong Woon’s head was indeed heavy, and he wanted to nod in approval if only he had the strength to look up again. He stepped off his high chair; instead of standing up, he found himself stumbling towards a nearby table chock-full of beer bottles and peanut bowls.

A loud crash echoed across the nearly empty room. Jong Woon didn’t hurt anybody at two in the morning, nor did he utter a curse word when he struggled to get up, but club rules said any form of disturbance was intolerable. From the corner of his eye, Jong Woon could see a tall figure walk towards him.

“See you and your concepts, then,” the guy mumbled. He quickly stood up and hurried towards the door, leaving the drunk Jong Woon in his misery. He leaned on a table for support, and he could feel his head throbbing in pain as he heard voices and saw strong arms help him up.

---

“The door is here, sir. Yes, here we go.”

He was the owner of the club, and he should have downed more drinks than the guy he was leading out the door. He felt a pang of envy and spite, because it seemed to him like the customer could do anything that he wanted to at that moment. 

Meanwhile, the owner would have to deal with closing down the club at one in the morning, worry about upcoming events in his club, pore over bills and vouchers, and clean the mess in his place. There was no room for even a shot of tequila for that matter.

He was too envious, to the point that when he and the drunken guy arrived at the door, he had enough strength to push him out into the sidewalk. The stranger tripped onto the wide crack on the concrete and fell on his knees in front of his bicycle.

“I’m sorry,” the owner mumbled before closing the door of the club. He flipped over the “Closed” sign and locked the knob, without even asking the guy what the hell was wrong with him. All he knew was there was indeed something wrong with the guy, and his lazy eyes told the owner that it was because of love.

He could only be sorry, though, because no matter how much he tried, he could never screw love. He was always hopeful and always romantic, even if the whole world knew how much time he had wasted looking for it. 

Maybe, if there was still time left for the poor owner of the club, he could use it on a bottle or two. 

---

Yuri wasn’t fond of arcade games. This time, though, she was in the mood for shooting zombies climbing and crawling across the screen, pulling plastic tokens out of her jeans pocket, and sticking her tongue out like she was some deranged killer cleaning her mess quite well.

It was the time when everyone is tucked up in their beds, sleeping soundly to the cold night breeze, but she refused to let in when a hand tapped lightly on her shoulder. She turned around quickly, and saw her best friend, Jessica, giving her an apologetic smile—just when she needed it the least.

“Yul, we aren’t ten year-old boys.”

Yuri raised a brow before pointing a gun at a crawling zombie.

“Of course. Ten-year-olds go to bed at eight.”

Jessica laughed at Yuri’s bad sense of humor.

“Most of them don’t. This isn’t a twenty-four-hour convenience store, you know.”

“More tokens, please.” 

Yuri didn’t acknowledge Jessica’s statement. She turned back to the screen, only to find out that she shot a few zombies too late. She pounded hard on the game consoles, and for a second Jessica thought that Yuri was high on drugs.

“Tell me Jessica. Am I a bad person?”

Jessica sighed. She handed Yuri more of her plastic chips, thinking that Yuri would need them more than she did. 

“Well you can sometimes be a , but you’re never a bad person, Yuri.”

Yuri apparently wasn’t listening that well, because she was busy picking up the tokens she dropped the moment she heard the word “”. Yuri smiled, almost blushing—of course, Jessica was her best friend and she wouldn’t let Yuri down in some way. It didn’t do much to help Yuri calm down, though.

“I did the right thing, right?”

“I think so. Why the fuss?”

“Ah, this is driving me mad,” Yuri said, knocking her temples with the hip of her hands.

Jessica swung her head sideways and tried to stop herself from laughing.

“Maybe that’s what he liked about you. You’re crazy,” she chuckled, grabbing one of the guns that hung from another part of the game console.

“Don’t even start, Jessica,” Yuri interrupted, her eyes still fixed on what was now the flying zombies on the screen.

“If he is really just a friend, then why do you feel bad about it?”

It’s a case of bad timing: more and more zombies have huddled the screen, but Yuri looked down on the floor and put the gun back into its case. Reality was harder to deal with than a stupid game. She looked around her stoically, trying to find another game to waste time with, only to find out she’d be looking for ways to deny herself of the answer.

“Okay, I won’t start,” Jessica raised her hands, as if she was going to be shot with the plastic gun, “But you really should go home, Yuri.”

Jessica was right: he is a friend—wait, more like used to be a friend—and Yuri thought that romance novels, no matter how overrated they might be, could somehow hold a bit of truth: with a confession of love, friendships would never be the same way again.

Yuri soon yawned; her body is something she couldn’t disobey. 

“Fine. Let’s grab some milk.”

Jessica was relieved to see Yuri finally drop the gun from her hands and surrender the game tokens.

Everything went well, when Yuri paid for the tokens, when she passed by the game consoles that offered her comfort, when Jessica held her hand towards the door, when Yuri swung the door.

The sound of bicycle wheels turning, whirring, squeaking, more like calling on her, turned that everything around. 


---

“Oppa.”

Jong Woon could barely respond to the sound of the voice, but it was too familiar, and it pained him to hear it. He looked ahead of him, past walking couples, stores open for the whole night, joyous neon lights of karaoke bars that would soon become a blur with every kick of the pedal that he gave. 

“Oppa!”

His knees were wobbly, his head spinning out of control, but he was glad for that because he finally found an excuse not to turn his head to her, but just keep driving, pedaling, riding on his bike. His mind was almost as squeaky as his bicycle wheels. 

Soon the voice faded, and he was about to breathe in deeply, freely, again, when he suddenly was only a few feet away from a tall lady crossing the street. He mouthed a curse, wishing he drove a car instead so he could just fall asleep right then and there, before swerving the handle bars sideways, until he crashed into a concrete barrier near the sidewalk.

“.”

In front of wheels freely turning upside down, Jong Woon swore he was never going to drive a bike again.

---