172800; 두 번째 말야 춘천행 새벽 기차

day two: forty eight hours: two thousand eight hundred eighty minutes: one hundred seventy two thousand eight hundred seconds.

Yesterday had been an absolute bust. To put at short, it had been absolutely horrible. Perhaps if not for the kiss at the end (to which I still ended up complaining for, turning a bright red in the face - he wasn’t allowed to catch me off guard like that) I may have labeled it as the absolute worst of days.

Yongguk always knew all the right ways to make things better.

So in exchange, I decided to pick something else off of my list today. Something frankly straight from my bucket list - also known better as the trip my mom refused to let me on.

“Ready to go?”

By our usual six thirty in the morning, Yongguk was seated on the playground bench decked straight in our school uniform when I ran out the apartment’s sliding doors. Since we were little, we’d made it a habit to pick each other up for school, usually being Yongguk the one who had to sit outside waiting for me (only ‘cause school was closer to my house than his).

Stomping a little to fit properly into my sneakers, I nodded, catching his arm with a smile.

“Are you?”

His brow raised a little in confusion. He wasn’t used to me shooting confusing questions back at him. I wasn’t usually always so cheerful in the mornings - not since mom refused letting me have coffee before school.

“Did you drink coffee this morning?”

I laughed. “Nope.” And the questioning look was back, mixing a little sadly with worry. “Aren’t you curious why I asked you if you were ready?”

“Just a little. Want to humor me?”

“Here’s a hint, we’re not going to school.”

The next plan on my list consisted hours beyond that of what we’d get left once school let out. It wasn’t as if skipping a single day of school would do anything wrong with our lives; and plus, what was so special about getting an award for perfect attendance anyways? Nothing.

He still looked at me funny though, tilting his head (cutely, if I said so myself - and Bang Yongguk wasn’t a man for cutesy actions) a little to the side. “We’re not?”

I shook my head, rolling my tongue over my dried lips. We weren’t.

Stirring our usual patterns and walk to school, I rolled my arm down his and took his hand in mine, giving him a little tug to the opposite direction of the bus stop. First would come the subway ride to the train station. And from there, another ride. A single bus from there and we’d be there, the blue oceans.

Tugging my jacket a little tighter around myself, I smiled back at Yongguk. “It’s a surprise. You can try to guess where we’re headed.”

The whole way to the subway station, Yongguk took me up on my challenge, blurting out random destinations we’d usually take after testing. “Dongdaemun? Hongdae? Gangnam?”

To each of the guesses, I shook my head, chuckling at his far off guesses. “Think bigger. Further.”

His brows wrinkled together in thought, bottom lip puckering in the telltale sign of obvious thought. The look was absolutely precious. Yongguk didn’t think much, not to this extent, but when he did, the need to pinch him on the cheek was almost painful. Like if I didn’t do it, I was going to blow into a thousand tiny little pieces.

“Chooncheon?”

“Ding-dong-dang ~” I practically sang, twirling a free hand and finger in the air. “Yonggukkie’s so smart ~”

The subway ride to Chungyangli was by far too long and stuffy. Unluckily, getting on the subway in the mornings meant having to deal with the crowd of morning rush hour. But on another view, it gave excuses to stick closer to Yongguk than usually allowed.

His breath was down my neck as I found myself squished against the far corner of the train between the wall and him. Mumbles of apologies were shot out, but he knew I didn’t mind it one it, the hidden squeeze of his hand against mind was the sign.

People drew on and off the underground transport, eventually leading to our stop and a lucky rush off without going far one too many stop. With Yongguk’s hand around my waist, we struggled our way out of the transport, earning grumbles and hisses of complaint from the men behind me.

(“Children. Where the hell are they going instead of school?”)

Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to skip school in uniform.

(Oh well.)

Hands brushing, we made up the escalator and found our way to the train station connected to the subway, buying our tickets and waiting with the rest of the people headed down to our destination.

Looks like a lot of people had dreams of boarding the morning train with their lovers down.

Leaning on Yongguk’s shoulders (broad, warm and comfy), I gave a sort of yawn, pressing my cheek into the hard of his bone. The one bad thing (if you didn’t count the far too long it takes to get down there) about this trip would have to be waking up at impossible hours. Sleep was calling.

“Tired?”

I nodded back, wrinkling my nose and nuzzling into his shoulder, his low chuckle shaking and rumbling straight down to my toes.

“Go to sleep, I’ll wake you when the train gets here.”

And he did. Nudging me at my thighs, he helped me slug onto the train, plopping me down onto the seat before pressing my face back down onto his shoulders. It was nice traveling with Yongguk.

When I next woke up, Yongguk’s head was pressed against mine, his head bobbing up and down in turn with the train’s gear. Rubbing my eyes with a fist, I smiled.

Yongguk looked the most vulnerable - the cutest - when all his guard was down, sleeping.

(I didn’t miss the photo op here.)

When our ride up to now went by without a single trouble, I should have suspected something to be wrong. Nothing ever quite fully went my way. Up to now, things had been far too relaxed - and I should have suspected something to be clearly wrong.

The bus, as it turned, took two hours. Two almost painfully long hours. And the beaches weren’t exactly quite I’d had in mind, coming either.

Standing in the sandy beaches, I gave a little stomp to my feet, hissing a little at the cold waters.

No fun.

“Hey, you’re getting sand in our shoes.”

I huffed a little in Yongguk’s direction, shoving him away with another huff and climbing further down the sandy beaches. Sandy, but not at all fun.

In my imaginations, having not been to the beaches in forever - as Seoul didn’t have such a luxury - I’d imagined the wide open sun-kissed land. There would be people out in the waters, splashing and laughing. Children would be in the sands, running around (stepping over the elderly who had dug themselves in for a nap) and playing games of tag or making sand castles.

But apparently, this didn’t happen in the winter.

Apparently, in the winter, people didn’t go to the beaches. Not for the same excuses I thought of anyways.

“What’s wrong?” Yongguk jogged a little to catch up with me, getting sand in his shoes, just as he’d complained at me about. His hands were automatically wrapped around my upper arm, stopping me from my steps and pulling me back against him, drawing another huff from me. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

Wrong? Everything was wrong. Nothing ever seemed to go the way I wanted to.

I wanted get down to the beaches and bask in the golden sun, feel it caressing my skin and play a little in the warmed water with Yongguk, not caring in the slightest if our pants got wet. We’d walk around in the sand, our shoes in hand and feet in waters, before going to get something to eat and then heading home.

The schedule had been oh so perfect in my head. But I should have known better than to know it’d all work out so perfectly. I should have checked out the internet a little better before making stupid plans.

Instead of answering him, I gave another huff, turning my eyes toward the waters.

“Here, I have an idea.” Pushing me to sit in the sandy beach, he pat my head gently. “Wait here, I’ll be back.”

Leaving his bookbag with me, Yongguk skid off in the direction of the tents set up a little ways away. Leaving me with nothing but the sands, water and me.

I sighed. This was a stupid idea.

(Should have just gone to the park or something.)

It was starting to get late by now, the sun slinking by the horizon, yawning tiredly. Leave it to the beginnings of winter to call the sun down just the tad faster. Great, just perfect.

When Yongguk returned, he had a pair of sticks and a lighter in his hand, paired with a bright smile to his lips. Approaching me, he pushed one of those sticks to me. “Sparklers.”

Telling me to pull the sparkler out, he took the lighter in his hand to spark up my stick, continuing on to push his against mine, lighting it as well. It was pretty.

“Figured we might as well as light sparklers since it was getting late. You like sparkly things, don’t you?”

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a/n: do not attempt this ride. it will take forever and would be so freaking more worth it to just go down to busan instead. i know bull about 춘천 so i made bull up. there were a lot of places suggested from past visitors, but i decided to screw it all. cause screwing with banghim dates is far too fun. and to teach that making plans at the very last second, not thinking about all the possible wrongs that could happen, will never work quite the way you want to.

ps. winter oceans are really pretty. it's bluer than usual. and even better cause there's less people there. it's really nice to light sparklers and get fireworks to play there with your friends or significant other. just don't get drunk and run out in the sea, alright? plus, go to 부산 for the ocean. it's prettier there and a much shorter ride than the to and from 춘천 if you don't do it right. can't go wrong with ktx for 부산.

if it weren't for the song, i would have probably had them go to 부산.

is it obvious i like awkward endings. it's like himchan's brain just cuts off whenver yongguk does something sweet.