Joonmyun is in excellent form on his way to work to interview the new girl for the open manager position. Just kidding, he is an absolute zombie walking through the parking lot this afternoon, having come straight from school where he’s been in lectures since 7:00am, going on a cool two hours of sleep from last night. If he happened to be walking with arms outstretched one might be genuinely terrified the zombie apocalypse had finally arrived and mistake him for an actual zombie, what with the dark circles around his eyes and pale, sallow complexion. Except…he’s sleepily snacking on a leftover granola bar from his study group and zombies don’t like granola. Too sweet for their taste (and sometimes they’re missing teeth so they can’t even chew properly and the last thing a zombie needs is oats and dried fruit getting stuck in their gum sockets. Nasty). He’d sent a group text yesterday to the members of his study group requesting someone else bring the snacks this time because he was too bogged down with work and wouldn’t have a chance to make or buy anything before their meeting. So today on the middle of the library table at which they gathered were homemade granola bars piled high and plentiful in a cute linen-lined basket. Joonmyun hadn’t felt like eating any during the study session but wrapped a couple in a napkin to take with him for later. And seeing as how he wouldn’t have much of a chance to eat anything until his break much later in the evening, he takes the opportunity to eat one quickly on his five minute walk through the parking lot in to work.

Hmm, not bad, he thinks, taking a small bite. Sweet, crunchy. Tastes like honey.

He blinks wearily at it in the napkin. He thinks he sees something resembling dried cranberries and… He’s not sure, really, he’s never been into granola. It’s just a big, sticky oatey mess molded into a neat rectangle to Joonmyun; a jumble of subtle, sweet flavors. A few, he notes, are new to him (“Cranberries… Huh.”). Something tastes almost peanuty, but not quite as…bold. More mild and creamy… Upon closer inspection of the bar he spots something that looks like a crescent moon shaped nut he remembers seeing in his Google search of tree nuts, but these were homemade and didn’t have an ingredients label and then it strikes him that he’d neglected to inform everybody from his study group about his newly discovered allergy – it had totally slipped his mind in his overly tired state. He freezes in the middle of a row of cars and blinks rapidly at the granola bar sitting in his open hand, trying not to panic, but he feels his heartbeat pick up regardless of the chant he’s repeating in his head to stay calm, you’ll be fine, stay calm. He sets the granola bar down on the hood of a car and quickly takes out his phone to Google again what a cashew looks like because, he tries to reassure himself, it might be nothing! It might be an oat or grain or a freakishly large mutant peanut. It might not even be a tree nut! His hands are trembling as he starts to type in the search when he feels an all too familiar itchy flush start to spread over his face and neck. He feels the warmth bloom over his cheeks and becomes hyper-aware of his pounding heart hammering in his throat and chest – palpitations.

“Oh god,” Joonmyun rasps, finding it increasingly difficult to catch his breath, and he suddenly doubles over in a coughing fit. He wheezes, feeling a scary tightness grip his chest, and tries to brace himself against the side of a car, but it’s of little help when a wave of dizziness hits him hard, sending him shakily to his knees on the cold, gravelly pavement. “Cashews? Cashews?” he coughs and hears his voice slur, which terrifies him even more. He tries not to cry out of panic, but when he reaches up to wipe his eyes he feels just how burning hot his face is and the bumpy rash of hives that’s broken out over his skin, and he can’t stop the panicked sobs. He glances around the parking lot and sees he’s alone. “Oh my god, I’m-” He then realizes he’s still gripping his phone in one hand and quickly opens his contacts list, mind racing between calling Minseok or Jongdae to help him with his EpiPen, or an ambulance instead. When he comes to the terrifying realization that he doesn’t have time to call anyone for help, he drops his phone to the ground, high-pitched wheezing escaping his lungs, and swings his backpack to the front of him. He rips open the zipper and digs frantically through his books and loose papers and , why don’t I ever clean this out?! he scolds himself, riffling through the contents looking for his EpiPen with shaking hands. Just as he feels the smooth plastic finally in his grasp, the lightheadedness comes on stronger than ever and his mind is suddenly clouded and foggy, like he’s about to pass out. He slumps heavily against the side of a car, the EpiPen loose in his grip.

The sound of loud, heavy, high heeled footsteps crunching over the pavement somehow seeps through his consciousness and he weakly turns his head to the side to see a young woman approaching, walking through the same aisle of parked cars. A look of confusion and concern contorts her features, brows furrowed, when she spots him nearly laying on the ground.

“Hey, are you okay?” Her voice sounds faint, Joonmyun’s heartbeat pounding too loudly in his ears to hear properly. She jogs the remaining few feet to Joonmyun’s spot on the ground and kneels down to get a better look at him. “Oh my god, are you all right?” The young woman’s eyes are wide as she takes in his distressed form.

“No… I have… Allergic reaction… Think it’s anaphylaxis…” Joonmyun tries harder than ever to speak clearly but his voice is weak and quiet, throat clenched tight and sore from coughing. He motions with his head toward the EpiPen at his side. “My EpiPen… Can you help me? Do you know how to-”

The girl catches on quickly and grabs the pen. She pulls off the caps on each end, throwing them off to the side without a second glance. “Yes, I know how!” she almost shouts, probably realizing just how urgent Joonmyun’s situation is, and raises her arm to get ready to jab the needle into his upper thigh. “I went to nursing school!” She swiftly brings the EpiPen down toward Joonmyun’s leg but stops right as she is about to make contact. “Sort of!”

Wait, sort of? How can you sort of go to nursing school?! Joonmyun’s eyes widen with a different kind of fear this time. What if this girl ends up killing him?!

“Just- Just stab it in my thigh, hurry-” Joonmyun stutters.

“No, no, I know! But,” she pauses and looks at Joonmyun’s pants – thick black corduroys – and says, “But what if it doesn’t pierce the fabric? Then the medicine would be wasted and-”

“It will, just…stab it, now!”

Dear god, this sort of nursing student might very well let him die right here in the parking lot between two ugly, beat up cars. He doesn’t want to die with so many regrets. He’s hardly lived! He can’t die before he scores a one-hundred percent perfect score on his secret shopper report!

The girl reaches one hand out and rests it on Joonmyun’s shoulder. “Lie down on the ground. I’m going to pull your pants down a bit to make sure the needle breaks the skin,” she instructs, and tries to gently push him over to lie on his back.

“Ahh no no no, you don’t need to pull them down, really-” Joonmyun protests but is too weak and faint to stop the girl from gradually easing him back, flat on the rough parking lot surface. He lifts his head up in time to see the girl carefully set the EpiPen on the ground and move to his corduroys. “Really, no no, just- stick it, for the love of god-” But then he hears the zipper sliding down and confident, steady hands grab the waist of his pants on each side, and yanks.

“Lift up your , hurry!” the girl says, and Joonmyun complies. She shimmies the thick fabric down his hips till it’s bunched around his knees.

He’s going into anaphylactic shock and now a strange young woman has to see him in his underwear? Next time he’ll think twice about wearing his light blue boxer briefs with cute little puffy smiley face clouds on them. Could this day get any worse? Maybe he’ll just let himself drift off to the Great Beyond because he doesn’t know how to come back from this kind of embarrassment if he lives. If the cashews don’t kill him the embarrassment just might.

The girl moves fast now and, picking up the EpiPen and holding it in a death grip, forcefully jabs the needle into Joonmyun’s thigh and holds it steady, counting to ten. Her eyes dart back and forth from the injection site to Joonmyun’s red, splotchy face and checks his pulse at the side of his neck with her free hand. After the ten seconds is up, she removes the pen and places the cap back on. Joonmyun blinks, trying to clear his blurred vision, and watches with confusion as she s her knee length wool coat and quickly shrugs her arms out of it.

“Hey, listen to me, you’re going to be okay now, got it? You’re going to be okay,” she tells him loudly with great conviction. She hikes his pants back up his legs and covers him up with her warm coat, tucking it tightly around his sides. “You’re going to be completely fine now, don’t worry,” she says, fishing her phone from her small purse, staring at its screen with a concentrated expression as she dials the number for an ambulance. She holds it up to her ear while the other line rings and checks Joonmyun’s pulse again. “Don’t worry. I went to nursing school…sort of.”

*

Two o’clock comes and goes and as Minseok checks the time – nearly 2:45 now – there’s still no sign of Joonmyun. He’s never late for a shift. In fact, he arrives fifteen minutes early every time. And he’d never miss an appointment. Minseok sends another text to Joonmyun asking where he is, what’s going on? They go unanswered and Minseok’s calls have yet to be returned. He calls Joonmyun again. Voicemail. Again. He leaves another message just in case, and tells him almost as an afterthought that the person who was supposed to come for the two o’clock interview never showed up.

Minseok is worried. Really worried, to say the least.

Have you heard from/seen Joonmyun? He texts Jongdae.

Nope, Jongdae replies, with a little shrugging emoticon.

“.”

*

Joonmyun wakes up to the sound of steady beeping. Soft shuffling nearby, faint footsteps far away. He slowly opens his eyes and blinks up at a white paneled ceiling. Peering around the room he finds himself waking up in, he takes in the beige walls with corny paintings of sailboats and sea side towns. There’s a large window on one side; the curtains are pulled open to reveal the sun still shining bright. Joonmyun squints against the light and faces the other way, where his vision lands on the girl he recognizes from earlier sitting cross-legged on a small couch, the coat she used to cover him with before now draped casually over the armrest. She’s not yet aware that he’s come to. She’s silently reading a newspaper, her long, dark hair falling forward on the pages. She looks up to turn the page and flips her hair out of the way, and it’s then that she glances to Joonmyun lying on the bed, covered up with white sheets and a cream colored blanket. She starts when she notices Joonmyun has woken up and is currently staring at her.

“Oh-” She messily folds up the paper and tosses it on the empty couch cushion beside her. “Hey, you’re awake,” she says with a small smile, getting up to cross the room to stand at his bedside. “See? What did I tell you? You’re fine! How do you feel?” she asks, tilting her head to one side and fixes a loose strand behind her ear.

“I’m…” Joonmyun replies, but finds his throat impossibly sore and scratchy. He weakly rubs his throat.

“They had to intubate to help you breath,” the young woman informs him softly. “Your throat’s going to hurt for a while.”

“I’m…in the hospital?” he whispers.

“No, I let you die in the parking lot of Cherry Hill Mall and now you’re in Heaven and guess what? It looks like a hospital room,” she answers with a contained laugh. “Not a very glamorous afterlife, huh? Heaven is pretty overrated, am I right?”

A weird girl with a weirder sense of humor is the last thing Joonmyun wants to deal with right now. He missed his shift at work. He missed the interview he was scheduled to give. He almost died in a freaking parking lot and now he’s here in the hospital, not with his parents or close friends, but with this stranger? Albeit, the stranger who saved his life, but still.

“Ha ha… Sorry,” she says meekly. “Not a good time for jokes, I guess.” She glances down briefly at her watch. “Speaking of time, your parents should be arriving soon. Don’t hate me but the nurses needed to call your emergency contact and, well, I don’t know you, so I kind of…took the liberty of going through your phone…to see if anyone had called or messaged you recently. Maybe I could find your mom, I thought. But I saw someone named Minseok was looking for you so I called this person, told him what happened, and he said he’d call your family since he was stuck at work. They should be on their way… I told the nurse.” She stands awkwardly by the bed for a moment. “I didn’t look at anything else on your phone, though… Not your picture gallery or anything like that…” She clears and looks the other way. (This guy takes some pretty adorable selcas, she thinks, feeling only a tad guilty.)

“Thank you,” Joonmyun says hoarsely. “Thanks. For…everything.”

“Yeah, of course. It was nothing, I was happy I could help. Not like I had anything important going on today… Just this really big interview I was on my way to,” she chuckles. “But you know, I had to save a life and all. I think I’d miss an interview for that any day. I should get some kind of award. Or a story on the evening news, at least.” The girl suddenly has a faraway, thoughtful look, as if she’s imagining her television debut that very moment, being hailed a hero, perhaps. Hey, if the shoe fits, she’d say nonchalantly into the camera lens.

Joonmyun smiles with the thought that yeah, he had some stuff to get to today as well, but would rather have made it to work instead of almost dying in the parking lot.

“That’s funny,” Joonmyun muses, noting the girl’s neatly put together, professional looking outfit. “In the parking lot… Earlier today, I was on my way in to work to interview someone for a manager position at my store in the mall…”

“Oh, no way? That’s weird! My interview was for a manager position… What a…coincidence,” she says slowly, brows coming together in thought. “Where do you work?”

“Medical City.”

“Medical City?”

Joonmyun nods.

“Medical City, where you were expecting a person to interview for a new manager?”

“…Yes?”

“Medical City, where you were expecting a person to interview for a new manager whose name is Im Jinah?”

Joonmyun stares, gaping slightly. “How did you… Are you…?”

“Hello, I’m Im Jinah, your interviewee. I’m afraid I’ve missed my appointment, however.” She smirks, extending a hand for a handshake. “I had to rescue a guy outside, you see,” she says, adding in a whisper, “He almost died.”

Joonmyun could burst out laughing right now if his body weren’t so achy. Still, he grabs her outstretched hand for a proper introduction. “That’s quite all right. You’re hired, Im Jinah.”

Joonmyun doesn’t even care that she’s seen him in his embarrassing boyish underpants anymore.

Jinah beams down at poor Joonmyun, who has sunk back down on the pillow. “Please, call me Nana.”

*

Every day on his commute to school, Joonmyun passes a liquor store right off the highway. And every time he passes it, bright red sign lit up with big block letters reading Good Time Liquor, he gives it a contemplative glance, his now overgrown brows pulling together in thought. And every time he thinks, maybe today will be the day. Maybe today will be the day. Maybe today will be the day.

Today, he decides with reckless abandon, is the day and he boldly takes the exit three before the exit for school and drives with more purpose than ever before to Good Time Liquor, the red sign glowing like a beacon.

Ever since his tree nut-induced brush with death several weeks ago, he’s been giving a lot of thought to his life. To what he does and doesn’t do because he’s been too scared to break away from the norm, from his numerous responsibilities. But ever since that day when he almost died in a gross, dirty parking lot of all places next to old gum spots and cigarette butts, ever since he almost literally had the crap scared out of him, he decided to live. Really live. For himself.

He doesn’t want to be the old reliable Joonmyun for once. He doesn’t want to be as predictable as an old man’s bowel movement on a strict, high fiber diet.

Sitting in his car in the liquor store’s parking lot, he does a quick search on his phone to help him decide what kind of alcohol to buy. Something effective but not too disgusting. He’s heard vodka tastes like water. Maybe he’ll try that.

Trying not to feel irrationally nervous strolling down the aisles of the store, each row containing shelves upon shelves of different bottles, he hesitantly picks out a small bottle of vodka.

“This one looks pretty,” he remarks about the image printed on the label – a scene of a flock of white geese soaring over a blue lake and mountains. “Umm, yes. I’ll take this one…I guess.”

Joonmyun sets it on top of the check out counter and takes out his wallet, asking the cashier with cheery smile, “Does this really taste like water?”

The cashier glances at the bottle of Grey Goose and snickers. “Yeah, you could say that.” He swipes Joonmyun’s card and places the small bottle in a brown paper sack, just like he’d imagined. Good, Joonmyun grins to himself, he can walk out like he’d imagined in his daydreams now. The cashier wraps the bag around the neck of the bottle and hands it to Joonmyun. “Here you go, man. Have a good one.”

“Thank you, I will,” Joonmyun replies, heading out to his car. “I will.”

*

Meanwhile, at Medical City, Minseok and Nana are huddled together behind the register, noses practically pressed to the screen of the monitor.

“Whaaat? Is that real?” Minseok turns a skeptical gaze on his new manager, Nana, who’s settled in quite well to her new position at the store.

“Dude, yes, it totally is!” she exclaims, pointing a pink polished nail at the computer screen. “This kid really was possessed by a demon because he conjured it into this realm with a Ouija board. It’s a true story, Minseok. Later they discovered the Ouija board this kid used was previously owned by a witch.” She grasps her chin, deep in thought. “Maybe the witch cursed the board.”

Yep, she’s adjusted pretty well to Medical City. Fits right in.

“Hey, isn’t Joonmyun scheduled for the mid-shift?” Nana asks Minseok, picking up a clipboard holding today’s schedule and reads over the names and times. “For two o’clock?” They both look at the time on the monitor. “Aaand it’s almost three. Aaand I didn’t notice. Woops. Don’t tell Joonmyun I’m already failing at being in charge or I’ll write you up for searching horror stories online instead of working.”

“This was your idea.”

Nana points a threatening finger in his face and scowls.

“You think Joonmyun forgot? Maybe he thought he was scheduled to close?” she asks while taking out her phone to give him a call. “Is he prone to this kind of behavior?”

Minseok frowns and takes out his phone as well. No new calls or texts from Joonmyun. “No, he never forgets to be on time. In fact, I think he gets some kind of sick satisfaction from being freakishly early to everything,” Minseok tells her, sending a message to Joonmyun.

“Hm, I got his voicemail,” Nana says. “Do you…think he’s all right?”

Joonmyun’s trip to the hospital happened several weeks ago but the incident is still fresh in his friends’ minds.

“He better be.”

“Yeah, especially because I’m not out there to bravely rescue him again.”

Minseok stares at her with a deadpan expression. “A true, humble hero you are, huh?”

*

Joonmyun gags and coughs, bending over to place his hands on his knees.

“Oh my god.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “This does not taste like water.” Joonmyun sticks out his tongue and mock-vomits. “Those liars,” he coughs. “This…this needs something.” Joonmyun grabs his backpack and roots through it, pulling out a bottle of orange juice. “Tastes like water, ha! If people say this stuff tastes like water I don’t want to know what kind of water they’ve been drinking.”

It’s the middle of the day. It’s chilly but the sun is shining so it takes the cold bite out of the wind a bit. Driving somewhat aimlessly through town after leaving the liquor store, Joonmyun thought hard about where to go to follow through with his plan of OPERATION LIVE LIFE! (i.e. blowing off everything for the day) where he wouldn’t get caught by anyone he knew. When he passed by the deserted golf course of the country club where his family were members, he decided. He sneaked in and bypassed the front buildings, walking the peaceful, empty paths of the golf course till he reached a large pond surrounded by small thickets of trees and bushes. The perfect spot to hide out and be a rebel.

Guilt is at the forefront of Joonmyun’s mind as he positions the bottle of vodka and juice between his legs on the ground, unscrewing the caps. He’ll have to apologize to Minseok and Nana later for ditching work, but reassures himself that they’ll be fine without him for the day. He’ll call them later. Or…at some point. He closes his eyes and tilts the bottle of vodka to his lips, downing it quickly before the taste makes him gag and spit it out, chugging a mouthful of orange juice to chase it.

“Oh yeah, that’s smooth,” Joonmyun rasps. He can feel the liquor flowing through him after he swallows. It makes his insides warm and burns his throat.

He must look homeless, the thought crosses Joonmyun’s mind, how he’s cuddled up against the side of a tree in the middle of some bushes, clutching his bottle of vodka still wrapped up in the paper sack. What would his parents do if they saw him like this? Maybe his mother would faint. Joonmyun pictures the scene in his head and laughs.

From his secret spot in the thicket Joonmyun peers through the foliage and watches the sun sparkle on the surface of the pond. A few stray ducks have claimed it for the afternoon while the golfers are away and they quack happily. Squirrels appear from the shrubs and run across the green, occasionally stopping in the middle of the grass to search out acorns they’d buried. Joonmyun lets his gaze wander over his surroundings and can’t remember the last time he ever just stopped to watch life happen. He can’t remember feeling this calm and peaceful.

“Keep those tree nuts away from me, you silly squirrels,” Joonmyun yells to the fluffy creatures leaping about the course. He’s feeling the vodka going to his head now and is delightfully buzzed. “You silly squirrels.” He falls back against the bark of the tree in a fit of giggles and takes another drink, chasing it with juice. “So silly.”

He takes another drink and chases it. Takes another drink and chases it. Takes another drink and chases it. Takes another drink and…

*

“Okay, where the hell is he? I’m legit about to freak out and call the cops right now, Minseok.”

Nana paces the store, having voluntarily stayed hours after her shift ended to stay with Minseok to find out what happened to Joonmyun. It was now seven in the evening and neither Minseok or Nana had received so much as a one word text from Joonmyun. Nor had Jongdae or Joonmyun’s parents. Joonmyun was officially M.I.A.

“Call the cops. Get the bloodhounds. Can’t they use bloodhounds to track his scent?” Nana wrings her hands together anxiously. “We need a sock or something. Do you have one of Joonmyun’s socks?”

“No, I think you already are legit freaking out,” Minseok starts to reply when the sound of his phone ringing stops him short and it’s the ringtone he had set specially for Joonmyun’s number. “It’s Joonmyun!” He swipes the screen to answer and presses the phone to his ear. “Joonmyun! Where are you? Are you okay? Are you in the hospital?”

Nana jumps and runs to Minseok’s side. She leans in, awkwardly trying to press her ear to the phone as well to try and hear Joonmyun on the other end.

Joonmyun mumbles on the phone but they can’t make out what he says.

“What? Joonmyun, what? Do you need help? Where are you?” Minseok asks, completely distraught.

“What? What did he say? Put it on speaker phone, put it on speaker!” Nana begs and makes crazed, pleading hand motions.

Minseok puts Joonmyun on speaker phone and Nana hollers into the end, barely containing the hysterics in her voice.

“Joonmyun! Where are you?!”

“I- I’m at…my country club. On the…the golf course,” Joonmyun slurs. “I-” he hiccups, “I accidentally threw a club in the… What’s it called? The…the pond?” They hear him giggling and exchange confused looks. “And I… Hahaha… Couldn’t get it because- because it’s too cold!”

“Joomyun, you sound… Are you drunk?”

Joonmyun laughs again. “Uhhh I think so? I dunno, I’ve never been- I can’t remember where I parked, Minseok.”

“Joonmyun, stay right there! We’ll come pick you up, okay? Don’t move!” Nana urges him. “Come on, Minseok, we gotta go!”

“Uh, but the store- It’s barely seven-thirty. We don’t close till nine…?”

“Get the lights. I’ll close the gate-”

“But…”

“Minseok, it’s fine! I’m the boss. Don’t make me write you up for insubordination!”

*

Minseok keeps Joonmyun on the line to help guide them to his location while Nana uses the flashlight app on her phone to light their way, jogging the paved paths in the dark around the golf course, searching for their friend.

“Oh my gah, holy mother of-” Nana pants. “I’m out of shape. This is like,” she inhales deeply, “a game of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ Does-” she wheezes, “Does he wear red striped sweaters? Maybe we can spot him easier if he does.”

“He said he’s by the pond near the ninth hole.” Minseok listens carefully to the voice on the other line. “On the grass…right by the water, he said.”

“Where the hell is the ninth hole?” Nana huffs and struggles to keep up with Minseok who’s more than used to running multiple miles a day.

“Look at the flags!”

“My flashlight doesn’t shine that far!”

Just then, as Nana is cursing in the dark about rating this ty flashlight app one star out of five, they hear, floating across the cold breeze of night, singing. Warbling, really. Not the best voice they’ve heard and certainly not one you want to hear in the middle of a classy golf course in the evening while trying to remain low-key so security won’t have to none-too-politely them out for trespassing…and for throwing golf clubs in the pond.

“Joonmyun? Joonmyun!” They shout together and run across the green to a clearing by the pond, where Joonmyun is sprawled on his back. They jog to his side and kneel on the cold grass.

Nana’s flashlight skims over Joonmyun’s vodka bottle lying nearby where it looks as though only a few shots worth have been drunk. And here Joonmyun thought he was going hard. Turns out he’s just a lightweight.

“Joonmyun, are you okay?” Minseok asks, placing a hand firmly on Joonmyun’s shoulder.

“Were you singing-”

“Titanic,” Joonmyun drawls. “Titanic…” He makes a fist and brings it close to his mouth, pretending to hold and sing into a microphone. “Near… Far… Wherever you are… You open the door and…my heart…you’re in it and… Once more you open my heart and…it will go on aaand on,” he wails passionately.

Nana stifles a laugh. “I don’t think you’re singing it right.”

“Joonmyun,” Minseok grabs Joonmyun’s chin and turns his face to him. “What the hell is going on? Why are you drunk in the middle of a golf course? You missed your shift, I was really worried something happened again.”

“I’m sorry, Minseok. I’m sorry,” Joonmyun’s voice quavers. “I let you all down… I’m a disappointment. I just… I just wanted to know what it would be like to…to live like someone else for a change. For once.” He hiccups. “Operation Live Life.”

Minseok chuckles. Joonmyun can’t even have a fun blow-off day without being plagued by guilt. He’s doing it all wrong, the poor guy. Minseok pats his chest and says, “Hey, don’t beat yourself up, Joonmyun. It’s not a big deal. You need to go easier on yourself. You should have given me a heads up, though, so I’d have known you weren’t in trouble. Or so I could have joined you, at least.”

“And left me alone at work all day?” Nana objects. “Rude. Very rude.”

“Oh Minseok,” Joonmyun sniffles, bolting upright and throwing his arms around Minseok’s neck in a tight embrace. “You’re my best friend. Thank you. A-and please don’t tell anyone about the golf clubs,” he mumbles from where he’s burrowed his face into Minseok’s coat.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Minseok grins, patting him on the head. There’s dried, dead leaves and grass in his hair but Minseok leaves them there as a funny reminder of Joonmyun’s drunken escapades. “I can’t wait to tell Jongdae this story. He’ll never believe me.”

“Don’t worry,” Nana says from her spot sitting on the lawn. “I took pictures.”

Joonmyun lifts his head to gape at her. “You wha-?”

“And video.”

A N: Sorry, in the last chapter were you like, why am I reading about a wussy guy with a food allergy, what is this? Talk about thrilling, ammi right? This may be riddled with scientific inaccuracies. Please feel free to call me on them. Also call me if you need help with an EpiPen bc now I know how to use one. You can feel safe in my arms now.