April 21^st

After the first argument Chanyeol and I had, I vowed to ensure that we would never have another. Ironically, it was his eyes that always revealed how he felt. When he was happy, they sparkled beautifully, swimming with faint flickers of pure glee. They crinkled adorably at the corners and curled somewhat, mirroring the shimmering eyes of an anime character. When he was angry, the many browns seemed to morph so that one could almost see traces of burning red. His eyebrows would either furrow, close to knitting together in the middle, or would shoot up condescendingly. After our argument, it was the sadness in his eyes that made me crumble. Gazing into them, I could’ve sworn I witnessed the shattering of his fragile heart through their constant, distressed wavering.

It was because of Jimin and Jongdae that we found ourselves fighting. Jimin was opinionated and headstrong, fluttering between phases without ever sticking to one thing for too long. She had extremely high expectations in men, assuming they could perform the impossible time and time again. Jongdae was utterly oblivious and easy going. At times he was shy and at others he was cracking spectacularly original jokes that had crowds clutching at their stomachs. They were, as Chanyeol and I had concluded, polar opposites. We were preparing for a sandstorm of emotions, but we didn’t realise it would come so soon.

After their texting session the previous night, they had arranged to meet and Jongdae had arrived a little too late; it was only by five minutes, but every moment counted. Jimin stomped back home, barging through the door and almost knocking me off my feet in a blind rage. Her cheeks were puffed out and reddened, her hair messy like a bird’s nest. She stood in front of me with her hands propped firmly on her hips and inhaled, attempting to eliminate her obvious anguish.

After an uncomfortably lengthy silence, I tugged her softly onto the couch and crossed my legs so I was ready to listen. ‘So, what happened?’

‘He was late.’

‘Is that all?’

‘It was embarrassing. People were looking at me with sympathy and he didn’t even apologise for it!’ she exclaimed furiously, whacking a cushion with her tiny bawled fist.

I was, at that moment, thankful to hear my phone ringing. Unsure of how to comfort her or whereabouts to steer the conversation, the distraction was well appreciated. I patted her head apologetically and swept the phone into my hand, before retreating to my room.

Chanyeol’s voice wasn’t as soothing as I had hoped it would be. ‘Jimin should apologise to Jongdae.’

‘Am I missing something? He arrived late, didn’t he?’

‘He did arrive late, but that’s not enough of a reason to bite his head off in public.’

‘I didn’t get that far into the story’, I mumbled as I fell back onto the bed, rubbing my eyes weakly, ‘but I don’t have to delve any further to know that whatever happened was his fault.’

Chanyeol sighed and I could envision him raking those slender fingers through his hair. ‘That’s incredibly unreasonable.’

‘What’s unreasonable is that he arrived late and had no excuse for it!’

I blanked out after that. Indistinctly, I could recall loudening voices and tones of genuine irritation. I remembered hearing his voice crack and the way my face enflamed with ferocity at one point. It was only after I hung up and flung the phone across my room that I realised we had actually argued for the first time. And it was over business we shouldn’t have meddled with.

Jimin’s face contorted, her eyes watering. ‘I’m so sorry! You guys fought and it’s my fault!’

I groaned and threw my head back, arms splayed languidly over the couch and legs slumped over Jimin’s lap. Whilst she my head lovingly, I pouted my lips, sulking like a child who had been denied access to toys. I thought I could remain like that for ages, waiting for him to call and apologise, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. My heart faltered after a mere few minutes and I jolted up from the couch, sprinting out of the apartment and leaving Jimin on her lonesome, mouth agape and utterly confused.

Somehow, in my distressed state, I wound up at Chanyeol’s door. With a raised fist, I hesitated to knock and instead paced back and forth contemplating how exactly I was to approach the situation. Was I supposed to beg for forgiveness or stand up for myself?

The sound of the door creaking open snapped me out of my daze and I spun slowly to meet watering, wobbling eyes. They were bloodshot somewhat and swimming with melancholy, thick eyelashes unable to block out the underlying suffering. His face was pale, save for the rapidly increasing blush on the tips of his cutely pointed ears. He wore a crumpled sweater with faded text, one I knew he only ever wore to bed.

Chanyeol, though he couldn’t see me, dropped his head to hide his eyes. I stepped forward tentatively, a hand extended to pat his head. However, my arm dropped only seconds later as another figure materialized behind him. With perfectly styled hair, one side prettily tucked behind her ear, and an obviously expensive cream jacket, she was classy and beautiful. In comparison to my appearance - untouched hair and tattered tracksuit pants - she could have been a model. I gulped and took a few paces backwards, almost tripping down the steps.

‘Ah, it seems you’re busy’, I muttered, shuffling away, ‘I’ll come back later then.’

Chanyeol sensed the tension in the air and pounced forward to wrap a gentle hand around my wrist, tugging me into a tight embrace. ‘No, please stay.’

I gazed up at the stunning woman leaning in the doorframe, expecting her to seem disappointed by this. She smiled though and stepped aside, inviting me into Chanyeol’s place with a delicate wave of her fluttering fingers before retreating to the kitchen. Craning my head a little, restricted by my boyfriend’s warm grasp, I noticed the endless stretch of food across his counter and felt my stomach grumble violently as the woman plated a spicy stir fry.

‘Will you forgive me if my sister and I feed you?’ Chanyeol questioned, laughing suddenly as my stomach began to speak aloud.

No wonder she’s so beautiful, I thought, nodding happily. ‘I think that’s a fair compromise.’