'"I'm sorry," Yeonhee said. "I think I have accidentally used you. I was so desperate for attention, when I had it I became selfish. I thought I was in love, I really did. I thought that love and the kind of desire I felt were the same emotion. I desired you, I still do. But that's not love. And I'm really sorry. I'm sorry I can't love you."

'Jonghyuk looked at the ground with an unreadable expression. Then he slowly looked up and forced a painful smile on his lips. "Thank you for being honest with me," he quietly said, and finally left her life as easily as he had entered it.'

---

Park Chanyeol maybe wasn't a brilliant reporter. Maybe. None of his articles had ever changed the world or other people's lives, that much was true. But those things had never been his aim to start with. Entertainment was what he provided, and when it was about turning banal events into great stories, or about finding interesting scoops, he certainly was a genius. The fact that the tabloid he worked for had disappeared off the face of the earth had not been his fault, because he had been the last decent reporter they had left, at least according to his own standards. So when he suddenly found himself without a newspaper he belonged to, he thought that the world really wasn't very just. He had always done his best, but none of his hard-earned skills mattered any longer, because few magazines and papers really needed someone like him with his 'cheap trash'.

In his desperation he ended up writing for the news section of a magazine targeting women in their thirties. He, twenty-five and male, now had to think of things women older than him might find interesting.
And he tried, he really did. He talked to his older sister, read fashion and lifestyle blogs and toned down his writing. The result was something he was quite proud of, an article titled 'Scandalous! Housewife Pours Atom Into Husband's Coffee!'. It was a perfectly balanced story about a women who had tried to poison her husband by adding radioactive substances to his food. It had drama and reality, and a title that, though maybe slightly incorrect, immediately attracted attention. Personally he was perfectly convinced of the article's value.
But when he handed it to the editor-in-chief, a lady past fourty who looked like the crumbling facade of an aged building, she did not look amused. At all. Instead she gave him a look laced with pity.

"Well," she said after a long pause, and he felt on edge. He held his knees with his hands to seem calm and humble, when she sighed while giving the printout another disapproving look.
"You certainly have an interesting way of writing," she continued, and he knew that he had already lost. "But I'm sure you realize that your article is a little..." She gave him a meaningful frown, rather than to finish the sentence, and for a second he pondered over whether to ask her what she meant or whether it wasn't better to never find out. He was sure that he would be fired either way. If he couldn't write articles she agreed with, there was no point in him being there after all.

But then she squinted her eyes at him and back at the article, and mused, "Well, I actually think that your talent to, well, dramatize things might be something we're currently in need of."
He raised an eyebrow at her, when she continued in a matter-of-factly way, "We thought of featuring a serial, but haven't yet found an author. I think you might actually be quite suitable. You would however have to use a pseudonym. Our readers tend to be quite sensitive."
She was about to add more, when he blurted out, "What? When you say serial, do you mean, like, a novel?"
She nodded as if there was nothing unusual about the offer, and he gulped. He really was desperate. He needed the job. And that middle-aged lady clearly knew.
So before he had a chance to rethink and question the whole idea, he agreed. The moment would become the birth hour of 'Hwang Insoon', the author of the successful 'Yeonhee's  Spring', a cheesy novel that had never meant to be more than a page filler.

---

'Yeonhee was very shy, and not very pretty, simply because she didn't really know how to dress. She wore glasses and a ponytail and only bought new clothes when her old ones ripped. So when she finally woke up from the emotional slumber she had been stuck in since her years at university, realizing that she had never been in a relationship, she already was a 28-year-old office worker.'

He had been told to make her a little older, but argued that he himself was too young. At least age-wise he wanted to do the easiest thing possible. He wanted to write her as lyrical copy of Yura, his sister.
But then he was told that Im Yeonhee had to be a , and all his plans immediately vaporised. A in her late twenties? That wasn't cute, but weird, and the contrary of Yura whose biggest problem basically was that she easily got bored with guys.

'It wasn't that Yeonhee had never wanted to be in a relationship, she just had no idea how to find a boyfriend. High school and university and her work as a sales clerk in a trade company had taught her a lot, but nothing essential like that. Every once in a while she had a crush on someone, but it never was more than a fleeting attraction. She never met the eyes of a stranger, who then decided to talk to her. No one approached her.
'But then, on a sunny day in spring, her life would change when she met him.'

He paused and looked at the words filling the screen with disgust. It was ridiculous for him to write the whole story. His writing had been called 'trash' before, but it was only now that he himself thought of it that way. He suddenly couldn't stand the product of his brain's attempt at fulfilling his job.
He needed the money, he had to remind himself, but that honestly wasn't the best motivation.

'He,' he continued to type, 'was'. He paused again. 'He' was what?
Chanyeol had to come up with a love interest, and had somehow believed that he would think of someone suitable if he just started writing. He thought story-writing was easier than writing an article. He thought the words would just come naturally, but instead his mind was completely blank.

What kind of love interest would office ladies around thirty dream of? His sister would have liked someone older with an acceptable income, or so he imagined. Economically it would have made sense. Yeonhee could fall in love with some douchebag CEO, someone with a cold exterior and a heart made of gold. Most heroines in TV dramas seemed to follow that path after all.
But he somehow felt opposed to the idea. It was clichéd and boring, and although he was supposed to write a clichéd story, he didn't want it to be that way. Douchebag CEOs already had everything in life, so why did they have to be the heroes? And did women in their late twenties already have dull expectations like that? Was money really everything? Did he have to be a douchebag CEO if he wanted to be someone in life? How did guys turn into douchebag CEOs anyway?
He had no idea, and as he stared at the screen in front of him, he wanted a different life for Im Yeonhee. If she hooked up with someone like the succesful version of her, nothing would ever change. He wanted her to fall in love with a bang. Which brought him back to the question what kind of love interest he wanted to write about.

He sighed and pushed his chair back to have a better look through his window. It was early afternoon, so there were barely any people walking along the street outside. Someone like Yeonhee would be in her office right now, just like all the CEOs, unless they were playing golf or were on important meetings on cruise ships. If he wanted a hero completely different from the usual office crowd, he maybe needed the kind of person who either had no schedule whatsoever or one so irregular, he would come home in the middle of the day.
He looked up. Wasn't that actually the solution for his problem? Maybe he just had to choose the first guy walking by as a role model. There were no decent office workers in his run-down apartment building to begin with, so if he just chose anyone from his neighbourhood, he could make up the rest based on that person.

It took a while, but after minutes of him leaning his arm on the window sill like an old lady who was much too interested in the people around her, his inspiration finally appeared like a muse in flashy clothes. It was perfect, much too perfect, so perfect in fact that he already felt more enthusiastic about the whole story. Suddenly he saw Im Yeonhee's life in front of him like an excavation site. He just had to scratch at the dirt and in the end he would find a palace. He was sure of it, because now he had a trope he already found easier to write: older woman hooking up with a younger guy.
Who wanted a completely incapable woman at the mercy of some guy, if they could have a younger guy depending on an incapable woman? Certainly not the kind of readers his story was supposed to attract. So he nodded to himself and rubbed his hands in glee, before he continued.

'He was Kim Jonghyuk, a dance major. And he literally swept her off her feet, when he bumped into her and caused them both to fall.'

Too cheesy? Probably. Definitely. But if they wanted him to write trash, he would. Because he was good at entertaining people. He was a pro, even if it just was at writing perfect trash. And now that he had his occasionally grumpy but usually friendly and most certainly poor neighbour Kim Jongin as a role model for his hero, he would do his very best.

---

'Sometimes she wondered whether it really was by chance that she and her neighbour would keep meeting in the local supermarket. She didn't think that he would stalk her, he had no reason to, but it was a little odd.
'No matter how ugly she looked, he would be friendly to her. And as she stood behind him in front of the cashier, she had an oddly fluttering feeling in her stomach. He smelled of soap and of life and adventure, and she hated herself for it but for a few seconds she had to fight the urge to just sniff at his back like a creep.'

"So how is your new job going?" Jongin asked and dropped a package with chocolate cookies into his plastic basket. 'Black Hole Found in Dance Instructor's Stomach,' was the possible headline Chanyeol already had going through his head, when he reminded himself what he really was there for. He was on an important research mission.

Yeonhee and Jonghyuk had already met and he had turned out to be her neighbour, an idealistic university student. But after that the ideas had just left Chanyeol without a trace. He wanted it to be relatively realistic, yet magical. The problem was that no one he knew would have been in an unrealistically awkward situation like Yeonhee. His sister for example would have already reached that inevitable point when Jonghyuk started to bore her.
But the story had to continue because that was what he would get paid for, so he tried to do the only thing left: He got his inspiration straight from the model and stalked his own neighbour Jongin to the supermarket to pretend that they had met there by chance.

He and Jongin weren't so close that they would have hung out, but they certainly were good aquaintances who lent each other daily necessities like washing powder and instant coffee, and who occasionally talked when they met on their way home or at the mail boxes downstairs. They had also exchanged numbers before to make sure that the respective other would know if there was some kind of emergency in their absence. It had been a while since they had done that though, so Chanyeol wasn't sure whether or not Jongin might have changed his number already. They never actually contacted each other after all, although Jongin probably was the only one within the building who didn't feel like an absolute stranger.

It was funny how the combination of all those things turned out to be ideal for the setting Chanyeol wrote about. He just had to talk to Jongin and take note of some of his obvious habits, and the rest would write itself. Rather than to wonder how someone who apparently did something athletic like dance for a living could survive on so much junk food, Yeonhee would just worry about Jonghyuk's health and well-being, while finding herself in a dilemma. Did she think of him as a brother or a son? Or did she maybe, possibly, see him not only as an adult, but as a man? He of course had to write Jonghyuk to be a tad more childish than Jongin. Chanyeol and Jongin were two years apart, Yeonhee and Jonghyuk eight. But that really was a minor detail in a story that didn't fully depend on realism to begin with.

Jongin gave him a questioning look, and he realized that he had forgotten to answer his question, so he hurriedly said, "The job is okay."
Jongin nodded apprehensively and scanned his basket, probably to make sure that he really had every type of flavour. Salty dried squid, spicy crackers, sweet cookies, bitter coffee, sour plum, yeah, he had everything covered, and Chanyeol sighed.
His work was something he didn't want to talk about for obvious reasons, but he still wished that Jongin would show a tad more interest in the people around him. Chanyeol couldn't possibly write a chapter about how Yeonhee and Jonghyuk had some meaningless small talk, because neither of them were very good at continuing a proper conversation. Because that was what would eventually happen if Yeonhee was herself and if Jonghyuk was too much like Jongin. Chanyeol clearly had to act himself again, so that he could twist the scene around until the out-going one was the love interest.

"So when do your students have their next show?" Chanyeol asked, because he knew that dance essentially was the only thing Jongin always liked to talk about. Dance was all he ever genuinely cared about, and at the same time something Chanyeol was completely ignorant about. Jongin's students were the only topic Chanyeol felt relatively comfortable with. Dancing boys and girls? Yeah, he could imagine that. "I'm still waiting for the free tickets you promised me."
Jongin just snorted and walked to the cashier. "You sure you'd really like to watch a group of children in ugly costumes?" he asked.
Chanyeol shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, you always make such a fuss about those shows, I might as well see your work with my own eyes."
Truth was that he honestly didn't understand why dancing was such a big deal, perhaps because he was lousy at it. Why was he called a klutz, and someone like Jongin wasn't? Although he clearly had the healthier diet?
So when Jongin looked a little taken aback, and asked, "Are you serious?", he probably should have said that he wasn't. He should have been honest. But instead he said, "Sure I am." The little dancers' shows couldn't possibly occur all that often anyway.
Jongin seemed hesitant for a few seconds, before he finally said, "We're doing a show in about two weeks actually."
And Chanyeol put on a fake smile and said, "Oh. Cool."
He couldn't even decide whether his lie felt like a good thing or not.

---

'Im Yeonhee couldn't dance, and there usually was no need for her to do it. She always felt lost on parties, so she avoided them.
'But now things were slowly changing. As she watched Jonghyuk on stage with his friends, she felt a pang. When he turned to a pretty girl and embraced her, Yeonhee just wished she could have been her. She wanted his arms to be around.............................................................................................................................................................................................'

He looked at the words and at the line of dots that quickly filled the screen, and pulled a face. There were always those awkward scenes  that made him stumble.
All in all he was quite proud of himself though. The show with the little dancing kids in bad costumes had been a mess, a beautifully inspirational mess.

When the children had suddenly forgotten their choreography, Jongin had frantically mimicked the movements in front of the stage. And when a little girl dressed as a princess had suddenly started crying, Jongin had ended up carrying her backstage. After that not even her parents could get them apart. The girl just sobbed into Jongin's shirt until it was wet and wrinkled. Chanyeol was fairly sure that her future would either bring her a Hollywood career or a really wealthy husband, maybe even a CEO. And then, when she was a little older, she could have an affair with a younger guy, who taught children how to dance.

The whole afternoon was extremely hilarious and awkward, and Chanyeol really felt a little sorry for Jongin, who looked completely drained on their way back. For Chanyeol it was a complete success because it could easily be turned into a cheesy scene for Yeonhee. And, even better, this time he didn't even have to try hard to find a topic for his next conflict.

"Next month I'll start teaching a class for adults," Jongin had mentioned as they waited for the bus. There probably was no deeper meaning behind his words. So far he had only taught children, so it was only natural for him to be nervous. Chanyeol knew that, and he knew that he was probably going overboard, but the opportunity was just perfect, so he asked, "Really? Do you think you could give me some kind of neighbourhood discount if I join?"
It was a stupid idea and Jongin, too, gave him the kind of doubtful look he deserved.
"Are you serious?" he asked, and Chanyeol nodded.
"Sure I am," he said and tried to sound cheerful and not at all like the terrible opportunist he was. "Everybody likes discounts, right?"

Reporters would do everything for a scoop, even if it meant to sell their souls.
And deep down Chanyeol still was one of those reporters.

---

'Yeonhee's legs felt shaky. She didn't know where to turn and where to look and how to behave. Her steps were too heavy, her breath too uneven, and the distance between her body and Jonghyuk's too small. She thought that she would just watch him as she had done when he was on stage.
'But she apparently was so clumsy, he saw the necessity to constantly touch her shoulders and arms and legs in his attempt to improve her posture at least a little. But the more he tried, the clumsier she acted. Whether consciously or not, she didn't know. But it made her burn like fire.'

"Not like that," Jongin muttered and tried to pull Chanyeol's leg into a position that seemed very much impossible. If nature had wanted Chanyeol to twist his body like a Chinese acrobat, he probably would have been able to do exactly that. Instead he was very much in pain after less than thirty minutes of what felt more like yoga than dance, and was called a 'block of wood' by some very nasty middle-aged ladies who clearly disliked him for catching the instructor's attention more than they did, simply because they, unlike him, apparently were 'very talented', as Jongin the slimebag had claimed.

'It was as if he didn't even notice the people around them. It was just the two of them in a spacious room decorated with mirrors. His arms were around her hips when she looked at their reflection. They had become one and she didn't want him to ever let go.'

"I thought this was a casual beginner course," Chanyeol said jokingly, when Jongin painfully hit his back to make him straighten it.
"It is," Jongin said in that rather cold instructor voice he had used ever since they had arrived in the dance school. It made Chanyeol miss his neighbour, the friendly guy, because he wasn't sure whether it was such a big turn-on for women if their love interest turned out to have a split personality.
What would his sister have done in a similar situation? She probably would have snapped at the guy, only to seduce him afterwards. She was much too bossy to have someone put his hands at both sides of her neck to straighten it forcefully.
But his sister also was good at being graceful, so she probably wouldn't have found herself in such a situation to begin with. Still, Chanyeol didn't really think that Yeonhee, the klutz, would have been treated as harshly as him. Jonghyuk would have to be more gentle.

---

'He seemed hesitant and apologetic when the lesson ended. She had never felt less attractive. Sweat made her T-shirt and her hair stick to her pink skin. Jonghyuk probaby felt disgusted at her sight, she thought. He probably wanted her to never return to another lesson of his.
'"I need to apologize," he finally said in a heavy voice. "I have crossed a border I shouldn't have crossed. I have forgotten all my other students when I danced with you. Just to touch you made me forget myself."
'Yeonhee's heart skipped a beat, and she blushed violently.'

"If I didn't know better I'd guess you were into me," Chanyeol said glumly when they walked back home and stretched his aching back while massaging the numb arm Jongin had clung to a few minutes earlier. He knew that any spontaneous actions like that could only aid the development between Yeonhee and Jonghyuk, but Chanyeol didn't really appreciate to be treated as a scapegoat. It was bad enough that Jongin had kept complaining about his posture, it really wasn't fair to use him as an excuse to escape middle-aged ladies.
The lesson had just finished and Chanyeol was about to walk home himself, when Jongin, the one who had never really showed that much of an interest in anything he did, had told him to wait for him.
"Those ladies are going to kill me if you keep doing that," Chanyeol said.

"Sorry," Jongin said wearily, and finally seemed like his neighbour again, that guy who was younger and usually friendly but not all that talkative.
"Why do you even teach adults if you don't like to touch old ladies?" Chanyeol asked, when Jongin looked so pathetically worn out, Chanyeol almost felt bad for thinking he had been wronged.
"For the money," Jongin shrugged, and Chanyeol couldn't really argue, because he was no different. That was probably what it meant to be all grown-up.

"You can get back most of the deposit, if you leave the course now," Jongin said after a while, when their apartment building finally got into sight. He rubbed his face, and pulled at the strap of his bag, and looked done with the whole world. Chanyeol knew that dance meant everything to him, so it was strange to see him like that, when he had always been so cheerful around his tiny students. He wondered whether Jongin's dream had really been to become a mere intructor, or whether there was potential for a sappy background story for Jonghyuk. He had a feeling that his readers would enjoy some extra melodrama.
So, although he dreaded the thought of another lesson, he asked, "Why would I leave the course?"
Jongin looked taken aback, so Chanyeol put on his most earnest smile and said, "It's fun, and I mean, I still don't know how to dance, do I?"

"Are you serious?" Jongin asked with a frown when they entered the elevator.
"Sure I am," Chanyeol said and felt a tiny bit disgusted when he saw his grinning reflection in the dull metal doors.

---

'She arrived early, because she couldn't wait to be with Jonghyuk again. Although he had confessed to her before, she never really knew how to talk to him unless she had an excuse. It scared her to hold his hand without any music. Only when they danced she felt freed of all her concerns.
'When she realized that she was the first one to arrive after him, she was overjoyed. Soft music filled the spacious room, and she wanted to call out to Jonghyuk, when she noticed something strange. He didn't even realize that someone has entered the room. He positioned himself, and whirled around gracefully like a Greek god, as if dance was not produced by strong muscles and veins, but by magic.
'But then he suddenly shattered and fell to the floor like a fallen angel.'

"Why?!" Chanyeol heard him exclaim when Jongin dropped to the ground in a way that didn't look deliberate.
The music made the whole scene even more bizarre, and Chanyeol's first instinct was to flee and pretend to just arrive a bit later. The only reason why he had come that early to begin with was his phone's malfunctioning clock, and he was pretty sure that he had accidentally stumbled into a scene that was interesting story-wise but possibly uncomfortable in his neighbourhood relationship. Something clearly was wrong.
"Why, why, why," Jongin repeated and punched the floor in frustration. He looked as if he was close to tears. Chanyeol really wasn't supposed to be there, and slowly tried to back out of the room, when Jongin must have noticed a movement in one of the damned mirrors.
His eyes widened, and he looked behind himself and at Chanyeol who awkwardly smiled his most harmless smile. "Are you, uh, hurt somewhere?" he asked, and felt like an idiot.

---

'"I want you to be happy," Yeonhee smiled under tears, and took his cold hand. "I hate the thought of you being unhappy. I'm not asking you to tell me what troubles you, but please know that there is someone who cares about you."'

"Want to get a drink or something?" Chanyeol asked, and hoped that he sounded casual and not like a father who pretended to understand his teenage son. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have bothered trying to find out why a guy would feel so embarrassed at whatever scene Chanyeol had witnessed that he could spontaneously overcome his fear of old ladies. No matter how deliberately clumsy and ridiculous Chanyeol acted in his terrible dance movement attempts, Jongin only glossed over him as if he was not more than a small dirty spot on the floor. It was all so obvious that he had even overheard one of the ladies wondering whether Jongin and he were having a lovers' quarrel.

Jongin gave him a tiny cool look that normally would have caused Chanyeol to become snarky and to leave. If there was anyone who had a right to feel embarrassed it was him, the constant laughing-stock of the class.
But the point was that these weren't normal circumstances. Now that he had already come this far, he needed to know just why he would get ignored. It was all for Yeonhee's sake.

"What happened earlier," Jongin began and his face immediately looked apologetic and awkward and not at all cool any longer. He trailed off, as if he wasn't really sure whether he wanted to explain anything, or to apologize. "I didn't realize you were there," he said, and before he had a chance to blame anything on him, Chanyeol shrugged.
"Whatever. Let's just pretend I didn't walk in on you, and that you didn't ignore me although I desperately needed your help," he said with a grin. "So let's go toast on that. And don't tell me you can't because you follow a strict diet plan. I've seen your fridge."

Jongin seemed very much unsure what to do, and just gave him a distant look, until he finally smiled at the floor like a shy school boy. Chanyeol noted the scene to include into his story. Jongin was finally improving his character model skills.

---

'It was as if she never really got to the core of who he was. The more she learned about him, the less she knew. He was a precious gem in the dark room of a tiny house, hidden behind a messy garden and a huge white wall with barbed wire. All she saw was the wall and the odd leaf poking through the wire. It made her desperate, because she wanted more. She wanted to know him, and when his head dropped on her shoulder, spreading warmth through her body, she felt terribly lonely.
'"Who are you really?" she whispered into his hair.'

It was midnight, when Jongin's head heavily dropped onto the surface of the bar table. Spilled beer soaked part of his hair, but he didn't really seem to mind. At least the mystery why he hadn't immediately agreed to having a drink at first was officially solved. He drank like a girl. One glass and he was already past good and evil, slurring most of his words. Even if he had decided to mention something dramatic about his past, Chanyeol probably wouldn't have understood it.

Chanyeol sighed at the massive waste of time he was facing. He couldn't really write a chapter on Jonghyuk being a weak drinker and on Yeonhee carrying him home, could he? That was really stretching the older woman hooking up with a younger guy trope a bit too far, even if she was meant to be an incompetent . How could a accompany a guy home? Wouldn't he attack her? Did he really want to write that kind of story? He had always pictured their story to be more pure.

"Come on, let's go home, you loser," he said when Jongin wouldn't move, and violently shook his shoulder.

---

'When their eyes met he suddenly looked perfectly sober. His eyes were clear as they fixated her in their gaze, and she felt as though she was drowning in them. She gasped when he put his arm around her waist and pulled her even closer. He seemed so vulnerable then, it made her heart melt. He smelled of alcohol, but so did she, when their lipsfSHDGKJGHAJKFGHQERJKHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH'

He was disgusted. The words had come so easily to him and he had literally ran into his apartment in the middle of the night despite his apparent drunkenness to write those lines down. It was perfect, too perfect, because he had always connected everything to the story, to that fictional account of a woman falling in love. But the more he sobered up, the more he realized how questionable his actions really were.

They hadn't been far from home then, so Chanyeol had managed to walk Jongin back without having to carry him. He had pushed him into the building and the elevator, and had somehow made him open his door. Like the terrible neighbour he was, he had at first meant to just leave him then, but when Jongin had literally fallen to the ground like a dizzy giraffe right after entering his apartment, Chanyeol had felt a slight pang of guilt. The whole scene had after all been his fault. In a way at least.
So he had helped him up, had dragged him inside, and had tried to make him take off his coat, when Jongin had suddenly clung to him like a baby monkey. It hadn't seemed all that strange to him at first, not even when Jongin had burried his head in his chest, because it had simply made Chanyeol think of more animal comparisons he could have used in the story. He had wondered how much Jonghyuk would have to crouch down since Yeonhee was shorter than him and whether it was inappropriate for him to bury his head in her chest, since she had s and everything, when Jongin had started muttering things again.
"I wanted to dance," had been the only bits of the muffled gibberish he could make out. When he had patted Jongin's back, it had been more of a reflex than anything, and when Jongin had looked up to him, he had been too occupied wondering whether he looked more like a monkey or a giraffe to really follow what was happening.

And then they had somehow ended up kissing. And it had been strange, because it hadn't been like anything Chanyeol would have found familiar. He had kissed before, of course, but never someone with beard stubbles who didn't make him feel like the Mt. Everest leaning down to a hill and who smelled of booze and something that was definitely male.
He had been drunk, and a bit slow, and it had taken him a while until he had pushed Jongin off him, saying something along the lines of, "Woah, what the hell are you doing? And here I thought you really just hate to touch old women, you creep."
Funnily he had said it with the smile of someone who had just cracked the jackpot, because this was exactly what Yeonhee needed, and had not even looked back when he left Jongin behind to write a new chapter.

And now that he thought of it, his reaction seemed like the worst part of it. He was the worst.

He finished the chapter, but for the first time he wondered whether he could really live with himself, whether he really should have sold his soul for a story like that.

---

'Yeonhee and Jonghyuk dated and  were happy and and probably went on dates. I have no clue. If this was Yura, she would have ditched the guy after a drunk hook-up. What does Yeonhee even see in him? Maybe she really should have dated a douchebag CEO instead because then I could just copy some dramas and be done with it.'

He had no idea what he was doing, but he didn't get forward like that. He couldn't write the next chapter, he skipped the dance course, and when he as much as heard a clicking door lock or faint footsteps outside, he wouldn't leave his apartment for minutes in fear of running into Jongin.
It was ridiculous.
He was ridiculous, and the more he thought about, the more he needed Jongin himself to write Jonghyuk. He couldn't be a good person and a good writer at the same time. He needed the money, and, although he was unwilling to really admit it, he didn't want to disappoint all the ladies who had sent kind letter to Miss Hwang Insoon, the author. He had fans, and a serial, and a neighbour who had clearly begun to misunderstand his actions at some point.

---

'"I shouldn't have pushed you away like that," she said shyly and avoided to look him in the eye."I was just surprised. I've never been with a man before."
'Jonghyuk looked a little surprised, but then smiled at her and took her in his warm arms.'

Jongin looked as if the devil himself stood at his doorstep and invited him into hell. He was the almost too dark-skinned type but during that awkward moment in the early morning he seemed eerily pale.
Chanyeol didn't know what he had expected from a guy he had called a creep, but he had somehow hoped it would be a little more encouraging. Instinctively he put his hand on the door in case Jongin tried to slam it into his face, which apparently scared him even more. It probably seemed threatening, Chanyeol realized, and decided that doing door-to-door sales probably wasn't going to be his future post-Yeonhee career path then.
What was he even thinking about? This wasn't the time to be silly.

Jongin seemed about to say something that would probably just make it more awkward, so Chanyeol said, "I'm sorry about what I said. I was just surprised. But I thought about it and I really need you."
It probably was too sudden and too forceful, because Jongin just choked on his breath in response.
"Woah, you okay?" Chanyeol asked, and took a tiny step forward. Jongin coughed and held up his hand, when Chanyeol was about to mutter an apology and a half-hearted explanation for his actions that probably wouldn't have convinced any jury.

"Are you serious?" Jongin asked quietly, and Chanyeol tried to suppress his repulsion at himself when he realized that Jongin did sound serious. And hopeful. And like someone who shouldn't have met the terrible opportunist of a neighbour Chanyeol was.
"I am," Chanyeol said, and felt his lie oozing out of his body like yellow slime.

---

'She was still attending the dance lessons, but things had changed. She could touch him even when they weren't dancing now, but there was something magical about that self of him that was dancing. He was majestic and unreal. She would arrive long before a lesson started and wouldn't leave for hours, because it gave her a chance to just gasp at him in awe. She felt as if she finally understood more of him, just by watching him like that.'

"I don't know, am I supposed to clap or something?" he asked, when he was sure that Jongin really took a break this time. It was hard to tell, because sometimes he paused for a few seconds with a distant expression, only to then do some more of his jumps and twirls and other strange movements that made Chanyeol wonder whether there maybe were chosen beings on earth who stood above the normal crowd of average mortals. It was strange, because it was as if Jongin has suddenly turned into someone completely different. Not the almost stupidly cool instructor or the somewhat awkward neighbour, but maybe the one he really was supposed to be. If that even made sense.
"I mean, really, I usually wouldn't call guys beautiful, but that was beautiful."
Their eyes met in the mirror for a few seconds, before Jongin turned away with a strange expression.
"And yes, I'm serious," Chanyeol added, when Jongin burried his face in a towel. He was hilariously bad with flattery, and Chanyeol tried not to laugh too hard.

When Jongin sat down next to him opposite the big mirror, he looked a little drained and smelled of sweat, but something about him really amazed Chanyeol. He was beaming.
"Okay, to be honest here, I never really understood dance," he said after a while, and Jongin's reflection raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I'm bad at it. Most people are bad at it. So I thought it was just something people do to relieve stress. But I think I get it now. I get why people think it's art."
Jongin snorted, and then put on a puzzled expression. "If you didn't understand it, why did you ask me for free tickets for the show though? And for a discount?"
Chanyeol wrinkled his nose, and thought of a plausible excuse, when he shrugged and just went with half the truth instead, "I don't know. I guess I was just trying to get close to you."
It wasn't even a lie, not really, but Jongin's flustered expression and the tiny hint of a smile made him feel rotten.

"Why don't you dance professionally? On stage I mean?" he asked mainly to change the topic. "I'm sure you could if you wanted to."
He had wondered about that before, but as much as Jongin liked to talk about dance, he never seemed too eager to talk about himself, as if he saw himself as a tool of something greater. Chanyeol really thought it was that, and that there maybe was a very rational answer to his question, when Jongin stared at his hands for a while and then turned to Chanyeol to bury his head in the back of his shoulder. He was a head burier. Like an ostrich.
"What are you doing?" Chanyeol laughed and tried to shake him off, only to have Jongin throw his arm around him to force them into a slightly uncomfortable position. Chanyeol had to bend forward because Jongin was leaning on him, and when he was looking at their reflection Chanyeol unwillingly had to think of baby animals climbing their parents. When had he become so obsessed with animals? A reader had complained about that before.

"I'm scared," Jongin said after a long moment of silence, and Chanyeol felt his smile freeze in his face.

"Scared of what?" he asked, and tried to twist his upper body to get a proper look at Jongin.

"The stage," Jongin said in a tiny voice, before he let go and stood up. "I'm hungry," he then said in a louder, but oddly strained voice. "Let's get something to eat."

---

"I wish there was a story behind it," Jongin quietly said. He sounded distant, and absent-mindedly fiddled with Chanyeol's hand on his chest, as if they were not just an entangled mess on the floor of Jongin's apartment, but in a much more meaningful place. "It's even more embarrassing without a story. I can't say that there was an accident or a tragic incident. I never got hurt. I never hurt anyone. No one betrayed me or made me look like an idiot, no one but my own body."

Chanyeol turned his head to look at him, but Jongin already seemed far away. In the dim light he stared at the ceiling as if he could see his entire life spread out on it, as if it was there like an open book. Jongin sighed, and Chanyeol moved closer to nuzzle the crook of his neck.

"If I knew what scared me, I could maybe do something about it," Jongin continued, and lightly touched Chanyeol's hair. "But I have no idea. If I stand on stage and if I see all these people looking at me and when the lights blind me, I just go numb."

"I want you to be happy," Chanyeol mumbled, and felt dizzy and perhaps a little overwhelmed. When he had barged into Jongin's apartment at night completely drunk, he had been driven by the urge to continue his story. His readers wanted to know what was wrong with Jonghyuk, and he knew that only Jongin had the answer to that. So he had broken in like a wild Barbarian, and they had ended up on the floor, and Jongin was so vulnerable, and Chanyeol wondered if they maybe could just stay like that until the world ended, no matter how cheesy that even sounded in his drunken state.
"I hate the thought of you being unhappy," he continued, and wasn't sure where the words were coming from. "I'm not asking you to-."
He sat up. They were Yeonhee's lines. He recited Yeonhee's old lines.

"What's wrong?" Jongin asked in confusion, and Chanyeol panicked. He tried to stand up, but couldn't because the world was spinning.
"I feel sick," he said and covered his mouth with his hands, although he didn't really feel physically sick. He was sick of the game he was playing. Everything he did was just very wrong, and the lines had blurred way to much. Was a serial in a not even particularly popular magazine worth all the lies? Could he even look at himself in the mirror any longer after all the mess he caused already? What right did he have to play with someone's feelings like that?

Jongin though misunderstood him again, and looked alarmed. He brought him water and rubbed his back, and Chanyeol honestly wished he wasn't such a stupidly naive person who readily talked about his fears like that.

---

Usually when he arrived early, Jongin was already dancing, so he could always hear faint music from outside. He would slowly creep in, and sit down in a corner. Sometimes Jongin noticed him immediately, sometimes only after a while, sometimes not at all. There were times when Chanyeol quietly watched him for nearly half an hour, and yet completely startled him when he called out to him during a pause. One time he had felt the spontaneous urge to whistle, which had almost caused Jongin a heart attack, so he knew to try that again.

When there was no music this time, Chanyeol wondered whether he maybe was too early. He didn't expect the door to be open, and when he carefully looked inside he was almost surprised to find Jongin sitting under the window reading a magazine.
Jongin had never really struck him to be an avid reader, so he was about to make a snarky comment, when he recognized the magazine's cover. The middle-aged lady in the pink blazer with the wavy hair and the oversized sunglasses in front of a light grey background had haunted him in his dreams. The picture had hung all around the office, and had worsened the pressure of having to write a ten-page 'Yeonhee's Spring' special for the five-year anniversary special edition of the magazine he worked for. Chanyeol had always purposely avoided to mention its name, so there was no way Jongin could have known. There was no way Jongin would read the magazine, or so Chanyeol had continued to believe.

Jongin looked up with a blank face, and held up the magazine. His finger was stuck in one of the pages, and Chanyeol hoped that it was the recipe section. There was a recipe for fried chicken. Jongin liked chicken.
"Auntie Jung can't come to the lesson, but she dropped by to give me this," Jongin said monotonously. "She said she wants me to read it. It reminds her of me."
"What is that? A lifestyle magazine?" Chanyeol asked jokingly, and felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to run, but he couldn't move.
"There's a story inside," Jongin explained. There was a slight twitch of his eyebrows that made him look nothing but disappointed for a short moment. "I heard it's really popular." He gave the magazine a disdainful glance, before he finally opened the page he must have been looking a before Chanyeol entered.

"She understood then," Jongin read. "What Jonghyuk feared wasn't a memory, but his own indescribable fear that lacked any rational explanation."If I knew what scared me, I could maybe do something about it," Jonghyuk said when they lay on the floor of his apartment. 'But I have no idea. If I stand on stage and if I see all these people looking at me and when the lights blind me, I just go numb.' Yeonhee wanted to tell him that it would be all right, but she didn't know what to say to make it better. She knew what it was like to fear something and to have..."
Jongin scoffed and stared at the page, as if he was reading a bad joke.
"'I want you to be happy,' Yeonhee finally said. They were the same words she used over and over again. Words that sounded silly, but came from deep within her heart."
He frowned, and bit his lips, before he changed to another page and forced an empty smile on his face.
"They were also so kind to summarize what else has been going on in the story. The main characters are neighbours. She has an office job and joins a dance class he teaches. Oh and, 'at first she feels like an older sister to him. She scolds him for his diet, and helps him get home when he can't handle his liquor.' Auntie Jung thinks he sounds like me. Even the name is similar. He's called Kim Jonghyuk."
He laughed humourlessly, and looked as if he was choking.
"I wonder if that's what I'm like," he said, and just stared at the page in his hands. Then, quietly, he asked, "What's the title of the magazine you're working for again?"

"Femme," Chanyeol said in a barely audible voice, and still felt as if the word was echoing through the room. He heard it was French for 'woman'. It was the word that had messed up his life. He had never been the most moral person, but by now he was in much too deep.

"Did you write this?" Jongin asked, still not looking up. "Or did you just tell someone to write it?"

"Look, I never..." Chanyeol began, but didn't really know how to continue. It was too late to come up with a good excuse that would have made sense, because there was none. Everything was exactly the way it seemed.

"You were never serious," Jongin said, and seemed puzzled by his own words, as if the full meaning only hit him then. It was one thing to realize that everything he had said would have become cheesy lines in a magazine serial, but the worst part was that it made everything become a lie. None of it was real.
Chanyeol wanted to say something. He wanted to say that not everything was a lie. He hadn't written about everything, but he couldn't really tell apart fiction from reality. He didn't know if any of his own words had been based on a genuine feeling and not just on something he wanted his character to say.

So he stared at the floor in shame like a child getting scolded. When Jongin muttered, "This is crazy," and left the room, Chanyeol could only hold his breathe.

They had reached the end of the story.

---

'"I'm sorry," Yeonhee said. "I think I have accidentally used you. I was so desperate for attention, when I had it I became selfish. I thought I was in love, I really did. I thought that love and the kind of desire I felt were the same emotion. I desired you, I still do. But that's not love. And I'm really sorry. I'm sorry I can't love you."
'Jonghyuk looked at the ground with an unreadable expression. Then he slowly looked up and forced a painful smile on his lips. "Thank you for being honest with me," he quietly said, and finally left her life as easily as he had entered it.'

The editor-in-chied looked up from the draft with an arched eyebrow. "I strongly hope that you are not serious about this," she said in a voice that suggested that she didn't enjoy jokes.
"I am," he said meekly. It had taken him hours just to write that. His mind was a mess. He couldn't think straight, and all he wanted was for the story to end, but knew that this time he couldn't copy from his own life. At least Yeonhee and Jonghyuk were supposed to keep some dignity.
"I am sure you understand how many readers we gained due to this serial," the editor-in-chief said sternly and tapped the surface of her desk with her expensive fountain pen to stress her words.
"Yes," he said and avoided to look at her.
"And yet you suggest to end it this way," she said and began to sound impatient, as if faced with a boy that didn't understand something really very simple.
"Yes," he said, and she let out a disapproving noise.

None of them said a word for a few seconds. She had another look at the slightly wrinkled paper. He fiddled with a loose thread of his sleeve.
"If you do not wish to continue," she finally said. "We can change the writer."
Her words sounded definite and almost threatening, as if his wish to end it wasn't even an option. Either he pulled himself together or someone else would play his part. Yeonhee and Jonghyuk would live on, penned by someone else, like an even worse mockery. One of the ladies would talk about it and Jongin would maybe read it and wonder how he deserved even more ladies to fantasize about a character that was not more than a cheesy copy of him. Chanyeol didn't want that.

---

The doors of the elevator were about to close when someone hurriedly stuck his hands inside. It startled him, but Chanyeol quickly hit the opening button.
"Thank you, I was just," Jongin said out of breath and was about to enter, when he realized who was inside. He took back his hand. His hair was a mess. The door closed, and Chanyeol went upstairs by himself.

A few days later he saw Jongin enter the real estate agent near the station.

A week later, when he emptied his mailbox, he stared at Jongin's next to his. A large brown envelope was sticking out of it and it took him all his willpower to not have the tiniest look at it, just to see where it might be from.

When he saw Jongin enter the supermarket, he hid in the diaper section.

Was that what things were supposed to be like?

---

He waited until midnight until he felt brave enough to leave his apartment. After a couple of tests to make sure that the space under the doors really was big enough to slide the magazine through, he attached a note he had rewritten a dozen times, took a deep breath and quietly walked to the neighbouring door. He slid the magazine inside, and ran back to pretend to sleep. He couldn't even close his eyes.

---

'"I think I have accidentally used you. To be honest, I probably might not always have taken you very serious. You're so much younger than me. You're like a child. It was easy to talk to you, and I think I got carried away. I'm not used to attention, so when I had it, I got addicted to it," she said.
'"At first it wasn't about you. I was in love with the feeling. I loved to care and to feel and to be cared for. I loved to be touched and to finally become normal. I have never been in love before, so even now I'm not sure whether this is love, whether I feel love for you.
'I have been using you, and for that I want to apologize. I lied, and I'm not sure if I ever said anything I really meant.
'I do want you to be happy, I really do. Just to think that I hurt you makes me feel terrible. You don't deserve to be treated like this. You deserve so much better.
'So I know that I'm being unfair. I should leave you be. I should want you to find someone who won't lie to you.
'But I miss you. I miss you so bad, I have no idea what to do. I've never felt like this, and it's pathetic, and I know it is, but I still need you. If you still want me, I'm here."'

The readers were mad. This was the first time Madam Hwang Insoon, the author, had left a chapter with a major cliffhanger like that, and the number of fan letters was insane. They all demanded to know what Jonghyuk's answer was going to be. Even the editor-in-chief was relatively satisfied with the development.

"What is going to happen to them?" the lady responsible for the astrology section asked, and Chanyeol shrugged, because he honestly had no idea. He wished he knew, but he, too, was still waiting for an answer.

'What do you think he's going to say?' he had asked on the note, but for all he knew, Jongin might have just thrown out the magazine. Maybe that was the answer. It was probably for the best.

---

He compared different types of milk, when someone absolutely had to block his view by reaching all the way across to the yoghurt, rather than to just wait for a few more seconds. He instinctively went a step backwards, but the person wouldn't leave. He looked up in irritation, the milk still in his hands, and said, "oh," in surprise.
Jongin meanwhile pretended to read what was written on the yoghurt packaging. "Do you think it makes a difference if I'm careful of what I eat?" he asked casually.
Chanyeol had to collect his thoughts before he said, "I don't know, but judging by your diet so far, you can probably stomach anything you eat."
Jongin snorted, and gave him the tiniest glance, before he put the yoghurt back. Not really thinking about his actions, Chanyeol blindly put both milk cartons in his basket.

"The women in the adult class were wondering whether you finally gave up dancing," Jongin said and randomly picked up a bottle with chocolate milk.
"I probably should," Chanyeol said probably a bit too rashly, and accidentally caused Jongin to turn away. "I mean, I'm pretty bad at it," he added. "But I still have hopes to make it in a casting show someday. Make I can join an idol group. Do you think there's an age restriction?"
Jongin, already halfway on his way to the next aisle, turned back, looked him up and down, and said in his intructor voice, "You're about ten years too late for that. Training included."
Chanyeol pretended to be shocked and indignated, and Jongin smiled.

"Was Yeonhee serious?" Jongin asked, when they stood in line for the cashier. All he bought was the chocolate milk, which made Chanyeol wonder whether this really was a chance encounter. Suddenly their roles seemed reversed, although Jongin still asked the same question.
"Yes," Chanyeol said, and for the first time it didn't sound like a lie.
Jongin just nodded apprehensively and watched the lady in front of them put a bundle of spring onions into a pink tote bag. "If she was, and if I was Jonghyuk," Jongin continued with a unreadable expression. "I'd hate her anyway. How is he supposed to trust her again?"

Chanyeol bit his lips and stared at the display with cigarettes behind the cashier. "Right," he said. "So what do you think he'd tell her?"
"That she's crazy," Jongin said flatly and took out his wallet from his back pocket to pay for his milk. Then, when he received his change, and helped Chanyeol put his random collection of groceries into plastic bags, he added, "And that he's crazy, because he still can't stop thinking about her. Despite everything."

Chanyeol unwillingly stared at him, and almost forgot to pay. A woman behind him cleared , the cashier looked exasperated.
"So I think he should forgive her. That's how I'd write the next chapter. They make up, and everything will be fine," Jongin said.
When Chanyeol gave him a confused look, he shrugged, "I mean, that's what you wanted to know, didn't you? What to write. I tried to think of what my mother would like to read, and that's probably it. She didn't really play with his feelings anyway. It would be stupid of him to feel all betrayed just because she didn't always think of him as the world. That Yeonhee character is just too naive, and that conflict was forced to begin with. It's obvious that you were going to give them a happy ending."
Chanyeol blinked. "Oh," he said, and just watched when Jongin left the supermarket. That was not the kind of serious answer he had expected. To him it had always seemed so natural that his life and the story were connected, he had never wondered what would happen if he separated them.

---

'He put the ring on her finger, and tears clouded her eyes. After all the sorrow and misunderstandings, they could finally become happy. Music played when they kissed, and she knew that she would dance with him until the end of time.
'The End.'

---

Jongin moved out of his apartment shortly after the last chapter of 'Yeonhee's Spring' appeared in the magazine. Chanyeol wondered whether he would have read it. Probably not. The ending was just the way Jongin had described it, and he must have known that all of Jonghyuk's decisions had been his at some point.

Chanyeol never went looking for him again, because it wouldn't have felt fair. Jongin was right when he said that Yeonhee's and Jonghyuk's conflict had been easy to solve, because it was the simplified version of something a lot more complicated. Yeonhee was naive, Chanyeol wasn't. That was the difference. He couldn't have everything, and he had made his decisions when he had used Jongin's trust to make money. Had he really meant it, he could have stopped at any time.

Life was about decisions, and about making a living, so when his editor-in-chief suggested a new serial, he accepted and tried to find new models for his protagonists.

The End.