bubblegum billiards
a curious case of affection
494w; g (joshua/minkyung)
an interpretation of kim minkyung by joshua hong.
Minkyung’s got legs that go on for miles and a smile that’s so mysterious that it could mean any reactionary instinct from pleased to biting back anger. Joshua literally knows squat about her apart from what he sees in his subtle glances across the lecture hall during finance - she’s always sleeping, he’s always trying not to make it obvious that he’s looking. When the girl sitting next to her wakes her up halfway through class, there’s a slight smile on her lips as she swats her friend’s probing finger away. It’s all become some kind of routine that Joshua’s ingrained into his Mondays and Wednesdays, and on the days Minkyung doesn’t show up to lecture, he finds himself glancing at the space where she usually sits, like it’s a habit.
Honestly, he’s not surprised when Jeonghan catches on four weeks in. There was this point around forty-five minutes into lecture, when Jeonghan’s concentration always broke and he became hyper aware of everything happening within immediate vicinity to him. This just happened to include the way Joshua turned his head slightly towards the left to look at Minkyung. “If you want to talk to her,” Jeonghan tells him one day as they’re walking back to their dorm. “Just ask her for her notes or something.”
Joshua only hums noncommittedly to the idea. He’s pretty sure Minkyung doesn’t actually take notes, but he doesn’t tell Jeonghan that.
So he doesn’t expect it at all when Minkyung walks up to the info kiosk that he works graveyard shifts at in the university library, one of her knees that’s connected to one of her legs that’s miles long knocking against the desk, and asks him for his notes instead. Joshua didn’t even know she knew his name, let alone that they were in the same class.
“I need them back by Wednesday,” is all he says when he hands them over. Everything about this whole thing feels so weird. Maybe it starts with how Minkyung’s actually looking at him, and something about being the target of her gaze makes Joshua nervous, more nervous than usual, when he found other people staring in his direction.
And as if she knows, her lips curl up into one of those tell-tale, mysterious smiles. “I’ll give them to you before lecture starts,” she promises. This time though, Joshua gets the feeling that he knows exactly what this smile means.
He swallows. “See you Wednesday, then.”
Minkyung laughs and it sounds nothing like he thought it would. That thought sticks with him more than the sound of her laughter, and the memory just makes Joshua want to hear her laugh all over again. “Wednesday,” she echoes, waving with the hand that’s not clutching his notebook.
On Wednesday, she sits down next to him five minutes before class starts, on his left. It’s the best view Joshua’s gotten all semester, and judging by the small smile on her lips, he bets she knows it.
synthetic love
540w; pg (wonwoo/myungeun)
wonwoo senses he's in love.
Myungeun is a spatter of familiarity in between the limbs of strangers. She reappears, Wonwoo's hand in hers, tugging him behind her through the stop-start motion of the strobe lights, camera shutters of moments. Everything smells like smoke and sweat and hints of alcohol on breaths. Everything peaks into a too-loud crash of voices and high hats. Everything is overwhelming, but Myungeun's hand reminds Wonwoo that he's going somewhere, somewhere where everything can just be them.
She lets go of his hand once they're in a fairly secluded hallway, too dark that Myungeun is a part of the shadows and that Wonwoo can't see his hands when he looks down to where they should be, outstretched and upturned. There's still the faint smell of smoke and people, but there is also the smell of the shampoo Myungeun always uses, fresh in her hair like she washed it only a few hours before.
Wonwoo toes his way to the space next to her, copying the way she leans against the wall. They stand there in the silence that settles between introverts who think the darkness holds some kind of sanctity, a home for thought. Wonwoo still tastes the aftertaste of the brunt of someone's grapefruit smoke from an electronic cigarette in the back of his mouth, hears synths staccato in the background.
"I think," Myungeun starts just when Wonwoo's eyes start to adjust to the pitch. Her vague outline beside him taps her chin. "I think," she says again, because this was Myungeun, the beginner of open-ended thoughts, trailed off from where she would settle on the floor of his and Junhui's shared room, escaping the corner of her mouth as she dozed off to sleep.
Wonwoo hears himself swallow. "You think," he echoes, wrapping his arms around himself. Sweaty palms press against his thin t-shirt.
Myungeun takes a moment to reorient herself. When it came to the dark, there were certain ways you had to say things to respect the remembrance and deep thinking that came with the blindness. There were just certain things to say. "I think," she says again, slowly, clearly, a synth in the distance punctuating her words. Wonwoo doesn't know if her eyes find his. "You like me."
A stillness. Laugh from someone further down the hallway, walking towards them. He blinks.
And as that person walks past them, distorting the stillness and silence and sanctity of the darkness lying between them: the smell of Myungeun's shampoo. The imagined sound of her breathing, in time with his. The tingling left in his fingers from where she held onto his hand, an anchor of a boat docking at home, synths murmuring, muffled, in his ears.
Wonwoo doesn't think he likes Myungeun like that. But beyond the aftertaste of that sweetened smoke from someone's electronic cigarette is the taste of a cold, crisp apple on the back of his tongue of the words I do.
Synths and sense. A shiver of nervous energy flowing upwards from his toes. Wonwoo moves closer so their knees touch, feather light, and finds Myungeun's eyes in the darkness. And then closer, and closer, and closer until Myungeun's eyes glance down at his lips.
She covers them with hers.
And then.
494w; g (joshua/minkyung)
an interpretation of kim minkyung by joshua hong.
Minkyung’s got legs that go on for miles and a smile that’s so mysterious that it could mean any reactionary instinct from pleased to biting back anger. Joshua literally knows squat about her apart from what he sees in his subtle glances across the lecture hall during finance - she’s always sleeping, he’s always trying not to make it obvious that he’s looking. When the girl sitting next to her wakes her up halfway through class, there’s a slight smile on her lips as she swats her friend’s probing finger away. It’s all become some kind of routine that Joshua’s ingrained into his Mondays and Wednesdays, and on the days Minkyung doesn’t show up to lecture, he finds himself glancing at the space where she usually sits, like it’s a habit.
Honestly, he’s not surprised when Jeonghan catches on four weeks in. There was this point around forty-five minutes into lecture, when Jeonghan’s concentration always broke and he became hyper aware of everything happening within immediate vicinity to him. This just happened to include the way Joshua turned his head slightly towards the left to look at Minkyung. “If you want to talk to her,” Jeonghan tells him one day as they’re walking back to their dorm. “Just ask her for her notes or something.”
Joshua only hums noncommittedly to the idea. He’s pretty sure Minkyung doesn’t actually take notes, but he doesn’t tell Jeonghan that.
So he doesn’t expect it at all when Minkyung walks up to the info kiosk that he works graveyard shifts at in the university library, one of her knees that’s connected to one of her legs that’s miles long knocking against the desk, and asks him for his notes instead. Joshua didn’t even know she knew his name, let alone that they were in the same class.
“I need them back by Wednesday,” is all he says when he hands them over. Everything about this whole thing feels so weird. Maybe it starts with how Minkyung’s actually looking at him, and something about being the target of her gaze makes Joshua nervous, more nervous than usual, when he found other people staring in his direction.
And as if she knows, her lips curl up into one of those tell-tale, mysterious smiles. “I’ll give them to you before lecture starts,” she promises. This time though, Joshua gets the feeling that he knows exactly what this smile means.
He swallows. “See you Wednesday, then.”
Minkyung laughs and it sounds nothing like he thought it would. That thought sticks with him more than the sound of her laughter, and the memory just makes Joshua want to hear her laugh all over again. “Wednesday,” she echoes, waving with the hand that’s not clutching his notebook.
On Wednesday, she sits down next to him five minutes before class starts, on his left. It’s the best view Joshua’s gotten all semester, and judging by the small smile on her lips, he bets she knows it.
synthetic love
540w; pg (wonwoo/myungeun)
wonwoo senses he's in love.
Myungeun is a spatter of familiarity in between the limbs of strangers. She reappears, Wonwoo's hand in hers, tugging him behind her through the stop-start motion of the strobe lights, camera shutters of moments. Everything smells like smoke and sweat and hints of alcohol on breaths. Everything peaks into a too-loud crash of voices and high hats. Everything is overwhelming, but Myungeun's hand reminds Wonwoo that he's going somewhere, somewhere where everything can just be them.
She lets go of his hand once they're in a fairly secluded hallway, too dark that Myungeun is a part of the shadows and that Wonwoo can't see his hands when he looks down to where they should be, outstretched and upturned. There's still the faint smell of smoke and people, but there is also the smell of the shampoo Myungeun always uses, fresh in her hair like she washed it only a few hours before.
Wonwoo toes his way to the space next to her, copying the way she leans against the wall. They stand there in the silence that settles between introverts who think the darkness holds some kind of sanctity, a home for thought. Wonwoo still tastes the aftertaste of the brunt of someone's grapefruit smoke from an electronic cigarette in the back of his mouth, hears synths staccato in the background.
"I think," Myungeun starts just when Wonwoo's eyes start to adjust to the pitch. Her vague outline beside him taps her chin. "I think," she says again, because this was Myungeun, the beginner of open-ended thoughts, trailed off from where she would settle on the floor of his and Junhui's shared room, escaping the corner of her mouth as she dozed off to sleep.
Wonwoo hears himself swallow. "You think," he echoes, wrapping his arms around himself. Sweaty palms press against his thin t-shirt.
Myungeun takes a moment to reorient herself. When it came to the dark, there were certain ways you had to say things to respect the remembrance and deep thinking that came with the blindness. There were just certain things to say. "I think," she says again, slowly, clearly, a synth in the distance punctuating her words. Wonwoo doesn't know if her eyes find his. "You like me."
A stillness. Laugh from someone further down the hallway, walking towards them. He blinks.
And as that person walks past them, distorting the stillness and silence and sanctity of the darkness lying between them: the smell of Myungeun's shampoo. The imagined sound of her breathing, in time with his. The tingling left in his fingers from where she held onto his hand, an anchor of a boat docking at home, synths murmuring, muffled, in his ears.
Wonwoo doesn't think he likes Myungeun like that. But beyond the aftertaste of that sweetened smoke from someone's electronic cigarette is the taste of a cold, crisp apple on the back of his tongue of the words I do.
Synths and sense. A shiver of nervous energy flowing upwards from his toes. Wonwoo moves closer so their knees touch, feather light, and finds Myungeun's eyes in the darkness. And then closer, and closer, and closer until Myungeun's eyes glance down at his lips.
She covers them with hers.
And then.