The One Who (Almost) Got Away [1/2]
A/N: I’ve been sitting on quite a few stories for a while because of bad writing inertia (*exasperated face*) But I was determined to finish this one, to belatedly celebrate the band’s new single- Cinderella. I hope you guys like this one; its basically an imagining of their MV with Yongseo in it and a little something extra ;)
The one who wants (no strings on me)
He doesn’t expect her hands coming up against him, bracing against his shoulders, keeping him away.
He doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t move.
“What are you doing?”
His eyelids flutter open.
Seo-hyun’s eyes are large and unwavering, staring at him in the dark of the car wash. All around them, there is the whirr and gentle splash of water being layered over the car. It should be peaceful, especially paired with the strains of Mozart coming out from his car music player (her choice, not his). But it isn’t- the mood is gone and he leans back. “What do you mean, what I’m doing? Isn’t it obvious? Kissing you?”
He leans in again, but once again her hands are there, pushing him back and this time, he does let a sigh escape his lips as he leans back into his own side of the car. “Seo-hyun. Where is this coming from? I mean…” Here, he coughs, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “We’ve done a lot more than this.” A lot more would probably be the understatement of the century.
“Exactly.” Seo-hyun fires back. Unlike Yong-hwa, she obviously feels no such embarrassment towards alluding towards their bedroom activities. “We’ve done all of it, and more together. But that was our deal - friends with benefits, nothing more, nothing less.”
Her eyes narrow. “So, Yong-hwa, let me ask you your own question. Where is this coming from?”
Yong-hwa’s not an idiot. He knows what she’s referring to. The taking her out to dinner. The nightly phone calls. The attempts at hand-holding, and yes, God forbid, kissing. All these are not part of the friends-with-benefits package.
Sitting there in the dark with the mechanical swipers coming to a gentle halt, Yong-hwa knows he has to give her an answer. An answer he’s been mulling over for perhaps a while.
But the car washing session is over and first, he puts his car in gear, driving them out from the cavernous dark of the car wash and into the bright afternoon sun.
He stops the car, and all is quiet. He can hear each breath Seo-hyun takes. He does not look at her.
“I don’t want us to be that anymore.” He tells her, softly. “I want us to be real. I want this to be real.”
Now there is just pure silence, growing, developing, blooming and eating up the car, and Yong-hwa realizes belatedly that he should say something more. “Joo-hyun, I…”
She gets there first.
First comes the click of the seatbelt, the whirr of the strap as it gets sucked back into place and something in that noise kicks Yong-hwa into a mounting panic and he reaches out, not thinking, latching onto her wrist. “Seo-hyun, wait. Please.”
She shakes him off viciously, but it is something in her tone that jerks his gaze to her face. “I told you,” she grits out through clenched teeth and Yong-hwa can swear that he feels her shaking. “I told you that I don’t do any of this boyfriend-girlfriend thing; I told you that there would be none of this dating shit. I told you.”
“Joo-hyun,” Her real name slips out, unbidden and when she looks at him full for the first time, he realizes with a start that there are tears beading in her eyes. Why is she crying? Why would she cry?
“Don’t.” In spite of her tears, she enunciates coldly, and her words might as well be a verbal slap. She pulls her wrist free of him. “Don’t ever try to speak to me again.”
And just like that, Seo-hyun yanks open the car door, steps out into the sunlight and walks away.
The one that makes you think (love at first sight)
The laundromat is not a nice place.
The floors are always sticky, the machines jam too much (and eat your change) and you always get weirdos and crazies shuffling in and out especially, if you do your laundry too late at night.
Call him a bad cliche though, but Yong-hwa likes the laundromat. He likes seeing the different types of people who come in- the overworked mother with the whining child on her arm, the well-dressed bachelor obviously living alone and who does laundry for one, and of course, the college students who come in at all times of day. Just like him. It’s always a peaceful hour at the laundromat- he’ll bring his headphones and notebook, just sit there and decompress, thinking about nothing and everything in particular while catching up with his music.
Plus, there’s always her.
He doesn’t always see her- it really depends on what time he comes in; if he’s here at 3 am, shoving clothes into the washer because he has literally only the clothes he has on left, she’s not here. Obviously she has her priorities straight- like doing her laundry at more reasonable hours. Yong-hwa sometimes exchanges a glance, a smile and a nod with her, never anything more. He doesn’t even know her name.
So when he walks in on Sunday night with his own load, it’s a pleasant surprise to see her at her usual machine (near the back of the shop in the corner).
She’s not alone though; she has a friend with her this time. And this friend looks heavily intoxicated, swaying alone on the top of the adjacent machine, talking and waving so furiously that Yong-hwa is half afraid she’s going to fall off the machine.
Still, it’s no matter to him. He heads to his own favourite machine, just a row in front of hers, unpacking his clothes quietly.
He can’t help it if her intoxicated friend is talking way too loudly for this to be a private conversation. It’s not eavesdropping if it’s loud enough for everyone in the laundromat to hear, right?
“I…” Mystery Girl’s friend says loudly. “Am swearing off all boys. Especially,” She holds up a finger, slumping to the side, even as Mystery Girl reaches over to prop her up hastily. “Ones that are younger than me. I just can’t.”
“Okay, unnie.” Mystery Girl replies absently, preoccupied with adding the soap powder to her laundry. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
He assumes their conversation is over until there is a gasp so loud and sudden, Yong-hwa looks back in fear that she really did fall off the machine. Mystery Girl looks up too in sudden panic. “What is it, unnie?”
Yong-hwa realizes with a jolt that Drunk Girl is looking right at him. Pointing at him. He wonders if he should turn back around and mind his own business.
Mystery Girl on the other hand looks appropriately mortified, bowing quickly to him in apology and greeting (which he returns) and dragging her unnie’s hand back down. “Unnie! You can’t just point at... random people in the laundromat.”
Her unnie obviously hears and realizes none of this, jumping off the machine and with a jolt, Yong-hwa realizes she is coming over. To him. This is a first. Being accosted by drunk strangers in the laundromat.
Mystery Girl has abandoned her own load, starting over to rein in her drunk friend, but too late, her friend is already standing beside him and there is a dopey smile on her face. “Hi. You must be Laundromat Boy.”
Yong-hwa looks around briefly. Unless she’s talking to the middle-aged man with a pot belly on the other end of the laundromat, scowling suspiciously at them, it is a good bet that she is in fact, addressing him. “I guess…? Hi.”
Drunk Girl runs a hand up his biceps, and he recoils slightly, teetering between why the hell did I wear a singlet to do my laundry and holy crap, I’m being felt up in the laundromat by a drunk girl.
But what Drunk Girl does next surprises him even more.
She leans in, in what is obviously meant to be a conspiratorial manner, but just reveals how drunk she really is. “Maknae thinks you’re cute.”
He blinks, looking over at Mystery Girl, who is almost on them at this point. “What?”
“She thinks you’re really cute.” Drunk Girl yells this part out, obviously giving up on any subterfuge at this point of time. ‘She always denies it- because she’s Seo-hyun, she always denies these things, but she told us you were really cute and into music and that you have really awesome arms-- mphhhhhgg!”
This last part is of course, Mystery Girl- Seo-hyun- clapping her hand over her unnie’s mouth, dragging her into what looks like a headlock.
Her face is bright flaming red.
“Please ignore my Tae-yeon unnie.” She says with as much calm as one can muster when her drunk friend has just blurted out a huge secret to all and sundry. She tightens her grip on her struggling friend. “She just broke up with her boyfriend, and she’s obviously drunk, so you know. Just forget everything she said. It’s obviously not true. Any of it.”
Her friend- Tae-yeon- manages to wrest her mouth from Seo-hyun’s hand. “I can testify, maknae. You are right. He has awesome arms… mphghsg!”
Seo-hyun smiles politely, winningly, dragging her unnie away as she does so. At this point, Tae-yeon is making grabby hands in the air, and Yong-hwa has to bite back a smile at the two girls. “We’ll just leave you to your evening. Sorry for bothering you.”
She pulls her friend out of the shop, ignoring the scowls of the older man in the corner and Yong-hwa watches them go.
When Seo-hyun comes back in 45 minutes after, noticeably Tae-yeon-less, Laundromat Boy is gone. Thank God.
She allows herself to sink against a nearby machine, pressing her hand to her face. That was… so embarrassing. (Like hide-your-head-in-the-sand-ostrich-embarrassing. Like Top 10 Embarrassing Moments in Seo Joo-hyun’s Life.) She’s never going to come back here again… and she’s never going to mention cute boys at the laundromat to her friends, ever. (Did she really talk about his arms that much?? She’s sure she didn’t. Her unnies are as per usual exaggerating and oh god, now she’s never going to live it down.)
But when she stops by her machine, she sees that her clothes are already tumbling pleasantly in the dryer and are not still lying damp in the washing machine like she would have expected. There is a folded note atop her machine.
She opens it.
You owe me a coffee.
Below that is a phone number, and it is signed off simply- Laundromat Boy with Amazing Arms.
The one who gives you (the music in me)
It is supposed to be another ordinary day.
Yong-hwa wakes up a good five minutes after his alarm goes off as he usually does, and spends another half an hour lazing in bed, while listening to the new Halsey album on loop. He finally drags himself out of bed, into the shower and meets Jung-shin in the cafeteria for breakfast (it is a Tuesday, and only Jung-shin has no early classes like him on Tuesdays).
Then he heads off to the library with the maknae - not quite part of an ordinary day for Jung Yong-hwa - but he has an essay due and a mid-term coming up and so some research is necessary.
Jung-shin excuses himself first- he has a class before lunch, but Yong-hwa lingers a little longer, picking out the books he needs so that when he leaves the library, his hands are stacked full. He doesn’t want to make a second trip, except to return these books.
So far, nothing exactly out of the ordinary.
It’s at the steps of the library that his world shifts out of joint. Literally.
He’s certain he took one too many books and that doubt only solidifies when he’s busy juggling them all to look where he’s going properly. So really, it is almost inevitable (almost like fate) that he suddenly feels a slight nudge out of the left field, the collision of his body with what feels like a shoulder.
Just like that, he is stumbling, books falling from his arms all over the stairs. It’s lucky that he barely managed to retain his own balance; that he didn’t twist an ankle or fall down himself- but then again, that could be due to the hand gripping his forearm tightly.
He looks up, an instinctive curse just on the tip of his tongue but he gives thanks that he’s able to swallow it back because wow, he would definitely not wanted her to have heard that.
“Are you okay? I’m so sorry. I should have looked where I was going.”
She is definitely not a student, he decides. For one, she’s dressed too well to be a college student, with her delicately ruffled blouse and slim pencil skirt, with a cardigan over. For a moment, he thinks she might be the librarian (but really, don’t hot librarians only happen in fantasies?), but when he snaps back to it, she’s already kneeling down on the steps, helping to gather his books, which gets his own butt in gear. A few other students are helping, and he takes his books back with murmured thanks.
She holds on to the last book which he dropped but there is an odd smile on her face. “Cognitive Psychology.” She comments, passing it back to him. “Interesting topic.”
He shifts the books in his arm, making space for this last one. “Yeah. It’s my major. Psychology, that is. Not Cognitive Psychology.”
He mentally steps on his own foot because seriously? Rambling? Not cool.
Still, the indulgent smile she gives him is a little like the sun coming out, and briefly he wonders how all it takes is one little bump to get him to see the world (or maybe just her) in a completely different light.
“Interesting,” is all she says, before turning on her heel and returning to climbing the steps to the library.
No, he tells her back silently. Interesting is your smile. Interesting is you. Heck, ‘interesting’ doesn’t even begin to half cover that.
And Yong-hwa turns around, headed back for his dorm room where his head is already beginning to steam over with fragments of phrase and song lyrics about the random girl he bumped into on the steps, where the many books that he painstakingly borrowed from the library will sit in a corner, assignment plain forgotten.
It doesn’t even surprise him a week later, when his tutor announces the new teaching assistant for his Cognitive Psychology module- a Miss Seo Joo-hyun, who although is resplendent in a turquoise dress, has the same smile from that day on the steps.
Part II here.