the fact of the matter is that seunghun’s used to this, or he should be used to this. there’s nothing particularly different about the atmosphere between them and by different he means mannerisms, words, actions. he plops down across from her, it used to be a little away from her when he had a group of friends that used to accompany him but they’ve dispersed in favor of bothering him at different times. he’s not sure why, well he has an idea but the idea is far from the truth. it’s always been far from the truth but with younghee seunghun seems adamant on explaining that it’s not the case. that they’re not dating, that he’s not courting her or whatever the old as fuck language his friends use. dating because well they don’t associate him with commitments. courting because they don’t associate him with family pacts and arrangements. both are wrong but they’re expected and he denies them rather vehemently ( not as much now because of how much energy he’d spent on it before ).
don’t get him wrong he doesn’t mind sharing his friendship with her but when it comes down to it he’d rather not share her with any of his friends. friend is a strong word? his—— acquaintances? the fuckers who steal his food and he’ll still laugh about it? who can throw an arm around his shoulder but hold the conversation for more than thirty minutes. the idiots who will skip with him and not tremble like pussies because they don’t want their parents finding out they skipped history. who the fuck even cares about skipping history. the ones who talk to him with a little bit of an agenda but not much because he can never really be sure. it’s probably that he’s not entirely sure that he’s not too sure of what to label them as and he doesn’t even like labels. either way he doesn’t mind sharing her she’s not someone to share? not like a car or a doll but the friendship is a little more than something that’s open? of course he’d never say this shit out loud but ti’s okay because she calls his friends pigs and seunghun translate that as ‘i wouldn’t want to hang around them anyone’ so he’s fine when his friends take off and leave them whatever the assumptions.
still, he’s used to this, the atmosphere when it’s him and her which as it should be noted isn’t much different as when it’s him, her and some others. he feels special in that she doesn’t act differently when he’s in the picture. that she still shoves her face with as much as she can fit in her small ass hands ( okay they’re not that small they’re kinda small and kinda nicely shaped okay no fuck that they’re small and weird and poke him all the time and he hates it anyway——– ).
she’s shoving combinations of food that he wouldn’t try even if he was baked and honestly she’s got some serious guts to even consider it, he stomach must be reeling in shock. he’s going to write a eulogy for it one day he swears.
“your stomach’s going to give out or kick your ass one day and when that day comes i’m either going to write the greatest eulogy known to man or you’re going to come crying to me.”
the thing is, seunghun’s got guy friends like this, with absolutely no manners and respect for the stomachs of the people they’re sitting with and it leads him to either refuse his own lunch or enter into a competition with them on who can eat the most disgusting combination? he usually wins. he won once when he drank peach soda after pouring some in his kimchi and mixing it with the oil from grilled chicken and garlic. safe to say he spent quite a while in the nurse’s office after but he won! so it’s not that younghee’s a girl. it’s not that seunghun’s not used to weird food bunches shoved into lettuce wraps. it’s none of that shit.
the surface is the same. his face still scrunches up as he watches her, his food remaining untouched until he decides he feels like stomaching anything. it’s the source of another unpleasant rumor, about him needing a personal chef or he won’t eat the cafeteria food. if someone actually thought seunghun had the time to hire a personal chef at the school cafeteria they didn’t know him at all. first of all that’s a whole lot of attention and a whole lot of work and decisions he’s not about to engage in. second of all he was the least picky person out of his friends and especially in his family. he could care less about what he fit into his throat. “no i’m not eating. i’m gonna starve because of you you cruel woman my appetite has left the building, i’ll call it back tomorrow.”
that’s another reason why her manners didn’t bother him initially. he’s the same! despite being raised on strict table mannerisms and etiquette seunghun would like to consider himself pretty normal when it came to eating. he would shove what he could if he had to hurry to class and if he was excited and laughing sometimes the food would spill out at unsavory intervals. people usually went along with it, considered themselves lucky that he loosened around them. he really didn’t see a need to keep up mannerisms unless he was with his parents or at an important event. so what the hell man he can’t even berate her when he’s the same!
the first time he saw her shove the lettuce in her mouth he doubled over and fired so many insults she nearly beat him with the tray she had with her. the first time she nearly spilled milk she was downing out her nose he was so disgusted and amused he didn’t get a chance to touch his food he was laughing so hard. it’s settled into a comfortable acceptance that she’s not going to eat normally from this point on but it’s just————- when he scowls at her now it threatens to soften. when he moves to yank at her cheeks he’s also eyeing the rice bits on her cheek that he could easily brush off. he doesn’t. but the thought is there! the thought that sometimes he’s doesn’t even notice his food sitting before him because he’s just staring. staring?! like a fucking creep and he thinks maybe he’s fascinated by how much food she can fit in there without bursting her cheeks and well———— that’s creepy too let’s be honest.
“you’re going to enter a food coma and leave me all here by myself. or you’re going to break a world record and still leave me by myself. buuuuuuuuuuut,” he breaks from what could be considered a one-on-one creeper staring contest to give her the worst possible aegyo-filled smile he could muster. “if you are going to get a banana milk you can get your favorite seunghun one too?” given the circumstances he would say he did well.
“wouldn’t you love to see that? me, crying.” she teases with a sly lop-sided grin. she doesn’t claim to have never cried, because she has. sometimes nights were spent doing that exactly and the reason she didn’t like watching romantic movies was because of how effortlessly every plot, main or side, makes her cry. it’s just his luck he hasn’t been in the movies with her. more so, her luck. she doesn’t know whether she wanted him to see all that. but there was part of her that did. because despite knowing ‘who she is’, he hasn’t stopped being himself. somehow everyone else that did has stopped and it’s why she’d felt so isolated in the face of being surrounded by everyone. the irony.
then there’s the complex fact that he might not be ready. no one’s ever known how to handle a crying younghee. the rare times she trusted someone to hold her while she bears her vulnerable side, all that happened was panic. because younghee is strong, younghee is always smiling, younghee has a lion heart. younghee doesn’t get affected by anything, younghee doesn’t dance around issues. younghee, the iron lady. rosie the riveter, who? she’s no match to younghee. no one ever knows what to do in a situation they don’t expect. with all these perceptions tied to her public character, she’s no special case.
honestly, if she hadn’t eaten all that, she would try to endure eating his share even when it wasn’t very tasty just for the sake of teasing him some more. he gets irritated. sometimes she wonders why he continued to hang around her with that as the case. and for a second, she slips into a delusion. that maybe she was an exception to this non-existent ideal type she imagines he has or that she was the girl that broke it. he’s broken. not in the heart-way. she means broken in the way that he’d lost a good deal of sensibility. his sense of good judgement, very much like every other guy who tried. she shrugs it off, however. there’s just no way. no way. “well, that’s a waste.” another jab, another loaded statement. it’s a response to him refusing his food but at the same time, she’s self-projecting. “and very unfortunate.”
it’s such a waste of thought, such a waste of all the courage she’s always had the pride of having, that she’s backing down so easily. and very unfortunate indeed. in her defense, it’s because this is seunghun and there was a lot to lose. “i’m not taking any of that. i’m full now.” cue another burp, though smaller and quieter than the previous because she just forced it out. in this moment, she’s wishing she could just push it all aside and be more like herself. she’s still herself, but the exaggerations of the comfort she usually had around him was on excess. seunghun isn’t dumb. he’ll pick up on it sooner or later, one way or another. that’s the part she dreads.
"you should be honored i'm like this in front of you. you're the only one i’m ever like this with." she probably shouldn't have said that but how her words were mumbled, she's a little affirmed he didn't hear it. the last thing she wanted was to scare the living daylights out of him with a suggestion of a crush. crush; such an infantile word, and should stay as it is. contrary to that, she hasn't lived long enough for that kind of short-term 'end game' and it wouldn't be wise to put the idea of it forward for his consideration. it’ll be complicated. her life as it is was, so was she of a person as is. there was just so much at stake. so, so much. as she thinks this, there’s a sigh that comes out of her. she hadn’t realized she’d drifted off into reverie long enough that she was staring at him wistfully, chin rested on her palm with a slight frown.
she tries to shift that around, nonetheless. instead of a snappy look-away, she subtly rolls her eyes elsewhere as if her mind was going a mile a minute about things that matter more importantly when it was just circling around him, on and on and on. it’s even more fueled by his incessant talk of being left behind. why did it matter if she did leave him? he had plenty of friends. maybe she can sympathize with him feeling lonely in a sea of people, but so can many others. she wasn’t the only misfit. he’s proof to that. he’ll find many others who can relate to him. the same way she’s convincing herself how insubstantial her role in his life was, she did with her feelings towards him. maybe it’s just fired up by the thought that he’d be the only one who’ll ever understand her. how it’s like, how she is, how she preferred things to be.
but what if that’s not even the case? what if she just liked him so much, she’s persuaded herself enough that he actually understood her. their friendship was built on adventures and banter, and more adventures. just what she prayed for, it was dreamy. “breaking a world record would be awesome...” and it does sound like a neat idea. that, she wouldn’t back down from if there was potential. actually, she finds more potential in that than them sharing something more than a friendship.
his following words catches her attention, shifting her gaze set on somewhere far back to him, and she’s taken aback because it comes sudden. the aegyo. she wasn’t prepared for it, never will no matter how many times he does it even just to make her laugh.
she doesn’t laugh this time around. instead, she feels a burn creeping up her cheeks. she closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. that’s a blush, for sure. the next thing she expects is for him to notice and tease her for it. there’s no way he’ll miss it, with how pale her skin were. any other color that appears would be so visible, it slaps you in the face. her words were contrary to the uncontrollable reaction, “what was that for? jesus...” how many times she’s put a holy name in vain just shows how much she’s caught off guard. “now my appetite’s gone.” she says in jest with a shake of her head, but her evasive eyes hide the secret of her cyclic thoughts that centered on him.
the aegyo works, really. all the time. the difference now is that she hasn’t come to terms on how to acknowledge the effort and how cute it actually was with all these feelings coming to the surface. “fine, i’ll get you one.” she stands up with her tray of empty dishes, deeply sighing, before the smile curls her lips upward finally. she attempts to hide it with more sighing and biting down her lip and her walking faster than he would want to keep up with.
ugh, feelings are so gross and complicated.
