@its-creed . . . !
“WHAT are you talking about? did you hear something out there?”
here’s the thing, seonjae hates doing laundry. he’s gotten quite a routine with it, now, and while he’s grateful for consistently clean clothes, he hates the monotony of the process and trying to find an empty laundry room. and since he’s up at odd hours, he tries to take advantage of the fact that not everyone is out doing their laundry when he wants to— and made a habit of trying laundry machines not even on the floor of his apartment in the hopes that it’ll be empty.
he puts his headphones in. he listens to music, and pretends to read whatever magazine he finds in their throwaway pile of mail back at the apartment, and the time goes faster, sometimes, then he anticipates it will. and he doesn’t usually pay attention to people, but he does notice that there’s a familiar face quite a few times, right when he’s doing his laundry, too.
the thing about the familiarity is that seonjae wonders if it’s from when he’s actually seen him before or if he’s seen him in a vision, like when he’s leaning against the machine holding his t-shirts, a blur of colors that bleed away when he sees, hears, something, distantly, a moment before it happens. he sees the color of the stranger’s shirt in his peripheral, until he’s seeing his t-shirts again, unmoving. cotton fresh laundry detergent, a heavy, damp scent. his leather gloved hand pressed to the machine.
it comes out of his mouth as soon as he’s pulled back, because he doesn’t know how distant the vision was, but he is right here. did he miss it while he was seeing?
“not.. yet?” he mumbles, turning around now to look at him. same shirt color, same shitty lighting, green blue fluorescent spilling shadows around them. “i saw— heard—,” the lights flicker. a distant boom! and then they’re plunged into darkness.
“that. did the power go out?” he wonders aloud, even if it’s obvious, he doesn’t know if it’s just a flicker or something more serious. the shadows are inky, like he’s closed his eyes tightly shut, trying to feel around for wherever he’s left his phone.