⋆☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
When Daniel gets the opportunity to visit an old childhood friend in the city, he is ecstatic and decides to use his bigger, more handsome body when they meet.
After all, he isn't too keen on showing her he hadn't changed much at all.
⋆☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
Daniel never had many good memories on Valentines Day.
Every year he would watch his peers receive gifts and confessions, being the odd one out in a town bursting with love. Being someone who wasn't exactly considered handsome, he grew accustomed to being viewed and treated like a mere speck.
It wasn't like he had any special talents he could latch onto, he always preferred to keep them, if there were any, secret.
Lucky for him, he wasn't alone in feeling this way. In fact, his old school had a barrage of losers and geeks being constantly pushed around and turned into shuttles by the popular kids.
Even as he had long left that town, he could still feel the remnants of insecurity and not belonging etched into his mind.
Despite finding friends at Jaewon high, finding a handsome body to dwell in, and even receiving the affections of pretty girls at his school...
Daniel felt as though he didn't earn it.
Could he even do all the things he did if he had been stuck in his fat body? Thinking about it made him shiver.
A part of him always knew why people treated him like trash, yet he never wanted to believe this was the society he lived in.
If you weren't beautiful, you had to be smart.
If you weren't smart, be strong.
If you weren't strong, you'd be him.
How could someone admire a roach like him?
But that day, that particular day in middle school that he'd been on the verge of falling into a deep darkness... something changed.
Logan Lee had brought it upon himself to order his Pikachu again, sending him on near endless trips to and from the school. It was all for the sake of impressing his buddy who was trying to win over a pretty girl from class A.
After that entire menagerie, Daniel found himself slumped against the stairwell with a stained shirt and a discouraged heart.
He wondered if he could just end it all.
Even if he lived anyway, he would just be another squirming worm in the jaws of predators like Logan.
Who would care if he was gone anyway?
Daniel was about to stand up when he felt a weight slump beside him.
He looked up at the figure, gasping to find a scrawny girl with a bruise on her cheek. She had messy hair and her uniform was dirtied like she'd been crawling on the ground.
He didn't dare say a word her way for fear of being on the receiving end of yet another disgusted look.
What he didn't expect was for her to speak first.
"Hey, you're Daniel right?", she asked, her gaze pointed forward.
He straightened up, furrowing his brows in confusion.
"Eh? Oh..Uh..!" He quickly nodded, curious to find someone who wanted to speak with him.
"Can you tell me what people are supposed to do on Valentines Day?"
She looked at him blankly. "I'm just confused by it... It doesn't seem like a big deal."
Who doesn't know about Valentines Day??
Daniel thought about it. "Well... They gift each other chocolate and confess...or...", he explained, finding his words unsatisfactory.
He looked to find the girl was frowning at his words.
What exactly is this day about?
"It's... It's a day to celebrate love, with the people you love", he spoke resolutely.
He thought about it, love... The people he loved, or rather, the person he loved.
"Love can take many forms...", he continued. The person who had been beside him all this time.
"It could be loving a friend... or a lover... or a stranger"
He raised a hand to wipe the moisture forming at the corners of his eyes.
"For me, I love my mom." A faint smile curled on his face. "Even if I'm not the best son, she would care if I suddenly disappeared from this world."
Daniel looked up. "She's the reason why I go on..."
Realizing he'd rambled, a faint blush appeared across his face.
"Ah, I'm sorry... I-"
"I see...", she nodded thoughtfully.
He noticed she was holding a crumpled plastic wrap with melted chocolates inside. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.
She snapped her gaze to him, displeased. He flinched.
"I guess I did...", she confessed, "People are hard to understand..."
He relaxed at this. "Yeah, you bet..."
"I just wanted to give it to a friend..." She went on, Daniel listened losely.
"I guess I can't gift to someone who already has friends..."
"Maybe he has a girlfriend...", Daniel predicted, seeing an idea light up above her head.
"That's right!", she perked up. "He must have..."
She looked at him, smiling. "Do you have a girlfriend, Daniel?"
He flushed. "N-Of course not!"
She looked pleased by this. "What about friends?"
Daniel thought of Logan, but then again, he was more a slave than a friend. He shook his head.
He was surprised to see her run off. Tilting his head, he thought.
What a weirdo...
A few hours later, Daniel walked home alone. Every Valentines Day was hell on earth for him, yet he couldn't help but think.
What if mom thinks the same? He never considered the idea of giving her anything on a day like this. Rummaging through his wallet, he thought about buying her a present.
Before he could, he spotted the same girl running toward him with a relieved face. He was surprised to be faced with her urgency.
She panted as she stopped in front of him, holding onto her knees.
"Daniel!"
She raised her arms, holding out freshly picked wildflowers. The melted chocolate had been refrozen, now weirdly shaped than just liquid.
Daniel thought back to that day with amusement. After that day, that girl would occasionally poke around him during school. She followed him around like she was his friend, she ended up getting bullied too.
After middle school though, she had to move away.
That was when Daniel realized he never really got her name. She ended up being just a pleasant memory in his past. He even began to theorize he had been hallucinating her existence all this time.
So, when he got the call from his old middle school group that a reunion was going to take place, he jumped at the chance.
He immediately returned home and began to sort through his closet.
What was the best way to appear there?
Looking at himself in the mirror, he felt rigid. He usually didn't have to worry about dressing up since he always and only ever wore his school uniform in his old town.
Barely anyone could catch a glimpse of him in home clothes.
After hours of retrying and resorting outfits, he gave up. Laying on the ground, he felt his vision begin to darken as the exhaustion and exhilaration of the day finally overtook him.
When he awoke, he was in his bigger body. He sat up, groaning as he remembered his predicament. Eyeing his sleeping body, he fixated on all his flaws. The features he deemed unseemly.
If he showed up like that, wouldn't he just end up an outcast again?
He looked down at his current figure, an idea forming in his head.
Daniel sat in the grilling place with a nervous deposition; his hands were firmly planted on his thighs as he avoided looking at anyone. His mind was racing.
What would they think? What if they caught onto him?
He waited for hours in his seat, wondering if he'd made a mistake at coming here.
Soon, the restaurant gradually filled with people. They eyed him with curious admiration and confusion.
A girl approached him, Yuna Lee, one of his bullies' girlfriends who used to look at him like he was trash.
He half-expected her to lash out on him, maybe for sitting in a seat she wanted.
Instead, a cute smile splayed across her face as she sat beside him. "Hey there, what's your name?"
More eyes turned to him. Daniel froze, this unexpected development rendering him speechless.
His old schoolmates waited in anticipation for his answer.
His words sent everyone into bursts of shock and disbelief. Soon, they were all crowding him with relentless questions. Others stayed at different tables yet looked at him with jealousy or bashfulness.
"Woah Daniel! My man! You've changed!" Who are you?
"You still remember me, right? You lent me that pen!" You took it though...
"Are you single?" Definitely not for you..
He laughed along with their words, vaguely answering questions.
The attention was all on him tonight.
The day wore on and his classmates ate and conversed. He had rejected about 9 people asking for his number.
And yet... There was still no sign of her.
Those familiar genuine eyes that appeared quite frequently in his dreams.
Is she not going to show up? He held a sullen expression, repeatedly scanning the crowd for even just a glimpse of her.
He looked down at the Yuna who had been stuck on him all night.
"uhm.. excuse me.."
She perked up, looking at him with doe eyes.
"Yesss?"
Somehow, she reminded him of Zoe.
"Do you perhaps know if another classmate of ours is coming?", he asked earning confused looks.
"Well.. I don't know her name but she was about this tall..." He held up his hand, imagining her face.
"Particularly meager, I think she wore her hair in space buns"
Suddenly, laughs began to erupt around him. Even Yuna who had previously only kept a calm and composed look, burst out along with them.
He sweatdropped. What's so funny?
"Oh, you mean, Y/n?", a boy in front of him smirked.
"Y/n..." Her name rolled of his tongue really well. He was quite pleased to finally learn her name.
"Yes..." He replied eagerly.
"She always wore dirty clothes", a whisper came from behind him.
"And she smelled of cigarettes", another responded.
"The whore."
"Whore?" Daniel furrowed his brows, offended by what he had heard.
"I remember on Valentines Day she tried gifting me something", a guy who had been sucking up to him all day spoke, rubbing his head in annoyance.
Daniel clenched his fist.
"Like, who just confesses to guys with girlfriends?" He scoffed, shaking his head.
She wasn't trying to confess.
His fist hit the table before he could think twice, the loud sound reverberating throughout the room. Onlookers were left exasperated as an angered Daniel glared at the boy. Yuna looked at Daniel with fear for a moment, but it quickly twisted into respect.
"Don't say that about her", he threatened.
Silence gre around him, awkward.
"Hey man! I was just being honest..!", the boy tried to defend himself.
Before Daniel could reply, Yuna had spoken first.
"He's right! Maybe she was just being friendly!" She stuck her tongue out at him, crossing her arms with Daniel.
He stood up, leaving the venue. He felt sick being stuck in that establishment all day just to get his crush become the target of mockery. Again.
He never admitted it but a part of him resented himself for letting someone who was so nice to him be ridiculed. Just like his mom.
He'd come all this way trying to show off with what? A body that had appeared out of nowhere?
I haven't changed at all... How could I be so proud of this body when I haven't even done anything to deserve it.
At the end of the day, people loved Big Daniel, not the real him.
They would always prefer the more handsome and tall counterpart.
He managed to find a small bench in the middle of the park, slumping in it. He buried his face in his hands, self-deprication at an all time high.
"Hello? Do you perhaps know were PTJ BBQ House is?"
He shot up in shock, looking up to find the once scrawny girl had grown.
Her cheeks were fuller, her eyes more defined, even her lips seemed less pale than in his dreams.
He flushed. She's still so... beautiful.
"Well?" She frowned, looking impatiently at him.
If only this was my real body...
Panicking, he stammered to answer her only to realize she was heading to the reunion spot.
Then... Maybe we could have showed up together.
He paused, knowing very well what she would end up being greeted with.
And nobody would whisper bad things about her.
His gaze lowered as he debated telling her.
Because she would be hanging out with someone more her level.
His eyes stung at the thought, knowing he had no right to approach her. She had changed so much and grown a lot, yet he still looked the same as always.
He gasped, looking up. He always fell to the ground when he saw her face was now inches from his, locked in a meticulous observation.
"Hmm..." She leaned back, looking disappointed.
"I apologize. I thought you looked like my friend."
He was perplexed. How did she recognize him? He looked down at himself. I look like this body?
"How so?"
Her lips spread into a thin line, embarassed.
"Well.. Your eyes are the same."
His stomach fluttered at this, causing him to straighten up.
Her hand made its way to his face, looking bittersweet.
"But I suppose Daniel wouldn't look like you." She cleared her throat before releasing him.
"His features aren't this sharp, he's a lot cuter that's for sure." She had a rosy tint to her cheeks that made his heart race.
Cute? Daniel thought back to his real body, sleeping in the little hut he called a home in Seoul.
Did she really not mind meeting with someone like that?
"I am Daniel..." He introduced, startling her. She looked suspicious.
"Daniel Park, but I guess not the one you're looking for?"
His smile made her loosen up, she shook his hand.
"Funny enough... I do know another Daniel Park though...", he mentioned. "He said he came from this town."
Her eyes lit up. "Does he wear glasses? He's also got this weird habit of looking nervous."
"That's him!" She looked delighted, clapping her hands together in celebration.
"Is he here too by any chance? We've got a class reunion today", she asked.
Daniel shook his head. He felt his heart being tugged when he saw the way her shoulders rounded as she looked down.
"It's because he's sick..!", He quickly reasoned.
She sighed. "Do... you have his number by any chance?"
He jumped at the opportunity; he couldn't help but grin widely. Whether it was from gratitude or elation, he wasn't sure.
Nevertheless, seeing her doing well after all these years made his day.
Although their reunion was short-lived, it eased his heart. He stood there, never wanting this moment to end. Even after she'd bid him goodbye with a cheerful wave, he didn't leave.
Not even as the sky dimmed and the air grew colder. He only snapped out of his daze by the ping of his phone.
Unknown Number
Daniel? Is this you?
It's Y/n from middle school!
