fools, after all
pairing: joy/mingyu
genre: romance, slight angst
rating: g
A knock in the middle of the day.
Then, a deep and husky voice.
Joy barely can close her eyes for some quality nap, but the continuous soft taps on her door make the brunette gets up from her favorite caramel couch. She’s rather sleep-deprived lately, with a pile of projects mounting on her desk; unfinished designs and sketches of blueprints.
Linking her fingers onto the door handle, she gently pulled it inside and bright sunlight blinds her eyes for a moment. Then, a figure enters her vision, presenting a tall guy with glowing warm skin, sharp jaw, and jet black hair. Kim Mingyu, she breathes his name slowly.
Mingyu flashes his usual half-smile, almost resembles a smug smirk. It’s too familiar, yet so strange for Joy to see him standing on her door like this. The last time she saw him was two… three years ago. They don’t even talk to each other in that interval of void times, so why does he bother to come here now?
“Long time no see.”
His voice is much deeper, much heavier than what Joy remembers. The years has changed him, Joy thinks. Mingyu was shorter than her the last time they met, and his voice was high-pitched back then. Yet, standing before Joy now, Mingyu is towering over her, greets her with his strange voice.
“What’s the occasion?”
Her voice also sounds weird, but it’s the loud thumping in her chest which has to be blamed. Seeing Mingyu like this evokes the unusual heartbeats she used to have back then, long times ago. Joy isn’t sure why, somehow the memories are just poured all over her, engulfing her in some kind of unwanted nostalgia.
“Mom wants me to deliver this to your mom.” Mingyu hands a plastic bag to her, sweet aroma wafts from the mouth of the bag. Mingyu’s mom specialty, the almond bread, Joy recalls. She used to eat that bread frequently back then, before she and Mingyu drifted apart.
“Mom is out, by the way. But thank you. I’ll tell her later.”
Joy is waiting for him to say his goodbye but the guy stays instead. She draws a long breath, then gestures him to come inside.
They were classmates in elementary school.
Joy hated Mingyu almost as much as she liked him, but she tended to conceal the latter more. She kept her mouth shut about her fondness to Mingyu, and there’s no one ever knows about her real feeling. Their exchange of words back then was filled with wild bickering, insults, and thousand of heartaches. Sometimes, they would make a truce and discuss about stupidest-to-smartest things together, docked in the corner of the library to read books and talked about them for hours.
People say, they are rivals.
Both are bright and excel in their study, both are the icons of their school. The only thing differs Joy and Mingyu is their ambitions. Mingyu is passionate and ambitious, while Joy leans more towards a follow-the-flow type. Perhaps it was Mingyu’s ambitions that drew Joy to him, she loved it when he was smoldering with passion for beating her, although at that time, Mingyu was never once could beat Joy in term of academic rank.
When they graduated, Joy and Mingyu went to the different middle schools and never contacted each other. She thought it was a good thing, so she wouldn’t feel her chest clenched in pain whenever she saw him.
She lied. She contacted him first because she couldn’t bring herself to miss him any longer.
Then high school came and he went to another city to continue his study. At this point, the interaction they made was seldom chatting through social media.
Until that year when they graduated from high school, he came to her house with a bunch of their elementary classmates for a reunion. She had forgotten her first lie about him when Mingyu himself who spoke of it.
Jeon Wonwoo.
The lie came out long ago one day when she was having a sleepover with her friends. The girls talked about everything, including the boys in their class. At that time, Joy was asked who’s the one she liked.
Mingyu. The name was already on the tip of her tongue however, she almost bit her lip when she heard that her best friend at the time also liked him.
It was Wonwoo’s name that she gave out at the end.
No, Joy wasn’t having such a noble heart for the sake of her friendship. Instead, it was her pride which wouldn’t allow her to confess her real feeling about Mingyu, hence, came the lie.
It was supposed to be a secret between the girls. How did Mingyu even find out about it, Joy had no idea. Wonwoo was also there at that time, grinning shyly when Mingyu joked about Joy and him. She knew Wonwoo used to like her, but she was almost sure he didn’t anymore. But even so, her chest throbbed in a great amount of pain when they kept mocking about her “first love”. It wasn’t her being paired with Wonwoo that made her heart hurt, but the fact that Mingyu was the one who threw most of mocking words to her, it tore scars in her heart, so many scars that she was sure her liking of Mingyu would completely disappear, covered by poisonous words he spat.
Now that he’s sitting in across her in her living room, Joy asks herself if she did really no longer like him. Sure enough, her heart still beats faster at the sight of him. But maybe these heartbeats linger because of those scars.
Mingyu still talks about the organization of future students or whatever it is he’s in. Joy isn’t really paid attention to his chatters, and her mind goes on thinking this kind of Mingyu was the one she liked. In fact, it’s weird that now she finds this kind of Mingyu is annoying. Such a big talk. Or maybe it’s only Joy who grows too skeptic for this world.
“Do you remember Wonwoo?”
At the mention of that name, Joy jerks from her wandering mind. She blinks her eyes and tilts her head to her side. “Ugh, why?”
Mingyu’s mouth curls into a teasing smirk, and Joy knows better of what‘s it meaning.
“Your first love.”
Oh, how cruel is he.
“He isn’t.”
Mingyu frowns at her weak response. “You don’t have to deny it. I kno--.” His sentence is unfinished because Joy cuts him off with a tired voice.
“No, Mingyu. Wonwoo isn’t my first love. I lied.”
Mingyu stares at her with confused eyes. “Huh? Then why did you lie?”
Joy breathes slowly, lets the trembling in her chest subdues. A pricked sensation stabs in her throat, makes the words aren’t coming out easily. This kind of feeling is suffocating, she thinks.
“I thought it would be so much better to let everyone knows that Wonwoo was the boy I liked back then than to confess my feeling about…,” she pauses and gives out a relieve sigh in between, for she can talk about this finally,”well, I don’t think you want to know.”
His gaze is demanding, pierces straight to her eyes, searching for an answer. Joy isn’t sure if she should tell him, or leave him hanging on a thin edge like this. She kind of enjoys watching him so restless, fidgeting in his chair.
“Who?”
Joy raises one of her mouth’s corners, stares back at him and rests her gaze on him for long, long times until finally, Mingyu’s jaw drops open in disbelief.
“Me?”
Joy doesn’t answer it, but Mingyu knows. Finally.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth?” His voice is deep with frustration, like he actually minds it if she liked him.
Joy shrugs at his question. “That’s because I hate you, anyway.”
“What a nonsense!” he snaps out.
“It’s nothing, Mingyu,” she said quietly.
“It’s not nothing, Joy. I liked you back then. And when I found out about you and Wonwoo, I just can’t help myself not to be a jerk.” Mingyu runs his slender fingers through his hair while he says it.
“What’s about it? We were twelve at that time and we’re fools. You liked me? You dated many girls right after you entered middle school. You didn’t like me that much, right?”
“I just tried to move on,” he sighs, “how long did you like me?”
Joy can just lie at this question, she lies about many things, after all. The girl closes her eyes and counts back at the times she was in love with Mingyu.
“Three years.”
It is a lie, of course. Joy liked Mingyu for almost six years, and she barely moved on when she met a guy in her college orientation program. It was a small crush, but at least it kept her from thinking about Mingyu over and over again.
“Do you think we have a chance?”
Joy gulps down. Mingyu’s offer is something that will only come out from a dream; it isn’t a real thing. Foremost, she doesn’t even like Mingyu anymore, and she is pretty sure that Mingyu is only caught by the rush of nostalgia.
They’re both fools who are trampled by their own past feelings, yearning for something vague, something they just want to have their grips on it. Like a child who wants a toy to wash away his boredom, just to be ignored later.
They just want to try something they’ve passed before.
genre: romance, slight angst
rating: g
A knock in the middle of the day.
Then, a deep and husky voice.
Joy barely can close her eyes for some quality nap, but the continuous soft taps on her door make the brunette gets up from her favorite caramel couch. She’s rather sleep-deprived lately, with a pile of projects mounting on her desk; unfinished designs and sketches of blueprints.
Linking her fingers onto the door handle, she gently pulled it inside and bright sunlight blinds her eyes for a moment. Then, a figure enters her vision, presenting a tall guy with glowing warm skin, sharp jaw, and jet black hair. Kim Mingyu, she breathes his name slowly.
Mingyu flashes his usual half-smile, almost resembles a smug smirk. It’s too familiar, yet so strange for Joy to see him standing on her door like this. The last time she saw him was two… three years ago. They don’t even talk to each other in that interval of void times, so why does he bother to come here now?
“Long time no see.”
His voice is much deeper, much heavier than what Joy remembers. The years has changed him, Joy thinks. Mingyu was shorter than her the last time they met, and his voice was high-pitched back then. Yet, standing before Joy now, Mingyu is towering over her, greets her with his strange voice.
“What’s the occasion?”
Her voice also sounds weird, but it’s the loud thumping in her chest which has to be blamed. Seeing Mingyu like this evokes the unusual heartbeats she used to have back then, long times ago. Joy isn’t sure why, somehow the memories are just poured all over her, engulfing her in some kind of unwanted nostalgia.
“Mom wants me to deliver this to your mom.” Mingyu hands a plastic bag to her, sweet aroma wafts from the mouth of the bag. Mingyu’s mom specialty, the almond bread, Joy recalls. She used to eat that bread frequently back then, before she and Mingyu drifted apart.
“Mom is out, by the way. But thank you. I’ll tell her later.”
Joy is waiting for him to say his goodbye but the guy stays instead. She draws a long breath, then gestures him to come inside.
They were classmates in elementary school.
Joy hated Mingyu almost as much as she liked him, but she tended to conceal the latter more. She kept her mouth shut about her fondness to Mingyu, and there’s no one ever knows about her real feeling. Their exchange of words back then was filled with wild bickering, insults, and thousand of heartaches. Sometimes, they would make a truce and discuss about stupidest-to-smartest things together, docked in the corner of the library to read books and talked about them for hours.
People say, they are rivals.
Both are bright and excel in their study, both are the icons of their school. The only thing differs Joy and Mingyu is their ambitions. Mingyu is passionate and ambitious, while Joy leans more towards a follow-the-flow type. Perhaps it was Mingyu’s ambitions that drew Joy to him, she loved it when he was smoldering with passion for beating her, although at that time, Mingyu was never once could beat Joy in term of academic rank.
When they graduated, Joy and Mingyu went to the different middle schools and never contacted each other. She thought it was a good thing, so she wouldn’t feel her chest clenched in pain whenever she saw him.
She lied. She contacted him first because she couldn’t bring herself to miss him any longer.
Then high school came and he went to another city to continue his study. At this point, the interaction they made was seldom chatting through social media.
Until that year when they graduated from high school, he came to her house with a bunch of their elementary classmates for a reunion. She had forgotten her first lie about him when Mingyu himself who spoke of it.
Jeon Wonwoo.
The lie came out long ago one day when she was having a sleepover with her friends. The girls talked about everything, including the boys in their class. At that time, Joy was asked who’s the one she liked.
Mingyu. The name was already on the tip of her tongue however, she almost bit her lip when she heard that her best friend at the time also liked him.
It was Wonwoo’s name that she gave out at the end.
No, Joy wasn’t having such a noble heart for the sake of her friendship. Instead, it was her pride which wouldn’t allow her to confess her real feeling about Mingyu, hence, came the lie.
It was supposed to be a secret between the girls. How did Mingyu even find out about it, Joy had no idea. Wonwoo was also there at that time, grinning shyly when Mingyu joked about Joy and him. She knew Wonwoo used to like her, but she was almost sure he didn’t anymore. But even so, her chest throbbed in a great amount of pain when they kept mocking about her “first love”. It wasn’t her being paired with Wonwoo that made her heart hurt, but the fact that Mingyu was the one who threw most of mocking words to her, it tore scars in her heart, so many scars that she was sure her liking of Mingyu would completely disappear, covered by poisonous words he spat.
Now that he’s sitting in across her in her living room, Joy asks herself if she did really no longer like him. Sure enough, her heart still beats faster at the sight of him. But maybe these heartbeats linger because of those scars.
Mingyu still talks about the organization of future students or whatever it is he’s in. Joy isn’t really paid attention to his chatters, and her mind goes on thinking this kind of Mingyu was the one she liked. In fact, it’s weird that now she finds this kind of Mingyu is annoying. Such a big talk. Or maybe it’s only Joy who grows too skeptic for this world.
“Do you remember Wonwoo?”
At the mention of that name, Joy jerks from her wandering mind. She blinks her eyes and tilts her head to her side. “Ugh, why?”
Mingyu’s mouth curls into a teasing smirk, and Joy knows better of what‘s it meaning.
“Your first love.”
Oh, how cruel is he.
“He isn’t.”
Mingyu frowns at her weak response. “You don’t have to deny it. I kno--.” His sentence is unfinished because Joy cuts him off with a tired voice.
“No, Mingyu. Wonwoo isn’t my first love. I lied.”
Mingyu stares at her with confused eyes. “Huh? Then why did you lie?”
Joy breathes slowly, lets the trembling in her chest subdues. A pricked sensation stabs in her throat, makes the words aren’t coming out easily. This kind of feeling is suffocating, she thinks.
“I thought it would be so much better to let everyone knows that Wonwoo was the boy I liked back then than to confess my feeling about…,” she pauses and gives out a relieve sigh in between, for she can talk about this finally,”well, I don’t think you want to know.”
His gaze is demanding, pierces straight to her eyes, searching for an answer. Joy isn’t sure if she should tell him, or leave him hanging on a thin edge like this. She kind of enjoys watching him so restless, fidgeting in his chair.
“Who?”
Joy raises one of her mouth’s corners, stares back at him and rests her gaze on him for long, long times until finally, Mingyu’s jaw drops open in disbelief.
“Me?”
Joy doesn’t answer it, but Mingyu knows. Finally.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth?” His voice is deep with frustration, like he actually minds it if she liked him.
Joy shrugs at his question. “That’s because I hate you, anyway.”
“What a nonsense!” he snaps out.
“It’s nothing, Mingyu,” she said quietly.
“It’s not nothing, Joy. I liked you back then. And when I found out about you and Wonwoo, I just can’t help myself not to be a jerk.” Mingyu runs his slender fingers through his hair while he says it.
“What’s about it? We were twelve at that time and we’re fools. You liked me? You dated many girls right after you entered middle school. You didn’t like me that much, right?”
“I just tried to move on,” he sighs, “how long did you like me?”
Joy can just lie at this question, she lies about many things, after all. The girl closes her eyes and counts back at the times she was in love with Mingyu.
“Three years.”
It is a lie, of course. Joy liked Mingyu for almost six years, and she barely moved on when she met a guy in her college orientation program. It was a small crush, but at least it kept her from thinking about Mingyu over and over again.
“Do you think we have a chance?”
Joy gulps down. Mingyu’s offer is something that will only come out from a dream; it isn’t a real thing. Foremost, she doesn’t even like Mingyu anymore, and she is pretty sure that Mingyu is only caught by the rush of nostalgia.
They’re both fools who are trampled by their own past feelings, yearning for something vague, something they just want to have their grips on it. Like a child who wants a toy to wash away his boredom, just to be ignored later.
They just want to try something they’ve passed before.