Lonely Hearts Club (2/?)
Lonely Hearts Club (2/?)
Kai/Krystal, Myungsoo/Krystal
Slice of life-ish | 2362 words
→ I wanted this chapter to be longer but life sucks
The thing that Soojung likes the most about the person behind the username Nobody whom she started befriending since a little over a year ago is that with him, she can be frank about herself and her thoughts. He’s not someone who judges, as far as she’s concerned, and even if he does judge, he’s not someone she knows in her real, everyday life, who may affect it. They never exchanged anything beyond names and some tiny, random details of themselves. The thing about friendships that are built over the Internet is that it’s easy to turn away from them. Just delete your account and erase whatever traceable information you might have left, and poof.
Not that Soojung’s going to do that. She hasn’t found any reason to turn away from him and erase him from her life. Right now she’s comfortable with him and her friendship with him, and she has no intention to do any alternation to that.
Without realizing she’d start speaking about things she would never tell others, like the loneliness she sometimes feels especially when she comes home to an empty and dark house with no one to greet her, and nobody who she just can call without a second thought when her insomnia revisits and she can’t fall asleep at night.
Loneliness is such a scary thing, don’t you think? Like a blackhole. It still manages to continue sucking you in no matter how much effort you’ve put in to get away from it.
She doesn’t know where she gained the courage to confess her deepest feelings from, but somehow he does have that sort of ability to make her speak her mind with him. And not too long later, she gets a reply.
It is. Are you afraid of loneliness?
She ponders over his question for a while and glances over to scan her quiet and empty house. She’s gotten used to being alone ever since she was much younger. Of course, she’s had friends, but never one that she completely trusts and truly relies on, like the ones you’d often hear or see from books and television. Soojung has never been able to open up to others that easily. Even Jinri, the closest friend she has now doesn’t know every little detail about. Rather than not being able to trust someone, she is more afraid of being let down by them for expecting too much. Therefore, she doesn’t expect anything from anyone and learned to live by herself.
I think I’m more afraid to admit of being lonely.
And why is that?
She thinks back to all those moments in her life where she felt lonely, those days when she woke up sweating profusely after a terrible nightmare to find no one to ask for comforting words so she can go back to sleep, those nights when she came home after a long, tiring day to an empty and dark house, but was always too prideful to admit she felt so.
Admitting that also means admitting that you’re weak, that you need someone to do things or to feel better. I hate showing my vulnerability to others. Maybe I care too much about my pride, but I just don’t want to be looked down at.
His reply comes a little late, but he’s just taking his time reading and composing his words. She knows that much.
That’s alright. Now that I know your weaknesses, and you know mine, let’s not hurt each other.
It made her feel really good, happy even that she finally has someone who truly understands the kind of thoughts she’d start developing on those days when depression itches to wrap itself around her. Finally there is someone who not just understands her fears, but also helps to embrace her insecurities. Not every day you can find a person who is able to shift a serious conversation to a silly talk and detect something out of the seemingly meaningless ramblings of yours.
The clock strikes four and she’s still wide awake, staring at their messages. It has become a habit that she doesn’t know if she will grow out of although she knows she needs too, given how often she gets sleepy in class nowadays. But it is worth it, she thinks, rereading their past messages. He is worth it.
She’s just about to doze off when she hears knocks on her door, so she buries her head under the pillow hoping it will help, but the knocks only grow louder and don’t really stop. Finally giving in, she curses under her breath as she grabs a hoodie and puts it on while making her way to the door.
Opposite her stands a young guy much taller than her with neat mop of hair, deep, piercing eyes and a friendly smile that overturns into a frown upon seeing her. “Um,” Soojung begins but not quite sure where should she start.
He interrupts instead. “Unless my brother started living with a girl and never told me about it, I think I got the wrong house.”
She’s feeling lethargic and very in need of sleep, however she still manages to produce a chuckle. “Who are you looking for?” she inquires.
“Do you perhaps know a Kim Jongin?”
“Kim Jongin?” she raises a brow and studies the guy, wondering if he’s someone from their university as she doesn’t think she’s seen him before. “That guy who’s always so dark and broody and acts like some cool guy from a drama or something?”
This time it’s the guy who laughs. It’s melodious and somewhat comedic. “You describe him quite precisely. And yes, I believe he’s the one I’m looking for.”
Soojung points at the door across the hallway. “He’s over there.”
“Thank you. And sorry for disturbing your… sleep? Doesn’t really look like you’re just napping.”
“You can tell?” Almost automatically her hand flies up to cover her mouth, surprised and slightly embarrassed.
He shrugs and laughs sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m quite a night owl myself.”
“Oh,” comes as her response.
Before the conversation could further prolong, the unmistakeable deep voice of Jongin’s comes from the direction of the staircase. Both Soojung and the newly somewhat acquainted stranger turn their head at once and find the said man nearing them, brows knitted together questioningly. “Hyung? Why are you here?” he asks with a baffled face.
“Looking for you, of course.”
His frown doesn’t disappear. “Then why are you here?”
“Um, apparently I received the wrong address so I knocked someone else’s door instead?”
The guy looks at Soojung again as Jongin only gives them a prolonged stare before he proceeds to unlock the door to his own room. They exchange a shrug, and the former’s face breaks into a smile again. “Um, as you probably already know, Jongin’s got quite a temper, sorry about that. Anyway thank you very much, and sorry again about your sleep, uh…”
“That’s okay. It’s So―”
“I’m closing the door!” Jongin glares, his hand on the knob.
“Hey!” he retaliates, then laughs. “I need to go now before he locks me out. See you again, I guess.”
With that, she watches him walk away towards the opposite door and catches another smile from him when he glances around just before the door closes behind him.
Soojung greets Jinri with an empty coffee can in her hand and a stack of files in the other, her hair’s a mess and her scarf’s falling off over her shoulder, earning a scowl from the latter who offers to carry the pile for her.
“Do you even sleep, Soojung?” she asks, taking the can instead when Soojung refuses her help.
Now that her hand is free, Soojung takes this chance to fix her scarf and brushes her hair off her face. “Sleep? Oh, you mean that thing humans do?”
“I’m serious! Look at your eye bags.”
Soojung flashes a smile at her friend and slides her hand around Jinri’s arm as they walk, taking advantage of Jinri’s height to lean on her slightly. “Don’t worry Jinri, I sleep alright.”
“And falling asleep in class is considered alright to you?” she fires accusingly. When Soojung gives her a how-did-you-know look complete with furrowed eyebrows, she only responds with a smirk. “I know everything, Jung Soojung. Don’t lie to me.”
Soojung is quiet for a while but then breaks into a smile again. “Well, tell your informant that he should fix his sleeping habits too. At least I only sleep. He snores.”
Jinri opens her mouth to say something but Soojung’s already slipping her hand out and taking steps away. She nags more and Soojung only chuckles before the latter waves her off and heads to class.
Jongin is there at the bus stop when she arrives. He looks up at her but says nothing in acknowledgement, not even the tiniest bit of a smile.
Autumn scent is in the air; she can smell it in the soft yet cold breeze. The leaves are flooding the pavement, and some even overflow onto the main road. They rattle by as cars continue to race down the street. With her earphone plugged in, Soojung takes a seat at the other end of the bench, pulls out her novel which she started months ago but never bothered to finish and begins to read in silence.
Just then, her phone buzzes inside her pocket so she pulls it out and slides her finger over the screen to unlock. A name too familiar to her heads the new text, which turns out to be a photo of a packet of instant noodles. After staring at the photo for a little longer, she notices the tear at the corner of the packet, and guesses it’s caused by a rat that he has mentioned several times before which she named Troy (he named the stray cat that always leaves fish bones in front of her door Sharpay, after the movie he admitted to secretly enjoy watching). Along with it only a simple emoticon is attached that reads “D:”
Chuckling, she types back a reply almost too quickly.
Can’t believe Troy did this to you.
She presses ‘send’ and inquisitively glances at Jongin who happens to be typing something on his phone. He quickly realizes her eyes on him and looks at her sharply. “What?” he mutters.
Soojung shakes her head and pockets her phone back. “Nothing,” she mumbles. “Who was that guy who came the other day?” she dares herself to ask.
“Why do you want to know?” he shoots back.
She huffs. “Can’t I ask?”
For a while Jongin keeps silent so she figures he’s not going to answer, but he does. “My brother.”
“Oh,” comes as her only reply. Neither of them says anything anymore afterwards.
Their bus arrive a couple of minutes later and there are just enough seats for them. She proceeds to the farthest corner while he fills the one in front.
The bus gets more crowded the more stops they reach. Two stops after they got on, a frail looking grandmother comes on-board. From behind Soojung watches as Jongin leaves his seat to assist the grandmother there kindly, even carrying her bag for her and making a small chat. Without realizing a smile grows across her lips, amused at this rather mysterious guy she both does and doesn’t know at the same time.
She writes to Nobody that night, still replaying the scene she witnessed earlier in her head. As her thoughts and the noises in her house fade in the background, she rests her chin down on her folded arms and closes her eyes for a moment.
Humans are interesting.
His reply doesn’t take long. Sometimes she wonders if, just like her, he uses their conversations as a medium to distract himself from his thesis.
You only realize that now?
Soojung goes away to refill her drink and grabs something to snack on, and when she returns, there is another message from him.
What made you think so?
Again, she recalls the scene while turning her head to the door. The guy who lives across her door, she learned, is quiet and aloof and slightly bad-tempered, perhaps a little strange too. However the incident today completely changed her perspective of him, and she discovered a whole new side of him that she would have never guessed existed.
Just that, just when you thought you know someone, it turns out that you don’t, and probably you never will completely know them. And I mean it in a good way.
Well, I guess that’s why we shouldn’t be quick to judge.
A couple of months after they became friends, he asked her about the reason behind the username of her choice, Ophelia, when she was, just like tonight and almost every other night, battling sleep.
Are you by any chance losing your mind like Ophelia did?
She scoffed at his question but knew that he meant it as a joke.
No. At least not yet.
Notify me when it happens so I can cut off ties with you.
So it happened again; their meaningless banter. It always starts with a simple question or statement, and then drags on for so long that they both forget how it even began. At last after a while, they went back to the original question like they always do.
I just think that it’s a pretty name.
And it is the truth.
Out of curiosity, she returned the question to him. She didn’t expect anything grand or a sob story that comes along with it, but then she didn’t really expect anything because having known him for a while, she knows for a fact that he’s always unpredictable. And true enough, he is.
You know how we get notifications when someone comments on something of ours or starts following us, right? I just thought it’d be amusing to receive notifications that say “Nobody left a comment on your post” or “Nobody started following you”. I guess you can say my intention was purely to troll. But hey, it’s creative.
As stupid as it was, it did make her laugh.
Whatever you say, Myungsoo.
__________________
CHAPTERS:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Kai/Krystal, Myungsoo/Krystal
Slice of life-ish | 2362 words
→ I wanted this chapter to be longer but life sucks
The thing that Soojung likes the most about the person behind the username Nobody whom she started befriending since a little over a year ago is that with him, she can be frank about herself and her thoughts. He’s not someone who judges, as far as she’s concerned, and even if he does judge, he’s not someone she knows in her real, everyday life, who may affect it. They never exchanged anything beyond names and some tiny, random details of themselves. The thing about friendships that are built over the Internet is that it’s easy to turn away from them. Just delete your account and erase whatever traceable information you might have left, and poof.
Not that Soojung’s going to do that. She hasn’t found any reason to turn away from him and erase him from her life. Right now she’s comfortable with him and her friendship with him, and she has no intention to do any alternation to that.
Without realizing she’d start speaking about things she would never tell others, like the loneliness she sometimes feels especially when she comes home to an empty and dark house with no one to greet her, and nobody who she just can call without a second thought when her insomnia revisits and she can’t fall asleep at night.
Loneliness is such a scary thing, don’t you think? Like a blackhole. It still manages to continue sucking you in no matter how much effort you’ve put in to get away from it.
She doesn’t know where she gained the courage to confess her deepest feelings from, but somehow he does have that sort of ability to make her speak her mind with him. And not too long later, she gets a reply.
It is. Are you afraid of loneliness?
She ponders over his question for a while and glances over to scan her quiet and empty house. She’s gotten used to being alone ever since she was much younger. Of course, she’s had friends, but never one that she completely trusts and truly relies on, like the ones you’d often hear or see from books and television. Soojung has never been able to open up to others that easily. Even Jinri, the closest friend she has now doesn’t know every little detail about. Rather than not being able to trust someone, she is more afraid of being let down by them for expecting too much. Therefore, she doesn’t expect anything from anyone and learned to live by herself.
I think I’m more afraid to admit of being lonely.
And why is that?
She thinks back to all those moments in her life where she felt lonely, those days when she woke up sweating profusely after a terrible nightmare to find no one to ask for comforting words so she can go back to sleep, those nights when she came home after a long, tiring day to an empty and dark house, but was always too prideful to admit she felt so.
Admitting that also means admitting that you’re weak, that you need someone to do things or to feel better. I hate showing my vulnerability to others. Maybe I care too much about my pride, but I just don’t want to be looked down at.
His reply comes a little late, but he’s just taking his time reading and composing his words. She knows that much.
That’s alright. Now that I know your weaknesses, and you know mine, let’s not hurt each other.
It made her feel really good, happy even that she finally has someone who truly understands the kind of thoughts she’d start developing on those days when depression itches to wrap itself around her. Finally there is someone who not just understands her fears, but also helps to embrace her insecurities. Not every day you can find a person who is able to shift a serious conversation to a silly talk and detect something out of the seemingly meaningless ramblings of yours.
The clock strikes four and she’s still wide awake, staring at their messages. It has become a habit that she doesn’t know if she will grow out of although she knows she needs too, given how often she gets sleepy in class nowadays. But it is worth it, she thinks, rereading their past messages. He is worth it.
She’s just about to doze off when she hears knocks on her door, so she buries her head under the pillow hoping it will help, but the knocks only grow louder and don’t really stop. Finally giving in, she curses under her breath as she grabs a hoodie and puts it on while making her way to the door.
Opposite her stands a young guy much taller than her with neat mop of hair, deep, piercing eyes and a friendly smile that overturns into a frown upon seeing her. “Um,” Soojung begins but not quite sure where should she start.
He interrupts instead. “Unless my brother started living with a girl and never told me about it, I think I got the wrong house.”
She’s feeling lethargic and very in need of sleep, however she still manages to produce a chuckle. “Who are you looking for?” she inquires.
“Do you perhaps know a Kim Jongin?”
“Kim Jongin?” she raises a brow and studies the guy, wondering if he’s someone from their university as she doesn’t think she’s seen him before. “That guy who’s always so dark and broody and acts like some cool guy from a drama or something?”
This time it’s the guy who laughs. It’s melodious and somewhat comedic. “You describe him quite precisely. And yes, I believe he’s the one I’m looking for.”
Soojung points at the door across the hallway. “He’s over there.”
“Thank you. And sorry for disturbing your… sleep? Doesn’t really look like you’re just napping.”
“You can tell?” Almost automatically her hand flies up to cover her mouth, surprised and slightly embarrassed.
He shrugs and laughs sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m quite a night owl myself.”
“Oh,” comes as her response.
Before the conversation could further prolong, the unmistakeable deep voice of Jongin’s comes from the direction of the staircase. Both Soojung and the newly somewhat acquainted stranger turn their head at once and find the said man nearing them, brows knitted together questioningly. “Hyung? Why are you here?” he asks with a baffled face.
“Looking for you, of course.”
His frown doesn’t disappear. “Then why are you here?”
“Um, apparently I received the wrong address so I knocked someone else’s door instead?”
The guy looks at Soojung again as Jongin only gives them a prolonged stare before he proceeds to unlock the door to his own room. They exchange a shrug, and the former’s face breaks into a smile again. “Um, as you probably already know, Jongin’s got quite a temper, sorry about that. Anyway thank you very much, and sorry again about your sleep, uh…”
“That’s okay. It’s So―”
“I’m closing the door!” Jongin glares, his hand on the knob.
“Hey!” he retaliates, then laughs. “I need to go now before he locks me out. See you again, I guess.”
With that, she watches him walk away towards the opposite door and catches another smile from him when he glances around just before the door closes behind him.
Soojung greets Jinri with an empty coffee can in her hand and a stack of files in the other, her hair’s a mess and her scarf’s falling off over her shoulder, earning a scowl from the latter who offers to carry the pile for her.
“Do you even sleep, Soojung?” she asks, taking the can instead when Soojung refuses her help.
Now that her hand is free, Soojung takes this chance to fix her scarf and brushes her hair off her face. “Sleep? Oh, you mean that thing humans do?”
“I’m serious! Look at your eye bags.”
Soojung flashes a smile at her friend and slides her hand around Jinri’s arm as they walk, taking advantage of Jinri’s height to lean on her slightly. “Don’t worry Jinri, I sleep alright.”
“And falling asleep in class is considered alright to you?” she fires accusingly. When Soojung gives her a how-did-you-know look complete with furrowed eyebrows, she only responds with a smirk. “I know everything, Jung Soojung. Don’t lie to me.”
Soojung is quiet for a while but then breaks into a smile again. “Well, tell your informant that he should fix his sleeping habits too. At least I only sleep. He snores.”
Jinri opens her mouth to say something but Soojung’s already slipping her hand out and taking steps away. She nags more and Soojung only chuckles before the latter waves her off and heads to class.
Jongin is there at the bus stop when she arrives. He looks up at her but says nothing in acknowledgement, not even the tiniest bit of a smile.
Autumn scent is in the air; she can smell it in the soft yet cold breeze. The leaves are flooding the pavement, and some even overflow onto the main road. They rattle by as cars continue to race down the street. With her earphone plugged in, Soojung takes a seat at the other end of the bench, pulls out her novel which she started months ago but never bothered to finish and begins to read in silence.
Just then, her phone buzzes inside her pocket so she pulls it out and slides her finger over the screen to unlock. A name too familiar to her heads the new text, which turns out to be a photo of a packet of instant noodles. After staring at the photo for a little longer, she notices the tear at the corner of the packet, and guesses it’s caused by a rat that he has mentioned several times before which she named Troy (he named the stray cat that always leaves fish bones in front of her door Sharpay, after the movie he admitted to secretly enjoy watching). Along with it only a simple emoticon is attached that reads “D:”
Chuckling, she types back a reply almost too quickly.
Can’t believe Troy did this to you.
She presses ‘send’ and inquisitively glances at Jongin who happens to be typing something on his phone. He quickly realizes her eyes on him and looks at her sharply. “What?” he mutters.
Soojung shakes her head and pockets her phone back. “Nothing,” she mumbles. “Who was that guy who came the other day?” she dares herself to ask.
“Why do you want to know?” he shoots back.
She huffs. “Can’t I ask?”
For a while Jongin keeps silent so she figures he’s not going to answer, but he does. “My brother.”
“Oh,” comes as her only reply. Neither of them says anything anymore afterwards.
Their bus arrive a couple of minutes later and there are just enough seats for them. She proceeds to the farthest corner while he fills the one in front.
The bus gets more crowded the more stops they reach. Two stops after they got on, a frail looking grandmother comes on-board. From behind Soojung watches as Jongin leaves his seat to assist the grandmother there kindly, even carrying her bag for her and making a small chat. Without realizing a smile grows across her lips, amused at this rather mysterious guy she both does and doesn’t know at the same time.
She writes to Nobody that night, still replaying the scene she witnessed earlier in her head. As her thoughts and the noises in her house fade in the background, she rests her chin down on her folded arms and closes her eyes for a moment.
Humans are interesting.
His reply doesn’t take long. Sometimes she wonders if, just like her, he uses their conversations as a medium to distract himself from his thesis.
You only realize that now?
Soojung goes away to refill her drink and grabs something to snack on, and when she returns, there is another message from him.
What made you think so?
Again, she recalls the scene while turning her head to the door. The guy who lives across her door, she learned, is quiet and aloof and slightly bad-tempered, perhaps a little strange too. However the incident today completely changed her perspective of him, and she discovered a whole new side of him that she would have never guessed existed.
Just that, just when you thought you know someone, it turns out that you don’t, and probably you never will completely know them. And I mean it in a good way.
Well, I guess that’s why we shouldn’t be quick to judge.
A couple of months after they became friends, he asked her about the reason behind the username of her choice, Ophelia, when she was, just like tonight and almost every other night, battling sleep.
Are you by any chance losing your mind like Ophelia did?
She scoffed at his question but knew that he meant it as a joke.
No. At least not yet.
Notify me when it happens so I can cut off ties with you.
So it happened again; their meaningless banter. It always starts with a simple question or statement, and then drags on for so long that they both forget how it even began. At last after a while, they went back to the original question like they always do.
I just think that it’s a pretty name.
And it is the truth.
Out of curiosity, she returned the question to him. She didn’t expect anything grand or a sob story that comes along with it, but then she didn’t really expect anything because having known him for a while, she knows for a fact that he’s always unpredictable. And true enough, he is.
You know how we get notifications when someone comments on something of ours or starts following us, right? I just thought it’d be amusing to receive notifications that say “Nobody left a comment on your post” or “Nobody started following you”. I guess you can say my intention was purely to troll. But hey, it’s creative.
As stupid as it was, it did make her laugh.
Whatever you say, Myungsoo.
__________________
CHAPTERS:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7