lonely hearts club (8/?)
lonely hearts club (8/?)
Kai/Krystal, Myungsoo/Krystal
2333 w, pg, slice of life
a/n: good lord
Soojung is digging her bag for random coins, or perhaps 1000 won bills if she’s lucky, that could be hidden amongst the many crumpled up notes and receipts when someone extends a hand and inserts a bill into the vending machine. She looks up in curiosity in case a queue has formed behind her without realizing, only to find a familiar face staring at her.
“Coffee?” he asks, hand hovering over the buttons.
Not expecting him, her jaw drops slightly. “Black,” she tells him, nodding, and he presses the button. The can quickly drops into the vending pocket. He grabs it and hands it to her. “Thanks,” she murmurs.
“Not much but,” he pauses, shrugging a little while slipping a hand into his jeans’ pocket after fixing the strap of his bag on his shoulder. “For dinner the other day.”
“Ah,” she nods, remembering it now. She honestly has almost forgot about that day, and now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t seen him ever since. She opens the can, takes a sip and feels the bitterness spread throughout her body. Suddenly she feels hungrier. “Have you had lunch?” she asks.
“It’s almost 4,” he says like it’s the most obvious fact. Probably should be, if she hadn’t spent the last two hours napping in the library.
“Well, I haven’t,” she tells him, shrugging, and takes another sip. She looks at him, and somehow, it comes out from her mouth. “Can you keep me company? I don’t feel like eating alone today.”
She expects a no, and wouldn’t be surprised if it comes with a mocking remark as well. But he easily agrees. “Can I choose where we eat though?”
“”We”?” she raises her brows. “Didn’t you already eat?”
“Never said that. If my memory doesn’t fail me, and I’m pretty sure I’m still very young, I only said it’s almost 4.”
Soojung rolls her eyes but laughs soon after as they fall into steps together. All of a sudden, she’s reminded of the mornings when she would sometimes run into him on her way to the bus stop and end up looking like they’re walking together. This time, they really are walking together. Probably the second time after the day when he let her share his umbrella. She notices now that he does take smaller and slower strides on purpose for her. It makes her smile.
“Thanks,” she says.
Jongin glances at her. “For what?”
“Just wanted to say that.”
Myungsoo keeps a blog where he posts about his thoughts, books and articles he’s read, and sometimes places he’s been to. He rarely updates, however, much to her distaste. Now she doesn’t know if he ever would.
Sometimes people surprise you.
He wrote once in response to her comment on one of his blog entries. It was a poem he stumbled upon and really likes, about a world where there is a limit to how many words a person can speak per day. She said people always take a lot of things for granted, especially when it comes to words.
It’s not always easy to tell others what you think or how you feel. Sometimes you can’t because your words might hurt them. Sometimes it’s because there are some things that you just can’t say out loud, in case you get hurt. Words become more precious when people take courage to speak. It’s when they do that the person becomes precious to you.
Soojung couldn’t really grasp his meaning back then. As a person who usually voices her thoughts, she couldn’t understand why some people would keep important words to themselves and wait until their chance is gone for them to start regretting.
She goes back to read this particular poem and his reply regularly, especially after he disappeared, and realizes that’s exactly what she did.
The place Jongin takes her to is a small rundown rice and soup restaurant not too far from their campus’s gate, tucked away in a deserted alleyway that vehicles can hardly drive through if people don’t inch closer to the walls. She’s never ventured into this particular area before despite the distance. She didn’t even know this place exists.
“If you were expecting some place cool and…I don’t know, posh? With food that has fancy names and all, then you’re not going to get that,” he mumbles before stepping into the restaurant.
“I wasn’t expecting any of that,” she scoffs, somewhat offended that he thinks of her that way. She doesn’t even go to that kind of place he mentioned. “I like cheap and good food alright.”
Taking a seat across of her after taking off his jacket, a smile spreads over his lips. She raises her brows, wanting to ask. But right then, one of the staff stops by at their table on her way to the kitchen while carrying a tray of used bowls to get their order. That’s when Soojung realizes she hasn’t once glanced at the menu printed on the wall since coming in. “Um, sorry, wait for a sec, please,” she says guilty, then quickly scans the menu.
“Try the dumpling soup, if you like it? I mean, it’s really good,” Jongin offers.
Since she doesn’t have anything that she’s craving for in particular, she simply agrees on his suggestion. “Sure, I’ll have that.”
He turns to the staff, a lady who seems to be in her early 40s, and smiles a smile that Soojung never gets to see very frequently. “Give us two sets of my usual, please.”
“Coming right away,” the lady replies cheerfully, and proceeds to the kitchen.
Soojung looks at him, tilting her head slightly. “Come here that often?”
“I like cheap and good food,” he answers with a casual shrug, mimicking her tone, and another smile grows across his lips.
She furrows her brows looking at him, catching his tease, strangely more amused and angry. In fact, she doesn’t feel angry at all. She chuckles. “So you do crack jokes.”
“Did you think I’m some sort of a machine that lacks human emotions?” He’s the one scoffing now.
“Unless machines nowadays can be programmed into making cynical remarks,” she attempts, and sees the corners of his lips curl. She succeeds.
He leans back into his chair, looking away for a moment before returning his gaze at her. “Some people are not really what you think,” he says.
Sometimes people surprise you, she almost hears Myungsoo’s voice speaking to her, despite never knowing how it sounds like. Soojung blinks at Jongin, the person who was easily a stranger to her not too long ago, and smiles to herself, both glad and sorry.
Their meals arrive, and they eat in silence.
Jongin has his gaze up at the sky when she joins him outside. She watches him for a while, the dark and heavy expression he’s wearing, like he’s carrying the entire world on his shoulders. When he finally notices her, his face changes to a brighter expression, hiding the previous one with a small smile.
She smiles back, not wanting to probe. “How much was everything?” she asks, taking out her purse from her bag. He settled the bill when she went to get another glass of water.
“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles, shrugging.
“No, let me pay for my part.”
He shakes his head, looking more insistent this time. “Really, it’s okay. I get discounts anyway since I’m a regular.”
Before Soojung can say anything, he already starts walking, so she trails behind without asking again and keeps her eyes on his back while her mind drifts away elsewhere. She almost doesn’t notice him stopping and turning around to face her.
“Do you space out this often?” he asks after he almost knocks into him.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, a tad embarrassed about being caught.
He steps aside and makes a gesture for her to walk ahead of him. “In case you trip into a manhole,” he answers simply when she asks.
She makes a face, but obeys anyway and quietly thanks him. They are as silent now as they were while eating, except there were all sorts of noise around them then. Now, they have no excuses. Soojung glances at him and dares herself to open her mouth. “Can I ask you something?”
“You already are,” he points out. Typical of him.
“Do you remember that bookstore where I ran into you not too long ago? The one with a café upstairs?” she pauses for a bit to check his expression. It remains blank. “Do you go there often?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asks without answering her question first. Also typical of him.
She shrugs, hoping it sounds casual enough. “Just wondering,” she replies simply.
Jongin doesn’t say anything until when they reach the bus stop. “Not often. Only recently.”
“Why?” She can’t help herself.
“I don’t know either.” He shrugs, then scoffs, more at himself like he just recalled something. “I thought maybe I’d find someone there.”
Her brows knit together. “Who?”
“Just someone,” he says, looking at her, eyes not giving away any hints.
She wants to ask more, but their bus arrives right on cue and kills the moment. She stands last in line, and to her surprise when she turns to him, he is a little far away, not with her in the line. “Are you not going back home?” she blurts out in confusion.
“I still have something else to do,” he tells her. He offers a small smile, and stands there watching her with his hands hanging by his sides awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
She smiles back, not quite reaching her eyes and waves a little awkwardly as well, but he doesn’t seem to mind, at least. “See you around, I guess.”
“Yeah. See you.” He nods, then turns and walks away before the bus even takes off.
It’s the same dream again.
She’s at the same platform, watching trains passing her by. When the right feeling comes, the right train, she boards it and sits at the same seat. Even the people around her are the same people since the first time she’s had this dream.
However, when the train stops at the same station where Myungsoo would usually get on, there is no sign of him, or any young man for that matter. He doesn’t appear at the next stations either.
When the train reaches the end of the line, Soojung looks around and finally realizes that everyone around her was gone, and she’s all alone.
It’s raining when she wakes up. The current time is 2.13, according to her phone. Unable to fall back asleep, she gets up, grabs her jacket and her purse, and heads out to make her way to the convenience store. Her stomach grumbles on her way down the stairs, and she curses herself for forgetting to restock on instant noodles.
The part-timer, a boy who doesn’t seem to be any older than she is, greets her in a sleepy voice when she enters. Soojung heads straight to the rack where instant noodles are, grabs one in a cup and goes to the counter to pay for it before making her way to the table by the window.
To her surprise, Jongin is there, alone at the counter seat overlooking the dimly lit street outside. His hand is clenched around a can of coffee, his back more hunched than usual. She considers going back home to have her meal instead but he notices her before her feet could move, through the reflection on the window. “You again,” he says when their eyes meet, but the usual mocking tone is absent in this remark.
“I could say the same,” she returns as she goes to take the seat next to him. “You’re drinking coffee again. And at this hour?”
“I could say the same for you,” he mirrors. “Is that supposed to be dinner?”
“Maybe. I don’t even know.” She shrugs. When she looks at him, it seems like there’s something that he wants to say, but he swallows the words along with his coffee. She turns the noodle cup around in her hands, and without even ripping the plastic wrap off, she places it on the table and pushes it away, no longer feeling hungry. “Ever wonder how many nights like this we’re gonna have in our lives?”
“What?” he asks, surprised at the sudden question.
“Waking up in the middle of the night, feeling hungry, feeling lonely, feeling empty. How many days are we going to spend living on instant noodles and coffee, sitting like this watching other people and wondering if they’re happy, or if they ask the same question too when they look at us.”
Jongin stares at her like it’s his first time seeing a person. Or perhaps it’s his first time really seeing a person. Normally, Soojung would feel embarrassed if she caught someone staring at her like that, especially after saying things she just did. But she doesn’t, and she wonders if it's the time or it’s Jongin, or if it’s simply that her mind is still not fully awake yet.
“Do you feel like that?” he suddenly asks.
“Feel what?”
“Empty.”
The clock on the wall behind the part-timer reads 12 minutes after 3. His can is half full. Her noodle remains uncooked. The humming of refrigerators in the store sounds louder to her than the music playing in the background. She thinks about her own refrigerator, the space on her shoe rack here her umbrella was supposed to be, the chair in front of her at the café, the seat next to her in the train, her phone’s notification bar. She looks at him. His back growing smaller, then lost in the crowd. His back when she saw him here. His eyes when he saw the kimchi on her table. His eyes now.
“Yeah.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “I think I do.”
Kai/Krystal, Myungsoo/Krystal
2333 w, pg, slice of life
a/n: good lord
Soojung is digging her bag for random coins, or perhaps 1000 won bills if she’s lucky, that could be hidden amongst the many crumpled up notes and receipts when someone extends a hand and inserts a bill into the vending machine. She looks up in curiosity in case a queue has formed behind her without realizing, only to find a familiar face staring at her.
“Coffee?” he asks, hand hovering over the buttons.
Not expecting him, her jaw drops slightly. “Black,” she tells him, nodding, and he presses the button. The can quickly drops into the vending pocket. He grabs it and hands it to her. “Thanks,” she murmurs.
“Not much but,” he pauses, shrugging a little while slipping a hand into his jeans’ pocket after fixing the strap of his bag on his shoulder. “For dinner the other day.”
“Ah,” she nods, remembering it now. She honestly has almost forgot about that day, and now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t seen him ever since. She opens the can, takes a sip and feels the bitterness spread throughout her body. Suddenly she feels hungrier. “Have you had lunch?” she asks.
“It’s almost 4,” he says like it’s the most obvious fact. Probably should be, if she hadn’t spent the last two hours napping in the library.
“Well, I haven’t,” she tells him, shrugging, and takes another sip. She looks at him, and somehow, it comes out from her mouth. “Can you keep me company? I don’t feel like eating alone today.”
She expects a no, and wouldn’t be surprised if it comes with a mocking remark as well. But he easily agrees. “Can I choose where we eat though?”
“”We”?” she raises her brows. “Didn’t you already eat?”
“Never said that. If my memory doesn’t fail me, and I’m pretty sure I’m still very young, I only said it’s almost 4.”
Soojung rolls her eyes but laughs soon after as they fall into steps together. All of a sudden, she’s reminded of the mornings when she would sometimes run into him on her way to the bus stop and end up looking like they’re walking together. This time, they really are walking together. Probably the second time after the day when he let her share his umbrella. She notices now that he does take smaller and slower strides on purpose for her. It makes her smile.
“Thanks,” she says.
Jongin glances at her. “For what?”
“Just wanted to say that.”
Myungsoo keeps a blog where he posts about his thoughts, books and articles he’s read, and sometimes places he’s been to. He rarely updates, however, much to her distaste. Now she doesn’t know if he ever would.
Sometimes people surprise you.
He wrote once in response to her comment on one of his blog entries. It was a poem he stumbled upon and really likes, about a world where there is a limit to how many words a person can speak per day. She said people always take a lot of things for granted, especially when it comes to words.
It’s not always easy to tell others what you think or how you feel. Sometimes you can’t because your words might hurt them. Sometimes it’s because there are some things that you just can’t say out loud, in case you get hurt. Words become more precious when people take courage to speak. It’s when they do that the person becomes precious to you.
Soojung couldn’t really grasp his meaning back then. As a person who usually voices her thoughts, she couldn’t understand why some people would keep important words to themselves and wait until their chance is gone for them to start regretting.
She goes back to read this particular poem and his reply regularly, especially after he disappeared, and realizes that’s exactly what she did.
The place Jongin takes her to is a small rundown rice and soup restaurant not too far from their campus’s gate, tucked away in a deserted alleyway that vehicles can hardly drive through if people don’t inch closer to the walls. She’s never ventured into this particular area before despite the distance. She didn’t even know this place exists.
“If you were expecting some place cool and…I don’t know, posh? With food that has fancy names and all, then you’re not going to get that,” he mumbles before stepping into the restaurant.
“I wasn’t expecting any of that,” she scoffs, somewhat offended that he thinks of her that way. She doesn’t even go to that kind of place he mentioned. “I like cheap and good food alright.”
Taking a seat across of her after taking off his jacket, a smile spreads over his lips. She raises her brows, wanting to ask. But right then, one of the staff stops by at their table on her way to the kitchen while carrying a tray of used bowls to get their order. That’s when Soojung realizes she hasn’t once glanced at the menu printed on the wall since coming in. “Um, sorry, wait for a sec, please,” she says guilty, then quickly scans the menu.
“Try the dumpling soup, if you like it? I mean, it’s really good,” Jongin offers.
Since she doesn’t have anything that she’s craving for in particular, she simply agrees on his suggestion. “Sure, I’ll have that.”
He turns to the staff, a lady who seems to be in her early 40s, and smiles a smile that Soojung never gets to see very frequently. “Give us two sets of my usual, please.”
“Coming right away,” the lady replies cheerfully, and proceeds to the kitchen.
Soojung looks at him, tilting her head slightly. “Come here that often?”
“I like cheap and good food,” he answers with a casual shrug, mimicking her tone, and another smile grows across his lips.
She furrows her brows looking at him, catching his tease, strangely more amused and angry. In fact, she doesn’t feel angry at all. She chuckles. “So you do crack jokes.”
“Did you think I’m some sort of a machine that lacks human emotions?” He’s the one scoffing now.
“Unless machines nowadays can be programmed into making cynical remarks,” she attempts, and sees the corners of his lips curl. She succeeds.
He leans back into his chair, looking away for a moment before returning his gaze at her. “Some people are not really what you think,” he says.
Sometimes people surprise you, she almost hears Myungsoo’s voice speaking to her, despite never knowing how it sounds like. Soojung blinks at Jongin, the person who was easily a stranger to her not too long ago, and smiles to herself, both glad and sorry.
Their meals arrive, and they eat in silence.
Jongin has his gaze up at the sky when she joins him outside. She watches him for a while, the dark and heavy expression he’s wearing, like he’s carrying the entire world on his shoulders. When he finally notices her, his face changes to a brighter expression, hiding the previous one with a small smile.
She smiles back, not wanting to probe. “How much was everything?” she asks, taking out her purse from her bag. He settled the bill when she went to get another glass of water.
“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles, shrugging.
“No, let me pay for my part.”
He shakes his head, looking more insistent this time. “Really, it’s okay. I get discounts anyway since I’m a regular.”
Before Soojung can say anything, he already starts walking, so she trails behind without asking again and keeps her eyes on his back while her mind drifts away elsewhere. She almost doesn’t notice him stopping and turning around to face her.
“Do you space out this often?” he asks after he almost knocks into him.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, a tad embarrassed about being caught.
He steps aside and makes a gesture for her to walk ahead of him. “In case you trip into a manhole,” he answers simply when she asks.
She makes a face, but obeys anyway and quietly thanks him. They are as silent now as they were while eating, except there were all sorts of noise around them then. Now, they have no excuses. Soojung glances at him and dares herself to open her mouth. “Can I ask you something?”
“You already are,” he points out. Typical of him.
“Do you remember that bookstore where I ran into you not too long ago? The one with a café upstairs?” she pauses for a bit to check his expression. It remains blank. “Do you go there often?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asks without answering her question first. Also typical of him.
She shrugs, hoping it sounds casual enough. “Just wondering,” she replies simply.
Jongin doesn’t say anything until when they reach the bus stop. “Not often. Only recently.”
“Why?” She can’t help herself.
“I don’t know either.” He shrugs, then scoffs, more at himself like he just recalled something. “I thought maybe I’d find someone there.”
Her brows knit together. “Who?”
“Just someone,” he says, looking at her, eyes not giving away any hints.
She wants to ask more, but their bus arrives right on cue and kills the moment. She stands last in line, and to her surprise when she turns to him, he is a little far away, not with her in the line. “Are you not going back home?” she blurts out in confusion.
“I still have something else to do,” he tells her. He offers a small smile, and stands there watching her with his hands hanging by his sides awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
She smiles back, not quite reaching her eyes and waves a little awkwardly as well, but he doesn’t seem to mind, at least. “See you around, I guess.”
“Yeah. See you.” He nods, then turns and walks away before the bus even takes off.
It’s the same dream again.
She’s at the same platform, watching trains passing her by. When the right feeling comes, the right train, she boards it and sits at the same seat. Even the people around her are the same people since the first time she’s had this dream.
However, when the train stops at the same station where Myungsoo would usually get on, there is no sign of him, or any young man for that matter. He doesn’t appear at the next stations either.
When the train reaches the end of the line, Soojung looks around and finally realizes that everyone around her was gone, and she’s all alone.
It’s raining when she wakes up. The current time is 2.13, according to her phone. Unable to fall back asleep, she gets up, grabs her jacket and her purse, and heads out to make her way to the convenience store. Her stomach grumbles on her way down the stairs, and she curses herself for forgetting to restock on instant noodles.
The part-timer, a boy who doesn’t seem to be any older than she is, greets her in a sleepy voice when she enters. Soojung heads straight to the rack where instant noodles are, grabs one in a cup and goes to the counter to pay for it before making her way to the table by the window.
To her surprise, Jongin is there, alone at the counter seat overlooking the dimly lit street outside. His hand is clenched around a can of coffee, his back more hunched than usual. She considers going back home to have her meal instead but he notices her before her feet could move, through the reflection on the window. “You again,” he says when their eyes meet, but the usual mocking tone is absent in this remark.
“I could say the same,” she returns as she goes to take the seat next to him. “You’re drinking coffee again. And at this hour?”
“I could say the same for you,” he mirrors. “Is that supposed to be dinner?”
“Maybe. I don’t even know.” She shrugs. When she looks at him, it seems like there’s something that he wants to say, but he swallows the words along with his coffee. She turns the noodle cup around in her hands, and without even ripping the plastic wrap off, she places it on the table and pushes it away, no longer feeling hungry. “Ever wonder how many nights like this we’re gonna have in our lives?”
“What?” he asks, surprised at the sudden question.
“Waking up in the middle of the night, feeling hungry, feeling lonely, feeling empty. How many days are we going to spend living on instant noodles and coffee, sitting like this watching other people and wondering if they’re happy, or if they ask the same question too when they look at us.”
Jongin stares at her like it’s his first time seeing a person. Or perhaps it’s his first time really seeing a person. Normally, Soojung would feel embarrassed if she caught someone staring at her like that, especially after saying things she just did. But she doesn’t, and she wonders if it's the time or it’s Jongin, or if it’s simply that her mind is still not fully awake yet.
“Do you feel like that?” he suddenly asks.
“Feel what?”
“Empty.”
The clock on the wall behind the part-timer reads 12 minutes after 3. His can is half full. Her noodle remains uncooked. The humming of refrigerators in the store sounds louder to her than the music playing in the background. She thinks about her own refrigerator, the space on her shoe rack here her umbrella was supposed to be, the chair in front of her at the café, the seat next to her in the train, her phone’s notification bar. She looks at him. His back growing smaller, then lost in the crowd. His back when she saw him here. His eyes when he saw the kimchi on her table. His eyes now.
“Yeah.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “I think I do.”