The Study of Love - 3 [#BOOMGOESNAOMI birthday fic]
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Soojung doesn’t get it but-
It’s not easy to be a man in man’s world.
Isn’t that nifty kind of a conundrum, huh?
Society forgets, sometimes, that being one of those carrying the XY-gene
isn’t as great as it is made up to be in the rules we set forth into the world.
Men are expected to be efficient and strong-willed.
Able to shred away any hint of hesitation or fear or softness he might feel or encounter.
To give in to fear, to hesitation or to softness is deemed by society as the makings of a coward.
You only choose those battles you know you can win.
You do not push forward, knowing you’ll fail.
Failure is not an option any Man wants to accept…
And while we are all trying to be embrace the new world, a lot of our traditions have not changed.
In Love, men are taught that to show affection is inherently a woman’s skill.
We pursue, we chase, we manipulate but we do not soothe or bend to someone’s will.
To choose a mate is final-and to lose, to be rejected is failure.
In a world that sets such a high standard to a man’s virility, rejection is poison and all men fear it.
I fear it.
(Why do people think I still haven’t made a move?)
L.T.
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(( STUDY HALL / BREAK - LIBRARY, side story ))
She runs the student magazine. Changmin remembers seeing a profile photo of her in one of the first pages, atop the contents. In fact, through the days at university, migrating between lectures and the library and the study hall, Changmin had gotten the impression that this Yoona was everywhere, and adored by most. She’s one of those people who everybody knows a little about, or just knows of, and she belongs somehow, even slightly in everybody’s lives. There was the occasional rumour of a professor taking her to a faculty dinner, or a story about her from years back, head bent over a sink as her body flushed itself out. But for the most part, as Changmin went about his uncomplicated, academically successful and well-organised life, he did not care too much for the fabled Im Yoona.
Certain parts of the study hall are quieter than others, and given the nature of the majority of students, there was always a low hum in the air, with keys on laptops being hit and students confirming definitions and theories with one another. Changmin’s sister would joke about him living in the library and study hall, which was somewhat the truth. Studying and learning never really stopped for him at any point, and he felt that it was a much more worthwhile application of his time than pursuits such as the Disney Appreciation Society and the Basketball team (as badly as a few of the players tried to recruit him in).
On the other hand, the graceful and alluring Im Yoona seemed to be involved in several societies on campus, and regularly appeared on social media to make announcement about various activities and to say important things to responsible people. There was an air of perfection to her that those outside her very inner circle of friends - who Changmin perceived as all tall, slender, well-dressed girls studying some assortment of Arts and Business degrees - breathed in. This well-coordinated, eternally perfect girl. Although Changmin had heard once, from a friend who had heard from Sooyoung, a friend of Yoona’s - that in person, she laughed with the greatest intensity out of her friends and most boyishly, and had many misadventures in high school and her first year on campus, and had a string of boyfriends sourced from various, now unreachable places.
All in all, Changmin had not expected her to cough, say “excuse me” and inquire on if the seat beside him was taken some few weeks before midsems.
She is gracious and polite and every bit the rumoured ladylike Yoona, but she also doesn’t concentrate very well. She asked about what Changmin was studying - what does he want to do after he graduates - does he have a part-time job - how has she not met him before? She speaks with excitement, like she is meeting somebody important and stunning, like he’s the only person in the world that she’s interested in speaking to. Changmin sighs sometimes, in between questions, and points to her textbook and notes, and says that she should be studying them instead of studying him.
He is a little shocked he is joking with her already, and they have only just met. Yoona is a very engaging person. He likes her already, right from the beginning. From the tips of her black-booted toes to the very top of her deep brown hair. She has a lovely smile, and Changmin can understand why the Photography Society is obsessed with her. He also wonders though (a little guiltily, because it is so rude to think bad things about a good person) if this is the golden age of Yoona’s life, and will the rest of her time be an anti-climax?
Changmin hopes not when Yoona eventually plugs herself into music, and traverses a chapter in her public relations textbook. She has lovely features, and Changmin has to catch himself before he is blatantly staring at her.
She doesn’t notice, and she leaves later that evening, all smiles and politeness. She is impossible to dislike, Changmin feels, and is pleasantly surprised to find her in the library the next day, this time in a different desk. And again and again, it seemed that now she had entered his life, she wasn’t leaving so easily. Sometimes she looks up and she smiles and waves, before she looks down to tend to books. Other days she is sitting with a few friends, other girls in modest sweaters and collared shirts. She doesn’t notice him then, but she does wave on the way out. Sometimes she stops by and asks how he is.
She asks him to read one of her essays one day, and asks for his email. Changmin feels that it’s rather out of the blue, this request - but he went along with this request regardless, feeling that there was no harm to it, and he had time. At first he reads her marketing essays and research projects, but one day, she adds him on several social networking sites all at once, and Changmin can’t help this feeling in his gut that there’s got to be more than just his free casual tuition she’s interested in.
Changmin is pleasantly surprised when she drops by his workplace with a friend (her name is Sooyoung, he overhears), and orders crème caramel and mocha. She is gracious and encourages him to linger and talk, but of course he can’t, because there are more costumers and it is poor form to idle. So he smiles at her and thanks her for dropping by.
She leaves a moderate tip, made generous by her phone number on the napkin it rests on.
He texts her later, questioning her motives and asking if she has the slightest inkling of how leaving her phone number in public spaces is dangerous.
She responds quickly and in complete sentences. She uses emoticons sparingly, and she is lovely. She isn’t very funny, but it makes her endearing. She laughs at what Changmin says a lot. She says he is funny.
/not many people tell me that./ He’s genuinely flattered. A little.
/everyone else is stupid then./
She stops replying after that, and Changmin reassures himself, thinking that she must have gone to bed and nurses his unjustified bruised ego.
Changmin texts her a couple of days later when he’s free on campus /Hey, are you around? Want to meet up?/ He waits around after sending it, sitting underneath a tree and idly reading a book his professor recommended.
/Sure I’m free! Where are you? I was going to head off to lunch - have you eaten yet?/ Changmin has eaten - a sandwich, but he figures that he definitely has room for more. So they agree on a place nearby and they head off. Changmin gets there first - so he finds a spot and orders something small. Yoona rounds the corner soon, navy blue cardigan on her shoulders and a charming smile on her lips.
She apologises when she sits down, mentioning how one of the younger students she tutors had held her up asking for love advice along the way. She mentions a Soojung, about how she’s having problems with these boys. Changmin laughs a little, “Do you have problems with boys?”
There’s an extended silence then, but she recovers quickly. She talks about how she’s laying off relationships for a while, she’s had a string of them for a few years.
“Did they all turn out wrong?”
“Something like that.”
“I hope I don’t turn out that way.”
“I don’t plan on dating you.” She seems to realise that it was a little hurtful, rude. “You’re nice though.” She asks him the same question after that - what about his exes - or does he have a girlfriend right now?
“No,” he tells her. He mentions the last one, a nice girl. Short-haired, quite tall. Studious. Beat him in all his marketing classes. Yoona laughs at that, makes an “ouch” sound and playfully kicks him in the shins. He rolls his eyes and tells her she’s juvenile - what is she, straight out of high school? It’s all good fun though, and she just laughs and says that high school wasn’t bad. She doesn’t like how everybody in university makes it out as thought high school was embarrassing and nobody ever wants to think about it again.
“High school was a good time of my life. Sure, everyone studied really hard and we never slept enough and there were all these really stupid arguments … but it was a good time of my life. When I look back on it, it’s as if everything is washed in golden sunlight, and nothing could ever go wrong.” She leans her head on her hands, and there’s something so pure about her.
He thinks about her constantly when he gets home, and he feels like a teenager again. It’s embarrassing. This constant mulling over her actions and words, wondering if she’s emotionally invested in somebody else and maybe he’s just wasting his time. Maybe she just felt like a stranger to befriend. It’s not abnormal for people to do that, and Yoona seemed the type. It really did bother him, and Changmin spent a good thirty minutes lying on his bed and stalking her Instagram to appease his concerns. He notices how the further down her feed he gets, the more photos there are of her with other guys, and more photos of her with the same set of friends at parties, where everybody looks thoroughly drunk and tired.
Changmin stops later that evening, and just falls asleep.
Kyuhyun says Changmin’s being stupid the next day after a lecture, and that he shouldn’t keep walking himself in circles to decide whether or not he’s really interested in Yoona or not. It’s just too early to say, he feels, when he’s out in the sun, letting Younha - Kyuhyun’s tiny girlfriend, make a clover crown for his head. Changmin guess that he does like her. There isn’t anything not to like. She’s gorgeous, she’s intelligent, she’s polite.
“You know,” Kyuhyun mentions in between a kebab, “if she’s so perfect, there’s probably something up with her that we don’t know about.”
Changmin goes quiet after that.
Yoona invites him to a party the staff of the student magazine is holding. There’s an incredible mix of people that will turn up, and Yoona insists that Changmin go. At first he doesn’t understand why, but when he checks online to eyeball the magazine staff, he has a gut feeling. Changmin messages her his ‘yes’ to attending, and she sends him a stream of hearts and ‘thank you’s and “You’ll enjoy it, I swear”. Changmin isn’t sure if he’s made the right decision, but he figures why not. He’s on track with his research, some people he know will be there. And you can’t say no to free drinks, although he doesn’t plan on getting drunk.
He meets Yoona when he gets inside, and the music is terrible and at least the air conditioning works. Yoona takes him around first, and introduces him to some of the more senior staff - some of whom are his age, and it is pleasant at first. A lot of conversation, some politics, a lot of laughter, a few in-jokes to learn. He hates politics, he tells Yoona, and over the noise of other voices and heavy bass, she says that she isn’t very fond of it to. Changmin asks if that’s why she writes about clothes and just looks pretty for the magazine. She’s offended, and punches him in the arm. It hurts more than he’s previously experienced from her. She apologises.
Later into the evening, he watches as she starts to look around the room more, eyes lingering on faces, then drifting off again. She drinks more, and after the sixth glass of god knows what, Changmin just takes the cup away. “You need to stop.”
She just looks at him and stretches out her hand for it. “Come on, give it back, you’re not my mum.”
Changmin refuses, and just holds it away for longer. She gives up waiting, and sits.
“I guess I lied before. About the problems with boys.” And she tells him how she was hoping that somebody would come. How they had gotten close over the past few months and she thought that there might be something good in him. She’d invited him to come.
“Did he?”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t say anything for a while, and she just keeps looking into the distance. As far as the dim lights allowed. “With somebody else. I’d seen it coming, but I had hoped it wasn’t the case.”
“I thought you were taking a break from boy problems.”
“I was. I just thought he was nice. I liked him. He just didn’t like me enough.”
They sat there for a while. Changmin takes a risk. “I like you more than he does.”
She smiles at him in this tired way that he hasn’t seen before, and tells him, “Thanks.”
She lets him walk her home.
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( next part )