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yeonjunie hyung
Yesterday 5:52 pm
Next thursday afternoon wanna hang?
I finish work at 2 and I could come over to see you after
Today 1:32 pm
happy new years beoms!
3:34 pm
Happy new years!!
Send. Close app. Turn off phone. Look at ceiling. Don’t cry. Breathe. Don’t cry, don’t cy, don’t cry.
Beomgyu shut his eyes tightly and bit down on his lip, as if the pressure would lessen the heat of the tears building behind his eye lids. Frustrated, he rubbed his hand over his eyes.
Take a deep breath. Hold, then exhale. Sit up.
The curtains of his window were still drawn closed and keeping his room in near-darkness for the time of day, and he was almost anxious to open them and let the sun in – he could feel the dried crusts of the previous night’s tears at the edges of his eyes.
With a mental 3, 2, 1… he swung his legs over and quickly hopped onto the floor with a slight hiss at the cold floorboards, but the shock of his cold feet did nothing to wake him up. The sun also failed to do the trick, instead pulling another yawn from him.
“Well, that did shit,” he muttered to himself. “What to do today, what to do…”
Looking back at his bedroom, already rather nice and neat from the cleaning spree he had the night before, he could only focus on his desk that was across the room and beside his closed door. His room was simple. There are no real decorations covering his walls, no carpets on his floor (he dutifully notes, shifting his weight to one foot and letting that one freeze instead of both), and the only flat surfaces he could put anything on are his small bedside table and his desk which was currently the busiest-looking piece of his room with a couple of textbooks, a small whiteboard that is, for once, completely blank, and his laptop. School was out for the winter break, yet Beomgyu had found himself spending the last two weeks spending a decently sized, but still an abnormal, amount going through his books or on his laptop, periodically logging into his university’s student portal to see if any of his professors had uploaded his final grades from the first semester. It felt like it was only thing he could do. So, with another dutiful huff, he walked across the room and took a seat at his desk, powered on his laptop, and logged in once again in one tab and opened YouTube in another.
~*~
“Beomgyu! Are you alive?”
Barely, he thought to himself. He kept his eyes on his laptop screen that was currently playing a small document-series about some new K-Pop group with a name he couldn’t be bothered to remember. Judging by the name of the series itself, ‘The World is my Oyster’, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t remember the group name.
At that moment his door flung open, and he looked over to see his roommate, Yunjin, looking back at him.
“So you are awake,” she says, and Beomgyu isn’t sure if she’s shocked or judgemental. “Happy new years, by the way.”
He quickly glanced over at the tiny time display on his laptop screen: 5:54 pm, the numbers reflected to him, definitely judgmentally.
“Have been for about two hours now it seems,” he purses his lips up at her and she lets a snort.
Yunjin rests against his door that she’s still holding onto and gives a small smile. “New record, I see. By this rate, you’ll sleep your whole winter break away, Gyu.”
“That’s the plan. It stops me from studying the winter break away,” he shrugs and looks back to his laptop screen, mentally cursing when he sees that he didn’t pause his video.
“Studying what?” She scoffs. “You don’t have anything to be studying, or shouldn’t, at least. And I haven’t seen you do anything music-wise since that big final you had last month.”
“Finals season sucked for me, so I’m recuperating. I’m just taking a break for now. That includes music. I’ll be going back to it next week, anyways,” he says. He might have felt himself shrug but he can’t tell if he did or if it was just the way he was spamming the backspace arrow of his keyboard. He didn’t even notice the incredulous look his roommate gave him, eyebrows practically raised to her hairline as she analyzed him.
“Uh huh, sure.” Yunjin peeled her eyes away from him to look around his room which was notably cleaner than it was the last time she stepped foot in here. But she couldn’t find the one thing she was looking for. Glancing over at Beomgyu to make sure he was still occupied, she walked over to the little closet in the far corner of his room and opened the door. There, the beloved acoustic guitar she has almost always known Beomgyu to keep on him at all times, hidden away and covered by a few dangling flannel shirts.
She clenched her jaw and looked over to Beomgyu again, who hadn’t moved and had only resumed watching his video.
“I’m gonna head out to go meet Chae unnie, do you want to come with me?”
She watched Beomgyu barely shake his head and heard a low, “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
Walking back to his door, she nodded to herself and tried again, “You sure? Unnie was telling me she hasn’t seen you in a while and she misses you.”
Beomgyu pursed his lips for a moment before straightening out his lips, and Yunjin couldn’t read his expression.
Say yes, he thought. Just say yes, you haven’t seen her since before exam season. Haven’t even hung out with Yunjin much in a while, either.
“I’m sure,” was what came out instead.
He felt his lips pull at the edges and he looked over at Yunjin, flashing her a pleasant smile.
She paused but relented with a nod and a small of her own. She reached over and rubbed at Beomgyu’s shoulder, “I made some food earlier. It’s light, but should fill your stomach. It’s in the kitchen when you want it.” She told him, then left after one last thank you, see you.
It was only after he heard the clicking of the front door’s lock that he sighed to himself, his head dropping to his chest.
It’s better if I don’t see anyone, better to not embarrass myself. Alone is better.
When he looked up, his video had kept playing again. He sighed, then proceeded to spam the backspace button once more.
~*~
“Is Beomgyu okay?” Chaewon asked as Yunjin sat down, balancing two hot chocolates.
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Yunjin said.
“Who is Beomgyu?” said the third person at the table, already holding his own drink in his hands.
“Yunjin’s roommate and a good friend. You should meet him eventually, Kai-yah, I think you’d like him,” Chaewon responded with a smile, then sipped at her drink.
Yunjin hummed. “Yeah, I’ve known him since we were in high school, and I’d go to visit my aunt and uncle in Daegu. He’s really sweet, a little crazy, but Unnie is right. You’d like him. I’m just a little worried about him right now. He hasn’t gone anywhere since exams finished and he sleeps most of the day away, but I don’t know if that’s because he’s up all night most days.”
“He’s probably just recharging,” Kai starts. “Finals are harder on some than others, maybe he just needs the time away from everything before second term starts next week.”
“Maybe,” agreed Chaewon.
“You got a point. He’s probably fine,” Yunjin said before Chaewon changed the topic.
“Kai! When is your friend coming?”
“Oh, soon! He said he might be a little late, but he’s coming.”
Yunjin listened to Chaewon and Kai talk about their classes for the next semester, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that had settled in her stomach.
~*~
Beomgyu can’t remember when exactly he last left his and Yunjin’s apartment, so it feels almost dream-like to go outside and feel the cold air against his cheeks again.
The sun was just setting, so the sky was currently a mixture of blue, purple, and an overpowering amount of orange from the sun’s dying glow. It was beautiful. He definitely doesn’t remember the last time he was outside especially at this time of day.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” He startles at the arrival of a new body beside him.
He stares at the person, probably with the shock of his scare still on his face, he’s sure. “Uhm, yeah, very pretty. Would be prettier if my heart rate was at its regular rate.”
The other person, a man, laughed. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I guess you were just really into it you didn’t hear me come over.”
Beomgyu took in the other person as he spoke. He was about his height, maybe a bit shorter, but he found his eyes easily which were beautiful in themselves. They were big but had a shine to them that he was sure wasn’t due to the sun in front of them.
Beomgyu also noted that he looked comfy. Not comfortable, but comfy, with simple dark jeans that had a few rips at his knees and mid-thighs as well as a larger sweater that swallowed his frame including his hands which were half-hidden in his sleeves, forming some of the cutest sweater-paws he’s seen. There was a blue beanie on his head that made his head look tiny, like the beanie didn’t belong to him because of its size, but it didn’t completely hide the pale blonde hair that peeked out from underneath.
He was cute.
Only after maybe a solid thirty seconds did Beomgyu realize he was shamelessly staring at the man in front of him.
“Uhh?” The blonde man let out a small chuckle.
“Want to get a closer look?”
“What?”
“I don’t really trust you, ya’ know. We meet maybe, what, two minutes ago, I don’t even know your name, where you’re from, or anything, but already you’re trying to kill me. My own best friends would at least buy me some food first before they tried to make me shit myself!”
Beomgyu currently found himself climbing an abnormally large of an abnormally large tree, all four limbs straining as he attempted to keep himself straight and in line with the man in front of him who was climbing with more ease than Beomgyu altogether.
In response to Beomgyu’s words, and quivering voice, the man laughed. It was an oddly pleasant and soothing sound to Beomgyu’s ears.
“You’re not going to die. If you keep shaking like a leaf, then maybe you’ll roll off and fall to your death-“ Beomgyu narrowed his eyes at him, and the man chortled. “But I wouldn’t have brought you up here if it wasn’t safe enough. Plus, you’ll like it.” And the man continued crawling up the branch.
“I’d like to shove my foot up your ass is what I’d like,” Beomgyu muttered to himself, continuing to move slowly up the branch behind the man.
The man, though, had already reached the end of the branch and was sitting with his back leaned up against the large trunk of the tree, watching Beomgyu with mirth. “You can certainly try, but I think I would have aged a good thirty years by the time you come over here and join me.”
“Ha ha,” Beomgyu drones. "Why do you get to sit there? Last arrival should've gotten that," he huffed. He tries to move a bit faster after that, though.
After a couple of minutes, and climbing over the man's legs to go closer to the other end of the branch, Beomgyu is trying to detach his body from clinging to the branch and sit up when the fear of falling comes back. This man just had to drag him up to one of the higher branches.
“Hey,” Beomgyu hears before he feels a hand gently grabbing at his left arm. “Let me help you. Lean on me as you readjust.” Beomgyu looks up from the branch and into the man’s sparkly eyes. He seems so sincere. With a shaky breath and nod, Beomgyu grasps the man’s arm back with both hands as he pulls his body upwards, then begins to swing one leg over the branch so he could sit facing the sky and the sun that is still slowly making its way beneath the horizon. The whole time the man keeps a firm grip on Beomgyu’s arm and has one hand hovering over his back that Beomgyu can feel through the thin material of his T-shirt.
Finally, he’s comfortably seated upwards with his legs dangling over. The other man is still leaning against the tree trunk but now, with his hands retreated to his lap, he’s looking over at the sunset. It’s silent for a few short moments and the absurdity of it all hits Beomgyu.
He tries to keep his eyes on the sight in front of him, but he sends a couple of glances towards the other man. “So, uh, how did you find out you could squirrel-climb a tree of this size?” He asks and settles his gaze on the other as the other’s lips quirk up on one side.
“Squirrel-climb,” the man parrots to himself with a quiet chuckle, then hums. “Not sure. I saw this tree one day and didn’t think anything of it. It was when I saw the sunset similar to this one day and I just felt so compelled to get a closer look, so I came to this tree and just kept climbing. It’s peaceful up here. I find myself here when I need a break.”
“How do you just ‘keep climbing’? Do you have a death wish?”
The man looked at him and shrugged. “I go rock climbing sometimes, this didn’t seem that much different.”
“Oh yeah, except when you go rock climbing you typically have those harness-things so that you don’t, oh, you know, fall and die,” Beomgyu rambled out, unconsciously leaning his weight to one arm and closer to the man who laughed again.
“It’s a tree.” The man reasoned.
“A tall one.” Beomgyu responded almost immediately and watched the smile grow on the other’s face, noting the dimple he had on one cheek.
“It’s a nice view though. I forget what’s going on in my life when I’m up here most times… like, all worry leaves me.”
The man’s doe eyes leave Beomgyu’s as he turns his head back towards the sunset. Beomgyu silently does the same.
The sun has gone down a bit more by now, the orange hue in the sky getting darker and taking over the other colours but the sun is still relatively bright, yet Beomgyu has no urge to shield his eyes from the beams.
Some time passes like this, and Beomgyu feels his heartbeat slow down the longer he stares. The man was right, he muses. Beomgyu finally, after quite sometime, feels a semblance of clarity.
“Are you okay?” He hears suddenly. He turns to see the other man already staring at him. The man’s voice is gentle, but his eyes are radiating a sort of intensity that makes Beomgyu want to squirm a bit.
Confused, he manages to respond, “Yeah? I’m alright.”
“Sorry,” the man quickly starts, almost sitting up from his tree trunk, but leans back again. “I just mean like, okay okay.”
“Okay okay?”
“Are you sad?”
Well, that was subtle.
“What?”
“You seem calm but the whole time your shoulders have been hunched over. Like you have a lot of weight on you.”
“I didn’t realize I was being analyzed. What if I just have a bad posture?”
“Likely.” The man hums. “But there’s a difference between the hunchback of Notre Dame hunch from sitting like that and just a hunch in your shoulders, like your head isn’t the only thing resting on them.”
“Odd analogy, but okay.” Beomgyu trails off as he turns his head back to the sunset still in the same spot in the sky.
A couple beats of silence pass before the man tries again. “I know I’m a stranger, but I think if anything that might make talking about it easier.”
Beomgyu almost scoffs. “How?”
“Do you have people you care about?”
“Yeah, I do,” Beomgyu laughs. “Could that have been any more blunt? Why, though?”
“They care about you too, right?”
Beomgyu almost wanted to say no, I don’t think so, when Yunjin’s face pops up in his mind, checking if he was awake and making him food and offering to go out with her. Yeonjun’s texts ring through his head next, the consistency of them despite Beomgyu’s silence. Logically, he knew the truth. So he nodded.
“It’s harder to tell someone your struggles when you have a relationship with them, it’s so easy to feel like a burden that way amongst other things. Strangers are easier, though, especially if they’re offering.”
“Like a therapist?”
“Like a therapist. But slightly better because I’m not charging for money and your first-born child for it.”
Beomgyu almost felt crazy for considering this but he’s been feeling crazy already for some time now and he had a golden ticket to get it off his chest. He still hesitated. He really didn’t know this man, but so far, he’s been kind. He could also be crazy, on the other hand. Ah, screw it.
“I’ve been feeling a certain way for a while now… I don’t even know how to explain it. Normally I’ll have these bouts of sadness and such but they never last long, but ever since school started this year it’s been just one constant bout of sadness. It won’t go away and normally the amount of schoolwork I have is crippling to the amount that I always have something to think about. But now it’s winter break…” He trails off with a sigh.
“So there’s no more distraction from your thoughts.” The man finishes for him and Beomgyu finds himself nodding.
“I thought I was okay with myself. But being with myself and my thoughts… I don’t think I am.” The familiar burning sensation began and Beomgyu screwed his eyes shut in attempts to hide his inevitably glassy eyes. He wasn’t willing to be that open with a stranger. “I don’t think I like myself.”
There was a couple of seconds of silence before the man softly asked, “How come?”
Oh, where to start.
“I talk too much. My family used to tell me that, but it was normally my brother so I never thought of it too much, but sometimes I wonder if my friends think that too. Like I take up all the air in the room when I get excited and talk about some things, and just… keep talking. I’ve tried to stop but sometimes it’s this unconscious thing I do. I only have a few friends and besides them, I don’t talk to anyone so it’s like word vomit when I’m with them.”
“Is that all you feel?”
Beomgyu chuckled bitterly. The burning feeling is now in his throat, feeling like a small claw locked around his throat. Soon enough, he’ll be having difficulties breathing even shallow breaths.
“No,” he took a moment. Take a deep breath. Hold, then exhale. “All my friends know what they’re doing in life. My roommate is studying opera and has a few scouts always following her, waiting for her to graduate; one of my best friends is the best dancer on campus, he’s looking into being a dance instructor at a big company and if not, starting his own company; and my other best friend is so content with studying, pretty sure he’s going to become a teacher. I’m studying music-“
“Do you enjoy it?”
“I do, I actually really love it. It’s just that I feel like university has this incredible ability to take what you love and almost ruin it. And I don’t think it’s learning, I think learning is the fun part, but school – the endless homework assignments and quizzes and all that is all so draining. Not having anyone that I really talk to in my classes is another thing in itself because I don’t think it bugs me, but I can’t even tell now. Being alone is not a problem. I don’t even know the last time I had a proper conversation with anyone before you. It all just feels easier to close in on myself, stay inside, hide in my room, and not have to deal.”
“Have you felt this way since this school year?”
“No, no, but it’s stronger now than it was before, and I don’t know why. I thought it’d go away by some point but it hasn’t, and I keep avoiding my friends.”
“Because you fear it’ll make something worse?”
“It does!” Beomgyu nearly yells. The frustration he’s pushed away has come back and the claw around his throat is tight enough now that he feels he must heave large breaths just the feel a small puff of air intake into his lungs. The urge to cry has left, though, and he looks at the man who looks unfazed, but his eyes show the slightest glimmer of sadness and something else. “It does make things worse, and then my self-loathing becomes stronger! So I avoid my friends, they can happily go about their days and I go about my own with the lowest amount of disdain towards myself that I can.”
At this point, Beomgyu’s chest is burning, and no amount of heaving is helpful. Maybe it’s making it worse.
The other man just sits there. The sun is still in the sky, but it’s gotten lower. The man’s eyes somehow keep that shine despite the increasing darkness in the sky. Eventually, seconds or minutes pass before he opens his mouth, then shuts it, and opens it once again.
“Isn’t it lonely?”
Somehow, like it was a magic word, Beomgyu’s eyes prickle with tears once more.
With the flames taking over his whole throat and the evil grasp of the claw closed on him, he whispers out a weak, “So lonely.” And the first tear falls, from his right eye where he doesn’t bother to wipe it away since the man wouldn’t be able to see it from his spot. “But I’m comfortable with this feeling by now.”
A silence as Beomgyu tries to blink away the next tears threating to fall.
“I understand.”
A couple of tears fall. “What?”
“I’m sorry that your heart feels that weight.” Despite Beomgyu refusing to look at him, finding his own shoes more fascinating, the man continues, “I’m sorry for anything that happened to you in your life that made you feel the way you do, but, if it counts for anything, I think you’re brave.”
Beomgyu almost wants to laugh again, but he’s curious. “Brave?” The man hums.
“Loneliness is an evil thing people can’t escape, and plenty of people try to fight the feeling by being social, but you push yourself further into the feeling. For yourself, for your own feelings and sanity, and for your friends, and their notion of peace. Now I don’t know your friends, but there’s always a chance that you’re wrong about how they feel about you. Maybe their notion of peace isn’t actually when you hide yourself away and suffer alone, but when you tell them that you’re struggling – you don’t need them to fix you oryour problems but to just understand you. Do you ever wonder what your friends think when you hide from them?”
Yunjin’s face appears again. In his mind, he can see the look of distrust on her face when he chose to stay home, but she relented and didn’t push. He wonders if she knew somehow that he was lying. He wouldn’t put it past her.
“I wonder.” Beomgyu nods.
“I don’t really have advice. I just want you to know that you don’t have to tell them anything, but you can and maybe that would make your heart feel at peace, even a little bit. Do you feel better after telling me?”
Did he? He still felt heavy, still felt a few stray tears falling, but the claw was slowly loosening. He didn’t feel like solved anything, but he felt heard. Knowing this man listened to everything he had to say and didn’t criticize him or tell him he was crazy made him feel less tense than he was when he had began speaking. The man’s voice that was gentle on his ears also caused a wave of calmness to cover him and his words felt like gentle affirmations to his heart.
“Not a ton, truthfully, but it did help,” he tells the man and finally looks him in the face again. The sun has gone down by now and the sky has darkened but the man’s eyes still shine.
“Imagine what telling one of your friends would do,” the man whispers as if it’s a secret. Then, he smiles, and his smile is also quite beautiful no matter the time of day.
Beomgyu smiles back. “Thank you.” He whispers.
The man’s smile widens and Beomgyu notices he’s got two teeth with sharp points and look like little fangs. “Anytime. If you ever need to talk to a free-of-charge therapist, I can do that for you. I come to this tree most nights anyways, maybe just not Tuesdays.”
“Why not Tuesdays?” Beomgyu chuckled.
“I have boxing sessions on Tuesday evenings and can’t come to watch the sunset.”
Beomgyu laughed, head back and legs swinging as he held on tightly to the branch beneath him. He laughed loud enough he barely heard the man’s confused shouts of “What? Why are you laughing?”
When he calmed down, he shook his head and looked at the man. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s not funny, it's mundane, but I feel like I should have assumed it would be something like that after watching you scale this tree like a human squirrel. It’s really not funny, I have a broken humour.”
The man rolled his eyes, but it didn’t come across as annoyed. “Quit calling me a squirrel. I’ll only allow it because you seemed like you needed a good laugh.”
After a few more minutes of staring at the moon, a waxing gibbous in the sky tonight, they decided to climb back down which ended up being a task taking longer than climbing up.
“If I’m a squirrel, you’ve got to be a sloth,” the man says immediately after his feet touch the ground.
Beomgyu, the grown man he is, sticks his tongue out at him in response.
“I have to get going now, but I never got your name.”
“Beomgyu. Does that mean if I were to come back tomorrow, I would see you?” Beomgyu asks.
“If you can climb up that tree and meet me up there, then yes,” he nods and Beomgyu gives him a deadpan stare.
“You’re a jackass.” The man shakes his head with a smile before he starts walking away in the direction of a convenience store that Beomgyu thinks he came from when he had scared him shitless earlier.
“See you tomorrow Beomgyu hyung,”
Beomgyu begins to wave before he yells out, “Wait, how do you know I’m older?”
“Because you move like you are!” The man yells before turning and jogging away before Beomgyu can cuss him out. Instead, he’s left there to gape until he can’t see him anymore.
“What a jackass.” He turns on his heel to walk back to his apartment when everything goes dark.
~*~
Beomgyu’s eyes open and he finds himself staring at his ceiling.
“Beomgyu!” He hears before his door is being flung open and he sees Yunjin, and he winces at the unhappy look on her face.
“You didn’t eat yesterday, did you?”
“I didn’t?”
“Don’t be a smartass, did you even eat at all?"
He rubs at his eyes and rolls over onto his side to face her. He shakes his head and she sighs.
“You know that’s not good for you-“ she starts but he holds up his arms in surrender.
“I don’t even remember going to sleep, I didn’t mean to.”
She tilts her head as she watches him shove his face into his pillow.
“Were you crying?”
“Huh?”
He hears her walking and then feels the bed dip beside him before a hand begins combing through his hair. He lifts his head from his pillow, and she brushes the long strands from his eyes. Her thumb gently crosses his faces until she’s wiping at a tear from the corner of his right eye.
“Why were you crying?” Her voice is so quiet it sends a pang to Beomgyu’s heart. She doesn’t stop swiping over his cheeks and under his eyes as he looks up at her before he makes his decision.
“Yunjinie, can I tell you about the dream I had?”
~*~
“How long were you talking to that dude?” Soobin asked him.
Beomgyu shrugged and took a sip from his Americano. “I don’t know, that’s the weird thing. It felt like a long time, but not long at all at the same time.”
After telling Yunjin about his dream, it led to a discussion about how Beomgyu had been feeling. The man had been right and Yunjin’s understanding of Beomgyu’s sadness helped slightly ease it. She had held him while he cried then proceeded to make him promise that he’d try to talk to her about things like that instead of suffering alone.
“There’s a difference between wanting to be alone, which I’d understand, and wanting to suffer alone. You’re not alone, even when you feel like it.”
She also managed to convince him to leave the apartment before the winter break ended to actually enjoy his time off, so he had sent a message to Soobin and met him at a café on their campus.
He told him about the dream vaguely without all the detail because one emotional breakdown a day is his quota. He also wasn’t ready to come clean about everything all over again.
Soobin was good like that, though. He didn’t push. He had asked Beomgyu for what the “deep conversation” had been but when Beomgyu said he didn’t want to talk about it yet, Soobin shrugged and smiled at him.
“How come you didn’t call hyung to come though? Won’t you tell him?”
“Hyung has been working a lot lately, including today. I’ll see him after his shift on Thursday if you want to come and, you know, see your lover boy.” He grinned at Soobin, wiggling his eyebrows.
He narrowly missed the wooden coaster that was thrown in his direction with a hissed shut up from his friend.
“I’ll tell him though… It’s just weird,” he sighed.
“What’s weird? The dream?”
“Yeah! I really didn’t realize it was a dream. It felt almost real.”
“They typically do.”
Memories of the man helping him sit properly on the branch flashed through his mind, and he shook his head, giving Soobin a look. “He grabbed me and I swear it felt real. I don’t think that’s typical of dreams.”
Soobin gave him a close-lipped smile to hide to large bite of his muffin he took. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He sighed and fell back against his seat, taking another sip of his drink. “I don’t know either.”
“What was dream boy’s name anyway?” Soobin asks between chews.
Beomgyu sat up again, looking at Soobin with wide eyes who, scared at his friend’s suddenness, muttered a small ‘what?’
“I didn’t get his name.”
Soobin laughed heartily, muffin still in his mouth, and failed to dodge the wooden coaster thrown his way.