Chapter Text
FALL
Yeji had become homeless at 19.
As everyone knew but didn't mind reminding her, the university offered free housing only to freshmen and, as it turned out, she had become a sophomore. She couldn't even ask for help because 1) Hyunjin now lived in a student republic for men only, 2) Jimin and Minjeong had decided to live together and there was no way Yeji would ask them to make a room for her, and 3) She was too proud to admit she messed it up that bad.
Desperate for walls and a roof to call a home, Yeji had explored the far reaches of the internet for roommate ads. Most of them did, in fact, match her style and offered a good price. At the end of the day, her options had narrowed to three apartments. The first one sat near the campus, but far from her job. The second was the opposite version of the first. The third was far from everything, but the cheapest of all.
But, when everything started looking too dark, Yeji saw a light at the end of the tunnel—an ad at the bottom of her laptop screen.
While deciding, a pop-up showed her the perfect location, sitting close to the campus and her workplace, with a fair price. The description went like this:
Shin Ryujin, 18
Interest: cats (i don't have one, don't worry), music, cooking, old movies i guess
Occupation: i have a band. yeah.
Request: honestly i just want someone to pay ⅓ of the bills that would accept to watch our band rehearsals and give an honest opinion about music and stuff.
If Yeji was a silly cartoon character, her eyes would've jumped out of her skull by the time she read “pay ⅓ of the bills”, one third. Not half, like most people asked.
Also, it had photos attached. The place wasn't huge, but certainly not small. Yeji didn't care about the cubicle of kitchen it had, since her diet consisted only of takeout food and smelly snacks. The bathroom had a tub and looked like it could be cleaned more often. Her future room had a bed, a desk and a wardrobe already, and all of that meant Yeji wouldn't spend any money buying those things and could just arrive, put her polaroids on the wall, her laptop on the desk and clothes on the wardrobe. It seemed the dining room was absent and, instead, she would have a table and some chairs glued to the wall of the living room, which was totally fine.
The drawback consisted only of the last line. Watch our band rehearsals and give an honest opinion about music and stuff. Yeji had no idea what type of sound the band made and she was particularly petty with the things her ears liked. Not only that, the living room looked like a stage. She could see four different guitars and a keyboard, but no signs of microphones or, the worst thing ever, a set of drums, which would be a neon red and uppercased no for her.
So, blinded by the “one third” thing, she had sent a message.
And now, here she was.
“We’ll have a rehearsal in a few minutes.” Ryujin stated, not even looking at her.
Her roommate left quite an impression. Ryujin had a 165 centimeters long body full of small to medium sized tattoos, most of it so silly looking, like the little rats throwing a birthday party on her shoulder, for example. She recently dyed her hair and got affectionately nicknamed as “oreo ass hair” by her friends and bandmates, people Yeji never really talked to, since she moved in just some weeks ago.
“Sure, I’ll be here,” she replied and took a bite of the pancake on her plate.
Living with Ryujin had its perks. Yes, she was noisy and ate Yeji’s snacks without asking. But, again, it wasn't that bad. Ryujin knew how to cook and had a disgusting knowledge of breakfast meals. Pancakes, apparently, were her especiality.
“These are… really good,” Yeji’s praise stumbled, her words still shy.
Ryujin, far past the shy phase, shot a proud grin towards her. “I know, roomie.”
Not to exaggerate, but she might be the most arrogant person Yeji had the unpleasant experience of meeting. Not only with cuisine, but pretty much everything. The brown-haired had lost count of how many times she told Ryujin something sounded nice—a song she hummed or a riff—and the girl’s only reply had been the same proud grin.
“You’re so humble.”
“Thanks, I try.” Ryujin winked. “Are you free tomorrow night?”
Now, Ryujin had this odd habit of trying to drag Yeji into every little adventure and acted like her presence was absolutely needed. At the beginning, the brown-haired thought her roommate was being polite, but it wasn't the case, she was just that annoying.
“It’s my rest day.”
“You rest everyday,” Ryujin pointed out and sipped from her second mug. Yeji suspected she had a caffeine addiction. “Don’t you live your life or date or just kiss random people or do drugs or—”
“No,” Yeji interrupted, laughing weakly. “I don't do any of those. My plan is to do what I'm supposed to do now, so I can do most of those things later and then be happy.”
Ryujin paused and stared at her for the first time that day, seemingly invested. “Why not now?” She asked, the mug hovering close to her lips. “I mean, why not be happy now? Why later?”
Her brain slightly malfunctioned. Yeji had not seen this coming and certainly had no answer for it. Mind you, it was 8 in the morning, her brain needed a while to find its neurons.
Thankfully, her roommate received a message and, since she had an attention span of a five years old, forgot about the weirdly deep conversation and left the kitchen while typing on her phone.
Since she had no more roommate to interrupt her breakfast, Yeji continued to eat, happier than ever.
Unfortunately, it did not last much.
Before Yeji could swallow the last bite of her pancake, the doorbell rang and Ryujin dashed away to answer it. Her roommate and the mysterious person by the door chatted excitedly, with falsettos and giggles. Finally, when Yeji got up to, at least, change her clothes, the girl got inside and chuckled at the sight.
“Hey, Ryujin’s roomie,” she said. The smile still lingered on her lips and Yeji couldn't help feeling a bit awkward.
“Hey, Ryujin’s friend.”
The girl’s smile became wider. She was tall, carried a huge duffel bag and dressed like a character from a drama would, black skirt and a white blouse. She was probably one of the prettiest girls Yeji had ever seen.
“I’m Yuna.” She bowed cartoonishly, holding the end of her skirt with the tip of her fingers and letting the bag slip through her arm. “The drummer.”
The— what.
Yeji’s mouth fell to the ground.
“You… sorry, did you say you're a drummer?”
“Huh, yeah.” Yuna continued to smile, but with no light to it. “Didn’t Ryujin tell you about us?”
“No, not really.”
Yuna rolled her eyes. “She’s so useless.”
Yeji couldn't agree more. A note on the roommate ad wouldn't kill anyone. Sure, a lot of people would refuse, and Yeji certainly would be one of them, but it was completely justifiable. No one wanted to share walls with a drummer. Honestly, Yeji should've seen this coming, the ⅓ part was clearly a scan.
“Where are the others?” Ryujin asked, avidly ignoring Yeji’s glare. “Jisu sent me a message thirty minutes ago and she lives, like, fifteen minutes away.”
“If Jisu says she's leaving, it means she's showering.” Yuna pointed out. “We know each other for years now, you should know this.”
“But she said she was almost here.”
“She probably stopped to buy food.” Yuna shook her head. “You really don't know us. Lame.”
“Ask me anything about your life and I'll answer.”
“Just shut up and help me with this.”
Yeji watched silently as they grabbed folded paraphernalia from the bag, connected cables and assembled the set of electronic drums. She looked at the pair of plates the same way she would look at the villain of a horror movie.
“So,” she started, “how exactly do you guys sound? And how many of you are there?”
Yuna chuckled. “You’ll see how we sound.”
“We’re four, by the way,” Ryujin replied.
Two knocks followed by a loud thud cut through the conversation. The trio turned as one, their eyes fixed on the unknown figure breaking into the apartment. The girl paused at the door, one hand covering her eyes. She waited four seconds in silence before glancing into the living room.
“What’s your problem?” Yuna laughed, half confused, half amused.
“Oh.” The girl answered, alternating her embarrassed gaze between them. “You don't know what I've seen here.”
Ryujin chuckled. “It wasn't that bad.”
The girl shook her head and finally addressed Yeji. “You’re the girl living with Ryujin, right?”
Unfortunately.
“Yeah, that would be me.” She answered instead.
Between Yuna and the still unnamed girl, Yeji already liked the latter more. She dressed normally, with simple washed jeans and a white tank top. Most importantly, she didn't mock Yeji’s pajamas as soon as she entered.
“So sorry for you. I’m Chaeryeong, Ryujin must’ve told you, right?”
“Hi, Chaeryeong. I'm sorry too.”
Ryujin’s friends liked the joke and laughed. The oreo-haired, on the other hand, acted like someone shot her heart and emulated an expression akin to sadness. Yeji just giggled more.
“You’re breaking my heart.”
Yeji simulated a zipper over her mouth and sat straight on the couch. “I love being your roommate,” she said with practiced blankness.
The last band member, a short girl that looked way too much like a sloth, knocked on the door not many minutes after the other girls finished assembling everything. Jisu carried five overly oily bags of sandwiches. Yeji recognized the food's place of origin by the brownish stain on the paper and the smell of french fries—a food trailer of arab cuisine with no real arab dish. The weird part about them was how everything smelled like french fries, something they did not sell. Maybe it was their olfactory identity.
“Here’s yours, Yeji.”
Somehow, Jisu already knew her. Of course, she knew Yeji as the “Ryujin’s roommate” and not as an individual containing multitudes, but was still kind enough to bring food for her too.
“This one is my favorite,” she said and tucked the sandwich in the refrigerator. “What a coincidence.”
“It’s not a coincidence,” Jisu replied. “Ryujin told me you always buy this one.”
So she talked about Yeji with her friends. Interesting. The brown-haired used to think her roommate only acknowledged her existence to disturb it, but apparently, she got it wrong. Ryujin cared a bit about her.
“So— wait.” Yeji narrowed her eyes. “You know the sandwich’s mine and, still, you… eat it?”
Ryujin shrugged. “I’m doing you a favor. The food's full of months-old oil, I don't want you to have a heart attack.”
Yeji snorted. “How kind of you.”
“I know, rommie.” Ryujin winked. “Sit down, we're starting.”
It wasn't bad.
Well, Yeji heard more Paramore in the last two hours than she did in her entire life, but that wasn't particularly bad nor good, just a fact. They played half of some original songs too, which weren't horrible, but unpolished—and Yeji promptly told them, since that was the deal.
“By the way, what are you guys called?”
The four girls looked at each other, then back at Yeji.
“Hotplay.”
“No.” Ryujin glared at Yuna. “Stop suggesting this.”
“Imagine Monkeys.” Yuna tried again. The girls giggled, although Ryujin seemed displeased. “Arctic Dragons.”
“Just shut up.”
Yeji giggled too. She grew to like Yuna in the last few hours, the only one cracking jokes during the rehearsal or being silly, in general. “I like Arctic Dragons.”
“You don't start.” Ryujin narrowed her eyes. “We’re still thinking about a name.”
Jisu and Chaeryeong pointed out how “Hotplay” was a great name for a band, but the conversation quickly died when Ryujin threatened to go solo if they ever decided to call themselves that. Deep down, Yeji understood her, despite not saying it out loud.
“So? Who’s your favorite?”
“Jisu’s pretty cute.” Yeji smirked. “And she brought me food, so… yeah.”
“I make you food every morning.” Ryujin counter argued. “Isn’t that ten times better?”
“But you also eat the food I buy.”
Ryujin shrugged. “I’ll change your mind.”
“I don't think you will.”
“And your favorite song?” Ryujin changed the subject with a proud smile.
That was the moment Yeji realized none of them told which original song belonged to whom. Plus, they all sang, so there was no way to guess.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“C’mon, there's no wrong answer.” Ryujin pouted.
“Huh… The last one you guys played?”
Ryujin widened her shiny eyes. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That’s my song,” she justified, smiling too bright.
“Let me change my mind real quick.”
“No, you’ve already said it. You can't ‘unsay’ it.”
The worst thing happened: Ryujin shot that same proud grin towards Yeji, blazing her with a suffocating arrogance.
“You’ll give you that. It's a cool song.”
Ryujin tucked a strand of hair in the back of her ear and, for a few seconds, looked shy. “Thanks.”
The silence that reigned was too awkward to walk away from. Ryujin still looked at her expectantly.
“Does that mean I can go back to eating your pancakes?”
Ryujin chuckled. “If you tell me why you liked it.”
Yeji shifted the weight between her legs and looked away. “It sounds… nice?”
“Another reason, maybe more specific?”
“It’s just— I can't explain. It's just the type of song I would like to hear.”
Ryujin hummed and nodded, apparently communicating to herself using her own mannerisms. She looked silly, like everything else about her.
“Cool. Anything else?”
“Did you write the lyrics thinking about someone?”
Ryujin smiled, but Yeji sensed it wasn't kind. “You’re too nosy sometimes.”
“Oh, I'm the nosy one?”
“Yes, you are,” Ryujin replied. “If that’s your only question, then you can go, I'm dismissing your services.”
Yeji clicked her tongue. “You need to be media trained if you want to be a rockstar, that was not a good reaction.”
“You're gonna get over it.” She marched to her room.
“What about your fans? They want to know, Ryujin. The people want to know.”
The oreo-haired humphed and closed the door. Yeji heard a familiar chord progression shortly after, but couldn't quite put her fingers onto it.
Yeji found out more things about Ryujin as the weeks started and ended. The main thing being how persistent her roommate could be, especially with things Yeji clearly wasn't up to.
“You coming?”
“I’m behind in some classes and I need to be ahead.”
Yes, she had a new reason every night—cramming, assignments, study sessions, too tired to move. Yet, Ryujin persisted. Day by day, without missing a beat, her roommate would turn around and ask “you coming?” to whatever adventure she planned for the night.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Ryujin snorted. “Sure, be ahead now so you can be happy later.”
Yeji’s stomach started to bubble up. As if Ryujins not being able to tell by the growing pile of paper growing inside the trash can or the amount of hair Yeji plucked while reading her textbook wasn't stressing enough, just looking at her also made Yeji uneasy for no particular reason.
“I’m just worried about my future, unlike someone I know.”
“And I'm just worrying about my present, unlike someone I live with.”
Yeji scoffed. “Go to your party.”
“I’ll go.” Ryujin marched, but twirled her ankles centimeters away from reaching the door. “Look, I'm just saying you can let it go sometimes. You can be happy now.”
When the door closed, Yeji loudly snorted.
Then, she pondered. It was the second time that week Ryujin used the same line against her. And, sometimes, Yeji thought the same thing, despite not addressing the issue. It usually happened when she opened Instagram for five minutes only to be bombarded with all the fun things her friends were doing at the very same time she was religiously studying something she already knew. It didn't matter the content, it always stinged when Jimin, Minjeong or Hyunjin—or the three of them at the same time—posted photo dumps of their weekends and everything seemed so fun. The parties, the drinks, the concerts, the movie nights. But just wanting it made her feel an immeasurable amount of guilt, for reasons Yeji can't even put in words. Still, things staying as they were sounded better than changing them, especially because it would give Ryujin a reason to think she was correct.
On Halloween night, Yeji looked at her Notion’s calendar the same way she used to look at dentists when she was a child—like they were monsters. Two papers due in three days, a quiz tomorrow and finals in five weeks, which meant Yeji was six weeks late. Doomed, she cracked her knuckles and neck, gulped as much water as her mouth could store and started.
Miraculously, Ryujin grew quiet in the last few hours. No boisterously singing from the bathroom, no shredding random chords at terrible times, no pans clashing from the kitchen. Yeji, for the first time in a while, had the silence she needed to focus on important things.
Until, around 9 o’clock, she heard the door open and close a billion times per second, muffled laughter and cans opening. That was fine. Ryujin probably invited some friends over, a common thing. It would be great if she asked Yeji how she felt about it before doing so, but since she didn't and Yeji refused to be a wet blanket, she just grabbed her headphones and continued on her quest to become a master of Statistics before midnight.
She persisted until the noise got unbearable.
One hour later, it sounded like a battalion decided to dance in the apartment. It also sounded like the music came directly from instruments instead of speakers. The singer sounded exactly like Ryujin.
Fuming and tromping, Yeji left her room to be greated by at least twenty people in the living room. It seemed like they were all in a competition to speak louder than everyone else and the music. Yeji felt like she was the only one losing.
“Oh, hey!” Jisu was dressed as a huge strawberry and looked awfully cute. If Yeji were happy instead of infuriated, she’d love to take a picture of her. “Cool costume. Having fun?”
Wearing pajamas at a party she had no intention of participating in was not exactly her idea of “having fun”, but Jisu talked to her in such a sweet way. Yeji could not bring herself to be rude—even though she was at the verge of cursing every single soul inside the apartment.
“Is Ryujin here?”
“Oh, finally you left your little cave,” the said person intervened. Somehow, Yeji got angrier than she was before at the sight of a flushed Ryujin, holding a can of beer and dressed as some type of ninja. “Since you don't go to parties, I brought a party for you.”
Yeji wanted to scream right there.
“What?” She said instead, steady.
Ryujin sipped from her beer and wrapped a wobbly arm around Yeji’s waist. “I told you. You should have fun with me sometimes. Forget about school and computers, that's not important tonight.”
She knows what she was supposed to do. A voice in her mind told her just don't be a dick about it, things will get awkward. But, then she stared at Ryujin, then at Yuna—or Elsa—playing the drums and Chaeryeong—or Wonder Woman—testing the microphone again, then back at Ryujin wrapped around her. Yeji just couldn't take it anymore.
Instead of following the voice of reason, she took dubious decisions.
“You have no empathy or whatsoever, do you?” Even though she intended it to come out harsh, it sounded too much, odd even to her own ears. “You can't control my life just because you think you know how to live better than—”
“Hey,” Jisu interrupted when her voice got too loud to ignore. “Maybe we should call it a night.”
Ryujin clicked her tongue, standing on her own now. “I was just trying to be nice to you, so sorry if you're fucking boring and can't see how your life is pathetic.”
“I'm juggling a job and a degree! You could at least tell me when you're planning to be noisy.”
“See? You're so obsessed you don't even let me live my life. And how d’you expect me to not make noise? I’m a musician—”
“You’re not real a musician,” Yeji cut, hands clenched beside her core. “You’re just unemployed. Nobody knows who you are and nobody cares.”
Jisu remained silent as Ryujin processed everything. Yeji expected a slap that didn't come—but lowkey deserved.
“Take everybody out.” Ryujin finally muttered to Jisu.
She stomped to her room, sparing no word or glance at Yeji. Jisu, though, made sure to let her know how she felt—hurt, maybe even more than Ryujin, like Yeji had just offended her instead. She evicted Chaeryeong and Yuna, but her nape burned as she walked back into her room and she knew they were the culprits.
Things got weird. Capital “W” Weird.
Now, Yeji arduously tried to evict Ryujin, even though they lived together and their rooms were not more than five meters apart. The weirder part about it was how successfully she managed to do it. Yeji had no idea of what her roommate did throughout the day and was not curious either. Maybe, the right word for describing her relationship with Ryujin's disappearance was “intrigued” or something akin to it, but at the same time, she would rather remain ignorant.
“Isn't it… good?” Jimin asked and sipped from her third can of Monster, the green one. Yeji insisted she was addicted, Jimin insisted she was fine and could stop drinking if she wanted—she just didn't want to. They all doubted it. “I mean, you spent weeks bad mouthing her to us.”
Yeji hissed. The term "bad mouthing” didn't suit the situation.
“I didn't—”
“Yes, you did.” Hyunjin interrupted and sank his glasses further into his nose bridge. “You said she wasn't clean, that she eats your food, that she’s noisy—”
“Fine,” Yeji sighed, “but I don't actually mean it. I don't hate her.” Three pairs of eyes stared blankly into her soul. She continued. “I swear. It's just that she had this thing of insisting I don't know how to live my life and saying that I'll regret and saying how my logic of being happy later makes no sense and it's ridiculous because I don't even mean it, it's just something I said for some reason.”
Minjeong breathed deeply and, looking rather motherly at Yeji, spoke for the first time, “I think she's right, to be honest.”
Metaphorically, Yeji’s mouth fell to the ground. Literally, she cursed at Minjeong for not being on her side.
“You’re making it so much harder than it should be.” Hyunjin said. “You should’ve just talked to her.”
“I don't want to be rude.”
“Yeah, you’re doing great.” Hyunjin ironized. “I told Jeongin a billion times that I hate every wrong thing he does, it doesn't work because he's a little bitch. Your roommate, though, seems like a genuinely chill person.”
“There’s no way you could know that.”
“Well, I know you and that's enough.” He grinned, aware he won the argument. “You have this weird thing: you don't talk to someone and then expect them to know exactly what you want.”
She grew silent. Beside Yeji, her friends vehemently agreed with the boy and they all proceeded to talk about her fatal flaw—lack of communication, apparently.
“He’s right, talking to her would solve ninety nine percent of your problems.” Jimin added. “The bathroom mess, the food, the noise, literally everything.”
“Fine, but first I need to see her. She's running away from me like I'm the worst person alive.”
“You are, kind of.” Minjeong raised an eyebrow. “Unfortunately, I was your roommate once and I know that you have a serious problem with dealing with stress.”
Ashamed, she muttered a shy “I don't remember that,” and continued to listen.
“You’re not that clean too, by the way.” Minjeong addressed.
“Maybe our Yeji had enough,” Jimin stopped Hyunjin from expressing whatever he had to say and wrapped an arm around Yeji’s shoulder. “What we’re trying to say is that you should talk to her and include a ‘I’m sorry for being a dick, Ryujin, please forgive me’ and then boom, you're good.”
After the end of Yeji’s slander time, her group friend finally changed subjects. Hyunjin proceeded to tell them about another awful boy living with him, dirty clothes on the floor and unflushed toilets. Yeji stopped listening by the time he began the monthly speech about how college dried out his bank account.
By the end of the day, Yeji had a lot on her mind and was, officially, one week away from finals. Unfortunately, she still had a job and it meant she needed to juggle taking orders and making coffee while also worrying about Calculus II. After one year of suffering, she got used to it, really. The baby blue wall was somehow calming and, if she was at the verge of insanity, the quotes, cheeky in a way only a millennial could’ve thought about putting those things there, also managed to slow her down. Quite literally. Her favorite quirk quotation went like slow down in life, you won't make it out alive. Sometimes, random things would steal her attention from the coffee and she would spill it all over the counter and wear an awkward smile while the client glared. Maybe she would take the wrong order and hand a matcha latte to someone asking for peppermint tea. It happened once.
This time, the silly thing had a name.
“Ryujin?” She almost screamed, too baffled to evict. “What are you—” Yeji breathed slowly and changed the conversation’s course. “What can I get for you?”
Ryujin blinked once, then twice. She clearly didn't know Yeji worked there before it was too late.
“Latte.”
Yeji nodded and got to work. Yizhuo wasn't there and Aeri got unavailable twenty minutes ago, when she started cleaning tables and gave herself a moment of self assigned pause.
“Sure, just sit wherever you want and I'll bring it to you.”
She decided to ignore all the counseling from before and apologize following her own, Yeji-original approach.
While Ryujin sat on one chair at the corner, crossed arms and tensed up muscles, Yeji mentally prepared for the task ahead of her. Determined, she poured milk onto a small jar, filled a mug with coffee and concentrated. She remembered how to do it and did her best. Sometimes, however, the best you can do isn't enough and, even after following every step with a lot of care, Yeji still managed to draw a plump circle instead of a milk heart. At least it had a tail.
She sighed, defeated. “It’s a heart,” she told Ryujin.
Her roommate looked at the mug, then back at her. “I don't think it is.”
“Just drink the coffee. It's on me.”
Ryujin chuckled, joyless. She didn't reply otherwise.
Five minutes later, Yeji cornered Aeri after she came back from the pause and pulled the most intimidating expression she could make.
“Teach me the heart again.” The intimidating expression melted away. Now, Yeji pouted cartoonishly and had her hands tied on each other.
Aeri raised an eyebrow and looked at her like Yeji was a little bug. “Again?”
“I made a ball. It had a little tail, too.”
Aeri chuckled. “Not the worst thing you’ve made.” Yeji turned, shying away from her gaze. “Remember that time—”
“I do,” she interrupted. “Please, the heart.”
Aeri laughed more, then showed her. First, she poured the milk, wiggling the mug and creating a plump circle, then finished it off by cutting through the shape. Yeji swore to have done the same thing.
“Who asked for a heart, anyway?”
Yeji stopped her hand mid air, after realizing Ryujin had left already and pointing at nothing wouldn't make sense.
“No one.”
That was it. There, she decided there was no escaping: she would apologize today.
As soon as Yeji crossed the imaginary line at the door—it dictated whether she was at the apartment or not—Ryujin stopped on her track and stared. That was it. Yeji needed to end it now or else she would die of embarrassment someday.
She fiddled with her fingers before saying, “Look, I’m sorry. I know it must've sucked to hear what I told you.”
Ryujin only stared, piercing Yeji with her chocolate colored eyes. “Did you mean it?” She asked, voice coming out weaker than it normally would.
Yeji gulped. “What exactly are you asking me?”
“D’you really think I’ll never make it?”
“No!” She winced, mentally visualizing a big hammer smashing her. “I was just— I don't know why I said that, I had a lot going on.”
“Fine.” Ryujin grew silent, then, “You didn't answer my question, though.”
Before Yeji could protest, her roommate closed her room’s door and that was the end of it.
Yeji limply threw her body into the couch, letting a frustrated groan escape her lips. Her friends were right. She did, in fact, grow sulky when stressed. And she expected people to know exactly what she wanted. And she sucked, apparently. Ryujin had all reasons to be mad and give her the cold shoulder.
She was doomed.
Then, she realized: technically, she apologized. Sure, Ryujin didn't accept it, but Yeji did her part. There was nothing else she could do. Things would continue to be awkward tomorrow, and next week too, but that was entirely Ryujin's fault.
After her genius conclusion, Yeji decided to acknowledge her efforts and sent a message to her friend's group.
guess who apologized
The answer came shortly after.
jimin, the idiot: you???
minjeong, the weird: are you guys okay now?
Yeji sighed.
no..
but i apologized!!
that's what matters, i proved you all wrong
hyunjin, the snake: oh honey… you just proved us right.
Unfortunately, she agreed. Defeated, Yeji threw her phone beside her. It flopped up and down before settling one arm length away, ringing from messages she didn't want to read. She wished things could just fix themselves. Instead, every problem needed human intervention, including her little disagreement with Ryujin.
Life couldn't be like that.
With a rush of energy, Yeji got up and stomped until she was face to face with the source of her problems: Ryujin. Well, almost. Her room, at least. Yeji courageously knocked on her door, answered with a soft “huh?” and a peculiar noise coming.
“Can we talk a little more?”
No reply. She gave up and swirled her ankles to walk away, but Ryujin opened the door and rested her side on the wall, waiting.
Yeji fiddled with her fingers again. “I meant it. I'm sorry.”
Ryujin shrugged. “Fine, I accepted it.”
“It doesn't look like you did.”
“Look,” the oreo-haired sighed, “I just wanted to be your friend and it didn't work. I'm sorry if I disturbed you or anything, I won't try that again. You don't need to keep apologizing over and over, I get it.”
Before Yeji could say anything, Ryujin closed the door.
guys im so dumb
She sent it to her friends without reading the other messages. They bomb her with more texts, but Yeji drowned in an Linear Algebra assignment in an attempt to think about something other than her roommate.
As Thanksgiving and the end of Fall approached, Yeji and Ryujin grew colder, just as the temperature outside. They pretended everything was fine, but the brown-haired still checked the emptiness of the living room before leaving her own room. Ryujin spent most of the day locked up, playing guitar or talking to her friends. Yeji still felt bad about the state of their relationship, since the fault lay almost entirely with her.
For that reason, she came up with a plan of slowly melting Ryujin’s guards down, inviting her to watch movies or offering food made by herself—mostly coffee. Ryujin rarely accepted it, though, so when she opened the door, in a hurry and looking like she was hit by a tornado, Yeji jumped out of surprise.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she replied, “I made the coffee. Smells nice enough.”
“Enough?”
“I’ve made better ones,” she quietly admitted while swirling her thumbs. “Sit down and… have a drink or something.”
“Sure.”
Ryujin dashed to the chair and devoured the tarnished, bland-tasting omelet Yeji made for herself. Okay, sure. She could make another one.
“It’s raining a lot, right?” Yeji commented while crossing their living room slash dining room.
“Yeah, don't wanna get wet.”
“It sucks.”
“I know.”
The conversation died. From the kitchen, Yeji could hear the tingle of the metal knife against the porcelain plate and the mug occasionally being slammed on the table.
“The coffee’s good,” Ryujin said beside her. Yeji couldn't believe she finished it already. “But, new rule: you make the coffee, I make all the other foods. Get it?”
Yeji blushed. “Got it.”
She thought about admitting the omelet was supposed to be hers to embarrass Ryujin in return, but it sounded too petty, something Yeji refused to be—mostly.
“Thanks, roomie.”
And just as Ryujin was about to leave, the weak rain morphed into a storm in seconds. The sky turned almost black and the raindrops became thick enough to make a huge noise when falling against the window.
Yeji heard a faint curse from the living room. “Gave up?”
Ryujin sighed. “I can't go out.”
Since she couldn't, she turned on the TV and grabbed her phone to scroll through Instagram. Yeji snorted and, as she was about to sit, the news interrupted whatever show was playing to announce:
“Meteorologists predict a week of severe weather, with storms and blizzards expected to impact the region. Local authorities are urging residents to remain indoors and take necessary precautions, such as…”
The woman continued to ramble while Ryujin and Yeji stared blankly at each other.