MISS YOU MORE,

Seok Matthew does not understand Kim Jiwoong as well as he wished he did.

They'd been friends for years, inseparable to the point where most places they went to were together, most decisions they made were made together. If Jiwoong wasn't there, Matthew wasn't there either, which is why Matthew found it strange the day Jiwoong turned down a day of clubbing to hang out with a girl he'd met a couple months ago.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Matthew repeated, looking up from his phone as he sat on the couch, watching as Jiwoong struggled to find his shoes. "You never say no to the club."

"I have plans," Jiwoong spoke, kneeling on all fours as he checked under the couch for his shoes, a groan leaving his mouth when he was met with nothing. "You can go with Taerae, or Ricky." He nodded, "Yeah, go with Ricky. He's better at taking care of himself if he gets shitfaced."

"I don't want to go with him," Matthew scoffed. "We literally planned this last month. You said yes then!"

"That was because I didn't have anything better to do then," Jiwoong said, yelling from his room. He sighed in relief when he found his shoes behind his door, picking them up with one hand as he walked back to where Matthew sat, the latter still shocked. "And now I do."

"Your idea of 'something better to do' is to pine after a girl who already told you she wasn't interested?" Matthew's brow raised as he watched the corners of Jiwoong's mouth twitch, unhappy with his words. "Just accept that someone doesn't want to sleep with you for once."

"I'm not pining," Jiwoong said, putting on his jacket. "We're friends." And though it was true, it hurt him to say those words aloud — almost like a part of him wished they were more than that.

"Yeah, so are we."

"Why are you being difficult?" Jiwoong asked, setting his shoes down as he looked at Matthew, annoyed. "You've never cared before. Why now?"

Matthew wondered if it was a good idea to tell Jiwoong that he hated Bae Yeojin and her stupid self-destructive habits. He thought about it, whether he should tell him that being friends with someone who hated themselves was only going to end up harming him in the process — that Jiwoong was going to regret having proposed being friends with her in the first place. But he didn't say anything. Instead, he just looked away, thinking of an excuse that his friend would rather hear.

"You can't even think of anything," Jiwoong mumbled, scoffing as he sat on the floor near the entrance, tying his shoes. "Whatever. I'll see you later, Matt."

"Later being tomorrow?" Matthew asked, somewhat provokingly. "You might as well just move in with her at this point."

"You're so petty," Jiwoong said, grabbing his key as he opened the front door. "See you."

It wasn't Matthew's intention to argue with Jiwoong — in fact, that was the last thing he wanted. He just wanted his friend to realize that nothing good awaited him if he was going to spend most of his time chasing after a girl who couldn't figure out what he wanted. He wanted him to realize that he was just wasting his time.

Frankly, Kim Jiwoong didn't care.

"I can't believe you're spending New Year's here instead of at the club," Yeojin said as she stood in front of the stove in her kitchen, boiling water in a kettle. "That's so boring."

"It's actually a lot better than you think." Jiwoong was seated at the table, watching Yeojin from behind as he fidgeted with his fingers. "I don't really like clubbing that much anyway."

"I remember you told me that was all you'd do on the weekends," Yeojin spoke, glancing over her shoulder to see if he'd caught him in a lie. "Isn't that, like, what you live for?"

"That was the old Kim Jiwoong," he said. "The new Kim Jiwoong likes spending time with Bae Yeojin." He paused for a moment, then chuckled. "Even if we never leave the house."

"It's too cold to do anything outside!" Yeojin replied, annoyed at how pleased Jiwoong was with her reaction, her eye twitching when she heard him start laughing. "If you'd met me in the summer, I would've been the funnest person to be around."

"That is so not true." Jiwoong turned around at the sound of Xiaoting's voice. She was standing behind him in a baggy sweater and pajama pants, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at Yeojin, framing her as a liar. Her eyes then moved to look at Jiwoong, smiling as she whispered, "Don't believe her. She's even more of a shut-in when it's summer."

"Why are you even here?" Yeojin asked, turning off the stove when the kettle went off. She turned around and looked at her, suddenly bothered by how close she was to Jiwoong. "I thought you were going out for dinner."

"Change of plans," Xiaoting said, still looking at Jiwoong.

Yeojin knew that Xiaoting had cancelled her plans the moment she mentioned that Jiwoong would be coming over. See, as time passed, Xiaoting's crush on her friend only seemed to grow. Normally, Yeojin wouldn't have minded — they were just friends, after all. But seeing how her roommate practically threw herself at Jiwoong, not even trying to hide the fact that she might already be in love with him — it made her feel weird, her stomach turning, the need to peel her off him growing.

She listened to their conversation as she poured the water from the kettle into a mug, mixing in three spoons of coffee mix. She listened, her eye twitching as she stood by the counter, pretending not to care when Xiaoting asked Jiwoong about his love life, how many girlfriends he'd had, if he happened to be available — "for a friend," she said.

"No," he said, glancing at Yeojin who seemed to be muttering curses under her breath directed to Xiaoting. "At least I don't think so? It's complicated."

"What do you mean 'complicated'?" Xiaoting moved back, her eyes narrowing as she questioned him. "You either have one or you don't."

"It's just complicated," he said with a thin-lipped smile, his eye twitching slightly. "Tell your friend I'm not available."

Yeojin couldn't help but stare at Jiwoong later that night as he laid on her bed, his eyes focused on counting the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd placed there her freshman year. She sat at her desk as he talked, his mouth moving as words with no meaning spilled out, but Yeojin couldn't hear him, too caught up in her own thoughts to even make an effort to comprehend him, thinking about what he'd said to Xiaoting before. Why wouldn't he be available? she thought, her leg bouncing as she spaced out. He doesn't have a girlfriend, and he's not talking to anyone either. What's "complicated"?

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Jiwoong asked, more to himself than to Yeojin. She blinked, Jiwoong's words finally heard on her end. "Maybe I will go."

"Go where?" Yeojin asked, confused.

"Osaka," he said, "eventually. I heard it's nice."

Yeojin looked at him, watching as he sat up on his forearms and looked back at her, holding her gaze. It seemed that was how they spent most of their time these days, looking at each other without physically exchanging any words — but there was always something being spoken between them. Perhaps in the way they looked at each other, Jiwoong's eyes soft and filled with a slight hint of longing, while Yeojin's gave off a frantic, confused message, almost as if she was trying to figure out what she wanted. "You should go, then," she finally spoke, quietly. Her fingers picked at her cuticles, her eyes remaining on his. "The pictures I've seen are always pretty."

"Would you come with me?" Jiwoong asked, sitting up straight, his legs crossed.

Yeojin chuckled, her eyes darting to the other end of the room, continuing to pick at her cuticles. "Why? I don't have any business there."

"I know," Jiwoong spoke, still looking at Yeojin even though she'd already looked away. "But I think I'd miss you too much."

Blood spewed from Yeojin's cuticles as she peeled the skin too far back, her jaw clenching at the sudden sharp pain. She paused, bringing her finger to her mouth as she sucked on the blood, Jiwoong's words repeating themselves over and over again in her head. Miss me? A part of her wanted to deny it, deny the fact that Jiwoong's attachment to her only seemed to grow stronger the longer he spent staring at her from her bed, the more time they spent in the same space, the more their eyes remained locked on each other's. But she knew that denying it would only make things worse — more so for her than for Jiwoong.

See, Bae Yeojin would never admit it — she'd rather die than admit it — but she could no longer stand the idea of a day where Kim Jiwoong was not with her. They'd only become unbearable, and telling him that would only feed his ego, she believed, and imply that she wanted something more than friendship, despite telling him otherwise. But now, as time only seemed to move faster, the new year only a few minutes away, Yeojin didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know if she wanted to keep playing this game of back and forth with Jiwoong, the game that would eventually decide their friendship. The idea of him was desirable, to the point where she'd thought about being something more, a relationship with meaning. But was that truly the best case? Was that really what Yeojin wanted? It was hard to tell, but what she did know was that the day Kim Jiwoong left, she'd miss him terribly.

"I think I'd miss you more," Yeojin mumbled, though her words reached Jiwoong's ears, turning red. "I like having you around. Sometimes."

Jiwoong found it hard to sleep that night, the sound of fireworks going off outside not nearly as loud as the thoughts running wild through his head, wondering what she meant with her words. He couldn't bring himself to ask her, even though he knew she was awake as she laid next to him, her back facing him. Even if he had asked, she probably wouldn't have told him, perhaps afraid that she'd contradict herself, afraid that she'd broken the set of rules she'd set for herself. But Jiwoong didn't care about Yeojin's rules or standards or whatever she wanted to call it.

He cared about her, whether she liked it or not.