╔═━─━▒ ۞ ▒━─━═╗
MAGIC SHOP
╚═━─━▒ ۞ ▒━─━═╝

Taehyung

“Aarrgghh!” I groan low, pressing a hand to my forehead and trying to open my eyes, which seems like a great ordeal right now.

Today it feels no different as my reflexes are slower than that of a sloth, just as it is every morning. Pushing my back off the mattress, I sit up in bed and hold my head in both my hands, rubbing my weary eyes with the base of my palms.

And just like every morning, I have that muffled headache that won’t go away until I get some fresh air into my lungs and then replace it with tobacco smoke. Ironically, that’s the only way I know to relieve my headache.

Letting out a noisy yawn, I drag my feet to the bathroom and spend a long time there while emptying my bowels, brushing my teeth, and waking up fully. Once done, I head to the living room to grab a cigarette, and as I make my way there, the revolting red couch in the living room next door assaults my eyes.

I wonder how she even picked up that couch in the first place.

But I still enjoy waking up to it because it is the only colorful thing in my otherwise monochromatic life. Ruffling my hair, I walk around the back of my couch and bend a little, stretching my hand out to pick up the pack of cigarettes from the coffee table. But then I see her sleeping on the couch, and it makes me jump.

WHAT?

Peering, I shake my head and squeeze my eyes closed and open them again, only to confirm that it’s her—Kwon Yi-Seo from next door.

Why is she sleeping here? Didn’t she go back home last night?

The crease between my brows only keeps deepening, and I can feel it as I stand rooted on my spot and zone out while staring at her sleeping peacefully on my couch.

Should I wake her up?
Probably not.

I should tame my headache first.

With my gaze still on her, I lean forward and pick up the pack of regular cigarettes and pull out one from it. Grabbing the lighter, I head over to the window and see that it’s already open, unlike on other days when I have to open it and close it later.

Maybe she opened it last night.

Shrugging it off, I light my cigarette and pull in the smoke, and as I do, I could feel every cell on the path traveled by the smoke coming to life or probably experiencing a slow death. This will eventually kill me someday, but smoking or not, I would anyway die. So, it really doesn’t matter.

It’s the same thoughts that keep churning within my mind, just like every morning, and this routine is something that was getting a little too mundane for me.

Until very recently.

Holding the cigarette between two fingers, I turn my head around to look at her sleeping on the couch, completely unaware of what is going on around her. She probably does not sleep so deep very often, given how bad her history has been.

Lately, she has been meddling with my routine, but by no means am I complaining. My routine wasn’t something that I was taking pride in following, yet I still have no reason to break out of it for good.

As I blow out another long chain of smoke, my thoughts once again jumble up a little.

Why didn’t she go back home last night?

My eyes flit back to her, and she shuffles a little in her place, but she doesn’t wake up yet. With one hand stuffed inside the front pocket of my trousers, I take in another long puff, slowly turning around to face the window as I exhale, and my gaze falls on my work table in the corner—neat and organized.

Frowning, I swiftly walk over to the table to see what kind of sorcery has happened. Holding the cigarette between my lips, I snatch the bunch of papers beneath the stationery stand and see that they’re all my music sheets. Glancing at the other bunch, I notice that those are all lyric sheets, and they’re all sorted out and neatly stacked on the top of the table.

It’s her. Last night, she was so curious to see what was over here.

Shaking my head, I replace the sheets on the table and return the stationery stand on top of it, just like how it was placed earlier, and then I walk back to the window.

The sheet that she was scribbling on last night is flapping gently beneath her glasses on top of the coffee table, and it draws my attention. I bend over and pick it up to see what she has written.

“Scandal guy, Sammy,” I mutter under my breath as I hold the paper in one hand, looking at the two names she has circled while I bend down to tip the edge of the cigarette in the ashtray.

“Not bad,” I whisper to myself, impressed, nodding my head in appreciation as I return the sheet to the table and replace it under her nerdy glasses.

As I’m about to extinguish the last bit of my cigarette, I notice that the ashtray is sparkly clean except for the small bit that I tipped in just a while ago.

Did she clean this too?

My eyes once again lift to look at her face, and I exhale slowly before making my way to the kitchen. On my way there, I don’t miss to notice that the dining table is cleared out as well. If my intuitions are right, she probably cleaned the kitchen too, and my suspicions are confirmed when I enter my kitchen and find it spotless.

Wow! When was the last time this place looked like a kitchen?

I vaguely remember one random hookup from a few years ago cleaning this place very diligently and doing my laundry the next morning. She even wanted to have a proper date and take things to the next level, and when I told her that dating wasn’t my thing, she literally broke into tears.

I wonder if this girl would wake up and throw tantrums too.

She wouldn’t, right? I really hope so.

Even though the kitchen is clean, I have no idea what to do with it. Apart from alcohol and cigarettes, all that I buy and stock are ramen, instant rice, and bottles of fruit juice. Everything else that I eat is bought from restaurants, and the kitchen is the least favorable place for me to spend my time.

Heading over to the fridge, I open it up and pull out a bottle of juice and slam the door shut. When I walk back to the living room, I see her sitting up on the couch and stretching out her hands. Since I’m at a distance behind her, she doesn’t yet know that I’m up, so I decide to stay where I am and see what she does next.

Yi-Seo wears her glasses and brushes her long hair with her fingers and messily adjusts the hair tie. She then leans forward from her seat to take a close look at something on the coffee table, the ashtray probably, before her head snaps in my direction, and it was too sudden even for my lightning-fast reflexes to come into action and make me look away.

“Taehyung-ssi,” she croaks as she rises from the couch, slightly alarmed. She approaches me while I’m standing there, casually nursing on the bottle of juice, as if I wasn’t being a creep and spying on her a while ago.

“Good morning!” She smiles brightly. “Are you feeling okay?”

Holding our gazes, I pop the bottle out of my mouth and screw the cap back on.

“Nothing is wrong with me, I guess?” My shoulders lift in a small and apparently careless shrug.

“I was worried you might throw up or black out because you were drinking a lot after a two-day break, and that’s why I stayed the night here. I’m sorry for not asking for your permission earlier,” she bows down many times, apologizing for sleeping on the couch without asking me.

“That’s fine, but you didn’t have to clean my home, Miss Kwon”

Yi-Seo

“Oh, that,” she smiles sheepishly, crinkling her eyes and scratching the back of her ear, “I was thinking about everything you told me last night, and my mind usually clears up if I do some cleaning, and that’s why I did it. Sorry, again, if that’s not something you enjoy. I’ll not repeat it,” she bows down again and springs back up, smiling.

This girl really? Who could even tell that she’s hiding a hell of a lot of pain within? How could someone even think about burning her skin?

“Thank you,” I thank her with a jagged smile, and she smiles, nodding.

Today, I have verbalized my gratitude, unlike the other day when I found my tongue tied terribly, and my words were sinking down into the pit of my stomach. I swear I’m not that ungrateful old prick, and I know that I’m not entitled to anything, yet that day it seemed nearly impossible to thank her, and I was quite literally shocked to know that someone bothered to get me medical assistance and even stayed the entire night by my side while waiting for me to wake up.

It’s just that it has been a very long time since anyone did anything at all for me without benefits, and I have almost forgotten how it feels to be cared for. So much to the point that it felt a little weird, and I even wanted to escape her presence for a while. Sometimes, her little acts of kindness make me feel so strange that I forget all my manners and come across as rude or selfish.

She didn’t have to do anything at all, but she still did it that night, when it was only the first time she even met me. And yesterday too, she did not have to share her meal or spend time with me or stay the night here, worried for me.

I’m still figuring out my dynamics around her, but, for now, the least that I could do in return is to talk to her because, to be honest, I know that she’s as lonely and broken as I am. I still feel that there’s a hint of selfishness behind her talking to me and learning about my past to gather content for her book, but that’s okay because she won’t harm a fly. I can see that.

“I’ll leave now, and thank you for having dinner with me last night,” she smiles big, more innocently this time, bowing again.

Definitely, not a light year close to harmful.

“I can do that again,” I smile back at her, crossing my arms under my chest and leaning against the kitchen door frame.

⚜
We'll get his POV once in a while from now on. What are your thoughts?
😍

Also, thank you so much for 4k reads.

💕

Published on : 01/21/2023