If there was something Sunghoon needed to do right now, at the very moment, it would be abandoning his friends. Every single one of them.

At least it's what he thought anyway.

"Another one!" Jake slurs before chugging down the third glass of beer at once. Jay and Soeun were not far behind, with their respective second glasses of Tanqueray 0.0 and cider. The furthest would have to be Sunghoon, who was halfway through his fifth bottle of soju- already high and not really mighty in any sense.

"Love is a sham," Sunghoon points at himself, and then at his drinking buddies. "And so are you guys."

Soeun nods, pretty sober compared to the rest of the guys. She smiles, reaching out to the  boy sitting across herself. The girl lightly clicks her nail against the green bottle, "Well, you can't say we were ever wrong about alcohol being the best friend in this case."

Jake, red cheeked and very much ready to pass out groans in agreement. "No money? Drink. Girlfriend left you? Drink. Dick pro-"

The boy's drunk monologue is put to a close with Soeun squishing his cheeks together. Jay laughs, banging his hand on the wooden table a little too loudly- resulting in quite a few heads to turn.

"Drink. Yeah," Sunghoon agrees, taking lazy sips from the bottle- filling his system with more God's hated substance. "I guess I'm now a raging alcoholic who squeezes tequila and lemon into my abysmal problems."

"Damn. That was…..deep."

Sunghoon sighs. 

The three of his friends watch the brunet press the cold bottle against his own cheek, exhaling 9 times more carbon dioxide and unspoken depressed inner monologues with each breath. Life had its own way of fucking things up for the boy, and they'd known it better than anyone else.

"Love is a fucking sham!" The boy screams at the very top of his lungs. He raises his half empty bottle in air, seemingly rejoicing at his failed attempt at romance.

"Yes, pop off!" His friends follow suit. The three had to pretend they almost didn't rain their pants at the sudden scream, but hey! Anything for a friend drowning in alcohol and lovesickness.

"I can't believe Sunoo lied to me," the boy whined, voice toned down into his normal pitch as if he hadn't startled the whole darn bar two seconds ago.

"About what?" Jay lends his two cents.

The heartbroken rom-com protagonist lets out a groan that's confusing enough to be identified as the lovechild of a disappointed snort and a sad sniffle.

Soeun shifts a little in her seat. Park Sunghoon was officially high for the first time since high school.

Jake, already into the headspace of a wild child drunkard- notices the change too. He shoots the girl sitting across him a few heavy eyed (bedroom eyes typa beat but the term bore maximum possibilities of him getting de-peepeefied on the spot) stares. 

Brace yourself.

Soeun rolls her eyes. Says you, tch.

"He said.." Sunghoon starts to frame his statement. "Love is pog."

"Well damn that mcyt scammer-"

"And he said it's sweet and it's about the connection AND communication then we throw in trust!" Sunghoon raises his voice, and it cracks a little. "But I swear Miri and I had a connection- like those legit wi-fis from the internet cafes. And it's just-"

"A bungled and bad dorm wi-fi?" Jake snorts at his own joke. 

The boy's smile is short lived as he feels an unmatched pain shoot throughout his body from the very tip of his five toes. Soeun, whom he realised now had the sole of her chunky heels pressed against his feet right under the table, shot him a sweet smile.

Jake flinched.

Jay and Sunghoon, who were now busy discussing how the latter's tendencies of taking the hits for matchmaking purposes had a huge contribution to the latter’s permanent lack of luck in love, failed to realise the sticky situation their beloved friend was facing. And so, all Jake could do was to drink through the pain.

"Miri might not look like it but she was a nice person!" Soeun hears Sunghoon defend.

"Dude," she cut in. "You don't even know how the fuck miss girl looks like."

Jay snorts into his newly ordered glass of pina colada.

Sunghoon's eyes widened in shock. The faux blonde opens his mouth to argue, but closes it right after. This was a lost cause. He, half of the campus's best matchmaking duo (not that he did much work, but he still had a big contribution to all those matches), had overlooked the three major red flags of any basic match.

The boy deflates like one of the balloons from Sunoo’s house party from the week before. He drops the bottle on the table, he truly was hopeless.

Soeun, now a little drunk and very much annoyed- unlike her two other drunkard friends loses it at the pathetic sight. As much as it troubled her feelings as a close friend, it made her much much more angry, both as a friend and a woman with much more first hand dating experience.

"Okay that's it," the brunet stood up abruptly. She looked back, smiling at one of the bartenders and slightly waved her hand. Her eyes lock with a younger ash blond, green (under the lights, they did look green for some reason) and wide eyed- seemingly new to the world of being a staff at the school area bar.

A tray in hand, the boy rushes over to their table. The smile on his face was awkward as he asked how he could help Soeun and the three drunkards.

The girl gestures at the empty bottles and licked-squeaky-clean glasses in front of her and it doesn't take him a blink of an eye to get the drill. The boy picks them all up in some sort of careful haste- and leaves the scene as fast as he came. Halfway towards the counter, the boy makes a small mistake while looking back.

Just in time to get a wink from Soeun, who was now half-standing through the process of cupping Sunghoon's face. The waiter stumbles a little at the sudden action from a customer. He must have had good luck- for a colleague of his was just there to help him gain balance, laughing at the amusement of it all.

The three of her friends cheer, visibly in awe of the only not very virgin and unbreedable one of them. Soeun huffs and pushes herself forward. Both of her palms come in contact with Sunghoon's cheek before he even realises it, and the next thing not only he, but also the rest of the now semi-empty bar knew was the horrid echoes of a double handed slap.

The slap was pretty hard, and the boy knew for sure he had seen his vision double at the impact. His luckily female friend doesn't show any sign of leaving his cheeks alone as she continues to squish them further together. 

"Listen!" Soeun roars with no care about her surroundings. "Sunghoon. You are literally the campus dream, son of a bit- I mean hot woman! You can fart and there'll be girls rushing to use that as a perfume."

"That's kind of disgusting," Jay interrupts.

Soeun sends a glare his way.

"I mean," she calms herself. "Dude, this life is a fuckinh sea. And the sea has plenty of fish, am I right?" She asks, shaking her friend's face furiously.

"Yuphs," Sunghoon answers through gritted teeth and squished cheeks.

"Okay good," Soeun loosened her palms, still gripping his face. "If you have got this detail down, park, then I sincerely hope you've realised that Mira-"

"Miri," Jake corrects.

Soeun spares him a brief eureka glance before turning to the heartbroken boy.

"Yes Miri," she picks up pace. "Miri. She is a catfish. What is she?" The girl squeezes his cheeks a little more, asking for an answer.

Sunghoon winces. "A catfish."

Soeun, perhaps more drunk than any of her friends as of right now- finally lets go of Sunghoon's face. She slams her hand on the wooden table in triumph and successfully traumatises the place in the process.

"Yes," she roars again. "And catfishes aren't real. Fish are. There is no such thing in the sea like catfish. Everyone is either a cat or a fish. No one can be both. Well unless they're like- hybrids from those bts fanfics."

Jake and Jay snort at the comparison. And with sharp pangs of pain originating from his beet red cheeks creating an annoying buzz in his ear, Park Sunghoon can only nod.

Soeun drops on her chair with a thud. She finally gains consciousness of het surroundings and decides that it was high time she brough her voice dramatically down. 

She huffs before starting. "Listen, Hoon. What I, as someone with 8 failed blind dates and 2 downhill relationships on her records, just know that there is someone who likes you. Or at least, is willing to. Even if you don't like them or not."

Jay laughs. "I like that optimism. Learn from her, Mr. Pessimist catfish victim," he taunts his friend for the first time in the whole evening.

Sunghoon tchs and regrets it right away. The throbbing pain he felt from within his cheeks was much much worse than the heartbreak.

So he listens.

"Yes Jay, I am flattered," he half consciously hears her deadpan. "But yes. And i was literally talking about the mid and common people who just go around minding their own businesses like Jay-"

"I wouldn't exactly word it that way-" Sunghoon interjects into the obvious lie. Jake nods sideways. Obviously long gone.

Soeun rolls her eyes yet again.

And so he shuts up.

"And you're like….the certified handsome stalker on the campus. Girls on the forum literally write yandere bf Sunghoon fanfictions, come on!" She makes sure the "on" is precisely popped.

Another white lie.

An offensive one at that.

"It's called research," Sunghoon yells and he could swear his cheeks were going to fall off his face at this point. "And data collecting."

Jake places a hand on his shoulder as if he were to comfort him.

"My dude, it's stalking."

"No."

"Yes mhm."

The conversation would have gone on forever. I really would have, if Soeun didn't decide to intervene.

She drums her fingers on the table, demanding for attention. And the two wince.

Soeun smiles. The girl straightens her back in triumph.

"Yes," she cracks her knuckles. "And as I was saying. You are what we could call a heartthrob at this point. So if you do think getting played by a girl was the end of the world. It wasn't. You can, quite literally become a worm and there'll be girls willing to kiss you into human form babe."

Sunghoon gulps. 

He was never the one to enjoy female attention or any at all. But hearing Soeun did make him realise he had overlooked at least 45 signs of  a potential match himself. Whether it was the girl from the library, the helpful one at gym or the one who asked him for a tissue near the bathroom stall. The possibilities suddenly seemed endless.

"Yeah I think they will."

The three of his friends bang their hands against the table in unison, satisfied.

"And you could like….text any random gal and she would agree to be digital fuckbuddies," Sunghoon doesn't know if Jake was joking. But it did make him feel confident.

"Really?" Sunghoon asks, still unsure.

"Of course!" The scream. 

"I say you try it right now," Soeun cheers. "I mean, you can always block if we do end up texting a weirdo."

And thus he, still slightly heartbroken but filled with a new hope of not being the certified lover-out-of-luck, whips out the phone he'd pocketed stealthily quite a while ago. 

Sunghoon types out the first safest number that comes to mind, the one he had seen scribbled on the majority of the walls of the engineering faculty in red and blue ink. 

Sunghoon smiles as his drunken fingers messily type out his first thirst message.

"Ms. Get the roblox addict some real dick, here I come." 

-

Last update before i poof mwah