MAY 16

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Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

I should be working; I should be doing something.

   One hour gone, spent just trying to drag himself out of bed. A bed where he'd found no rest, listening only to those repetitive sounds all night long: the incessant, yet barely audible ticking of the clock in the living room, and the same persistent thoughts circling in his mind. It had been hard to give up on waiting there for sleep to come, but it was harder to escape. He was supposed to be sleeping, but instead he'd been thinking about how sorry he was, sorry for a thousand things, but mostly sorry for the hours upon hours he'd spend doing nothing this week, barred from work.

   But even if he were meant to go into work today, with his body feeling so incredibly stone-like, so heavy and immovable, would he have even been working? The hours would still slip out from between his fingers as he tried to hold onto them, just to get a second, to get his bearings.

   He owed the ability to open his eyes fully and to walk with a normal pace entirely to the startling cool of the water he'd splashed on his face after stumbling into the bathroom. But he still looked awful, he realized, after glancing only for a moment into the mirror. Big surprise.

   Hurrying away from the mirror, Chan readied his stiff-feeling cheeks for some warm, greeting smiles as he headed to the kitchen. But he found it empty when he got there. Ah, right... college ended earlier than high school; Hannah and Lucas would still be in school right now. Oh, but wait a minute, Chan realized, it was a weekend, right?

   He checked his phone to confirm it; it was, indeed, Sunday. Where was everyone? Granted, Chan didn't know how much time his mother and siblings actually spent in the house because even outside of college, he'd hardly ever been there to see... but he figured, especially on a summer weekend, they'd all be there. And the house was dead quiet, as if it was just Chan (and the house flies buzzing around, having already forced their way in to act as uninvited summer guests) there. The silence was strange and off-putting, so Chan broke it with a sigh as he headed for the coffee grounds, which were still in the same place he left them, untouched.

    He did something he'd never done before as he sipped the cheap-tasting old coffee in his mug: he stood and looked out the window.

    It only really hit him now. ...He had absolutely nothing to do. And he hadn't had a day with nothing to do in... actually, had he ever had a day with nothing to do?

It's always been school. Work. School. Work. Every day. As far back as I really remember.

What else am I supposed to do with myself?

   Chan pressed his forehead against the window with yet another defeated sigh and stared outside anxiously. There had to be something he could do. He wasn't this useless, was he?

   In the few minutes that he stood there, he thought of asking his mother if she had any errands she'd like him to run, or any chores for him to do. But where was she? A quick check to her room revealed that she really wasn't home. However, when Chan went back to the kitchen to grab his phone and shoot her a text, the front door was creaking open, and in she walked with hands full of grocery bags. 

   Well, there went that idea.

   But he did jump to his feet and set down his mug to take the bags from her and help her put away the food, and that gave him something to do for all of two minutes. He frowned bitterly, recognizing the same, cheap foods that they'd all had to eat years ago because they couldn't afford anything else. After all these years, they were still eating the same strange-tasting off-brand things. He didn't say a word as he put the few items she bought into the fridge; he only spoke after the groceries were cleared away.

   "Mom, do you have any chores or anything you'd like me to do?" Dragging his body around the house and/or yard sounded hellish at the moment. But what sounded worse was to continue standing here doing nothing.

   "Hm... Not really." She shrugged, balling up the empty grocery bags. She'd already done them. 

   The relief that Chan felt upon hearing that answer was only partial, but still, it was upsetting that he felt it at all. 

   Maybe his manager was right. Maybe he'd gotten lazy... he'd become a slacker. He should be jumping at the chance to be helpful, earnestly, whole-heartedly.  

   "You should just enjoy your day off, Chan," she insisted, tone genuine and kind.

   Chan smiled weakly.

   "Where are Hannah and Lucas?" he asked, still feeling the heavy presence of quiet in the house, through some reassuring noise had just grown out of the silence with the arrival of his mother. Ah!  That was it! He'd use his time off to spend time with his little siblings, who he hardly ever got the chance to see otherwise. It always broke his heart, when they were younger, to see them pout and ask him not to go when he left for work. And it broke his heart now to see them just quietly smile and say goodbye when he left for college, knowing it was a foregone conclusion, knowing their big brother was always going to have to go in the end.

...It hadn't struck him until now, but, maybe this PTO wasn't such a bad thing after all.

   But the glass tower of sudden hope that had built up so quickly in his mind came crashing down with her quick response: "Oh, they've both started working at the library on weekends and after school."

   "Oh..." And the uneasiness began to rise within him. His little sister— even his baby brother, they were both out there working right now. And what was he doing?

    He turned away from his mother for a moment, not trusting himself not to worry her through contortions of his expression as guilt turned his stomach; made it churn. He took another sip from his mug in order to be discreet about hiding his widened, despondent eyes; he stared down at his coffee, catching a distorted glimpse of his sorry reflection, willing the dark, bitter drink to work.

Work. Please. Do your job.

You're not doing enough.

   And it suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe, so he took his useless mug of caffeine and headed to the porch for some fresh air. Though, before he could even take the time to get in a single good breath, he was setting the mug down and leaning over the white porch railing, gritting his teeth as his heartbeat turned viciously, painfully rapid. Only once he forced in a deep inhale, pushing the air in so far it felt as if it'd burst through his back like his lungs were an overtaxed balloon, did his heart begin to calm again. Panting softly, he straightened up again. 

   Heart palpitations were always scary, but he knew they would fade away every time. He'd dealt with them long and often enough to know they weren't anything to panic over. (The first time he'd gotten them, he thought he was dying of a heart attack.) ...But it was a little worrying that they seemed to be lasting longer and getting more frequent.

   It was probably just the caffeine messing with him. He'd always known he didn't handle it well. He took another sip.

   With his breathing coming slowly back to normal, again, he was faced with the harsh truth.

   Nothing to do.

   Useless.

Tick-tock.

   Though he'd stepped out of earshot of the clock in the living room, left it behind a firmly-shut front door, the birdlike clucking persisted in his brain. Or maybe it really was actual birdsong he was hearing out here; he wasn't so sure, anymore, what was in his head and what wasn't. He scanned his surroundings to see if he could find a bird in sight to blame, but he didn't see one.

   Instead, across the street, by the yellow-door-bearing, well-gardened house, he saw not a bird, but a swaying porch swing. And upon further inspection he saw a blur of dark hair and tanned skin on that porch swing, face obscured by something colorful and book-shaped. It was Jisung... who he'd sort of forgotten was his neighbor. The few times he'd glanced at that house before while driving or walking by, in his mind it had always just been 'the pretty house', not 'Jisung's house'. Out of all the houses on this run-down street, including Chan's own, it was by far the best-looking, best-tended.

   It struck him as funny, but not really odd, that despite all the time they'd both lived here, Chan couldn't recall another instance where he'd just looked across the street by chance and seen him there. That was because Chan was never really one to stand around on a porch and observe. Before now, he didn't really have the time.

   It struck him as funny that he felt that he'd encountered a random Jisung in the wild, so a faint smile tugged at his lips.

   They say the grass is always greener on the other side— perhaps that was true, but maybe if he tried, there was a chance he could actually find something useful to do over there, across the street. If not, maybe he could just sit and swing with Jisung until his noisy brain made it hard for him to keep sitting around doing nothing. It'd beat standing here alone, doing nothing.

   He brought his mug along as he walked, sun harsh on his pale face and hot, cracked asphalt rough on his bare feet, across the street. 

   Jisung, bathing in late-morning sunrays as he laid sprawled on the porch swing with his book shielding his eyes, and with one leg extended to push against the ground and fuel the swing's to-and-fro motion (because there was an unfortunate lack of breeze just then), only noticed Chan's presence at the creak of the old wooden porch steps. 

   He fell, with a violent thud, off the swing.

   Rubbing the back of his bumped head, Jisung picked himself and his book up, glancing up to see Chan, grimacing apologetically, in front of him.

   "Yikes."

   "Oh, hi, Chan hyung." His voice had a pained grit to it, but other than that, he seemed rather pleasantly surprised.

   "Sorry, Ji, I didn't mean to startle you," he chuckled through the words, but he was genuinely concerned. "You okay?"

    "Yeah, I'm fine, just lost my spot," Jisung pouted, thumbing through the pages of his book, reaching for a bookmark he'd left on the porch swing to slip into it. Chucking the book (gently) aside, he sat back on the swing and asked, "What brings you here?"

   "Uh... I've got nothing to do." Chan shrugged, taking a seat next to Jisung, watching the remaining coffee in his mug slosh with the back and forth movement of the swing. And it's driving me nuts.

   Jisung's head tilted and his eyebrows twisted with shock, or maybe disbelief. "Really?"

   "...My boss told me to take some time off," he sighed, hurrying to continue before Jisung could get in any sort of word about that. "Anyway, I saw you over here and, I dunno, I'm just kinda wandering around, I guess."

   "Hm." Jisung tapped his knees, giving it a moment of quick thought. "Well... you wanna come inside? ...You could meet my mom?"

   With a half-chuckle, Chan shrugged. Sure. "Sounds lovely."

   "Hey, Mom," Jisung bellowed, holding the door open for Chan, who stood outside, wiping his bare feet on the welcome mat before entering. "I brought another friend from college."

   "I'm in the kitchen, bean," a gentle voice called back.

   Chan glanced at Jisung with a little smile at the pet name. Jisung smiled back and shrugged, leading the way, just a short few steps, to the kitchen.

  Doing his best to pull on a polite, not-so-lifeless expression, he greeted, "Hi, I'm Chan." And he caught a warm smile from a woman standing amongst various baking ingredients at the counter, bearing a strong, instantly recognizable resemblance to Jisung.

    "Hi there! Woah, you look like you need a nap, hon. "

    If it hadn't been for... well, whatever it was about her that just made it seem like she really meant no harm at all, a caring, kind demeanor of some sort, that comment probably would've sounded quite rude for a first impression. But somehow all Chan could do was chuckle a little and think to himself that she was sweet. And, having known her for all of three seconds and already noticed it, she had such a strong comforting air.

    "Ah, that's just my face," he explained— insisted, rather.

    ...At least, that's what his face had looked like for the past decade or so.

    Regardless, Jisung echoed, "Trust me, he does."

   Chan felt his cheeks flush, and he figured it was probably a good thing, since it'd make him look less deathly pale. This woman was looking at him with genuine worry unlike anything he'd ever gotten from someone he'd just met. She did smile at her son's comment, though, which helped relieve a little of the pressure. Anyway, Chan just laughed it off; feigned humorous offense.

   "I haven't finished my coffee yet," was the excuse he gave, and he sipped at the drink he'd still not brought himself to finish yet, demonstratively.

   Jisung rolled his eyes, but it was quiet after that, aside from the gushing of sink water as the woman filled a measuring cup. The boys glanced at each other, both waiting for something to happen, but for a long moment, nothing did.

   Finally Jisung spoke up. "Well, to be honest, hyung, I don't really know what to do with you," he admitted, smiling sheepishly as he shrugged. "Unless you want me to see if I can maybe dig up a pack of cards from my room?"

   "Sure, go ahead." Chan felt a twinge of guilt, though. He hadn't meant to force Jisung into hosting him and fixing his problem for him.

    While Jisung headed off into the next room, Chan was left in the middle of the kitchen, feeling rather like a ship without an anchor, unsure of himself as Jisung's mother began softly humming, walking this way and that, opening drawers, pulling out measuring spoons. With her busily (but very calmly) flitting around the room, Chan felt more than a little awkward as he watched motionlessly— or, rather, with a lot of uneasy fidgeting. Somehow he felt like he was imposing just by standing there.

   So he set his mug on the small table and asked this woman he'd just met,  "Can I help you with anything, by chance?"

   She seemed to be less taken aback by the question than Chan imagined, but she did reply first with a pleasantly surprised, grateful smile. "Well, if you don't mind, could you get the bread pans from the cabinet by the oven?"

   And somehow, he ended up standing beside her and helping her mix, then eventually knead, a lump of bread dough. He'd gotten absorbed with following the directions she gave that he hadn't realized a good deal of time had slipped by, until Jisung finally emerged from the other room.

     "Sorry, hyung I can't find it," Jisung started, as he headed back to the kitchen, but upon seeing Chan now at the counter with his flour-covered hands, he stopped in his tracks, and just pointed and gave an open-mouth smile. "Nevermind, looks like you found something to do anyway."

    Now that he thought about it, this dough kneading thing, it was actually... very relaxing.

   Suddenly, Jisung's phone went off, and he reached into his back pocket to pull it out and turn off the ringing alarm. "Oh, it's later than I thought," he mumbled, to himself. Then, to both Chan and his mom, he announced, "Minho hyung's off early today and we were planning on hanging out, so I'm gonna go—" Then, just to Chan, he added, "If that's okay with you, hyung." 

   Chan nodded, waving with his flour-white hand.

    "You guys have fun though," Jisung chuckled. "Sorry to dip so fast."  He darted around Chan to pull his mother in for a quick hug, then patted Chan's back, laughing, telling him he wasn't getting a hug when his hands looked like that. He slid into his shoes, which had been lined up at the door, and then he was calling out, "Bye Mom, I love you! And bye Chan hyung, um, love you too!"

   So Jisung was off, and his mother was putting the two loaves she'd shown Chan how to shape and safely transfer to bread pans into the oven.

   Left with a white-powdered counter, Chan reached for a nearby damp washcloth and began to tidy up while she was setting a timer. But as soon as she turned back to the counter and saw what Chan was doing, it was: "Oh, don't worry about it, hon. Have a seat."

   He was back to uneasily doing nothing, confined to his seat at the table. While he watched her put away all the ingredients and wipe the counter clean, he bounced his leg; chewed his lip. It wasn't easy to sit back and watch someone else work, not easy at all. And he found his brain getting crowded again— once his hands weren't busy and he was watching anxiously, he was back to thinking of all the things that worried him, like Hannah and Lucas, forced to get jobs because he hadn't done enough, like his dad— what if he was released suddenly and he showed up at the house, while Chan was over here, sitting around doing nothing...

   "You look like you've got a lot on your mind," Jisung's mother commented, as she took the seat across from him. (The only other one at the table.)

   It woke him. He'd been dozing off in uneasy contemplation, and hadn't noticed that she'd finished cleaning. 

   By habit he geared up to say "I'm alright, just spaced out a little there", but he hesitated, because he felt some weird sense of... why not? Why not tell this total stranger, someone who never needed to see him again, who had no reason to worry about him, the truth? A watered-down, lighter side of the truth, but the truth nonetheless? 

   "Oh— yeah, I guess I do. Kind of. I'm not really used to being off work... it's kinda weird." (Understatement.) (Big time.)

   "Agreed," she smiled, leaning back in her chair, fixing the fluttery ends of her shoulder-length hair. "That's why I started making bread. It's something to do, but it's also relaxing."

 Chan nodded.

 "It is a little hard, though," she laughed. And then, suddenly: "Why do you work so much? If you don't mind me asking."

   It seemed to be the question that everyone was always asking him, but until now it was always unspoken. So he never answered. Until now.

   "I... I've always had to. I have little siblings and, um... my parents aren't really able to take care of them on their own. I mean, they would be but— ah, sorry, I'm kinda rambling."

   "No worries. I don't mind." Her tone was genuine, her gaze patient, and the corners of her lips pressed softly and reassuringly into her cheeks. Just like one of Jisung's warm, inquisitive smiles. Now it was clear where Jisung had gotten his tendency to care abundantly for everyone from.

 "Seems like you could use some rambling; clear your head a little."

   Yeah... he'd always known, as a simple fact, it wasn't healthy to have a crowded mind. You'd rot away in there, he knew that. His advice was always to talk to someone, not to keep it all bottled up, but how long had it been since he had done that himself?

   He gave a twitch of a smile back. He intended to cut the conversation off from that subject, to conclude it with his next few words. "Thank you... really. I just. I'm really disappointed with myself, I guess." But that was vague, and it'd probably just inspire worry in this poor woman he didn't know at all. So he'd clear it up a little, so she didn't have to wonder. "I haven't been doing enough. I haven't been working hard enough. It seems like the more time goes on, the more I lose the will to do anything— the less I can focus. Half the time I don't even realize I'm just standing there, staring. Doing nothing. I really don't mean to— I want to work hard and not disappoint anyone— I know they're counting on me, that they expect better from me, so why can't I just... do better? When did I become such a slacker?" He sucked in a quick inhale through his teeth, hands tearing through his curls, pushing them back, and in his brief pause, the oven beeped.

   At that, she finally spoke: "Oh!" 

   And Chan realized what had just happened. That he'd said all of that— to someone he'd met maybe thirty minutes ago, at that. He never intended to say so much... where was all of this coming from? Just pouring out of his mouth like that? 

   "Hold that thought!" She got up from the table. Chan stared down at the wood, studying it and its worn, scarred, stained state, swallowing a lump that formed quickly in his throat. 

   "I'm sorry" was rising to his tongue again, the familiar taste of shame and regret pungent and heavy. But before he knew it, there was a slice of warm, fresh bread in front of him, the scent wafting, settling his racing mind just the tiniest bit. 

   "Yeah," through a sigh, her reply began just in time (right before Chan's apologies got the chance to surface). "It sucks. All you want is to take care of the people you love— do whatever it takes, but... still, there comes a point where you're helping those people less by refusing to take a break." She stared down solemnly, her expression dropping, the most serious and void of light Chan had yet seen her. And then she gave another sigh and straightened up again, her eyebrows lifting, set determinedly. "It's not fair. But that's how it is. It's important to take time to rest, you know?"

   Chan found it hard to look her in the eye.

   Quietly, she added, "Sadly, you can't run from it forever. ...One day, it'll catch up with you."

    Of course, he knew what she said was true, he'd heard such things before, but practically, was he going to change anything? Could he accept that? No. Maybe later, but right now he didn't have time. And that's why he couldn't stand it anymore; he averted his eyes at last.

   A barely audible sigh slipped from his lips as he glanced down at the bread again, tore off a piece and said, preceded by a short-lived and tight-lipped smile, "Thank you."

   When Chan finally looked into her eyes again, there was mutual understanding. Both of them clearly had been through the same thing, had seen the situation, but only one of them had accepted the reality of it.

   A puff of air came from his mouth that was intended to stand in for a chuckle. To end the quiet tension that had formed between them.

I don't even really feel tired anymore. I don't need a break— this has been more than enough of that— I need to get back to work, and to work harder.

   And just like that, she was smiling again. She patted his shoulder. "Take some bread back with you, okay?"

   "Yes, ma'am." 

   That, he could do.

]

 long wait brought to you by weeks' worth of a general lack of motivation and inspiration! hooray.

but yeah i'm real excited to be BACK and bursting with ideas

...man this story is so exciting am i right? 4000 words of a guy wandering aimlessly and eventually making a loaf of bread