Now and for the Last Time

27 장

"Hey there," Kyungsoo said, sliding in beside me. "Where'd you get the beers?"

"Outside," I said. "Follow me."

We cut through the kitchen, which displayed hot sauces stacked on the windowsill, and out onto the side deck, where the keg was set up under lights. Vivi, tied nearby, saw me immediately and began wagging its tail.

"Hey there, Vivi," I said, bending down to scratch his ears. He'd had a haircut and smelled like shampoo, clearly freshly bathed. "Ten to one Sehun met a pretty dog groomer," I said out loud. "Am I right?"

"What?" Kyungsoo asked from the keg.

"Nothing," I said, standing back up and faced him. "Do you want to go back inside? Or -"

"Let's stay here for a bit," he replied. "Less chance of bumping into more people from high school."

We walked over to a bench, where I took a seat. Vivi, now diagonal from me, let out a whine and then lay down, his head on his paws. "You're from here, too?" I said, as Kyungsoo leaned back. "I didn't realize."

"Born and raised," he replied. "Class of 2016, Valedictorian."

I raised my brows. "So you're super smart."

"By the numbers. I was a big-time math nerd before I started writing."

More new information. "You write?"

A nod. "I'm in the program at the University, independent study, all that stuff. I was doing both tracks, but now I'm strictly fiction."

"What kind of stuff?"

"The novel I'm working on right now is kind of a consciousness take on the human contact in society," he replied, as easily as anyone else might rattle off their birthdate and their sign. Clearly, he'd said this before. "It's futuristic, but also set in the present day. I'm working it from time to time, so it's challenging."

"Huh," I said, before realizing this was about the stupidest response I could've offered. I added, "I love to read. But I've never been good at writing if it wasn't, like, papers for school."

"Oh, it's totally different," he said, taking a sip of his beer as two girls walked over to the keg. "Anyone can be taught to present a basic grammar or summarize information. Fiction is a skill. You either have it, or you don't."

"And you do."

"Well, yeah." He must have known this sounded arrogant, because he smiled at me. "But I'm still learning. I have this awesome professor, Kim Junmyeon. You ever read his books?"

I shook my head, not exactly wanting to share that the current novel on my bedside table was a story about a girl having an online crush and moved to his hometown, but didn't tell him. She met an security that soon kept bothering her. Little did they know, the security with her online crush. I'd once been a fan of contemporary fiction. Since I lost Jongsuk, though, real life had been bad enough all around me on a daily basis. Between the covers of a book, I wanted anything else.

"Oh, he's great," Kyungsoo continued. "Seoul resident, really sparse in terms of his prose, but with thick wisdom. His whole first book takes place in a potato field one day and it was told in the point of view of the plow."

"Wow," I said.

"It's incredible." I'd never seen him this excited about coffee. "I'll loan you one of my copies. If you don't mind highlights and margin notes."

"I don't," I said.

"Great. I'll bring it to work tomorrow." He smiled at me again. "It can be tough to read, with all the footnotes and flashbacks. Junmyeon is my inspiration when it comes to time shifting on the page. But I can walk you through it."