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━━━ " 📂 " ..⃗. ༉
𝙍 𝙀 𝙈 𝙀 𝘿 𝙔
! chapter twenty-three ─── ʚĭɞ
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Han Seojun wasn't the type to get angry.
That was a lie.
For several years of his teenage life, anger was very prevalent. He was angry with Suho's father, Suho himself. Angry at the world for being so cruel, angry for Seyeon for dying, angry with Miyeon for saying no. It fuelled him, helped him past the hard times.
And when that angry fire died out, he was left with a lot of regret.
Miyeon had been patient with him, playing along with the hatred he tried to get across to her when she returned from New York - another thing he had been completely bewildered by; how could she just leave him when this was going on? And no matter how much he tried to hate her, he knew he couldn't. But at least he could pretend to.
And pretending made him regret.
So since then, since he had heard Miyeon's version of events and seen the evident pain written all over her features that she had ever-so carefully hidden away since her return to Seoul, he had vowed to never be angry with her.
Or at least never be outwardly angry with her. He just couldn't do it, couldn't risk seeing that tiny look of doubt in his best friend's eyes. Especially not after he had fallen in love with her and she was now waiting for him.
Which he knew he didn't deserve. Really it was selfish of him, but there never seemed to be a right time to let Jugyeong know of his feelings for her, which were still very much there. And this guilt of knowing Miyeon was still waiting only added to his promise of never being angry with her.
And it all combined, merged and united into him quite literally freezing when a stumbling Miyeon walked into him whilst trying to get out of the elevator.
"Hwang Miyeon, are you drunk?" The assumption slipped from his lips before he could think, eyeing the messy appearance of the usually well put-together girl. That and the fact she had floundered back after walking into him.
"Hmmm... no." Miyeon smiled up at him, cheeks rosy pink. "Han Seojun, you're pretty, you know that?"
"I do now." Seojun smiled, hooking his arm around her waist and guiding her out of the elevator and onto the carpet outside. "Aren't you supposed to be at practise with the girls?"
"Practise? I don't know anything.." Miyeon paused and hiccuped, smiling. "I don't know anything about practise, I've been with" - hiccup - "Luna and Eunsang and Jaeho."
"Are they the producers?" The tone Seojun was using sounded a lot like one that he would use to talk to a small child - or Hyunwoo's sister. "You've been working very hard with them."
"Yes.. but we finished the song!" Miyeon's grin was incredibly bright, hands reaching out and grabbing Seojun's, twirling around and dragging him with her. Her foot stumbled and balance wavered, the Han boy tugging one of his hands out of her grasp and catching her.
Seojun had originally been on his way to join the other trainees at the Move Entertainment building; the boys were setting up for a group practise and the girls were gathered in the main studio. However, it seemed that his plans had changed.
"Come on, lets get you back inside." He didn't even think of the boys waiting, guiding Miyeon towards the front door of the girls' dorm. "Do you have your keys?" Seojun tried the handle just in the case, but to no avail.
Beside him, Miyeon began patting down her pockets, hands diving through into them and digging through the varied items within. Finally, her hand touched cold metal and she tugged the keys out by the silver loop of wire they were attached to, keychain of a framed picture of the group of eight at a restaurant they used to frequent before moving to the new dorms visible.
"Here." Miyeon dangled the keys in front of his face, snatching them back with a smirk covering her lips and a giggle stifled behind her hand. "No.. here!" A childish smile replaced the smirk as she held the keys out once again.
Seojun knew exactly what she was going to do, yet he still attempted to reach for the keys and shook his head as she closed her fist around them and pulled it close to her chest, metal clinking on the silver necklace hanging from her neck.
"Miyeon..." The Han boy said sternly, watching as the expression drop and the more mature Miyeon return, pressing the keys into his hand and letting him unlock the door.
The hand that remained around her waist stayed there, steering her through the now open gap and holding her still in the darkness as he reached for the light switch. His free hand groped around the wall until it met plastic and he pushed the button, holding on tight as he pushed the door closed and locked it from the inside.
As he twisted the keys out and reached to place them on the nearest surface - which was a small table by the shoerack that held all sorts of bits - Miyeon was trying to pry his hand off her waist. "Seojun! I want to go to bed! Let me go!" She whined, looking back up at him before tilting her head, reaching upwards and brushing his bangs out of his eyes. "There! Now smile, you'll look handsome."
"Does that not come under the category of pretty?" This wasn't the first time that he had dealt with a drunk best friend of his, but surprisingly it was the first time he had done it alone; usually they drank in a group setting either with their groupmates or their old friends from high school. But one thing he did know was that Miyeon's mood and attention could slip from one thing to another very easily.
And using that information and the fact that she had gone from wanting to go to bed and get away from him to telling him to smile, Seojun could easily guide her to the kitchen, sitting her down on one of the stools beside the counters and pulling her shoes off.
"Before you go to bed, I'm going to give you some water and some bread, okay?" Seojun had no idea what had happened whilst she was drinking with the three producers, but clearly her being a lightweight had only hindered her in the celebrations.
"Hurry up Han Seojun!" Miyeon pushed her chin up on the counter using her palm, watching as he moved around the kitchen to get her the things he promised he would. "I'm very impatient! That's why I worked so hard, so I could get the song done!"
"Sure you are." Seojun murmured in reply, a small, dull reminder thudding in his stomach. Miyeon, in his eyes, was anything but impatient. But alcohol was supposed to bring out your true thoughts, so it made him question just how long she was able to conciously tell herself to wait for him before her true inhibitions took over.
Seojun just really needed to get rejected by Jugyeong. That was all it took.