When I step into San's and my flat again after Yeosang's and my dance training, still worried about how I'm gonna approach San after what happened between us this afternoon, a "Hey, Wooyoung!" makes me lift my head.
It's not San who's greeted me – he's also not sitting at the kitchen table to study like usual. It's Juhee who's coming my way. "How was dance training?"
"How do you-" Obviously San told her. I break off mid-sentence. "It was okay. We finished the choreo."
"Cool." Juhee hesitates, then bites down on her bottom lip. "Say... you were doing that choreo with Yeosang, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Ah. I... was just curious..." Juhee laughs. It sounds a little bit exaggerated, and if it wasn't for San who takes just this moment to whine, "Juheeee, are you coming?" from the bathroom, I would've asked her what that blush on her cheeks was about.
"Sure thing, Sannie, one minute!" She throws me an apologetic glance. "See you later then, Wooyoung. You're coming to the party, right?"
"Yeah."
"Great." Brushing past me, she opens the bathroom door and shuts it just as quickly behind her.
Wait. I'm standing kind of frozen in the middle of the corridor, wait. Juhee and San in one bathroom – what the fuck is this about?
"Are you sure about this?", I can hear Juhee ask teasingly behind the door.
San giggles in response. "Too late to go back now, is it?"
"True." I can almost hear Juhee grinning at that – and just everything about that little conversation and the fact that they're talking like this in a bathroom makes me feel uneasy. What's going on in there? Why are they together?
Truth slaps me in the face the moment the shower turns on.
So. Hooking up in the shower? That's it? I wish I could come up with some other possibilities – but that's pretty hard considering that I still vividly remember this one time some dude gave me a blowjob in a club's public bathroom. Or how I once bent a guy over a bathroom sink and he almost screamed out in pleasure every time I thrusted into him because I hit his prostate head-on. Or this one time where I thought it would be a good and hot idea to fuck this one guy in the shower. - It wasn't, but that's besides the point.
So – San and Juhee. For a moment I feel like I've forgotten how to breathe. This is not fucking happening. Didn't Juhee just a minute ago seem like she might have a crush on Yeosang? Didn't San, only a few hours ago, look like he wanted to kiss me? And didn't San also tell me that he would never-
He would never hook up with a stranger. I slump against the wall. Juhee is no stranger to him. It had sounded as though they were friends.
Which would make them friends with benefits now. Friends with benefits who are showering together – since both their excited giggles, like in fucking high school, and the sounds of the running shower are unmistakable.
Sitting on the floor listening to noises from the bathroom is not what I imagined my evening to be like. No matter how nervous I've been about the prospect of facing San again – I've still daydreamed a little bit. Which might have been the reason for Yeosang being more irritable than usual, since I've spent a fair amount of time spacing out instead of coming up with ideas for a choreography.
I've daydreamed about the idea of missing out on that party together with San. I bought honey butter chips earlier, together with that failure of a cabbage – and I'd been thinking that maybe San and I could share them while watching a movie or something. San would need to admit that honey butter is one of the best chips flavors that's ever been invented, since he's never tried them before. I would've needed to get my shit together and see if San had been seriously trying to kiss me this afternoon. And if the answer was Yes... then I wouldn't have stopped him anymore – now that I've had time to mentally prepare myself for the possibility of San's lips pressing against mine. Although my heartbeat still accelerates like crazy every time I imagine it.
San is probably kissing Juhee now. They'll start making out eventually, and after some foreplay they will go over to fucking in the shower; never mind the tiled, uncomfortably cold walls and the annoying water that would rain down on San if he were to press Juhee up against the wall-
Shit. I should stop my imagination right there. I don't want to think about San screwing Juhee, no matter where, how or when.
My throat constricts. How can San be so casual about showering with someone else? About the possibility of having shower-sex? He told me that he's a fucking virgin.
And like an idiot, I believed him.
I should've known better. I should've known that there was no way that someone as talented and thoughtful and easygoing and hot and smart and funny and breathtak- Whatever. I should've known that there was no way that someone like San still hasn't slept with anyone.
Though that makes me wonder why he's told me so.
Nothing of this makes any sense – but rational and fucking reasonable thinking is kinda hard while listening to the noises coming from the bathroom: San humming the chorus of Lost in the Dream. Water splashing. And Juhee's laugh. "Yah – hold still!"
"There's water running into my eyes!", San complains. It sounds so indignant and playful at the same time that I can perfectly imagine the pout on his lips while saying this.
They sound intimate.
I wasn't prepared for a sudden urge to cry – but there it is, rolling over me all of a sudden and catching me off-guard. Squeezing my eyes shut, I will the tears to go back. I'm not fucking crying in front of my own bathroom just because I happened to listen to my flatmate and his friend – or girlfriend – showering together.
"Oh my god, get over it." Juhee laughs again. "It's just water, Sannie."
I didn't know there was anyone else who could call him Sannie. I had felt so special when I did it this afternoon and he didn't complain but smile instead. Now it doesn't seem nearly as special as I'd thought – apparently, I am not nearly as special to San as I thought I might be.
After some awful eternities where I can't move a muscle to get up from the floor, I finally manage. I slowly walk in the direction of my room and grab a bag of honey-butter chips from the kitchen table on my way. I don't need to listen to any more of San's and Juhee's talk, full of fucking tenderness and reciprocate fondness-
I kick the ajar door to my room open and march in, also kicking it shut behind me. I'm not fucking crying.
I'm not fucking crying because of how it sounded like they genuinely like each other. Or because it sounded as though they weren't doing anything sexual after all. They sounded as though they were just simply showering together, massaging shampoo and soap into each other's hair and skin while being naked, and so close to each other-
I'm not fucking crying. I sit down on my desk chair abruptly, taking the nearest book from the needs-to-be-read-eventually pile on my desk, and open it somewhere in the middle.
I need to do some fucking homework.
I hesitate. And then I lower the book again.
I can't focus anyways – and I need to get out of here. For fuck's sake, I don't wanna be here when San and Juhee are just a few rooms away, showering together. It hurts.
Just half an hour ago, as soon as Yeosang and I were done with developing the choreo and done practicing it, we'd started throwing arguments and accusations at each other. Yeosang's told me – among other things – that I only care about San. And that I needed to do something about it.
I don't only care for San – there's a bunch of other people I also care about: my new friends here, at least as long as they're not busy excluding San and Jongho because of the fucking Festival of Lights. And I care about my family, although I haven't called my parents in weeks and have ignored my younger brother's text messages for a few days now. And there are some people here who I don't know really well, but who seem nice enough – although I don't see any possible future in which I'd get along with Juhee anymore. But there's also Jimin, who was, most of the time, fun to mess around with- Why again did I end things with him?
Ah, right – San.
But San is now having some fun on his own.
I don't get it – or, more honestly, I'm scared of the real reason – why that thought hurts so much. There's one thing I do know though: Like Yeosang said, I really need to begin caring more about other people. And maybe I should start with that by paying Jimin a visit. Not only for an apology, which will hopefully get me back into both his and Yeosang's good graces, but also as a way of spending some time outside of my own flat that has become suffocating within a matter of minutes.
It might even be a way to get San out of my mind.
I don't notice how my feet carry me out of my room and back into the corridor, but the sound of running water from the bathroom and another one of San's whines, "Waiiit. A bit longer, please", immediately jerks me back to reality.
Slipping into my shoes, I will myself to ignore the sounds from the bathroom as much as possible. To not dwell on the thought that I would do anything to switch places with Juhee right now. It would've been me and San in the shower then – and I would've loved that. I would've loved how San would've begged me to stay just a little bit longer.
But reality is nothing like this, because I'm in on the other side of the closed bathroom door and I'm listening to the sounds coming from the inside like an obsessed stalker.
Maybe I'll never have one of those intimate shower moments with someone else. But I still take what I can get. Stepping out of the flat and into the shared corridor, I make my way downstairs to Jimin.