CHAPTER TEN
"I just want you to know,' said the girl, coldly, 'that whoever you are and whatever you intend with me, I shall give you no aid of any kind, nor shall I assist you, and I shall do whatever is in my power to frustrate your plans and devices.' And then she added, with feeling, 'Idiot'."
Almost 3 weeks after the most awkward first encounter ever (at least, Jeongguk thinks it is), he finds himself sitting across from Yerim at one of the tables in the cafeteria. He takes note of his surroundings and the weird glances he gets from the other people who walked by.
Maybe it's not just him they're staring at. Yerim's holding a paintbrush in her hand too, and she's painting with so much passion and enthusiasm that for a moment, Jeongguk thinks that everything in her mind is focused solely on the way her brush moves on the smooth surface of the table. Like everything else in the world means nothing except for the way she takes her careful strokes.
"You've gotten better," she tells him when she finally drops her brush to examine his work.
Surprised at the sudden compliment, Jeongguk leans back to take a better look at his work. He's drawn stars, exactly the way Yerim taught him how to. In the middle of the stars is a girl in a dress, floating in the air with her arms outstretched.
"I learned from the best," Jeongguk says with a satisfied smile.
Yerim looks more than proud. "A long time ago you would've said that this was illegal. What happened to staying under the radar, goody two shoes?"
Jeongguk huffs. "It's more fun this way."
She pats his back with a clean hand. "It's more fun being bad, isn't it?"
He smiles in response. "I need help drawing the milky way," he says, and for the next half hour, he's moving his hands to Yerim's lead.
(With her hands above his own).
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The morning after that, Jeongguk has just gotten comfy in his own bed, ready to spend the day alone to read when his door slides open and two heads popped inside his room.
"You've got donuts?" Jeongguk's eyes widen when he sees the large box in Moonbyul's tiny hands.
Yerim, in a brighter mood than usual, pats her hand on the younger girl's shoulder and nods. Moonbyul lifts the box up to Jeongguk with the cutest smile. Jeongguk instantly goes soft inside. "Eomma told me to share it with my friends!"
Jeongguk's eyes dart from Moonbyul to the box of donuts to Yerim's amused face. And then, leaning down, he carefully takes the box from Moonbyul's hand and takes a peep in. With a reassuring nod from Yerim, he says "Let's share it then, shall we?"
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He doesn't remember ever being this close with a kid before. Considering that he's socially awkward and terrible with people younger and older than him. But Moonbyul seems to be making a nest on his chest.
She's curled up against him, burying her face into his shirt and sleeping soundlessly. He watches as her body rises and lowers as she takes in short stable breaths. Slowly, he wraps an arm around the little girl, soothing her by rubbing her back.
Yerim looks up over her shoulder from where she's been staring out of the window of Jeongguk's room. She sees the way Moonbyul is curled up against him and smiles. "Is she asleep?"
Jeongguk looks up and nods. Yerim strides over and sits on the edge of his bed. Leaning down, she moves a fringe covering the little girl's face and tucks it behind her ear.
"She deserves the entire world," she says, a tone of slight remorse in her voice.
Jeongguk shifts his body a little to make himself comfortable. "I've never uh," he pauses and rubs his nape. Yerim raises an eyebrow.
"You've never...?"
He hesitates. She guesses it and chuckles.
"Been this close to a child before?"
Jeongguk nods, feeling the embarrassment slowly creeping in.
"No surprise," Yerim frowns teasingly and Jeongguk has the urge to pinch her cheeks out of irritation and also how soft they look. "Well at least you do now," she adds when she sees the boy beginning to sulk.
"So many of my firsts happened here," Jeongguk confesses. "In a place I thought would be filled with my lasts-"
"Don't even get started," Yerim puts a finger over his lips, shutting him up. She tosses him a sharp warning glare. "Let's make a rule shall we? No sad shit allowed."
This time it's Jeongguk who puts a finger up to her lips. "Shhhhsgh, no cussing in front of children."
She flinches back and swats his finger, forehead slightly creasing as her eyebrows furrowed. "She's asleep, relax!" She whisper-shouts.
"She might not be!"
"Rule number #1 of being my comrade," Yerim clears her throat and pretends not to hear what he just said. "Nothing sad allowed as long as we're still in here. No sad stories, no sad faces and no crying," she enunciates the last two words and looks up at Jeongguk with a persistent gaze.
Jeongguk licks his bottom lips and looks up to think for a moment. After a moment he lets out a sigh in defeat. "Fine, captain. What's rule #2?"
Yerim grins. "Have fun."
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He should've known that have fun in Yerim's dictionary is basically get into trouble.
When she drags him out of his bed that night and tells him to get dressed into something that isn't the boring hospital gown, Jeongguk knows that she's up to nothing good.
"Are you heavy?" Yerim asks as she tosses him a piece of candy. They're walking in the quiet hallway and there are a few nurses passing by every now and then. Jeongguk wonders why they haven't been very suspicious of them yet. Anyone who have seen how Yerim's face looks tonight would know that she's probably planning a heist.
She's wearing a cute pair of fluffy white gloves and slippers. Her t-shirt looks pretty thin and for awhile Jeongguk contemplated on going back to his room to get a jacket for her.
Isn't she cold? He's just gotten out of his room a few minutes ago and he's freezing already.
"Uh, no? Is 67 okay?"
Yerim nods enthusiastically but keeps her eyes ahead of them. "Perfect."
Jeongguk looks around and huffs. "Where are we even going?"
"To our spaceship."
"What?" Did he hear her right?
Yerim smirks before running a hand through her messy hair to comb it. "You heard me. We're going to outer space!"
Jeongguk blinks once, twice. Then he furrows his eyebrows in bafflement. Sure, Yerim always has a strange way of explaining things but it's 2 AM in the goddamned morning and his mind supposedly shut down an hour ago.
Apparently, the "spaceship" is the air ventilation passageways.
Holy shit, Jeongguk thinks as he climbs up after her. We're really doing this. Oh man, holy shit what if we fall?
"You are insane," he says.
"I know! Isn't this great?" Yerim scoots through the passageways, crawling quickly buy carefully.
Jeongguk nearly hits his head on the top. This reminds him of all those movies where the heroes are always climbing through the air vents; probably to escape or to infiltrate a base. He wonders which of the two he's attempting to do now.
"Yah! Park Yerim!" He whispers shouts when Yerim starts getting further and further away from him. For some reason, he can't seem to move. And also, his legs are trembling. Scratch that. His entire body is trembling.
Said girl turns around and chuckles silently before waving a hand. "Come on, don't be a coward," she taunts before continuing on.
Jeongguk wants to faint. He takes a nervous gulp and begins to move. Slowly at first, and then when he's sure that this thing can handle his weight, he picks up speed and goes a little faster to catch up. If he lost Yerim, he probably wouldn't be able to find his way out later and suffocate to death in here. Then the news will be all over the newspapers.
He can already see it: Patient with terminal heart disease found dead in the hospital air ventilations.
He shivers at the thought. That definitely isn't what he has in mind.
"So what are we doing here?" Jeongguk asks when he's within a speaking range with her. Yerim stops above one of the vents and stares through the splits.
"Shh," she whispers and fishes a phone out from the pocket of her pants.
Okay, Jeongguk is really confused right now.
"Yah," He calls out with a lopsided grimace.
She ignores him, bending and tilting her head to look through the splits with squinted eyes. And then, she says, "Come here."
Jeongguk does and she makes way for him to see too. He gives her a reluctant look, one that also means this is crazy. Bur Yerim looks more than excited right now so Jeongguk thinks that maybe she really has something fun in mind.
And then he sees it-It's a doctor's private office. There's a man and woman right below them and Jeongguk's eyes nearly fall out of their sockets when he sees what they're engaging in.
"Oh my-"
"Yes!" Yerim says, keeping her voice low but enthusiasm high.
"What is the purpose of us gathering here to stare at adults... making out?" Jeongguk stutters, suddenly feeling his cheeks heat up. He is so not used to doing this. He feels like he's invading somebody's privacy. It's not what he's been taught to do all his life.
"Well," Yerim hums, unaffected in any way but what they're doing. It's as if she's done other more insane things than this. For some reason, Jeongguk wants to know all of them-what adventures she's been on, what secrets she's uncovered, how amazing it would feel to just let everything go. "We have a new mission now. Let's go through the details shall we?" She adds.
Before Jeongguk can ask what I'm Earth is going on, she clears her throat and explains, "That man is married. He's having a scandal with one of his 'patients'," she does a quote sign with both hands. "The woman comes here thrice a week, trust me she's not even ill."
"And your plan is...?"
"I'm glad you asked," Yerim points the camera lens of her phone downwards. "Let's say we expose them."
"WHAT."
"That's the spirit!"
Jeongguk nearly has a heart attack on the spot.
"Help me lift this up a little bit to get a better view," Yerim says, waving him over. She lifts the opening of the air ventilation slightly and he gives her a hand. He glances at the screen of her phone as she snaps as many pictures as she can.
He internally prays that they don't do anything more than just kiss. His eyes are too innocent to be exposed to such adulterous acts.
"I got it, let's go-"
Jeongguk accidentally let's go of the cover a little too soon and it slams back into place with a bang. The couple below them must've heard it. Because they've frozen in place and their heads at tilted skyward at the vents. Yerim grabs Jeongguk's shirt and pushes him back so that the both of them are out of the couple's sight.
For a moment they're as silent as they can be. None of them dares to make a move until they hear the man say "let's find somewhere else to go."
When they hear the door closing, Yerim finally lets out the breath she's been holding, hands on her chest as she tries to calm down. And then she says, "the coast is clear!" at a regular volume and Jeongguk slaps a hand over her mouth with a panicked look on his face.
"Are you crazy? They'll hear us!" He whisper-shouts.
She shoots him flashing eyes. "So what? They're gone!" She says it louder to emphasise her point. Jeongguk mentally facepalms and Yerim reaches out to mess his hair.
"Soleonda me likey, me likey, likey, likey. Me likey, likey, likey. Dugundugundugun," she beams and points a finger towards his chest. "Heart, heart."
Jeongguk swears his heart skipped a beat. How many love songs had he heard that said, "She takes my breath away"? Now that line makes a lot of sense.
"Ohoho, you're the best comrade ever," She says as she looks through the photos she took. Jeongguk takes a look and when he sees how satisfied Yerim looks, he decides that he can do with that. If she's happy, he's happy.
"I still can't believe we did that. We could've been kicked out of the hospital."
"But it was fun, right?"
Jeongguk stares at the way her hair falls over her shoulders, the way her eyes are blinking every now and so often in happiness, the way she smiles even wider as she tries to stifle her laughter. He can see the wrinkles below her eyes and the tiny scars on her face that almost resemble constellations.
He thinks, how is it remotely possible that his heart somersaulting and with her sitting dangerously close to him and looking away is becoming impossible. The dimples that indent in the corners of her embellished skin as she smiles at the product of their success is his last coherent thought before something else downs on him harder than a falling comet.
"I like you, Park Yerim."
He doesn't even realise he's said it out loud. But when he does, he knows that it's too late to take it back.
Yerim looks up from the screen at him with an eyebrow quirked in confusion. Jeongguk nearly panics, but he doesn't want to mess things up with the only person who's managed to win his trust. The secret's already out, what more can he hide?
"What are you getting on, Jeongguk-ah," Yerim says with a comfortable laugh. She looks like he's waiting for him to speak.
"I like, like you," Jeongguk repeats, heart pounding against his chest so hard he can feel it's vibrations on his skin. "A lot."
Their eyes lock and the world seems to freeze about them. When she says "I like you too, Jeon Jeongguk," he doesn't regret anything.
Yup, he can do with this.
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AN
A reminder that I love and appreciate every single one of you