Work Text:
22:42
ugly bastard: meet me at the place
//
The place, being the top of Namwoon’s old school, up the rickety ladder he’d introduced to her that definitely was a safety hazard.
“I was starting to think you wouldn’t show.”
Kim Namwoon’s stupid familiar voice hit her ears as soon as her hand reached the topmost rung of the ladder leading to their meeting place, breaking through the quiet of the night and the constant humming of Seoul. Always with the dramatics, he was. She knew for a fact that he’d seen her electric scooter pull up even from this high up.
“I almost didn’t,” Jihye groused, lying. Of course she’d rolled off the couch as soon as the notification popped up on her phone wallpaper. “Seriously, why would you hit up someone this late? I could’ve been asleep.”
She made her way over to the corner he’d stuffed himself into, tucked between the electricity generator and the doorway down into the empty school building, just in time to see him snort incredulously. “Jihye-ah,” he sighed, mockingly condescending. “We both know your sleeping habits.”
He smiled at her, crooked and stupid-looking. What was he trying to pull? It wasn’t handsome at all. Just stupid looking. She smiled back for no particular reason at all. “Or your lack of one,” he added.
Way to ruin the moment, idiot.
Her smile dropped and she kicked at his crisscrossed legs lightly. “Of all people—” she scolded, dropping down to sit next to him. The cement was cold as ice against her bare legs, but she didn’t mind too much. Stupid Namwoon, always inconveniencing her like this. “—you shouldn’t be calling me an insomniac.”
After all, Jihye wasn’t the one who texted her girlfriend randomly at almost 11 at night on a whim. It didn’t matter that she, the said girlfriend, had at once hopped on her scooter and complied. Namwoon started it!
He looked over at her and knocked his forehead against hers, still grinning his stupid grin. “Oh yeah? Why’d you come then?”
Scooting a bit closer, she rolled her eyes. “Duh, what do you think?”
For a second he looked away towards the sky, tapping his chin in mock contemplation. Annoyed with a smile pulling at her lips again, she wacked his arm lightheartedly. “I’m not too sure actually,” Namwoon said after a brief moment, meeting her eyes again. “I think you should tell me.”
We got a little comedian on our hands, don’t we? She rolled her eyes again, just for good measure, and moved closer so their foreheads knocked against each other again and stayed there. His breath came in smooth, gentle intervals, and she could practically taste the love in it.
“What could it be?” she asked him, and wondered briefly if he could taste the love on her breath too, or maybe the laughter. “It definitely couldn’t be an ugly white rat dog like you, could it?”
Namwoon’s eyebrows drew together for a second, offended, then hit her gently right back. He didn’t move away, though, and that said enough.
“It couldn’t be,” he told her, “Because I’m way too handsome to be compared to something like that.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Handsome? That’s a way to put it, for sure.”
Namwoon pouted indignantly at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Up to interpretation,” she told him with a teasing lilt in her voice, leaning away from him and moving around so their shoulders were pressed together instead.
Adapting, Namwoon shifted so his knee rested on hers. Of course he’d want to get one up on her even when they weren’t sparring.
She was lying though, of course. Namwoon belonged in the moonlight like he said she did in sunlight. The gentle glow, coupled with the ambient lights of Seoul, did well to soften his features. It made his hair shine, like some constellation of Eden. She’d never admit it to him, though. His ego was already big enough.
That wasn’t really true, either. She’d never really forgotten what brought Namwoon up here in the first place, long before she’d ever heard his name or his hair knew the burn of bleach and white dye.
They ignored that, most of the time.
After a few quiet beats passed between the two of them, Jihye felt the familiar and warm weight of a mop of hair fall against her shoulder. Against the biting chill, it felt almost like an embrace of sorts. Despite her inability to express herself, she really did love him like nothing else.
“But really,” she said, feeling like the night had lulled themselves into vulnerable enough of a position that it was okay to ask. Namwoon had taken to wearing those dumb pastel hairclips she’d given him, so she could see his eyes look up at her from her peripheral vision. “Why did you ask me to come?”
Late-night meetups were nothing new, between the two of them. It was something that defined their relationship like arcade games and calla lilies did.
But it took a specific type of mood for Namwoon to suddenly ask her to meet at the roof of his old high school, somewhere almost thirty minutes away from where his apartment was on foot, somewhere in Old Seoul where night buses didn’t bother to venture.
A melancholy mood. A nostalgic one.
Namwoon paused, before shrugging a little. “’s nothing to worry about. Just wanted to clear my head, y’know.”
Jihye looked down at him, hand reaching up to bury itself in Namwoon’s mop of hair. It was soft against her new acrylics. He leaned into it like an old friend.
“Mn. I know.”
She did. Being here made her think of it too — a time where Seoul had never been touched by scenarios and she liked to worry pencils between her teeth during exams.
It wasn’t like she’d ever known Chungil High School nor Kim Namwoon during that time, hadn’t seen him grow up or act anytime during that false, fictional period. Being here though, in his element, had her almost visualizing it behind closed eyelids.
No version of Lee Jihye, no matter which storyline, had ever known Kim Namwoon as a kid. Sometimes, though, it almost felt like she did.
Lonely, longing. That was the version of Kim Namwoon that haunted every brick of this roof. It couldn't be too different from the version of Lee Jihye that haunted the halls of Daepong Girls’ High School, she was sure.
“You’re my best friend,” he whispered into the air in the same frequency as an I love you.
The fingers buried in his hair detangled themselves, before smoothing back stray curls so she could see both his eyes clearly. She had to get him something better, like a headband or something, to further push back his hair. Maybe tomorrow, when they wake up.
“I know,” she said, then tilted her head down slightly to press a kiss to his forehead. His skin was warm against her lips, and she felt particularly brave. That was another thing, between them. Nighttime always had a fogging effect on the two of them, stripping them bare of their usual walls.
Or, maybe, it was just how nice Namwoon looked under the moon. It could be that — it definitely influenced Jihye, for sure.
A choked sound escaped Namwoon’s lips when she did, moving away slightly.
Jihye blinked, tilting her head at him in silent question before he sat up straighter then pressed their foreheads together. His eyes were wide and brown, and for the first time she noticed that he wasn’t wearing his usual red contacts now. They were more sincere like this, and more expressive.
She saw something swimming in those genuine eyes but was too afraid to take time to decipher what it was.
His breath ghosted on her lips again, but this time they came quickly, in the same rhythm as the beating of her heart. When did her face get so hot?
Just like before, though, she could almost taste the love in every exhale. Again, she wondered what he tasted in hers when he inhaled.
“Jihye,” he said, a question and a confession. She breathed in the way his lips curled around the shape of her name.
“Namwoon-ah,” she breathed out, moving a bit closer, hand coming to rest on his knee.
When he kissed her, the shape and taste of their names melted together like old stars in the sky. Like the moon met the white of Namwoon’s hair, like the way the reader met the story.
Like Jihye met Namwoon — in the middle, and then some.
Her fingers curled around the fabric of his pants. Namwoon didn’t reach to touch her — scared to, or something else? Whatever it was, it was alright; she’d make up for the both of them.
Namwoon had his eyes closed, eyelids shaking slightly like the rest of him. Despite herself, she smiled a little into the kiss — she couldn’t help it. His sincerity steadied her, and she reached out with her other hand to clasp his trembling fingers.
When she did, he broke away and opened his eyes again. His eyes were wide, and questioning.
“Did you like it?” he asked her, tentative. He was so stupid, as always, asking like he genuinely didn’t know the answer.
She grasped his fingers more tightly in her own and hoped it steadied him as it did her.
“You dumb dog,” she admonished with a smile, then leaned in for another taste of her name in his mouth.
//
Some version of Namwoon haunted this roof the same way some version of Jihye haunted the halls of her old school.
No version of Jihye had ever known any version of Namwoon previous to the end of the world. Still, at times she almost felt like she did.
Now, she knew why.
His name tasted the same in her mouth as her own. Every time someone called out Jihye, it rang out in the same key, the same frequency, of his.
Like the moon met his hair. Like the way the reader met the story.
Like Jihye met Namwoon — in the middle, from the very beginning, and maybe, hopefully, forever until the post-epilogue.