ROOM OF MIRRORS° h.sj

025

————"liar."

sumin turned to him, "excuse me?" for the first time in years, she was genuinely surprised.

seojun watched as her lips parted and her eyes just barely widened. he noticed her eyes darted from left to right as she focused in on each of his eyes. her fingers might be stained with the scent of rust and silver with the amount of strength going into her grip.

"you heard me." he sighed and stood up from the swing, "i'll pick you up at noon for lunch. wait for me."

all sumin could do was let her jaw tense as he left her in the playground alone, wood chips and dead leaves crunching under his shoes as he left the area. with a sudden burst of courage, she followed him, holding her hands behind her. he continued to look in the opposite direction, in his pitiful attempt to avoid her teasing gaze. seojun stuffed his hands in his pockets and huffed before she could finally catch up.

"is that your way of asking me out?" sumin halted her step in front of him and moved to the side to block him whenever he tried to walk past.

he shook his head with a slight pout on his lip. she sucked in the fall air through her teeth and copied his 'rejection.'

"then i'm sorry to say that i already have plans."

his head snapped towards her, "with who?"

"i think you know them very well."

"if you say suho, i'm going to lose my mind." he grips the keys to his motorbike as if she did say his name, he was going to drive over and make it so he couldn't make it out tomorrow.

sumin can only shrug and make her way back to her yard. she couldn't just tell him that she had plans with sujin for free, could she? she could, but she's really soaking up the whole seojun doesn't like jugyeong thing.

seojun watches as she jumps the fence with ease and climbs up the birch tree. once she's on the top branch, sumin sits on the sturdiest branch and waves at him as sujin opens the window for her. as she's shutting the window, his girl blows him a joking kiss, and over his girl's shoulder is her twin making a cut throat gesture. so much for his idea of romeo and juliet (and juliet's scary twin) moment.

in the end, seojun decides to head towards a 24-hour internet cafe where he proceeds to dip into his limited cash for a two hour spot. after he loses three-quarters of the games he played, he rides back to the park by sumin's house.

parking far away enough to not wake her parents up with the rev of his motorcycle, he attempts to jump over her fence (it's harder than it looks) and makes it over on the second time. he climbs up the tree using the skills he and sumin had learned together in middle school and perched himself like a pet bird on it's owners finger.

the lights in the room are off, and he can't remember if this was sujin's room or sumin's. seojun prays it's sumin's and gently taps on the window.

sumin sits up in her bed and looks over at the window. her blinds are closed, but she can see the shadow of someone on her tree from the streetlights. she just hopes he texted his mother his whereabouts before coming over and bugging her yet again.

she opens the window, not even checking the branch occupant and walks back to turn her light on. seojun crawls in through the window that seemed a lot smaller since he'd last been there.

"what do you want." sumin asks groggily, checking the time on her phone. "it's 2 in the morning, are you joking with me right now? go home." she's sure in the morning she will have absolutely zero recollection of this.

he takes his shoes off before trudging across her rug and flopping into her bed. seojun thinks she might have changed what laundry detergent she uses for the bedding. "i'm bored."

by now, sumin's already flicking the lights off again and getting into bed, kicking seojun's head because it's on top of where her feet should be. "go home and sleep then."

"aren't you going to ask if i missed you? what if that's the reason i came back?" he props himself up on his elbows and rubs at his head, "you're legs got stronger, huh."

sumin lifted her head up and looked at him. "that's real sweet of you for a coward. i have to be up in five hours for a day trip with sujin, and i need to sleep."

"so you don't have plans with suho!" he smirked like he'd just cracked the code.

"i never told you i did. now i can get you a book to read in the corner while i sleep if you're so bored, or you could go home because i'm pretty sure your mother is going to be mad if you're out past curfew."

seojun nudges her arm, "can't i nap here? i told my mom i'd be out at a friends and it's too late to go anywhere else." sumin throws him a drowsy thumbs up before falling asleep mid sentence and subconsciously moving to the side of the bed.

it feels like middle school all over again and seojun is so excited she isn't ignoring him anymore and— and she's asleep and facing away from him. in the end, he spends the next few hours skimming through the books on her shelf, because he's really bored and can't sleep out of sheer adrenaline to win her back.

once the sun rises, seojun leaves a little note on her desk before letting himself out of the window and jumping the fence again.

a few hours later, sujin enters her twins' room and taps at her forehead to wake her up. she'd resort to a spray bottle but it didn't work the last time. while waiting for her to just naturally wake up, she walked over to the unlocked window.

sujin swears she locked it before going to sleep. so she skims her sight across the room and her eyes focus in on a post it note on her desk. reading it, her nose scrunched and her lips fall into a grimace and she ends up physically pushing sumin out of the bed and shoving the note in her face.

"read that."

"what is it?" sumin is tucking her hair behind her ears and looking out of one eye bc the other one is just too weak to do so.

"seojun left it after he went home." sujin was more grossed out about the note than that idea that seojun had been in this room less than 12 hours ago.

'good morning! sorry i left so early :( i'll pick you up tomorrow... don't forget to brush your teeth because you stink'
— sj ;)

"i'm going to kill him i swear." sumin stuck the note to the floor beside her and let her head fall back down.

"you can, after our trip today!"