STRANGERS. binsung

eleven

Jisung laid in bed. A strange tranquil blanketed the room, an occasional breeze seeping through the open window, and shuffling every so often from the other rooms in his house ensued.

'Why do I even like him?'

Yeah. Why did he even like such a jackass? Jisung was only Han Jisung: Han Jisung, who was in set three — the peak of average — for most subjects, rarely climbing up to set two for others; Han Jisung, who only shared one class with the popular main-character-entities of the school; Han Jisung, who only ever sees those entities from afar, who can never even get an arm's reach away from said entities; Han Jisung, who helplessly falls for some confusing cliché with an undercut, who was just so far above him, who was just in a different league.

'I mean, I've only ever properly spoken to him, like, once, and that was when we saw each other in that playground.'

Did he like the way Changbin made him feel special just by being in his presence? Perhaps the feeling of such a popular guy talking to him, bumping into him, approaching him first outside of school let him think he had a chance.

If Jisung was being honest, he thought a lot about these kinds of stories — the ones where an ordinary person ends up with someone who happens to be so much more — and he thought maybe it was time a story like that would go on for himself.

Jisung got up. He grabbed a scrap piece of paper and turned to the back of it, where there was space to write, then hurriedly grabbed his guitar from the other side of the room.

How cheesy of him to be writing a song, right? But he considered that his only character-worthy trait. Seungmin and Felix weren't aware that he knew how to play a little, let alone the fact that he even owned a guitar.

He plucked at the strings, thinking of simple chords, humming whatever came to mind — he thought of sayings he heard before. 'If you don't sound or look silly while singing, you aren't doing it right' was apparently the philosophy for songwriters.

Jisung thought about Changbin's pedestal. Then he shrunk back down into his desk chair, twirling, spinning as similarly as his mind was, equally thinking back to his own. Could it even be called a pedestal? His pillar would never be that high, no matter how many friends he could hypothetically garner, no matter how important he got on the social ladder; Jisung faced the facts. He could never be important.

'You make me feel like I have a purpose on this earth — no, too wordy,'

Jisung discarded and scribbled and erased lines that didn't fit his criteria. But the point of this wasn't to make something that sounded inherently good, was it? It was just to vent.

'You're a stupid, stupid jackass!'

He played.

'I fucking hate the feeling of liking you!'

Wow, really had a ring to it (no it didn't).

'Fuck you for making me feel like I'm interesting enough for you!'

That was enough for today.

—