Habit; Soonhoon

01

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JIHOON GOES ABOUT his days like they're the first seven minutes of a dramedy - you know, the kinds that are sort of structured like coming-of-age films, but made for people who have already come of age? Insert a clip of some twenty-eight-year-old woman running in front of traffic to get to work on time, mere minutes away from an experience that will ultimately change her life - that sort of thing.

Except, Jihoon's never mere minutes away from a life-changing experience. It's always the same thing, day in and day out.

Seungkwan tells him he needs to get out there and do something, whatever that means. Go to parties, sign up for a dating site, take a cooking class, stop being such a boring fuck and live your life  - his words exactly.

"I'm happy the way I am," Jihoon always tells him, and his response is always the same:

"No, you're not. That's just a lie you tell to comfort yourself because you know you're sadder than you'd like to admit."

That's usually the point at which Vernon will tell Seungkwan to stop meddling, and Jihoon will go on rolling his eyes and being unbothered. Pretending to be unbothered? No, no, he really doesn't care.

Anyway.

Stage one of Jihoon's day-in-the-life: Saturday edition; coffee at the nearest café with, speak of the devil, his asshole friends. 

Jihoon truly wishes he could say the first thing he hears upon entering the small hole in the wall coffee shop is the barista asking him if he'd like two shots of espresso - instead, however, he's blessed with the human airhorn that is Boo Seungkwan.

"Good morning, Jihoon. Enjoying your day off from being corporate Korea's bitch?"

"It's nine in the morning, please don't speak until I have my latte."

Seungkwan promptly shuts his mouth with a pout, and Jihoon manages to crack the smallest of smiles when he hears the others laugh behind them.

Ordering and grabbing his coffee, he takes a seat beside Jeonghan and falls into a state of partial awareness, zoning in and out of the conversation and, occasionally, just shutting his eyes completely. It's still too early to function like a regular human being - give half an hour for the caffeine to hit him, and he won't be so dead.

Seungkwan, unfortunately, refuses to let that be a peaceful half hour.

"What's on the agenda for today, Mr. I Have An Important Job And Think I'm Better Than Everyone Else?" he asks.

"I don't think I'm better than everyone else," Jihoon deadpans. "I just think I'm better than you." That earns him a very half-hearted hit on the arm from Vernon, who's grinning despite the glare his boyfriend shoots him, and he continues.

"Uh, not much? I've got laundry I need to do, I gotta feed Joshua's cat, and there's this project coming up I really should get started on - "

"Holy shit, you really are boring."

Jihoon cuts off at the interruption, squinting his eyes in partial-offense at the boy across the table from him. He lets him blur into nothing more than a blob of color, blockish white standing out where that terribly bright grin is, and even through altered vision, Jihoon can make out the anxiety in it.

"Sorry, is this Seokmin or Seungkwan I'm speaking to?" 

"It's true, though. You seem so ... spiritless. We've noticed it, lately."