Cat Boy

02 | penny on the street

Not a lot of people go skateboarding at six in the morning, but Daehyun does. It might have something to do with the fact that at six a.m., there are very few people outside to see her fall into a ditch, but no one needs to know about that.

She pushes the skateboard onto the sidewalk with a sneakered toe, and steps on. The early hours of the morning bring out all the shades of blue in the sky, and she feels a little less lazy and a little more productive. This is nice, she thinks, and sighs out loud in contentment, feeling the last echoes of her yawn fade into the recesses of her house.

Her roommate had been asleep (due to one of the all-nighters she pulls binging dramas) when she came back from the date, giving her ample time to wash the stain from the blouse and dry it with her hair-dryer (it's not like she had a lot of choices). Maybe that's why she feels so accomplished today, so motivated to take on yet another routine task with a morning-bird smile as rare as a penny lying on the street.

She also finds such a penny lying on the street. All this in a matter of ten minutes.

The streets are clean and the neighbor's dog woofs when she crosses their gate. It's such a nice morning that she almost forgets the previous day's fiasco. She wishes she would fall over and selectively forget the whole incident, but now that she's slept on it, she wonders if she would so readily choose to forget the good bits too. Wonpil with his puppy's eyes and the barista with the cat's smile. There were nice things too, and she decides she would rather remember the day in all of its glory. 

Daehyun used to hate having to wake up so early, but she's gotten fond of this little habit of hers, this ungodly hour when everything's hush-hush and the clouds are bright and floaty as cotton candy, and the chances of her coming across a serial killer are very low.

What's not low, unfortunately for her, are the chances of coming across the cat-smile-bearing barista from the café.

Only he doesn't bear a smile as she hurtles towards him at a dangerous speed on a skateboard she's still not very good at controlling. Daehyun's smile drops as she notices him appearing at the corner she was about to turn.

She yelps, a pretty curse leaving her mouth before she can even register where she knows him from, and drops her foot to the ground. She skids—there goes the penny in her hand—and slows down tremendously, but not enough to avoid collision. The skateboard slips out from beneath her, and she crashes into the boy, both of them falling into a tangled heap on the sidewalk.

It takes a few seconds for her to register what parts of her body hurt, and where she is. The boy's flat on his back, staring up at the sky with wide eyes, as if he still hasn't completely understood what exactly happened. Daehyun's face is pressed against his chest. She can hear his heartbeat, which is pretty fast, probably because of her—in a bad way—and for a moment, her body refuses to react.

Then her senses, which were probably lying scattered around her like shed leaves, come back to her. She sits up in a single, jolt-like movement, and looks at her scratched palms. Her head throbs, which is a result of the adrenaline rather than the crash, and her knees hurt.

"Ow," she says.

"Is that all you have to say?" The barista stays on the ground, but cranes his neck to look at her indignantly. There's no real accusation in his eyes, but he does seem a little upset.

Daehyun winces when he sits up, and a hears a cracking sound when he shakes his joints out. A few stray strands of hair dangle in front of her eyes, and she pulls them away, tucking then behind her ear neatly. With her luck, she probably looks like an escaped convict in civilian clothing. "I'm sorry?"

The boy, who's dusting the dirt from his shirt and the butt of his jeans, looks at her. She gets up, and he steps back, eyes wide, and she winces a little harder on the inside. Good job, dumbass, her mind says. Now he's probably terrified of you.