i'm a darling (strong heart, soft touch)

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THIS BELONGS TO @seikou ON AO3


Jeongguk looks up from his laptop, fingers resting on the keypads softly as he stops typing for a while to watch the boy run inside the flower shop. He's so bright, Jeongguk can physically feel himself go warm at the sight of his huge smile. He watches as the boy opens the door with a huff, nose crinkling adorably and—

Jeongguk sighs, rubs a hand down his face then takes a deep calming breath.

He picks up his cup of coffee, takes a sip from it and gags at how cold it has become. Looking at the clock, Jeongguk realises that he's been in the café for way too long and way past the hours he's decided to stay. Oh well. Still, he gets up, goes to the counter, and asks for a coffee refill before going back to his place, by the window, near the flower shop, where he can sightsee.

Where he can watch the boy sort the flowers displayed outside.

It starts one autumn day, when Jeongguk is typing on his laptop too fast, too furious, too inspired. It has taken only one glance, one second for him to look up and outside the window, then he's on a daze. Because the boy—with his disheveled hair, clutching three or four types of bouquet on his arms—has taken his breath away.

Or more like, distracted him from continuing on writing the most important scene on his second novel. Great.

But.

Jeongguk watches the boy fight with the door and the bouquet and the wind that apparently is trying to blow all the boy's flowers away—

Jeongguk watches as the boy sighs in relief when the door finally opens. And Jeongguk watches him smile brightly as he greets the person who's opened the door and Jeongguk watches him disappear from his sight and inside the shop.

The boy is so distracting. He's too colorful. Shirt too flowery, pants too creamy, hair too blonde, smile too happy.

The boy is like happiness incarnate.

Jeongguk can never relate.

And that's how his novel gained one more character.

The happy boy.

*

He's always surrounded by people. Smiling at them, hugging them, touching them. So familiar with them.

He's the center of attention. He's the main character in a book not written for him. His energy draws people to him and his personality makes them stay. He is loved and envied at the same time.

Perhaps, that's why, he's the first to fall.

Something that is constant in Jeongguk's life is silence.

He loves the silence of his tiny apartment in Hongdae where the hustle and bustle usually is. Jeongguk loves the silence of that one café he once visited while in Itaewon; up that hill, in the suburbs of Seoul, in the middle of everything and nothing. He loves his bedroom in Busan, still kept clean everyday just in case Jeongguk makes a surprise visit—his mom's words, not his—which he rarely does.

In conclusion, Jeongguk loves his peace; being alone. Feeling unimportant, a wallflower, in this bustling city.

And that's why Jeongguk can't grasp why he's so interested in a boy opposite to what he likes; the most opposite of Jeongguk's personality.

But he's fascinated and he's created a similar character to him. This happy boy that lights up the room when he walks in. This boy that is loud with his hands gesturing wildly while talking. This man that smiles too brightly at anyone he has an eye contact with.

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