[2] Red | Mingi ✓

two | the one with the neighbour [singular]

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OR SO SHE THOUGHT...

IT was the third day after his reappearance. Mingi was on his way to pitching a tent, soon setting groundwork to erect an estate and Mint already saw herself letting him meander through barriers she'd never upended right. But when it came to the thing behind her ribcage, there she took time to fortify. She would sooner relive confessing to him in his dorm room—sans Hyunjae, his roommate—than let him in all the way.

   She humphed to herself. Herself being full-on cognizant with her lying moments. A moment like this one, a humph-summoning kind. Humph.

   Unofficially, Mint was done with men, starting yesterday. Maybe until her family, with Hwa commanding the Park fleet, could forage someone who had, on equal grounds, had his own fair share with women and decided he was done. And only until he was dragged to her doorstep, then a common ground was found, to be together and stay together.

   Within three days, she'd heard—seen, smelt—enough knocks to make her desperate to rip the front door off its hinges. Mingi used to be the type to make the most out of something, suck it dry. In college, when Ryujin told him he was more than welcome to use the room's wi-fi, that was all it took to get a third roommate. Although Mint didn't mind; thought, things are looking up, Minty. In no time, he's yours. And they did spend all that time together, that she could've sworn she wasn't the only one pining anymore. She moved in too quickly, pinged where she should have ponged, pouring out and then realizing she should've bottled in when Mingi suddenly seemed to have seen a ghost. Then, the beautiful letdown. Mingi's beautiful wrinkled forehead, Mingi's beautiful tongue running along his lower lip as he broke up with her. It wasn't crappy at all that she had gotten a taste of the bad before the good.

   The good ... Mint grew tired of waiting for the good.

   Today was the old Mingi with a new resolve, that she be the one he sucked dry (her head is innocuously clear when she reasons this, candid intentions and whatnot, Mint cannot recall how to think risque thoughts). She had been promoted yet again. Childhood recess friend to college best friend to onetime college best friend to ally in a foreign land—a fifteen-floored residential complex that stepped up from the average schlocky apartment but far-flung from the kind Yeosang, a close friend of Hwa's, chose to plunk down his solo nest. An industrial dream. Hwa still refused to test-run that urban standard of living. Boo and him!

   It was a robotic day at work, left more than a stone's throw from right in her congested brunette head, barely aware of the ongoing project, mind and body too sedated to remember her teammates couldn't depend on her. Mint also hadn't remembered when that used to be her biggest problem. Twice, Bang Chan had checked up on her, brandishing leadership qualities that kept her in the belittling corner. Near noon, the second time he inquired if really she was okay, he'd brought along a peace offering. Iced-coffee. Then and there, Mint gave it all up, made up her mind that she was done running for team manager. Next election she would scribble his name on paper haphazardly ripped from a planner. Mingi had come to make her have a new outlook on stuff, even if not so much brighter when he was remaining in the picture. Three doors down. There'd been a newfound contentment for Mint, in the reality that she didn't have a trustworthy face. She was coworker, she was that chick in the back cubicle. Everyone was sheep, she was the hermetic goat. Yet all of this being considered was not as bothersome as having a someone she admired from an old record at her doorstep every minute.

   Mint's thoughts opted to no longer be hers, everything pondered became the world's to covet as well—she heard it. What came to highlight her days. She was programmed to anticipate it, welcome it. She dawdled, her feet loggy behind her, there was simply nothing to remind her she wasn't at her best.