ᴀʙᴅɪᴛᴏʀʏ || baek kyung

I'll Be In My Room, Making No Noise, Pretending I Don't Exist

I'll Be In My Room, Making No Noise, Pretending I Don't Exist

Kyung blinked his eyes open, still quite asleep. In the distance, he heard Jia singing in the bathroom ('—DON'T SAY YES, RUN AWAY NOW—'), and sighed in exhaustion. Geumbi was sleeping on the crook of his arm, over the comforter.

He had stayed awake, waiting for the moment the power had returned to run back to his room. The dog had followed suit.

Sinking the side of his face into the pillow, Kyung drowsily listened to Jia's more-than-pleasant voice and wondered why he liked her.

☘☘☘

Why?

He watched her skate up and down the tiny corridor between their rooms while wearing socks. Jia was tying the curtains together, wincing slightly as the sunlight hit her eyes as Kyung passed her by. She was wearing another one of his hoodies that he had misplaced.

Why, when Dohwa was much nicer than him?

☘☘☘

"I didn't poison it." Kyung said bluntly, forcing a cup of coffee in her hands. Jia blinked rapidly, clearly surprised by the gesture. When she didn't move, he scowled, "Drink it or throw it away—"

"No, no." Her voice was less sickly than it was the previous day. "Thanks...I suppose." She took a sip of the coffee, narrowed her eyes, tilted her head, coughed, and continued to drink it.

Kyung came back downstairs after getting dressed to find her making faces and blowing raspberries at Geumbi, both of them sitting on a rug in front of the balcony doors.

"So, about the coffee," Jia stopped him before he could leave for work, "It was good. But it was also salty. You mixed up the salt with sugar."

He frowned, "Why did you drink it then?"

She shrugged, "You were being unusually nice."

"You're an idiot." Kyung mentally cursed himself but according to him, there was literally nothing else he could've said that wouldn't have hinted that he liked her.

"Gee, thanks." She made a shooing motion, "Go on, then. Go to work." As he glared at her and wordlessly turned away, Jia hesitantly added, "Have a nice day."

He let out a dismissive noise and hurried out, cursing himself again.

Why did he have to like her of all people?

☘☘☘

Jia had been right when she had told him that Hwan was a slob. His notes were all over the place, his schedule was a mess, he never answered any of his important calls, but he still had a long line of clients anyway.

Kyung stared at the desk he had been provided, placed a little away from the teak doors that led to Hwan's office. There was a stack of files placed right in the middle, containing data on some of his...patients(?) that had been referred to Hwan from the youth detention centre. Kyung had to present a brief gist of all of them after going through the files.

He closed his eyes, irritated by the constant ringing of the phone from one corner of the table. How many laws was he breaking by being employed here? If he was going through the files, didn't that mean Hwan was breaking the doctor-patient confidentiality rule or whatever? Wasn't this...immoral?

Kyung clicked his tongue, taking a seat behind the table. Why do I suddenly care about morality?

The phone had not stopped ringing but Kyung didn't want to pick it either. He didn't want to talk to anybody through the phone. But he had to suck it in and do it anyway because somebody had to.