Pandora's Box | kim mingyu & jeon wonwoo

13

"Mingyu, help me roll this down," my uncle said, already turning the knob that rolled down the steel roll door to close the store. It was an old-fashioned thing that required lots of strength. Other people in the district had already changed to steel roll doors that shut down automatically as opposed to manually. My uncle, however, being my mother's brother, was too cheap to invest in something like that. When I had asked, he said, "If it's not broken, don't fix it."

And I couldn't argue with sound logic.

I made my way to him and helped him roll it down. We were almost done with it when I could suddenly sense a shadow approaching us in the dead of the night. I was convinced it was a drunk man and was intent on ignoring the shadow until it called my name. "Give me a second," I called back, annoyed at being interrupted. I wrapped up what I was doing with my uncle before I even bothered turning around and giving this person the time of day.

"Have a nice night," My uncle said, patting me in the back and turning away to enter the opened door beside the store. My uncle and his family lived right above the store, just like most store owners in the district.

I looked out into the poorly-light street in search of the person who had called my name. I had fully anticipated someone from one of the shops, or a drunkard, when my eyes finally landed upon Wonwoo I stumbled back a couple of steps.

"Mingyu, we need to talk," he said, staring at me with a stone-cold glare. I gulped, but I nodded. I mean, what else could I do?

From the moment I had realized he had been calling for me, I had fully anticipated Wonwoo to lecture me right then and there. Instead, he had suggested that we made our way to the riverbank. He even suggested we buy some drinks from the nearby vending machine.

I had been sitting on the bench for a good ten minutes before Wonwoo made his way back and handed me a bottle of chocolate milk. "Thank you," I mumbled, the guilt already starting to trouble me. He only nodded, eventually taking his seat next to me.

He could have fooled me. He had taken so long in talking that I had been tempted to believe that he wasn't upset at me. It felt like we were cool. But it hadn't escaped me that he refused to look at me. The pain of it hadn't escaped me, either. 

We sat side by side, staring straight ahead. Our hands barely brushed against one another's, but neither of us acknowledged it, and we just kept looking ahead. It was a bug flying around that finally broke our silence. I had reached out to kill it, and Wonwoo had shied away from the damn thing, and once my hands clasped around the creature and I crushed it, Wonwoo finally turned to look at me and said, "Thank you."

"No sweat," I replied as I cleaned off my hands. "I know how much you hate bugs," I said, trying to play it cool, all the while knowing full well that I was no good with them myself either.

Honestly, we were on the verge of returning to our awkward silence when he suddenly burst out and said, "I know what you did." His tone was not accusatory. On the contrary, it was very matter-of-fact. That alone was enough was to make my shoulders slump. "I heard about it from Soonyoung and Jihoon. They had passed by on their way to the club room," he explained. I nodded.

"Mingyu," he said, and all lightness from his voice had been erased, "you shouldn't have done that, and most importantly, you should apologize." His voice was harsh and firm, and most of all, it was exactly what I had needed to hear and had been refusing to admit. I nodded though, for whatever that was worth. Apologizing was not something relished to think about, but I did recognize that it was something I had to do.

"I don't know everything you said, but my friends caught the part where you were defending me. And you shouldn't have done that. You didn't defend me at all, honestly, you kinda made me look like a jackass who sends his friends to harass girls who reject me." Wonwoo laughed at that. "And that's so not who I am."