Against Time | k.th. ✔

三 : mustard-paste hair

2021 AD

The gurgling anger within Yeseul would more or less prove to be a debacle beyond anyone and everyone's control if it was not tended to in time.

It had been hours already since the incident occurred but yet, every time someone attempted to converse with Yeseul, she would snap back at them like an insomnia-hit person— like someone who had pulled an all-nighter only to watch her efforts going down the drain.

The frustration was boundless.

Mayhap she had just woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Yeseul's alarm jilting her was the first setback of the day for her, and since then the race between her and time had been an uptight competition of nerves.

The one that slacked, lost.

Stumbling and tripping, she had somehow managed to reach the exit of the nearest subway station from her school— at last— only to get mocked by a man who looked like as if he had come straight out of a period-drama film.

Someone who had probably never solved the basic equation of how to grow up.

All it took for him to shift the attention— that was originally centered at him— to Yeseul was to show his concern for her mustard-paste-daubed hair, which the latter had otherwise always thought were exceptionally enviable.

"Oh poor girl..." The man paused for a while before sucking in air with all his might, yelling in exhilaration thereafter, "She has mustard paste dripping all over her hair, someone please help her out!"

Yeseul could not fathom at first what that man said, given his clumsy diction. But it did not take her much time to figure out that his statement was in fact meant for her, for all the vigilance that was previously directed at him, was gradually converging at her hair. By the time people could realize—which only took them fractions of seconds— that the female's hair were simply blonde, the shady man had already deserted the scene.

Yeseul's gaze grew unsteady when she eventually caught sight of him sneakily slipping off the guard's hold, leading her to point at him rather vaguely. People followed the motion of her finger, quite expectedly staying flabbergasted over the man's ability to free himself from the guard's grip with a distraction so shockingly basic— as if it was a mere cakewalk for him.

All due to that man's courtesy, Yeseul was not only skeptical about her hair now, but the urge to roundhouse-kick into that man's gut was overpowering her like anything. The recollection incredulously impeded her breath every single time, with her face turning red— in all absolute terms— because of the rage that she had been fettering inside her all this while. She was certain about exploding like a bomb at a sheer glimpse of that ill-cultured man.

And she would not go off without taking him down along with her.

With such a perpetually lingering anger, Yeseul concluded that she was not mentally stable to attend the rest of her classes for the day. Therefore, she left for her home— to maybe take up a little detour to treat herself with something nice in the meantime— provided how much essential it had proved to be for her now. It had become a struggle for her to keep her face unconcealed, the horrors from earlier in the day still not seeming like waning for her memory. With a hand over face—in the fear of someone recognizing her as the mustard-paste hair— she recklessly jogged her way to the other side of the road.

Though with audible gasps and amazed stares capturing her interest, she swerved her neck in the indicated direction, spotting an unquestionably clueless man trying to cross the wide-spanning road when the seconds left for the purpose were flashing as meager as five.

"Get back, you won't be able to cross it!" Yeseul called out to that oblivious man, while advancing towards him at the same time.

In spite of Yeseul's fair admonition, the male did not budge an inch. On top of that, he neither stepped forwards nor withdrew from his position— remaining on a standstill as if waiting to be run over by the oncoming bus.

Literally.

"You moron!" Yeseul was undoubtedly done with the man's foolishness, lunging towards him and pushing him off the scene as a result.

She peeled one of her eyes open, and came across an unabashed squint fixated at her own self.

Being peered at by the very man who should have been groveling at her feet for saving his life by now— starkly contrasting to her expectations, none of that was happening.

"What?" Yeseul blurted, and the man halted his shameless gawking.

Swaying his head in discontent, he shoved Yeseul aside who had been on the top of him for the last two minutes, whilst quickly resorting to dusting his clothes before setting off to cross over to the other side of the road once again.

"Have you gone bonkers? Can't you see that it isn't our time to switch sides yet? Or do you wanna die? If you wanna die then do that alone, why rope in an innocent driver?" Yeseul rebuked, clearly disgruntled by the attitude that the male was exhibiting.

"You can speak our language? Oh my, all this while I've been thinking that you won't understand a word that I may utter. And by the way, why would I die while trying to cross the road when it isn't our time yet?"  The man's eyebrows weaved into one, showcasing the genuine perplexity that he was undergoing.

"Uh... because you'll get hit by a car? Or worse, by a bus?" Yeseul mirrored the man's look, and waited patiently for the time when she could catch him off-guard by yelling right into his face, "Are you fucking making fun of me right now? After what you did in the morning, and after how I saved your life just now?"

Oh, little did the boy know what he had coming for himself.

"Ah, were you the one whom I had called mustard-paste in that train station? I'm sorry I was just looking for an opportunity to run, it wasn't my intention to hurt you..." The fancily-dressed boy—or what Yeseul had assumed— clarified, with eyes so pleading that nobody would misunderstand him to be lying.

"Why were you—"

"Oh, what are those three gigantic dots? The colors are so pretty." The male grinned at the structure that he had his eyes stuck on for now, causing Yeseul to trail his lead to identify the reason behind his sudden enchantment. Although she appeared as dismayed as ever, when she had finally learned what did that weird man find so fascinating.

"Traffic lights, are you kidding me?"

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a/n

so do y'all now get what 'new perspective' tae adopted in the last chapter?🤣 and yeah, he time-travelled to 2021 (surprise! there's no covid in this au😩) also, thanks for the 100+ reads! i hope i'm not disappointing any of you😌 btw who else can see him rocking such a role in an actual kdrama?👀 i mean, actor tae has been on a longass hiatus now it's about time he made a comeback❤️❤️