EGOIST (Sang Woo x Fem!OC) [COMPLETED]

37

There was an insistent knocking on her door at 10p.m. Though Hae Young wasn't asleep just yet, she was in the middle of settling in and figuring out a way to pay her overdue debts at the same time. Basically, tonight was not the night for visitors.

She was cautious as she approached the door. The knocks didn't seem violent, but it was more hesitant and desperate. She doesn't remember giving anyone her address. Perhaps it was Mrs. Kang. Carefully, she takes the butter knife resting on her kitchenette, holding in tightly in her obscured hands. She swings the door open. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Gi-Hun?" She nearly yells in surprise.

"Hae Young!" He only greets with an unreciprocated amount of cheeriness.

"What are you doing here--" She scrunches her brows in confusion. "How did you even know where I lived?"

"Everyone in the neighborhood has been talking about it, and Mrs. Cho told me." He just grins, though there was something forced behind it. "I've missed you!" He tackles her in an embrace that is uncalled for. Hae Young made sure that the pointed end of the butter knife was as far from him as possible.

He eventually lets go, somewhat a little too quickly, as his joyous expression becomes somewhat desperate. He needed something, and Hae Young already knew what.

"So... Gangwon, huh?"

Her face drops, unamused.

"It's 10 p.m., and you managed to find out where I lived the same day you found out I returned." She says in a matter-of-fact tone. "What do you need from me, Seong Gi-Hun?"

He just sighs, the jig is up. His joyous expression turns into a mixture of sheepishness and desperation.

"It's just... Amma didn't give me my weekly allowance yesterday, and I just maybe a little bit of--"

"--Money." Hae Young finishes for him. "You came here because of money?"

"--And to see you!" He quickly adds. "I just thought that you know--"

"You bastard." She sighs.

"I swear, it's just for one dinner for tonight!" He says, but Hae Young just shakes her head in contempt.

"Gi-Hun." She interrupts him, getting his attention. Finally, he shuts up to listen. "I don't know if you knew this, but I came back to the city to make money because as you can see from this dumpster hole that I'm living in, I'm in desperate need of it." She tells him. He looks down shamefully on the ground.

"And it's funny how you came here primarily to borrow money." She adds. "I have nothing to offer you, Gi-Hun. I'm in debt, too." She says coldly. "So if you're going to look for someone to ask for some cash, ask your best friend who lives in Yeouido."

"Sang-Woo?" Gi-Hun asks dumbly.

"Yes, Sang-Woo!" She raises her voice in frustration. "Who else would I be talking about?"

Gi-Hun's face falls into a frown.

"It's just-- I haven't talked to him since..."

Her brows scrunch up even more.

"Since?"

He just shrugs.

"I really can't tell anymore. It's been a while." He tells her. "I don't even know how or what he's doing, and I only hear news about him from his mom."

His frown turns into a look of confusion.

"And honestly, I thought you'd know how he would be doing. I thought you two would be keeping in touch."

She looks away.

Is this what she had missed out on in the last five years?

Come to think of it, everything turned bleaker the moment she left. Cynical, dull, most things, as it seems, had been left forgotten.

"Hae Young?" Gi-Hun calls out for her, grounding her back to the bleak, passionless reality that they live in. It's only then she realized how far she'd fallen. The almost run-down apartment that she lives in, people yelling in the streets, her bills on her coffee table, and who was once her closest friend begging on her doorstep to ask for some money. What has happened over the last five years?

"I--Look..." Gi-Hun sighs apologetically. "I know that things have been hard for you, and I'm sorry for being insensitive."

"It's just that things aren't going well for me, too. I'm sorry for not asking you how you're doing."

Hae Young just nods stiffly, wholeheartedly accepting his apology, though the weight of the situation just couldn't make her smile.

"It's okay." She tells him softly. A slight smile finally appears on his face.

It's been a while, and she notices the aging features of the man that now stood before her. They're not getting any younger, therefore things in the past must now stay in the past.

"It's getting late." Hae Young finally says. "And as much as I want to catch up with you more, I think we both need to be home for now."

Gi-Hun just nods , bidding goodbye to who was once his closest friend before she gently shuts the door on him. This was the five years that she missed out on.