OPEN YOUR EYES (BLIND I) - MUSIQ SERIES PART 2

57. YOU ARE NOT AXEL

Although Heejin started working on her music video early in the morning and the sets were already built, they had many things to film and she was not done until past midnight, when they finally were all able to leave.

As most of the girls had already finished yet they had limited cars, Heejin would have to wait for a while until Juiyu and Lihua finished to go back to the program with them, so she decided to go out and feel the night breeze until the program's staff told her they had to leave. What she was not expecting, however, was for Axel to be on the exact same spot where she had left him more than sixteen hours before.

"Axel?" she called him, but he did not respond. "Axel?"

Since he did not respond yet again, she approached him and finally saw that he was fast asleep with his head leaning on the rail beside him. The only part that made it worrying was the bottles of soju beside him that, although not that many, were still more than enough to get someone drunk.

"Seriously... Why won't you listen to me?" she muttered and crouched in front of him to shake him awake. "Axel. Axel, wake up."

"Heejin?" he asked as he opened his eyes slightly. "Oh, you're finally done."

"What are you doing here still? Shouldn't you be rehearsing with the group?"

"They cancelled the rehearsal," he answered, slurring as he was still drunk. "Duyi said he wanted to visit Juiyu while she's in Seoul."

"And why are you here still? Why are you drinking on your own instead of going home? Anyone could see you here."

"No one looks this way," he told her, pointing down to the street, where barely anyone walked by and definitely no one looked at them. "I like it here. It's quiet."

"Come on, let's call a cab," Heejin said standing up.

"No! Wait!" he held her hand to stop her. "Sit down."

"Why?"

"Just sit down!"

She technically had nothing to do right then and she was not going to be filmed anymore that day, so she gave in and sat down beside him. Just when she did that, Axel leaned his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

"You still smell the same. I like vanilla," he said and chuckled.

"You smell like alcohol and cigarettes mixed with citrus now."

"I smell like fancy shit."

Even if the topic was serious, the way he said it, the situation and everything made Heejin burst out laughing. She was very much mad at him at that moment, but he made it impossible for her to stay mad with comments like that.

"It's been a while," Axel said, sitting back up.

"Since what?" Heejin asked.

"Since I saw you laugh."

It seemed like he was sobering up rather quickly with that comment, but for some reason Heejin did not feel nervous being with him. Even if things were different, for some reason she felt comfortable at that moment.

"I could say the same to you," Heejin told him. "Recently I've been mostly seeing you drunk."

"Yeah... I guess sorry about that," he muttered. "To be honest, I never understood why people enjoyed drinking so much, but I think I do now. It just makes you forget about everything. If you drink enough, you aren't aware of what you are doing and it just feels like you have gone to sleep by the time you wake up. Sure, you wake up with a headache, but physical pain is easier to handle and treat than emotional one."