𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗘𝗡𝗘 ⨾ vernon

16 | 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗹

After I speculated a lot on how things just seemed to turn out perfectly yet so imperfectly it made me scream because the mere thought of things being out of my control scared me too much to think about anything else. I stand there in awe as Sanghee pushes the door and gets inside. It felt like she was thinking whether to come in or not for quite some time. "Yeah, see? It wasn't so difficult."

"Why would it be?" I close the door and put the keys inside the little basket on top of the shoe rack and remove my jacket and hang it on the coat stand. She looks around and sees my dusty, sad, yellow and very much an unsuitable place for living. Again, it's not like my brother puts in any effort to the house other than messing it up. Dad does clean around, but he's better off outside with his rookie skills. So the one who's left to do all the cooking and cleaning, is me.

"I've never been to a friend's house before. Sometimes I visit Wonwoo in his very claustrophobic studio apartment, but that's all it has been." Sanghee sits down in the sofa which is still covered by white sheets. "I see you haven't really unpacked much," she brushes some dust off the sheets.

"Yeah," I admit, "It hadn't really occurred to me since I'm never in the living room much."

"Show me your room." She asserts and I panic for a second. She definitely doesn't need to see that.

"Umm, I could... uh—"

"Oh, we have a guest!" I should have just taken her to my room. This is not—absolutely not—what I wanted to happen. Darren has no business in the afternoon like this, he never wakes up.

"Hey." Sanghee turns around to see Darren wrapped in a blanket with a cup of coffee in his hands. Then she looks at me for a hint on how to function. How can I tell her I don't know the answer to that. "Nice to meet you," she stands up and says in Korean with not a very confident voice.

"Not so nice to meet you," Darren says with a very bad accent and a very fake smile.

"I'm so sorry, maybe we should just go out." I suggest, touching her arm.

"Why?" Darren's most arrogant voice steps in and I absolutely do not have a good feeling about this. "You cannot fuck this Korean chick if I'm watching?"

Oh god. Oh my fucking god.

"Sanghee, he's not okay, I think we should just leave—" I try to pull her back, but she stands straight.

"Excuse me?" She's talking to my brother now. This is not good. "Do you know what you're talking about?" She asks in English and I want to puke.

"Oh," Darren makes a stunned face, "she talks in English? Was this how she seduced you, Vernon?"

"And is this how you make people despise you, whoever the hell you are?" Sanghee shoots.

Darren leaves a surprised smirk, his eyebrows hinting at insult, "You got a real feisty one, little." He starts walking towards her and I hit my head on the wall near me. She doesn't budge. "You," he looks at her, "what do you think about getting that little attitude out of your—."

"Don't talk like that to her! She's my friend—" I try to intervene but it doesn't work out.

"A friend huh?" Darren's voice goes low, "Don't lie to me." He gets closer to her and looks straight into her eye but continues talking to me, "You should be friends with people of your kind, not these fish-looking assholes."

If Sanghee feels disappointed, she doesn't show it. "You didn't tell me you had such a racist fucker in your house, Hansol." She turns back to Darren, "If you think you're White, you're in denial, honey, you're a fish-looking asshole, too."

"I'm a shark, bitch." Darren taunts, folding up his arm. "And she calls you Hansol? Wow, what a bummer."

I'm in utter horror and the mere fact that Sanghee and Darren became instant enemies to moment they saw each other is going to make things awkward between me and her. How am I supposed to help her out with this, and this is not even the first time he has done this to our guests, and I...

In my intense overthinking I did not notice the way both of them started laughing and high-five-ing each other. "You're so funny." I hear bits and pieces of what they are talking about now.

If there was humour, and if there was 'Darren's humour', both of them were totally different things. You needed to dig into his mind and match his level of sarcasm for him to like you. I was so tensed about Sanghee hating me I didn't realise how she was still here and talking back to him as if they were on the same level.

"I'm Darren, the racist fucker that lives in your 'friend's' house, bitch," he says and raises his hand for shake, giving her the once-over.

"If you are his brother, I'm kicking him in his ass, because there is no way this emef got scared of us." Sanghee laughs and shakes his hand.

"Oh damn, you might actually need to kick his ass," he says, "What is your name, sister?"

"So I become sister from bitch, where can I reach if I do kick his ass?"

"Maybe your name? I don't know, you'd have to tell me for that." He sits down on the dusty couch and she sits down beside him.

"I'm Sanghee, but you can call me bitch, I don't really hate it," she says and then looks at me, "Oh my god, I totally forgot you were there, come sit here." She gestures towards the couch adjacent to the one they are sitting on.

With a literal scowl on my face, I go sit there. "Y'all okay?"

"We're just fine, Vernon," he says, "Where did you get her? Walmart?"

"We don't have Walmart here, RF Darren." Sanghee leans in to the couch and crosses her legs.

"What's RF?" He asks her with a raised eyebrow.

"Racist fucker," she shrugs, "he got me at school," she points at me.

With these two beside me, I'm more than just speechless. I don't understand if she considers him a racist why would she still talk to him? "Y'all seriously okay?"

"We're fine!" Both of them say at the same time.

"We're haters at heart. When I see a hater, I connect to them," Sanghee says and raises a fist to Darren and both of them hit one.

"You wouldn't understand," he looks at her, "right, bitch?"

"Yeah, maybe we could go with 'bestie', what ya think?"

"Bestie sounds so sweet, I hate it."

Sanghee shakes her head, "Right. Bitch it is."

"Y'all ain't okay." I stand up.

"Go fetch us some water," Sanghee orders me and I look at her bewildered. She laughs and stands up to hug me. "I'm sorry, you aren't a hater, I should be good to you."

"Ew, cringe." Darren comments.