do or die | yang jungwon

stage 14: the calm before the storm

WHEN YOONAH WAKES UP WITH A HEADACHE THAT REMINDS HER TOO MUCH OF THE HANGOVERS SHE USED TO GET WHEN SHE WOULD SNEAK INTO HER FATHER'S FAVORITE WHISKEY CABINET. logically, she knows its because she's rather lacking in nutrients after running around for so long yesterday but she can't help but fall into memories of nursing the pain in her heart by drinking her sorrows away, having to use her secret savings to get the driver to buy more and replace that which she had taken before her father noticed.

not that he was home often enough to notice that the whiskey had been meddled with, but the thief always is one step ahead of the police, after all.

yoonah looks to her left, where haruto is sleeping peacefully still, an arm wrapped around yoonah's waist protectively. she tries not to think about what this could imply about his feelings towards her. she wasn't blind to his affections (she would have to literally be half dumb in the head to be oblivious to it) but they made her uncomfortable nonetheless - especially when she knew that he was her fiancé's best friend.

but really, what was her engagement with jeongwoo anyway? 

yoonah looks at the ring on her finger, examining it carefully before finally sliding it off. the moment she does, it feels as though a weight the size of an elephant had been lifted off her chest. she looks at it once more before slipping it into her jacket pocket, reminding herself to pass it off to her (ex?) fiancé before she forgot.

she could deal with her mother's anger later. if there was a later, anyway. yoonah tries to picture her mother in the current moment.

was she angry that her daughter was at school? was she fearing for her daughter's safety? was she even safe? wait...was she the one who had made sure that the helicopters had flown over the high school? fuck. they needed to get to the roof as soon as possible.

yoonah tries not to think about the fact that her mother's safety was equally as questionable as her own. her mother was a figure who always remained constant in her unchanging disapproval of unambitious work and workers. she was a dictator with few feelings - a trait that she had drilled into her daughter from a young age.

emotions, yoonah whispers to herself, are the poor people's currency. 

it was what her mother used to say to her every time she saw yoonah start sniffling after receiving a bad grade or getting yelled at by a tutor. although she didn't agree with her mother's principles, yoonah found it easier to just avoid showing her thoughts or emotions at all. it never bode well for her anyway.

"you're already awake?" haruto asks, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. his voice is low and throaty and yoonah absolutely hates the fact that her heart skips a beat. she hated that he could get any reaction out of her. she hated that he always looked out for her first. and that he was kind. funny. a good leader. a stupid, self-sacrificing moron who always looked to help others.

everything that she wasn't.

"i've been awake. it's already six-thirty. i was about to get up and go make plans with nari but..." yoonah trails off, looking at haruto's hand, which was still curled around her waist. haruto hums in understanding but still doesn't move his arm, as if he were waiting for yoonah to insist to move it. in fact, yoonah herself wasn't sure why she hadn't pushed it off of her yet. she tried not to think about what that meant about her own feelings.

thankfully, she's saved from looking too deep into it because nari appears, her hair mussed and her eyes a little swollen from crying last night. they lock eyes and although nari's lips quirk upwards when she sees haruto and yoonah so close to each other, she remains silent, nodding carefully.

nari's eyes scan the room and yoonah can practically see her analyze the situation. strange. she didn't remember interacting with nari very often but even so, she had always imagined that jungwon or haruto would end up taking the lead in tough situations. for some reason, she had never imagined that the leader would end up being nari. although the more they worked together, the more yoonah understood why people trusted her so much.