dont... || yuyeon

don't lose the 'i love you's

Yuqi wiped the sweat from her forehead, almost halfway through the list. Next, she had to.. Tidy the city's dump?? Yuqi groaned. These were getting ridiculous. Yesterday she had polished all of the stones in the city's garden's ponds. I feel like a goddamn child doing chores to get back my phone! She shook her head. She needed to do this to get back to Soyeon. She had to.

Tiredly, she trudged on to the city dump, beginning to slowly sort through what was actual trash and accidental recycling thrown in.

"Hey, kid."

Yuqi spun around, eyes flitting around mountains of rubbish until her eyes finally landed on a man with a dark hat, toying with a lighter. "Y-You can see me?"

Instead of answering her, he said, "That woman's delusional."

"The woman who gave me this?" Yuqi pulled the necklace out of her shirt and showed it to him.

He nods, lighting his cigarette. "Got a stick up her ass, she does. Now listen here..." he motioned for her to come closer, "You can't go back without starting some sort of riot, you know? Then everyone will want to, and that can't happen. You need to lay low for a while, come back when everyone forgets you."

"What about my body?" Yuqi asked worriedly, "won't it deteriorate or something?"

"No, they gave you one of them fancy coffins, your body'll be fine."

Yuqi's lip trembled, so she bit on it. "What about my girlfriend?"

"That's all she is, ain't she? You're girlfriend? You'll get over her," he assures her, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth for a moment to blow out a puff of gray smoke.

"No, I won't. I love her too much."

"Yeah, we've all had 'love'." He chuckled wistfully, like he was remembering something that had happened to him in the past. "What if her profits dip to zero? You'll still 'love' her?"

"Of course I will," Yuqi scoffed, answering him as if he had just asked the stupidest question. Which, he did. "I didn't fall in love with her because she's rich."

The man hummed quietly in acknowledgement, thinking. "How long have you two been together?" Yuqi counted the years on her fingers, calculating carefully. "See? If you can count how many years you've been with her, she's not worth it, kid."

Yuqi put her hands against his shoulders desperately. "She's so lonely without me, and I am too without her! I've never seen her so sad. Please. I'm fine with dying but she's suffering without me, she doesn't eat or sleep properly anymore. The only thing that keeps me going to finish this damn list that that woman gave me is the fact that I have a chance at holding her again. So please. If you're going to shatter all of the hope that I have left, kindly, stay away from me."

"You must love her very much," he whispered, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and throwing it on the ground. He squished it with his foot before it could burn anymore, saying, "I'll be on my way then."

Yuqi saw to it that he left, before she went back to her task.

~

"Unnie, what am I even dressing up for?" Soyeon sighed, unenthusiastically looking behind her to check if Minnie had zipped up her dress right. It was a nice one, all black and silky, a slit just under her hip on the left side to show off her smooth thigh. She wished Yuqi could see her in it, tell her that she looks hot. This whole night, she's probably going to miss how if Yuqi were still here, she'd be begging them to not even leave anywhere just so she can fuck her.

I want to go back to those days, Soyeon shut her eyes tight, hoping that if she closed them hard enough, she'd wake up from this nightmare.

"Okay, let's go!"