NCT Oneshots

Hundred Steps | Jaehyun Pt. II

The morning was silent and still blue. I reached the bus stop before Jaehyun, who came a minute after.

'Did you walk here?' I asked.

There was no sleep in his eyes, nor any hint of exhaustion. If anything, he looked as lively as the birds singing in the trees behind us.

'It wasn't that far,' he replied and I realised I didn't even know where he lived.

'What's that for?' I pointed at the film camera that was hung around his neck.

'Oh, this is–' He looked down at the camera. 'In case I find something beautiful today.'

Soon, a small crowd had gathered at the stop, mostly made up of middle-aged workers going to their offices in the city. And when the bus arrived, they scrambled their way into it to find a seat they could doze off in without disturbance.

Jaehyun and I sat near the end– him by the aisle and I at the window. The ride was short, or so it felt (I fell asleep quickly into it and woke up when the sun was up and our destination was two stops away).

If he was bored, he didn't complain, nor did I feel him stir beside me.

'Here,' he said, taking out a wrapped sandwich and a small box of chocolate milk from his bag.

Unexpectedly, I smiled and took the sandwich from his hand.

'What?' he asked.

'Why do you bring me a sandwich every day?'

He looked at me as though it was obvious. 'That night...' he started, 'you said you couldn't eat because of work.'

'What?' I gasped. 'Is that why you brought me a sandwich the next day?'

Pressing his lips together, he nodded and offered me the milk.

He had remembered. It was such a small thing, insignificant in my rant that night, something I had yelled out in anger but he had remembered.

'I don't like chocolate milk,' I lied and pushed the box towards him. 'Why don't you finish this?'

'Oh,' he sighed, looking disappointed but he took the box nonetheless.

We got down at our stop tucked beneath a canopy of leafy tree branches. It was a small walk from there to the record store.

'Do you know where to go?' Jaehyun asked.

'Hm, I asked the shop owner for directions earlier,' I replied and pointed to our left. 'Straight down this road and right at the intersection, we have to go around the mountain and when we see water, we have to turn left and the store will be on our right after a hundred metres.'

'Alright then,' he said, cheerily, 'lead the way.'

In the light of the morning, even the town's chaos was peaceful. There were children running on the street in school uniforms and bags on their shoulders. The shops were waking up with our every step and delivery trucks were pouring into the streets and out of the town. In the distance, I could hear the ocean, calm that morning except for the occasional thrash of waves which marked its own wakefulness.

'Where do you live?' I blurted out without thinking. The question must have caught him off-guard since it took him a while to answer.

'My parents' home is in our town,' he said. 'But I go to college in Seoul.'

'Oh, which one?' I asked. 'My university is also in Seoul.'

'I know,' he said but did not answer my question.