Mr. Lee

44.

Something was wrong.

Well something was always wrong when she woke up in the morning, a slight tummy ache, maybe a brief headache at different corners of her head, the usual.

After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she plopped back onto her bed and grabbed her phone, scrolling through any updates that may have occurred through her sleep in the night, she knew she would have to leave her room eventually, especially if she didn't want to enrage her mother who would no doubt complain about her lack of responsibility by not coming out to do even so much as one chore.

Opening Instagram, she was half tempted to go to a certain person's page and see which restaurant he had decided to try out this time, or which brand had the lucky opportunity to collect a few millions from him in the long periods of time he undoubtedly spent shopping. But no, this trip was for her and for her only, so she set down her phone and went to get ready for the day.

Not that she was going anywhere, but still.

Self-help was a man's best friend and yet worst enemy, so she got ready and stepped out of her room, her shell.

❢

Something was wrong.

He could smell smoke.

"Ni-Ki, so help me God! " Heeseung screamed at the top of his lungs, running down the stairs to the kitchen as there was a clutter of expensive kitchen utensils, hearing a somewhat muted cursing.

They had planned to have dinner at Sunghoon and Jake's place, a little get together meal they hadn't had in quite a while and it seemed as though someone was determined to feed the floor before they had a bite to eat themselves.

"What makes you think it was me?! " Ni-Ki asked, utterly offended at the baseless accusations.

"Was it you? " he asked.

Silence

"Well yes, but don't assume" Ni-Ki pouted, no doubt going to complain to Jungwon as he left the kitchen, Jay and Sunoo shaking their heads at the youngest before turning back to food.

"That boy needs a leash before he blows up something" Jay shook his head.

"Or himself" Sunoo countered, earning nods of agreement.

"Is it ready yet? I haven't eaten all day" Heeseung complained, going closer to sneak a bit of the no doubt delicious meal into his roaring stomach.

"Actually yes, but you know the rules" Jay sniffed, slapping the olders hand away before it could get to its destination.

"Plate on the table, hands at my sides" Heeseung repeated the mantra, leading himself out of the kitchen to help set up the table.

Once the plates had been set out and the dishes spread across the table, everyone began to help themselves to different servings, no doubt starving from the long wait.

As they conversed and, as they wouldn't like to admit, gossiped amongst themselves, Heeseung turned to his phone as he received a notification, unlocking the device to see it was an email from one of the department heads, swiping it out with a promise to check later his hands hovered over the chat app, the temptation to send so much as a basic 'Hi' to a certain person ringing through his head when he was snapped out of his thoughts.

"Don't you dare text her" Jungwon raised his eyebrows at his friend, seeing the glint in his eyes as he stared dazed at his phone.

"Who? " he asked innocently, aware of the fact his friends could see through his immense bullshit.

"She-who-shall-not-be-named" Ni-Ki's snicker at this choice of wordplay was cut short at a smack to his head by Sunghoon.

"I was looking at an email" he excused, closing his phone and placing it face down on the table.

"Let's agree on that" Jungwon settled and turned back to his conversation with Jake.

"You know this is good right? Time away for the both of you, much healthier if I may" Jay whispered to his friend.

And he was right of course, they all were, his relationship with Jaeje had definitely not been founded or grown from what people would consider non toxic and healthy. If anything, it had stemmed from a man who had seen her as another distraction to his never talked about family and mental problems and on her side, an attachment to even the slightest bit of attraction shown from someone who she had believed had no reason to even look her way.

They were messed up. Doomed to fail as most would say.

And yet he couldn't rid himself of the undeniable urge to tell her Hi, maybe she'd reply back, maybe they'd have a bit of banter between themselves like they used to, before their problems caught up with them and it was no longer jabs and laughs, but tears and mistakes.

❢

She was starting into the mirror again.

There were times when she'd simply turn to look and ended up standing there for minutes, picking out all the flaws, the one too many dark spots on her face, the flab on her arms, fat on her stomach, chubbiness of her thighs.

For the longest time it was either she stared like this or she didn't stare at all. She could probably count on her fingers the amount of times she had looked and thought 'Wow, I'm so pretty'.

But today as she looked and thought of those things, she wasn't hearing the voices, the ones that told her everything about her appearance was wrong, instead she wondered 'ok yes I look like this, so what? ' and 'Fuck all the men who made me think I needed to look like the rest of my friends for their attention, to each their own stupidity'

So she stared in the mirror a bit longer, forcing herself to take a good hard look, no matter the pressure she felt to look away, because it wouldn't change no matter where her eyes went.

But one thing that could change was her mind, a dusty and self destructive place that needed to be fixed.

A/N: First of, I'm apologizing to every single author I thought was speaking BS when they said they couldn't post because of school, because I've just recently completed my first year of university and I barely even survived that.

Second of all, I'm back y'all ꧂꧂, I'm going to try and go back to my previous schedule for updates and wrap up this book once and for all. And of course I have a long line up of ideas waiting to be turned into published works, so thank you all once again for your support. (づ￣³￣)ˣₒˣₒ

-AutumnJoon.