Small Pieces of Happiness ― Kim Junmyeon

8 | People in Boxes

Just another typical Saturday where Hikari is at her usual spot at the coffee shop and being stumped. And all her attempts to sleep out the frustration ends up being (cute) failures. Or that was what Junmyeon saw it as.

As he held onto his apron, he pushed his bangs back a bit and snickered as he witnessed yet another episode of Hikari keyboard smashing out her frustration. Placing his apron on the rack, he announced to his colleagues, "I'll take my break now. No one is to interrupt my rest. I've helped you all a lot already this morning."

Ignoring the joking sneers of his colleagues, he walks to Hikari and pulls out the chair opposite her, "You want to get out of here?"

Hikari runs her hand through her hair with a relieved sigh, "Yes please."

With a chuckle, Junmyeon helps her clear her things up and both of them made their way to the nearby shopping complex. The only chatter between the two was Hikari venting out and Junmyeon humming in approval and chuckling every now and then.

"Like my tutor told me that to break the rules, you'll have to master the rules first but I just can't get my ideas revolving around this Hero's Journey structure. Like ugh, it's so frustrating that I can't even make it sound good in my head..." Hikari pouts, remembering her close to shit (or probably actual shit) script in the making.

"Like I don't want to box in my protagonist according to the rules. Like it's not set for the hero to be the hero, hero..." she shakes her head, at the verge of losing her mind from the overload of thinking.

Before Junmyeon could reply with some supportive speech, his eyes were caught by the sight of people running around in front of the shopping complex. Grabbing Hikari's hand, he rushed the both of them closer and when they got near the crowd, they noticed the ground had been taped.

The tape created a number of boxes and laughing, Junmyeon pointed to the boxes, "Look, you were just talking about boxes."

However, he only received a black expression from Hikari. Pinching her cheek ever so lightly, Junmyeon shows her a gentle smile. 

"I know that you're thinking, "oh this experiment, we've seen this a number of times already and we were even a part of them a couple of time" but try to think it differently."

Clicking her tongue, she looks at him curiously. Junmyeon replies to her gaze with calm eyes and began explaining, "The aim of the experiment is to show that people aren't always fixed to their boxes. The boxes can be changed when the situation changes. And when that happens, the shifts occur. People move around. Maybe your character can move in and out the 'box' you had set for him."

Pausing, Junmyeon studies the small changes in her expression. Her now relaxed gaze, her eased breathing, the corner of her lips coming up just a tad bit.

"As long as you follow the flow, I don't think you can't have a bit more fun with the story. Have them out of their boxes. Like how you showed me that there's always something interesting when we're in other people's boxes."

"Or the easiest way is to have me as the model for your story. My life is a bit of a Hero's Journey."

"Don't make me laugh," Hikari smiled.