that kinda love.

fin.

it's in the way he looks at her, truly looks at her and in her smile that says it all.

joohyun warns them ahead of time: do not add too much detergent into the washing machine. but no one really listens to her, even if they pretend to. she knows her words go in one ear and out the other. she sees the blatant disrespect in the laundry room—in the flooded laundry room.

and she sighs, shaking her head as tired hair falls from a sloppy bun to frame her face. even her hair, dead, is giving up, keen on throwing the white cloth of surrender. unfortunately, this isn't a boxing match, and she isn't a referee with a whistle as jaebum and seulgi grasp onto one another to avoid slipping on thicks suds of soap.

at the door where joohyun stands, she can't see the black and white checkered floor. instead, she is the sole witness to a klutzy, awkward tango formulating... what, three feet away from her? technicalities. she doesn't measure distance like they don't notice her.

it's a thing of beauty, to be honest, observing jaebum and seulgi interact. joohyun wonders if they know; she wonders if seulgi is aware of how red her cheeks are and that she never stops smiling. (don't her cheeks hurt?) she then wonders if jaebum knows he's staring too tenderly, touching so gently. (it isn't like him or maybe that's the twist; it is him.)

"noona is going to kill us," jaebum chuckles with wisdom yet shows no obvious signs of fear. his eyes are too rose coloured and glassy. joohyun finds herself smiling instead of sneering. she can kill them later... when they notice she's been there for a good five minutes.

for now, she will let them have the rest of the ticking seconds.

"i told you not too add too much soap!" and seulgi is never threatening, not even when her voice climbs, and it can almost be classified as a shout. except she's giggling and trembling, grasping onto jaebum's arms for balance.

or just because she wants to hold him close. joohyun can't blame her; instead, it is admiration she decides on.

"no, i told you!" jaebum counters, guiding them to a pair of chairs aligned to a wall. "but you had to be all trigger happy and poured too much." he doesn't let go, although they are no longer losing their footing and just standing there, gazing at the other.

seulgi slaps his arm hard enough to evoke a grunt but careful because she can't hurt a fly. "i asked you if that was too much, and you said you didn't know." and she definitely won't hurt him.

"well..." he steals a second to scratch his nape, and joohyun thinks he catches a glimpse of her at the doorway. then he continues where he left off, failing to see anyone beyond the woman before him. "i never did laundry before. jinyoung always did it for me..."

the meek confession is all sorts of varying degrees of cute. im jaebum does have a soft side. joohyun didn't know this until seulgi told her he fed the stray cats outside their apartment building. but it wasn't until seulgi mentioned he also fed the stray dogs he's allergic to did joohyun truly know what was going on between them. they insisted nothing and still do to this day.

but going by the looks in each their eyes plus the long one they shared, uninterrupted by her presence, they know. she knows they know but neither refuse to speak it true. that's less cute and more annoying for an avid viewer and longtime fan of the melodrama.

"then why did you say you can help me?" seulgi inquires, lost and ignorant, but joohyun calls it innocence just because clueless seulgi is too precious for the world.

alright, maybe one of them doesn't know. joohyun almost feels bad for jaebum—almost, but he's coughing up laughs. typical seulgi, you know, to evoke laughter out of him even when the situation is more sad than funny.