peach starbursts ━━ h.hj + k.sm

0.5

first person pov 2 - Seungmin

Walking through the house is oddly calming, everything is covered in clean, white drop cloths and the walls are covered in white primer. It feels like I'm walking through a dream, a very rare instance in my house.

She left a note on the kitchen counter with "out for paint" and her initials. She's at the paint store 2 hours away and won't be home until late tonight.

Perfect.

I grab a half-empty bag of chips from the pantry and a water from the fridge and go up the first flight of stairs by the kitchen.

As much as living practically in a huge house with a woman I hate can be difficult I have the most wonderful room. It's on what is essentially the fourth floor, a small attic with a vaulted ceiling and old, rounded windows that stretch along one full side of the room. It's private to the outside world but I can see everything going on around me, the walls are mostly soundproof so I don't have to worry about my music being too loud and it has an extra closet that's wonderful to close myself in and listen to music or read or fall asleep.

I dump my backpack on the floor and take off my uniform blazer and tie, briefly considering leaving the shirt on and taking it off anyway. I put my sweatshirt on over my undershirt and put my headphones back in, ignoring my backpack and the piles of homework inside.

As much as I don't want to admit it I'm curious. I only have his email and his name but I'm sure that can get me somewhere, and I'm careful to stay undistracted as I search his name on Instagram.

There's a few results for Hwang Hyunjin, one is private with a profile picture of a sunset. I can't tell if it's him. The next few results are similarly unpromising until I get to the third one, a public account with his face as the profile picture.

His bio reads "Let's try even if we regret it later." and the year he'll graduate.

His feed is adorably eclectic, photography mixed with large family reunions, a baby picture of him that I stare at for way too long and lots of pictures of a dog whom I gather is named "Kkami".

I look through his posts, careful not to like anything, and linger for a while on a picture of his mother with her head back laughing and who must be his dad staring at her with an incredible sense of adoration. He captioned it with a blue heart, his mother is wearing a gorgeous blue dress, and it has more likes than anything else on his feed. The photo is incredible, it's flawlessly candid and captures every line of emotion on his father's face. It's absolutely breathtaking. It hurts, a little bit, to see how painfully normal his family is. I want to scroll past it but I can't.

I wish I could see him in this picture, if he's laughing too, if his parents ever knew he took a picture. The only evidence I have that he took the picture is the tip of one of the meticulously polished shoes he was wearing with his uniform today.

My phone goes off suddenly, and I startle and almost drop it. I pull up notifications, a new one from Instagram and one that pops up immediately afterwards. I'm confused at first as I read the message until I realize who it is. I can't help but smile, clicking on the message to bring me to the picture.

first person pov 2 - Hyunjin

My dad greets me as I walk in the door, smiling widely and standing up to talk to me. He has a funny way of acknowledging people, it's almost formal. He has always put a lot of emphasis on showing respect to other people, even if it's at his own expense. It's been difficult to have mom travelling so much for her job because she's the only one who forces him to focus on his own wellbeing. It's beautiful, actually, how much she balances his obsessiveness. They work so well together, as different as they are.

"I see you met the new neighbor boy today," he starts, looking at me expectantly. He's not great at carrying conversations but loves to be around people, so I recap my day and talk some about meeting Seungmin. Seungmin is kind of a mystery to me, he seems so reclusive and defensive but he was willing to help and he listened to every word I said. He was attentive and informative and incredibly helpful. And while I'm not always the best at reading people I have no idea who Seungmin really is. It's fascinating, almost magnetic.

My father clears his throat, and I realize I've gone silent, which even I know is unusual for me, and I quickly make up an excuse to go upstairs.

"Sorry I'm so quiet, just tired from today. I'm going to go do some homework okay?" I ask, almost cringing at the lack of thought or validity in the excuse.

My father's eyebrows draw together almost imperceptibly but he nods, smiles, and nods at the stairs to excuse me.

Upstairs I dump my backpack by my desk, slide off my shoes and close and lock the door to my room. I'm honestly very lucky to have parents who trust me enough to let me lock my door without question, but it's not like I frequently get blackout drunk or sneak around with girls.

I laugh out loud to myself at the last thought. I haven't had a girlfriend since the 7th grade when I realized my obsession with Orlando Bloom was not just a crazy love for Pirates of the Carribean. Almost every other boy in my grade loved the movie for Kiera Knightly but my sights were set ... differently.

My parents don't know and honestly neither did anyone else in my life. It was best that way, free of judgement.

I actually don't have much homework, I needed to study the bus routes although I wouldn't mind remaining clueless in order to rely on Seungmin for the rest of the year. So instead I pick up my phone to refresh my Instagram feed and clear the stories when a little worm of a thought pushes its way into my head.

I mean, he has to have an Instagram. He's a high school student in the 21st century.

And it wouldn't hurt to look?

I type his name into the search bar, scroll past a few accounts that are obviously not him, and find one with a bio of "don't spend today in vain" and his name.

I know it's him without even looking at the pictures.

I scroll through, he has almost 70 posts, most of which are what I assume to be his own photography. He takes a lot of sunset silhouettes, something I usually find a little overdone, but instead of people he props up paper diagrams. One of them is a stack of three-dimensional geometric figures, except each side is cut out into a window so you can see the sunset through it. In another he uses a flat paper cutout of the stages of evolution set at an angle against the sunset where every time the shade of a color changes it moves on to another stage. It's artistry more than it is photography, the sunsets are beautiful but the use of shapes to manipulate what you see in absolutely incredible. On instinct I click the heart in the bottom corner of the screen, and immediately panic. He has to have seen.

I hit the heart again as fast as I possibly can, and even so I know he'll be notified about both.

Now he knows.

I sit on my bed for a minute, and eventually scroll to the top of his feed and hit the follow button. I've done my worst at this point, the least I can do is follow him.

Right as I hit the button a message comes in from his account, and I feel my cheeks heat as I read it.

message from: seung_kim14

happened upon my account I see?

I know he can see that I read the message, but I have no idea how to respond. Another notification pops up at the top of my screen and I almost drop my phone.

seung_kim started following you on 07/06/2019

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i'm totally in love with this chapter i've had this idea for a while and i'm so excited to finally have done it

literally no edits so they'll come soon

hope this way okay

feedback is always appreciated!