Friday Fix

♚ | three

HYEONG-GON'S friend was a mild-mannered man that jumped every time Hyeong-gon's name was mentioned. He also kept muttering under his breath that he was so "royally screwed", yet continued to help me fill out the paperwork and register me under the school.

I watched him scrambling around his desk. "Uhm. Excuse me, but can I know what exactly is your relationship with my brother?"

He blinked, and his spectacles slipped down his nose. "Re-relationship?"

"Yes. Your relationship with Hyeong-gon."

As expected, he did a little jump at the name. He swallowed. "We uh, we were close . . . buddies."

"Were?"

"Well we don't talk much now. Except for that day when he called me up to tell me about this." His words tumbled over each other like they were rushing to get out. "We got to know each other in university, and then we became close, like really close, and he knew everything about me inside and out - "

He came to an abrupt stop, and to my surprise his face flamed up a beetroot red. He hastily continued,

" - I mean, as in close friends, he knew me inside and out as a close friend, not as literally inside - I mean, uh - "

Luckily for us both a teacher walked into the office then, and he clammed up. More than a little bewildered by his incomprehensible rambling, I was only too glad when he nodded his head, said it was all done, handed me a student manual and pointed me in the direction of my school dormitories.

I exited the office and tried not to chew on my lip as I eyed the long corridor ahead.

This was it. From the school gates to the office I had seen no other soul, saved for a few teachers, all of whom I had successfully deceived with a bowed head and a glance the other way. But now, from here onward, I would be completely within the mix of Ryuk-il students, male students whom I was supposed to interact with and socialize, while deceiving them at the same time.

I could handle dealing with boys. I had four brothers after all. But how good was I at becoming one?

My answer came five minutes later, as I walked past the cafeteria and had my first glimpse of the student community. Male students were everywhere, chatting and eating. To get to the dorms I had to walk through the cafeteria and I did so, bracing myself as I went. Any moment now, I expected someone to stop me and blow my cover. With an oversized luggage bag, a backpack and Hongki's plastic bag still dangling from my hands, there was no doubt that I was a new student, which was only further confirmed as I tried to open the cafeteria door that led to outside and it simply refused to budge.

"Move, newbie." A hand elbowed me out of the way, not unkindly, before grabbing hold of the door handle. The boy pulled, arm tensing, before pushing down and simultaneously letting go. The door swung open.

"There's a trick to opening this cafe door. Stick around long enough and maybe you'll find out." His voice was light tenor, and almost as if he was speaking through his nose. It wasn't unpleasant.

Keeping the door open he stepped aside and let me walked out. I thought he would leave then, but instead he fell beside me into an easy gait.

"New kid?" he asked. His tousled, just-got-out-of-bed hair reminded me of Hyeong-gon.

"Yeah," I said, and was immediately extremely conscious about the tone of my voice and the structure of my sentence. s**t. How did boys usually speak? "First day here."

"I can tell." He stuck out a hand. We shook. He had rough palms. He asked me where I was going and I told him my room number. We started to walk.

"My name's Yugi, by the way. Contemporary dance."

We took a right turn in the corridor. "Uh, I'm Lee Haneul." Lucky for me dad picked a unisex name. "Urban dance."

Yugi raised an eyebrow. "Urban dance? That's a popular course." He gestured at the BTS sweatshirt I was wearing. "Makes sense, since you're into the kpop scene."

I shrugged. "They're what got me hooked into kpop dance in the first place."

Almost immediately I froze. s**t. Do boys say that? It seemed like such a girl statement. Ack.

Yugi only laughed. "A fanboy! I appreciate that."

My heart settled back in my chest. Yugi directed me down another corridor, where the walls turned from white to blue. Here he stopped.

"Your room's down this way. A word of caution though, we stay two people a room here, and at this point in the semester we're pretty much full house. As far as I know there's only one room in this vicinity that has a single occupant, and hence - space for another."

The way he said those words made me wary. "Is that bad?"

"W-ell, the boy in that room has a certain . . . reputation, shall we say. I suppose every school has one," Yugi shrugged, "the bad boy, the hopeless case. Think of tattoos and lip piercings."

Alarm bells tolled in my brain. Yugi walked away, but not before tipping his head in a salute.

"Good luck with your new roommate, Lee Haneul."

♚

Maybe Yugi was just teasing. The number on the doors increased as I walked the length of the corridor, and so did the erratic pulse of my heart. I was already nervous enough as it is, and this new information about my roommate did not put my heart at ease. Maybe you'll get lucky, and get a different room -

A loud holler from in front made me look up. I stopped dead in my tracks.

Three naked guys were playing volleyball in the middle of the corridor.

To be fair, they were only naked from the waist up, and I had seen my brothers wrapped only in a towel for more times than I'd like. But still, my brothers were family, and these were utter strangers tossing a ball while wearing only their briefs -

I averted my eyes. With a loud "Excuse me!" and my luggage bag pushed in front like a weapon, I barrelled straight through. They gave an indignant shout which I steadfastly ignored, because just then I had caught sight of my salvation - the numbers 517, my new room.

I inserted the key, twisted, entered and slammed the door shut.

Relieved, I sighed.

The room was dark. I switched on the lights. It was pretty big, and I liked how it was clearly divided into two spaces, each with its own study table and wardrobe. This division would come in handy, especially if my new roommate was as much of a troublemaker as Yugi had said. Only the beds were joined together - a double decker bunk bed that looked solid and cozy.

My new room was also empty.

There were clear signs of someone's presence of course; clothes dumped haphazardly over a chair, socks littered on the ground, and a large gaming laptop took up one of the workspaces. But the owner of the mess was clearly not around. Eying the dirty laundry piled up outside what must be the door to the bathroom, I wrinkled my nose.

Well. Better make use of when the bad boy isn't here.

The rest of the day passed in an easy breeze. I sorted my clothes into neat piles and hung them up in the wardrobe. Books and laptop went onto the desk, shoes on the rack outside, rest of my things in the drawers. My new roommate might be a litterbug but I sure wasn't one, and I endeavored to keep the side of my room clean.

Dinnertime was a prospect I thought of with trepidation, and I wasn't quite ready to handle the crowd yet. So I bought instant ramen from a vending machine and had that instead. By the time I was done with washing up and talking with my brothers, the clock was showing a little past ten.

And still, my new roommate had not come back.

I yawned, stretching. Half of me wondered if I should wait. But all the excitement had made me tired, and perhaps in the morning, after waking up from a good sleep, I could better tackle the introductions.

I turned out the lights, climbed the ladder up to the top bunk, hit the bed and promptly fell asleep.

♚

Morning brought with it the buzzing of an alarm clock I didn't recognize. Half asleep, I merely frowned and burrowed deeper into the pillows, eyelids too heavy for me to open. Pop songs had always been my go-to ringtones for a wake-up call, not this monotonous droning that went on and on and on. I groaned, pulling the blankets all the way up to my head.

"I'll get it," came the raspy, bleary voice of someone who was still half-dead to the world. A hand reached over, brushing against my cheek. The alarm clock shut off.

"Thanks," I muttered, and snuggled closer.

Dimly I registered there was warmth draped over me; the curve of fingers pressing against the nape of my neck, my legs were tangled up with what felt suspiciously like other legs, there was a light rise and fall of movement beneath my fingertips - the fact that, someone, a foreign voice I did not know, had just spoken to me -

My eyes flew open, and the first thing they landed on was another pair of eyes that were equally as wide and shocked as mine.

I did the only thing that seemed natural then. I screamed. And the boy whom I had just woken up next to practically leapt six feet out of bed and yelled,

"What the actual f**k?"

We stared at each other for a few speechless seconds. Bathed in the light of the morning sun, he was like an uncut diamond, rough around the edges with hard, piercing eyes and a jawline so sculpted it was as if Rodin himself had taken a chisel to marble. And Yugi had been right, this boy had tattoos that trailed up one side of his neck, along with a lip piercing and - is that a silver earring, holy s**t, even I don't wear one -

I tried to tell myself he wasn't attractive and failed miserably. It probably didn't help that he had apparently went to bed without wearing a shirt.

The boy's eyebrows drew together and he snarled, "Who the f**k are you?"

Slowly, the pieces were falling into place in my brain.

"Lee Haneul," I managed to get out, and with a wince, continued, "I think I'm your new roommate."

♚

"Bullshit. I don't have a roommate."

We were sitting each at our own desk, chairs facing one another with a space of almost six feet spanning the distance between us. When he had said for me to get out and I had said that we should talk, I had envision perhaps a nice friendly chat at the table. What I had not seen coming was the fact that when I had followed him to his side of the room, he had told me in no uncertain terms to f**k off, and here we were now each on our own side, with this tensed atmosphere blooming that reminded me of a Texas standoff.

I tried to be patient. "Well now you do. I'm a new student here."

"I can f*****g see that." This boy is way too used to vulgarities. "So go get another room, and don't come in and trash up mine."

I raised an eyebrow, feeling the tiny strands of my temper beginning to snap. "Excuse me? Have you seen the state of your side of the room? It's like a waste disposal truck overturned itself in here."

"Well if you don't like it so much you can always leave."

"What do you know, that option isn't on the menu."

Another round of intensive glaring. This really wasn't the best way to start the morning, especially a morning with a roommate I was supposed to tolerate till the end of semester.

I tried to steer the conversation back to friendlier grounds. "Look, I'm not going to bother you. I'll stick with my side of the room and you'll stick with yours. I promise I won't trespass, or whatever."

"That's not the issue here." His kissable - kissable? Stop it, Lee Haneul! - lips curled back in disdain. "I've never had a roommate before, and I sure as hell won't start having one. So get out."

I snapped. "Well I can't. There's no more free rooms. I've paid for the semester and I'm staying the semester, and I'm going to put up with you just like how you're going to put up with me."

He stood up then, eyes dark and flashing.

He still hadn't put on a shirt.

"Believe me," he hissed, "there's a reason they don't give me a roommate. That's because I've managed to make every single one of them leave within the first three weeks.

"And trust me when I say I'm going to do the same f*****g thing with you."

Grabbing a leather jacket, he slipped smoothly into it and slammed the door on the way out.

A large volume of air I didn't even know I had been holding whooshed out of my lips in a heavy sigh.

Hoo boy. Am I in trouble.

❈

What delight to see that this story has surpassed 160 reads and gained 2 followers! A most respectful curtsy to all of you, my dear readers, for showing such love.

A toast of fine Merlot to all of you reading out there, and do have a blessed day.

Yours in seduction,

Lady Godiva.