#w. shin jiae 001.

[littlemarie]

“psst. hey.”

two truths and a lie.

bae sumi doesn’t know how she ended up here. the night before exists as a dream, fragmented pieces all out of order with nothing to tie them together but her own judgement for what seems the most appropriate. she’s reading a book penned by an unreliable narrator, and she doesn’t know who better to trust: the narrator or herself. the options alone are undesirable, at best. here are her cards: neon lights, the sound of a cash register, and the taste of gopchang. she already knows she’s got the losing hand.

sumi clicks her fingers. “psst. helloooo,” she sings.

bae sumi has no idea who the girl on the couch is. she’s in an ethical dilemma. of sorts. to her credit, she tries, at first. studies all thirty percent of what she can see from the girl’s face, because the rest of it is buried in the couch. in her venture, she notices the faint smear of make-up on the beige cushion and winces. yuna is not going to like that. but the point is that she’s in an ethical dilemma ( of sorts ), and she chooses wrongly. caves and reaches into the girl’s purse that she finds strewn on the floor, and she pulls out her id. shin jiae. a hundred thousand won in cash. who the fuck is shin jiae?

sumi lifts her sunglasses from the bridge of her nose to get a clearer look at the id. nope.

bae sumi is so fucking hungover, she didn’t think it was humanly possible. she winces at the light that comes in, and it’s for this reason that she gives up on the picture and tosses the id and purse back on the floor. there’s a bit of something that threatens to come up and she places a hand over her mouth and gags. it’s a mixture of gopchang and soju. she thinks. from what she remembers, anyway.

“jiae?” she calls, taps the girl on the shoulder thrice, “shin jiae?”

the lie: bae sumi knows exactly how she ended up here. she knows this even when her memory fails her, because bae sumi always ends up here. every saturday morning at yuna’s place in jeoljeong highrises, each week more hungover than the last. she never remembers the details, but friday nights always end in the same way. bringing a stranger home is no exception to the rule, so this shin jiae isn’t, either.

normally though, she’d leave as soon as she wakes. she has no desire in bothering a stranger when she has the option to recover from her massive hangover in the comfort of her own home with aunt miyeon’s freshly brewed hangover soup. but today’s different because she reached into her pocket for her favourite lighter and came up empty. and there’s no one she can rely on to retrace her steps other than that unreliable narrator in her head, herself, and this shin jiae. right now, the latter is the most reliable option by a landslide.

so sumi’s here. she claps loudly and hisses, “wake up!” through gritted teeth.

the hangover  /  @pherines​