Sunghoon and The Move Out Day

"You are literally the most annoying thing. Why would I break it? Seriously!" Sunghoon bent down and picked up the box of Law textbooks Melony left for him by the door of her dorm room. He grunted while he did it, giving me the sense that he was about to drop the box. Melony and I were on bursaries funded by the university and couldn't afford to waste our stipends replacing damaged textbooks. I couldn't say the same for him. 

Sunghoon didn't know what the back of his fridge looked like. He didn't know the scent of discounted perfume or the feeling of secondhand clothes. He probably didn't even have a grocery budget for the month. He looked like the person who added whatever he felt like having that month in his grocery trolley. It's disgusting. 

I placed my hands at the bottom of the box and supported it where his hands couldn't reach. "If you let these fall, Sunghoon. I swear to God..."

"Will you stop threatening the man so that he can actually do what he's here to do?" Melony scolded me, sitting on her bed. The bed sheets had been pulled off and stuffed into a box somewhere so she was just sitting on the bare mattress. She had one of her pillows laid across her lap. She tossed her expresso braids over her shoulder, the fine strands whipping aginst the still air in the room. "The day is almost over."

"He was literally about to drop the box. For like the second time! I don't know about you, but the school doesn't pay me enough to replace textbooks," I argued.

She nodded. "That's true."

"I can just replace them," Sunghoon said. 

I looked at him over the edge of the box. "Then why break them in the first place? You can't solve all of your fuck ups with your money."

"Who says he can't?"

My head whipped to Melony. "Literally, whose side are you on?"

"The thing is: I'm not choosing any sides. I've never seen you like this before. It's very entertaining. He doesn't even need to say anything and you're already fuming. Like, it's giving anger issues," she said.

"I don't have anger issues!"

"I mean..." Sunghoon began saying. 

"You're not allowed to speak."

"But-"

"She's right. You were sentenced to moving my boxes out of my room, Mr. Park," Melony said, adding fuel to the fire. The raging fire that I was going to light under his ass every time he tried talking back to me. I was older than him by like four months and I'll use every opportunity to remind him of it. It's the only thing that I could hold over his head at this point. 

I hated to admit it, but he was better than me at everything. It was the most annoying thing. When we were trying out for figure skating as kids, I almost broke my face twice and he had to help me off the ice. I started my lessons a month before his and still hadn't gotten the hang of it. Then he waltzes into the lesson with a pair of brand-new skates and impresses all of the instructors. How did the skates not absolutely destroy his feet? God, he was the most insufferable person I knew. 

This was my domain. And I was going to put him in his place when I saw fit. Sunghoon's face darkened the same way it did when we were in the hallway. I had a feeling he wasn't going to be able to maintain his composer this time around. How far could I push him before he cracked? In all of the years that I had known him, he had never lost it around me before. It was something about him that I admire but envied all the same. 

He was very good at getting a reaction out of me and hardly reacted to me when I fussed with him. He was just really mean and insufferable. Most of the time.

Sunghoon took the box from me and carried it out of the room without another word. We watched him leave. "Do you think we're being too harsh?" Melony asked me.

The beginnings of something like sympathy for his situation began blossoming inside of my chest, but I squandered it before it grew too big. Before it became too real. "He's done way worse to me. A few boxes won't kill him. Seriously. Stop treating him like a child."

"I don't know. I understand that you, like, hate him or whatever, but he didn't really do anything wrong. I mean, he didn't drop the box. I think he's being really careful after what happened. Trying to make up for what he did in his own way," Melony said. 

I turned to her. "Seriously though. Whose side are you on? You're allowed to be Switzerland. That's fine with me. But as my best friend, you're not allowed to take his side. Ever!"

"I'm not taking any side," she insisted in the same way she did before. I found it really hard to believe the words she was saying. I felt bad about treating him the way I did, and, honestly, I had no idea why. He treated me worse in high school. This was child's play compared to the list of unforgivable things Sunghoon had done to me in high school. 

I turned away from her. "I'm going to make sure he didn't break anything else."

Sunghoon was in the parking lot, sliding the last boxes into the boot of his Jeep. The boxes were neatly stacked in the confined space. This was the Sunghoon I knew. Meticulous. Paid way too much attention to the details. It made no sense to me that he would tear my Enhypen poster. Unless he meant to do it. 

I leaned against the side of the car, crossing my arms over my chest. The oversized Blame Society t-shirt I wore bunched up around my arms. It was my favourite top. I've worn it for the entire week, and it was in desperate need of a wash, but moving out of my dorm room took priority over my hygiene habits. I'm sure Sunghoon was sick of seeing me in the same t-shirt every time he visited the dorms and wished he could rip it off me to put it in the wash. Oh, well...

"You're only making this worse on yourself," I began saying to him. "Why won't you just admit that you tore the poster on purpose? You won't even have to buy me a new one. I'll be super nice about it. I promise."

"I didn't tear it on purpose. You were distracting me," he insisted. 

I paused. What did he mean by that? It didn't require any concentration to peel a poster off of a door. The poster would have survived if he stopped pulling at it the way he did when I told him to. He had no respect for my things. It annoyed me. "That doesn't even make any sense."

He tucked the box into the corner of the boot then stood up and closed the back door of the car. He didn't answer me for a long time. Did he run out of words or something? 

Sunghoon walked around the car and then unlocked the passenger side door. He was behaving peculiarly. What was with him? He held the door open. "Get in. Text Melony and tell her that she needs to come down to the parking lot. Please."

"No," I said. I didn't mean to. What he said made complete sense to me. I didn't want to be stuck moving boxes into the car while the entire university dorms were void of students. But I wasn't used to agreeing with Sunghoon. A part of me needed to protest even if he was right this time. 

His face twisted in annoyance. "Seriously. What did I do to you? I said I was going to replace the poster!"

"Don't tell me what to do," I insisted. "Did you forget that I'm older than you are?"

"By four months. We were born in the same year," he said. 

"And somehow that still makes me older than you..."

Sunghoon wrapped his hands around my arms and pushed my back against the side of the car. The air inside of my lungs escaped. My eyes widened. What the hell did he think he was doing? I don't recall permitting him to touch me. Like ever! This was so disgusting. 

"Let go of me!" I cried, squeezing my eyes shut. I couldn't even look at him when he was this close to me. I pushed at his chest, but he held me in place. He didn't even budge. What the hell was this?

"Listen to me. Okay?" he pleaded. The tone of his voice was defeated. It wasn't something I expected from him. He hated me. When we were still in high school, he'd go out of his way to ruin my day. Even when I begged him to stop. What made him think that I'd have mercy for him now that we were older?

He couldn't just solve all of his problems with his money or by pushing me against stuff. God. "The drive up here was really long. And I'm exhausted. Can we wrap it up for today? You can scream at me first thing tomorrow morning. I promise. But, right now, I need you to call Melony so I can drive us back home. Is that okay with you?"

I blinked. Once. Then twice. What was I supposed to say to that? I had no choice but to agree. I didn't want to be on campus any longer and I was exhausted, too. Actively demonstrating my hatred for Sunghoon every change I got drained me more than I wanted to admit. It should come naturally considering how much of a nuisance he was to me when we were teenagers. But it didn't. It was painful to admit.

"Fine," I said, turning my head away from him. I've never been this close to him before. Well, other than when he was pushing my head into the lockers on high school. The woodsy scent of his cologne clogged my nose. It was really strong. In the I can afford ridiculously expensive designer perfume kind of way. "Let go of me already."