After that, he just quietly followed me;

Like he knew the area.

Or was it that he was overly trusting

like a sheltered kid that doesn’t understand the real world.

I could-

Wait no, everyone knows who he’s with.

Plus I’m kind of depending on him.

I don’t know why it frustrated me how nonchalant he was

following me home after we only met twice.

I was intimidating;

I think.

We passed my old high school,

which he seemed to look at a bit too long,

and then, when I mentioned it; he just completely avoided looking at it.

Weird.

We kept walking until we passed by the restaurant I worked at,

which was closed on a Sunday.

Luckily.

That guy probably would’ve come out to see me,

;Since he always seemed to be working whenever I was around.

He’d probably be the first one to tell them I worked here,

If anyone comes and asks.

I finally arrived.
Home sweet home?

We opened the apartment to the smell of lots of

Pen ink, Instant Ramen, and a weird burning smell.

Oh no I left the stove on…

Was my first thought, but then I realized mine were all off,

So it was the neighbor’s stove.

I was proud for a second,

but then realized I couldn’t really do anything.

I was probably going to just set the whole complex on fire;

Since I had the most flammable stuff

Ever.

Then I realized I just let a guy in my room,

Which I would’ve cared about;

since my mom always told me not to bring random guys into my room,

If it wasn’t going to not be a room soon.

“Can you help me pack?”

I was panicking.

But it really was totally justified.

“Into what?!”

Oh yeah…

I had a backpack,

and a purse.

I didn’t think I was going to move anytime soon.

Well, looks like that backpack is going to have to fit

Everything.

“Here just shove it in here!”

“The TV?!”

He was holding the TV.

Why was he holding the TV?

Maybe I could try to fit it-

No Sujin, you’re going insane; that won’t work.

“No, not the TV!

Shove some of my papers into the Bag!”

“Ew…

The ones with the mold on them?”

“How can you e-”

I did in fact have moldy paper.

That ruined a whole collection of songs I was writing.

On the bright side though,

I-

“Oh there’s some stuff with words.

 I had this dream that B-”

“Stop!”

I was not letting him see the regrettably,

high school version of me.

“Do I still shove it in?”

“Yes!”

I have to keep the memories; even if I will feel pain

Every time someone reads them out loud.

“Okay, so we should just shove everything into your backpack?”

“Yes”

Did he need more confirmation with me scrambling,

And crumpling papers into small balls

To shove them into my backpack

Faster.

We kept shoving crumpled up pieces of paper,

while listening to the blaring alarm of the smoke detector.

Finally, we finished putting away my entire collection of papers;

After what felt like an eternity.

We both just looked at each other and realized.

“We should just ditch the furniture shouldn’t we”

He asked; knowing my response.

“Yes, there is no way we carry all of that to where you live;

Before the whole place burns down.”

We both agreed to leave with the backpack

overflowing with papers,

And the purse…

Also overflowing with papers, but moldy.

I used this purse when I wanted to look fancy...

Well, I might have to throw it away when I get there.

Then we began our journey.

Trekking through the roads without sidewalks,

and the people, who gave us strange looks.

We did look very out of place.

A man wearing a suit and leather gloves,

Wearing a backpack too small for him like he was back in high school.

Every now and then a few papers would fall out;

Since the zipper broke a year ago.

It worked…as long as you didn’t try to fill it too much.

Then I was a woman wearing
A winter coat, a pencil skirt, and a purse…

Okay, now that I think about it;

I have the way better end of this deal.

I’m not telling him though

I chuckled to myself thinking about how funny he looked now,

Which ironically made people stare at me more strangely,

As the woman, who followed the guy with the weird backpack

and laughed for no reason.

“If you’re going to laugh at me;

at least don’t look so stupid,

while doing it.”

That was mean.

Deserved, but mean.

“I’ll never look as stupid as you do wearing that backpack.”

“You wear it then; we can swap”

Oh no.

I messed up.

“So? What do you like doing in your free time?
We’re going to be spending a lot of time together…”

Please work.

Please work.

Please work.

“Oh well, I like…

…it ,when you don’t try to change the topic”

Oh no.

“Uh, I’m just really curious about what you do for fun”

“Sure. What do you do for fun then?”

“Oh I write music.”

He just started walking faster;

After looking back like he was disappointed in me.

What did I even do?

Oh right,

I was making him take my piles of my music sheets to his home,

Which I don’t have any idea it would be.

We’re in a shopping district.

What is he doing?

”Where are we going?”

”Oh, I read history for fun.

Thanks for asking”

“What”

He just kept walking faster,

so I didn’t really think about where we were going.

Next thing I know,

We’re at the Subway station,

which was weird;

Since there was one we passed near my house…

“Here we are!”

He didn’t mind talking loudly in public,

Which was something I could never do.

“So, uh why did we go so far?”

People kept staring;

 after he walked down the Subway,

And just made that declaration,

But luckily they just stared at him.

Not me.

“Well if you must know,

I like this station better.”

He sounded just like his mother here:

Annoyed,

pretentious,

Well, he didn’t do the pretend nice thing yet.

Or maybe he was do-

“I’m just kidding,

I thought it’d be funny if I just walked randomly

in a general direction until you noticed.”

“You are, so sleeping on the couch tonight.”

”Jokes cause we’re a married couple kinda…

Right?”

I stayed silent and just stared at the clock

waiting for the next train.

“Right?”

I kept staring.

There were Christmas themed signs,

With new movies coming out that I continued to stare,

while I ignored him.

“C’mon the couch isn’t even that good at my house.

Like my mom’s house it’s fine,

But my couch could be a torture device if I had to sleep on it.”

I just kept quiet

and he kept digging himself into a deeper hole.

“Okay maybe I was going to keep walking until you noticed,

But my legs got tired.

Sorry”

I didn’t know that.

He just told me more reasons to be mad at him.

“I did read your weird fan-fiction journal,

with your fictional friend in your dreams. It was on accident;

I swear!”

He just kept talking.

Sometimes it felt like he was two people;

How he went from a dignified gentleman to this guy.

“Oh The Subway’s here”

I said; gesturing him to get in.

Honestly, I wasn’t that mad;

Since even if I wasn’t really dating him I got

Couch Banishing Privileges.

I saw it on TV one time,

And it was so cool that I wanted to get married that day.

I was like 7,

the power would’ve been too much,

But now I was ready.

“Alright dear,”

He was now using pet names

to try to get on my good side.

Even if I wasn’t mad though;

I really wanted to banish my husband to the couch.

Even if it wasn’t real.

We left the Subway quickly,

and I hoped he wasn’t taking me to a random place;

Since I was going to send him to the couch.

I love saying that in my head.

Send him to the couch!

It was actually a suite in a rich neighborhood;

Since well he was rich,

Or more accurately his parents were.

He wasn’t thinking of getting revenge?

I was prepared…

We went up to the 11^th floor,

And it was room 1101.

He opened the door with a hint of

something wrong in his eyes.

Like a sudden realization that he had messed up.

Was he scared of showing a girl his room?

I mean he might be a rich playbo-

Or he might just look like that.

“Look it’s perfectly normal to be flustered showing a girl your room,

But I’m going to be living here,

So either we both live outside, or you show me”

I tried to comfort him,

while being a bit commanding like he was sometimes.

Who knows?
Maybe I’m a natural and h-

“What? It’s not about that!”

“Well what is it about then?”

I was going to get to the bottom of them mystery,

Or maybe he doesn’t have a couch and he’s been lying.

That’d be a majo-

“Yeah, remember how I told you it’d be fine if we left all the furniture?”

”Yes? You said you ha-”

“I had what I thought was enough until I realized we’re not one guy,

Who spends most of his day outside.”

“It can’t be that ba-”

He had what I can only describe,

as a blank white room.

He had the essentials.

A bed, a couch that looked terrible to sleep on, and a microwave.

He looked on, a bit nervous about what I thought.

 I accidentally said what I thought out loud:

“Today is really going to be a long day isn’t it?”

“Yeah, back out we go”

I sat on the couch,

and began to lay down.

“Just let me Oh F-”