shades of yellow » han seojun ff

24. daffodil

EXAMS CAME AND went. All week Seojun tried to approach Yeonwoo, but whenever she saw him coming, she would turn the other way. She even stuck around Suho more, knowing that Seojun and him were always to be found on opposite sides of the world.

Jugyeong as well, was conflicted. She loved Yeonwoo like a sister, and she'd gladly give Suho up to her if he liked her too. But why did it hurt so bad to see them together? 

He was the only one who knew of her bare face and accepted her for who she truly was. It would be hard to get rid of such feelings for such a guy. 

In conclusion, exam week was a very troubling time for Seojun and Jugyeong—and not wholly in an academic sense.

Yeonwoo went straight to the mountains after the exams finished. She took a train to the country, before being picked up by a truck that would take her to her grandmother's house.

She was squatting by a vegetable patch in front of the house when she heard someone call out her name. She looked up from underneath her floppy gardening hat and saw none other than Han Seojun.

"What are you doing here?" She was embarrassed to be sweaty, smelly, and dirty in front of the guy she'd been trying to avoid all week, who looked handsome even now.

"I took a bus here. I'm not that dumb, you know, despite bombing my exams." He flounced down next to her and smiled at her widely, cheeks like apples. "What are we doing here?"

"You weren't invited." She couldn't help being so harsh.

"Oh come on! I've never done this before, so please can you teach me?"

"Go home. If you take the bus now, you can make it home sometime before dusk." She picked up her basket of gardening tools and walked away from him towards the house. "My grandmother doesn't like strange men popping up on her porch, so you'd better leave now."

"But I'm handsome."

Yeonwoo scowled.

An old woman came out of the house, clad in an apron and smock. Her dark auburn hair, peppered with grey streaks, was pulled into a severe bun. In a raspy voice, she said sharply, "Who is this?"

"He's leaving right now." Yeonwoo tried to push him towards the road.

"No, Yeonwoo!" He caught her by the hand. "I won't go unless you talk to me."

Yeonwoo opened her mouth to speak, but her grandmother beat her to it.  "You little punk, how dare you act like this to my granddaughter? Are you her ex-boyfriend? Are you trying to get her back?" She spat at the ground, much to the shock of the two teenagers. "My granddaughter is too good for you. And to make matters worse, you're wearing a leather jacket and earrings. Earrings. Are you part of a gang? My husband must be rolling around in his grave. Yeonwoo-ah, why would you hang around such a male? He is not acceptable company for you."

Seojun was dumbstruck. He had never received such a hostile welcome before. Everywhere he went, people practically kissed the ground he stepped on. He was not used to this type of treatment.

"What aren't you doing?" The old woman yelped, scaring them out of their skins. "Or shall I chase you out myself?" She hobbled towards the gardening shed, where Yeonwoo knew a very sharp and heavy hoe was kept.

It would be all too easy for her strong, robust grandmother to murder Seojun. And possibly skin him alive.

"Halmeoni!" Yeonwoo moved towards her urgently, placing an arm around her shoulder. "Seojun is my friend. He's not my ex-boyfriend, he's a my classmate, a good friend of mine."

"Why didn't you say that in the first place, girl?" She hit her granddaughter lightly on the arm, then glanced at Seojun. "Join us for lunch then. I made too much food."

Knowing this was her way of apologising, Seojun nodded eagerly. He put an arm around the woman and said cheekily, "I would love to have lunch with such a beautiful lady. You look so young, I thought you were her mother."

The grandmother scoffed, but looked pleased nevertheless. "You sound just like you talk—a sweet talker. But I'm not fooled that easily."

During lunch, Yeonwoo did her best to avoid contact with Seojun. If she wanted a dish far away from her, she'd ask her grandmother or reach all across the table for it.

But when he used his chopsticks to place a stack of yellow radishes onto her plate, her heart melted. 

Her grandmother, noticing the look on her face, coughed. "Seojun, how about you stay for a little while longer? I'll get you something to get changed into, you can't be comfortable wearing that." 

Throughout the meal, Yeonwoo's grandmother's feelings towards the Han boy had greatly improved to the point she was treating him like a cherished grandson.

Seojun grinned, knowing he had brought her over to his side.

While he was changing in the bathroom, her grandmother whispered to her, "Does he like you? Do you like him? Is he trying to ask you out? "

"No!" Yeonwoo gasped, mortified if he had overheard them. "He's just a friend."

"Friends? Don't try to trick me young lady. I may be old, but I'm still sharp." She tutted. "You should chase after him if he likes you. Despite first impressions, I like him. No-one finds such a handsome and well-mannered boy like him anymore."

Seojun rather timidly followed Yeonwoo out to the front yard, where there were rows upon rows of vegetables, and flowers. She squatted before a row of tomato plants and began inspecting them, spraying some with organic insecticide. Seojun started working next to her, absentmindedly turning the tomatoes over in his hand without even really looking at them properly.

After an hour, she had had enough. "You're doing it wrong. Let me show you." She held Seojun's gloved hands in hers as they inspected a tomato. She told him, "You see this patch? This is fine. But this is not. So you must pick the tomato before it infects the others."

"You're talking to me now.!Took a while."

Yeonwoo side-eyed him. But two seconds later, they burst into laughter. Noses speckled with dirt and mud and layers upon layers of sunscreen, heads covered by floppy sun hats and smelling like sweat, they laughed. Glad to be alive, glad to feel like this in the bright sunshine and cool mountain air, glad to be eighteen.

And the first layer of Yeonwoo's walls began to crack.

—

a/n: I do not know anything about tomato plant health haha