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chapitre7 · 7 years

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My Sun and Stars

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo [달의 연인-보보경심 려] fanfiction

Modern AU

Wang So/Hae Soo

For @krysyuy. Happy birthday, love! ♥

She’s not the type of person to dread Wednesdays.

On Tuesday night, she lays her ironed clothes on the chair closest to her bed, ready for pick-up in the dark hours of morning. She crosses one more day on the calendar on the wall, applies cream to her face for nightly care, lies on her bed and looks at the sky through her skylight. Sometimes she makes a wish. Not to anyone in particular, maybe to Cassiopeia, hidden behind clouds. She wishes for a good day, a peaceful, sunny day where she can make her customers happy. Hae Soo knows it’s too much to ask from the stars, that people would be people, but she tries. A wish is a wish and not a certainty, and it’s better than wishing for nothing at all.

So she wakes on Wednesday morning with an orchestra of birds singing in her phone, and she picks up the clothes she had already chosen for the day, walking to the bathroom with her eyes barely open. The morning is neither cold nor hot, so the water is not a second alarm, it’s the start of a brand new day, sun-kissed warmth on her skin and flower petals in her soap. She wakes up early enough to wash her hair, to dry it, to apply a lotion with the same fragrance as her soap. Her eye shadow is the rose color of her uniform, and her lip-gloss is a transparent red, only enough to show healthiness, to make her smile shine. She reads her horoscope while she eats breakfast, while the weather forecast plays in the TV in the background, and she cheers mentally because it’s positive, telling her to go for it. The day is yours, Hae Soo. Weekend is still far but something good will happen today. She steps outside her house, walks to the bus stop with a skip in her step and no umbrella in her purse.

“Good morning!” She greets her sleepy co-workers. Some grumble over their coffee cups, others use the mirrors in the establishment to double-check their make-up, to make sure their restless nights are covered, mechanically replying without looking at her. Soo puts her things away in her locker in the staff room, runs her hands over her uniform, smoothing out the fabric, and she’s ready. Everything is set for a brand new day.

“No checking the stock for you today, Soo,” her manager says, promptly followed by the echoed groans of those who would man the stock.

“Roger that!” Soo says, cheerfully gliding towards the door, greeting the morning workers who pass by. She lures them with a shining smile and compliments on the women’s matte lipstick, grinning at those who like her honest, nice words enough to stop by, promising that it’ll be really quick to show them their new collection, the quality of their long-lasting, not-transferring foundation, and the excellent make-up remover they also have that will feel like washing years away in just seconds.

The well-dressed morning women diminish quickly. The late ones don’t even spare her a glance. Soo greets retired older women and housewives with the same open heart, “Your hair looks vibrant this morning, Mrs. Shin!”, and they reward her with blushes, with visits, buying hand-cream they don’t need because they discover how nice they smell. Soo is a waste in the stock room; she’s much better as a busy little bee, dropping pollen from her touches, and making flowers grow strong with her buzz. She inhales the misty smell in the morning air and appreciates the day even when it grays out and the first drops wet the asphalt.

The woman and her child arrive around ten.

“This is our new fragrance,” Soo tells her after the woman states her object of desire. Soo is a model poster girl, standing still with a smile on her face, her scarf even matching the colors in the perfume’s poster. She keeps the smile on as the woman picks the bottle from the self, sprays herself on the wrist, puts it back on the shelf without much of a reaction. Soo’s smile falters an imperceptible millimeter when the woman’s child stretches his little arm towards the only shelf he can reach and picks a bottle. Her eyes dart to the mother but she’s already immersed in a completely different product with her back to them, and she panics internally when she realizes it’s not a tester that the child is holding. She wants to curse but cursing is a jinx and it’s too early for jinxes, she can’t have them, not when she’s already planning on having lunch at her favorite restaurant and exchanging a few cheery messages if she’s lucky.

Soo doesn’t curse; she bends a little to be closer to the child’s eye level and offers him both her palms.

“I like that one too! Why don’t you give it back to auntie Soo?”

The child holds the bottle closer to his chest, clearly away from Soo. She licks her lips and looks around carefully, not standing from her position. Her co-workers are all busy and the mother is still preoccupied with every single shade of lipstick from the stand.

“Aw,” she says with a pout. “I don’t think your mommy likes it though. Why don’t we show her something else?”

He shakes his head. Soo swallows. Out of arguments, she reaches out to take the bottle from his hands and he pulls back, ever so slightly. With her hand on the perfume’s cap, she tries to persuade him with a benevolent raise of eyebrows, with all her teeth, but he still struggles. Soo pulls, he pulls back, and the second she believes she’s won their little tirade is short-lived when the cap comes out in her hand and the bottle falls to the floor and breaks into dozens of floral little pieces.

The silence that follows is quickly broken by the child’s crying.

“What are you doing to my son?!”

Of course she’s there when Soo doesn’t need her to be.

“I’m not paying for that! What is wrong with you?!”

Of course she checks her son over and he doesn’t have a single injury when Soo’s shoes are drenched in overpriced perfume.

Don’t curse, she tells herself as her manager attempts to calm the woman down and ultimately lets her walk away with a tearless wailing son. Soo almost expected the child to look over his shoulder and give her the tongue but he doesn’t because the universe’s sense of humor was on her side. Maybe. Her manager’s frown speaks otherwise.

“I’m going to have to take this out of your pay, Soo.”

It’s only the most expensive perfume in the boutique. “Yes,” she says, bowing. “I’m deeply sorry for my mistake, it won’t happen again.”

“Sure. Clean up this mess, okay?”

She keeps the corners of her mouth upright after a deep breath. She tries to sweep and mop it all up quickly as to not disturb any customer — while thinking that that spot of the store is perfect for advertising the perfume, it didn’t have to be a complete disaster, after all —, and she only notices she missed a small glass shard at the far end of the store after she’s taken all the cleaning supplies away. She scooters close to it like a child about to steal a cookie from a hidden jar, crouches to pick it up and throw it in the trash, but she drops it the very next second with an “Ack!”. It’s such a small little cut, a harmless little thing, but blood flows like she’s a murder victim. She sucks on the wound, hurries past her manager with an apology and into the staff room where she keeps her purse and band-aids.

It’s fine. It’ll only be tricky to wash the dishes for a couple of days...

Soo sighs and she’s about to put her purse away when she looks at her phone inside and gets a funny little impulse. She picks it up and types a message, a little giggle bubbling out of her and jingling in the deserted and badly lit room.

I cut my finger :(

She allows herself to wait a full minute before accepting that he’s probably busy and can’t answer in a timely fashion. She thinks she can picture the answer, even the scoff that accompanies it on his side, a jabbing How do you even manage these things, you don’t even work with anything sharp! that she would follow with a dignified crossing of arms and a pout. He had witnessed her in several accidents, cheap sunglasses that she breaks ridiculously often, coins that drop into a pit of oblivion that certainly opens up on the ground every time something slips from her fingers, and really, she opened the door of a restaurant on his nose on their first blind date. He probably half finds it endearing, for he usually wears an expression of amusement and wonder when she can’t find her keys in her purse, and half wants to kill her when she forgets things at home pretty much every time they go on a date and she has to dart back up and risk falling down the stairs (sometimes actually falling down the stairs). But she wants to be a little cute, wants the smile that makes her feel pretty and endearing, even if it’s not the most sophisticated adult flirting technique to get the man from something status to boyfriend status.

So she puts her phone away and walks back to the store with only one thought: Lunch. Lunch will be good with delicious spicy chicken and messages about their favorite historical drama’s melodramatic developments.

Two hours later, the notice on the restaurant’s closed doors come as a kick in the gut. Her stomach growls as she reads that the establishment is temporarily shut down and the page is signed by a health inspector. But she ate there only a week ago? Should she be writing her will? Were bugs involved?!

She wants to slouch towards the nearest restaurant but a quick glimpse at her wristwatch tells her to hurry up or she’d be late and she’d had enough troubles for the day. She orders black bean noodles and thinks that it’s okay, that’s good enough, she likes those too. And hey, if she hasn’t died from food poisoning yet then she’s safe. It’s a solid assumption. Probably.

If I die from late food poisoning, I’m leaving my plants under your care.

She bites her bottom lip and touches the tips of her shoes together, waiting, waiting, making movement on that rainy day. The reply arrives at the same time as her plate.

There’s a possibility that they’ll live longer under my care. Should I be worried and writing my own will or

She smiles as she stirs her noodles so the sauce is evenly spread and ready to fill her eager stomach.

No, I’m the only victim, so you’re safe to finish Ha Ji Won’s filmography.

She feels it with the first slurp of her noodles. Her phone flashes with a message, something about the Damo episode she was supposed to have watched the night before but fell asleep in the middle, most likely some praise about Ha Ji Won’s action moves and mesmerizing gaze, but Soo is too busy staring down at the dark spot on her uniform, one that she knows will still be there even after she tries to wipe it away. It’s almost a miracle that she remembered to take her scarf off and put it in her locker and also a blessing because she’s already whimpering and hitting her head against the table in what could only be described as despair.

So, I’m having a bad day, she sends, along with the unhappiest emote she finds. She dares not write really bad day, lest it attracted even worse accidents. What would smart, brave Ha Ji Won do?

She’s careful with her next slurps, her feet no longer tapping each other under the table, no longer moving, the beginning of defeat in them, on her shoulders. The phone emits a happy beep.

Do you want me to pick you up? I’m leaving the office early today. We could eat something that is not life-threatening.

Excitement is an arrow that makes her back stand straighter and her shoes to tap the floor. She really did want to see him and talk about silly things they both liked, re-enact the perfume accident dramatically, hear about his intern who played too many video-games and used too much slang, just add a splash of color to her day. She would cover up the day’s imperfections, touch her cheeks with the warm comfort of his company, and maybe, hopefully, touch his lips with her lipstick. Beat that, Ha Ji Won.

She almost skips all the way back to the boutique, only remembering the stain on her blouse when she sees her reflection in one of the mirrors by the entrance, so she covers it with her hand and rushes to staff room to brush her teeth and reapply her lipstick and wish upon an invisible star in the cloudy afternoon sky that there’ll be no further incidents, no minor disturbances, only the sweet approach of evening and the promise of comfort and—

Every single item inside her purse is stained with sticky, reddish liquid. Inside the bathroom, she sees her reflection in the mirror pull the criminal lip-gloss into the open, staring aghast at the cap with the applying brush. Betrayal has a name and it’s every product she sells to innocent, unsuspecting women, and as she empties her bag and tears pieces of toilet paper for the menial task of speed cleaning, she thinks, grumbles, that maybe she shouldn’t sell them with such enthusiasm, the backstabbing buggers. After doing the best she could with the time and material she had, she puts her purse back in her locker with a pout, foregoing the lip-gloss entirely, into the garbage can.

Even bad days have an end is the thought that keeps her going in the never-ending afternoon. Minutes take hours to pass, customers refuse to show up, to enter, to entertain her grumpy mind. She tries to cover up the stain in her blouse with her scarf but she’s conscious of it, of her toes that start to hurt inside her shoes, of her cheeks that hurt from trying too hard to please. Peace is a flower that wants to bloom in her mind, another flower for another day in the garden of her subconscious. It’s the hope to finally be herself, to just be, at the end of a busy day. It’s in every raindrop that touches her hair when she steps outside and looks at the dark sky to greet the falling evening.

When the hand of the clock finally points to freedom, Soo doesn’t dillydally. She tries not to rush either, tries to appear composed to her colleagues, even if they seemed to talk all day about her blunders behind their hands, just outside hearing distance. It’s okay. It’s okay to make mistakes and own up to them. It’s okay, accidents happen. It’s okay to slip, you can stand up again.

But Soo does slip. Literally. On the wet footprints by the boutique’s entrance, her heel slips and she holds onto the door so she doesn’t fall down and create a bigger spectacle than she already did. She’s several different shades of red when someone asks if she’s okay. She nods and tries to run from view — where, in that rain? Anywhere — but she realizes her heel has broken off so she can’t even make a graceful exit. She can only limp away, with her dirty purse close to her body, sticking close to the wall where there’s a small space of shelter from the rain.

She walks all the way to the corner of the street, where she takes a deep breath and sighs into her hands. Her eyes hurt from not wearing her contacts, contacts she hates. She hates her broken heel and how she’s going to have to buy a new one and pay for the broken perfume, which are expenses she wasn’t counting on. She hates the humidity that frizzes her hair, the drops she can’t shield herself from, and the embarrassed blush that makes her look even more like a teenager than she already does. She wants a new job. She wants something more.

The umbrella is what catches her attention first, covering her in the gloomy rain. Where did it come from? What side? Did it fall down from the sky? She looks up at him and he tilts his head to the side, blinks a couple of times, touches her hair with a warm hand that makes her wish she were a cat, ready to be taken away from the rain, into his arms, and ready to purr at his petting.

“What happened?” Wang So asks. “It doesn’t look like you’re out here because you like the rain, did you forget your umbrella?”

“Yeah... My heel broke,” she says, looking down, and his gaze follows hers. “Maybe you could... go to my flat and bring me new shoes so we can go out?” She bites her lip. Were they close enough that he’d pick up things she forgot? Or would he prefer for her to change? Would he wait for her? She really wants to change. She also just really wants to lie down and rest, but they had made plans...

“Don’t be silly, Soo. I’ll take you home, come on.”

She’s about to protest, something about looking ridiculous with only one heel, but his arm sneaks around her shoulders, brings her closer to his side, and together they walk under his umbrella, his steps matching her clumsy ones, all the way to his car. He covers her until she’s safe and sound on the passenger seat and then he closes the umbrella and rushes to his side, shaking the rain out of his hair with his hands. He gives her a smile that is more reassuring than any pep talk she had given herself, and she keeps on looking at him as he drives to her place.

Her friend Baek Ah had introduced them because he was, allegedly, tired of being their first choice of company for outings and he really wanted to spend time with his girlfriend without either of them sulking. They had things in common, Baek Ah had said, from their teenage interest in historical dramas to their diligence and righteous spirit. As a journalist, So had had fierce arguments with his Editor-in-Chief about covering political corruption, and all the articles that she found with his name attached to them had impressed Soo. He was a welcome change in her routine, and she knew Baek Ah knew it, too. Soo had broken off with so many acquaintances, people who made her feel inferior, and she wanted, needed... More. Someone who could offer her a chance to indulge in reading about Chinese zodiac signs and compatibilities, someone that she’d add on her phone under several different names: Blind Date, Baek Ah’s Friend, Ha Ji Won Fan. He could be her choice, Baek Ah had said. He could be her reminder that days could be good instead of just being day after day after day.

In his car, with all her little flaws bared to him, she faces him and wishes Baek Ah had introduced them sooner.

“Do you want to come up?” She says as she recognizes her neighborhood out the window on his side. “It’s raining. I could make us dinner.”

He parks the closest he can to her building.

“I could help you,” he says, but for a few seconds, neither of them really moves. It’s always hard to take the first step into the unknown, but Soo is so tired and so eager for a good evening that she takes it, a step out of the car, a heel-less step, and she limps away under the drizzle. So exits the car, catches up with her and offers his arm so they rush, together, towards the entrance.

“The kitchen is that way,” Soo says, pointing, “and you’re free to start dinner while I take a quick shower. I’m sorry about the mess.”

“No mess at all,” he says, looking around. “It’s very neat. I like the flowers.” He walks up to one of her vases and smells her peonies. Soo likes the genuine smile that graces his lips at the pleasing scent, at her apartment, at her. She excuses herself and he makes way for the kitchen.

Soo washes her hair, relaxes her tired muscles, tired feet under the shower. She lets the day flow out of her, down the drain, and welcomes the evening with steam in her lungs, with a healthy blush on her skin, nothing like she had felt earlier. She wears her round glasses and dresses in unflattering, oversized clothes, but with her small built, she’s aiming for a comfortable, cute look, and So does seem pleased when she hops next to him. They work together, chopping the vegetables, taking turns with different pans on the stove, setting the table, placing generous amounts of side-dishes for each other. Soo hears more than she talks, not because she feels her day was less important than his, but because she’s already tired of going over the same scenes over and over again, she’s already tired of that boy and his mother, of the images of pests crawling along the shelves of food she might have eaten, about people whispering behind her back. She hears him talk about what he had worked on that day, about his intern’s latest mishap, about places others had been to for an article that he wished he had written instead. He tells her of things that reminded him of her, a little stray cat that he saw on the way to lunch and that he fed on the way back, and embarrassing texts Baek Ah sent him while he was drunk that makes them both laugh.

Happy and fed, Soo lies on the couch in her living room while So washes the dishes, as he had offered. She closes her eyes but she doesn’t sleep. She just lies there in contentment, a song playing on the TV mingling with the sounds of So in the kitchen and the rain outside. A day could change so quickly, from the sun that greeted her at morning to the downpour that tempts her like a lullaby, but in the end, you choose what to make of it. You choose to let discouragement take over you and fall asleep in loneliness or you choose the other option. She hears So coming closer, hears him sit on the floor, feels his hand on her hair. She smiles in return, open to him, to his touch.

“I have something for you,” he says. She opens her eyes and they widen when they see the velvet box in his hand. “It reminded me of you.”

Soo sits up, her heart beating loudly against her eardrums, her pulse hot under her skin. Even if it’s just a present, even if it’s something small, on that rainy day, it feels big.

She opens the box and stares at the silver ring inside, at the small rhinestones and the thin lines that trace its surface. It’s too big for her ring finger so she places it on her middle finger, a shiny little contrast with the band-aid on her index finger. She admires it from a distance, appreciates the way it reflects the light, the little twinkle on the stones look like...

“It’s Cassiopeia. They said suns, moons and stars are popular nowadays.” He chuckles and takes her hand in his. It’s only then that Soo realizes he’s wearing a ring himself, with his own constellation. “I know it’s not your favorite.”

“They didn’t have Pegasus?” She grins as he groans, touches the back of her hand to his forehead.

“It was an accidental lisp!”

“No, it wasn’t. Repeat after me, three times fast, Pe-ga-sus.”

“I’m leaving.”

He gets up and pretends to leave but she pulls him back, laughing all the while, and he sits beside her on the couch, kisses the back of her hand, an off-hand gesture. They both rest their heads on the couch, their joined hands forming the w of the stars she wishes upon.

“I’m not really asking you for anything, Soo, we don’t have take steps you don’t want to take. But I’d love to—”

He’s blushing when she touches his cheek, when she pulls closer and kisses him. Her something, her little someone, giving her the stars when she had wilted. She opens her mouth against his, opening up like a moon flower, climbing on his lap when he pulls her, her arms locking around his neck. Out of breath, she pecks his lips once, twice, rests her forehead against his, fills her senses with him.

“Are you sure?”

With her hands still in his hair, she’s sure that his eyes shine brighter than the stars in her ring, than the stars hidden away from the rain. She nods and lets him carry her, the TV and the lights going off behind them, no sound in her home but the rain and the sound of their kisses, of their breath. His ring is cool against her skin and she shivers, she giggles, she calls his name as the day fades away.

She’s a morning kind of person. Wakes up before her alarm clock, gets up right away, the skylight always illuminating every corner of her life.

On that Thursday, Hae Soo wakes up with his arm around her waist. She looks down and the pale dawn shines on their matching rings, stars that glow all day long. She reaches for her phone and promptly turns her alarm off. Her boss’s scolding over her first ever tardy arrival is worth it. In fact, she’d trade her whole day for a few more minutes. Maybe she could call in sick? She rolls over to face him and scoots closer, as close as she can be, her cold nose making him stir and tighten his embrace around her.

She sleepily thinks that she needs to update his name on her phone. Boyfriend So ♥ doesn’t sound so bad.

With her arm around his naked torso, she’s sure she’s beaten Ha Ji Won’s leads by miles.

Special thanks to @justonehappyvictory for invaluable Ha Ji Won drama knowledge and ideas ♥

#Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo #Scarlet Heart Ryeo #Moon Lovers #fanfiction #Wang So #Hae Soo #So/Soo #Alternative Universe: Modern Setting

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