In a little town in the countryside, it was always a clear sunny day. It would already be hot for Han Hyeongjun to bear so he coped with wearing light clothes and staying under the shade of his family's freshly revamped and reopened noodle restaurant called Junhan's Noodles. It wasn't huge nor was it small, but it was good enough, and the air flowed nicely within the store as ventilation came in and through from the windows.

Hyeongjun sighed, his long hair that was overdue for a cut followed the direction of the air he breathed out. His slender fingers rippled along the elm counter, careful enough not to glide them as it still hadn't been polished. Although the restaurant was situated at the heart of the town, people barely came in, yet Hyeongjun continued to wait anyway. After all, it had only been a week since they opened shop. He also expected that there'd be more people coming in for the day on the weekends, but it had been six hours and the only person that came in was his father who was moving in some extra furniture.

His parents were busying themselves with hammering decorations on the walls. The entire restaurant looked more like a flower shop with all the strands of faux leaves covering the cornice. The string lights that his mother hung on the walls were donned with pieces of butterfly origami that he made a few days ago. While his father, on the other side of the wall, busied himself by drilling a shelf so that they could put in the board games and other books that Hyeongjun gave.

"Sweetheart, does it look good from there?" His mother asked Hyeongjun, a grin on her face as her eyes twinkled at the sight of her creation.

Although he caught the look on her face, he couldn't help but reply snarkily. "I don't think customers will come from the counter, mom." He replied, in which he only got a pout in return. Much to his snarkiness, he was also weak to such advances from his mother. "It's beautiful, but we should focus on trying to get customers in." He made sure his tone was much gentler this time.

His father joined in, "The reason why customers don't come in is because the place looked bleak, but now it's a little lively." He said, stepping back from the wall. He was already done with his work just right after his wife. "This looks okay. How's it looking there, son?"

Hyeongjun sighed for the umpteenth time today, "It's beautiful. Both sides are."

"Oh jeez, don't be so gloomy over there, we'll have customers coming in no time." His father grinned at him.

"I'm not gloomy, dad..." He leaned into his arms on the counter, his hair falling flat on the surface as he did. He understood why his father would think he looked glum, it was probably because Hyeongjun hadn't moved from the counter since he entered the restaurant.

Still smiling, his father sighed as he rested his hands on his hips. "I know you aren't, but I know you're bored. Why not go out and get some sun? No, actually, you should go out and get more screws, we're about to run out. Honey, give him the money I lent you."

His mother walked towards the counter, her hand digging into her pockets, "Here, get something for yourself, too." She took Hyeongjun's hand and placed the money on his palm, her glowing vein and skin contrasting his paleness. It didn't bother him anymore.

"Get something? Am I a kid or something?" He mumbled.

"Of course you are, you're my little baby." His mother cood up to him as he reluctantly accepted the hug. "Alright, you go on ahead."

As Hyeongjun made his way out, his father placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't take too long."

"Okay dad."

Soon as he stepped out, the wind blew a cold breeze through his raven locks and the warm sun hit his skin. For anyone, this was an ideal weather, but for Hyeongjun, he couldn't waste any more time under the sun unless he'd want to start feeling overstimulated. Still, he enjoyed the feeling of being out anyway. He barely went out, and no thanks to the sickness he bears, but when he did he'd feel slightly better.

He walked down the plaza. People roamed about but it was nothing compared to the crowds back in the city that he was used to. This was what he liked the most about the town; there weren't many people, and it was also small so it was a piece of cake to stroll around.

It didn't take Hyeongjun more than ten minutes to reach the hardware store that was only a block down from the noodle shop and thankfully, he didn't feel like slop after his walk. He had only been at the hardware store once when he had to pick up some tools with his father and he noticed, at the time, that the store was just as small as any store in town. It was evident that the town is notorious for being small...with everything and even its population.

He also noticed that there was only one person working at the counter (an elderly person), but today there was someone else. Someone his age, too, and was staring directly at him like he was a zoo attraction.

Hyeongjun had to look behind him to see if he was just overthinking it, only to be greeted by the boy's gaze on the mirror conveniently placed there. He swallowed the lump in his throat that he wasn't aware of, discomfited by the boy who couldn't seem to take his eyes off of him.

The boy was just about Hyeongjun's height, looking as if he just got out of bed with his hair obviously dyed brown in a dishevelled overgrown buzz cut, his natural roots just peeking about. Hyeongjun also noted how his features resembled much of a fox, and it kind of explained his pajamas underneath a threadbare apron, completely an inappropriate outfit for serving customers, but then Hyeongjun reminded himself that this was a hardware store, not a restaurant so it did not really matter.

Finally, the fox boy spoke, seemingly snapping out of his thoughts. Hyeongjun suppressed a sigh of relief or discontentment, he wasn't sure which. "S-sorry, uh, anything you're looking for?" The boy moved out of the counter and approached him. He didn't notice it earlier, but the boy was wearing a nametag; Seungmin. However, there was something else he noticed.

His fate vein was half-empty.

Hyeongjun had never seen something like it before, nor did he know such a thing exists. Everyone had their vein filled, not just by half, and if it wasn't filled then it just meant that they hadn't met their soulmate yet, or they probably shared the same tragedy he had. Why was his half-empty? Before he could get caught staring, he cleared his throat and faced the mystery of a man named Seungmin.

"Screws," He said. His surprise still hadn't subsided as he realised that he forgot his manners. "please."

Seungmin's lips formed into a small smile, "Right here." He tilted his head as he moved deeper into the store, Hyeongjun following right behind as the small space couldn't house two people standing next to each other, and they stopped right at the array of boxes of screws and nails. "Any size you're looking for?" Seungmin turned to him.

Hyeongjun almost cursed himself. He forgot to ask his father, but he didn't want to seem like a dimwit either. "Just the normal size." His voice came out quieter than he thought.

"Uh, there isn't a normal size."

Oh no. "Can I check the sizes then?"

Seungmin held his gaze on Hyeongjun for a brief second before moving aside, "Sure." He said, allowing Hyeongjun to take the space.

Hyeongjun obviously wasn't looking for a size—actually, he didn't know how to look, he didn't know what the numbers on the boxes meant. Number 2? Is number 2 what dad wanted? Why is this so hard? He inwardly cursed the boxes for its lack of visual presentation. Still, he moved his hands around as if he knew what he was doing, while also wondering why he bothered acting like he knew about screws in front of a total complete stranger he knew nothing about. He wasn't going to see him again, anyway.

After a painfully long time of putting up an act, Seungmin spoke again. "Are you sure you know what you're looking for?" Hyeongjun immediately stopped and felt heat that crept up to his ears in which he could finally thank himself for growing his hair out or else Seungmin would see his embarrassment flare out.

Much to his pride, however, it could only go so far. He stepped aside, "No, I can't seem to find the one I'm looking for." Hyeongjun replied.

Seungmin took his place once again, shuffled through the boxes and handed him a box with a huge #8 labeled on it. "Here, this one's the average size for anything." Seungmin said, his voice gentle and not condescending. It was one thing Hyeongjun was a little grateful for but he also wished that Seungmin just handed it earlier—he would have avoided feigning knowledge about screws.

"You said there wasn't an average size." He did his best not to sound sulky, but the words that came out of his mouth didn't seem like he wasn't unbothered.

"I said there wasn't a normal size."

Hyeongjun's brows furrowed, "Is there a difference?"

The corner of Seungmin's slightly twitched, "I'd show you how different it is, but it'll take us a long time." Something in his demeanor changed after he said that, and Hyeongjun couldn't put a finger on what had changed. "Will that be all?"

Hyeongjun resisted the urge to narrow his eyes, "Yes."

"Come on then, I'll ring you up."

Before Hyeongjun could move aside, Seungmin slipped into the small gap in front of him, causing his body to stiffen and his heartbeat to stop for a split second when the latter's fingers brushed against his to grab the box of screws before he walked past him.

Hyeongjun placed a palm to his chest. He just touched you accidentally. He tried to calm himself down, but his mind seemed to go haywire. He wasn't fond of being touched by others so a nervous reaction from him was no surprise, but his heart seemed to beat faster than it should...and for some reason, he did not exactly dislike what happened, but he did not know what he felt about it either. He shook his head, not wanting to waste any more of his time and followed Seungmin to the counter.

Seungmin pulled out a clipboard with names, dates, and items purchased listed down on each column. "The screws are 1200 won. I'll need your name for insurance." He held out a pen.

Hyeongjun gulped, glancing at the pen before looking back up to Seungmin's face. "It's just a box of screws." Hyeongjun said, cautious enough not to take the pen, and he placed his payment on the counter. His heart still hadn't calmed down.

Seungmin shrugged at this, his facial expression unreadable. "Just in case?" A smile formed on his lips in which the former did not reciprocate.

He cleared his throat before pulling the clipboard away, his fingers rappelling a staccato on the board before he spoke again. "Alright, no insurance then, but you can come back if you change your mind about the screws." Seungmin's smile came back, only that it was a little sheepish this time.

Hyeongjun raised a brow but decided not to say what he thought. "Thanks." He said, but his gaze was held once again by Seungmin for a few seconds before he snapped out of it and turned around to scurry out of the store.

He's weird. He's a really weird guy. Hyeongjun thought.

On the way back to the restaurant, his mind continued to relive his interaction with Seungmin, sometimes with a twist of his imagination wherein he'd decide not to respond to Seungmin in the beginning, and while it felt nice for Hyeongjun to imagine, his mind would always find its way back to that moment when the back of his fingers felt Seungmin's touch. At the time, he couldn't describe the feeling, but now that he processed everything, he remembered how warm Seungmin's fingers were against his own cold skin. Of course, Hyeongjun knew that it was just an inevitable interaction despite his best efforts to avoid physical contact especially from strangers, but he certainly hadn't expected his own reaction. He didn't even know the guy, but for some reason, his heartbeat would pick up the pace when he thought of Seungmin.

Or maybe it was a different kind of reaction?

Upon arriving at the restaurant, Hyeongjun felt an irritable itch around his neck that he did not notice his parents racked in three customers and immediately rushed to the back of the restaurant where he dropped off the screws at the counter.

His mother, however, noticed his hastiness. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" Dropping the utensils in hand, she followed Hyeongjun to the sink where he scooped cold water onto his neck.

He tried to stay calm. He did not want his mother to worry too much, but truly, his skin started to feel like it was on fire. "I'm fine, mom. I think I just stayed out a little too long." He said, but his lips were starting to itch now.

"Have you taken your meds?" His mother began to soothe his back which he pulled away from because even the slightest touch felt like hell. "Oh, I'm so sorry, angel..."

Hyeongjun couldn't bear the feeling anymore, both of his body and how he was starting to make his own mother feel bad. "I'm okay, I just need to rest a little bit." He told her and she nodded.

Thankfully the rash hadn't reached his lower body yet, it probably would later on in his nap, but he needed to rush up the stairs to the apartment first before it could worsen. Although Hyeongjun knew it was only a slight flare up, he was also bracing himself for the worst since it didn't even take him thirty minutes in the sun for him to have an allergic reaction. He was quick to realize that his body had worsened and it would only be so as time continued to pass, but god, was it infuriating.

Up in the apartment, it was dark with light only seeping through the small blinds. There were two reasons why his parents chose to move into this specific building: one, for the space downstairs which allowed them to reopen the abandoned restaurant and two, for the lack of sunlight upstairs.

From the stairs was a hallway of doors; three on the left, one on the right. The left were the rooms where Hyeongjun stumbled around just to get into his own door. He was already used to the dark but the itching on his back that was starting to spread was too disorienting for him to handle.

As soon as he got into his room, he turned his little moon lamp on and rummaged through a storage box filled with medicine. He was starting to sweat, much as he tried not to panic, though it seemed to translate into his hands when he trembled upon peeling a medicine out of its wrapper and taking it in. He grabbed a bottle of water on his desk and gulped it down to the dregs.

It would take fifteen minutes for the medicine to start working, so he plopped himself down onto his bed, burying his face into his pillows.

He wanted to scream, to shout, but all that came out of him was a sigh. He was tired of having to deal with something so inconvenient. He wanted to cry, because the weather was beautiful today yet he couldn't bask in its warmth as much as he wanted to. Every day, he was forced to hide himself in the dark, thanks to his cursed body and fate.

At times like these, he would imagine a life without fate being a defining component of a human. What would it be like if he had just lived normally? These thoughts were too self-indulgent for him, too. He didn't want to think anymore.

He laid on his side and hugged his legs tightly. The pulsating feeling on his neck was starting to calm down but his heart hadn't. Did it start at the hardware store? He thought, but he remembered clearly that he felt fine except for an irrational racing heartbeat, and then he thought about Seungmin again. He wondered what it was like for someone like Seungmin to live normally without having to deal with illnesses and taking up medicine and puking their guts out a few hours later due to its side effects. He wondered what it was like for Seungmin to live carelessly, even though he did not know anything about him. He knew he was being irrational; even Seungmin had his fate vein half-filled, and there could be problems that come with it just like what Hyeongjun himself would have to face.

Still, he kept wondering, and even wondered why he was thinking of Seungmin. What was it about him that made Hyeongjun want for more? Why was an insignificant moment much bigger than he thought? He wanted to stop thinking about Seungmin but at the same time he wanted to know more about him, and he also wanted to know why he felt like this. Trains of thoughts came flooding through him, although the timing was terrible. Maybe it was the way he stared at me. Or maybe the way I acted. Or maybe because his fate vein was half-empty. Or maybe it's just my body flaring up again. Was it the weather? The screws?

Before he realized it, his eyes drooped shut, despite the itching and burning pain that he felt was starting to spread down his legs. He quickly fell into a deep slumber thinking about the fox-boy from the hardware store, and it would take him hours before he could wake up again.

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ok so like why is this chapter so bad