day 1 of living together » minor misunderstandings

seungmin ÷ konan

Despite her younger brother’s claims, Konan wasn’t a neat freak. She just preferred keeping her surroundings clean unlike Yahiko who tended to throw his clothes on the floor first thing he got home - even when he spent the afternoon with his friends at the basketball court -, ate at their shared room more often than he ate at the dining table with their parents, and left the dirty dishes on his desk that was already annoyingly disorganized. The girl rarely complained about her living conditions regardless of the small apartment her parents lived in since they had moved to South Korea a decade ago - they didn’t have a say in where they lived anyway -, but she would have lied if she had said that she hadn’t been counting the days to move out. She had been working super hard in every school break to be able to rent her own place once she started university and the day finally came. She was finally a university student with her own place.
Well, the apartment wasn’t only hers per se. The girl had to share it with another uni student because the other flat she had come across - where she could have really been on her own - was over an hour from the SNU campus by public transportation and this one was only a twenty-minute-long walk from the main building, but still… She could say goodbye to living with a dirty teenage boy who didn’t know how to wash at least his own dirty dishes after dinner.
Freedom smelled like jasmine and vanilla: the new air freshener she had bought online with a bunch of other cleaning tools like those dishwashing gloves that had a sponge on their palms or the robot vacuum cleaner she had gotten for graduation from her mom.
Konan was contemplating whether she should have tried to get that nasty stain out of their old couch or given a try to convince the other student to buy a new one when she heard the unmistakable beeping sound of the front door. She stood up from the floor with a cleaning cloth in her hands and let her gaze linger on the guy who walked into the living room with his shoes.
‘Hey! I just finished sweeping the floor. Could you not come further inside until you put on your house slippers?’ She asked with a friendly smile, determined to not jump on conclusions because of one tiny mistake. Maybe he was too preoccupied with his bags. Maybe he was too tired from commuting.
If Konan wanted to be honest, she was already terrified that this guy would turn out to be just like her brother, but it was still too early to freak out, right? And way too late to look for another apartment as she had already signed the papers the landlord had shoved into her face. She should have known she should have waited until the ahjussi found another tenant, but in her defense, she had been slowly running out of options and Mr. Kim had promised her that all of his tenants were students. It had been supposed to be a great deal.
‘Are you a 99-liner, too? We can speak informally if that’s okay with you,’ Konan proposed because even though she had lived in Seoul since she had turned nine, she still had minor problems with the politeness levels. She felt the most confident and comfortable when she could speak informally to people. ‘I mean, because we will see each other a lot from now on. But obviously, no pressure,’ she objected immediately in case she had come off as too pushy. She wished to leave a good first impression on this guy so that he would have been more willing later when she brought up their house rules. Because they definitely needed house rules.
Every harmonious household needed house rules. And she had enough of living in chaos. She hadn’t worked at ice cream shops and delivered milk at dawn in her old neighborhood to not live in peace once she had moved out.

sleeping at least

ft Conan (?)let's get along well!

Study Consumer Science at SNU, they said. It's going to be fun, they said.
It would be nice to quote it like that, but well... It wasn't actually how it happened. Not to say that my life is super complicated, but how I've gotten here was more of an equation strategically put together by my parents than anything I could have come up with with that brain of mine. I'm not exactly stupid, but I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer either. So because my mom is an SNU alumni, and she's a firm believer that education is a make or break in a youngster's life, SNU has always been the no. 1 uni I was going to strive for. However, the part where I've inherited my mother's eye for detail or my father's love for numbers somehow got lost in the sea of life... aka I haven't inherited either. I'm more often than not all over the place, and the only reason I can go near any sinus or cosinus is because of my beloved prep classes after school. Beloved is ironic, of course.
So with my above average yet still not good enough grades, it seemed for a while that I might not make it into SNU to my mother's greatest dissatisfaction. That's why they've come up with an emergency plan (well, I like to call it that because I like being dramatic, but they didn't call it like that... they've called it a new plan in the most boring way possible) that consisted of looking through the accepted students per number of applicants ratio in every SNU BA major, and stumbled across Consumer Science. Consumer Science has quite a low number of applicants, so getting in isn't that difficult. It's a fairly new major, and it's somewhere between Business, Psychology and Analytics, so students usually go for either of the three, not CS.
Consequently, consider me lucky because I've finally seemed to stand a chance with my advanced Maths classes even though I wasn't so sure about neither the Psychology, nor the Analytics part of it. However, I didn't even need to worry about that because my mother put together a list of answers I could use for my interview for SNU, and somehow those big words - "the only way to conduct an efficient marketing campaign is through the analysis of the core needs, weaknesses and beliefs of a buyer persona" and "no matter how we look at it, the consumers' choice is encoded into their DNA, so if we know how to find the pattern, we know how to satisfy their needs" - seemed to help. I've made it. I've really made it.
Instead of a big celebration though, I'm ultimately left alone with the consequence: getting to SNU on my own, moving into my new flat with a flatmate (probably American and hopefully future bro Conan) and starting my Adult life. Because yeah, my mom said that now that she has worked so hard to get me into SNU (hey, I've had my fair share of struggles), she won't hold my hand, but instead, she will let me live my way. Well, I would have appreciated a bit more help with the Seoul transportation system or more info about how crowded trains can be when it comes to the Ilsan-Seoul line (because I've only travelled by car so far), but I'll get there. I believe in myself.
This is my mantra on my way to the exact address of my new home, and don't tell anyone that I've gotten lost a few times already, but here I am, in front of the door, ready to start a new chapter with my future bro, Conan. It can't get worse from here, right?
However, as soon as I step inside, there are two things that take me aback: that there's a girl CLEANING the flat and that she asks me to not come in further until I put on my house slippers. Well, I haven't realised that I would need to open my suitcase first things first to have my slippers out or that we have a cleaner/Conan's girlfriend (?) to clean the flat before I arrive.
"Hey! Yeah, sure, good thing my mom bought a pair for me," I let out a chuckle, trying to clear the tension in the air as I get my backpack off, get out of my shoes and throw them onto the shoe rack before opening one of my suitcases (I have two) to get my slippers out. I hope she's not shy to see a few of my underwear peeking out, but hey, she was the one who asked me for my slippers. I can't get them out without rumming through my suitcase.
When I finally put on my slippers and start closing the suitcase, the girl suggest speaking informally considering that we might the same liners and that we might see each other more.
"Oh yeah, I'm a 99-liner too, so we can speak informally," I give in because I don't sweat the small stuff. It's fine with me if things aren't awkward with my future bro's girlfriend. "So uhm... No one else is here right now? Is your boyfriend coming later?" I ask casually as I'm holding onto the now closed suitcase's handle, ready to put them into my room if I get to know which one is mine. As I'm looking over the amount of baggage I have, I'm reminded of another thing:
"Oh, and I've brought some kimchi. My mom sent some with me, but I don't know whether you guys like it. But it's free real estate, so help yourselves if you want," I suggest with a wide smile, trying to be as friendly as possible. I mean, my mother has packed way too much for one person, considering that I plan to eat out as well and not have all my meals and side dishes here, and it always seems friendly if you're willing to share your food, right? So why does she look so weirded out?

resumen

hope you like it *-*

bettyleg

i'm a mess for your love

seungmin ÷ konan

Konan was relieved to realize that the boy - her flatmate of minimum two semesters - was at least willing to put on his house slippers when he was reminded of them even if he seemed a tad bit disorganized with the way he had seemingly no idea in which suitcase he had put them when he had packed them. To be fair, both of his suitcases had the same color and design, but on the other hand, he kept his slippers close to his clean underwear so… it was hard to come to a correct conclusion about his habits.
It obviously wasn’t the first time the girl had seen a man’s underwear. She had come across her father and brother’s boxers all the time at home when she had been doing the laundry and she had also seen her previous boyfriends’ underwear when things had gotten a little heated, but this time, it was different. When she turned her head away, she turned it away because she thought they weren’t that close with the boy; thus, she didn’t want to invade his personal space even though he basically shoved them in her face with the way he carelessly rummaged in his suitcases.
Konan let out another soundless, relieved sigh when the boy put his suitcases away and gave her the permission to speak to him informally. It definitely eased the slight awkwardness in the air. Though, his weird question about her boyfriend soon brought it back.
‘As far as I know, it’s just the two of us. And I don’t really have a boyfriend at the moment so it will be only the two of us. Not that I would let him move in. I hope you don’t plan to bring over your girlfriend too frequently, either,’ she said with a hopeful smile on her face because even if their home was relatively big - at least compared to most flats she had checked out - with two bedrooms, one small bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen that had an indoor window to the living room with a counter on the living room’s side for eating like in those restaurants and coffee shops where one could sit down facing the window to the busy street, it wasn’t for three people.
Obviously, the girl wasn’t against love. However, if he planned to bring his girlfriend over more than once a week, she should have chipped in their living expenses. She should have paid for her own food and used her own shower gel because Konan didn’t plan to buy herself a new one in each month because of an extra tenant.
It was the boy’s offer and the word “kimchi” that brought the girl back to the present. And as soon as her gaze fell on the boy’s face, her eyes widened in shock, though she believed she did a pretty good job with concealing her displeasure when she eventually spoke up.
‘Ohm… thanks,’ she started, since she couldn’t have possibly made comments on the smell of kimchi when it was his mom’s kimchi. Even if the strong smell of kimchi was a pain in the ass to get rid of. ‘I put my stuff on the upper shelves in the fridge but if you’re okay with sharing food, I can reorganize everything so that the same type of products get on the same shelves. It helps with prolonging their expiration,’ she offered with a short explanation, not finding the extra work a hassle at all as they would both benefit from it in the long run if they didn’t keep their food separately. She also liked organizing things a lot. It always helped her de-stress. And when it didn’t, Konan had a three-step stress relieving method that had never failed her: the horror movie-karaoke room-soju combo.
It didn’t take long for Konan to realize that now that they were talking about the fridge, it was the perfect time to bring up the other house rules, so she jumped on the opportunity:
‘The bedroom on the left is still empty. I’ve been thinking that we could set some house rules once you get comfy and unpacked your suitcases. Until then, I’ll finish up the living room,’ she offered as she still had a nasty stain to get rid of. She could also reorganize the fridge if he needed more time. The Sun might have already set, but it wasn’t that late actually. It was just that the nights were longer in winter.
Konan stayed still though until the boy disappeared behind his bedroom’s door because she couldn’t have been sure whether he had other questions or other plans for their first night. Like how she wanted to clean the house thoroughly before the orientation week started. She knew they wouldn’t have too much time for this once university started for real. Still, she hoped they could work out a system with the boy that helped them not only avoid living in dirt, but also sharing the tasks.

sleeping at least

ft Conan (?)let's get along well!

My Adult Life started at packing my suitcases. At first, it seemed like an impossible task. Then, mom asked me to bring some kimchi and share it with my future flatmate, so it seemed even more of an impossible task. I’m a tech-savvy kid though and I know how to use the internet, so of course I’ve looked up some packing hacks, and despite the mess that I started with, I ended up bringing only two full suitcases and a backpack. My dad snorted that I looked like I had packed my whole room, but well, he wasn’t that far from the truth.
However, the packing hacks didn’t mention having to get your slippers out first things first, so I’m a bit dumbfounded, but I try to be cooperative because it’s good to get along well with your flatmate’s girlfriend, right? Plus, mom always makes a fuss about walking into rooms after sweeping the floor, so it’s not like I’m not used to it.
So I try to drop her a friendly smile before I crouch down to open one of my suitcases and after rummaging through its content, I put on my slippers. I’m so content that it almost slips my attention that my underwear is peeking out, but hey, I hope she’s not awkward with this. I mean, I guess she wouldn’t be because she has a boyfriend! It’s all cool, right? She even suggests speaking informally, so of course it has to be all cool. And it’s cool if I ask about her boyfriend, right? We would see each other more often if my flatmate decided to have her here and she cleaned the flat on her own, right?
When she explains that she doesn’t have a boyfriend though, I’m a bit confused. Okaaay, so they are not at that stage to call each other girlfriend and boyfriend? Or is she his relative? Perhaps, she is actually a cleaning lady? I’m so damn confused, but when she mentions that she hopes I wouldn’t bring any girlfriend home, it makes me feel so offended that my previous confusion turns into mumbling.
“Oh my god, no, of course not! That would be weird, right? I mean… Not that it would be weird if you got here with your boyfriend, that’s fine with me, but since you’ve mentioned that you wouldn’t like that on my part and I think it would be a bit awkward having a possible girlfriend over which I currently don’t have, we would respect your privacy. For sure,” I justify before she could misunderstand anything. It’s my first time living together with others apart from my family, so I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone. I hope not, to be honest, but this whole co-living thing is brand new to me.
Speaking of which, I’m reminded of my mother’s words, and let the girl know that I have some kimchi my mother has prepared. She immediately mentions that she has already organised the fridge, and wow, I didn’t think that she would do so. Especially considering that she might not even be my flatmate’s girlfriend? At least, not yet.
“That’s cool with me. We can share food, I’ve been sharing food with my family all my life, so that’s nothing new,” I let out a playful laugh, but it does sound a bit weird - as if I was suggesting that she didn’t do so and that she’s in the family-zone now (is that a thing?) -, so I concentrate on zipping up my suitcase yet again. The girl takes this opportunity to suggest setting some house roles, and yet again, it makes me wonder just who she is. Do we have a third flatmate? But then, she points me in the direction of my bedroom, and she’s set on finishing up the cleaning in the living room, so I let her while I unpack in my room instead.
Once I manage to sort my stuff into semi-decent masses on the shelves (and judging by the lack of sound in the living room, I think I’m good to go out), I make my way to the living room.
“Okay, let’s set the house rules then!” I clap my hands enthusiastically, smiling from ear to ear as I plop down on the couch. “However, I do have one question before that. Who are you exactly? I was told that I would be living with a certain Conan. Isn’t he some American guy on an exchange program? Are you perhaps our third flatmate? Oh, and I’m Bae Seungmin, by the way,” I don’t fail to introduce myself before I forget to do so (my mother has taught me how to be polite after all). And before she could think that I’m someone else entirely. Maybe she thinks that I’m actually Conan!

resumen

hope you like it *-*

bettyleg

i'm a mess for your love

seungmin ÷ konan

The girl didn’t want to judge her first ever roommate’s characteristics before she could have gotten to know him better, but it was still weird how panicky he got when the girlfriend topic - the same topic he had brought up so casually - came up. On a more positive note, however, he was quick to admit that he didn’t have a girlfriend who could have hung out at their place shamelessly frequently, which was good. That could have triggered some nasty and unwanted fights between them and Konan wished to avoid coming home from school to an ongoing war as long as it was possible when one chose to move in with a stranger.
‘Uhm… okay, thank you. I would respect your privacy, too, if I had a boyfriend over or friends for that matter,’ the girl stated, making a mental note to ask for his kkt id later, when he already made himself comfortable, so that they could warn each other when they brought someone over. She obviously wouldn’t have been against mixing their friend groups, either. She just didn’t want to walk out of her room in comfortable clothes to a bunch of strangers.
Konan was lost in her thoughts, picturing dreadful scenarios in which she couldn’t fall asleep before an important exam because of her flatmate’s noisy friends when the boy’s voice pulled her back to the present. That and the mention of kimchi that his mother had sent to them both. At least, he talked about the homemade side dish as though he intended to share it with her and use it to befriend her with the help of the most common thing complete strangers could talk about: food.
The thought of the latter almost made the girl forget about how strong its smell was and how hard it was to get rid of it in general. Almost. Still, she refrained from making a comment on it and offered to reorganize their fridge in case he was okay with sharing other kinds of food, too.
‘Okay then. I’ll make some space for your kimchi in the lower compartment,’ she promised. Truth to be told, Konan had always shared their food with her family, too. Actually, she had thought everyone did that, but fine. Maybe he knew people who didn’t and his laugh was so awkward and weird because he found their habit a bit odd, too.
Thus, instead of thinking too much into his giggles, she informed him about the empty room on the left and got back to cleaning once he disappeared behind the door. The boy took a bit of time unpacking, but it was just enough for Konan to finish the couch and reorganize the shelves in the fridge like she had promised - admittedly, their fridge was still kind of empty, so she made another mental note to do the groceries on her way home from the first day of the orientation week. Maybe, they could have shopped together if they had finished around the same time. She would definitely ask him about this.
The boy seemed genuinely excited about the house rules when he sat down on the couch and it made Konan smile subtly. However, when Seungmin asked her about who she was and whether she was the third roommate, that smile disappeared immediately because she had already told him there would be only the two of them here, which meant he wasn’t too good at remembering and/or listening. Massive bad news.
‘Well, hi Bae Seungmin,’ she started, making an effort to not frown. ‘I’m Itomaki Konan with a K. And as you can see, I’m not American or a guy. My name is actually Japanese, because I’m Japanese. And I’m not an exchange student, either. My family moved here years ago,’ she informed him, wondering whether with her neutral voice, she had come off a bit rude or offended. Still, before she told him, she wasn’t super angry with him for mistaking her for a man, she needed to ask: ‘Is it a problem? That I’m not a dude?’ Because he could have easily been one of those conservative guys who thought badly of women who lived with men they weren’t married to and that would have been a disaster.
Was this why he had asked her about her boyfriend?
Waiting for his answer, Konan tried not to panic. No matter how much she would have loved to ease her nerves by talking about those rules they had planned to set, she had to make sure he wouldn’t have thrown a man tantrum as soon as she proposed he should have done some of the house chores, too. Hell, she hoped he wouldn’t have.
She prayed he wouldn’t have.

sleeping at least

ft Conan (?)let's get along well!

I guess all is well if we set our rules and inhibitions first things first because after all, we aren’t family members who have seen each other in diapers, so that nothing would be awkward at this phase of our life. I consider myself a pretty casual guy, but alas, I’m also the kind of person who could be really surprised by certain things and make everything suuuper duper awkward as a result, so it’s better if we talk about such things beforehand.
“Okay, that’s cool with me,” so I nod to her words when she also mentions that she wouldn’t be against me taking a girlfriend home if I had any. Not that I have any at the moment, and I make that very clear, but also, it doesn’t slip my attention that she shares not having a boyfriend which just confuses my last two brain cells that I haven’t lost while dealing with the brand new transportation system here. So isn’t she Conan’s girlfriend? Now that makes me feel like I’m in a detective story, trying to put together who’s who and how everyone’s connected. I hope I’m not the ‘you didn’t connect shit’ part of that famous meme because that would be awkward.
However, before I forget, I have to bring up the kimchi my mother has sent with me, and when the girl promises to make some space for my stuff too, I thank her with a wide smile. Huh, maybe this living together thing is actually going well for me, I think as I make my way to my assigned bedroom to pack out while the girl is taking care of the rest of the cleaning. Since I’m too busy with my suitcases and I can’t multitask for the life of me because my attention span is close to a fish’s, the question about the girl’s identity doesn’t come to my mind until I go back to the living room. There though, before we would get too into our setting rules session, I can’t help but ask about who she is, and how she is connected to Conan.
I must confess that I’ve encountered many awkward situations in my life, but actually learning that SHE is Conan and Konan with a K, I think I’ve just managed to top my previous awkward moments (which is difficult because my teen years were full of embarrassing moments, your boy was sometimes a bit too oblivious, sometimes a bit too chatty, sometimes a bit too nosy…). My jaw literally drops, and I find it hard to form any coherent words because wow, just WOW. That, I definitely didn’t see coming.
Konan with a K takes my silence as a bad sign though, and asks whether it’s a problem that she’s not a dude. Oh my god, now that she asks about it like that, it really does seem like I've made her feel very uncomfortable with my silence?
“No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just… wow… I’m so stupid. I really didn’t double-check who this Konan might be, I’ve just assumed so based on the name. I’m so sorry. I’m not really familiar with Japanese names, but I guess you can already tell,” I try to laugh it off with a semi-awkward smile, then clear my throat to appear a bit more serious. “So I hope you don’t take this personally. It’s totally on me, I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable by my mistake,” I add before she could hate me for the rest of our living together situation, and I would need to walk on eggshells around her.
I don’t let the silence stretch too long because I don’t really do well with awkward silences, so I try to speak up as soon as possible, yet I still wait for her answer if she feels like adding something to my words.
“So uhmm… anyways, now that we’ve cleared that up, how about those rules? I assume you’ve been here first, so you’ve settled in already, hence you have the right to set the first rules. Like if you have a preference for no loud noise after 9pm or how many times we should take out the trash or how we should manage the household chores, fire away,” I tell her with a friendly smile, hoping that we can get over the previous embarrassment.
It would be sooo bad if she held a grudge over me mistaking her name for an American guy’s. I would rather dig my own grave than live with her anger for the rest of our time here. At least until the end of our contract because there’s no way I would go back on this flat after how much my parents have searched for it.

resumen

hope you like it *-*

bettyleg

i'm a mess for your love

seungmin ÷ konan

The girl would have never thought that an introduction between flatmates could have turned the atmosphere so heavy, but it was also true that she would have never - not even in her most ridiculous dreams - assumed that the person she was willingly spending her first uni year with would have mistaken her with a boy. Shouldn’t he have been aware at least this much? Sure, she hadn’t known his name, either, until he had told her, but what had he been thinking? That she had barged into their apartment with this American guy he was hallucinating living with and cleaned their entire place out of the goodwill of her heart? She might have liked tidiness, but she wasn’t crazy!
Trying to prioritise the problems, Konan decided to ask Bae Seungmin whether he had any problem with her gender first, because his answer could have determined her attitude towards him as a person in general (and a flatmate, of course). If he had hated that she was a girl, she wouldn’t have gotten into unnecessary fights about house chores and such, but made sure to avoid him and his surroundings at all cost (costs like the girl’s poor sanity that would have definitely suffered some damage if she had needed to resist the urge to pick up the discarded clothes after him in the living room). She refused to be his maid, but she hoped he didn’t need one to begin with.
Seungmin’s lengthy monologue and awkward laugh were… oh boi! But at least, he wasn’t upset with her for something she couldn’t have done anything about anyway. It was a small albeit firm step in the right direction. Even more so, when he admitted that he was at fault, because this meant that he was at least self-aware. That was always a good thing.
‘I guess, since you admitted it was your mistake, it’s okay. I’m not offended or anything, it’s just… are you always this careless? It could get you into a lot of trouble in the future and as your flatmate, I would rather not deal with the consequences,’ Konan claimed with a pained frown before she quickly bit into her lower lip to keep herself from telling more. Goodness! It seemed she was too used to scolding her little brother for acting so immature to not get into full big sister mode while talking to someone like him. ‘What I’m meaning to say is… maybe it’s better if I handle the bills. After all, no one wants to come home for no electricity, right?’ She tried to correct herself, unsure whether her addition helped at all.
The Japanese girl hoped her smile made her own ramble less offensive, but even if it did, the awkward silence was rapidly stretching longer and longer, which was obviously the opposite of what she wanted.
When Seungmin broke it with his suggestion to talk about the house rules, the topic he chose earned a genuine smile from the girl. She clapped her hands in excitement and nodded at him while he was getting into another ramble. Oh. Truth to tell, Konan didn’t think she had more right to set rules first just because she had arrived at their new home sooner, but whatever he wanted. She wasn’t about to complain.
‘Let’s say no loud noises after 11PM in general and no loud noises at all during midterms and finals,’ she negotiated and if her flatmate was okay with her suggestion, Konan asked for a minute and walked into her room to grab two pieces of paper and a pen.
If Seungmin was confused - he did look like the type who was frequently confused - the girl explained to him that she was about to jot down the house rules so that they could have put it on the fridge’s door, then hovered over the paper and did just that.
‘I’ve already asked around and it seems they come for the plastic waste on Saturdays, while they take the paper and metal waste on Wednesdays, so we should calculate with these. Oh! And they take care of the general waste on Mondays, so that’s for that,’ she explained while she drew a table on the second paper that contained all the house chores she could think of and their names. ‘Is there any chores you would skip on? Then, you can have one all the time in exchange,’ she offered before she beckoned the boy closer, so that he could have read her small handwriting better.
Once these were out of the way, Konan jotted down a few other rules they agreed on like how they should always warn each other before inviting someone over, then looked at the paper from a new angle, satisfied with the progress they made. And they made it so smoothly! This whole living together thing looked so much more promising suddenly!
‘When will you finish tomorrow? Do you want to do the grocery shopping together?’ She looked up at the boy from where she was sitting, raising a brow in curiosity. Of course, she would have been fine doing it alone as well, but he was so co-operative! She didn’t want to lose the flow. Not to mention that it never hurt to ask. ‘Speaking of, should we have a jar in which we put the exact amount of money every month for these things or you’re okay with spending money unequally on things we share with each other?’
For her, it was fine either way until it wasn’t her who did the grocery shopping all the time or the one who refilled their necessities in the bathroom over and over from her own money. She could be a responsible flatmate, but she wasn’t a pushover nor his mommy.

sleeping at least

ft Conan (?)let's get along well!

I mean, Konan with a K has every right to be mad at me, but it seems that she assumes that just because I didn’t know she would be a girl, I’ll get her into trouble which is just so not true. At least, I don’t think she should be that afraid of such things, so I try to make myself clear as well:
“Yeah, I can be, but I don’t think you’ll have to suffer its consequences. If I spill something, I’ll clean it up. If I break something, I’ll call someone to fix it. I know I can be careless, but I’m not helpless. I guess that’s better than nothing,” I ramble like a kid, and I know it sounds an awful lot like an excuse, but hey, we don’t even have to talk to each other if she doesn’t want to.
“Isn’t that something that we pay with the rent? At least, my parents said it would be like that. Electricity, wifi and such amenities are included in the rent,” I speak up once the girl mentions that she should probably be the one who pays the bills because I’m “so careless”. At this point, I’m not even sure I know this right, especially with the girl’s glare, but that’s what I remember… She isn’t the owner, is she? My parents didn’t say that I would live together with the owner, but even if she is related to the owner, my parents wired the deposit to the owner before moving in and they would do so with the monthly rent as well, so if they were her parents for instance, then sure, I can ask my parents to send the money to her.
No wonder I’m suuuper glad when we can move on from all the confusion because my head already hurts with all the information. It doesn’t ease either when we set the house rules, but at least we can agree on a lot of things - such as no loud noise after 11pm and splitting chores -, but when it comes a certain activity I would like to do or avoid, I merely shrug my shoulders.
“Truth to be told, I haven’t really done any cleaning at home, but I can give it a try. I can be pretty determined when I put my mind to something, so I’m sure I can clean out even the toilet well if I want to. Well, I assume not as well as you though,” I let out a semi-nervous giggle when I remember how she was already cleaning when I arrived. She looks like the type who knows all of these cool cleaning products and items, and she does clean on a regular basis. Me on the other hand? Not so much.
After putting together a list, suddenly, I don’t know why she asks when I’ll finish tomorrow, but once she brings up grocery shopping, I realise.
“Oh, I don’t actually know. I need to go to the campus to get some paperwork done, and there’s a time slot for that, but I don’t know how long it will take. We can go shopping after 6pm though, I will surely finish by that,” I tell her as precisely as I can because honestly, I haven’t thought that far. Same goes for the money we spend on the things we share together such as toilet paper and soap. “Oh, a jar is a good idea! We can put in the same amount every month or every two weeks, and the one who buys some stuff that we share can use it up,” I nod fervently as if I understood the assignment, but I think I did. Finally, something that I did right!
“Is there anything else you think we should agree on? If not, I’ve promised my parents to call them when I settle in,” I let her know with a giddy smile because honestly, I can’t wait to tell them how embarrassing it was that I thought Konan would be a guy, and she did turn out to be a girl! Like how is that possible?

resumen

hope you like it *-*

bettyleg

i'm a mess for your love

seungmin ÷ konan

Konan wasn’t sure whether her scolding had offended Bae Seungmin or not, but listening to his nervous ramble, how he felt the need to explain himself or prove himself capable in some way, she had the distant feeling that she might have been too hard on him. Not compared to how she was with her brother for example, but how he must have been treated at home by his parents. Could it have been that the boy had never been scolded before? Nah, that was pretty unlikely, right? Yeah, pretty unlikely. Still… should she have apologised? Would doing so have made things more awkward? After all, if he didn’t need her apology, it might have come out weird. Thus, she decided to acknowledge his ramble with a nod instead, waiting out whether his promises were empty or he would indeed fix those things he might have messed up in the future unintentionally. If Bae Seungmin really wasn’t helpless, that was more than good. That was manageable.
Konan could work with manageable.
The Japanese girl furrowed her eyebrows when her flatmate brought up (correctly) that the electricity bill was part of the rent they paid for the owner. Well, he was absolutely right about this detail. She had just thought that he would pay for the rent with his own money like she did - now, she wasn’t so sure anymore -, so it would have been wiser if she had kept the due dates in mind for him as well.
‘Yeah, I mean… the electricity bill is part of the rent money. I just meant, you know, if you forgot to send over the rent money, that might mean some of the bills won’t be paid in time,’ Konan explained, suddenly feeling really awkward about her previous comment. Gosh. Why was she making all these assumptions based on her first impression of him? She should have just shut up at this point and let it go. So what if he had been clearly clumsy and careless, she wasn’t his mother. It shouldn’t have mattered to her, she wasn’t responsible for his part of the rent. Joking about it clearly had been a wrong way to lighten up the mood.
If Bae Seungmin had told her that his part of the rent was paid by his parents, so she shouldn’t have been worried, she just nodded; and so she would have reacted the same if he had promised to pay extra attention to the due dates.
Luckily, setting the house rules was easier. They agreed on many things without any groans or complaints. Though, when he had admitted that he hadn’t done any cleaning at home, the news was as concerning as unexpected. Had he really, really hadn’t helped at home with the house chores before? Jeez. But at least, he looked determined to do a good job now. Even if his comment about her being better at cleaning was weird. She genuinely hoped he didn’t try to flatter her and make her do everything just because she was so much better like how her brother would have done. He was such a cunning pain in the ass.
Also… why did Bae Seungmin’s giggles sound so pained? He was so weird.
‘Oh-kay. Then we could maybe split the chores in two groups and one of us could do the first group in the first week, then the second group in the next one. Vica versa,’ she offered and quickly jotted down their names in the table she had drawn for the chores. She also tried her best to pair up house chores with each other that complemented each other instead of one of them dying from exhaustion each week because of the wrongly-balanced grouping. ‘And maybe I could show you how to do certain chores in the right way at first. For example, how to clean the bathroom or how much dishwasher gel to use when washing the dishes.’
Once this matter was out of the way, Konan decided to ask her flatmate about the grocery shopping as well, since they were working together really well so far and she didn’t want to lose the momentum.
‘Okay, after 6 PM is fine with me,’ she agreed easily, making sure that they discussed where to meet and how to cover the expenses for things they would both use in the household before she tidied up the papers she had written on.
She was in the middle of contemplating whether she should have put her timetable on the fridge’s door as well along with her shift schedule at her part-time job, when the boy asked her whether there were other things they should have discussed and she shook her head.
‘Hm, I don’t think so. We pretty much covered the basics,’ she said with a genuine smile. ‘I’ll put these on the fridge’s door. Then, I’ll be in my room if you need me,’ she informed him and got up from the couch, ready to walk into the kitchen.
Konan planned to tidy up her room first before she would have ordered something to eat, then she wanted to have an anime marathon as she was fairly sure she wouldn’t have time for such things in the near future, most probably until summer break. She couldn’t believe her first ever uni semester was about to begin. Insane.

» day 62 of living together: midterm period