After how the night ended last time, the talkative Hanako had been unusually quiet. On occation he'd frown or scoff at seemingly nothing. Instead of sleeping like he usually does in class, he had been staring absentmindedly on the table or the window. Whenever he sees a splash of blue in his peripheral vision that could potentially be accompanies by long black hair, Hanako looked around or turned his head away.
He didn't know why he had to feel bad when all he said was the truth. But boy was it annoying to be unable to do anything without the memories of his and Eun-ji's conversation repeating in his head. She had said what he wanted to hear, but why did it take her so friggin long to say it? It was like it was hard for her to say it.
" Sometimes, questions that seem easiest to answer to you, might be difficult for the other person.” he could still recall her voice arguing.
But that was the confusing thing…. just what about it made it difficult? It was like each word she said had a deeper meaning Hanako couldn't grasp. Did he even want to? Should he?
Then there were the bits of self-depracation that made his chest ache to remember.
“As if you would waste your precious time on me…”
“Well…I’m not being much fun, am I?”
Those words… he wanted to say was more like a direct attack at his ability of being a distracter. This was the opposite of what their arrangement was supposed to do. Distracting eachother. They both clearly had some things they didn't was to allow to the surface. But … why had he pressed her so much? It was like the stress and agitation from the night just bubbled up. Was she wondering about his behavior as much as he was? What went wrong in their arrangement that they allowed that to happen. Eun-ji was smart, even propposing to leave early. Hanako wasn't confident if she hasn't done that, he would've stopped his mouth. A prickly fire in him that was unidentified likely wouldn't have let him. He might've pushed, prodded, like he wanted to punish her. For making him so uneasy. That was teh scariest part of it all.
Now they were in this sort of no-contact distance that was worse than before Jack started interferring with Hanako's relationships. This silent was heavy, burdensome, and …. scary. All the things they had implied they'd never have, and yet here they were.
Hanako started spiralling at some point after a full week passed. Already starting to think that this was a bad idea to continue. Should he just end it here? Before they might do something like this again? It was better than the silence that befell them. Some deeper part of him was… relunctant to give up now. And the excuses naturally rolled out of his brain from there. It was the party. It was late. It was that stupid ravenclaw boy. It was the drinks, the food , the planets in retrograde. Whatever. Hanako would have to take some sort of action. A reminder that that night was likely just a fluke, and things could go back to the way it was.
It had to, right?
On the morning during breakfast, 9 days after their fight, Eun-ji would receive a medium sized box by a normal school messenger owl. There was no address, nothing about where it was from. Only a badly drawn in atrocious handwriting
‘ TO EUN-JI LEE HUNT’ in what looked like a permanent marker on the top of the box. So really, she had all the reason to never open a suspicious box like this. But if she did, she would find an assortment of things inside that may or may not be familiar
Three small handheld tins. If she opened it, she may or may not recognise them by scent. But the packaging gives her a good idea what it is. Should be good for about 20 single servings each.
- Black tea
- Chamomile
- Lavender
Then, what looked like a hand weaved flowercrown. Flowers seemed freshed. As if they were just weaved yesterday evening.
And from there if she dug around more, she would find odder things.. Like a packet of instant tteokbokki and prawn crackers.
And then there was.. Something else in there.
nip, it seemed. And not even the normal one. Its those stick kinds that cats are supposed to chew on. Hanako thought they'd like- dunno - be less of a mess for Eun-Ji to clean up.
And only when she took everything out was there a closed envelope. Still no name. But perhaps to her relief, there is an evident clue to who this was from if she chose to open and inspect the 4 paper in the envelope. They looked to be handmade, but with careful care. If she inspected them closer, she may smell a familiar scent of lavender from the paper. As if someone sprayed perfume on them.
There would be 3 similar looking notes.
And another was... a little different.
Hanako of course, was not present during this time. In fact, after he packaged the thing to an owl this morning, he decided he was going to skip breakfast for a week at least. His stomatch would suffer a little but his pride will be saved. To an extent. He didn't know what Eun-ji would do with this in the end. Perhaps she'd realise she should just throw them all. That these are just ridiculously odd gifts to give someone out of the blue.
No his plan was rather simple. He'd send these- hope she got the message. And then test out her reaction by the brief glances they surely will give eachother when they are in class or pass by each other. Regardless, Hanako threw a ball in the court. And he hoped Eun-ji would see it, but not speak of it. That was what was the most comfortable with their relationship afterall.
Was it asshole of him to make this move, pretending nothing happened? Uhhhh - kinda. Yes. But what other options he had? Talk about it? That made his stomatch twist. Neither of them … had that sort of relationship.
Hanako was aware enough that he was fixing a broken boat with nothing but tape. It's going to sink eventually. But he could enjoy … the fun being with Eun-ji did bring, couldn't he? And if it eased the guilt in his chest, then that's just a bonus.
