Can't Follow Instructions

The box landed in the middle of the apartment with a heavy thud that echoed through the living room. IU stared down at it suspiciously.

The picture printed on the cardboard showed a perfectly staged wooden dining table decorated with candles, flowers, and a bowl of fruit that looked aggressively fake.

Y/n crouched beside the box, already excited. “See? Easy.”

IU didn’t move. “That table looks like it was assembled by professionals with engineering degrees.”

“It’s literally four legs and a flat surface.”

“That sentence is exactly why I don’t trust you.” 

He ignored her and sliced the tape open with his keys. The cardboard flaps sprang apart dramatically. And immediately revealed approximately one thousand pieces of wood. (Not really, but it looks like it)

IU blinked slowly. “Why are there so many parts?”

Y/n picked up the instruction booklet. It unfolded once. Twice. Three times. “…Okay,” he admitted. “That’s excessive.”

IU folded her arms. “We should’ve paid for assembly.”

“And let strangers rob us of this bonding experience?”

“Yes.”

He laughed and started pulling pieces from the box anyway, laying them across the carpet in messy piles. Wooden boards covered half the living room within minutes.

The apartment already looked chaotic from moving in together two weeks earlier. There were still unopened kitchen boxes near the wall, hoodies draped over chairs, and random cables neither of them claimed ownership of.

Adding furniture parts into the disaster somehow made it look worse.

IU sat cross-legged on the floor with the instructions in her lap. “Okay. We need panel A, screws labeled three, and the short brackets.” Y/n grabbed a board confidently. “Wrong one,” she said immediately.

He frowned. “You didn’t even look up.”

“The labels are colour-coded.”

“…Oh.” She smirked slightly. That annoyed him more than it should have.

For the first half hour, things went surprisingly smoothly.

IU organised every piece neatly into categories while Y/n handled the actual building. Or attempted to. “Can you hold this?” he asked.

IU grabbed one side of the table frame while he tried attaching the support beam underneath.

The second she let go, the entire thing collapsed sideways with a violent clatter. Both of them jumped.

Y/n stared at the fallen wood. “That felt unnecessary.”

IU looked at him flatly. “You didn’t screw it in.”

“I was about to screw it in.”

“You said hold it, not perform a miracle.” He snorted a laugh and reached for the screwdriver again.

wenty minutes later, the mood shifted completely. Mostly because Y/n had quietly stopped following the instructions.

At first IU didn’t notice. She was sitting cross-legged on the carpet with the booklet spread across her lap, carefully separating screws into little groups while occasionally reading out directions for him.

“Okay,” she said absently, tracing a finger along the page. “Now attach support beam C to the inner left side before tightening the–”

A loud clunk interrupted her. 

IU looked up. Y/n was already halfway through attaching an entirely different piece. Her eyes narrowed immediately. “…What are you doing?”

Without looking up, he answered, “Building the table.”

“That is not the next step.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, it literally isn’t.”

“It felt right.”

IU stared at him for a long moment. “You’re not reading the instructions anymore, are you?”

Y/n finally glanced up with the kind of confidence possessed exclusively by people about to make terrible decisions. “I don’t need them anymore.”

IU blinked slowly. “Excuse me?”

“I understand the vision now.”

“The vision?”

“Yeah.” He gestured vaguely at the scattered wood around them. “You know. The structural narrative.”

“The structural– what does that even mean?”

“It means I’ve evolved beyond the booklet.”

IU lowered the instructions into her lap very carefully, like she was trying not to start a fight. “You skipped a step,” she said.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You definitely did. Like 5 of them”

“I’m using intuition.”

“You cannot freestyle a table.”