The baddie pulled by being funny.

There's a theory — unverified, or probably verified, it’s mostly held together by group chat speculation and one very dramatic voice memo from your friend Seojun — that Jang Wonyoung is under some kind of influence.

Drugs, Alcohol, Weed — even though that’s also just drugs — Love Potions, Spells.

They think about what it could be, harder than most people should.

The evidence:

One, she laughs at you.

Not politely. Not the small, social laugh people do when they want to be nice. The real one — the one that makes her press the back of her hand to her mouth and look away like she's trying to collect herself.

Two, she does this consistently. Repeatedly. Without signs of developing immunity.

Three, you are, by all objective measures, not that funny.

No offense.

Seojun has said this to your face. Kindly, but to your face. Straight up eye to eye although you have to look up at him. "You're not — I mean — it's not that you're unfunny, it's more that what you say shouldn't work and then it does work on her for some reason and nobody can explain why."

You have no defense for this because you also don't know why.

Three months into dating Jang Wonyoung, you are still frequently confused about how you got here in the first place.

She is not confused. She finds your confusion funny, which is, as usual, something nobody can explain.

Part One: How It Started (It's Embarrassing and confusing.)

It was a convenience store.

This fucking author and Wonyoung and convenience stores.

That's the whole setup. No more elaborate than that.

You had gone in for ramyeon at nine-thirty on a Thursday night, and she had been in the snack aisle doing something with her phone, and you had reached past her for something on the same shelf and then both reached back at the same time and nearly knocked heads, and then made the obligatory apologetic eye contact.

Then you said, because your mouth moves faster than your brain, "Sorry — occupational hazard of being average height in a snack aisle."

She looked at you.

You looked back.

She blinked.

"Average…?," she asked tilting her head, her lips pressing into a thin line.

"Fine, no," you agreed with a sigh.

And she laughed. Short. Surprised. Like it got out before she checked it.

You have been chasing that sound ever since, which is the most embarrassing thing you've ever admitted to yourself.

And well with her sense of humor, not that hard.

You ran into her again four days later.

Same convenience store. Different aisle.

She saw you first.

"Occupational hazard," she said, without a greeting.

You stared at her. "Did you remember that."

"It was four days ago."

"It wasn't even a good joke."

"No," she said. "It really wasn't." She picked up whatever she'd been looking at and dropped it in her basket. "What are you getting this time?"

It turned into forty minutes standing in an aisle talking about nothing specifically — you still don't know what either of you bought that night — and then she went her way and you went yours and you spent the walk home cycling through the extremely rational thought process of that's it, that's the last time, I'll never see her again, followed immediately by maybe I should go to this convenience store more.

You went to that convenience store more.

She was not always there. She was there twice more in two weeks, which averages out to once a week, which is either fate or a very ordinary frequency of convenience store attendance.

You told Seojun about this.

Seojun said: "You're haunting a convenience store for a girl."

"It's on my way," you said.

"It is not on your way, Y/N. I know where you live."

You didn't respond to that.

"What's she like," Seojun said.

You thought about it. "Tall," you said.

"So basically out your league already"

"Rude…" It was lowkey the truth. "She’s also helpful."

"She’s just being nice"

"She laughs at things I say."

Seojun paused for approximately 12 seconds. "…What."

"I’m funny?" You confirmed. "Everyone laughs at me."

"And I have Hwang Yeji as a girlfriend, stop being delusional." Seojun looked at you for a second, face contorting in disgust. Looked away.

"You know damn well." he said.

He's been bringing it up regularly ever since. You wish you'd said nothing.

She texted first because you hadn't asked for her number and she had, apparently, decided that was inefficient.

She'd gotten it through a mutual acquaintance who she knew and you knew and who will not be named here but knows exactly who they are.

You should come to this thing on Saturday. It's low effort. [address]
it's Hyerin's place, you know her right
I do

is this a normal invitation or is there context I need

What kind of context?

I don't know, you texted me, you tell me

I texted you because it seemed like the thing to do

The context you need is that I invited you

that's not really an explanationIt is

okay

…”okay”?

Saturday.

I'll be there.

why aare you hesitating in chats?

aare

aare

aare

damn okay girl its a typo you nevwr got typos before

aare

nevwr

Yes, I have “nevwr” gotten typos before

I’m perfect

See you Saturday occupational hazard

yeah yeah

👍

You sat with your phone for approximately thirty seconds and then texted Seojun: she texted me first.

damn really?

whos your dealer of love potions

i gotta get some

fuck you actually

love you too

Hyerin's place.

Small gathering. Around six or seven-ish people. The kind of party where people sat in a circle and talked because it was too small to disappear into. You knew maybe three of them.

Wonyoung was already there when you arrived. She saw you from across the room, which was not a long distance because it was a small room, and did a small nod that communicated exactly one thing: you came.

You sat more or less in the same general zone of the circle. Not next to each other. Adjacent enough.

Someone made a comment about the music. Someone else commented on the snacks. Someone asked what everyone did and the circle went around and when it got to you you said "I work at a place that makes things" which was technically true and also told no one anything useful, and Wonyoung, from two seats over, made the face.

Not the laugh. The face that comes before it. The pressing-lips-together face. The I can't believe you actually said that face. That one ishowspeed face.

You had been collecting these without knowing what to do with them.

Later — much later, half the party is gone, the circle reorganized into smaller conversations — she was next to you on the couch.

"A place that makes things," she said.

"It's accurate."

"It's nothing."

"It's technically everything."

She looked at you sideways. And then, quietly, she said: "You're so strange."

"Is that bad?"

A pause.

"I don't know yet," she said. "I'll tell you when I figure it out."

Three weeks later she figured it out.

The verdict, delivered over text at eleven-something at night with no preamble:

Not bad.

???

That was it.

You saved the text. You haven't told anyone that.

Part Two: Present Day, Her Apartment, Sunday Afternoon

She's on the couch with her legs folded under her, doing something on her phone, and you're in her kitchen making the tea she asked for approximately fifteen minutes ago and haven't made yet because you got distracted by the fact that she has her mugs organized by color and you've been trying to decide what that means about her as a person.

"Is the tea ready," she calls.

"Getting there," you call back.

"You've been 'getting there' for ten minutes."

"Tea is a process."

"Boiling water is not a process."

You look at her mugs. Back at the kettle. "I'm just — your mugs are organized by color."

A pause.

"I know," she says, like this is not interesting.

"It's just very—"

"Y/N."

"—a very specific energy."

"The tea," she says.

You make the tea.

She takes it when you hand it to her without looking up from her phone, wraps both hands around it, and makes a small pleased sound that you receive as a personal victory even though all you did was boil water.

You sit on the other end of the couch.

She puts her feet in your lap without asking, which she does as a matter of course, which you have simply accepted as the natural order. You press your thumbs on her feet.

"What are you doing," you say.

"Scrolling."

"Scrolling what."

"Things."

"That's not really—"

"Y/N." She finally looks at you. "I'm resting."

"Okay," you say. "Sorry. Rest."

She looks at you for one more second with the particular expression of someone who is genuinely fond of you and also frequently cannot believe you. Then she goes back to her phone.

Her feet in your lap. Tea in her hands. Sunday moving slowly past the window.

You have done nothing useful today and it has been the best day of the week.

At some point you say: "If Sunday had a smell it would be old paper and something slightly burnt."

She looks up. "What."

"Like — you know when you leave something on the stove a second too long. That's Sunday."

"You said Sunday smells burnt."

"And like old paper."

"That's just a library that's on fire."

You open your mouth. "...That's actually exactly right."

She stares at you. Points at you slowly. "Don't — don't do that, don't make me feel like I said something good."

"You did though."

"I was correcting you."

"Correctly," you say, and she turns her face into the couch cushion and makes a muffled sound you choose to interpret as a laugh.

You count that one.

Seojun comes over at three because Seojun has no concept of the sanctity of a Sunday, which is a conversation you've had with him multiple times and which has produced zero results.

He walks in — you gave him the code to the building but not to the apartment, he figured out the code to the apartment, you've decided this is your own fault — and stops.

Looks at the couch situation.

You and Wonyoung have migrated at some point, arrangement unknown, and she is now sideways with her back against the armrest and you're leaned back against her, and her chin is doing that thing where it's resting on top of your head, which happens naturally when you're sitting because it is, as she has noted, right there.

"Hi," you say.

Seojun looks at you. Looks at Wonyoung.

Wonyoung regards him with the calm composure of someone who owns the couch.

"Wonyoung," he says.

"Seojun," she says.

"You're—" He gestures vaguely at the full situation. "I'm going to get water," he announces, and goes to the kitchen.

From the kitchen, a beat of silence.

"She has her mugs organized by color," he says.

"I know," you call back.

"That's a very specific—"

"Energy," Wonyoung says, at exactly the same time as you.

She glances down at the top of your head. You can't see her face but you've memorized enough of them at this point that you know which one it is.

Seojun emerges from the kitchen with water and the look of someone processing.

"I'm not going to say it," he says, sitting in the chair across from you.

"Say what," you say.

"The thing."

"What thing."

"You know the thing."

"Seojun," Wonyoung says pleasantly, "is the thing about the love potion?"

Seojun points at her. "He told you."

"He told me," she confirms.

A pause.

"Do you want to know the funny part," she says.

"I'm going to say no and then want to know anyway," says Seojun.

"He still doesn't know why I laughed at the occupational hazard thing." She says it conversationally, like she's talking about the weather.

"I was there for the aftermath of that," Seojun says. "He texted me at ten PM about a laugh."

"I did not text you about a laugh," you say.

"Verbatim—"

"Seojun—"

"'She laughed and I don't know why and I need to think about this.'"

Silence.

Wonyoung looks down at the top of your head.

"You texted about my laugh," she says.

"Seojun is misremembering."

"I have the screenshots, the evidence, screenrecord, matter of fact I have them printed out," Seojun says.

You say nothing.

"That's," Wonyoung says, and then doesn't finish the sentence.

"Is it bad," you say.

"No," she says. "It's — no."

She does the thing with your hair.

Seojun watches this happen and picks up his water. "Okay," he says. "I need to go."

"You just sat down," you say.

"I need to go," he says again, standing, "because I am watching something that should not statistically be happening and I need to process it privately."

"You're staying," you say.

"I'm going."

"Seojun, it's three in the afternoon—"

"The love potion is real," he says, pointing at both of you, and walks out.

The door shuts.

You and Wonyoung sit in the resulting quiet.

"Your friends," she says.

"My friends," you agree.

She makes dinner.

You help, which in practice means you stand slightly to her left and hand her things when she reaches for them, because you learned approximately two Sundays ago that her kitchen has a specific organizational logic that is not immediately apparent to outsiders and which, when disrupted, produces a very specific expression on her face that you prefer to avoid.

"Knife," she says.

You hand her the knife.

"Smaller one."

You swap it.

"This is like surgery," you say.

"It's chopping vegetables."

"There's a lot of concentration."

"There's the correct amount of concentration."

You watch her chop for a moment. "Do you know that you make a face when you're focused."

She doesn't look up. "I know."

"Like a little—"

"I know," she says. "I've been told."

"I think it's—"

"Y/N."

"—the best one."

A very brief pause in the chopping.

She doesn't say anything. She just continues chopping. But the face adjusts by approximately one degree in a direction that is hard to describe and that you have memorized.

You count that one differently. That one doesn't need a number.

"Okay," you say, while she's stirring something and you're leaning against the counter not helping, "I have a question."

"No."

"You don't know what it is."

"I do," she says. "It's going to be something."

"Something what."

"Something that you think is a normal question and is not a normal question."

You consider this. "The frequency with which you're right about me is actually alarming."

"Ask your question."

"If you could have one food for the rest of your life," you say, "but you had to eat it for every meal, including breakfast, what would it be?"

She stirs.

Stirs.

"Congee," she says.

"That's actually a good answer."

"What's yours."

"I don't have one," you say. "I just wanted to know yours."

She stops stirring.

Looks at you.

"You asked me a question you hadn't answered yourself."

"I was curious."

"You were—" She exhales. "You're impossible."

"I'm genuinely curious," you say. "I don't make it about me."

"That's either very thoughtful or very annoying."

"Can it be both."

"It already is," she says, and goes back to stirring, and you can see, from this angle, the edge of her trying not to smile.

Dinner happens.

Then the dishes, which you do because she cooked, which is a system you arrived at mutually without discussing it, which is the best kind of system.

Then the couch again. Different arrangement this time — she's lying down, you're at the other end, her feet by your knees.

She's put something on the TV. You're watching it with approximately forty percent of your attention.

"I looked it up," she says, out of nowhere.

"Looked what up."

"The occupational hazard thing. Average height and snack aisles." She pauses. "There's no connection."

"I know."

"I know you know. That's the part I still don't understand."

You look at the TV. "Which part."

"Why I laughed at it." She says it plainly. Genuinely curious in the way she gets sometimes, like she's running a calculation. "It wasn't actually that funny."

"I know."

"It wasn't even trying to be funny."

"I know."

"So why—" She stops.

You shrug. "I don't know either. I never know why you laugh at anything I say. I just say the thing and then you do. I keep trying to see the reason why."

Silence.

"Have you found one," she says.

"No," you say. "No consistent reason. I gave up last week."

Another pause.

"Good," she says, quiet. "I'd be boring if there was a reason."

You look at her. She's looking at the ceiling.

"You could never be boring," you say.

She moves her foot, nudges your knee once, lightly. The Wonyoung equivalent of an elaborate response.

You watch the TV.

Later, because it always moves toward later, she's sitting up against the armrest and you're horizontal and somehow your head is in her lap without either of you announcing that this is happening.

Her hand is in your hair.

The TV's still going. You're watching it about as well as you ever watch anything in this position.

"Wonyoung," you say.

"Mm?"

"Mommy."

The hand stops.

"Don't."

"Sorry," you say. A beat. "Mommy."

"Y/N," she says, with the energy of someone who has decided not to win this particular argument today.

"It's the hair thing," you say. "It does something. I lose about thirty percent brain reasoning capacity."

She resumes. "That's not my problem."

"It's your hand."

"I like your hair."

"So technically—"

"My hand," she says, "my choice, your problem."

You consider this. "Fair."

The TV keeps going. Her hand keeps going.

"You said the congee thing earlier," you say.

"I did."

"The right answer is actually ramen."

She looks down at you. "That's not how opinions work."

"Ramen has the most variation. You'd never get bored."

"Congee has variation."

"Not enough."

"I've been eating congee my whole life and I have yet to be bored."

"Because you haven't considered ramen as a serious contender."

"I've considered ramen," she says. "I eliminated ramen."

"On what grounds."

"On the grounds that it's my opinion and my opinion is the best, always."

You think about this. "Okay," you say. "Fair."

"Thank you."

"But ramen—"

"Y/N."

"—objectively."

Her hand leaves your hair briefly, comes back, a clear message.

You stop talking about ramen.

"If I was a snack," you say, "from that convenience store."

She closes her eyes briefly. "I'm begging you."

"Hear me out."

"I really am begging."

"I'd be the kind that looks weird but is actually good."

Silence.

"Which one," she says, despite herself.

"You know those pepper chips that look wrong."

"They don't look wrong."

"The color is wrong, Wonyoung."

"The color is fine—"

"The color is the color of a warning," you say, and she laughs. There it is — the real one, short, not planned. "The bag is actively cautionary and then you eat one and they're fine."

"They're good," she says.

"They're good," you agree. "That's the thing. You'd never know from the outside."

She looks down at you. The expression you don't have a name for.

"That's either the most self-aware thing you've said," she says, "or the worst metaphor I've ever heard."

"Can it be both."

"It already is," she says, and goes back to the TV, and her hand goes back to your hair, and you are, objectively, okay with where this landed.

The movie — or whatever it was — ends at some point. The screen goes quiet. Outside the window it's that specific dark that means it's late without being very late.

You're not asleep. Close, maybe.

Her hand is slower now.

"Hey," she says.

"Mm."

"You know that thing you said. About not knowing why I laugh."

"Mm."

"I don't know either," she says. "I've been trying to figure it out for three months."

"And?"

A pause.

"I think," she says carefully, like she's actually working through it in real time, "it's not that what you say is funny. It's that you say it like it's completely normal. And it's not. And the gap between those two things is—" She stops. "I don't have a word."

You look at the ceiling.

"I say a lot of things that don't land," you tell her.

"I know. I've heard them."

"So it's just—"

"Some of them hit the gap," she says. "I don't know which ones will. Neither do you. That's the thing." She tucks a bit of your hair back. "Seojun's wrong. It's not a love potion."

"What is it then."

Quiet.

"I don't know," she says. "But it's something. I'm still working on it."

You let that settle.

"Okay," you say.

"Okay," she says.

The room is quiet. Her hand is quiet.

Then she says — and you can hear in her voice that she's made a decision — "Good boy."

Begrudging. Like she looked at the full situation, assessed it, and delivered a verdict.

You barked.

You don't know why. You don't decide to. It simply happens, one short sound, immediate and completely involuntary, and then it's done and you are lying there processing what just occurred. It’s also probably the most correct thing to do when Jang Wonyoung calls you a good boy.

Silence.

"I need you to know," you say, "I don't know why I did that." You do actually.

She's laughing.

Not politely. Not the small one. The real one — the one that gets out before she stops it, the one you heard first in a convenience store aisle, the one you've been cataloguing for three months without knowing what category it belongs to.

"In my defense," you start.

She's still laughing.

"In my defense," you say again.

"There is no defense," she manages.

"The hair thing—"

"The hair thing did not make you bark."

"I think subconsciously—"

She presses her lips together. Doesn't work. Laughs again into the back of her hand.

You watch the ceiling and decide that you have absolutely no dignity left and that this is, somehow, completely fine.

"When you're done," you say.

She waves a hand. Give me a second.

You give her a second.

She settles, eventually, the laugh going quiet and warm in her chest.

Her hand goes back to your hair.

"Good boy," she says again, very quietly, like she's testing whether it still works.

You keep your mouth shut. Barked after a while.

She makes a small approving sound.

Outside, the city does whatever it does. The night does whatever nights do. Her hand moves and the TV is off and the room is dark in the comfortable way, and you are lying there in Jang Wonyoung's lap and she is laughing at you for barking and you still don't fully understand how this happened and you have decided that you are done trying to figure it out.

Not because the answer doesn't exist.

Because somewhere between the pepper chips metaphor and the good boy and the word she hasn't found yet, you think maybe the answer is just — this.

Just this.

"Wonyoung," you say.

"Mm."

"The word."

A pause.

"I'll know it when I find it," she says.

"Okay," you say.

Her hand.

"Go to sleep," she says.

"I'm not tired."

"You barked," she says. "You're tired."

You cannot argue with this logic.

You close your eyes.

Her hand in your hair.

The room does nothing remarkable.

You fall asleep in her lap before you can say anything else stupid, which is probably for the best, and which is probably, you think in the last ten seconds before you go under, exactly what she was counting on.

Seojun, for the record, maintains his stand on the matter.

The love potion is real and he has receipts.

You've asked him to delete the screenshots.

He hasn't.

Wonyoung stole his phone and deleted it.