Page 36 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
Mi Hi waggled her eyebrows. “We’ll put some makeup on you, drown you in one of my winter sweaters over some undergarments, shave your legs, and put you in a skirt and tights. Can you walk in heels? I think I’ve seen you dance in them.”
“I can wear heels. Nothing over two inches.”
“Perfect. My feet are smaller than yours. I’ll order some boots.”
“Are you…”
“Shut up. We’ll make you into my pretty visiting younger cousin. Don’t worry, the bill’s going to your man.”
Jun groaned. He was so going to owe Damian.
Mi Hi ordered everything she wanted for delivery to her apartment. She was having way too much fun cross-dressing her very own K-pop idol.
For the walk back to her apartment, only two streets over, Jun wore her coat, and she wore his hoodie and jacket. Her relief showed up five minutes late and didn’t pay Jun any attention as he stood in the chip aisle waiting for Mi Hi to do the turnover. He kept her winter scarf wrapped around the bottom half of his face and his shoulders pulled in.
Mi Hi led him quickly through the morning mist hanging between the buildings of the city streets. They didn’t talk, both of them yawning through the back alley. They shuffled over a crosswalk, waiting on the lights, and then went around the corner and jumped one street. Mi Hi lived in an old high-rise. She growled at the out-of-order sign across the elevator doors and marched over to the stairs.
“It’s just ten floors.”
Jun girded himself and followed her.
It was a hike, but he was a well-trained idol. If he hadn’t been so sleep-deprived, it wouldn’t have mattered. As it was, he was ready to drop by the time they reached her floor.
She opened the apartment and showed him inside. They both chucked their shoes in the entrance and stepped onto the cheap imitation wood floors of the living area. The bathroom was to the immediate right, and closets and shelves were to the left of the tiny entrance hallway. Two more steps inside and the space opened up into a jam-packed studio. A tiny kitchen fronted the interior wall. Closer to the window, two beds filled the living space, separated by free-standing racks with clothes and bags hanging off them. One bed had a pink duvet; other was purple. A long tension rod was braced across the room. The curtains hanging from the rod were pulled back, showing how the tiny space around each bed could almost be turned into its own room separate from each other and the kitchen.
Mi Hi waved to a tiny staircase set against the wall right beside them and pointed directly overhead. “I’m up there. You can’t stand up, but it’s a little more private. You should shower. I’ll bring you some sweats. Oh, watch out for Bobo. He’s my cat. And use the white bottles with the purple flowers on them. All my lotions are upstairs. I think you can use mine for now.”
Jun nodded. He needed to keep his skin in good condition especially if he’d be wearing full makeup tomorrow.
“Can I check the app?”
Mi Hi unlocked her phone and passed it over. He sent Damian a quick text, letting him know that he was going to shower and sleep and snapped a picture, adding the address and apartment number for good measure, then hunted Mi Hi down in the kitchen, and gave the phone back.
“Shower, then come up. I have a double-wide bed. If you stay on your side, I’ll stay on mine. I have plushies I can put down the middle and an extra blanket.”
Jun pushed his bottom lip up against his top lip, thinking over the implications of sleeping on the same mattress as a woman he’d just met. He was already taking a risk just being alone with her in the apartment.
“If you want the floor, there’s not much of it, but you can try it,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Just don’t sleep in any of my roommates’ beds.”
She walked past him, drinking juice straight from a cardboard carton.
Jun shook his head and ducked into the shower.
It felt amazing to be clean and warm again. He made a mental note to make sure Mi Hi got compensated for the electricity and water and brushed his teeth with a toothbrush Mi Hi had picked up for him before they left the convenience store. Finger combing was all he could do for his hair, but he made sure it was as dry as he could get it, then hung the towel over the top of the shower wall. Then he bundled up in the sweats she’d left him. They were unisex and a soft tan color, a bit short in the ankle.
Mi Hi’s part of the studio apartment in the loft was chock-full of little organizers and low shelves. Her clothes hung from hooks on the ceiling, and many of the pieces still dragged on the floor, like the summer dresses and her longer skirts and pants.
She was on her bed in full flannel pajamas, reading a book. There was a rampart of plushies down the center of the mattress. She had the outside edge, and there was just enough space to crawl onto the empty half of the mattress from the bottom. She wasn’t joking. There wasn’t much of any floor space to stretch out on.
“You said you had lotion?”
She snagged two bottles from the floor beside her. Jun crawled up beside her with the plushies between them and took the bottles. He applied the serum first, waited three minutes, counting down the seconds silently in his head, then picked up the second bottle and applied the lotion. It was a fraction of his usual skin-care routine, but it was something. He handed the bottles back and stretched out on the bed. There was a separate blanket. He pulled on it, and a cat howled. In among the plushies, one of them was not like the others. BoBo did not appreciate having his paw moved.
“Apologies, cat king,” Jun murmured. He offered the back of his hand. The cat sniffed him and put his head back down, disappearing among the piles of synthetic fur and soft 3-D cartoons.
“Don’t mind him,” Mi Hi said. She reached out and petted her cat. “He’s easygoing.”
Jun gave the animal a calculating look. It would be nice if it would cuddle with him, but the creature looked very content as he was.
