LEMONS / 𝗺𝗹𝗺 (✓)

2: where they argue

CHAPTER TWO
where they argue (and make up)

Hwan knew that the name Kalen belonged to the bartender behind the bar.

The bartender with crooked middle teeth like the rocks that shattered sailing ships and chocolate like eyes with warmth like the fur of a child's favorite pet. The one who wore waves in form of a jean jacket with drawings, picturing everything in between mountains and butterflies and pens attached, telling the people witnessing them to love whoever and live kindly.

Hwan also knew that the bartender named Kalen wasn't someone he was fond of.

Hwan didn't like how Kalen had approached him; as if they were long lost friends, waiting to reconnect over something none of them had expected the other one to understand. He didn't like when he rolled with his lips when annoyed or clenched his jaw or rolled his eyes when he thought Hwan didn't notice. He didn't like that he kept talking to him even though Hwan obviously had pissed him off.

So Hwan didn't like Kalen.

Despite all that, Hwan kept going back.

And somehow Kalen was always there as well (did the man ever not work?)

Hwan didn't always drink when he was there; usually he just sat at the corner of the counter as always and argued with the bartender who just made him so angry. Sometimes Kalen assumed things about Hwan, that he himself hadn't even realized was correct and even if he did, he didn't say anything about it; it looked like Kalen could read his mind anyway.

Sometimes he assumed things, other times he just shot Hwan a smile and took his order and then continued smiling until Hwan snapped and he would snap back just as angry, but always with those specific words hidden inside his sentence that told Hwan he was being rude.

I'm sorry.

Those words Kalen always shot back at Hwan with, when angry, was "I'm sorry" and the worst part was how genuine he sounded when he spoke them.

It was the worst part, because Hwan didn't believe him.

Hwan didn't have a number on how many times he had heard the words escape the mouth of the bartender, just like he didn't have a number on how many times he had visited the bar. Days were becoming a blur, reminding him of the smoke from the cigarettes his mother always smoked around the house when he was younger and the advice, he had been given by his therapist was,

"Go for a walk every night and take your time to think about your day. What did you like? What didn't you like? And what do you want to do better?"

So Hwan (mostly) did.

Hwan went for walks after work where he tried to sum up his day but he had the concentration span of a grapefruit (something Rose always joked about) so he always ended up not thinking at all as he would stare at the ground while counting his steps, trying to outrun his lonely shadow created by the street lights surrounding him.

Then, he started walking past the bar.

He lived remotely close enough for him to reach it without walking himself to death, but he usually went the other direction. That was until he started getting annoyed seeing the same bench every time after someone had sprain-painted a racial slur onto it (something you wouldn't see unless you were up close) and no one had erased it and it pissed hwan off so he had changed his route.

In the beginning he just walked past the bar, paying it no mind — he knew it to be a place Andrew went and he didn't want to coincidentally run into him, so he kept his distance and existed as far from the building he could.