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We are late.
With flushed cheeks, heaving chests and disheveled hair, we slink back into class sheepishly, bowing our heads apologetically as if we were in Korea and not Australia where no one gives a damn if you’re late or not.
“What were you two up to?” our teacher questions jokingly, in a way that would insinuate that we were up to no good. Taehyung just holds up a hand to him with that adorable smile of his and says, “Sorry.”
The class is dismissed a minute later, and I shoulder my bag, ready to walk right out of there and go straight home when I hear footsteps. A solid arm hooks around my shoulders, and a warm voice vibrates above me.
“Let’s go eat something – I’m starving.”
I push away from him, picking up pace. “I need to go to work.”
I hear his footsteps falter, but then, swift as lightning, he is beside me, matching my brisk stride. “Where do you work?”
“At a gift shop,” I surprise myself with how easily the words tumble out, with no attempt to cover up the truth. Why is it so easy to talk to him?
“Oh, cool. Can you get me discounts?”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “That’s not how it works, Taehyung.”
We fall into silence, and I notice that I can only hear one pair of footsteps. I turn, and he has stopped, mouth gaping. “What?”
“That’s the first time you’ve said my name!” he breathes out in disbelief.
I scoff. “Stop being so dramatic.”
But as we continue to walk to the tram stop, I realize that he had every right to be dramatic. I never say anyone’s names. At least, not since I started tertiary education. Calling people by their names means you acknowledge them, appreciate them, know them.
I don’t want to know anyone. But I guess Taehyung wants to know me.
We catch a tram to the heart of the city, where you can find anything and everything. Living in a multicultural melting pot really does have its perks, because everyone is diverse, everyone is different, yet we all belong. We all blend in.
I can’t believe I am hanging out with Taehyung after class. Not that I could say no to his pleas as he claimed that his stomach was eating itself and that his heart was next. I don’t understand how that is possible, but the guy wouldn’t shut up, so I guess that’s why I’m here.
Besides, I’m also a little hungry.
“You’re going to eat all of that?” I gawp as the waitress delivers our trays of food, or, in Taehyung’s case, a whole entire buffet.
“I told you I’m hungry.”
He devours his lamb burger in four bites, while popping in chips at each interval. I barely get through half my own burger when he is done, moving on to his second burger.
“Just – how?”
He beams at me, a stroke of ketchup smeared at the corner of his lips. I stare at it, frowning.
“You –”
With a swipe of his tongue, it is gone, and I exhale, not knowing why it irritated me so much. He continues eating, unbothered and unaware. I stare at my own food, suddenly feeling full.
“I should g –”
“Try this.” I don’t have time to react as he holds out an onion ring dipped in sauce to my face, telling me to say, “Ah.”
“What are you, my dentist?” I snort, and the onion ring is withdrawn slightly as he laughs.
“Here, just eat it,” and before I can object, the onion ring has entered my mouth and I chew, humming in approval. “Very delicious,” I say in Korean, flipping him a thumbs up. He grins proudly as if I’m complimenting his cooking, and I find myself smiling back.
Buzzzzzz.
Oh no. My mum is calling. When I extract my phone from my pocket, I let out a dramatic gasp. “I’m late!”
It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. I was supposed to be there at four. She’s going to murder me.
I watch the phone ring in my palm, nibbling on my nail as I consider answering it. If she starts yelling at me, Taehyung would definitely hear, and it would be so embarrassing.
Why do you care what he thinks? Just answer!
With a gulp I slide to accept the call and press the phone to my ear, wincing in anticipation. But all I hear is silence.
“Hello?”
“You better be with a friend or I am not forgiving you, young lady,” comes the voice I know too well. I sigh.
“Yes, I’m with a –”
I pause, glancing at Taehyung, who is licking each of his fingers in satisfaction and pretending not to listen. Dare I call him a friend, for my mother’s sake?
“friend,” I finish with a whisper, and I notice a small smile tug at Taehyung’s lips as he plays with the napkins.
“Oh, finally! I’m so glad! It’s about time you stop hanging out with your mum all the time, don’t you know how lame that is?”
I open and close my mouth wordlessly, shocked but also not surprised by my mother’s bluntness. She is, after all, a born savage. “Eomma!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you too much in front of your new friend…it’s a girl, right?”
Here we go. “Yeah,” I affirm in a higher than usual voice. No way am I saying it’s a boy, and it isn’t like she’s ever going to meet him since I have no plans of keeping him around for longer than this semester. All my friendships never lasted that long anyway.
“Do Ah Ri, are you lying to me?”
She knows me too well. I guess there were downsides to your mother being your only friend.
“Uh…no?”
Taehyung snickers, and I glare at him. “Yah, stop eavesdropping!” I hiss, covering the receiver so my mother doesn’t hear.
“- to them,” my mother is saying once I place the phone at my ear again.
“What?”
“Let me speak to them,” she requests innocently, and I let out one of my longest sighs yet.
“Why?”
“You know why,” I can hear her simper.
I can’t win here. And I know for a fact that she closed the shop early so she can call me and torture me. Aish, what to do?
Taehyung has his eyes on me now, raising an eyebrow. I close my eyes, then ask in a whisper, “Can you pretend to be a girl?”
He immediately bursts out laughing. “What?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, knowing that my mother is waiting on the line, and try again. “I don’t want my mum to know I’m with a guy, and she wants to speak to you.”
Taehyung’s face lights up mischievously. “Oh, really?”
I shoot him a look, and his smile drops. “Okay, I’ll do it, give me the phone.”
I keep my stern gaze on him as he grabs the phone, already getting into character by twirling a strand of hair around his pinkie and fluttering his eyelashes. I scoff.
“Hello, is this Aria’s Eomma?”
My eyes widen at the high airy sounds that come from his mouth, and then with a lurch of the gut I realize what he has done. He’s speaking Korean to her, which means my mum will definitely want to meet him.
I squirm in my seat as I yearn to hear the other side of the conversation, but all I get are Taehyung’s, “oh, really?” and “yes, of course I will!”
I want to kill him.
Finally, when the conversation ends, he passes the phone back to me with a satisfied smirk. I give him a death stare as my mother’s voice enters my ear again.
“Why didn’t you tell me you have a Korean friend? She needs to come over right now and eat with us!”
Judging by the sarcastic lilt in her words, I can tell she still doesn’t believe that Taehyung, or shall I say, Taeyeon, is a girl. Even if he did do a pretty good job of speaking like one.
“Ah, she’s busy tonight, actually,” I say.
“That’s not what she told me.”
Taehyung grins at me with a peace sign and I scowl. “Well, she was just being nice, but she really doesn’t have time. I’ll see you at home, yeah?”
I hang up before she can say anything else. Taehyung pouts.
“Hey, I wanna meet your mum.”
“Why?”
“So she can meet my mum and they can be friends! My mum is very lonely these days,” Taehyung adds.
I press the heels of my palms onto my eyes, squeezing them shut and trying to collect my thoughts. Why is everything moving so fast? Is this how friendships work? Why is he trying to entwine our lives like this?
“We’re done here. Let’s go,” I stand up, my chair scraping the floor as I gather my things and wipe my hands on some napkins.
Taehyung seems disappointed as he follows me out into the street, and I gnaw on my lower lip, feeling guilty for some reason.
“Your mum says that you don’t have any friends.”
He bumps into me as I stop in my tracks, spinning around to face him, eyes blazing and adrenaline rushing. “She said what?”
Taehyung shoots me a sympathetic smile that soon disappears as his face becomes serious. “It’s okay, Aria.” He pats my head. “I’ll be your friend.”
I scoff, feeling humiliated, and turn to march away, but a hand stops me, gently tugging me back to him. I blink up at him in bewilderment, marveling at our height difference. I’ve never noticed the tiny spot on his nose, like a beauty mark.
He stares into me, eyelashes long and irises a deep, melting brown. Then he pulls me into an embrace, enveloping me in warmth. The cacophony of the bustling street fades away as his heartbeat becomes the only constant sound, a reverberating rhythm that matches with mine.
“You don’t always have to be alone, Aria,” the dark timbre of his voice is even lower when pressed up right against it, and I feel the flurry of my thoughts lull into nothingness. He makes me feel calm…safe. It doesn’t make sense, to have known someone for only a week but already feel so comfortable, to hold so much trust in them, when they haven’t done anything to prove it to you.
But he has. Many times.
I don’t trust people easily, but for some unknown reason, it makes sense to trust him. I even forget where we are as he holds onto me in a way in which I didn’t even realize I needed to be held. Suddenly, I think I will never feel cold again.
“Please don’t push people away,” he continues like thunder rumbling in the clouds. “You’re a nice person, Aria. People should get to see that.”
He pauses.
“I’m glad I got to see that.“
I want to laugh, but I also want to cry. How am I nice? I want to ask. All I did was call you stupid and yell at you.
But then again, I did let him sit with me at lunch times to eat ramyeon together. And I did let him be my partner for the assignment, although I didn’t really have a choice. Plus, I agreed to go eat with him, instead of going straight to the shop.
When he finally lets me go, the world fades in again, and we are no longer suspended in time. He smiles, then looks down, scratching the back of his head. “Um, yeah,” he chuckles nervously, and I raise my eyebrows.
“What?”
He meets my eyes again, and this time they are full of mirth. “Aren’t you going to say something? I just gave you some inspirational advice, you should at least say thank you.”
I roll my eyes. “Thank you, Taehyung-ah.“
But he isn’t satisfied. “No, no, that won’t do. Taehyung-oppa would sound so much better.”
I immediately whack him with my sleeve. “I told you I am never calling you that! We’re not in Korea and I don’t like using those terms anyway!” I exclaim in exasperation.
“Fine, fine, how about Taehyung-ssi?”
I hesitate, before giving in. “Thank you, Taehyung-ssi,” I say in formal Korean, even bowing my head forward slightly, and Taehyung laughs heartily, flinging an arm around me and ruffling my hair.
“Well done!” he responds in Korean, and I shove him away, smoothing my hair down. What’s the use of a ponytail anymore when you have Taehyung to mess it up?
Or rather, what’s personal space anymore when you have Taehyung constantly invading it? But contrary to last week, when he first started annoying me, this doesn’t seem too bad. In fact, dare I say it, I enjoy his invasive nature.
“Taehyung-ssi.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll let you meet my mum someday.”
“Okay.”
【★】
This is my favourite chapter so far and I loved writing it!
I hope you’re also loving the story as it is so fun to write and I don’t get writers block at all when writing! The power of Kim Taehyung, everyone
Dedicated to Petal_Drops for making this lovely cover for the story! Thank you so much! 💖
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