Chapter 34 – Monkeying Around

A/N: This chapter took freakin forever to write (and it is quite a bit longer than usual too) so I’m glad to have it out and I hope you enjoy it! Also, I apologize in advance for anyone named, or who has a loved one named Mike. Sorry.

AoH

I guess it should come as no surprise that Tae wanted to go to the Zoo. He tried to convince me that it wasn’t because he was a huge baby, and that it was all part of his masterplan that the place would be empty since most people went back to their hometowns to celebrate the New Year. I told him his point was invalid since it was already January 4^th, but he was probably still right anyways, considering it was a weekday and still pretty cold out too. But I still thought it was such a Taehyungie idea, there was no way I’d let him off the hook without at least a small amount of teasing.

There was some sort of exchange with Sejin as he dropped us off in the parking lot, (of which I understood of course nothing,) and then we took off. Actually he took off – towards the ticket gate – insisting that he was a man, and men did such things, like buying tickets…

I almost went “Yes man! Woman wait here! Go go! Uga uga!” but I think he would’ve missed the joke, so I just waited. Within a moment he was back, shoving several tickets in his back pocket and handing me just the one.

“Tae…” I called out, following him through the turnstiles as the staff person tore my ticket and handed it back to me.

“No. Mike.” he said, not even turning to look at me as he stared at a map in his hands.

“What?” I asked, totally baffled.

“Mike.” He repeated, finally looking up at me, “You think I look like Taehyung now? No no…” he shook his head, totally serious.

I burst out laughing “Mike is like, the lamest foreigner name.”

“Lamest?” he repeated, not understanding the word.

“It means it’s stupid.” I explained, still trying not to laugh.

“Hey! I like Mike!” he complained, looking hurt, which only made me wanna laugh more.

“Well you don’t look like a Mike anyways. Too pretty.” I explained, trying to make him see my way.

“Hmmm… How about Brad then?”

I made a face.

“Jonathan?”

I scrunched my nose.

He was about to say something else and I cut him off immediately (if perhaps a bit bluntly), “don’t say Ken!!”

He shut his mouth. Then he paused to think, as if defeated.

“How about Alex?” I suggested, “You kinda look like an Alex.” I looked him up and down and winked at him.

“Oh! I like it!” he cheered, and I felt pretty pleased with myself, though he didn’t let me rest for even one second before going, “Yours now!”

I turned to look at him. I hadn’t contemplated the idea that our costumed playdate would also require an alias for me, but apparently it did.

One look at the twinkle of giddy excitement in his eye and I said, “I swear if you say Taesook I’m gonna punch you.”

He laughed – out of nowhere – that big, full, throaty laugh. That, at least, had remained unchanged, and somehow it warmed my heart.

“Ok, ok, you hate it, I know…” he put a hand up in defense, trying to catch his breath.

“Hmm… how about…. Eun-byeol?” he asked after having gotten back up.

I paused to think. I still had to get used to Korean names, but it sounded rather pretty, in a way.

“It means ‘silver star’” he went on, interrupting my thoughts, and I turned to look at him, impressed. I liked it.

He took my silence for ascent and looped an arm through mine, ditching the map over his shoulder, “Alright, Eun-byeol-ah. Where first?”

I looked at the map, fluttering away in the wind, and back at him, not knowing if I should scold him, indulge him, or just start laughing at him.

*

So a day at the zoo with Taehyung was…….. exhausting. First of all, the place was HUGE. Not that I’ve been to very many zoos in my life, but that one has got to be on the larger-than-average scale. It was organized in two big loops, with several little sub-loops, running around all over the park that you could follow from colored lines painted on the ground. That sounded like a nice, straightforward, organized idea – in theory – but since neither Taehyung (or I for that matter) where the very organized type, we ended up just wandering around all over the place without a definite goal in mind, and thus ended up going over the same spots several times.

Usually it would go like this:

“Oh! ___insert animal name!___”

Tae would run over to that block with me chasing after him, and then he would make faces at the animals through the glass, or the bars, and try to pet them if he could (which was not very often) while I looked on more like a fond mother than his date, but he was obviously having such a good time that I couldn’t help but enjoy myself by proxy.

And every time he’d decide to wander off somewhere else, if he found that I wasn’t following within a 2m range behind him, he would always pause, turn and reach for my hand. That little gesture alone brought more butterflies to my stomach than any other grand romantic display could ever have.

We took a little break mid-afternoon at some café to munch on cake and lattes, but then, out of no apparent reason (to me), he absolutely flipped his sh*t, getting up from his chair so suddenly that he nearly spilled both of our coffees on his pants.

“Tae, what the heck?!” I spat, forgetting to use his roleplay name, though he didn’t even notice.

“Come!” he just said, grabbing my hand after having hastily put our things in the trash and dragging me along behind him.

It didn’t take long for me to notice what the heck had him so excited and I just thought to myself “You have got to be kidding me…” shaking my head, as I saw a great big – I’m not sure if it was a train, or a bus, or some kind of tram? but it was obviously some vehicle meant for kids – approach to pick up some more passengers.

“It’s the elephant bus!” he exclaimed, turning towards me with the biggest grin on his face and I just had no words. He got in line and I pulled on his sleeve, whispering in his ear as I tried to stifle my embarrassment, “I think you need a ticket, Tae…”

“Ja-jaaaaang!!!” was his reply, producing two tiny tickets before I was even done talking and handing them to the driver, who was stifling a grin himself, welcoming us aboard, as I headed for the very last seat at the back, walking as quickly as I could.

“Noona… are you mad?” he asked me tentatively after having sat down, taking my hand into his lap.

“Not mad,” I said, not looking at him, “just deeply, deeply ashamed.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, not really understanding my reaction.

“But it’s ok.” I said, looking up and flashing him a smile, “I’ve wearing so much makeup, no one will ever know my face is all red.” I joked and that made a genuine smile return to his face. He slipped an arm around my shoulder, and crossed his right foot over his knee, in a position of utter sloth, and went “Ahhhh, this is the best!” in Korean, making all the ajummas in the few rows in front of us break into chuckles.

As we rode, the bus driver ran a little commentary about the park, and the animals, that Tae would occasionally translate for me, but generally he just kept quiet, looking around, or making his own comments about things, that often had nothing to do with animals at all.

“Oh look,” he said once, as we passed a group of schoolgirls in uniforms; it wasn’t the first we’d seen either, but this one was rather large. A few of them looked at us and giggled, and Tae sent them a big smile and wave before I smacked him on the arm to make him stop; causing the girls to chuckle even more.

“What?” I asked, faking annoyance, “Would you rather one of those?”

“What?! No!” he answered, alarmed, taking me seriously, “Of course I prefer my mature woman.” he said, trying to bring me closer into a side-hug, but I barked an offended laugh, pushing him away.

“MATURE woman?!?” I repeated, voice thick with scorn. The sound of my voice more than anything else probably alerting him that he should be way more wary of me now than of anything I had been faking before.

“That’s not the word?” he asked in a tiny voice, trying to make himself look pitiful.

“No,” I said, looking him coldly in the eye, “it’s not.”

Tae looked at me with such a shameful puppy face, like he knew he had messed up, but he was so afraid he had ruined our day, and he didn’t even know why; and even with this weird stranger’s face he was wearing, it was still frustratingly adorable, so I took a deep breath and softened.

“Tae a ‘Mature woman’ is like a nice way of calling an old lady… someone over 50 or 60…” I explained and his whole face shrank back in horror, which made me crack up.

“No, no, no, no, no!!!” he protested, waving his hands in front of me.

“I know, baby, I know…” I said, in a forgiving tone, grabbing his hands to make them stop moving. “And I was just teasing you. Why the sudden interest in schoolgirls anyways?” I asked, changing the subject.

“You didn’t see?!” he asked, taking the bait, “No one recognize me!!” he exclaimed, in shock, “Not one!”

I chuckled. “Excuse me but did you even look in the mirror??”

I was being sarcastic again but he just laughed loudly in response, making me concede a small corner smile that made him give me a peck on the cheek.

He probably thought it would make me smile more, but instead I frowned and started grumbling under my breath.

“What?” he asked, his mouth dropping half-open in that funny way it did when he really didn’t understand something that was going on.

“Well yeah, sure, you can kiss me in public… and hold my hand, and give me hugs and we’re just another couple and that’s great…” I let that out in one long breath, in a tone that rather contradicted my words, “but like….” I trailed off, turning away, suddenly embarrassed.

“What?” he asked, coming closer, so that others wouldn’t hear us. Not that they’d understand our English conversation anyways, but you never know.

“I just wish I could kiss your real face, you know? Not this plastic…” I finally admitted gesturing in the general direction of his head without looking at it.

I looked up at him and instead of being annoyed, understanding, or perplexed, he seemed extremely pleased for some reason. He took my face in both his hands, looking intensely into my eyes, before closing his own to kiss me and…. The whole bus erupted into laughter. I opened my eyes again and Tae’s eyes were round as saucers and his ears had gone bright red. I noticed at that moment that the bus driver was talking – probably about us – if the way most of the families on the bus were still looking in our direction was any indication: kids staring and parents chuckling while looking politely away.

“What did he say?” I whispered in his ear, but he just shook his head and took my hand, dragging me to the front of the bus with him and exchanging a couple of sentences with the driver before the man finally let us off at some random point off the path.

“BYE BYE!!!” Tae shouted out, startling me, as the bus took off again – waving his arm in a wide arch at all the kids on the bus – and they all waved back. I turned to look at him in total disbelief. He wasn’t just a man-child; he was just a totally different species entirely. What kind of creature, exactly, had I gotten myself into a relationship with???

When the bus finally drove out of sight, he turned to me. I was looking at him like… I don’t know. You could paint his face and change his clothes, but Taehyung was always gonna be Taehyung, I guess.

“He said maybe the lovebirds want to see real lovebirds over there.” His voice startled me, speaking so suddenly in answer to my previous question, as he pointed beyond me at a section of the zoo that boasted over 300 kinds of exotic birds.

I snorted a laugh, wondering if it sounded as cheesy in Korean as it did in English, and followed him into the enclosure as he offered me his hand.

*

Walking in there was nice – mostly because it was a pretty forested area and we were just strolling hand in hand without a care in the world – but looking at birds got old pretty quick, especially since most of them were hiding high up in giant trees.

After the birds we headed over to the lion pen, which was fun cuz lions are just like big fluffy cats, and I like cats. Except they’re scary cats, and I don’t like scary. Taehyung laughed at me when one of them came a bit too near, roaring at me, and I jumped back behind him instinctively; though I think he was secretly totally pleased by the manly-man points that act had granted him.

After that we found our way to the monkeys, and that was also one of the most fun parts of the day. They were really cute –  even the big fat one – and Tae spent most of his time making faces at them and trying to get them to talk to him.

“Oh! Oooh!!! Did you see? That one likes me!!” he turned back to me, excited like a child after one of the chimps had just ambled over and given him a high-five through the bars.

“That’s cuz he recognizes one of his kind.” I joked.

Tae wailed, insulted.

The monkey wailed too, which was hilarious.

“What?” I asked, trying my best not to laugh extremely hard.

He turned towards the monkey and said, “She doesn’t understand us….” shaking his head.

The monkey shook his head too and smacked a hand over his eyes. I swear it was the cutest thing ever. I wish I’d had the foresight to take a video.

Tae leaned in and started whispering into the monkey’s ear – or well, near enough as he could – before leaning back and saying, “Right? I think so too.” nodding to himself, and the monkey nodded as well. “Bye monkey!!” he called, waving at his new friend and the chimp waved back.

I stared at him in wonder as he rejoined me, falling into step with me as we walked out of the pen. “You really just made friends with the monkey.” I stated, though even saying it out loud I was still full of disbelief.

He shrugged.

We walked in silence for a bit, finally stopping by one of those giant standing board maps and he asked, out of the blue, “Where do you wanna go now?” turning to look at me.

“You’re asking me? … I dunno… I’m kinda tired…” I answered, with a little shrug, scratching my neck.

“You wanna go home? You don’t want to see another thing?” he asked, tilting his head to one side to look at me, and it made me smile.

“How about you?” I threw the question back at him, knowing this day was for his benefit, not mine.

“I’m good. I’m doing what you want now.” he said, taking a step towards me and taking both my hands in his. It made me smile.

“Well, I kinda wanted to see the otters…” I shrugged again, to show him that it wasn’t really that important.

“Others?” he repeated wrongly. “Other whats?”

“Not others, ‘otters’,” I chuckled, trying to put emphasis on the ‘T’ sound, and when that failed to bring a reaction out of him, I brought my hands up to my face in my best otter imitation and made a little “kyuu kyuu” sound, trying to look otter-ish, but only succeeding in embarrassing myself since he started chuckling, quietly at first and then louder, pressing his lips together, but having the laughter burst through his lips once more when he asked “do that again?”

I turned away, sulking.

“Sudal!” he said, trying to stop laughing and coming over to try and pet my head.

“What?” I grumbled, shoving his attentions away, vowing to never attempt doing anything cute ever again, but he wrestled his way into a position where he could hold me by the waist and pat my hair at the same time, before repeating “Sudal. This?” he paused to do the same gesture I’d done and I died again. Even with his stupid prosthetics he was still cuter than me. “In Korean, sudal.” He repeated. And sure enough, google translate confirmed the theory for us a second later.

“But noona…” he said again, pulling me closer by the waist and bringing my fake hair behind my ear in a tender gesture, “I’m sorry I laughed.” He said, not looking me in the eye, which was really odd for him, “It’s just…” he started, “I don’t… what’s the word…” he struggled a bit, getting embarrassed and it was really cute, “Noona doesn’t really do aegyo… I was surprised.” He finished, before looking up at my eyes and adding, blush tinting his cheeks, “It was really cute.”

I would’ve punched him if his voice hadn’t been so full of sincerity, and I melted all over again. He pulled me into a kiss and I let him, knowing that for once, we absolutely had nothing, or no one, to worry about.

The otters’ pen was about a 20-minute walk away from where we were – in the opposite direction from the exit – but even when I said we should just leave, Taehyung argued that if I wanted to see the otters, we were gonna see the otters, and ended up giving me a piggy-back ride the rest of the way. By the time we got there, I was so happy that I didn’t even care about my tiredness anymore, and squealed appropriately at the cute little creatures, while Tae looked on from further back, for once, a happy look of pride on his face, until I got bored and he was right there to take my hand and ask:

“Home?”

“Home.”