Chapter 35 – Where Is Here?

Sejin was already waiting for us as we exited the park, which was nice. Tae had given him a call about 30 minutes ago, and there he was, right on time. ‘Must be nice to have people at your beck-and-call 24/7 like that…’ I thought for a moment, til I remembered that Tae got about 72 hours of free time an entire year, and I really wouldn’t ever trade my lifestyle for his and a private driver.

The older Korean man greeted me with a smile, and told us to buckle up before we drove off.

“Do you see that?” Tae asked, as we drove past the enclosure for what I’d assumed was another part of the zoo.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Rose garden. It’s very beautiful and famous date spot. But now there’s no rose. Too cold.” He explained dutifully. “I’ll take you one day.” He turned towards me and smiled.

I smiled back and opened my mouth, meaning to reply something sweet, but instead a huge yawn came bubbling out, making the two men in the car laugh at me.

“Come here, my noona,” he said, bringing me over inside the crook of his arm protectively, “you can sleep.” He put his hand on my head, patting it over the cap, and I laid it down on his shoulder smiling, as if he was terribly pleased with himself.

At first he tossed the silly hat away. Then, he must’ve wanted to my hair, but got frustrated with the wig, so he just pulled it off too – without warning –  and umphed as he threw it at the back of the car to join the poor couple hat. I laughed at his temper, but it did feel good to have that damn thing off my head finally. However, I knew I must look less than y with the hair cap I’d had to wear underneath covering my head, so I took it off too and shook my real hair free, attempting (and probably failing) to recreate the iness of a shampoo commercial. Still, the only person there to impress seemed satisfied enough, grinning stupidly and bringing me closer so he could finally pet my long (sweaty) blonde locks.

I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but Sejin asked something to Taehyung, and soon, they were chattering away in Korean, and the sound of their voices turned into a pleasant, low, musical hum, and I was so exhausted that, before I knew it, I was drifting away to the land of dreams on Taetae’s shoulder.

When I woke up, it was dark, but we were still in the car, which confused me. I stretched, disoriented, but I was pretty sure it didn’t take that long to drive back to headquarters…

Tae had also fallen asleep, as I noticed when I tried to move and felt his head fall off my shoulder. I moved to softly replace it in its original position and he never even woke up. I smiled, taking a moment to admire him. He’d taken off his wig too, and though I saw remnants of Jiyoon’s work in odd patches on his face, he seemed to have scraped off most of the fake skin away, and looked somewhat like my little angel again. I smiled as the headlights of a car going in the opposite direction shone a brief light upon his face and pushed his too-long hair out of his eyes. My baby man-child.

After that one car passed it became dark again. If I had thought it was weird that we were still in the car before, I was even more worried now. Peaking out the window, all I could see were miles upon miles of empty road, and tall trees all around the highway road.

Sejin must have noticed the worried look on my face and forced a smile at me through the rear-view mirror. “Almost, we arrive.” he said, unhelpfully.

“Yes, but where are we going?” I asked, puzzled, and he muttered a string of incomprehensible Korean, nodding at Tae.

I turned back to my sleeping angel and sighed. I couldn’t bring myself to wake him up.

*

Soon, Sejin turned unto a smaller road, and finally down an earthen path, with no street lights and it got even creepier. I held on to Tae’s hand for comfort, thinking that maybe I should wake him up after all, if we were about to get murdered in the woods, but there was no need because the moment his manager cut the engine off, Tae’s eyes popped open as if by reflex.

“Are we here?” he asked (or at least, I think that’s what I think he asked, cuz it was in Korean), rubbing his eyes and Sejin told him something while I waited not-so-patiently to be let in the loop.

“Komawo, hyung,” Tae gave his manager a sleepy smile and turned to look back at me with the exact same expression, which I must admit, is probably one of the top 5 cutest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Annyeong.” he said to me in that adorable, sing-song sleepy voice, before closing his eyes and reaching for my head to pull me in for a kiss. I wanted to protest, but you know… I’m weak when it comes to that brat.

After a moment, Sejin (whom I hadn’t even noticed getting out of the car) knocked on the window, startling us both. Tae climbed over me, opening the door, and toppled straight out of the car onto the ground while Sejin and I stared at him with similar WTF looks on our faces. Nonplussed, he got up, sporting a casual grin, dusting off his pants and offering me a hand up, which I took, speechless.

Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I realized that we weren’t in the middle of the woods exactly, but by the gates of a large, old-fashioned Korean house, in good need of a good fresh coat of paint… or 20.

While I was busy looking around, Sejin had apparently decided it was time for him to leave, and I only had time to turn around and ask “What?!” before he’d put the key in the ignition and was pulling out of the driveway, leaving us alone, at the creepy mystery mansion.

“He left us!” I exclaimed, baffled.

“Of course,” Taehyung chuckled, “You want him to sleep between us?” he quirked an eyebrow at me, along with a smirk, to make sure I understood he was making fun of me.

That shut me up, but only for a moment before I asked, “We’re sleeping here?” looking up at the dark house in a very non-reassured manner.

“Yusss.” Tae grinned, pushing the gate – which screeched in a worrisome way – and motioning for me to follow.

“Where is ‘here’ anyways?” I asked, hurrying along after him.

“It’s my grandma’s house.” he answered, without even paying attention to me as he searched for something hidden under the windowsill.

“WHAT?!?!”

If the place had had neighbors, I’m sure they’d have heard me screeching, but as it was, my shout just echoed in the dark.

“Don’t worry, she’s not here.” he retorted, only cracking a small smile since he was so focused on his key-search, which he found in a moment and turned back to me, holding it victoriously before shrugging at my unappreciative expression, and turning to unlock the door.

“My lady….” he gestured, bowing deeply after having swiped the lights on, but I just stayed there staring at him.

He sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically, going “FINE!” before slipping one arm under my legs and the other under my shoulders, and carrying me over the threshold while I squealed, and closing the door behind us with one leg. He did all of this while keeping his hold on me on the other side, which was very impressive, but he was looking at me with such a cocky expression as he finished, that it pushed all other thoughts out of my brain.

“But Tae… your grandma…” I whispered, as he smiled devilishly at me, his lips hovering dangerously close to mine.

“Lives in with my parents house.” he said – finishing my sentence – so close that I could feel his breath on my lips. I felt my breathing get more ragged and he looked at me, teasingly, getting closer and closer, and just when I thought he was gonna kiss me, he dropped my legs to the floor, forcing my body into an emergency standstill, while he snickered at me.

“You should take a shower” he finally said, winking, and I don’t think I’d ever been more disappointed in my life. It must have showed on my face cuz he started laughing and gave my bum a smack. “Come on, don’t you wanna take this makeup off and be Emma again?” he asked, tenderly wrapping his arms around my waist and my cheek.

He had a point, but I was rather comfortable and reluctant to leave.

As if reading my mind, he bent over and placed a big – not y in the least – smooch on my forehead. “Come on. It’s first door on second floor. There’s towels.” He added, giving my another encouraging push before I finally gave in.

*

The bathroom had been heaven. Though the outside of the house was reminiscent of what you see in creepy B-movies, the inside was actually really clean and well-maintained. And the bathroom had an actual bath-tub that looked more like what I was used to in Japan than anything I had seen in Korea so far. So I decided to be lazy and take a bath, since there was such a big, traditional, nice one. But even though I took my sweet time soaking up, Taehyung never came to inquire.

It was almost an hour later when I came down the stairs again, bare-faced, with my real hair hanging towel-dried down the back of my thick couple shirt, and I heard him before I saw him.

He was puttering around the kitchen – opening shelves and drawers and making all kinds of noise – except he was doing all that while wearing only a pair of dark grey track pants, and nothing else. I paused in the stairwell staring at him as he stopped for a moment, scratching his head, not noticing me at all. His face was back to normal, all squeaky clean, and his hair was also wet, completely slicked back and dripping a bit still over the back of his bony shoulders. I say bony, but that’s just because he was so lean; the back muscles were definitely there, and I lost my train of thought a bit, staring at his toned, golden skin, until he resumed his search, pulling pots and pans out, before finally exclaiming “ah-ha!” in delight, fetching something from a drawer, as I climbed the last few stairs, chuckling at him.

“Are you cooking?!” I asked, unable to keep the amusement from my voice as I approached him.

“Maybe.” he answered, half-turning around to flash me a little grin, before turning back again and reaching far back into a cabinet. “I ordered pizza.”  

Once again I couldn’t help but be distracted by the fact that he was only wearing sweatpants – old sweatpants at that, that hung low on his hipbones, revealing the tiny beginning of abs I was the only one to know he hid under there – and that he smelled damn good. Unable to stop myself, I slipped my arms around his waist from behind and pulled myself a little closer against him, so I could inhale the scent of his skin. He made a little noise that was halfway between a sound of surprise and laughter, but he didn’t stop me – or what he was doing – which I took as a sign of approval to continue.

I pressed my nose into his neck and he was warm, and smooth, and just a little bit wet still; utterly irresistible. dinner, I wanted to eat him. I was about to bite straight into the back of his neck when I felt myself jerk back, nearly elbowed in the ribs, with Tae turning around in a panic, upset that he might have hurt me.

“Oh my god, are you ok?!” he exclaimed, bending down over me.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…” I grumbled, clutching my side. It was mostly my pride that had been wounded, “What the heck were you trying to do?!” I asked, more annoyed and less sweetly than the romantic mood I had been previously trying to convey.

With a guilty look, he showed me the bottle of wine he had been trying to uncork and ended up nearly destroying in the process.

“Oh hun, no… gimme that…” I said, unable to keep from rolling my eyes, “that’s not how you do it…”

I took the bottle out of his hand and tried to salvage it as best I could, and a moment later we heard the telltale ‘pop’ telling us we’d succeeded.

“I guess it helps to have a French girlfriend.” he grinned at me, seeming proud.

“I’m not French”, I tapped him on the head with the cork before tossing it in the sink.

He shrugged as I poured red liquid into his glass, “You speak it. Almost same.”

I rolled my eyes and he took the bottle from me.  He poured some wine into a second glass, which he handed me, before reaching for his again, as if he wanted to clink our drinks together.

“Are you gonna stay like that?” I asked, staring at his chest pointedly, after having tipped my glass to his.

He bit his bottom lip, trying to hide a smile, asking innocently, “You don’t like it?”

“What if your grandma comes back?”

He shook his head, answering me only after having taken a sip “She doesn’t live here anymore.”

I breathed an inner sigh of relief but couldn’t help teasing him more, “Well maybe the pizza guy will like it then.” I stuck my tongue out at him, and instead of my expected answer, he just widened his eyes at me and went “Maybe he does!” just as the doorbell rang, leaving me standing there with my glass of wine like an idiot, wondering what had just happened.

I had a few minutes to stew in my shame, since Tae had to go all the way back to the front gate, but he came back a few moments later, slamming the door and tossing the pizza box on the table in the most dismissive manner. I would’ve said something, had there been any time, but he crossed the distance between us in two steps, grabbed my arm, almost making me slosh wine all over the place, and violently pulled me into his chest.

Honestly, it was the manliest thing I’d ever seen him do and I just kinda stared at him, flabbergasted, as he looked down on me like he was both angry and at the same time, and as if he was looking at me for the very first time.

“Stupid pizza guy,” he mumbled in a low rumble under his breath, bringing a thumb over my bottom lip and rubbing it gently as he stared.

I honestly did not know how much longer my legs would hold me up, but I guess I didn’t have to worry about that since he held on to me so firmly. I gulped as he ran a hand through my wet hair and pulled me even closer to him with it (I’m explaining it wrong, but it was really, really hot), and it took all my brain functions to remember that I was supposed to breathe.

“There’s my beautiful blonde girl that I love,” he said, with a small smile, cupping my cheek, “and the beautiful blue eyes that I love,” he went on, looking into them one after the other and smiling.

I was mesmerized by his entire face too. After having been looking at a stranger’s features all day, I was falling in love with every detail of it all over again. He kissed me before I could say anything and opened his eyes wide, millimeters away from mine, to look at me. I could see the little flecks of gold in the brown of his eyes, the little beauty mark on his nose, and how low and thick his eyelashes were. He smiled, perhaps pleased at a similar examination, and closed his eyes, kissing me again; and for a long moment, the pizza lay there quite forgotten as we just kissed, and kissed, and kissed.

I have to admit, having him standing there half-undressed in front of me was completely unfair, as the touch of his bare skin against my hands was driving me completely crazy, but eventually, my stomach growled, and I reluctantly admitted, “We should eat.”

“Yes,” he said, without stopping the trail of kisses he was busy laying down my neck, “we should.”

“Tae…” I chuckled, and then I squealed because before I could even say anything else, he had swept me up in his arms and was carrying me away god knows where, but it was away from the pizza.

“

“Tae!!” I laughed, “What are you…” I went on, as he muted me with another kiss.

He pushed the door opened with his bum and brought me inside a simple, boyish bedroom with just a single bed, without breaking his stride, or turning on the light. As he deposited me on the mattress, kneeling in front of me, he finally answered my question, with a devilish look in his eyes.

“You said we should eat.” he repeated, crawling over me, like I cat, his eyes glittering in the dark, “I’m hungry for Emma.”