Chapter Sixteen
Can I continue feeling this way?
pic credit to nights.tumblr.com
He paused in confusion. “Wait, what?”
“Take it off. You’re going to catch a cold.”
I bent down into my bag and grabbed the only dry shirt I had in there. When I stood back up, he was still standing there in the same position, not doing anything. I held the shirt in my hand, not quite sure of what to do next. This would work better if he had already gotten undressed. I slowly handed him the shirt, and he slowly took it. Suspecting he might be shy in front of me, I turned around to give him privacy.
“If this is your only other shirt, then what will you wear Kris gege?”
“I’ll just walk around in the sun and it’ll dry after a while.”
“…”
It was silent, and I could tell Tao still hadn’t changed. “Tao, I’ll be fine, okay?”
“…okay.”
I stared at the tiles while he dressed. They were a creamy white color, and looked like they came from granite. They were slightly glossy too, just enough to reflect most anything. The harder I stared the more I realized that turning around did no justice; a figure could be seen in the tiles. Outstretching it’s limbs to fit the fabric onto itself, I couldn’t help but send my eyes to find every inch of it’s skin. This was the not the first time I had seen him like this, for there was that time he had to borrow my clothes. Yet, my eyes ate up every bit they could as if it had been the first time. A part of me felt a little dirty for so sneakily watching him dress, but I ignored it. I truly could not pry my eyes off this being.
“I’m done.”
I turned around and looked him over. He looked good in practically anything, but this was beyond any level of attractiveness. The shirt that I had given him was just a plain one, but somehow, he dressed it up. He forgot to fix his hair after slipping it over his head, so it had a hint of I mean bed head. His collarbone protruded the thin fabric, not caring who was staring. Although I was a size bigger than him, the shirt seemed to have been fitted for him. It only defined his sculpted body even more. Oh how I wanted to devour him so.
“Are you okay?” Tao broke the silence and brought me out of my daydream.
“Huh? Oh yeah.” I got back to reality. “What do you want ride next?”
“…you.”
My eyes snapped open. “What?”
“I said ‘whichever one you want’ since I don’t know the rides here.”
“Ohhhh…” I dropped my eyes to the floor. I must’ve heard him wrong.
Tao gave me a strange look but couldn’t hide a smirk. I laughed to my ridiculous self and grabbed our now three bags. Within five minutes we were in line at a roller coaster. Tao was nervous considering this would be his first, so I stood extra close to him to try to calm him.
“What if it breaks?” he asked worriedly.
“It won’t break.”
“What if the harnesses break?” he asked, concerned.
“They won’t.”
“What if we fly out? Where will we land?” he looked to me.
“Then I’ll use my wings and fly us away.”
“What if we pass out during the ride?”
“We won’t pass out.”
“What if we get stuck upsidown on one of the loopdyloops?”
“Then all of your blood will drain out of your ears.”
“wHAT?!!” he nearly screamed.
I couldn’t help but crack up. He slapped my arm and poked me in a few places to receive an ushered apology. I underestimated him; I didn’t think he would find pressure points on me, but he did. I had to hold onto him so I didn’t fall to the ground. As soon as I looked back at him the most smug smile was plastered on his face.
We waited for another 30 minutes, not particularly doing anything besides staring at random objects. An occasional flash would go off, certainly a camera from a fan. We were starting to get tired of standing when the line finally let up and we were walking on the platform. Although Tao and I were tall, we could still sit next to each other. Thank god. The man came over and fastened the harness for us. I could feel Tao shaking next to me.
“You’ll be fine. You’ll love it once it gets started.” Tao looked at me with doe eyes; he must’ve been hanging around D.O. lately.
“Trust me.” I spoke with every ounce of reassurance I had left. The little one nodded and looked forward, hands glued to the harness. He jumped as the coaster started rolling forward. We were almost instantly rising and falling through the bars. I felt the maknae loosen up as we got further and further down the ride. He even put his hands up during one of the drops. Knowing that he was okay now let me enjoy the ride. If he had been scared the whole time, I wouldn’t hesitate to put my fun aside and comfort him. I rose my arms just as he did, and let out a ‘whoooo’ as we dropped down. The ride ended all too fast. We returned to the platform and got up.
“Ahh-!” Tao lost his footing and fell on the ground. I dipped fast to catch him before any vital parts hit the concrete.
“Tao! Are you okay?!” I helped lift him up before too many people saw and held his arm as we walked out.
“Sorry. I just got dizzy. Sorry.”
I smiled. It was just from the ride. Although it was a small thing that had just happened, learning that it was just vertigo relaxed me. I was honestly afraid that he would puke himself senseless. Regardless, we headed to another ride. Tao seemed to really like the roller coasters so the next few rides were exactly that. I no longer needed to coax him into relaxing as he nearly pulled me into ride after ride. After a while we both started to get hungry so we sat at a secluded bench big enough for ten. We were far away from the park goers, but somehow I just knew that there were still eyes upon us. I waited a few minutes to eat, for I wanted both of our stomachs to get used to normal gravity so that we wouldn’t lose our lunch. We talked until we were nearly starving and dived into our stash. We talked for a bit afterwards as well to give our food time to digest, and then walked around the various shops that they had. While we were walking, we ran into a ‘real life’ daffy duck. I winked at it, subtly telling it to act real as Tao went around and examined all sides of the creature. He poked it, earning a yelp from the duck. Tao nearly jumped out of his skin.
“You can speak?!!” He looked at it with incredibly wide eyes, amazed.
The duck however, didn’t respond. He wasn’t supposed to, as the fresh tip in his pocket told him not to. Tao played with him once more and then came to me, giddy.
“Did you see that?!” Tao grabbed hold of my arm, trying to get my attention. “It was a life sized duck! I swear I heard it talk…” he trailed off.
I laughed. “Really?” Time to play dumb. “I don’t think ducks can grow to be that big.” I smirked, wondering if he would continue to think it was real.
He looked to the ground. “Maybe it ate steroids…” he trailed off once more. I laughed incredibly hard at that, earning stares from some groups around us.
“Yeah. Maybe.” I smirked once more as we walked off into the shopping centre.
I had walked a few steps ahead before I noticed that Tao was no longer behind me. I swooped around and looked for him as best I could. There was a huge crowd, for everyone was going out for the warmth of the sun. I, however, had my height as a helper. After a few seconds and near panicking, I found that little panda looking at the little pandas.
I pushed through the crowd to get to him. “Tao! Don’t do that again.” I looked at him sternly.
“Do what?” He looked at my worried eyes innocently.
“Wander off without telling me. You nearly scared the out of me!” I unintentionally rose my voice at the end.
Tao held up the panda in his hands and held it up to me as he spoke: “But-”
I ripped it from his hands, demanding his attention. “No! No ‘but’s! Don’t EVER do that again!” I could feel my heart start to drop as I examined the maknae’s reaction. His cheeks had filled with a bright blush, the ends of his lips had sunken to a near frown, his eyes opened wide as slight drops of moisture began to form near the edge. My mouth hung open with immediate regret as the teen lowered his head and walked away. I turned my head to find him but he was already gone.
I felt nothing but anger at myself bubble up inside of me. “Ughhhh!!” I grunted aloud, not caring who heard. I stared down at the animal in my hands. It was a plushie of a panda bear, of course, and had big round eyes and puffy cheeks. No matter how many times I looked at it, it still looked like Tao.
What have I done?
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