Twenty

The day after was terribly busy for me. Because after Daesung told me Jiyong’s parents were coming, I got into panic-mode. Because the house stunk, it was like a cauldron filled with empty milk cartons – thanks to Seungri – and we had to make it look presentable at least.

So I’d been working my off to tidy everything up. Of course my room wasn’t the priority now, everything else was, and the guys helped me. Except… Jiyong wasn’t all that helpful. I’m still worried. He isn’t talking to me like usual.

Today was the day his parents were visiting. The house looked neat, sparkly and squeaky clean. We celebrated in the morning with me making them their favorite breakfast – honey covered pancakes. After that, I assigned each of them, duties.

“Seungri! Please go get three cartons of milk!”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Daesung! I want you to get me these,” I handed him out a list. “Get them from ABC Mart, not from anywhere else.”

“Got it!”

“Seunghyun! Go buy some disposable tissues. Y’know… the big boxes, yeah.”

“Will do!”

“Taeyang, please buy me these ingredients. I’m making pie in the evening.” I gave him a written list and sighed in relief. Thank god at least he knew the difference between baking powder and rice flour.

“Okay.” And they all trooped out of the door. Before leaving, Seungri asked me, “Jinhee-ah, wanna come with us?”

“Eh?” I asked, my hand on the door. I had to tidy up my room, it was the one thing I hadn’t done. I bit my lip.

But... what if Seungri went and bought the wrong type of milk or something?

I stole a glance at Jiyong, who was sitting on the couch, playing with his cell phone, least bothered. I hadn’t given him any chore, cuz he was in a bad mood, and for all I knew, he may not do it even if I did ask him to.

“Y-yeah, Okay, I’ll co-“

“You should stay, Jinhee.” I heard Jiyong’s quiet, quiet voice say. I looked at him, but he was still playing with his phone.

“Uh… maybe you should stay, yeah.” Top nervously cleared his throat and laughed. I wasn’t the only one – they’d noticed the tension in the air too. They nodded and left. Taeyang gave me a careful glance before leaving, as if to tell me, “be careful.” Or something.

I gulped and shut the door. It was just me and Jiyong now.

It wasn’t like I’d never been alone with Jiyong before. There was this one time when he was sick and the others had to go to a TV show, so I had to take care of him. It wasn’t much. Jiyong vomited all the porridge I’d make for him, right after he ate it. It wasn’t like in the movies where the girl feeds the guy and the air would be full of awkwardness and finally they’d end up on the bed together. Nah. Not in the least.

I hurried into the kitchen, prepared everything for my extra exotic cooking and went upstairs to my room. I started by cleaning under my bed where I found numerous dust bunnies and all.

After a while, when I was nearly done, I heard the door open. It was Jiyong. He sat down on my bed leisurely.

“J-Jiyong? What are you doing here?” I asked, looking at him.

“Nothing. Go ahead.” He shrugged in that quiet, quiet voice and contented himself with watching me rub my table with a damp cloth. I averted my eyes and just continued.

The silence was too much to bear.

“Jiyong… did I do something wrong?” I asked finally, leaning on the bed rest. I watched him carefully as he glanced up at me and shrugged again.

“No, why?”

“Because you’ve been acting all… weird! You’ve not been talking to me properly since the day of the sports festival after-!” I abruptly stopped. Unpleasant things. Better not say them.

He watched me, searching for signs on my face. He didn’t say anything.