“I swear I’m going to strangle them,” Joonmyeon voice growled inside the empty monorail cart.

Beside him Eve could only laugh uncontrollably, “I think tripping and falling face first is enough punishment, don’t you think?” She said in between gasps of air.

Yes, in the attempt to fool the lovebird couple, Sehun missed his footing as he was rushing out from the cart. Resulting in a very embarrassing, and from the loud thud as his upper body fell to the ground, painful experience. Even from the closed door of the departing cart, Eve and Joonmyeon could hear the crowd saying ‘Ouch’ in unison.

“That’s not enough,” grumpy Joonmyeon grunted back.

They were sitting at the opposites of each other. Eve near the far left window, and Joonmyeon near the door. Because in the moment where he realized the trick that was being pulled at him, he immediately rushed to catch Baekhyun's little flying monkeys. Obviously, he didn’t make it in time.

In the other hand, Eve could see past those not so secret hushing session done by the boys, clueless that what they were doing was as clear as a reflecting mirror lying in the middle of a desert. There was this inner argument happening deep inside her all those time they were waiting for their turn to ride the sky gondola.

‘Should I tell him?’

‘Of course no you stupid ! This is your chance. YOUR CHANCE TO BE ALONE.’

‘But…’

‘DUDE just look and listen. This guy is clearly smitten with you. GO WITH IT and just snatch the opportunity!’

Now, when the plan turned out to be a success and she was ultimately stuck with him for the next 10 minutes, Eve gave a longing look across the cart onto the still sulking, albeit it looked like had calmed down considerably, Joonmyeon.

Slowly, she breathed out and mouthed, “Well, I’m waiting.”

“Sorry?” At that response from Joonmyeon, Eve jumped on her seat.

In panic she shuffled away slightly and waved her arms around, “n… No! Nothing!”

“Oh.” That was the only thing to come out from Joonmyeon’s mouth, and it was all excruciatingly awkward silence for the next minutes. They were both shuffling uncomfortably on their seats, expecting the other to say something to break the unseen conversation barrier.

It was so weird too, suddenly plunged into silence like this when just moments before they were talking excitedly about their favourite moments in SpongeBob Squarepants.

Eve couldn’t bear to look at the window anymore longer and decided to steal a glance at Joonmyeon. It was such a coincidence that Joonmyeon decided to do the same thing at the exact same moment. Now that they had established an eye contact, they were faced with the inevitable raising tension to open their mouth and create some form of speech.

It was just unfortunate that they did that at the same time too.

“So!”

It didn’t happen only once.

“Ah, no, you go first.”

One last time for good measure.

“No, really, you go first!”

They lapse back into silence, head bobbing with their mouth gobbling open and close in unison as it seemed that they were locked in some kind of behaviour mirroring limbo.

Finally Eve put that to a stop when she raised her arms and shouted, “OKAY!”

“I’ll go first,” she continued in a more calmed fashion.

Eve didn’t really have anything to say, her brain churning in an attempt to find something coherent. The first thing that came to her was the sentence, ‘I love apples.’ But that was extremely random so she immediately shot it down.

Then something far more relevant arose. Before completely thinking about the consequence that may come from admitting this fact, blabbered and the truth was spilled.

“I’m not really supposed to be here.”

Joonmyeon only looked at her with a frown on his face, “what?”

“My father was supposed to be the one to show you around, but I hijacked the bus and escaped without his permission,” she was afraid of looking up, afraid to find Joonmyeon looking at her with horror. Some sort of expression that said, ‘she’s a fanatic’.

“I bet if I my phone, there’ll be infinite voice message that let me know that he’s disowning me as a daughter or something.”

“I’ll be fired too, that’s that.”

She was still staring down at the floor when she heard a noise of some fabric rustling against the plastic bench.

‘Oh god, he must be trying to pry open the gondola door to nose dive to the sea or something,’ that thought ran through her brain briefly before she felt the warmth of someone sitting beside her.

Reluctantly she took a peek up to see Joonmyeon looking at her with confusion.

“How did you even do that?”

“Do what?”

“Escaped without permission?” He asked with genuine interest.

Eve slowly unfastened the bobby pin from her hair and handed it to him.

The confusion on his face was still there as he examined the pin, “So?”

“My dad locked me in, if you believed he even did that in the first place, and I used that to open the lock.”

He backed away in shock, “no way! I thought that could only happen in movies!”

“No, no, wait. So you’re okay with the fact that I technically just you know, kidnap you lot?” Eve put aside Joonmyeon’s awe for her escapist ability to raise a disbelieved question of her own.

With that, Joonmyeon’s face softened into a small smile. With a shrug he answered, “Well, I guess if you didn’t do that, I won’t be able to meet you, won’t I?”

Eve’s face puffed up into a giant red ball of blushing mess. You could even imagine seeing wisps of steam coming out from her flaming cheek.

But looking at the redness of Joonmyeon’s ear that jutted out in complete contrast with his dark hair, Eve could only imagine his face was as red as hers at that moment.

She was proven right, when he looked at her through the curtain of his bangs, they were both looking like a well-cooked lobster. With that silly image in her mind, she couldn’t help but start laughing again, which was soon joined by Joonmyeon. At first he looked uncertain. Afraid that what he said would only fall to the sea bellow, completely unreciprocated. But his furrowed brow was quickly erased when he saw the genuine laughter of Eve.  He was also reassured with the fact that he was not the only one who looked like a steamed crab.

Eve sighed as she put her hands to her cheeks. It felt so cold and refreshing, and the piercing contrast made her realise that all this was really happening. She was not only dreaming. She hoped not.

“That was so cheesy,” she managed to say, despite the difficulties with her trying to speak with a gigantic grin on her face.

“Oh you’ve never tasted real cheese until you met me,” Joonmyeon gave her a soft nudge with his elbow, “but really, how did you do that?”

“Do what? Picking locks using bobby pins?”

“No, looking so cute.”

The gondola once again fell into a silence as Eve stared at him with a disbelieved grin, “what the hell, that’s…”

“Bad. I know.”

“Disgustingly bad!” Eve playfully pushed him away, “pathetically bad! Ew!”

Joonmyeon tried to swat her hands of but she was too persistent on her dislike for his failed attempt of doing a pick up line, “Well can you do any better?”

That managed to get her to stop pushing him on his arms as she immediately fell into an ecstatic state where she flapped her hands frantically, trying to remember some good pick up line to defeat him.

She finally jumped up, pointing her index finger excitedly to the air when finally something popped upon her mind. She should really train herself to think before she speaks because what came out from was, “you got something on your pants.”

“What?” Joonmyeon asked as he took a quick glance down, stupidly thinking that maybe he got some kind of ketchup stain on his jeans when he knew nothing was really there. That was the magic of suggestion.

“My eyes!” Eve stared at him with anticipation, but Joonmyeon seemed confused, “don’t tell me you don’t understand that?!”

“No… No I completely understand,” he cautiously said, afraid that a slip to the wrong turn would topple everything down.

“So?”

“Well… Dirty much?”

A groan escaped from Eve as she rolled her eyes, “come on, if you wanna be with me, get your erted mind on.”

But after that, she realised that maybe not all men are ready to see such different side of her this quickly. The fact that they only met half a day ago didn’t help much either. “You’re okay with that, right?” She softly asked after toning down her attitude.

“Nah,” Joonmyeon shrugged indifferently, “bet Chanyeol would like you a lot when he knew that.”

They both took a deep breath after they shared a cheeky smile, with the glimmering city shining beneath their feet and the gondola dock towering not far away from them. The night had come to an end, and the air began to felt heavy.

“We are alone for quite a while. I could only guess what the boys are thinking,” Eve turned to look at Joonmyeon. What at first was intended to be something for them to laugh at suddenly shifted into something much more… Serious.

With the sun setting at the background and the twinkling city light shining like earthbound stars, they couldn’t help but get immersed in the romantic ambience.

“Let them think whatever they like,” Joonmyeon whispered slowly, just as slow as his hand tucking strands of Eve’s hair to safety behind her ear, “at least they’re not here to ruin the mood.”

“Oh Joonmyeon,” mimicking his movement by tracing her fingers across his cheek, savoring the contrast of her cold fingers and warm cheek in flutters, “you really are the king of cheese.”

And in a quick flick, she quite firmly patted the side of his face. So firmly in fact, that it could technically be a slap.

“Whyy?!” He cooed at her, lips pouting in an attempt to coax out some pity out of her. But Eve wasn’t affected. She still sat there, arms crossed with a grin on her face.

A grin that could easily turn into a painful grimace. Please let this be over.

The crossed arms that hid her trembling fingers, clawing at her skin with desperation.

“I won’t let you,” she cheekily taunted him.

I can’t let you.

The gondola ride is coming to a close. The instincts inside her whispered to her ears, over and over and over, ‘once you start, you’ll never stop.’

But she’d have to stop. They had to stop.

So she won’t let it start.

A/N: Attack of the angst! Sorry... I didn't even plan that last bit... After being silly and and then BAM. I love it though :P I hope you guys do too!