It was a chilly autumn afternoon, but not a gray cloud in sight on a Sunday. Rachel was waiting on a bench next to the fountain in the middle of the open market. Rachel kept checking her phone every minute looking for a text.

But there were no new messages that she wanted to see in her inbox.

Rachel let out an evident sigh and looked up at the skies that were blue and had a bunch of white puffy clouds in the sky. It looked like the perfect day to go out and do something nice, since it was a nice day.

Opposite of how she felt.

“Rachel?” a voice shook her out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw Jongin standing in front of her out of breath.

His dark brown hair was a tad bit messy, he wore a shirt turned inside out, track pants, and running shoes. His face was drenched in sweat and so was his shirt. He wiped his face with his shirt and looked at Rachel, as his hair lied right on his eyes.

“Jongin …? What are you doing here?” Rachel asks, surprised to see Jongin standing in front of her. She felt a bit pathetic.

“Decided to go for a run, I need to start exercising. Plus, the weather looked nice today.” Jongin replies and leans a bit closer, “The better question would be what are you doing here, alone? And why is your nose red?”

“Oh… um…” Rachel stutters not knowing how to answer him. She did not want to seem pathetic, although she already was.

“Don’t tell me you got stood up…” Jongin trails off with his hands on his hips interrogating Rachel with his eyes. Rachel looks away, biting her lip, fidgeting a bit. “What the actual…” Jongin runs a hand through his hair a bit frustrated and looks back Rachel who looks like she’s about to cry.

“Get up.” Jongin demands holding out his hand. Rachel looks up at him, her eyes a bit watery and then looks at his hand. Jongin looks at her, encouraging her to take his hand.

She hesitantly takes his hand and he pulls her up, using a bit too much strength so she collides into his broad chest. She quickly pushes him away, unable to look at him.

His chest felt nice.

“Accompany me home, and I’ll take you out on a date instead.” Jongin offers. Rachel looks at Jongin like he grew another head and he shrugs in response. “Do you really… want to waste an outfit?” Jongin says knowingly looking at her outfit. Rachel quickly shakes her head, which causes Jongin to grin proudly. “Great, let’s go.” Jongin takes her hand and they go to his house.

When they arrive at Jongin’s house, which was only about a ten minute walk from where they were, Jongin goes to change and tells Rachel to wait in the living room, telling her the kitchen is open and she can eat whatever she wants.

Rachel looks around his living room, it was quite simple. There was a long L shape couch against the wall, an entertainment set with a large flat screen TV opposite of the couch. In front of the couch there was a coffee table that had a couple of Vogue Magazines. She assumed it was probably his mother’s magazines.  

She walks towards the entertainment set that had a bunch of family photos and childhood achievement. Rachel looked at the photo that had four of them. Jongin a few years back, a girl who Rachel assumed was his sister; another who she also assumed was his other sister, his mother and father. The picture was taken at what looked like a Disneyland Resort in front of the castle.

Rachel admired that picture a lot. His two sisters, who had big smiles on their face, were carrying Jongin and their parents were behind them doing the peace sign.

“Admiring my family picture I see.” Jongin’s voice startles Rachel who turns around to see Jongin in a striped long sleeved shirt and jeans. His hair was a bit wet; she assumed he took a quick shower since he was in fact, all sweaty from exercising.

“Yeah, you look so happy in this picture.” Rachel comments and he looks at her with a frown on his face.

“I always look happy, just for your information.” Jongin counters back with a teasing smile and looks at the picture with Rachel. “Well, that’s actually my favorite memory. We took a trip to California, and it was our first time there. My sisters and I were so excited.” Jongin explains the picture. “This is from when we visited Sea World and saw the sea animals. The killer whale was the best in my opinion.” Jongin says pointing to another picture of him and his sisters in front of a tank that had a killer whale inside.

“That looks fun. Chanyeol and I have never visited California before.” Rachel says as she looks at the pictures, which she assumes are all taken in California.

“The difference is though you visit Hawaii a lot, from what Chanyeol told me. He brings me back a fake flower lei every time he comes back.” Jongin says and takes Rachel’s hand and brings her to his room to show his collection of flower leis.

Rachel enters his room and is surprised to see how clean it is compared to her brother’s dump he calls a room. The bed is made, the desk is clear, the floor is actually visible and there is not a dirty piece of clothing in sight. It’s a refreshing sight to know that some males are actually clean. Rachel then remembers how Baekhyun’s house was all sparkly clean, but then again that was Baekhyun, and he was straight up weird.

“See, my flower lei collection.” Jongin points to his stand that had two flower leis and two kukui nut leis. “Well, and these leis. He said it was some sort of nut lei, and it’s mainly for males.”

“Kukui nut leis. Yeah, they are for males, but I think the flower leis suit you better.” Rachel laughs as she puts the colorful flower lei around Jongin, while she takes one of his hats and puts it on for herself.

“See, we match don’t we?” Rachel says as she looks at his long mirror in front of her, adjusting the hat a bit so it looks better.

“Yeah, you match my hat.” Jongin chuckles seeing how Rachel liked his hat.  Rachel looked at him and gave a bright smile that made her eyes turn into crescent moons.

“I like your hats better than my own brothers.” Rachel comments and looked at Jongin. “And I’m going to borrow this today. It matches me today, don’t you think?” Rachel does a tiny spin and looks at Jongin with anticipation.

Jongin swore his heart stopped for a moment looking at Rachel. She was a natural beauty in his opinion. She did not need all that makeup she thought she needed to put on. The all naturalness of Rachel was beautiful in his opinion.

He was speechless and nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, you match it a lot. Let’s go while the day is still young.” Jongin smiles at her and ta