Chapter 29 – Wait

V stood in front of her. He looked down at her with dark, intense eyes that seemed to reflect the light coming from the solitary lightbulb besides her front door. His hands came up to cup her head, and he leaned in, as if in slow motion, to place his lips on her. They were warm, and soft. Everything about the kiss was soft; even though it had happened so suddenly. His eyes opened and stared down into hers, which had remained open out of shock. Had they always been so big? Or so sparkly? Her heart beat faster than she thought it should as she looked into them; and then he smiled and its rhythm accelerated even faster. And then….

“SOOOOOOKIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

An enormous weight jumped on her bed, calling her name and pulling her out of her dream. Insook groaned and rolled over as her friend laughed and snuggled up besides her, taking the pillow off her head and throwing it away before shouting.

“Come on, sleepy head, it’s nearly 1pm! I’ve been waiting all morning to hear the details about last night!”

Insook groaned again, trying to escape under the blankets, but to no avail. Finally, admitting defeat, she sat up in bed, and looked at her friend with a sleepy, unimpressed face.

Soonja laughed and went on “musta been good if you’re sleeping in this late…” but Insook just blinked back at her, before stifling another yawn.

“Well come on then! How was your date?!”

At the sound of the word ‘date’, the events of the following night – as well as her dream – came flooding back to her and Insook’s face flushed bright red, which made Soonja go “ooooh!!!!” and scoot a little closer, eagerly.

Insook shoved her away, muttering “must you be so loud so early in the morning?” trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her reddening face.

“I told you it’s past noon already” gloated her friend, rolling away on the bed as Insook got up and headed for her dresser to check her phone. “Here,” added the curly-haired girl, tossing a towel at her friend’s head, “go take a shower. I’ll wait.”

Insook turned to look at her, nonplussed, but still shuffled out of the door without a word, while Soonja plopped back on the bed and started looking at her phone.

Insook came back a few minutes later, with wet hair and a much more aware expression on her face.

“Oh hey, you back with the living now?” called Soonja, putting her phone away. The comment earned her a wet towel to the face.

“Yup.” replied Insook with a sneaky smile.

“So… come on, dish!!!” squealed the tall girl, sitting up indian-style as her friend joined her on the bed.

So Insook launched into a review of the previous night, not sparing any details about the performance and the atmosphere of the club, and how cool and popular Rapmon and his bandmembers had been, and she finished by saying that V had brought her back home around 1am, and that was it.

“That’s it?” exclaimed Soonja, disappointed.

“What do you mean?” asked Insook, trying not to look guilty.

“Well what about the kid? How did he act? What was he dressed like?”

“Don’t call him ‘the kid’…” groaned Insook.

Soonja rolled her eyes, “calling him V is just weird…”

“Well call him by his name then.”

“Besides, he is a kid…” pointed out Soonja.

“Can you not remind me??” complained Insook, shoving a pillow at her friend.

Soonja laughed. “So you do like him.”

“What the heck have I said to make you think that?!” retorted Insook, flustered.

“Your face” answered her friend, laughing only harder.

Insook tried to glare at her but she knew her face must be betraying her as she felt it heat up.

“Spill.”

She looked up at her friend who was staring at her pointedly and looked down at the comforter, before grudgingly admitting. “Well… he kinda kissed me…”

Soonja squealed so loudly that Insook’s father came in to check on them a moment later, asking if they were ok, and they had to apologize and wait til he was gone to continue the conversation. Soonja made her recount exactly every detail of how it happened – twice – before she pulled back with a dreamy smile on her face.

“That is seriously the cutest thing I ever heard”

“Yeah…..” replied Insook, sounding unconvinced.

“What? Didn’t you like it?”

“I did, I just…” started the teenage girl.

“Just what?”

“Just…” Insook sighed, “I dunno…”

“Girl, if you start going on about Crapmonster again, I’m gonna punch you…”

Insook laughed but she still felt unsure. She wanted to like V, she really did, but somewhere inside there was still something pulling her back. She wanted to explain that to her friend, but didn’t know how. And before she could even attempt to, her phone buzzed noisily from the top of the dresser, so she got up to go look at it. Her first reaction upon reading the message was a gooey smile, but then she frowned and looked up at her friend.

“Well, who is it? It’s him, isn’t it” asked Soonja, giddily.

Insook smirked at her, bringing the phone back with her to the bed, without answering.

“What’s he saying…” she asked in a sing-song voice, making Insook roll her eyes at her.

When her friend wasn’t answering, Soonja swooped over and grabbed the phone out of her hands, reading the message for herself. “Oooh, he wants you to go meet him in Myeongdong!”

“Give that back!” she shouted, attacking her friend to regain control of her phone.

“You’re going of course” stated the tall girl, handing the phone back to Insook once she’d managed to read the contents of the message.

“Nooonjie….” warned Insook.

“Girl, this is non-negociable.”

“But I thought we were gonna hang out today” pouted the younger-looking girl.

Soonja shrugged “we can hang out anytime. You gotta go and meet up with this cutie while the iron’s still hot!”

“I think you’re mixing up your proverbs again…”

“Whatever!” exclaimed her friend, “you know what I mean! Now get dressed!”

Insook sighed but knew there was no arguing with Soonja, who was pretty much the bossiest person she knew. Still, she had to admit, part of her was really looking forward to seeing Taehyung again after last night; even if the other half was completely terrified.

*

After she’d helped Insook getting ready for a second date, Soonja had gone back home and was now sitting on the couch, channel surfing mindlessly as there was nothing good on tv on Saturday afternoon. Once the excitement of seeing her best friend possibly be getting a boyfriend had passed, she half-regretted her decision of having cancelled their girls’ day over a boy. She stared at her phone, hoping that it would ring, but the truth was – between school and work – Soonja didn’t really have much time to make any friends other than Insook. That’s why she was really surprised when, as she stared at it absentmindedly, her phone really did ring.

She stared at it in disbelief for a minute, trying to recognize the number before carefully answering “hello?”

“So I ‘accidently’ dropped by your restaurant again, but I was so disappointed to find out you’re not working today….” said a familiarly deep voice on the other end.

“How did you get this number?!” exclaimed the tall girl, halfway between surprise and irritation.

“Your mom gave it to me” the boy chuckled cockily on the other end.

“She WHAT?!?!!” exclaimed Soonja, and Rapmon burst out laughing.

“Well anyways, since you weren’t there last night, and Insook said you wanted to come, I thought the least I could do was to show you some videos of the live…”

“Oh she said that, did she?” replied Soonja in a fake innocent voice, making a mental checklist to throttle Insook later.

Rapmon laughed. “Don’t be too mad at her. She doesn’t know you hate me.”

He’d said that so casually, Soonja suddenly felt bad. She paused for several seconds before answering “I don’t hate you…… I guess.”

There was a pause on the other end as Rapmon was obviously surprised by the admission.  “So come meet me?” he asked, finally, “or do you already have plans?”

“Well no, I guess I don’t, since my previous engagement ditched me to go on a date…” she said in a sulky tone.

“Meet me at your restaurant then?”

She paused again before answering. “Fine. I’ll be there in 30.”

And then she hung up and stared at her phone, thinking ‘what the heck is wrong with me?!?’

***

V and Insook spent the whole afternoon popping in and out of beauty shops in Myeongdong. His excuse was that he was shopping for a birthday present for his sister, but in reality, he just wanted to spend time with Insook and didn’t think that she would come if he asked her straight out. However, even though she was a girl, Insook wasn’t big on cosmetics and facial care, so she was just as clueless as he was when it came to choosing a present.

After about an hour or so, realizing that they were getting nowhere, he called for a break and dragged her inside a nice, airconditioned, binsu place. They ordered a large strawberry cream binsu bowl, and sat by the window eating it as they chatted. Or should I say, Insook watched as V ate all the strawberries in record time while they chatted.

After that, they returned to their shopping, but neither of them seemed much interested in buying anything, so they just drifted along the streets, randomly pointing at stuff that caught their attention. Eventually they ended up in an area with a lot of stone benches that was basically like a park without any trees, so they decided to sit down.

V was chattering away non-stop, and Insook found that she rather liked it. It was easy being with V because he didn’t seem to expect her to comment on anything he said, and was just content with her being there.

She was staring at him, as he recounted a story about his dog, and a small smile crept on her face. He paused mid-sentence and started grinning at her.

“What?” she asked, wondering if she had something on her face, causing his grin to get even larger.

“I’m happy” he said simply, looking away at the people walking to and fro in front of them. Insook turned to look ahead as well, hoping he didn’t notice the blush creeping up on her cheeks.

“You?” he asked, without turning to look at her.

Insook cast a little side glance and him, and gave a slight nod, feeling her face flush. V smiled even more broadly and gently took her hand in his. They sat like that without saying anything for several minutes. But then she turned to look at him and said “V…” while slowly extricating her hand from his. He looked down at their hands, a hurt expression crossing his beautiful features and she felt horrible for what she was about to say.

“Don’t make that face…”

V looked away from her again, staring at the passerbys.

“Look V…”

“Taehyung.” he corrected her.

“Taehyung… I like you. I really do… I’m just super confused right now.”

He turned to look at her, half-surprised and half-worried at her words. She looked away to continue.

“I won’t lie to you; you know that I feel something for Namjoon… or felt something for him… honestly I don’t know anymore…” she sighed, “but like, I can’t give you what you want right now…” she paused and glanced at him and his face was expressionless, like he was trying to hold everything in.

She looked down at the ground between her feet before continuing.

“And you know that the tests are coming up, and we’ll be super busy with studying, and rehearsals for the Japanese project, and honestly if things keep going the way they are, I’m gonna drive myself crazy and fail the semester. And then my parents will kill me.” she added with a small sarcastic laugh, and looked at him to see his reaction but his face remained passive.

“V…”

“Taehyung.”

“Tae…”

He looked up at the affectionate way she called his name and she was smiling kinda sadly.

“Just… just give me until after the tests. Okay? Until after the tests with no pressure, with just your friendship, and then… and then I’ll give you my answer, okay?”

He looked up at her, really intensely, and for a moment Insook thought he was about to cry. But then he nodded.

“Til after the tests, then.”