Chapter 30 - Coffee

Insook was really sleepy on Monday morning because she’d spent the whole previous day studying. It was that time of the year that she really hated; that time that rolled around only 3 times a year when she HAD to actually crack open her books and pretend to be a good student. Most of the time, she didn’t have to try very hard to keep her grades up, and she didn’t care much about all the hype and competition as long as she stayed within the class average, but during test times, her parents would really get on her case if she didn’t do well, so she had to put in a little more effort than usual. And since she’d been out playing for the better part of the weekend, she thought she should at least make a big show of being a dutiful little daughter on Sunday.

She’d slept nearly all the way through history class in 4^th period, and now, sitting on the bleachers with her notebook open in her lap, she kept yawning as she tried to focus on her notes, but the foreign letters kept jumbling together, and she couldn’t concentrate.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and then opened them again suddenly as something cold came in contact with her face.

“Here.”

She looked up to see Taehyung smiling down at her, then down at his hand, which was pressing a cold can of coffee against her cheek.

“I could see you yawning all the way to the moon during Japanese class,” he laughed, sitting down next to her and popping his own can open, “what did you do last night?”

“Studying” she grunted, breaking the seal on her can a taking a big swig.

“Wahh, that stuff is foul” she exclaimed, making a face, which made V laugh.

“Don’t drink much coffee huh?”

She shook her head.

“No coffee, no alcohol… my, what a good girl you are…” he teased.

She narrowed her eyes at him and pulled her tongue out. His eyes crinkled into little slits as he smiled and Insook felt suddenly embarrassed.

“Well I guess sometimes it’s a necessary evil…” she mumbled, turning away.

“Which one?” he smirked and she smacked him.

“We should get on with this…” said the teenage girl, “we barely got anything and presentation’s on Friday. I’m kinda freaking out.”

“Ooh, look at you being all ‘good student’ mode…” chuckled the boy.

“V, come on, I’m serious!”

“So am i! It’s kinda cute… though you’d need little glasses perched on your nose like this…” he said, pinching the tip of her nose with his fingers.

“V!!!”

“Alright, alright…” he conceaded, still chuckling, and bent down to retrieve his own notes from his schoolbag.

“So first the family greats her, and then they go visit Tokyo tower, and then what?”

Insook started reviewing the notes on her paper, talking seriously, but then she looked up to find V staring at her, hand under his chin, with a goofy little smile on his face.

“I really do think you’d look cute with glasses though…”

“Urgh!! Come on!!” she wailed, and he laughed again, “V this isn’t funny! We’re gonna fail!”

“Relax…”

“No, I will not relax!! We need to focus!”

“Geez, who knew you were so abrasive when you don’t get your beauty sleep…”

“Urgh!” she exclaimed and started packing her things.

“Hey wait, where are you going?!”

“Library” she snapped, starting to climb down the bleachers steps.

“We can work here, I’ll focus, I promise.”

“Well obviously, you can’t, so I’m just gonna write the script on my own and email it to you tonight.”

“Insook, you don’t have to do that…”

“It’s fine”

“No wait”, he climbed down the steps to meet her and put a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll do it.”

She looked up at him suspiciously.

“You’re stressed, and you’re swamped with other stuff; let me do it.” He offered, though she still looked at him like she didn’t believe him.

“Honestly, I’m better at Japanese than you anyways. Just leave it to me.”

He looked at her with a guileless smile and she softened.

“Fine. But if you haven’t done it by tomorrow, I’m asking the teacher to change partners.” She sulked, walking away from him.

“Insookie!” he called chasing after her, “don’t do that!!”

***

Jimin was chatting with a classmate at his locker after lunchtime when Hoseok quietly appeared next to him. He glanced to his left to see him there suddenly and his heart skipped a beat in shock.

“Hey Jiminie, do you have a minute?” he asked, with a small, hopeful smile.

“Hum, yeah, sure,” answered the short boy, “I’ll see you later man!” he told his friend, who nodded and walked off, hands in his pockets.

They both stood there awkwardly, not really knowing what to say, til Jimin finally asked, “So what’s up?” so casually that it sounded strange.

“Not here…” said Hoseok, and then tilted his head towards the entrance, indicating they should go outside.

“Hobi… the bell’s gonna ring…” complained Jimin.

But Hoseok just rolled his eyes, grabbed his dongsaeng’s wrist, and dragged him outside.

“Ok, ok, I’m coming!”

J-Hope brought him to that secluded area, next to the PE storage unit – that same spot where Rapmon had confessed to Insook about the bet not too long ago – and only let go of his hand once he’d made sure that they were completely alone.

“So what do you wanna talk about” asked Jimin with a nervous smile, knowing full well what Hoseok wanted to talk about.

The taller boy turned to look at him and then took a deep breath.

“Well obviously we need to talk about what happened on Friday.”

“Yeah…” said Jimin, looking down.

“Was that a drunk mistake again?” asked the dark-haired boy, trying to sound composed.

Jimin took a while before answering, “… no…” while still looking at the ground.

Hoseok took a step towards him and hesitantly raised a hand to his face. “Jimin…”

“Hobi…” replied the younger one, “I’m scared…” finally looking him in the eye.

“Shh… it’s ok…” said his hyung, his voice shaking slightly as he cupped his face and came even closer.

“When I think about you… I know I want to be with you, but I’m so confused…” Jimin said, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.

“I don’t wanna make you upset, Jiminie…” Hoseok spoke softly, caressing his cheek.

“I like when you call me Jiminie…”

Jimin cracked a little smile and it was like Hoseok’s heart broke and filled up with light at the same time. He couldn’t help grinning like an idiot. He brought his face closer to the younger boy’s until their lips were literally only millimeters appart, their eyes boring into each other’s, until Jimin gasped and whispered “what if someoneone sees us?”

“Then let’s make sure they don’t” Hoseok whispered back, and Jimin could feel the boy’s breath on his lips, making his insides heat up.

Hoseok grabbed hold of Jimin’s hand and dragged him inside the PE storage unit, which was pretty much always unlocked, just as the bell for 5^th period rang.

***

Insook was distracted.

She had drunk three cups of coffee today already (an abnormally high spike from her usual zero) and although she was now incredibly awake, she still had a lot of trouble focusing on anything for more than 30 seconds.

And right now she knew that the thing that held her attention was very, very bad for her health.

Still, she couldn’t help but stare at Rapmon’s lips, as he absentmindedly bit the tip of his pencil while he concentrated on the question. His forehead creased in thought, but it was his lips that she focused on. How on earth did anyone have lips that plump? They tightened around the pencil, and then opened up as he said something, and stopped moving for a while, before twisting up into a smirk.

Insook suddenly looked up at his eyes to see that she had been caught and blushed furiously.

Rapmon pressed his luscious lips together as he tried to suppress a laugh and cleared his throat.

“Why don’t we take a break?”

“Hum, yes! That’s a good idea!” Insook agreed, all too eagerly.

He chuckled, getting up from the counch and stretching. “I’ll go get us some drinks” he added, before patting her on the shoulder and heading into the kitchen.

As soon as he was gone, Insook dropped her head between her hands in shame, scolding herself, ‘why the heck did I do that?!?’ and vowing to never drink that much coffee again.

Since Rapmon was taking an unsually long time, she tried distracting herself by looking around the room. It was the second time she had been left alone in Rapmon’s living room, and she couldn’t help but be shocked again by its normalcy and how big of a contradiction it was with the boy she was slowly getting to know a lot better. Seeing as he wasn’t coming back, she got up and headed for the one thing that had always puzzled her, the old-school record player in the corner.

She peered at it carefully, wondering how it worked and why someone would want to buy such a thing when there were cds and ipods and itunes so readily available nowadays. And it was obviously still being used since there was a large pile on records, neatly arranged on a stand right next to it.

“It’s cool, huh?”

She almost jumped hearing Rapmon’s voice next to her ear and turned to find him standing right behind her.

“Beatles… Lee Jang Hee… Ray Charles… Eminem? Your dad has eclectic taste…” commented the teenage girl, looking at titles on the discs.

Rapmon laughed, “That one’s mine” he said, taking the disc out of its slot and looking at it. “It’s the first one I bought” he told her, looking at it with a fond smile.

“They still make those?!”

“Of course” he gave her a little wink.

“Why would anyone buy that though?” she wondered.

“Why?” he repeated, and then to answer her, he pulled the record out of its sleeve pocket, turned the machine on and placed it on the turntable, before adjusting the needle. Crisp sound soon came pouring out of the loudspeakers, along with the familiar rapping voice.

“The quality of the sound is much better.” he explained, nodding his head to the beat.

“If you say so…” she said, unconvinced, and he laughed.

He raised the needle again and turned the machine off, before carefully replacing the record in its protective envelope.

“You look like you’re cradling your first born or something” she , seeing how carefully he was handling the disc.

“Haha,” he chuckled, “in a way. That’s the record that first got me into rap, you know.” he added, before walking back over to the couch and letting himself fall backwards on it.

“What did you listen to before?”

“I wasn’t really into music before…” he shrugged.

“Really? That seems hard to believe” she said, following him and sitting down.

He chuckled in response. “I guess it really did change my life” he agreed, seeming as if he was remembering some far-away moment in time. “He was so cool, and full of charisma… I wanted to be like that too.”

She nodded, thinking that, as far as she was concerned, he had already succeeded, but keeping her thoughts to herself.

“What were you into before, then?” she wondered, suddenly?

“Before? Hmm, not much…” he paused, thinking. “Studying, I guess?”

“Studying?!” she laughed, “you?!!”

“Hey!” he protested, “I had the top scores in my entire school!”

She looked at him, mouth open and eyes full of disbelief, and then shook her head.

“Rapmonster… a nerd…” she chuckled to herself.

“Yeah…” he whispered, giving her a sly smile, “keep it to yourself, will ya?”

And she nodded, while still carrying on a little quiet chuckle.

“Shall we get back to it then?” he asked, pointing at their books.

“Sure… brainmonster…”