❝ chapter eleven

s o l a r ’ s

[blue text = spoken in english]

    “Hi.” 

    “Hi!” I smiled. “You sound exhausted.”

    “Yeah, considering all the questions I had to answer.” He laughs. “Did you eat? Your members said you’re on diet again.” 

    “Hm.” I mumble. “I had 2 hard boiled eggs.”

    “Come outside.”

And just like that, I found myself skipping to the door immediately. As soon as the I grabbed the door opened, he stood smiling in front of me, one hand holding his phone in his ear and another hand raising the plastic bag in his hand in front of me. Parts of me wanted to jump into his arms and gave him a big bear hug and parts of me just froze, staring at him with the door wide opened and completely forgot that we could actually be caught by Dispatch.

    “What are you doing here?” I asked, slowly pulling my phone away from my ear and ended the call. 

    “You need to eat and the girls said they felt bad eating your favorite food without you.” 

Pft, turns out they aren’t rascals after all. I smile and tell him to come inside. It finally hits me that someone could have seen us so I close the door almost a little bit too fast, I accidentally hit him with it. I whimper, muttering a sorry and he just laughs over it. 

    “Do you want some?” 

I ask when we sit down inside my kitchen across from each other, food laying right before us. It has been a while since I last ate American BBQ.

    “Go ahead, I ate a lot a while ago.” 

    “What did you guys talk about?” 

I made a burger like he once made for me while he updated me about what my members said. Apparently, Byul asked the most but I’m not even surprised. She acted like she doesn’t really care about whatever we’re having but deep down, she’s the most curious. Hyejin and Wheein spent half of the times eating so it wasn’t that bad for him. As long as the two youngest are taken care of, it isn’t that bad to deal with them us.

    “Stop going on diet, you already look skinny enough.” 

    “It’s comeback period, I have to or I won’t be able to fit in the stage costumes.”

I feed him by times because I feel bad for eating alone and even though he complains that he’s stuffed to his throat, he still bites them gratefully. I finish my last bite then grab my used plates and stack them and move them to one side so I can watch him talk. I don’t even know when did this start but I started to love watching him talk. Byul told me I'm creepy when I said I like watching how his mouth unintentionally turn into this little smirk when he's seriously talking about something or how his lip turns into a little pout when he's really focused. 

Silently, he reaches his hand out to wipe the little bit of sauce from the corner of my lip then we’re both flush red. Him, especially on the ears and me, literally my whole face. He clears his throat and nods a little bit and we both know it doesn’t mean anything, but I find myself giving a small nod back. 

    “It’s midnight, you should get some sleep.” He said and stood up from his chair. “I’ll get going!” 

Just like that, I find myself grabbing his hand almost immediately. Just a little good bye and we’re still gonna meet again, and I’m already sad. He stares at me confusedly, genuinely surprised for the second time since the kiss.

    “Stay here tonight.” 

    “Huh?” 

He blinks at me, a little bit confused, a little bit bewildered. This cold be count as the third time I surprise him and myself now off-camera. I guess I’m really starting to get bold. 

    “Just sleep.” I let go of his hand and avoid his eyes. “You know, just lay down on the bed and sleep. Without doing anything else. I mean, I’m not a ert but- Never mind, everyone on the internet knows I’m a ert. But really, just sleep. It’s not like we’ve never sleep on the same bed together.” 

    He laughs and it sounds so genuine, it makes me relieve. “Yeba-nim, why are you confessing all of sudden?”

He couldn’t stop teasing me for the next 5 minutes and I whine, throwing a cushion on my couch at him and he’d still laugh and continues teasing me. I eventually let him be then stroll off to my kitchen to clean the dishes, if I procrastinate any longer, it’ll stay there unclean for the next 2 months. 

When I’m done and he’s finally done with his laughing too, we walk to my room and we both suddenly remember that he doesn’t have any outfit. Just then, my phone buzzes and I check to see a message from Hyejin.  

Then, another one from Byul. 

I flush, stealing a glance at Eric who acts like he didn’t see anything but his ears still give it away anyway. What do they take us for, geez. I’m a ert, not an insane one.