– 08: BUTTONS –
song: taetiseo - adrenaline

By the time I dragged Taehyung into the shop that hires tuxes, his questions began to get louder.

“Why do we have to go in there?” I heard the pout in his words but didn’t care to look back at him.

“Because when you go on a ball, you wear formal clothes. Tuxedos and dresses because that’s a special occasion where they dance and… you know, like princes and princesses.” My lame explanations were getting lamer and lamer. 

I pushed open the front door of the tiny shop and pulled him in, just to almost run into a woman in her forties, judging us over the rim of her glasses. She was wearing a black dress as if she was going to some sort of funeral, a measuring tape around her neck like a necklace.

Her tiny eyes pierced through me, making me shudder. “We– We want to hire a tux.”

“‘We’?” She looked at me with an raised eyebrow and I gulped and just shoved Taehyung forward in response. 

The woman took him to the back of the store and I carefully followed, trying to make myself invisible by keeping a safe distance between us. The tuxes all looked amazing but the prices would probably make me choke.

“How much will you two be able to pay?” The woman asked without turning around as she rummaged around a pile of tuxedos. “How many nights.”

“One night. About seventy dollar max.” I bit my tongue because I knew, after this night, I wouldn’t have a lot of money left. Why do guys have to be so expensive. 

“I see,” she said and paused for a moment before pulling out a simple tux, very classic. “Try this on, boy.”

Taehyung took it and looked at me helplessly for a moment before being shoved into a fitting room by the woman. Should I help him? Yes? No? My gaze went to the display of my smartphone which said 4pm. The ball would start at 8pm. 

“Seyoung–”

He didn’t say my name that often and it was still strange to my ears to hear it. Ignoring another judging look from the woman, I promptly went over to the fitting room and squeezed myself in, just to find a half Taehyung. 

“This–” He pointed to the buttons in front of his shirt and I let out a light sigh before helping him. 

I also helped him with the bow-tie and checked if he put on his pants correctly before stepping out of the room, dodging the woman elegantly. 

“Hmm, handsome,” she remarked and I almost laughed. “Fits perfectly, who actually expected that.”

I didn’t. “How much?”

“Fifty. Bring it back tomorrow morning by 10am.”

* * *

While Taehyung was still struggling to button his shirt, I was busy burning my forehead and fingers on a curling iron. I wasn’t like those very on-point girls like Hyeran or performing arts to-be-actresses like Yura, who looked perfect all the time, no I was just some IT nerd basically whose parents never cared about how I looked. If I recall my first day of school, I can still see myself walk around in pyjama pants and my parents didn’t even say a thing about that after my teacher told them that I might catch a cold in winter. Yeah.

“Seyoung–” I heard from outside the door, then a soft knock against the wood. “The buttons won’t work.”

I almost groaned but held myself back. “It’s okay, just try again. Try starting from the bottom and make sure you don’t miss any button.”

The heat made my hair sizzle and after I finished the second half of my head, I noticed how the first half was going flat on me again. Pulling the plug, I sighed before running my hands through my hair, going for the messy, half-done look, which it really was. Then, I re-did my m