“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Covering her eyes, she quickly turned around, but the damage had already been done. His torso was now imbedded into her brain and goodness; did he look like the caramel god Hwayoung kept talking about.

Barely given the time to erase the image from her mind, she felt a pair of hands on her shoulder turning her around and soon found herself face to face with Taehyung, who was still very much shirtless. His state burning her eyes.

“Who are you?” He asked, bringing his face closer than it already was.

Refusing to answer, she opted instead to close her eyes and tried to back away from him. Only that made him tighten his grip on her and pulled her closer to him. There was no escaping him. Maybe if she closed her eyes long enough he would just disappear.

“If you don’t answer me, I’ll kiss you.” His comment made her open her eyes in shock. Was he serious? But one look into his eyes told her he wasn’t kidding. Sensing his lips nearing her, she quickly screamed the first thing that came to mind. 

“My name’s Joy!” It wasn’t an outright lie, her name was Joy only he had yet to find that about her yet.

She felt his hands lift off from her shoulders allowing her to relax a little bit and hoped her little outburst would satisfied his curiosity.

“Joy huh? Your name is Joy?” She could tell he was thinking hard about her outburst so she avoided looking into his eyes, afraid she’ll see the doubt in his eyes. What were the chances of meeting three people who looked identical to each other? Even she found it unbelievable, but what was she to do now.

“Alright Joy, mind telling me what you’re doing in here?” His hands were now on his hips, a stern look about him as if accusing her of trespassing.

She scoffed, “me? Mind telling me what you’re doing here?” She copied his pose, she was here first.

“And for god’s sake, put on a shirt,” she shouted before turning away. She hadn’t even made pass the hallway when she heard his hurried footsteps closely behind her as he appeared in front of her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He asked, fully clothed now though it was obvious he had hurriedly thrown his shirt on.

“I was just going to give you some privacy.”

“Let’s talk.” He suddenly suggested a hint of urgency about him, and she had no choice but to follow him to the kitchen where he sat her at the bar stool.

“First off, how do you know Irene noona?”

How did she know Irene noona? She’s only been friends with girl for half of her life, but “oh, I met her through Wendy and Seulgi unnie not too long ago. They asked me if I wanted to come on this trip with them. Said they had room for one more person. It was awfully nice of her to invite me when we barely know each other.”

She could tell he was thinking, or at least trying to comprehend her story so she quickly asked him a question, “how do you know Irene unnie?”

This caught him off guard and she smiled as she had accomplished switching the spotlight on him.

“I uh, Irene noona goes to the same school as me and-” he was contemplating trying to find the right words to put it “and I was infatuated with her for a while.”

Okay, that was not what she wanted to hear, but at least he was being truthful, something she could never do even if she so desperately wanted to do.

“Do you still like her?” She gasped at her own boldness, this wasn’t the time to be bringing up her own feelings.

“Of course I do, but I only see her as an older sister now,” his eyes lingered on her for a second before he continued, “I realized my love for her was unhealthy and wrong, which brings me to the second issue. You do know you look awfully similar to not one but two other girls.”

Sooyoung shifted uncomfortably in her stool, “I do get mistaken for others a lot. I guess I have a pretty typical face wouldn’t you say? Why just last week I ran into a girl who looked identical to me, thought she was my long lost twin.”

“You don’t say?” Taehyung replied, an amuse glint in his eyes. “I guess you do have a very typical face then.”

“But we’re all pretty right?” She gave him a chummy smile.

“Beautiful,” he replied staring straight into her eyes, and she quickly wiped her chummy smile away. She wasn’t used to him complimenting her. It was wrong of her to make a joke with him. She shouldn’t let herself be too comfortable with him.

A yawn escaped her lips as she got off the stool and began to stretch, “well it was nice talking to you and now that we know neither one of us is trespassing, I think I’m going to shut my eyes for a bit.”

“Actually Joy, why don’t we go have some fun. Just the two of us?” Taehyung asked as she felt herself being pushed out the front door.

“But, I-“

“No buts, think of it as an apology,” he said as he locked the door behind them. Even if she was to refuse where could she go now? There was no way of getting back inside.

“An apology?”

“For earlier, it was awfully rude of me to be half .” He smiled cheekily at her, knowing full well she was going to turn bright red at the mentioned of him being half , and true to his intuition the girl was slowly turning red.

“No, no, it’s me who should apologize. I’m the one who barged in,” she stuttered, trying hard to get the image out of her head and praying she wasn’t completely red.  

“Alright, it’s settled then. Since we’re both apologetic towards each other, we’ll spend the entire day with each other to make up for it,” he beamed.

“Well, I -uh.”

“Come on, you did say you should apologize right?”

She nodded her head, “see, and what better way to apologize than to spend all day with me.”

“What?”

He flashed her a smile before grabbing her hand.

“Joy! Hurry! Look at this, isn’t he cute?” Taehyung called out to her as he stood in front of a huge fish tank. His palm pressed flat against the glass as his eyes followed the puffer fish. If he pressed any closer, she was sure he would pass right through the glass.

“He’s so cute.” She heard him exclaim as she neared and wondered where he was getting all of his energy. After following, or rather being dragged by him for the nearly the whole day she was beyond exhausted.

“He looks like you doesn’t he?”

Bending beside him, Sooyoung observed the fish before straightening up, “he looks nothing like me,” she scoffed. How could he even think that? 

Getting up as well, Taehyung turned to her and squished her cheeks together. A smile on his face as he stared at her squished face.

“Aigoo, you look so cute right now.”

“Yah!” She shouted at him as she tried to get out of his grip, not only because it was hurting her cheeks but because she didn’t like him being so close to her. He had been extremely close to her all day despite her trying her hardest to keep a safe distance between but he always found a way around it. Not only was it making her uncomfortable but what if she couldn’t restrain herself from him. There was a high chance that she would kiss him the way she did in the past. He couldn’t blame her if she did, he was doing everything to earn himself a kiss. From the way he held onto her hands as if he was going to lose her in the crowd, or when he randomly patted her head because she was just being too cute. He was behaving rather odd; it was almost as if he was a completely different person.

“Taehyung, don’t you think you’re being a little too friendly?” She asked once she had freed her cheeks from his hands and was able to move her lips.

“Yah, earth to Kim Taehyung.” She waved her hand in front of his face, what was his problem? He was staring at her with a silly smile as if he had just won the lottery.

It wasn’t long before he finally snapped out of whatever he was experiencing and grabbed her hand, “let’s go get some ice cream.”

He had been like that all day, just doing whatever he liked and pulling her along. She should have said no from the get go, but she was being selfish. Deep down she was enjoying her time with him too much. She liked the way he looked at her, liked the way his hand felt in hers, and liked the way he seemed so caring about her. So she continued to let him led her, continued to let herself be drowned in him even more than she already was.

♥

“Yeri slow down, they’ll still have ice cream when we get there,” Irene shouted at the youngest who was miles ahead of the group.

“Don’t worry noona, I’ll make sure she’s safe.” Jungkook assured the older girl as he ran to catch up to Yeri.

“Looks like cupid shot someone today,” Jin laughed as he wrapped a helping arm around Irene’s shoulder. “Why don’t we take a little rest for a bit.”

“I swear I’m in better shape than this,” Irene huffed as she leaned on Jin, who could only laugh at his cute girlfriend. “It’s just that those youngsters just have too much energy.”

“Want us to grab you something?” Wendy offered, at this rate, they’ll never get their ice cream.

“Yeah that’ll be great. We’ll catch up to you guys in a bit.” Irene was now seated on a nearby bench with Jin fanning her with his hand.

Soon the rest of the group had caught up with Yeri and Jungook who was already chopping down on their ice cream.

“Unnies you guys have to try their ice cream, it’s really the best.” Yeri shouted at them.

“Hey it’s Taehyung and Jung-no I mean Sooyoung,” Jimin corrected himself.

“Hey it is them. Let’s go say hey to them,” Jhope suggested.

“Oi, Taehyung, S-“ but Jhope stopped when he saw Taehyung shake his hand no.

“S-“

“Seulgi!” Sooyoung interrupted before she could say her name.

“You guys haven’t met Joy yet have you guys?” Taehyung said before any of them could say something.

“Joy?” Jungkook asked confused.

“Yep that’s my name. Taehyung tells me I have many doppelganger in Korea. Pretty common face don’t you think?” She chuckled nervously. It was beginning to be a very lame lie.

“Joy this is Jungkook, Suga, Rapmon, Jimin, and Jhope. Jin must be with Irene noona, and guys this is Joy. She came along because Irene noona and them had room for one more person.”

He winked at them to get them to play along with her little lie, luckily for him Sooyoung didn’t notice his secret signals as she was too busy sending her own signals to Yeri, Wendy, and Seulgi.

“That’s right, Joy here was at the beach house when you guys arrived so you guys didn’t get the chance to meet her,” Wendy added.

“Well then, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Rapmon said “I do hope Taehyung haven’t been giving you a hard time. He tends come on a little too strong with girls he like.”

“Okay, well that’s enough, we’ll just get going right guys?” Jimin stopped Rapmon before he said too much.

The rest of the gang nodded their head in agreement. The whole situation was too messy for them to grasp their mind completely around it.

When they were all well beyond ear’s sight of Taehyung and Sooyoung, Yeri finally spoke, “I can’t believe unnie lied about being who she is again.”

“Well technically she didn’t lie, she does sometimes go by Joy,” Seulgi lamented.

“But she only said that to be a different person,” Wendy added.  

“Like does she really think Taehyung oppa is that dumb? How many girls in Korea can possibly resemble each other to the tee without being identical twins?”

“Those two seriously give me a migraine,” Yoongi finally spoke his mind on this whole ordeal, “I say we let them deal with it and just have fun, the night’s almost over so let’s make the most of it.”

“Yeah!” They all shouted in unison.

♥

With the sun now gone, and with nothing but the stars eliminated the night sky Sooyoung began to realize how late it had gotten. It was high time they started heading back, on a second thought maybe it was best they head back, she didn’t feel like dealing with anyone at the moment. It was hard enough putting up a front with Taehyung, though she wasn’t quite sure she had put up a front because quite frankly she thought she had enjoyed herself too much.

She let out a heavy sigh which prompted Taehyung to stop in his tracks.

“Are you already tired of me?” He asked much to her disdain.

“No. Never, I couldn’t be tired of you if I tried,” she let out without much thought bringing much joy to the boy.  

“Good, then there’s one more thing I want to do with you before we call it a night.”

“What is it?” She asked, she was a little tired, but it wasn’t because of him. She was just so tired of not telling him the truth.

“You’ll see,” he said as he intertwined his hands with hers once more. She stared at their clasped hands and wondered if he was aware of what he was doing.

It wasn’t long before the sound of carnival music entered her ears and as they neared she could see the lights that shone brighter than the stars. He led her to the Ferris Wheel where he handed the man two tickets before they were ushered into one of the cart.

He was too close, sure they held hands almost the entire day, but she always had the option to put some distance between them, but here on the Ferris Wheel there was nowhere for her to run.

“Why are you scooting so close to the edge? Aren’t you afraid of falling over board?” He laughed at her as he tried to pull her closer to him.

She stared at his boldness, wasn’t he afraid the last time they rode one together? When did he become so brave?

“Oh, you’re feeling shy aren’t you? You aren’t still thinking about me being shirtless are you?” He teased as he scooted so that they were only inches apart from each other.

“NO,” she shouted, that wasn’t what she was thinking at all.

“Do you want to see some more of it?” He asked lifting his shirt up a little to show some flesh, but Sooyoung was quick enough to stop him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She screamed at him. Was he trying to give her a heart attack?

He laughed at her, “oh come on, you know you want to see my caramel abs.”  

“I do not and it’s not funny,” she complained. “You can’t just go around lifting your shirt.”

“Why? You already saw it once. What’s one more time?”

“Because it’s indecent. You should know better.”

“You’re one to talk about decency, kissing me and all,” he pouted.

“I didn’t kiss you,” she defended herself.

“You did too,” he rebutted.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Yeah you did. You kissed me like this,” and with a swift movement Taehyung had crashed his lips against hers.

It didn’t take long for them to realize his actions and within the next second they were at the opposite side of each other and for the first time that day, there was silence between them.

“You know Joy, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Taehyung finally broke the awkward silence.

“Back at the aquarium, how did you know my name. I haven’t told you yet, but you clearly knew my name when you asked if I wasn’t being a little too friendly.”

He had caught her red handed. Her lie was up, nothing she said could get her out of this yet she was being stubborn.

“Sooyoung,” he even knew her real name.

“Won’t you tell me the truth?” He pleaded.

“Thank you for riding, if you want another round it will be another two tickets.”

Getting off as fast as she could, Sooyoung ran towards the exit not waiting for Taehyung to get off.

“Sooyoung!” Of course he would catch up to her, but even if he didn’t where on earth would she hid from him. She had no money for a hotel and all her things were at the beach house. She also cursed her and her non-athletic self.

“Why won’t you just tell me the truth?” He pleaded again, his voice desperate for an answer. Did he not mean anything to her at all?  Twice he had found her, and twice she had lied about being who she was. Even today when she had tried lying about who she was.

“My name is Sooyoung, Park Sooyoung, sometimes I go by Joy and I was asked to play Jung-eng to keep you away from Irene unnie so that she could confess to Jin oppa.” There she finally told him the truth, but there was more, “I didn’t want you know who I was,” she stated dryly.  

“I didn’t want you to know, because I didn’t want to be your rebound.”

“I saw firsthand how much you liked Irene unnie,” she confessed, “it didn’t matter how happy it made me when you mistook me for Jung-eng at Tiffany unnie’s café or when you should up to my school to make sure I wasn’t Jung-eng, and even when Jungkook mentioned how Jung-eng was special, because all I could remember was how much you liked Irene.”

Her words were harsh, but there was a truth to them that he never even considered. No wondered she kept her true identity hidden. She had witness his crazy acts of jealousy. Any logical person would think they were the rebound after witnessing his craziness, but she was wrong. She wasn’t his rebound. His feelings for her were true and he was going to prove it to her.

“But it wasn’t only that that kept me away from you. You were so heartbroken when you found out about Irene and Jin and I couldn’t bear to face you when I was partly to blame. I couldn’t face you when I had tried so hard to keep you away for Irene unnie. I was ashamed of myself. I liked you so much, yet I was a part of the pain you felt. You’re not supposed to hurt the person you like, but I did just that,” she was crying at this point, but it felt so good to finally let everything out.

“And even then, you had feelings for Jung-eng not Sooyoung and no matter how much I wanted to be Jung-eng I will never be her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she finished, not even sure if he was still behind her anymore. It was best if he just left her alone. She wasn’t worthy of his attention.  

“It must have been hard on you,” she heard him said as he wrapped his arms around her shoulder, the last thing she expected him to do.  

“I didn’t realize you were keeping all this to yourself.”  

“It was hard wasn’t it? Keeping all your feelings to yourself?” His voice was so caring that she could only nod her head as tears continued to streamed down her face.

When she had finally calmed down, he gently turned her to face him.

“Look Sooyoung,” it felt so nice hearing him say her name, no more lies between them, “I’m partly to blame too and I admit I did go a little overboard with my feelings for Irene noona, but it was unhealthy and shallow. I didn’t know anything about her, didn’t bother getting to know more about her, but it was different with you. Now I know you were Jung-eng at the time and Jung-eng doesn’t necessarily exist, but I believe Jung-eng is Park Sooyoung. It was you who made Jung-eng come to life in the first place so she will always be a part of you. It wasn’t Jung-eng who fell in love with me, but you right? And even now as you’re pouring your heart out aren’t you Sooyoung? I may have gotten to know you as Jung-eng but it’s Park Sooyoung who I want to get to know more of.”

He lifted her chin to look up at him, “what do you say Park Sooyoung, will you let me know more of you?”

And in the pale moonlight, Park Sooyoung was seen shaking her head yes. 

So I know I said wasn't going to update for a while, but I thought "what the heck," lol. I hope this didn't feel rush, actually it kind of does, doesn't it? Anyways I hope you guys understand why Sooyoung never wanted to tell him the truth, I mean she witness his crazy love for Irene so it's only natural she would feel like a rebound after his rejection and then there's the guilt she feels towards him. As for Taehyung's little speech, I kind of struggled with that because it must be confusing as heck, especially when he did like Jung-eng only to find out Jung-eng never existed and was being played by a girl named Sooyoung who he only met once. So I kind of made it to where he wanted to learn more about her. Which by the way, if you're wondering how Taehyung knew the truth (all of BTS knew the truth already, lol, if y'all didn't catch on) it will be revealed in the next chapter. 

Anyways thanks for the comments!