"......"

Silence. That's all there was as two people walked along the sidewalk dodging anything in their path. The young middle schooler and the highschooler walked in sync. Irene looks onward towards Taehyung wondering how exactly a young kid like him knows the exact direction to her neighborhood. She eyes him suspiciously, but decided to shrug off the thought. 

As if he has any bad intentions. He's just a kid what are you thinking Irene. As she thinks to herself unaware of the secret glances from the boy in front of her. 

Irene begins to remember about the events that unfolded earlier, thinking about Seulgi and how to ignore her tomorrow. Then she recalls the things she said and the hurt shown on Seulgi's face earlier, a sudden feeling of guilt and saddness overwhelms Irene. Apparently she was unable to hide her feelings as Taehyung looks back to check on her only to find watery eyes threatening to fall from the pretty girl's eyes. 

Taehyung glances back in front wondering if he should cheer her up. But how? An idea pops up in Taehyungs head as he suddenly changes direction. Instead of going straight Taehyung abruptly stops and turns to Irene causing her to get startled and rapidly tries to get rid of any trace of tears. 

"What's wrong?" She asks in confusion. While subtly wiping her eyes.

"Oh well I realized I've been going the wrong way, instead of going straight we should have turned left over there" Taehyung points to a direction pretending to make an I'm-sorry face. In return Irene nods her head and prompts him to go that way if it means she'll go home. Unaware of his true intentions. 

Taehyung smiles in triumph but tries to hide it from Irene to prevent suspicion. As a way of hiding his overly excited smile, he turns his head in a completely unnatural way to the right as he walks past her so she wouldn't see his face. As he thinks he's in the clear, a scared Irene watched the whole thing happen and wondered if he was the child of the devil because of his unnatural head turn. 

Not only that but she didn't miss how he smiled. Usually a smile from a kid is cute, but if you add the fact that his smile was a bit too big and how his head seemed to turn all the way to the right with his body moving forward, can be very frightening. Irene couldn't even imagine what it would be like if he was facing her. 

Taehyung unaware of the change in atmosphere or that he might have just traumatized Irene for life, he continues on and decides to make conversation. 

"Hey noona. I know people don't really call you Juhyun." Thinking it was just an innocent statement, he doesn't think twice of what's going on in Irene's mind.

How does he know that? OMG is he really a stalker, no no no, or worse, he's actualy THE devil child! Now that i think about it, he does have a different aura compared to other middle schoolers. Oh gosh.... Nope just act natural Irene don't let him know what you're thinking. 

"How d-do you know" 

Congratulations, you freaking stuttered Bae Juhyun. STUTTERED. Irene thinks as she mentally face palms herself. 

Being the dense child he is, he doesn't think much about the stutter.

"Because I heard this girl calling you Irene when I was on my way to the subway." 

Taehyung casually walks in front taking the lead not noticing the sigh of relief coming from Irene.

"Well my... friends usually call me Irene"

Irene was slightly hesitate on saying the word 'friends' for it has caused her nothing but pain so far.

Taehyung twirls around facing Irene while walking backwards with that boxy smile of his. 

"Does that mean I can call you Irene-noona?" 

"We're friends?" Irene tilts her head like a confused puppy would. Unaware of how hurtful her words could have been or how cute she looked at the moment.

Taehyung's smile gets replaced with a pout. It made Irene feel tempted to pinch his cheeks and make weird baby noises, but she didn't want to scare him off since he is showing her to her house. 

"I consider us as friends"

"What makes you think that way?" Irene being the curious little thing she is asks. 

"Because in my definition of friends, you may fit it perfectly."

Intrigued Irene urges the boy to continue. "May i ask what your definition of friends is?"

"Well then let me enlighten you ma'am" Taehyung smiles as he raises his chest to make him look more superior. Irene mockingly scoffs at the boy, but nonetheless listens to him. 

"To me, a friend is someone you know and can trust. Someone who knows exactly what I'm feeling when we dont even have to talk. Someone who can make me smile when i dont even want to. Someone who i can just share my feelings with, without them judging me." 

Curious Irene wonders why she perfectly fits this as she barely even knows the young boy. Heck they literally just met.

"How does that definition relate to me?

Taehyung just smiles turning back around walking foreword, back facing Irene. "It will in the future if you become my friend noona. Maybe by then i am able to teach another word and its definition of mine." He looks at her and winks before turning back around.

Irene stares wide eyes. She mentally claps her hands at him, how smooth. She was about to ask what the other word was to clarify what she was thinking but he abruptly stops turning towards a shop. Irene follows his gaze as she eyes the name of the shop. 

This isn't my house... Irene narrows her eyes as she slowly turns her head towards the boy as he innocently smiles at her. 

"Taehyung what is this?" Irene tries to talk with a calm voice.

"An ice cream place." Taehyung answers nonchalantly. 

"I know that! i meant why is this not my house?!" 

"Because it's not. It's an ice cream place. You know a place where one goes to buy ice cream." Taehyung replies back in a matter-of-factly tone.

Irene was just about to explode then and there, but she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before looking back at the boy. 

"I thought you were leading me to my house"

"I was noona I swear, but you looked really pathetic earlier and I wanted to cheer you up" 

Irene stares in annoyance, after hearing the word pathetic, "you know that mouth of yours is gonna be the cause of your death. And I'll be the one that kills you" Ofcourse she wasn't serious, but her glare was enough to convince anyone. "And when did i look pathetic?" 

"When you looked like you were crying. I could tell you've been through a lot and I wanted to make you smile since you basically never do"

Irene stares with an offended look, "hey now I do smile!"

"I never saw you smile"

"That's because I don't want to"

"Smiling isn't something you can just control noona." 

Irene stares, at the boy in front of her. She was about to say something until he cut her off.

"Well what are we waiting for! Lets grab some ice cream and stuff our poor bellies with treats!" Taehyung grabs Irene's hand as he rushes into the shop. 

After greeting the aujimma behind the counter, Taehyung and Irene bought their ice cream. They headed out and that's when Irene basically threatened the poor boy to bring her to her neighborhood or else she would grab his ice cream cone and smash it on the ground. After Taehyung shouted out loud "no! you monster!" while protecting his precious ice cream, he had no intentions on changing routes. 

As they were walking Taehyung was his ice cream before turning his attention to Irene.

"So noona i have a question"

Irene simply hums in response while eating her ice cream.

"At the train station earlier... You know right before the train came... Were you about to jump..?" Taehyung cautiously asked trying to use the right words afraid that he might offend her. 

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