Rose discovered that this guy was not very comfortable with silence– not in the way she was anyway.

Normally, Rose would have minded someone disrupting her quiet morning because she liked being alone and walking the dog was the only time she ever gets to be alone these days… but she couldn’t really get annoyed with him. For one, she did say that she didn’t mind him walking with her. Also, whenever he asked questions, it seemed out of genuine curiosity and not just some way of making insignificant small talk to fill up the silence. The eager anticipation in his eyes while waiting for Rose’s answers and his playful, animated reactions made Rose a little more comfortable opening up.

However, when Rose asked something back, he seemed to speak less, like he was more cautious speaking about himself than he was asking about others. When Rose would ask a question, he would either get distracted by Dalgom, or he would put his attention somewhere else, like his shoes or the trees or something, or change the topic altogether.

For example, when Rose asked him about his hobbies...

“I like music! But I'm curious about something. How did you lose him?” He asked back pointing at the dog, completely sidestepping her question. He did it so abruptly that Rose hardly had time to process his question.

“Huh?”

“Dalgom, the dog. How did you manage to lose him?”

“I was…” Rose trailed off, trying to recall how it happened. But before she could arrange the narrative in her head, he was back to filling in the silences with his own quick remarks.

“Did you get food and forget about him?”

“What? No! I was just–”

“Distracted by those guys going for their morning jog through the park?” He nodded his head towards a young man jogging through the park, passing across their line of vision from the bench where they were sitting.

“H-hey, I’m not that kind of girl!” Rose replied, aghast. Seriously, this guy was weird. One moment he was charming, then in another moment, he was… well, just plain odd. “Excuse me, but we’re not that close that you can make those kind of jokes with me.”

Taehyung chuckled– again that low chuckle that disarmed Rose completely– and he poked her shoulder playfully. “I’m just teasing because I like seeing you react! You seem so stiff.”

“Well, that’s because you’re a stranger.”

“My name is Taehyung. Now that you know, I’m no longer a stranger, right?”

“Still a stranger.” Rose looked at him from the corner of her eye with a small smile on her face, and added (carefully, as to not give off the impression that she was that curious), “I don’t even know what you look like without that mask.”

“You’re not even going to tell me your name?” There he goes again, diverting the topic away from himself.

“Nope.”

“What if you lose Dalgom again and I catch him, how will I look for you?”

“The probability of that ever happening again is very small,” Rose sighed, then looked at the dog running around from one place to another, remembering the multiple times Dalgom had managed to get away from her. She tightened her grip on his leash before continuing, “But… in case it happens again, my name is Chaeyoung.”

After the introductions, they resumed their walk with their restless pup companion leading the way. Within the next few minutes of walking together this is what Taehyung found out about the girl so far:

Her name i