Two Little Stripes

♫ Stay With Me  ♪

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRSJPorjkY

Shinhye seemed a bit pale around the nose when she relieved her face from the mask and sat down beside Hongki, ordering a green tea. Yonghwa thought that she looked exhausted. However, the majority of his brain was still preoccupied with her getting out of Lee Jong Suk’s car.

Why was she with him again after all these years? What was their relationship like now? Did he miss something?

“Yah, Shinnie, look at you, jumping out of this flower boy’s car.” Hongki cheekily teased, giving her a soft nudge on her upper left arm.

“What do you mean? I thought I am meeting the original flower boys today? Who could compare to that?” She retorted playfully, applying a bit of rarely shown aegyo.

Yonghwa caught her giving him a nervous side glance. Somehow he felt even more anxious now.

“If we are the originals, why would you hang out with the duplicate, especially after already getting into a scandal with him for riding in his car in the past?” Yonghwa managed to ask in a seemingly casual way.

He wanted to congratulate himself on his improved acting skills.

Of course his actual emotional state was far from casual. He was actually dying to know right now, an uneasy feeling spreading in his stomach. He didn’t know why but Lee Jong Suk, unlike most of Shinhye’s admirers, somehow always brought him out of his comfort zone. The only person he disliked more would be Choi Tae Joon, the guy who Shinhye actually did date for about six months, which in the end resulted in him wanting to run off to the military as soon as possible. God, he was so glad when Hongki told him the two of them broke up acouple of months later. It was the best day of his military service, except for his discharge of course. The public was left unaware of their break up though to help both of them keep face and not draw unneccessary attention. For once Yonghwa found that to be a shame though.

“We just had a CF together.” Shinhye explained dismissively. “My manager’s child is sick and he needed to head home. Jong Suk just offered to drop me off. It seemed like the best choice to get here in time.” She answered and shrugged her shoulders like it was not a big deal.

Shinhye seemed a little distracted as she sipped on her green tea. She really looks exhausted, Yonghwa thought. He hated to see her overwork herself.

“You should have called.” Yonghwa eventually stated, his voice was softer now. “We could have had someone come pick you up.” He really didn’t like it whenever she relied on her other male friends help.

Yonghwa didn’t care about his CNBLUE members or Hongki and Geun Suk as they considered her as family and had genuine intentions. But the others portrayed an incalculable risk. You never knew what move they were going to pull next. There had been incidents in the past where he had wanted to punch some of these guys for what they tried to do with her.

“Yeah Shinnie, Yonghwa-yah could have just picked you up on the way.” Geun Suk said in a funny voice and the CNBLUE leader tried to regain his composure despite this slightly mocking remark by taking another sip of his coffee.

The brown liquid did not help to decrease his heart rate though.

Something about Shinhye and Jong Suk still irked him the wrong way. They never actually dated before, he knew that for a fact. But he was still aware that Jong Suk was interested in her.

Who wasn’t?

But Jong Suk had been more bold and interested in her than most of her admirers that was for sure. He had tried to fight the friend zone more than once. Yonghwa was there to watch him pursuing Shinhye before, trapped at the side line in the temporary position as her best friend.

Was he giving his luck a try again?

Shinhye ended up just waving it off like it was nothing.

“Jong Suk and I are friends. Just friends.” She said, giving him another weird side glance and he didn’t know what to make of it.

They were just friends, too at the moment. Yet he was head over heels in love with her, not to mention the disturbing y dreams...

Where was he going with his thoughts?!

He tried to convince himself that there was a striking difference between Lee Jong Suk and himself. One was only meant to be a friend. The other one was meant to be the real deal after Shinhye would have fulfilled her career goals.

Yonghwa was certain on which of the two he would strive to be.

As far as he knew, he had been Shinhye’s only boyfriend up until now and that was saying something, considering all the attention she received. Sure, she had gone out on a few dates after they broke up but it was never serious. She was the eternal master of friend-zoning. After all, the bad timing of serious love was the reason they broke up in first place.

Shinhye wouldn’t lie to him, he convinced himself. She would not lie to the people sitting at this table. They had known each other for so long, they were as close as family by now.

He had to trust that she was still waiting, that she was still not done fulfilling her original goals. He had to trust that she would not consider other options. He had to trust that she would give him the sign once she was ready to settle down, because once she did there sure as hell was no way he could ever back down. He could barely hold himself back right now.

But god damn, why is it getting so hard to wait?!

Seeing her so close to him now while still not being able to reach out to her almost drove him insane. For god’s sake, he really needed to find a way to restrain himself if he didn’t want to blow it this time around.

*****