Kookie(s) In My Oven

6. Fortune

Karissa’s POV

Once the guys had finished their photoshoot, their manager told them that they had an open schedule for the rest of the day. As soon as the guys had been released, Yoongi made a beeline for Niah, not explaining anything to anyone as he stole her away from the rest of us. All Niah did was warmly wave goodbye to everyone before the two of them completely disappeared from sight.

“What should we do now?” Tiana questioned, looking at the rest of our group for any ideas.

Taehyung shrugged, standing beside her, “We can do whatever you’d like, Tiana-ssi.”

“Should we go to the beach? We could go ride on a boat at the pier too.” Namjoon mused, gripping his chin thoughtfully.

I froze at the mention of the word “boat” and Quinn’s gaze slide to me instantly. I coughed, trying to cover the nervous jitters already forming in my stomach, “Is anyone hungry? Why don’t we go eat?”

“I like that idea! Let’s go eat, Noona,” Jungkook immediately agreed with my suggestion, and I was so glad that he had unknowingly helped me squash Namjoon’s suggestion.

“Food sounds good.” Jin agreed, rubbing his stomach.

“Of course, food always sounds good to you, Jin-oppa,” I teased, making everyone laugh.

“Food it is then!” J-Hope cheered excitedly, bumping Namjoon’s shoulder, “Can you get us a ride?”

“Already on it,” Quinn replied, her fingers flying across her phone screen. Namjoon grinned, pressing a kiss onto her cheek.

“Wangbi-ah, have I told you how amazing you are lately?” He told her, beaming so hard his dimples appeared.

Quinn waved him off, “I’ve got contacts here too; it’s no big deal.”

In no time, Quinn instructed us to go to the hotel lobby, where a 10-passenger Mercedes Benz van pulled up in the driveway. We all hopped in, and headed towards a restaurant that one of Quinn’s clients had suggested to her. Mostly, we just wanted good food, and for the guys, privacy.

Kookie gave me the window seat, which I was grateful for. I watched the scenery roll by, taking a deep breath at the side of the wide ocean beside us. A rumble overhead made us all pause, and the driver tsked.

“Another storm is rolling in,” He muttered, switching lanes. I glanced at the sky to see gray clouds looming in the far off distance. The storm seemed pretty far away, thankfully.

I felt a pair of eyes burning a hole into my forehead and turned to find Queenie staring at me once again. I shook my head and she gave a slight not, turning back towards the front of the van. I knew she was looking out for me, but did she have to be so obvious? I sighed, and turned back to watching the world from the window.

We arrived at an upscale Korean BBQ place that gave us a private room and had a huge menu. We ordered a little bit of everything and started grilling it all up, everyone enjoying the food around them.

“Should we take some food back for Niah and Suga?” Tiana asked, while I focused on cutting everyone’s meat into smaller pieces.

Queenie chuckled lowly, “Do you want to call them and ask?”

Tiana giggled, “You’re right, you’re right.”

“He gets so moody if we interrupt them too -- don’t do it, girl,” I warned, putting some grilled pork belly on top of Tiana’s rice. She nodded, smiling as she took a big bite of rice with meat on top.

Outside, the sky was steadily growing darker and another rumble of thunder echoed so loudly that the windows shook. I quickly shoved three pieces of pork and a giant spoonful of rice in my mouth all at once to keep a fearful whimper from escaping me. I swallowed the hot food so quickly that I choked a little bit.

Jungkook turned to me laughing, patting my back gently, “Noona, slow down.”

I nodded, finally getting control of my breathing again, “It just looked so tasty,” I lied, trying not to look out of the window. I made sure to focus on the food and the conversation around me, gratefully taking any beer or soju that was handed my direction.

We finished up with dinner and headed back to our hotel. The first big drops of rain began to fall as we were climbing out of the van. A bolt of lightning cracked overhead, getting everyone’s attention, and I instantly made a beeline for my room, not saying a word to anyone. The rain began to pour down by the time I got my key card in the door.

I was digging into my carry-on for my headphones, trying to take deep breaths. My hands were already shaking. Another crack of lighting erupted outside of the window and I yelped, praying that I could find my headphones somewhere in my hotel room.

I had to find them. I just had to.

The rain came down harder, but I finally found my headphones in my purse. I put them in my ears and with trembling fingers, my Music player, turning up the volume as loud as it would go. I climbed in the bed, putting a pillow over my head and laying under the covers.

The soothing sounds of SZA filled my ears and I could finally breathe again. I sat under the covers for nearly an hour as the rain continued to pour down outside, with my eyes closed and my ears covered.

I finally moved again when my phone started to beep at me, warning me that my phone battery was about to die. I sat up to dig my charger out of my bag, confident that I’d be able to make it through this storm successfully.

But Fate wasn’t trying to hear all that. On top of the terrible storm now raging outside, the worst thing that could ever happen, did.

Just as I plugged the USB cable into my phone from my charger, I froze in horror at the sound of the hotel’s power shut off suddenly. I sat in the darkness as my phone displayed 2% for the battery, and then powered down completely.

Jungkook’s POV

I knew something was up when Karissa-noona vanished out of thin air. We had all been standing in the hotel lobby as the heavy rain started pouring outside. Quinn-noona suggested we move away from the lobby’s windows, in case there was more lightning.

“Noona, did you see where Karissa-noona went?” I asked her, when we had all gathered in one of the seating areas in the center of the hotel.

“Oh, yeah! Where did Kari-ah run off to? She was just here…” Hobie-hyung questioned, peering around the seating area as if that would make her appear.

“She… texted me and told me that she wanted to go charge her phone for a little while,” Quinn-noona replied, but her tone and expression were off.

“I should probably go charge my phone too.” I said softly, but Tiana-ssi shook her head.

“Noooo, you should stay here with us! I wanted to ask you guys some questions!” Tiana-ssi told me with a nervous laugh. Both of them were acting weird at this point, but I figured they were just a little tipsy from dinner.

We chatted together for about an hour, just talking about anything and everything that came to mind.

“And that was the time we-” Namjoon-hyung was mid-sentence when all of sudden, all the overhead lights turned off completely. We all stood up as the storm continued to rage outside, the trees directly in front of the hotel shaking from the wind’s ferocity.

“It’s not a typhoon, right?” Jimin-hyung asked worriedly.

“I doubt it. I’ve been through a few hurricanes in Miami -- it’s just raining really hard right now.” Tiana-ssi replied, giving Jimin-hyung a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Quinn-noona headed over to the hotel’s front desk to speak with the employees there.

We all stood, waiting for her, when Niah-noona came running towards us with Yoongi-hyung right behind her. She quickly scanned all of our faces, and when she realized who was missing, she visibly blanched.

“Karissa’s not with you guys? I just went to her room and she’s not there either,” She told us, her eyes searching around the lobby frantically.

Now, I knew something was wrong.

“No, Quinn-noona said she-” V-hyung began to say, but Niah-noona turned to me, grasping my shoulders. She gave me a grave look.

My heartbeat sped up instantly with worry. I had never seen Niah-noona look like that before.

“We have to find Karissa right now,” She told me seriously, speaking clearly and evenly so I would understand her completely, “She’s absolutely terrified of storms.”

The words hit me like a ton of bricks. I had no idea my Noona was afraid of anything at all. I stood still, shocked, “S-She’s…?”

“The hotel staff says that the generator should kick on in just a minute,” Quinn-noona returned to our group, turning to Niah-noona and I.

“Niah, is Rissa with you?” She asked, looking between the two of us.

“No. We checked her room, but she didn’t answer the door. Queenie, we have to find her. You know how she gets when the weather is like this.”

“One of us should have gone with her,” Tiana said, biting her thumb in worry.

“Calm down, you guys. We know she’s not outside, so she’s gotta be in the building somewhere. She’s either in her room, or in someone else’s room. Once the generators turn back on, we can find her, I’m sure,” Quinn-noona spoke evenly, trying to reign in our frantic worries.

Like magic, there was a buzzing sound and then, the hotel’s back-up generators came to life. All the overhead lights powered back on, and the faint clunking of the hotel’s air-conditioning could be heard as the TVs in the lobby , simultaneously.

“Does anyone have a room key to Karissa’s room?” Namjoon-hyung asked, and everyone shook their heads. Quinn went back to the front desk, and I had to talk myself out of running to her room and just breaking the door down.

Niah-noona was tapping her foot thoughtfully, trying to come up with another solution, “Usually, when Karissa has to wait out a storm, she listens to music or watches videos. If I had to guess, she’s probably in her room with her headphones on. Maybe she didn’t hear us knocking?”

“But you sent her a text, right, Jagiya?” Yoongi-hyung questioned, frowning thoughtfully.

“Babe, you were right there with me. I texted her and called her, but the phone went straight to voicemail.”

Quinn-noona returned to our group, holding up a key card in her hand, “They gave me a spare key to Kari’s room-”

Without a moment’s hesitation, I took the card from Quinn-noona, and bolted. I wasn’t going to waste time discussing anything else with anyone. Not when my Noona needed me.

“Jungkook-ah!” I heard Hobie-hyung shout after me, but I wasn’t stopping and I wasn’t listening either. Not anymore.

I made me way up the stairs, taking them two at at time. The sound of the rain was faint in the hallway, but I could still hear it, raining as heavily as it had been since we returned to the hotel an hour ago.

I finally stood in front of the door. I knocked first, pushing out a breath to calm my anxious mind. When there was no response, I knocked again, but this time, I barely waited a full minute before I pressed the key card against the reader and heard the lock click open. I pushed into the room, my eyes frantically scanning for my Noona’s form.

Instead, I found her open suitcase on the floor in front of the bed, and a curled up mound under the comforter. I knew it was her from the handful of springy curls peeking out from the blankets.

Despite myself, I smiled. She had been in her room this entire time.

“Noona?” I called, knowing that she probably wouldn’t hear me.

She didn’t, so I took my shoes off at the door, and padded softly over to where she was hiding from the world. I gently placed my weight on the opposite edge of the bed, spreading out beside her to get comfortable. I reached over and reached for a single curl, twisting it around my finger to get her attention. My Noona yelped, shooting up from her cloud of safety, the covers sliding down from the motion.

She turned to me, her hazel eyes wide, the remnants of tears on her face. I frowned -- I never wanted her to cry.

“J-Jungkook?” She pushed the headphones off her ears, leaving them to rest on her neck, and stared at me in surprise. All at once, she gasped again, covering her face he hand, and immediately retreating back under the covers.

“Noona, don’t hide your face from me.” I was already reaching for the blankets to pull them away from her again. I managed to pull the comforter down to get another look, but she was now covering her face with her hands instead. I chuckled lowly, thinking about how small her hands were compared to mine.

“I don’t… You can’t see me like this,” Came her muffled reply from behind her palms.

“Noona,” I cautioned, and she sniffed, shaking her head.

“No, Kookie, you can’t-”

I moved so quickly, I almost surprised myself. I leaned over her, reaching for each of her wrists, and pulling them away from her face. Once I had her wrists trapped on her pillow, I couldn’t resist a smile of triumph.

Karissa-noona pouted, not willing to meet my eyes. I was considering how I should approach this new situation when a peal of thunder echoed loudly outside. My Noona whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut fearfully.

“You’re really scared, aren’t you?” I asked softly, and with her eyes still closed, Karissa-noona nodded her head. I shifted my position, making sure not to lean my full weight on her. I turned my head, my lips brushing against her ear as I whispered softly, “But really, shouldn’t you be more worried about yourself?”

Her hazel eyes popped open at my words, and just as I expected, she angled her head just perfectly. Our lips were inches apart, and the moment her breath ghosted across my mouth, I closed that gap, my own eyes sliding shut as I finally kissed her again for the first time in a year.

It felt even better than I remembered, her plush lips soft and pliable beneath mine.

We parted for air and I released one of her wrists to caress her cheek gently, “Noona, you’re beautiful, even if you cry. You don’t have to hide from me.”

A red tinge flushed across her cheeks, making her dark freckles stand out even more against her terracotta skin. She didn’t say anything in reply, but nodded instead. She was so cute; I couldn’t hold myself back any more. I held tight to her other wrist, leaning in for another taste, kissing her heavily this time.

My Noona whimpered again, but it was for an entirely different reason. I couldn’t stop the rain, but I would certainly do my best to distract her from it.

End Chapter 6